ATLANTA — Opponents of the Atlanta public safety training center celebrated a rare victory on Wednesday after a judge said he would throw out racketeering charges against dozens of people who had protested the project.

And though protesters may have won in court, the training center still got built.

Many of those loudly celebrating outside the Fulton County courthouse on Friday had been sweating criminal charges in the "Cop City" case until a Fulton County judge decided Thursday that the state had illegally brought racketeering charges against them. Cop City is the term critics used to refer to the project derisively.

"This deeply flawed indictment should be read by every law student as an object lesson in how not to practice law," said Alex Papali, a defendant in the case.

Fulton S

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