[ The fight against the militarized police training center dubbed
“Cop City” is one of the great struggles of our time.]
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ATLANTA’S ATTACK ON COP CITY PROTESTERS SHOULD BE A WARNING TO US
ALL  
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Angela Y. Davis & Barbara Ransby
June 23, 2023
Truthout
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_ The fight against the militarized police training center dubbed
“Cop City” is one of the great struggles of our time. _

Law enforcement drive past the planned site of a police training
facility activists have dubbed "Cop City," following the first raid
since the death of environmental activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán
near Atlanta, Georgia, on February 6, 2023., Cheney Orr / Agence
France Presse (AFP) // Truthout

 

The ongoing attack on the network of environmental and abolitionist
activists in Atlanta should make all people concerned with the right
to protest, the future of the environment and the rise of militarized
police forces take notice.

At 5 am on June 6, after over 200 community members had spoken against
moving forward with the facility, the Atlanta City Council voted to
allocate $31 million in public funds toward construction of a
militarized police training center dubbed “Cop City.” This was the
most recent development in a fierce and violent struggle over police
expansion and forest preservation in Georgia, and has repercussions
well beyond the state. In January, a young protester was shot and
killed by police in a surprise raid on a protest encampment at the
proposed site of the facility. Soon afterwards 42 protesters were
arrested and outrageously charged with domestic terrorism. “Dissent
is being criminalized,” warned Atlanta organizer Kamau Franklin.

On May 31, three people associated with a legal aid and bail fund
supporting the Stop Cop City protesters arrested earlier were
themselves arrested on false allegations of financial fraud and
“money laundering.” Even the judge in the case found the evidence
uncompelling. Nevertheless, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp referred to the
ecoactivists and abolitionists as criminals and pledged to prosecute
them aggressively.

The situation in Atlanta should alarm abolitionists and progressives
everywhere. There we see an all-out assault on two movements — the
environmental justice movement and the movement against policing and
prisons — that have seen growing popular support and influence in
recent years.

Here is the backstory for those who have not been following this
struggle: A $90 million militarized police training facility that will
destroy 85 acres of the Weelaunee Forest just outside Atlanta (but
owned by the city) has become the epicenter of a fierce fight around
policing, environmental justice and the right to protest. This
training center is slated to include “mock cities” to help police
rehearse how to undermine and disrupt future protests of all sorts.

The struggle in Atlanta is a part of a bigger story. With corporations
like Amazon, Wells Fargo and Delta backing the Atlanta Police
Foundation’s development of this project the direct link
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the police state and encroaching environmental degradation becomes
obvious. Moreover, Black and working-class people are losing their
lives to both at a record pace
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And when brave community members and their supporters have stepped
forward to defend the forest and object to a training ground designed
to further perfect the use of state violence, they themselves have
been systematically targeted.

On January 18, 2023, the police killed Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a
forest defender affectionately known as “Tortuguita” or
“Tort,” and then said they were fired on first. Their
own official accounts
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their story and an independent autopsy
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that Tortuguita’s hands were raised when they were shot. Dozens of
people were arrested not long after during another raid on a Stop Cop
City gathering, resulting in outrageous charges of domestic terrorism.

As egregious as they might seem, the police attacks on activists in
Atlanta do not constitute a new trend. We know that at least 1,700
environmental activists
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been murdered around the world in the past decade. Corporate hitmen
and state violence are used to bludgeon anything that gets in the way
of profit and power. Atlanta’s business elite and political class
have pulled from this playbook and have worked to misrepresent the
movement as the work of “outside agitators.” It’s ironic to hear
classic segregationist rhetoric from those who claim to uphold the
legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. The same lines were used against the
Freedom Riders and voter rights volunteers, after all, when they
traveled to the South to participate in the Black Freedom Movement in
the 1960s.

Black student protesters, a coalition of movement organizations, and
Black communities that are opposed to Cop City are being outright
ignored by a Black establishment. Even when students and faculty from
historically Black colleges and universities like Morehouse and
Spelman joined the outcry against Cop City, Mayor Andre Dickens
didn’t stop pushing for this facility. When the decision to sign off
on domestic terrorism warrants came before Fatima El-Amin, a Black
judge, she signed them
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And Atlanta’s Black police officers have never broken ranks with
their white counterparts. This is not a simple matter that political
representation will sort out for us; it is a question that must be
answered by abolitionist praxis, which means both creating
alternatives to police and prisons to achieve harm-reduction, and
continuing the ongoing work of building a more just society.

In our view, the money that it takes to build police training
facilities would be better spent advancing deteriorating
infrastructure. Atlanta has the highest income inequality
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the nation, and more police won’t fix that. Resources for health
care, housing, and education could change the politically preordained
circumstances that create such oppressive conditions.

The call to stop Cop City is much bigger than just one facility. It is
also connected to the years-long fight against the West Side Cop
Academy in Chicago and against Urban Shield in Oakland. It is also
directly linked to the uprisings in Ferguson, Baltimore and the
massive response to the public execution of George Floyd. Because the
forest where the City of Atlanta wants to construct the training
facility consists of land that was taken from Muscogee Creek people,
resisting Cop City is directly linked to Indigenous struggles against
the Keystone XL Pipeline and other extractive infrastructure. Neither
corporate nor government elites want another precedent of
conscientious activists interrupting an unethical profit-driven
project, which is why they are waging war against the “Stop Cop
City” movement.

The movement for the abolition of police and prisons, as well as the
urgent and growing movement for environmental justice, are two key
pillars of a collective vision for a more hopeful, egalitarian future.
The targeting of organizers in Atlanta seeks to send a dangerous and
chilling message to the larger national and global movements. We must
oppose this effort and support and defend the Atlanta organizers now
being attacked, harassed and persecuted for daring to speak truth to
power and organize for a more just future. We urge people who share
our values and views on this question to support Atlanta’s upcoming
week of action to protest Cop City and defend those being harassed and
prosecuted. We also support the referendum the network of activists
plan to have on the November 7 election ballot to ask Atlantans to
decide if they want $90 million invested in a Cop City or in vital
city services and programs.

_[ANGELA Y. DAVIS is Distinguished Professor Emerita of history of
consciousness and feminist studies at University of California, Santa
Cruz. An activist, writer, and lecturer, her work focuses on prisons,
police, abolition and the related intersections of race, gender, and
class. She is the author of many books, including: Angela Davis: An
Autobiography and Freedom is a Constant Struggle._

_BARBARA RANSBY is a historian, author and longtime activist. She is
the John D. MacArthur University Professor with appointments in the
Departments of Black Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies and History
at University of Illinois at Chicago, where she directs the Social
Justice Initiative and The Portal Project. She is also the author of
the award-winning biography, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom
Movement, two other books and many articles. Follow her on Twitter:
@BarbaraRansby [[link removed]]]_

_Thanks to the authors for sending their article to Portisde._

_Copyright © Truthout [[link removed]]. Reprinted with
permission. May not be reprinted without permission._

_Truthout provides daily news, in-depth reporting and critical
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* Cop City
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* Atlanta
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* Environmental Justice
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* abolitionism
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* Prison Abolition
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* Police
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* Prisons
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* Environmental Activism
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* climate justice
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* Racism
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* repression
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