Police killer indicted in Georgia

OPPONENTS OF police violence who gathered for days on the steps of the DeKalb County courthouse in Decatur, Georgia, east of Atlanta, celebrated the announcement on January 21 that a grand jury had indicted police officer Robert Olsen on six charges, including felony murder, for the shooting of Anthony Hill last March.

This is Georgia's first indictment for a police killing in six years--during which time, 171 people have been shot by cops. Getting an indictment isn't the end of the struggle, but it is a promising victory in a case that gained national attention as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Hill's murder sparked such outrage because it was so blatantly unjustified in any way.

Police were called to the apartment complex in northeast metro Atlanta in the afternoon of March 9 by a resident who reported Hill's behavior out of concern for his safety. Hill suffered from bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his military service in Afghanistan. He had been unable to get care for his condition for a long time--and when he did, it wasn't effective. Hill was reportedly seen "banging on neighbors' doors, crawling and lying on the ground naked, in the midst of an apparently bipolar episode," as one report described the call to police.

The cops were specifically told that Hill wasn't being violent. Yet within two minutes of arriving on the scene, Olsen had shot and killed the naked and unarmed man. When backup arrived, Olsen claimed he had been physically struck, something contradicted by witness reports at the time and his own later testimony.

The killing spurred immediate protest, as SocialistWorker.org reported at the time. Within 24 hours, "hundreds of protesters converged on the square in front of the DeKalb County Courthouse" for a demonstration called in part by Rise Up Georgia, an organization that took shape after Occupy Atlanta and has since focused on the Fight for 15 movement and racist police violence.

This was the first in a series of spirited rallies, many of which took the streets and blocked traffic in impromptu acts of civil disobedience. "Demonstrators expressed frustration at holding repeated protests that have yielded little progress. One person shouted, 'Don't tell people to put their hands up--fist up, fight back,'" SW reported.

Activism around the case continued. When news emerged this month that a grand jury would be convened around the case, organizers called for a Grand Jury Watch outside the courthouse.

Starting four days before the grand jury met, members of various organizations, as well as individuals from the community and members of Hill's family, began camping out in front of the courthouse. Despite the unusual cold and rain this month, people stayed in tents to keep watch--the numbers nearly doubled over the course of the encampment.

The action was organized by Rise Up Georgia, but others participating included Black Lives Matter, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, veterans' advocacy groups, political groups like the International Socialist Organization and Democratic Socialists of America, and ATL Black Students United, a coalition of racial justice activists from every university in Atlanta.

Many other people showed up as individuals or brought supplies to the encampment. As people cycled through the campout, came to demonstrations or stayed throughout the day, the overall turnout was at least 100 spread out over the four days.

THIS CASE doesn't only bring up questions of racist violence and police brutality. Hill was among the estimated one-quarter of people killed by the state who suffer from mental illness. So while justice for Anthony and ending the pattern of killer cops going free are big issues, they weren't the only ones that protesters were mobilizing around.

"If a mental health unit with paramedics, nurses or even doctors had been sent to help Anthony instead of an officer with a gun he would still be alive today," Rise Up Georgia member Asia Parks told a contributor to Think Progress. "Mental illness should not be the reason a person is condemned to death or prison." The creation of such a unit in DeKalb is one of Rise Up's main demands.

Others pointed to the failure of the Veterans Administration to provide care for the mental disorders that Hill suffered as a result of his deployment to Afghanistan. Issues with his medication and the inability to get a new one promptly apparently contributed to the breakdown that led to the call to police.

The timing of the grand jury verdict was repeatedly pushed back, highlighting another issue: One reason for the delays was that, in Georgia, police officers are allowed to make an unchallenged statement at the end of the grand jury hearing, a privilege nobody else gets for obvious reasons.

As another Rise Up spokesperson said, "I'm also hoping that after we get the guilty verdict, we can talk about passing Anthony's Law, which is legislation that would no longer allow officers in Georgia to have a closing statement with a rebuttal, I think that that's one of the biggest reasons why we do have this 'not guilty' precedent set for police brutality cases in our state."

The indictment of Olsen on major charges is not only a victory for Anthony's friends and family and for the Black Lives Matter movement, but for hopes for mental health and legal reforms. The success is the result of the coming together of these various movements.

It is also a promising for multi-issue, multiracial organizing in general--and that's an important precedent in Atlanta, where the Black Lives Matter movement is still developing. In a deeply segregated and unequal city--a 2015 Brookings Institution report found that Atlanta continues to top the list of most unequal cities in the country, according to the latest statistics--examples of fighting movements winning tangible victories is invaluable.

Of course, while getting an indictment in a police killing is still rare nationally, activists in Atlanta have a ways to go to get a conviction--and even further to see a change in systematic violence. But this is only the beginning of a movement with the promise to achieve such gains.

"We have to send a strong message here--that life is precious and cannot be taken through excessive and unnecessary force," said the Hills family's attorney in a statement after the indictment. "Mental illness is not a crime."