Georgia’s Royal Colony Seal was approved on June 21, 1754.
A lynch mob including members of the KKK killed three young civil rights activists who were trying to register African-Americans to vote near Meridian, Mississippi on June 21, 1964.
When Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney, a young black man, were coming back from a trip to Philadelphia, Mississippi, deputy sheriff Cecil Price, who was also a Klan member, pulled them over for speeding. He then held them in custody while other KKK members prepared for their murder. Eventually released, the three activists were later chased down in their car and cornered in a secluded spot in the woods where they were shot and then buried in graves that had been prepared in advance.
When news of their disappearance got out, the FBI converged on Mississippi to investigate. With the help of an informant, agents learned about the Klan’s involvement and found the bodies. Since Mississippi refused to prosecute the assailants in state court, the federal government charged 18 men with conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney.
John W. Hinckley, Jr. was acquitted of attempted murder of President Ronald Reagan and others in the Presidential party by reason on insanity on June 21, 1982.
Voters in Sandy Springs approved the new city’s incorporation on June 21, 2005.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that a Kennesaw State University police officer had no jurisdiction to arrest a driver outside of his jurisdiction, according to the Marietta Daily Journal.
In a unanimous decision, the Georgia Supreme Court has reversed the Court of Appeals’ ruling.
“We agree that Officer Mason had no authority to effect a custodial arrest of (Zilke) outside the jurisdiction conferred by (the Georgia law cited by the trial court),” the opinion states, but Mason also lacked authority to do so under the law cited by the Court of Appeals.
“Indeed, the purpose of (that law) has never been to enlarge the territorial boundaries of the various law enforcement agencies in the state, but rather to give law enforcement officers the discretion to write a citation in lieu of making a custodial arrest for motor vehicle violations,” the opinion states.
Attorney David Willingham, who argued on behalf of Zilke in the Georgia Supreme Court, said the court’s decision means officers can no longer arrest people for traffic violations outside their jurisdictions.
“If a police officer is completely outside of his jurisdiction, he can’t write a citation or arrest somebody even if he witnesses something happen in his presence. He can still detain that person, and we never challenged the officer’s power to detain the person, but the whole point of the case is there is a specific statute that says campus police officers do not have any power to make an arrest unless they’re on campus or within 500 yards from campus or any property owned by the University or the Georgia Board of Regents. There’s a similar statute on the books for municipal police officers,” said Willingham, a former Cobb assistant district attorney.
As seems to be the case after every tragic shooting, gun sales are soaring in Georgia and Metro Atlanta.
Gun store owners report that firearms sales in Georgia are up sharply after last week’s mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando as federal lawmakers debate new restrictions.
But this latest spike comes with a twist, as retailers report many of their new customers are LGBT buyers arming themselves.
Our favorite hunting store, Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, is moving as many AR-15s as they can get their hands on, according to Fox News.
Adventure Outdoors Owner Jay Wallace told Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney that sales of AR-15s and other firearms have “really kicked up” since Sunday.
AR-15’s may look like military rifles but they are actually semi-automatic guns, which means they can only fire one round with each pull of the trigger. By contrast, military-style guns have the ability to fire multiple rounds with one pull of the trigger. The ‘AR’ in AR-15 actually stands for ArmaLite rifle, named after the company that developed it and does not stand for “assault rifle,” according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Wallace claimed that he has sold more than 15 AR-15’s per hour and may know the reasons as to why there is such a rise in sales.
“[People] are afraid that the government is going to take [guns] away and there are folks that are in fear because of the times that we are living in today and those are two big reasons,” he said.
A Savannah dealer was selling something else that got him in trouble, however.
A licensed firearms dealer from Savannah pleaded guilty in Brunswick to multiple charges related to unlawful sales of machine guns, the Department of Justice announced Friday.
The ATF received information that David Gould, 38, a licensed federal firearms dealer, was seeking to sell fully-automatic, untraceable machine guns for cash, according to court documents.
The ATF conducted an undercover operation, during which Gould sold two fully automatic AR-15 .223 machine guns, the Department of Justice said.
