Free Jack: Call for Solidarity in the Face of Ongoing Raids and Repression

Editorial from Territories on the recent wave of repression in Atlanta against the movement to stop Cop City and a call to support Jack.

Friends in Atlanta wrote the following statement in support of John “Jack” Mazurek, a dear friend and fiercely committed comrade who was recently arrested and charged with arson in one of three violent raids against forest defenders in Atlanta. Please consider donating to his legal fund or writing to him!

After three years of popular opposition to “Cop City,” nearly every avenue of protest has been attempted. A massive social experiment was occurring in the Weelaunee Forest the last time we spoke with Territories. Since then, the forest has been evicted of tree-sitters, the public forest known as Intrenchment Creek Park (adjacent to the “Old Atlanta Prison Farm,” where Cop City is slated to be built) has been closed by the county, and the Old Atlanta Prison Farm has become a police fortress surrounded by barbed-wire fencing, FLOCK cameras, and 24/7 patrol car security details.

Much of this has made national headlines. The beloved Atlanta Solidarity Fund has been under a barrage of legal attacks, with the organizers facing politicized money laundering charges, while the state legislature has outlawed charitable bail funds. In September, the Georgia AG indicted 61 people on a landmark RICO case, directly intended to suppress liberatory social movements.

Simultaneous to the repression of the Sol Fund, thousands of Atlantans organized themselves, volunteering to canvass the entire city. After eight weeks, 116,000 Atlanta voters had signed a referendum petition, demanding the opportunity to democratically decide if Cop City would be built. The “progressive” city government and their allies attacked the referendum drive just as they had the street and forest protests. They have so far spent millions to subvert the referendum. The legal battle tied the referendum up in court, blocking the vote from the November ballot, just as the Atlanta Police Foundation’s contractors began pouring concrete. In early February, the referendum had been fully blocked. Atlanta City Council even codified more burdensome requirements for future referendums.

On February 8th, three homes were raided in south Atlanta in a coordinated joint agency operation. At around 6am people were violently forced out of their home, some half-naked, and detained outside. Police searched homes and confiscated electronics, journals, and a myriad of other personal items. They brought one person into an office and shackled them to the ground for many hours before releasing them with no criminal charge, and they arrested one person, Jack, on charges of first degree arson. Jack was denied bond at his initial hearing and is still incarcerated as we write this, waiting for his next chance to receive bond.

The day following Jack’s arrest, a police cruiser was burned in the same neighborhood and police immediately responded. They fanned out throughout the streets, interviewing residents, and combing the neighborhood—armed, in tactical gear, and with dogs. That afternoon the police raided another house just blocks away from the site of this arson and the houses raided the day before. There was no one inside, and to our knowledge nothing was taken. The homeowner held a press conference decrying the search as illegal. They said they supported the movement but this was the only pretext for kicking down their doors and searching their home. Police, in their bluster and bravado, had hastily counterattacked. This week, Atlanta police are regularly harassing and surveilling homes of movement supporters in neighborhoods near to Cop City. Activists anticipated that the project’s construction would foster more police terror of local residents, and they have been proven correct.

The city of Atlanta has pulled off the mask, and revealed the true nature of the Black Mecca—authoritarian control technologies, ultra-surveillance and criminalization, political suppression of protest—as the vanguard of technological carceral capitalist innovation.

But the Stop Cop City movement has not ceased. People have committed themselves to realizing a world free from police terror and have refused to be intimidated.

Now, Jack is bravely facing this repressive apparatus determined to crush support for the Stop Cop City movement. Jack is a beloved local organizer, carpenter, punk musician, rock climber, and self-motivated student of history, religion and politics. He loves sewing, vegan food, Zen Buddhism, straight edge, and poetry. Jack is a longtime political activist who has never shied away from standing up for what is right. Now we must stand up for Jack.

Check out Jack’s support website to donate to his legal fund and write him a letter.