Even without commenting on the appropriateness of the Confederate flag, I can see this is persecution of a group of whites for daring to fly it. The complaining witnesses are all black and they are being represented by the SPLC. Uh huh. Sounds to me like this guy Brian Fortner is another Nifong.

Note how prejudicial the sroty is as it drags in as much negative and irrelevant information as it can. But that's the NYT.

"DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — In an unusual legal maneuver, the district attorney in this suburb of Atlanta has won indictments against 15 supporters of the Confederate battle flag, accusing them of violating the state’s anti-street gang ordinance during a confrontation with black partygoers in July, the district attorney said on Monday.

Prosecutors say that members of the group, which calls itself “Respect the Flag,” threatened a group of African-Americans participating in an outdoor party on July 25. A cellphone video of part of the episode shows several white men driving away from the party in a convoy of pickup trucks with the Confederate battle flag and other banners, including American flags, fluttering from the truck beds.

The partygoers contend that members of the flag group yelled racial slurs and displayed a crow bar, a knife and either a rifle or a shotgun, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil-rights group in Montgomery, Ala., that is representing some of the accusers.

Similarly adorned pickup trucks have become a regular sight in many parts of the South since June, when a white gunman, apparently influenced by racist doctrine, massacred nine black worshipers at a Charleston, S.C., church. A subsequent effort by some elected officials in the region to remove Confederate symbols from public spaces has provoked a strong negative reaction from some white Southerners, who argue that the symbols are a part of their history and heritage.

[snip]

The Douglas County district attorney, Brian Fortner, a white Republican elected to the office in 2014, announced the indictments in a news conference Monday morning. Each of the 15 was indicted on one count of making terroristic threats, and a second count of unlawfully participating in “criminal gang activity.”

Mr. Fortner said that the Georgia statute upon which the second charge is based, the Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act, is “worded very broadly to deal with any type of activity that occurs with a group that’s organized that commits a crime.”

“We respect the rights of all citizens to exercise their First Amendment right,” Mr. Fortner said. “But we’re going to require them, when doing that, to respect the rights of all of the citizens to feel safe and secure.”

Morris Dees, the founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center and its chief trial lawyer, could not recall seeing an anti-gang statute used against this kind of group in the past. But he said it was “a very good use” of the statute. “I don’t know why it hasn’t been used before,” he said."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/confede...ocid=spartandhp