[For about 14 hours, residents again and again took to the podium
to slam the project, saying it would be a gross misuse of public funds
to build the huge facility in a large urban forest in a poor,
majority-Black area.]
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ATLANTA CITY COUNCIL APPROVES PROJECT DECRIED AS ‘COP CITY,’
REJECTING ACTIVISTS’ FIERCE OPPOSITION  
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R.J. Rico, Associated Press
June 6, 2023
PBS News Hour
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_ For about 14 hours, residents again and again took to the podium to
slam the project, saying it would be a gross misuse of public funds to
build the huge facility in a large urban forest in a poor,
majority-Black area. _

File photo of community members attending the city council meeting to
protest against a controversial "Cop City" project, inside the city
hall in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 15, 2023., Megan Varner/ Reuters

 

ATLANTA (AP) — The Atlanta City Council early Tuesday approved
funding for the construction of a proposed police and firefighter
training center, rejecting the pleas of hundreds of activists who
packed City Hall and spoke for hours in fierce opposition to the
project they decry as “Cop City.”

The 11-4 vote just after 5 a.m. is a significant victory for Mayor
Andre Dickens, who has made the $90 million project a large part of
his first term in office, despite significant pushback to the effort.
The City Council also passed a resolution requesting two seats on the
Atlanta Police Foundation’s board. The decentralized “Stop Cop
City” movement has galvanized protesters from across the country,
especially in the wake of the January fatal police shooting of Manuel
Paez Terán, a 26-year-old environmental activist known as
“Tortuguita” who had been camping in the woods near the site of
the proposed project in DeKalb County.

For about 14 hours, residents again and again took to the podium to
slam the project, saying it would be a gross misuse of public funds to
build the huge facility in a large urban forest in a poor,
majority-Black area.

“We’re here pleading our case to a government that has been
unresponsive, if not hostile, to an unprecedented movement in our City
Council’s history,” said Matthew Johnson, the executive director
of Beloved Community Ministries, a local social justice nonprofit.
“We’re here to stop environmental racism and the militarization of
the police. … We need to go back to meeting the basic needs rather
than using police as the sole solution to all of our social
problems.”

The training center was approved by the City Council in September 2021
but required an additional vote for more funding. City officials say
the new 85-acre (34-hectare) campus would replace inadequate training
facilities and would help address difficulties in hiring and retaining
police officers that worsened after nationwide protests against police
brutality and racial injustice three years ago.

But opponents, who have been joined by activists from around the
country, say they fear it will lead to greater militarization of the
police and that its construction will exacerbate environmental damage.
Protesters had been camping at the site since at least last year, and
police said they had caused damage and attacked law enforcement
officers and others.

Though more than 220 people spoke publicly against the training
center, a small handful voiced support, saying they trusted Dickens’
judgment.

Councilmembers agreed to approve $31 million in public funds for the
site’s construction, as well as a provision that requires the city
to pay $36 million — $1.2 million a year over 30 years — for using
the facility. The rest of the $90 million project would come from
private donations to the Atlanta Police Foundation, though city
officials had, until recently, repeatedly said that the public
obligation would only be $31 million.

The highly scrutinized vote also comes in the wake of the arrests
Wednesday of three organizers who lead the Atlanta Solidarity Fund,
which has provided bail money and helped find attorneys for arrested
protesters.

Prosecutors have accused the three activists of money laundering and
charity fraud, saying they used some of the money to fund violent acts
of “forest defenders.” Warrants cite reimbursements for expenses
including “gasoline, forest clean-up, totes, covid rapid tests,
media, yard signs.” But the charges have alarmed human rights groups
and prompted both of Georgia’s Democratic senators to issue
statements over the weekend expressing their concerns.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock tweeted that bail funds held important roles
during the civil rights movement and said that the images of the
heavily armed police officers raiding the home where the activists
lived “reinforce the very suspicions that help to animate the
current conflict—namely, concerns Georgians have about
over-policing, the quelling of dissent in a democracy, and the
militarization of our police.”

Devin Franklin, an attorney with the Southern Center For Human Rights,
also invoked Wednesday’s arrests while speaking before City Council.

“This is what we fear — the image of militarized forces being used
to effectuate arrests for bookkeeping errors,” Franklin said.

Numerous instances of violence and vandalism have been linked to the
decentralized “Stop Cop City” movement, including a January
protest in downtown Atlanta in which a police car was set alight as
well as a March attack in which more than 150 masked protesters chased
off police at the construction site and torched construction equipment
before fleeing and blending in with a crowd at a nearby music
festival. Those two instances have led to more than 40 people being
charged with domestic terrorism, though prosecutors have had
difficulty so far in proving that many of those arrested were in fact
those who took part in the violence.

In a sign of the security concerns Monday, dozens of police officers
were posted throughout City Hall and officials temporarily added
“liquids, aerosols, gels, creams and pastes” to the list of things
prohibited inside the building.

Six hours into the meeting, Emory University religion professor Sara
McClintock took to the podium and pleaded with councilmembers to
reject, or at least rethink, the training center.

“We don’t want it,” McClintock said. “We don’t want it
because it doesn’t contribute to life. It’s not an institution of
peace. It’s not a way forward for our city that we love.”

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* Atlanta City Council Vote; 'Stop Cop City'; Atlanta Solidarity
Fund; “Tortuguita”
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