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tortuguita
Militarized Police 'Indiscriminately' Attack Nonviolent Stop Cop City March With Tear Gas
"This is the type of 'training' they will get if Cop City is built," said one activist group.
Nov 13, 2023
Militarized state and local police on Monday attacked a peaceful protest against the construction of the so-called "Cop City" training center outside Atlanta, Georgia with "less-lethal" weapons including tear gas, pepper balls, and flash-bang grenades, journalists and activists there said.
Hundreds of #StopCopCity activists marched from a park toward the Weelaunee Forest in suburban DeKalb County early Monday morning. Some carried large and elaborate puppets, others had saplings to plant in woodlands bulldozed during construction, and a few carried banners reading "Block Cop City" and "Viva Tortuguita"—a reference to forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, aka "Tortuguita," who was fatally shot 57 times with live ammunition by police during a January raid on a protest camp.
A marching band and members of the Wanbli Ska Society—a South Dakota-based Indigenous advocacy group—hyped up the activists, who then started their two-mile march toward the Cop City construction site.
Journalists and protesters said police blocked the road about half a mile from the march's planned destination.
"The police have effectively separated the press at the front of the march from the rest of the march," the group Defend the Atlanta Forest wrote on social media. "Police are preventing them from rejoining the march and threatening to tow their cars."
NDN Collective, an Indigenous advocacy group, posted video of police pushing reporters away from the march, calling the area a "crime scene" and threatening to arrest journalists.
Backed by menacing SWAT vehicles, including one labeled "The Beast," police attacked the nonviolent marchers, some of whom attempted to push through the line of armored officers.
Many of the activists chanted: "Don't panic, stay tight, we gonna be alright!"
Some protesters lobbed tear gas canisters back at the officers.
"Protestors and police both retreated because neither group was wearing gas masks," Defend the Atlanta Forest reported. Neither were the police dogs, whose only protection appeared to be goggles and noise-reducing ear coverings.
The activists regrouped and continued their march. Eight activists reportedly made it to the construction site and locked themselves to equipment there.
Responding to the police action, Mary Hooks, field secretary for the Movement for Black Lives, said in a statement: "We just witnessed overt violations of our civil rights on a road named after the U.S. Constitution. Atlanta claims itself to be a civil rights hub, but it erases its own legacy when protests arise that confront the power of politicians and police. The police's violence against protestors today affirms our belief that Cop City must never be built."
Prior to the march, activists gathered in a local park, where speakers included community organizer Kamau Franklin and Tortuguita's parents.
"Now is not a time for cowardice. You are either with the oppressed or with the oppressors," Franklin told the crowd. "You cannot stand in the middle. You cannot be [on] both sides. You cannot close your eyes to the terror of policing that happens in this country and in this world. And you cannot deny and cannot be silent on the capitalist economics and the system that controls all of our people across the world."
"You're either with the colonialist or the colonized," he added. "So today when you march and demonstrate and conduct acts of civil disobedience… you are doing it with the oppressed people."
Cop City—which is funded by the private Atlanta Police Foundation and backed by major corporations including Amazon, Home Depot, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and UPS—is being built on land stolen from the Muscogee people, many of whom were forced westward during the genocidal Trail of Tears period in the late 1830s.
Since Terán's killing, more than 40 Stop Cop City campaigners have been criminally charged as domestic terrorists, while over 60 activists have also been indicted under the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—some for simply handing out fliers.
On Monday, Belkis Terán, Tortuguita's mother, said that "we are here to protect nature."
"To fight the police, we must be happy. And to be happy we must be strong," she added. "This is one step. We will continue."
Echoing Terán, Joel Paez, Tortuguita's father, told the crowd: "We are going to continue defending the forest. We are going to continue defending the legacy of Tortuguita. We are family. You are my family."
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Report Exposes US Media for Framing Social Justice Protests as 'Terrorism'
"Equating activism with terrorism is undemocratic and serves to silence dissenters," said Deepa Kumar, who analyzed how major U.S. media outlets have covered protesters of "Cop City" in Georgia.
Nov 07, 2023
A paper published Tuesday by a media studies scholar explores what she calls "one of the enduring costs of the 'War on Terror,'" mainstream outlets parroting police talking points on terrorism and "legitimating state violence while stifling democratic protest."
Rutgers University professor Deepa Kumar's paper—released by the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs—focuses on how major U.S. media outlets have covered protesters of "Cop City," Atlanta's proposed Public Safety Training Center just outside of city limits in Georgia.
