The Stop Cop City protesters who were present at the anti-Israel encampment at Emory University on Thursday previously raised money from more than 70,000 donors and used it to selectively bail alleged criminals out of jail, according to Georgia state prosecutors who targeted the group in a criminal racketeering case last year.
Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr indicted 61 individuals allegedly associated with Stop Cop City in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act case in September 2023. Carr alleges the activists are engaged in a criminal conspiracy to use violence in a bid to prevent the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, which will be used to train Georgia police and firefighters.
Also known as Defend the Atlanta Forest, prosecutors claimed in their indictment the activists who comprise Stop Cop City are united by anarchist and collectivist ideologies.
Prosecutors additionally claim Stop Cop City benefits from a vast fundraising apparatus that led to the group’s bank account receiving “over 70,000 donations from the public” in 2021 alone.
Stop Cop City allegedly raised the money through the Network for Strong Communities Inc., which operates Atlanta Solidarity Fund. While some of the donations were “a few cents to a few dollars,” others “are many thousands of dollars.”
The Atlanta Solidarity Fund, according to prosecutors, used the money to selectively pay the bail of alleged criminals who are associated with Stop Cop City or share their anarchist and collectivist ideologies.
Prosecutors claimed, “A recent example includes posting a $392,000 cash bond for a Defendant charged with Domestic Terrorism while indigent defendants remained incarcerated as pre-trial detainees. This did not leave that bank account without funds, however; the Atlanta Solidarity Fund simply only chooses to bond out certain individuals with certain belief structures.”
They additionally claim that Stop Cop City activists at some point became aware prosecutors were investigating the fundraising connection and rapidly severed the ties to Network for Strong Communities Inc.
While the group does not appear to have direct ties to Emory University, where authorities rapidly cleared protesters on Thursday, the group claimed to participate in the campus “encampment” to protest Israel after an open invitation was published by student activists.
The Stop Cop City account on the social media platform X did not reveal what student group invited outside activists to the university campus, but an Instagram account and Microsoft Groupme chatroom appear to confirm the existence of a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter at Emory.
It was revealed on Friday by The New York Post that Hungarian-American financier George Soros “and his hard-left acolytes” are funding “agitators” behind the proliferation of anti-Israel encampments on multiple school campuses.
Meanwhile, prosecutors previously alleged the “beginnings” of the Stop Cop City group date to 2020, in the days “following the high-profile killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Officers.”
Prosecutors explained, “In the weeks following Floyd’s murder, Atlanta resident Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed by Atlanta police in a Wendy’s parking lot after Brooks violently concussed a police officer, stole the officer’s Taser, and pointed the Taser at another police officer while fleeing.”
The ensuing civil unrest led to what prosecutors called an “autonomous zone” at the site of the Wendy’s, which burned down in the protest. It was reported the “autonomous zone” was partially created by gang members and led to the death of an eight-year-old girl.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Emory College anti-Israel Encampment” by StopCopCity.org.