The sales occurred in Savannah and Brunswick.
The DOJ said the machine guns sold by Gould were not registered, they did not have serial numbers and they were made and possessed in violation of the National Firearms Act.
It’s bing widely reported that the National Rifle Association spent $1.65 million against Democrat Michelle Nunn in 2014.
The AJC reports on growing numbers of Latinos registering to vote in Georgia.
Latino advocates say the presidential race – and the anti-immigrant tone of Trump’s campaign – is a big motivator for many new voters. Increased Hispanic voter registration also has been reported in other states. The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials projects that 13.1 million Latinos will cast ballots nationwide in the November election – up 17 percent from 2012.
“Latinos are listening to the anti-Latino rhetoric and responding to that with increased engagement,” said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, which registered several dozen people, including Gutierrez, at a soccer tournament in Stone Mountain earlier this month.
Right now, Latinos account for just 2.1 percent of the Georgia’s 4.9 million active voters, but Gonzalez expects the pace of registration to pick up as the November election approaches.
“What we’ve seen is nothing compared to what we’ll see in September and October,” he said.
The Hall County Commission proposed a FY2017 budget including raises for county employees and balanced the budget with money from reserves.
The public got its first look Monday at Hall County’s proposed 2017 fiscal year budget, which includes no property tax increases and earmarks money for employee raises.
The proposed $96.95 million general fund spending plan would use nearly $3 million in reserves to balance the budget.
The fund balance currently stands at about $23 million, a record high.
County officials will hold a final hearing and vote on the budget June 27.
Savannah-Chatham school board members are moving away from a half-mill tax increase.
But balancing the district’s half-billion dollar budget without that $4 million revenue stream will require minimizing community contributions and limiting improvements to maintenance, gifted and remediation services. It may also mean charter schools will be charged an administrative fee of 1.5 percent in 2017 and an additional 1.5 percent in 2018.
Monday, the Savannah-Chatham Public School Board’s Budget Committee reviewed a proposal that would neither raise taxes nor impose charter school fees. It also included funds to right-size staff, improve pay and prevent teachers from defecting to neighboring districts.
However, this plan leaves just $26.9 million, or 7.07 percent of the budget, in the district’s rainy day coffers. It also eliminates or reduces funding increases designed to boost academic outcomes and improve safety.
The budget does not support new investment in struggling schools and it cuts funding for fifth-grade band. Despite three school evacuations due to malfunctioning HVAC systems over the last few years, it cuts repair and replacement costs from $1.5 million to $500,000. And it limits district support for all community programs to a total of $45,000. Representatives from community initiatives like Parent University, Deep writing and the Savannah Graduates collaborative will have to submit proposals and compete for their piece of that $45,000 pie.
“I think this is the budget we need to go with,” Budget Committee Chairman Larry Lower said following a tense discussion about the district’s responsibility to improve academic outcomes and adequately serve its expanding population of traditional, specialty and charter school students.
Lawyers for Mary Ann Whipple-Lue, fighting a lawsuit to remove her as Mayor of Gordon, Georgia, claim the effort is racially motivated, according to the Macon Telegraph.
The city’s charter allows for the mayor’s removal under instances of “incompetence, misfeasance and malfeasance.”
Councilmen Terry Eady and Freddie Densley, along with members of the Concerned Citizens group, filed suit in 2014, soon after Whipple-Lue took office.
In his opening statement, Devlin Cooper, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said Whipple-Lue has engaged in a pattern of Open Meetings Act violations, casting votes in council matters in violation of the city’s charter and making financial decisions without authority.
He said the mayor’s actions are evidence of her “arrogance” and “disdain for the law.”
Whipple-Lue’s attorney, Wayne Kendall, said the case is “racially motivated and racially maintained.”
Elected in November 2013, Whipple-Lue became Gordon’s first black mayor when she took office in January 2014.
State Rep. Tom Taylor will pay a $1500 fine, serve 12 months probation, and perform 40 hours of community service after pleading guilty to DUI.
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