Confederate Flag Supporters Indicted Under Georgia's Anti-Gang Law

A Georgia grand jury indicted 15 Confederate flag supporters last week under a state law focused on preventing gangs, three months after they allegedly drove by a black child's birthday party displaying the flag and yelled racial slurs.

Members of the group Respect The Flag reportedly drove by the Douglasville event on July 25 with Confederate flags hanging from their pickup trucks. They then allegedly stopped their vehicles nearby before showing partygoers weapons that included a gun and crowbar.

A woman in one of the trucks told Fox 5 Atlanta in July that she and the other group members had merely been driving by the party when one of the attendees threw an object at their vehicle.

The grand jury cited Georgia's Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act in its indictment, which was handed up on Friday. Several criminal lawyers and legal analysts told The New York Times they couldn't remember another instance in which a Confederate heritage group was prosecuted under the law. The law was introduced in 1992 at the request of Atlanta's then-chief of police in order to limit gang activity in the state.

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