NAACP Steps Up Efforts To Defend Cartersville 70

CARTERSVILLE, GA — The NAACP is pressing on in its campaign to get answers in the New Year's Eve arrests of dozens of people attending a house party in Cartersville. A petition and a GoFundMe account have both been set up to aid the group's efforts.

The GoFundMe account has been created to help pay for any legal or attorneys fees those who were arrested may incur. The petition is "fighting for justice" for the 70 who were arrested at the party.

In a message posted Wednesday on his Facebook page, attorney Gerald Griggs, who also serves as chair of the NAACP's Criminal Justice Committee, said all of the 70 arrestees have been released from the Bartow County Jail. He said he and others are working to obtain attorneys for those who were taken into custody and to ensure "they are not saddled with criminal convictions because of this incident."

The events unfolded after Cartersville police were dispatched around 2:30 a.m. Dec. 31 to a shots fired call at the home on Cain Drive. Officers arrived and detected the smell of weed and saw several people leaving the property, the Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task Force previously said. Cartersville police secured the area while they investigated the report of shots being fired. While carrying out its investigation, officers noticed "marijuana in plain view and initially recovered a semi-automatic handgun," the Task Force said.

Cartersville police notified the Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task Force to aid in the investigation due to the large number of people inside the house, the discovery of the gun and "evidence of widespread drug usage," the Task Force added.

More than 60 people were inside the home, including four minors. Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task Force agents obtained a search warrant for the home and said two firearms (one reported stolen from Detroit), individually packaged marijuana and several smoking devices were seized throughout most of the first-floor rooms.

The Task Force also said it recovered suspected cocaine and cocaine-related paraphernalia following initial contact with several subjects on the scene. Everyone at the house was arrested for possession of the marijuana less than an ounce, "which was in everyone's reach or control," the Drug Task Force said. They were all transported to the Bartow County Jail. The age of those arrested range from 15 to roughly 30 years old. One person who was arrested was a 27-year-old who was not invited to the party, Griggs added.

Griggs said in his message that the gathering was for a birthday celebration for a woman who turned 21 years old and most of the teens or young adults who were arrested are in school and have jobs. One person, he added, is even enlisted in the military.

"They are of all backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, so it's not just black people, it's not just white people," he said, adding people of Hispanic descent and a pregnant woman were also taken into custody. The NAACP, he added, is working to secure representation for everyone who was arrested at the scene.

As of Friday afternoon, more than 1,800 have signed the petition demanding that the charges be dropped and $3,178 had been donated to the GoFundMe account seeking to raise $15,000.

The Bartow County and Georgia chapters of the NAACP announced earlier this week that they were investigating the incident. Griggs argued that, at best, those who were arrested should have been issued citations or, at worst, police should have broken up the party and made everyone return home.

"On all levels, we are engaged in this case," he said. "We will follow this case and be a part of this case until the end. And we will help every single person that was affected in this case."

While the Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task Force has not formally addressed what happened during the incident outside of its press release issued Tuesday, the Cartersville Police Department on Thursday released its incident report of the case. In that report, officers note they could smell the odor of marijuana as far as 100 yards away from the house on Cain Drive.

Those officers made contact with four males standing outside the home, and told them they were in the area because of a report of shots being fired. However, the young men told police they did not believe any shots were fired in the area of the home, which was rented by the woman who was having the 21st birthday party.

"I knocked on the door to the residence and contact was made with approximately 60 people inside the residence," the officer said in his report. "When the door was opened, the odor of marijuana emitted from within the residence. I advised everyone inside the residence to come stand in plain view."

The officers notified the Drug Task Force and told everyone inside the house they were being detained "due to the smell of marijuana coming from within the residence." According to the report, the officers cleared the home and remained inside the living room to "make sure no contraband was destroyed and for the safety of other officers on (the) scene."

"I observed numerous amounts of alcohol, as well as several clear plastic bags containing suspected marijuana in plain view, in the living room and on top of a table in the dining room," the report goes on to state. "Drug related objects, pipes, grinders and wrappers were also observed in plain view throughout the residence."

Members of the Drug Task Force arrived at the home and Cartersville police turned the scene over to them, the report notes.

Griggs states witnesses "on the ground" told activists that no search warrant was obtained before the search took place, which he said leads to concerns about possible violations of the Fourth Amendment rights of those who were at the house. He also said the call of shots fired turned out to be fireworks "up the street."

Griggs added he's been in talks with Cherokee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Rosemary Greene about the case, and said she has been open and transparent about her office's role in the investigation. In a statement, Greene said the case files are currently being processed and her office will evaluate the merits of the case once they receive all the evidence and reports. Based on that review, a decision will be made whether to move forward prosecution. Her office, she added, is "working to expedite this process" and make a decision as soon as possible.

"The issue is this: 70 people can no way possess less than an ounce of marijuana, so we are fully engaged and hopeful that this case can be resolved appropriately by law enforcement, by the District Attorney's Office because a large majority of these young people have no criminal history whatsoever," he added, noting that some of those arrested have already lost their jobs or have had their military career jeopardized.

You can view Griggs' full statement below:

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