Black Hammer Party trial postponed for members charged with kidnapping in Georgia

FAYETTE COUNTY, Ga. - Members of a Georgia-based Black separatist group arrested after a SWAT standoff and alleged kidnapping and sexual assault are will have to wait a while longer for their trial in Fayette County.

Fayetteville police arrested 36-year-old Augustus Romain and 21-year-old Xavier Rushin in July 2022 in connection with the standoff at a home in the Woodbyne subdivision off of White Road. They were set to start their jury trial Monday, but now a judge has pushed the case to the spring.

According to investigators, officers responded to the home on Selwyn Court after a man called 911 and claimed he had been kidnapped by an organization. The man told the 911 operator that he was being held against his will in the home's garage.

Police tracked the call to the neighborhood and saw someone waving their hand out of the home's garage window.

After surrounding the home, officers asked everyone inside to come out. While nine people exited, Fayetteville police say they determined one more person was inside and tried to make contact.

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Hours later, a police robot discovered 18-year-old Amonte T. Ammons dead from what police say was an "apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head."

In the warrant released to the public after the arrests, the Fayetteville Police Department says that two men had been forced at gunpoint from part of the home into its padlock-locked garage and were not allowed to leave.

Augustus C. Romain (Fayette County Sheriff's Office)

Officials allege that Romain, who also goes by the name "Gazi Kodo" is the leader of a group known as the Black Hammer Party, an organization that describes itself as a "symbol of hope for the colonized working class" and which police say they have documented as a "criminal street gang." Rushin, also known as "Keeno," and Ammons, aka "AP," were both members of the group, the warrant states.

According to the warrant, Romain ordered both Rushin and Ammons to point guns at the two victims and forced them into the garage so that he "could anally sodomize" at least one of them.

Rushin was arrested by officers outside the home after police say they found him walking Romain's dog when they arrived. When police tried to approach him, investigators say he tried to pull away and reached for a gun in his pocket.

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Romain is charged with two counts of aggravated sodomy, conspiracy to commit a felony, false imprisonment (party to a crime), kidnappings (party to a crime), aggravated assault (party to a crime), and criminal street gang activity. Rushin is charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit a felony, false imprisonment, kidnapping, aggravated assault, criminal street gang activity, and obstructing or hindering a law enforcement officer, 

What is the Black Hammer Party?

Formed in 2019 by Romain, the Black Hammer Party is an Atlanta-based organization that has gained some internet attention for multiple statements and activities that have created small viral controversies.

On Twitter, the group received some coverage after they called Holocaust victim Anne Frank a "bleach demon," "Karen," and "colonizer" while posting tweeting that they were going to burn copies of her diary for warmth.

In the last few years, the group protested outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against COVID-19 vaccines and in support of rapper Nicki Minaj, who at that time had recently tweeted that she wasn't vaccinated. The group has also collaborated with Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, over their mutual anti-vaccine beliefs.

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Former members of the group have told FOX 5 that once they were recruited into the group, they weren't allowed to leave.

"I was starved out, sleep-deprived, I couldn’t take it no more," said a woman who called herself Savvy, the group’s former chief of staff. "I just wanted to go home."

They allege said Kodzo went to places heavily frequented by people experiencing homelessness like Atlanta's Woodruff Park and recruited young people experiencing homelessness into the group, promising them food, shelter, and income.