FILE - Protesters march during a demonstration in opposition to a new police training center, Monday, Nov. 13, 2023, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)

ATLANTA (AP) — Atlanta police have for years illegally targeted critics of a police and firefighter training center, according to a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of a protester who is one of dozens of “Stop Cop City” activists facing domestic terrorism and racketeering charges.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of Jamie Marsicano, alleges that authorities view any critic of the training center as a would-be criminal and have repeatedly made arrests without cause, depriving protesters of their First Amendment rights and their civil rights protections against false arrest and malicious prosecution.

The long-brewing controversy over the training center erupted in January 2023 after state troopers who were part of a sweep of the South River Forest killed an activist who authorities said had fired at them. Numerous protests ensued, with masked vandals sometimes attacking police vehicles and construction equipment to stall the project and intimidate contractors into backing out.

Though the training center is nearly complete, dozens of defendants, including Marsicano, are facing a state racketeering charge that critics have decried as heavy-handed attempts to silence the movement, which emerged in the wake of the 2020 racial justice protests. Environmental activists and anti-police demonstrators argued that uprooting acres of trees for the facility would exacerbate environmental damage in a flood-prone, majority-Black area while serving as an expensive staging ground for militarized officers to be trained in quelling social movements.

Marsicano, 31, was among 23 people arrested near a music festival in DeKalb County in March 2023, hours after a group of more than 150 masked festivalgoers trekked about three-quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) through the South River Forest and stormed the training center's construction site, with some lighting equipment on fire as others threw objects at retreating officers. The group then returned to the festival to blend in with the crowd.

According to an arrest warrant, authorities said Marsicano, who uses they/them pronouns, was taken into custody because they had on “muddy clothing” from crossing through the woods and possessed a shield, assertions that Marsicano's attorneys say are false.

Marsicano's attorneys say their client was not among the group that attacked the construction site and never left the festival grounds until they were arrested while walking back to their vehicle after police ordered everyone to disperse.

Marsicano was caught up in an “indiscriminate mass arrest of legitimate festival attendees” that was part of a pattern spearheaded by Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum of authorities targeting the “Stop Cop City” movement, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Feb. 24.

Marsicano was subsequently charged with domestic terrorism and, months later, was one of 61 charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO.

Marsicano was banned from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus after their arrest and completed their law degree remotely but has had difficulty finding a job and securing housing because of the charges, according to the lawsuit.

Marsicano was “publicly broadcast to the world as a ‘domestic terrorist’ and ‘RICO co-conspirator,’ forever tarnishing Plaintiff’s personal and professional life,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit lists more than a dozen instances in which authorities “pretextually charged individuals deemed to be at or around Stop Cop City,” including after a May 2022 protest where three people “walking home were selectively stopped for carrying Stop Cop City signs,” and taken into custody. Those arrests, as well as others, have led to civil lawsuits that are pending.

Marsicano's lawsuit names various law enforcement officials as well as the city of Atlanta, which it accuses of having made a “custom and practice” of targeting critics of the training center.

Neither the Atlanta Police Department nor a spokesperson for the city immediately responded to a request for comment.

City officials say the $115 million, 85-acre (34-hectare) campus will replace outdated, far-flung facilities and boost police morale amid hiring and retention struggles. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has also said that the facility will teach the “most progressive training and curriculum in the country” and that officials have repeatedly revised their plans to address environmental concerns.

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