"Even though the 'War on Terror' is supposedly over now that the U.S. has withdrawn from Afghanistan, U.S. federal and state governments continue to use and even expand punitive measures targeting those they label as 'terrorists,'" Kumar said in statement. "The U.S. mainstream media sometimes supports this expansion, and in doing so imperils U.S. democracy. All of this is part of the legacy of the post-9/11 wars."
As Kumar's paper notes, "previous research has shown that the mainstream media's framing of terrorism influences public opinion and shapes support or opposition to policies such as Georgia's 2017 terrorism law," which expanded the definition of terrorism to include certain property crimes committed with the intent to use intimidation or coercion to change policy.
The expert analyzed how a local newspaper, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and six national outlets—USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the New York Post, and the Los Angeles Times—reported on the "domestic terrorism" arrests of 42 anti-Cop City activists from December 2022 to March 2023.
The paper details her findings:
At first, the national news media did not cover the terrorism arrests in Atlanta. The local The Atlanta Journal-Constitution effectively served as the Atlanta Police Foundations' propaganda outlet. In January, 2022 several national media outlets picked up the story when violence and property destruction occurred, following the "if it bleeds, it leads" framework. However, some newspapers adopted a more critical stance. The Washington Post, The New York Times, and the LA Times humanized the protestors, depicting them as concerned activists opposing police militarization and environmental destruction. The New York Post and TheWall Street Journal, however, portrayed protestors as violent Antifa activists and justified their arrest on the grounds of terrorism. USA Today adopted a sensational tone, in effect also justifying the arrests.
As the protest movement gained national and international support, national media paid more attention. All seven outlets covered the story in March 2023. Also significant is that The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shifted to a more balanced tone and included the voices of Atlanta residents opposing Cop City. Rather than labeling protesters solely as "outsider agitators" and "far-left" activists who exist on the fringes of society, the newspaper quoted local activists, civil rights groups, and clergy. This happened at the highpoint of government arrests, when 23 more people were indicted on terrorism charges.
However, the analysis also reveals that apart from a handful of notable articles in The Washington Post and the LA Times that tacitly criticize the wider application of terrorism charges evidenced in Georgia, the majority of the seven media outlets have deferred unquestioningly to government authorities in the use of this label.
"Government and police officials have portrayed the protestors as violent terrorists," Kumar stressed. "For instance, in January 2023, when Georgia State Patrol Troopers shot and fatally injured activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, also known as Tortuguita, they claimed that Terán had initiated gunfire. Shockingly, Tortuguita was shot a staggering 57 times."
The DeKalb County medical examiner's autopsy report "indicated an absence of gunshot residue on Tortuguita's hands," the professor pointed out. There was also an independent autopsy. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation later claimed gunshot residue was found on the activist's hands. Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney George R. Christian concluded last month that the use of deadly force "was objectively reasonable under the circumstances of this case," so police will face no charges for killing Tortuguita.
Kumar wrote that "in theory, the media are entrusted with the responsibility of posing critical questions and disseminating accurate information to the public so that troubling practices like the use of state violence and extrajudicial killings are not normalized. In reality, U.S. media institutions have often continued to defer to government sources, reproducing and thus reinforcing the expansion of terrorism discourses to criminalize protestors—with sometimes deadly consequences."
Costs of War Project co-director Stephanie Savell responded to the paper by nudging journalists to do better. She said, "The media can make or break how activism is portrayed in an increasingly militarized era of policing that imperils our democratic rights."
The research comes after 57 of the 61 Cop City protesters charged in September under Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law appeared in court on Monday, as hundreds of their supporters rallied outside the building in Atlanta.
"Among the defendants: more than three dozen people who were previously facing domestic terrorism charges in connection to the protests; three leaders of a bail fund previously accused of money laundering; and three activists previously charged with felony intimidation after authorities said they distributed flyers calling a state trooper a 'murderer' for his involvement in Paez Terán's death," according to The Associated Press.
Noting the RICO charges, Kumar's paper quotes a pair of ACLU experts, who wrote in September that the indictment "paints the provision of mutual aid, the advocacy of collectivism, and even the publishing of zines as hallmarks of a criminal enterprise. In doing so, it flies in the face of First Amendment protections for speech, assembly, and association."
This post has been updated with additional autopsy reports.
