Queer Georgia Lawmaker Vows to “Keep Knocking” After Charges Against Her Dropped

At a press conference Thursday, Representative Cannon thanked the district attorney for dismissing the charges but said that her “joy…is tempered by the fact that I should have never been arrested in the first place.” 

The Atlanta District Attorney’s office has dropped charges against state Representative Park Cannon, who had been arrested last month after staging a protest outside the governor’s office.

On March 25, Cannon was charged with “obstruction of law enforcement” and “preventing or disrupting General Assembly sessions or other meetings of members” after knocking on the door of Governor Brian Kemp’s office while he was inside signing into law the state’s controversial new voting requirements during a private ceremony. 

In a statement, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said that after completing its investigation, the department will not consider an indictment of Representative Cannon, and that the matter is now closed. “While some of Representative Cannon’s colleagues and the police officers involved may have found her behavior annoying,” Willis said, “such sentiment does not justify a presentment to a grand jury of the allegations in the arrest warrants or any other felony charges.”  

At a press conference Thursday, Representative Cannon thanked the district attorney for dismissing the charges but said that her “joy…is tempered by the fact that I should have never been arrested in the first place.” 

Proponents of Georgia’s voting restrictions argue that they are designed to safeguard elections, although thus far no evidence has emerged to suggest widespread voter fraud in either last year’s presidential election or in the January Senate run-offs. Opponents of the new law argue that its true design is to disenfranchise voters, specifically those of color. 

In her press conference, Cannon said that she had knocked on the governor’s door so that “Brian Kemp would have to see me and see all of those who I represent.” She vowed that she would “Keep knocking” and called on all Georgians and Americans to do the same.

 

 


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