Getty Images
Far-left activist Gazi Kodzo rose to internet notoriety last year with a series of bizarre online pronouncements he made as the leader of a fringe communist group called the Black Hammer Organization. Kodzo’s 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.
But on Tuesday, Black Hammer, dubbed a “cult” by some former members, culminated in tragedy. That morning, an anonymous caller in a suburban Atlanta home rented by Black Hammer contacted police to report that they were being held against their will. When police searched the home, they found Kodzo, nine other people, and an 18-year-old man named Amonte T. Ammons dead of what police call an “an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”
Now Kodzo, a 36-year-old whose legal name is Augustus C. Romain, faces a bevy of criminal charges, including aggravated sodomy, two counts of conspiracy to commit a felony, two counts of false imprisonment, two counts of kidnapping, two counts of aggravated assault, and two counts of criminal street gang activity, according to a press release from the Fayetteville Police Department. Further details on the charges weren’t available Wednesday from the police.