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'Stop Cop City' Campaigners Decry State's Refusal to Charge Georgia Troopers Who Shot Activist 57 Times
"The system has, once again, declared its own innocence," lamented one activist after a Georgia prosecutor's office said it would not charge the killers of Manuel Terán, better known as "Tortuguita."
Oct 06, 2023
Human rights advocates on Friday condemned a Georgia prosecutor's decision to not charge the state troopers who fatally shot forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán—better known as "Tortuguita"—during a militarized January raid at a Stop Cop City protest camp outside Atlanta.
"The system has, once again, declared its own innocence," Stop Cop City activist Micah Herskind wrote on social media in response to the decision by the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney's office.
The Cop City Vote Coalition (CCVC) campaign said that "Tortuguita's memory and the memories of all those stolen by police killings demand that we all continue the collective struggle for a future without state violence."
Georgia State Patrol officers say they shot Terán after the 26-year-old Venezuelan activist opened fire on them, wounding an officer in the leg during the January 18 raid to evict protesters from the encampment protesting the $90 million, 85-acre Public Safety Training Center—widely known as "Cop City"—in the Weelaunee Forest just outside Atlanta city limits in DeKalb County.
According to a statement from Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Pro Tempore George Christian explaining the decision not to charge the troopers:
Terán... refused to comply with the lawful commands of the troopers to come out of a tent. The troopers used a 'less lethal' device known as a pepperball launcher in an effort to have Terán leave the tent. Terán responded by shooting four times his 9mm pistol through the tent, striking and seriously injuring a Georgia State Trooper. Six troopers returned fire resulting in the death of Teran.
"The use of lethal... force by Georgia State Patrol was objectively reasonable under the circumstances of this case," the prosecutor concluded.
A DeKalb County Medical Examiner's Office autopsy—which officials suppressed for months—revealed that Terán was shot 57 times and that there was no gunpowder residue on the victim's hands, which advocates say debunks claims that the activist fired first. There is no police bodycam video of the incident.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that ballistics analysis proved a gun found at the scene of Terán's killing—a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol GBI said the victim legally purchased in 2020—fired the bullet that wounded the trooper.
CCVC said that "from the start, the state's response to Tortuguita's murder has been to lie and cover up the facts."
"Today's announcement ruling the killing as 'reasonable' is just the latest in a long line of changing stories and withholding evidence," the campaign added.
Since Terán's killing, more than 40 Stop Cop City campaigners have been criminally charged as domestic terrorists, while over 60 activists have also been indicted under the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—some for simply handing out fliers.
"These charges, like the previous repressive prosecutions by the state of Georgia, seek to intimidate protesters, legal observers, and bail funds alike, and send the chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government," organizers with CCVC told The Appeal last month.
Friday's decision to not charge the troopers comes as CCVC attempts to get a referendum on the project on November's ballot. Although they've collected more than 115,000 signatures—more than double the number needed to qualify for the ballot—campaigners accuse Atlanta officials of voter suppression due to what they say is an onerous signature verification process created solely to thwart the initiative.
City officials are refusing to even start the signature verification process, arguing that the campaign may have missed an August 21 submission deadline. Although the deadline had been extended until September by a federal judge, an appeals court subsequently blocked enforcement of the extension, creating a state of legal limbo for the initiative.
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Organizers Condemn 'Anti-Democratic' RICO Charges Against Cop City Protesters
The indictments "send a chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government."
Sep 05, 2023
Organizers with the Stop Cop City movement in Atlanta said Tuesday that new organized crime and racketeering charges against more than 60 campaigners were aimed at quashing all dissent against the construction of a $90 million police training facility in the city, as well as similar law enforcement projects.
Georgia's Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, announced that a grand jury indicted 61 protesters under the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, with some accused only of distributing fliers.
"These charges, like the previous repressive prosecutions by the State of Georgia, seek to intimidate protesters, legal observers, and bail funds alike, and send the chilling message that any dissent to Cop City will be punished with the full power and violence of the government," organizers with the Cop City Vote Coalition (CCVC) told The Appeal. "The Cop City Vote Coalition strongly condemns these anti-democratic charges."
The indictments are the latest escalation by the state against movement to "Stop Cop City," as opponents have called the proposed 85-acre Public Safety Training Center planned in the Weelaunee Forest in DeKalb County.
Forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as Tortuguita, was shot and killed by police earlier this year while trying to stop the clearing of the area, and prosecutors in DeKalb County and Fulton County filed domestic terrorism charges against 42 people who have protested the training center. Many of those charged were also listed in Tuesday's indictments.
