Organizers in Atlanta have been working to stop the construction of a $90 million police training facility dubbed “Cop City,” which is slated to be built on 85-acres of the Weelaunee Forest, since 2021. Critics of the project say construction of the police training facility will degrade the forest, hyper-militarize Atlanta’s police force and put the lives of marginalized individuals in further jeopardy.
The Muscogee people have inhabited the area surrounding the forest for thousands of years, but in 1783 the state of Georgia appropriated the land through an illegal treaty. The city council approved the “Cop City” training facility in September 2021, despite hearing hours of public comment during which the majority of residents voiced their opposition to the construction of the project.
The city council also approved spending $67 million in public funds on the facility — $31 million for the construction of the project, and $36 million for operational costs paid out over a 30 year period. The rest of the money for the $90 million facility is to come from donations to the Atlanta Police Foundation. Chick-fil-A, the Coca-Cola Company, and UPS all have donated $1 million, respectively.
After the state government publicly approved the project, organizers immediately mobilized against its construction. Opponents of the project flocked to the forest to set up makeshift treehouses and barricade areas to deter developers from clearing land for construction. Opposition to the police training facility spread beyond the forest defenders, encompassing a variety of environmental, community, and racial justice groups.
Police have conducted repeated raids on the facility’s grounds that activists have been occupying, leveraging state power in charging protesters with domestic terrorism charges to an unprecedented degree. On Jan. 18, 2023 police shot 26-year-old Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán 57 times during a raid on the Cop City site. Police claimed Tortuguita exchanged fire with a state trooper, but an autopsy conducted by the DeKalb County Medical Examiner’s Office found no gunpowder residue on their hands and ruled their death a homicide. None of the six state troopers who shot Tortuguita will be charged with a crime. Instead, three Cop City protesters were arrested on felony intimidation charges for distributing fliers that identified the officer the protesters say killed Tortuguita.
During another raid in March 2023, roughly 40 officers descended on the Lakewood neighborhood of Atlanta, which is near the South River Forest, destroying medical supply tents and breaking the windows of a camper van that was near the campsite.
The construction of Cop City would mean flattening the portions of the forest designated for the project. As Atlanta has the highest percentage of overall urban tree canopy in comparison to other cities that have studied their urban forestry, activists say this would permanently alter the area’s biodiversity and harm the environment overall.
Organizers have also toyed with the idea of pushing for a ballot referendum on Cop City since the city approved the project over two years ago, but it wasn’t until June 2023 that proponents of Stop Cop City officially launched their referendum effort. Proponents of the ballot referendum effort say casting direct votes on the project will give residents the opportunity to determine whether construction moves forward.
So far, organizers say they’ve collected more than 116,000 signatures from Atlanta residents — double the number required to get the referendum on the ballot next year — but city officials are stalling on counting the ballots and have published signers’ sensitive information on the city’s website.
On September 11, 2023, the Atlanta City Council passed a resolution to direct the Atlanta Municipal Clerk’s Office to digitize petition signatures in support of the referendum on Cop City. The move was intended to aid with the petition verification process, according to the council. The city council explicitly directed the clerk to redact identifiable information from the petitions in accordance with the Georgia Open Records Act.
Organizers said the municipal clerk published unredacted PDFs on the city’s website, effectively doxxing residents who expressed support for halting the construction of Cop City. The current petitions on the city’s website include names, signatures, addresses, and phone numbers, but birthdates are redacted. This is particularly concerning when juxtaposed with the ongoing crackdown on protesters and organizers, as evidenced through the racketeering indictments and other violent responses to organizing efforts.
In early September, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr indicted 61 people involved in opposing the construction of Cop City on racketeering charges in what critics have called an unprecedented overreach of judicial enforcement that violates First Amendment rights. On November 7, 2023, nearly five dozen of these protesters were arraigned in court while hundreds rallied outside the downtown Atlanta courthouse in solidarity. The RICO charges for the 61 individuals can carry a sentence of five-to-20 years in prison in addition to the sentence for the underlying crimes some of the organizers are accused of. For instance, three Stop Cop City organizers who organized a bail fund are facing additional charges for money laundering, while five organizers are facing state domestic terrorism charges.
Just last month, on November 13, more than 400 Stop Cop City protesters marched two miles in an effort to plant 100 tree saplings at the construction site. Police responded with flash bang grenades, tear gas, and military grade gear to curb the protesters’ movement toward the site. This latest iteration of the state’s response to the Stop Cop City movement points to the heightened precarity of these organizers and the steep urgency of the situation.
(Photo by Peyton Fulford)