Gazi Kodzo, the leader of a fringe extremist group – The Black Hammer Party - that has been described as a "cult" was arrested by police in Georgia following a police standoff.
"The house at the center of [an] hours-long SWAT standoff and a deadly shooting in Fayetteville on Tuesday is connected to Atlanta-based extremist organization, the Black Hammer Party," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported Wednesday.
Cops Received a Call From a Person Claiming to be Kidnapped by the Organization
"Fayetteville Police said they received a 911 call Tuesday morning at 7:48 a.m. from "a person whispering that they had been kidnapped by an organization and was being held in the garage of a residence." Police said they located the residence by tracing the call."
There was an hours-long standoff and the neighborhood was placed under a shelter-in-place order. After it was resolved, authorities said they described a dead body with a gunshot wound that authorities believe may have been self-inflicted. The body was identified as an 18-year-old male named Amonte T. Ammons.
Augustus Romain, 36, also known as Gazi Kodzo, was arrested on charges of aggravated sodomy, and two counts each on the charges of conspiracy to commit a felony, false imprisonment, kidnapping, aggravated assault, and criminal street gang activity.
Another Kodzo associate, a 21-year-old named Xavier H. Rushin, was also charged with several crimes, including kidnapping, assault, and false imprisonment.
Kodzo Claims Police Killed His Son
Kodzo posted on Facebook that Ammons, his son, was killed by the police, disputing the police department's conclusion that the gunshot wound was self-inflicted.
On Wednesday, another message was posted on the same account."In a targeted attack yesterday by the Fayetteville Police Department, SWAT and the FBI on the headquarters of the Atlanta chapter of the Black Hammer Party, not only was Commander Gazi arrested but also their other son Keno was arrested and their son AP was shot and "killed by the police," the message alleged.
Who is Gadi Kodzo?
Kodzo rose to internet notoriety last year with a series of bizarre online pronouncements he made as the leader of the fringe communist group. His online declarations, including the claim that Holocaust victim Anne Frank was a whiny "Karen," seemed designed to go viral as proof of left-wing activists out of control, and earned mentions from Fox News and other conservative outlets.
Black Hammer began in 2019 and its aggressive anti-Semitic and anti-white rhetoric marked a strange new reinvention for Kodzo, who had, years earlier operated as an aspiring YouTube personality named "Smiletone," reported Daily Beast.
As Black Hammer's leader, though, Kodzo adopted a tone of racial separatism. Black Hammer social media accounts earned notoriety online for their racial attacks, and Kodzo jousted with right-wing figures like commentator Elijah Schaffer, the publication noted.
By 2021, Black Hammer counted what some former members estimate as hundreds of members across the country. But as the group grew, its aesthetics remained jarring. Kodzo began dressing in makeup that made him look like the Joker and referring to himself in the third-person as the Joker, posing for threatening videos in front of cadres of Black Hammer members in the makeup.
Black Hammer City
In the summer of 2021, Black Hammer reached its apex with an attempt to build 'Black Hammer City' in the Colorado wilderness. Kodzo's internet haters quickly predicted the site would turn into "Jonestown 2.0." While it didn't go that poorly, the attempted city was a disaster. Former members complain online that they were stuck in the wilderness with few supplies. The land owner eventually backed out of the deal and the settlement collapsed.