As Common Dreams reported in May, the Georgia and Atlanta police also arrested three organizers of a bail fund supporting protesters, accusing them of money laundering and charity fraud. The organizers are also among those facing RICO charges.
The New Republic noted that the date listed on the indictments is May 25, 2020—the day George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, marking the beginning of a nationwide uprising against police violence. The date suggests "that the attorney general's office plans to link the Stop Cop City movement with the larger protests that followed Floyd's death," wrote Edith Olmsted at the outlet.
The RICO charges, said racial justice group Color of Change, represent "a blatant attempt to silence democratic protest—and a dangerous violation of the constitutional right to protest."
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'Behavior of a Fascist Police State': Legal Aid Organizers Arrested After Backing Cop City Protesters
"Bailing out protestors who exercise their constitutionally protected rights is simply not a crime," said one civil rights defender.
Jun 01, 2023
Rights advocates warned Wednesday that the arrests of three board members of an Atlanta-based bail fund could mark the beginning of a new era in the United States' treatment of peaceful protesters—one in which both demonstrators and those who support them are targeted by law enforcement.
Under the direction of the Republican state attorney general, Christopher Carr, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Atlanta Police Department carried out the arrests of Marlon Scott Kautz, Savannah Patterson, and Adele Maclean of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund (ASF).
The group offers financial support to people who have been arrested for protesting, including the dozens of people who have been detained for resisting the development of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, also known by critics as Cop City—a $90 million police training facility that would take up 85 acres of publicly-owned forest.
The three board members were charged with money laundering and charity fraud, leading state Rep. Saira Draper (D-90) to question the state's use of SWAT teams and helicopters to conduct the raid in a residential neighborhood.
"Peaceful protest is as American as apple pie," said Draper. "Using heavy handed tactics to suppress peaceful protest is shameful."
Writer and historian William Horne denounced the arrests as "the behavior of a fascist police state."
Lauren Regan, executive director of the Civil Liberties Defense Center, told The Intercept on Wednesday that the ASF is "the first bail fund to be attacked in this way." The funds have been used for at least a century to pool together communities' financial resources to help bail people, including civil rights protesters, out of jail.
"There is absolutely not a scintilla of fact or evidence that anything illegal has ever transpired with regard to Atlanta fundraising for bail support," Regan said.
She added in a press statement that "bailing out protestors who exercise their constitutionally protected rights is simply not a crime."
"In fact, it is a historically grounded tradition in the very same social and political movements that the city of Atlanta prides itself on," she said. "Someone had to bail out civil rights activists in the 60's—I think we can all agree that community support isn't a crime."
Plans for Cop City garnered national attention earlier this year after Georgia state troopers killed a forest defender named Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, also known as Tortuguita, shooting him nearly 60 times.
Since Tortuguita's killing, nearly 30 people have been charged with domestic terrorism for allegedly damaging property and trespassing while protesting Cop City.
More than 40 people in all are facing domestic terrorism charges, and three people charged with felonies have been placed in solitary confinement.
Civil rights attorney Alec Karakatsanis called the use of a "heavily militarized" police force to arrest three campaigners for alleged financial crimes "a bone-chilling development" that could have implications for the future of protesting in the United States.
Karakatsanis added that "everyone should be scared by" a statement made by Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, who said arrests were "a reminder that we will track down every member of a criminal organization, from violent foot soldiers to uncaring leaders."
"When three community organizers who help to run a bail fund are arrested with an entire SWAT team on clearly bogus financial charges, it signals that not only is it illegal to protest, it's also illegal to try and support people who have been criminalized for protesting," Hannah Riley, a writer and organizer, told HuffPost. "If bail funds aren't safe, what's next?"
State Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97) noted that the targeting of the ASF comes as people in the U.S. are increasingly relying on mutual aid to access reproductive care.
"Are we going to see attacks on abortion funds," she said to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "on bail funds, other types of funds that provide resources for those attempting to navigate our increasingly expensive and complicated legal system?"
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'Obliterates the Police Narrative': Autopsy Shows Forest Defender Killed by Cops Never Fired Weapon
"Evidence Terán was executed is overwhelming," said a human rights lawyer after DeKalb County's autopsy report found no gunpowder residue on the hands of the activist whom police shot 57 times in purported self-defense.
Apr 20, 2023
Progressives expressed disgust Wednesday after DeKalb County released an autopsy showing that cops shot Atlanta forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán 57 times and that there was no gunpowder residue on the victim's hands—debunking the government's claim Terán fired first.
