Cobb officers arrested protester over ideology, not behavior, suit says

Hanley also filed lawsuits following his 2018 arrest while counter-protesting a neo-Nazi rally in Newnan, and again after Hanley was picked up at an Atlanta demonstration over the decision not to prosecute the officer who shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

In last week’s filing, Hanley alleges Cobb police targeted him and other protesters “on the basis of their ideological affiliation.”

That affiliation is somewhat in question. While the protesters say they were intending to make a demonstration about Palestine, some of their signs and actions were aimed at Atlanta’s controversial training center for police and firefighters built in the southern DeKalb County woods.

Cepar said the protesters gathered just before 5 a.m. to hold a “Palestine solidarity protest” against Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip.

But Hanley’s sign read “Stop Cop City,” a reference to the training center. Cobb officers called to the scene in June 2024 noted that a nearby metals manufacturer was previously vandalized in connection with the training center’s construction.

One protester chained herself to a Jaguar sedan that was parked in the middle of the road with its tires slashed, according to a police report. Draped over the car was a sheet that read, “Drop the contract or we will be back,” police said. Another officer said they called for backup due to the “risk posed by Pro-Palestine/Stop Cop City protesters who are known for violence against police.”

But Hanley said in the lawsuit the protest that morning was peaceful. Aside from the woman chained to the car, the remaining activists were standing in a grassy area along Olympic Industrial Drive “to make sure they did not obstruct traffic,” he said.

The fire department was called in to free the woman, who had apparently chained her arm to a block of concrete and metal in the trunk of the disabled sedan, according to the incident report. Police said the protest backed up traffic and caused more than 100 people to be late for work.

After spending an hour getting the woman out of the road, Hanley said officers turned their attention to the remaining protesters. He and others were charged with loitering or prowling and misdemeanor obstruction, two charges that were ultimately dismissed after pretrial diversion.

To this day, Cepar said police still haven’t returned his client’s cellphone. He said the protesters were targeted on the assumption they held “anti-law enforcement values,” which he called unfair.

“The other five of them were just standing on the side of the road,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The lawsuit contends there weren’t any “no trespassing” signs nearby and none of the protesters had been asked to leave by any of the businesses.

Hanley said the protesters’ ideology alone was not enough to arrest them, and that “none of the officers had any information that could lead to believe (he) was likely to commit any crime.”

“Mr. Hanley was peacefully protesting by doing nothing more than standing where he was legally entitled to stand and holding a protest sign,” he said in the complaint.

When reached for comment, both Cobb police and the county attorney’s office declined to comment on the pending litigation.