A Prospect Newsletter About Big Ideas
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**Atlanta's Unrelenting Cop City Crusade**

Today on Based, the Atlanta City Council is hell-bent on building a $70
million police playground. It's the last thing the city needs.

Funding for Atlanta's "Cop City," the community-given nickname for a
police training facility in DeKalb County, Georgia, has been approved by
the city council in an 11-4 vote. Despite years of protest and critical
comments from over 200 people during a public meeting, the
council-which is controlled by Democrats-moved forward.

The city leadership's refusal to listen to the community shows how far
police reform efforts still have to go. As I have previously written
<[link removed]>,
community alternatives to policing have been on the rise since 2020.
These programs rely on the understanding that abusive policing is
systemic in practically every city, including Atlanta; it has
irrevocably harmed communities; and working to avoid repeating said harm
through equitable, community-focused alternatives is the only way
forward. The work often requires a cohesive relationship between the
community and city leadership.

In this sense, Atlanta's city council not only approved a wildly
unpopular proposal, they also sent a clear message of total resistance
to even mild reform measures. It signals how deeply divergent the needs
of the community and the priorities of the city leadership have become.

The training facility was first shopped around by the Atlanta Police
Foundation (APF), the main driver of the proposal, in 2017. Its initial
cost to taxpayers was reported as some $30 million, but has now been
revised
<[link removed]>
to nearly $70 million. The name refers to a mock city the facility would
contain, supposedly for the purpose of police and firefighter training.
The project would also raze acres of important forestry.

As clear as the city council's message was, activists against Cop City
have their own message. Opposing forces see the facility as another way
to ramp up harmful policing tactics that have led to the murder and
terrorization of many Black people, in the city and beyond. Opposition
first sparked in earnest in 2021, when the council approved a land lease
with the APF. In the time since, protest efforts have seen the death of
an activist, public hearings with hundreds of people present, and a raid
on a community center.

[link removed]

But probably the most important story of the protests has been the
brutal legal attack on protesters. Prosecutors have been charging
arrested protesters with wildly disproportionate crimes-most notably,
more than 40 people have been charged with domestic terrorism, using a
law expanded after the mass murder of Black churchgoers perpetrated by
Dylann Roof. As

**Time** reported
<[link removed]>,
this is the first time the law has been used this way. The irony is
sickening.

As Micah Herskind wrote for Scalawag
<[link removed]>,
this proposal came amidst a retreat from 2020-era police reform efforts.
It also came as a response to rising crime statistics and agitation from
more privileged community members for something to be done. Atlanta's
government has always done a delicate dance between the largely Black
political leadership and the largely white economic ruling class of the
city. Ultimately, the leadership is acting to maintain this balance.

The city dynamics illustrate another aspect of what police reform,
including diverting at least some of the bloated law enforcement budget
to social services, is about. Law enforcement works as an arm of the
ruling class, maintaining order in an unjust society. Divesting from
traditional policing means decoupling this toxic relationship, and
handing decision-making power back to communities.

In response to the dismissive response from the city, activists are
attempting to put a referendum to repeal the lease sale on the next
election ballot as a way to return the question to the people. As the
Associated Press reported
<[link removed]>,
this effort has an uphill battle. But organizers are working to capture
the frustration of Atlanta residents, and channel it toward change.

"From our perspective the important issue goes beyond Cop City itself,"
the Atlanta Solidarity Fund's Marlon Kautz told the

**Prospect**. "It's a question of whether people in Atlanta have the
right to oppose the policies of their government without suffering
police violence and malicious prosecution."

~ RAMENDA CYRUS, JOHN LEWIS WRITING FELLOW

Follow Ramenda Cyrus on Twitter <[link removed]>

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