The autopsy, which officials suppressed for three months, finally saw the light of day thanks to a public records request. Its results have prompted accusations of an attempted cover-up by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI).
"The GBI—the entity 'investigating'—clearly tried to craft a cover-up of an apparent police murder and failed."
Terán, commonly known as "Tortuguita," was killed during a January 18 raid on an encampment in the Weelaunee Forest. They were part of a collective that occupied the suburban Atlanta forest in a bid to prevent the construction of a $90 million, 85-acre police and fire training facility popularly known as Cop City.
The GBI has alleged that Terán shot and injured a state trooper before multiple officers from a joint task force returned lethal fire. But the autopsy found no gunpowder residue on Terán's hands, in addition to revealing that cops riddled the 26-year-old activist's hands, torso, legs, and head with nearly five dozen bullets.
"Terán did not fire a gun which obliterates the police narrative," human rights lawyer Steven Donziger tweeted. "Evidence Terán was executed is overwhelming."
"Georgia police buried the official autopsy of Terán for months until it was forced into the open today by a public records request," Donziger added. "The GBI—the entity 'investigating'—clearly tried to craft a cover-up of an apparent police murder and failed."
"Now that the cover-up is unraveling, will the public demand accountability?" the Atlanta Solidarity Fund asked on social media. "Will [Georgia State Police] get away with murder?"
In a statement, Tortuguita's mother, Belkis Terán, said, "We are devastated to learn that our child, our sweet Manny, was mercilessly gunned down by police and suffered 57 bullet wounds all over their body."
While the official autopsy report provides additional information, Tortuguita's loved ones continue to demand answers from the GBI, whose probe of the incident is ongoing.
"We cannot even begin to determine what happened on the morning of January 18 until the GBI releases its investigation," said family attorney Brian Spears.
His partner, attorney Jeff Filipovits, concurred: "There is no conceivable reason to continue to delay the release of its investigation. Only then can our clients and the community fully assess what happened in the moments leading up to Manuel's death."
Family members continue to question the GBI's ability to fairly probe the events of January 18 given that the bureau was involved in planning and executing the forest clearance operation that led to Tortuguita's death.
"Manuel was camping on publicly owned land that was not even on the future site of Cop City. Law enforcement went in with weapons and shot pepper balls," said Tortuguita's father, Joel Paez. "They created a violent situation and were ready to kill anyone who resisted. Now they will not even meet with us to explain what happened."
Tortuguita's family continues to urge the GBI to publish the results of its inquiry now, including forensic test findings, all audio and video recordings of the shooting, and interviews with officers involved.
"We are devastated to learn that our child, our sweet Manny, was mercilessly gunned down by police and suffered 57 bullet wounds all over their body."
Following the release of Tortuguita's autopsy, Bernice King, daughter of slain civil rights organizer Martin Luther King, Jr. and a longtime Atlanta resident, posed a question about the future of Cop City: "How could this info regarding the police shooting of a protester of the Public Safety Training Center NOT raise more concerns about the center's placement and purpose?"
The Atlanta City Council gave the Atlanta Police Foundation, a private organization, permission to build Cop City in 2021, four years after the Atlanta City Planning Department recommended transforming the Weelaunee Forest—deemed one of four "city lungs"—into a massive urban park.
Several forest defenders were detained and charged with felonies—under a 2017 Georgia law that expanded the definition of "domestic terrorism" to include certain property crimes—during mid-December raids on their encampment.
More forest defenders were arrested on the same charges on January 18, the day police fatally shot Tortuguita—the first or possibly second time that police have killed an environmental activist in modern U.S. history, according to experts.
Additional people are facing prosecution as a result of Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's crackdown on demonstrations held since Tortuguita's killing.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond announced what they called a "compromise" for Cop City in the wake of Tortuguita's killing, but opposition to the project remains strong among local residents.
"Cop City is something that no one in the community asked for, and survey after survey shows that the majority of Atlanta residents are opposed," Kamau Franklin from Community Movement Builders, one of the organizations fighting against Cop City, said in February. "The mayor continues to run roughshod over the desires of the community."
Days after cops killed Tortuguita, a coalition of more than 1,300 progressive advocacy groups published a letter demanding an independent investigation as well as the resignation of Dickens, a Democrat who they said parroted "the rhetoric of extreme right-wing Gov. Brian Kemp" when he condemned protesters rather than police officers following the shooting.
