A former Georgia deputy boasted of charging Black people with felonies to make sure they lost their vote
In recent months, as less and less white people support voter suppression and more and more people of color organize around gaining political power, our country has once again reached an inflection point. Republican operatives across the country, long pushing for voter suppression laws that target Black and Latino communities, have decided to be even more overt in their attempts at returning to a pre-Brown v. Board of Education, segregated America, where law enforcement can stop citizens from voting based on their skin color or perceived non-whiteness. The feeble excuse from conservative lawmakers and their handlers is that there is massive voter fraud taking place by Jews and Blacks Democratic demons. Of course, the great con here is that the people pretending that Democrats participate in massive voter fraud are usually the only ones guilty of actual elections fraud.
On Wednesday, a 28-year-old former Georgia sheriff's deputy pleaded guilty to possessing "unregistered firearms resulting from an FBI-led investigation into a violent extremist group," according to the Acting U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Georgia Peter D. Leary. Cody Richard Griggers, an ex-Wilkinson County deputy, was fired in November after the FBI contacted his sheriff about an investigation the agency was conducting on Griggers. U.S. Attorney Leary released a statement saying "Griggers clearly violated his oath with his egregious actions and has no place in law enforcement." But what Griggers did wasn't simply "possess a cache of unregistered weapons, silencers, and a machinegun, keeping many of them in his duty vehicle." An investigation of Griggers by the FBI revealed ties to a group of racist pricks calling themselves "Shadow Moses" or "Shadmo." Griggers' texts and the claims he made in this group, from his position of power in law enforcement at the time, is the real—and frightening—story.
Griggers, a former Marine, is facing up to 10 years in prison for having 11 illegal firearms. But it is the nature of his violent, racist, and antisemitic texts that initially prompted his removal from the police force. According to the Belleville News-Democrat, some of the text threads include Griggers boasting, "I beat the (expletive) out of a (racial slur) Saturday. (Expletive) tried to steal (a gun magazine) from the local gun store. ... Sheriff's dept. said it looked like he fell." According to Wilkinson Sheriff Richard Chatman, who is Black, he had Griggers removed from duty when he was contacted with this information by the FBI. According to Sheriff Chatman, after investigating this claim he believes that Griggers was lying to the group in the text thread, as he could not find any evidence that this had happened. "We don't even have a gun shop here," he said.
And while that is the single silver lining here, Griggers' others statements reveal the true threats posed by white supremacists and our racism-infected law enforcement system. According to the News-Democrat, the affidavit highlighted Griggers' claims to the text thread group that he planned on violating the civil rights and liberties of Georgia's Black citizens, saying that he was planning on just arresting Black folks to trump up charges. "Also I'm going to charge them with whatever felonies I can to take away their ability to vote," he claimed.
A former Georgia deputy boasted of charging Black people with felonies to make sure they lost their vote - Alternet.org