Occupy Atlanta’s Tim Franzen says he’s being targeted by police

• Dustin Chambers
• Franzen, pictured here in November, tends to stand out in his signature red cap.

In our coverage of Occupy Atlanta, we’ve frequently referred to Tim Franzen as a “spokesman,” occasionally an “organizer,” mostly for lack of a better way to describe his role in what’s intended to be a leaderless movement.

In a Saturday post on the American Friends Service Committee’s blog, Franzen says he believes his characterization in the media as an Occupy ringleader has made him a law enforcement target for arrest — and repeatedly.

Franzen wrote, “I’ve decided that this behavior is worth calling out. It is unacceptable to target a few folks in an effort to shut down a movement. A targeted arrest should be seen as an attack on everyone associated with the Occupy movement. To let this slide is a disservice to others and our movement.”

Franzen’s most recent arrest took place on Friday, following an Occupy Atlanta protest at a local Chase bank branch. He’s been arrested two previous times. Following his first arrest — which was part of a police round-up of more than 50 protestors — Franzen says fellow occupiers were questioned by the FBI about his activities and motives:
It was right after the first eviction that several young OA participants took me aside and told me that people from the FBI had visited their homes and questioned them about me. They claimed that FBI agents had asked if I would be open to acquiring weapons, if I had a militant side and such.

One of the questioned youth actually gave me the FBI agent’s business card. I called it the next day and informed the agent that I knew everything there is to know about Tim Franzen, that I was in fact the worlds utmost authority on all things Tim Franzen. When he asked who I was I stated, “Tim Franzen.”
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I told the FBI agent that he should be ashamed of his actions, that he had no right to run around Atlanta scaring people for no other reason but to crush a movement to address gross economic injustice through nonviolent direct action.

The second time he was arrested, during a demonstration on GSU’s campus, Franzen recalls hearing an officer instruct others to “get him.” He says he was dragged off the sidewalk and into the street by an officer who subsequently arrested him for standing in the street.

Franzen’s account of his most recent arrest is by far the strangest (edited down where elipses appear):