The groups pointed out that Dickens and the Atlanta City Council have the authority to terminate the land lease for Cop City and implored local policymakers to do so immediately.
The effort to halt the construction of Cop City suffered a major setback last week, however, when "the DeKalb County Zoning Board of Appeals unanimously rejected an appeal of the project's land development permit," Axios reported.
Ikiya Collective, a signatory of the coalition's letter, warned earlier this year that the training set to take place at Cop City "will impact organizing across the country" as police are taught how to repress popular uprisings.
"This is a national issue," said the collective. "Climate justice and police brutality are interconnected, which is why we are joining the Stop Cop City calls to action with the frontline communities in Atlanta."
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Resistance to Atlanta's Cop City Is Rising
A week of action in Atlanta this March showcases widespread opposition to a planned police training center, which would be the largest in the nation. An organizer explains what's at stake.
Mar 11, 2023
Atlanta is a city built inside a forest, one that Indigenous Muscogee people call the Weelaunee Forest. In recent years, the Atlanta Police Foundation, a private nonprofit organization, has led an effort to build what would be the nation’s largest police training center on hundreds of acres of that forest land. The move sparked the creation of a broad coalition to protest the project, some opposed to forest destruction and others against police expansion. Together, these organizers are calling on Atlanta’s mayor, Andre Dickens, and the city council to “Stop Cop City.”
Authorities have cracked down on the protests with mass arrests and, in some cases, are charging organizers with domestic terrorism. In January 2023, police raided an area where protesters were camping in the Weelaunee Forest, killing an environmental justice protester named Tortuguita.
"We have to get back out in the streets. We have to continue organizing. And that is the way that we fight back against police violence and police terror"
Organizers designated March 4–11, 2023, a week of action in Atlanta aimed at shutting down Cop City. Kamau Franklin, the founder and director of the Atlanta-based grassroots organization Community Movement Builders, has been involved in the protests, pressuring city officials and organizing events. The organization’s website says, “CMB has been the leading Black organization on the ground fighting to StopCopCity since its construction was announced.” On March 7, Franklin spoke with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar about the organizing efforts and the police crackdown, and why the effort to Stop Cop City is a story of national significance.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Sonali Kolhatkar: Tell me about this facility. The official name isn’t “Cop City”—that’s what it’s been sort of dubbed. It has a rather benign title of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center—that’s what the Atlanta Police Foundation calls it, which I imagine you consider a euphemism?
Kamau Franklin: [Laughing] Sorry, you caught me off guard there!
Yeah. Yes, we do consider [it] a euphemism for a militarized training center, which is meant to continue to over-police, particularly Black communities here in Atlanta, and, what we believe, is meant to train the police on how to stop and to criminalize social justice movements—particularly movements against police violence.
So, the very adoption of this idea of a militarized training center came after the 2020 uprisings, and that’s when Atlanta decided that it needed this sprawling militarized training center to be built in a forest in order to, again in our estimation, stop movements and continue to over-police Black and Brown communities.
Kolhatkar: So, this training center, if it is built, will it be something that just Atlanta-area police are trained in? Or, is it something that police from outside Atlanta, and even outside Georgia, are going to be invited into? Why would it be the nation’s largest police training center? Why does Atlanta need that?
Franklin: Exactly. Atlanta doesn’t need it. In fact, the Atlanta police are no bigger than the 20th-largest police department in the whole country. And so, why it needs the largest police training center is beyond me—except for the fact that this is part of a larger national strategy, we believe, around training police officers in common tactics and strategies, in essence, the building of some sort of nationalized police force.
Through documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, we’ve received information that the Atlanta Police Foundation, in its attempt to receive additional funding for this site, has [specified] that up to 43% of the police officers to be trained will be from outside of Georgia. So, this site is not just for Atlanta police, but this site is going to be a place of training for police officers across the country.
In addition, Georgia already has a program where it works directly with the Israeli police force. And so, what we tell people is that the training and tactics and strategies that the Israeli Police use against Palestinians are going to be exported here to the United States against Black communities, and that the training, tactics, and strategies used against Black communities are going to be exported to Palestine to be used against Palestinians.
And so, we know that this is not just a local effort, but the scope and size of this, the additional officers that are being trained from around the country, this is truly a national effort to train police—again, what we think coming out of 2020—to train police to stop movements, particularly to stop movements against police violence.
Kolhatkar: Let’s talk about what’s happened with the resistance. In January, there was a lot of activism against “Cop City,” and, in fact, tragically, police killed a person who went by the name Tortuguita. Tell me about who they were, why they were killed, and who killed them.
