Atlanta – The Atlanta Police have attacked critics illegally from a police and firefighter training center, according to a federal lawsuit filed in the name of a protester who is one of the dozens of activists to “stop the city” who face domestic terrorism and extortion charges.
The lawsuit, presented on behalf of Jamie Marsicano, alleges that the authorities see any critic from the training center as an aspiring criminal and have made arrests repeatedly without cause, depriving the Protestants of their rights of the first amendment and their civil rights protections against the false arrest and malicious prosecution.
The long controversy on the training center broke out in January 2023 after state soldiers were part of a sweep of the South River forest killed an activist who the authorities said they had shot them. There were numerous protests, with masked vandals sometimes attacking police vehicles and construction equipment to stop the project and intimidate contractors to go back.
Although the training center is almost completedozens of defendants, including Marsicano, face a Position of state zipper that critics have denounced themselves as hard -hand attempts to silence the movement, which arose as a result of the racial justice protests of 2020. The environmental activists and the protesters against the police argued that the uprooting trees of trees for the installation would exacerbate the environmental damage in an area of the majority and most flood Trained to calm social movements.
Marsicano, 31, was between 23 people arrested near a music festival In Dekalb County in March 2023, hours after a group of more than 150 assistants to the masked festival they walked around three quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) through the South River forest and assaulted the construction site of the training center, with some flame lighting equipment while others threw objects to the retired officers. The group then returned to the festival to mix with the crowd.
According to an arrest warrant, the authorities said that Marsicano, who uses them/they pronounts, was arrested because they had in “muddy clothes” to cross the forest and possessed a shield, the statements that Marsican’s lawyers say are false.
Marsicano’s lawyers say that their client was not among the group that attacked the construction site and never left the festival land until they were arrested while they were returning to their vehicle after the police ordered everyone to disperse.
Marsicano was caught in a “indiscriminate massive arrest of the legitimate assistants of the festival” who was part of a pattern headed by the Atlanta police chief, Darin Schierbaum, of authorities aimed at the “Stop Cop City” movement, according to the lawsuit, which was presented on February 24.
Subsequently, Marsicano was accused of domestic terrorism and, months later, he was one of the 61 accused of violating the Law of Organizations influenced and corrupt from Georgia, known as Rico.
Marsicano was expelled from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill Campus After his arrest and completed his lawyer remotely, but he has had difficulty finding a job and ensuring housing due to charges, according to the lawsuit.
Marsican was “publicly transmitted to the world as a” domestic terrorist “and the” Rico conspirator “, forever the personal and professional life of the plaintiff,” said the demand.
The lawsuit lists more than a dozen instances in which the authorities “charged pretextually loaded with people considered in or around Stop Cop City”, even after a May 2022 protest, where three people “walked home were selectively arrested to carry the copy city signs”, and detained. Those arrests, as well as others, have led civil demands that are pending.
Marsican’s demand appoints several officials responsible for enforcing the law, as well as the city of Atlanta, which accuses of having made a “custom and practice” of pointing to critics of the training center.
Neither the Atlanta Police Department nor a spokesperson for the city immediately responded to a request for comments.
City officials say that the $ 115 million and 85 acres (34 hectare) campus will replace outdated and remote facilities and boost police morals in the midst of hiring and retention struggles. The mayor of Atlanta, Andre Dickens, also said that the installation will teach the “most progressive training and curriculum in the country” and that officials have repeatedly reviewed their plans to address environmental concerns.
