A district attorney in Douglasville, Georgia, won indictments against 15 advocates of the Confederate flag after they threatened a group of party black people at a party. From the
New York Times:
Prosecutors say that members of the group, which calls itself Respect the Flag, threatened a group of blacks attending an outdoor birthday party on July 25. A cellphone video of part of the episode shows several white men driving away from the party in a convoy of pickup trucks with the Confederate battle flag and other banners, including American flags, fluttering from the truck beds.
The partygoers contend that members of the flag group yelled racial slurs and displayed a crowbar, a knife and either a rifle or a shotgun, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group in Montgomery, Ala., that is representing some of the accusers.
The district attorney, Brian Fortner, indicted 15 members of Respect the Flag under Georgia's anti-street gang statute, he announced on October 12. They will each be charged with one count of making terroristic threats and another count of participating in "criminal gang activity."
Douglasville has become increasingly diverse over the past two decades – while only 8 percent black in 1990, it is now majority black at 52 percent.
The anti-gang law itself is controversial, as some critics see it impeding on people's First Amendment rights.
The anti-gang law defines a “criminal street gang” as “any organization, association or group of three or more persons associated in fact, whether formal or informal,” that engages in or conspires to commit a defined set of serious criminal acts. The law gives prosecutors numerous ways to define the existence of a gang, including sharing signs, symbols, tattoos, graffiti or “common activities.”
Despite this definition, many expect that the group will fight its categorization as a gang.
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