Franklin: Yeah, Tortuguita was one of the “Forest Defenders” who was camping in Weelaunee Forest to try to prevent, as an act of civil disobedience, the police foundation from going forward and cutting down nearly a hundred acres of forest.
We should state that, again through another Freedom of Information Act, we became aware, months before the killing of Tortuguita, that there was a task force that was formed—a task force of policing agencies including the Atlanta police, the DeKalb County police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and even Homeland Security—that this task force got together to talk through bringing state terrorism charges against protesters who are opposed to Cop City. That these charges were something, that this state law had never been used before, but yet they were putting out the idea of doing this against organizers and activists.
In December, these different policing agencies made their first raid in the forest and arrested approximately six organizers, or six Forest Defenders, and charged them with the charge of domestic terrorism. As you mentioned, on Jan. 18, they made a second raid in the forest, and during that raid, they arrested another seven activists and charged them with domestic terrorism. And it was during that raid that they killed the young Forest Defender Tortuguita, claiming that that person took one shot at them and that they responded back in kind.
From other information we’ve received from people in the community, it has become obvious to us that that police narrative cannot be trusted and it’s basically a lie. The police narrative fell apart instantly when people in the community said that they heard a sudden burst of gunfire. And later, that was backed up by videotape evidence that was released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, that in the background you could hear a sudden burst of fire, and the police themselves remarked, who weren’t on the scene, that that was “suppressed fire,” which [is] code for cop fire.
We find it incredibly difficult to believe that of all the different agencies that I named earlier—Atlanta police, DeKalb County police, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia troopers, interagency SWAT teams, and, by some news accounts, even the FBI—that no agency had body cameras on during the time of their confrontation with Tortuguita.
They had other body camera images that could be seen in different places, but somehow, over a dozen police officers surrounding a tent did not have one body camera on to film the incident.
They expect us to believe that someone sitting in a cloth tent—that they described as “barricaded”—that someone sitting in a cloth tent decided to shoot once at the police, and then the police returned fire.
Tortuguita was shot over 13 times. So many times was the young person shot that the autopsy, which was done by the family, couldn’t determine the exact amount [of shots], because [you] couldn’t tell what was an entry wound and what was an exit wound.
So, we feel that this obviously needs an independent investigation. But more importantly, this is the first time that a Forest Defender, a climate justice activist, has been killed by the police in the United States.
And this very violence is one of the reasons why we oppose Cop City, because it’s these militarized actions which lead to the death of not only protesters, but people out in the street, who are going about their daily business when they interact with the police.
Kolhatkar: So, tell me about the coalition that has formed to resist Cop City. Tortuguita considered themselves a Forest Defender. A lot of people outside Atlanta don’t know this—I didn’t realize this—that Atlanta is actually a city in a forest. It’s called the Atlanta Forest. Indigenous folks call it the Weelaunee Forest. So, there’s been a coalition of many different kinds of progressive groups coming together to oppose this Cop City from various angles, who are united with one goal, right?
Franklin: Yes, I mean, there’s folks who are climate justice activists and organizers, environmental organizations, civil rights groups, groups like ours that are grassroots organizers, folks of many different ideological persuasions, autonomous organizers, anarchist organizers. There has been a great amount of ideological and ethnic and racial diversity in terms of what this movement has been.
And so, when folks try to suggest that this is a movement of outsiders, it’s because they’ve never seen that the homegrown Atlanta organizers, or the people who’ve lived here for over 10, 15, 20 years, are the people who are centered in this movement to stop Cop City.
This movement has gone on for over two years. And it invites folks to come in from outside, right? We don’t buy into the “outside agitator” narrative that the police and the political class like to throw on us. We invite organizers and activists to come from around the country, in fact, from around the world, to take part in these demonstrations. We see that as part of the history, or historical roots of organizing and activism.
Let’s just remember that people like Dr. King were called “outside agitators,” people in the civil rights movement were called “outside agitators.” Anytime people fight for justice, the politicians of the status quo usually like to call people “outside agitators” when they’re fighting for justice. And so, this has been a diverse movement, a movement of many, many, many different stripes, and it’s one that’s continuing to this day.
Kolhatkar: So, this week is a week of action, but it began with more arrests on Sunday, and also what seemed like a really aggressive action, if you will, by activists? Tell me what happened on Sunday—there was one vehicle that was set on fire, and, of course, usually when there’s any kind of property destruction, the police like to cast this as equivalent to when human bodies and human beings are harmed. And so, the groups, the activists participating in that, and, by extension, everybody else has been cast as “violent” and “aggressive.” So, what actually happened this past weekend?
Franklin: Sure. Well, you know, the actual week of organizing started on the Saturday, and on that Saturday, there was a large demonstration. People took walks through the forest, actually went to the place where Tortuguita was killed. And then on Sunday, there was a music concert that had been planned where many different artists came out to perform.
There were some who decided to engage in a direct action that didn’t start at the music festival. That direct action went straight to the campsite that’s been blocked off by the police. And in that action, which was meant to destroy the property that’s going to be used to build Cop City, there were police agents already there. There was a back and forth between the police and the organizers and activists. The police called for more backup. At the scene, to our knowledge, there weren’t many, if any, arrests.
But what the police did was that they decided to go break up the music festival and begin to make additional arrests there. And so there were 35 arrests in total. Twenty-three of those were charged with domestic terrorism. That’s in addition to the other 19 who were previously charged with domestic terrorism.
We must make sure that we’re clear: The overwhelming majority of people who’ve been arrested with the charge of domestic terrorism have been people who’ve been either sitting in trees and tree huts or people who’ve been sitting in tents.
And even [for] those people who are actively engaged [in] acts of civil disobedience, so direct action, it’s one thing to charge people with assault, or vandalism, or trespassing, or even arson. It’s another thing to label folks and to then charge them with domestic terrorist accusations. That is meant to criminalize the movement, that is meant to harm the movement in general, and basically to squash dissent.
So that is part of what we are really, really rallying around—that we understand at the state agencies, this is not about them charging people with certain crimes. This is about them overcharging and trying to present the movement as violent so that people will look the other way and allow them to build this militarized center.
Kolhatkar: So, in other words, they’re using the resistance to Cop City as justification for Cop City. What about Atlanta’s mayor Andre Dickens and Georgia’s Gov. Brian Kemp? How have leaders in Georgia and Atlanta responded to what seems to be widespread resistance to this training center?
Franklin: I think basically what’s happened is that these leaders, these so-called leaders, have doubled down on their aggressive tactics. And so, what we have here in Atlanta is that you have a moderate-to-liberal Black Democratic mayor who has teamed up with a right-wing white supremacist Republican governor to stomp out activism and organizing around Cop City. Because the one thing that both of these leaders agree with—and they’ve even gotten support, of course, from the moderate Democratic presidential administration through the FBI and the Justice Department, and Homeland Security—so all of these different political elites support the police. All of these different political elites support or get support from the corporations that support the police. And so, they have been continually aligned in their opposition to the movement to Stop Cop City.
In addition to that, here in Atlanta, in the northern part of Atlanta, we have a place called Buckhead, which has threatened to secede from Atlanta and to form its own city on a false narrative of there being a crime wave. If Buckhead was its own city, it would be the 12th-safest city in the country. But what this city is doing—and this is a majority-white part of the city—is putting pressure on Republicans to support its secession bid.
Basically, the governor of Georgia told the mayor of Atlanta—and again, these are through emails—that he likes the job that he’s doing on policing, i.e., he likes the job that he’s doing by responding to Buckhead, and he likes the job he’s doing by pushing forward Cop City.
And so recently, in the State Assembly, the Republicans basically put down the vote to have Buckhead secede. So basically, the governor is promising the mayor that as long as you continue to do the job that I think is good in terms of over-policing, you have my support in keeping Buckhead, which is basically the economic engine of Atlanta, connected to Atlanta.
And so, these folks again are working hand in hand to build this militarized operation because it fits their political interests and their political needs, and they don’t care that the city itself, the majority of the city—remember, when this vote was taken to bring forth police, 70% of the people who called in said they were opposed to Cop City—but yet the city council and the mayor went ahead anyway and voted this in and have tried to move this forward.
Kolhatkar: One of the signs that I’m seeing in images coming out of the resistance to Cop City is a slogan, “No Hollywood dystopia.” What does that mean?
Franklin: Well, in addition to the building of Cop City, there was another attempt to build a movie studio in Weelaunee Forest. At the time, it was called Blackhall Studios. And so, in addition to the 300 acres which were rented to the Atlanta Police Foundation, a private foundation, to do the training for a public entity, another, over 200 to 300 acres, was designated to be used to build Blackhall Studios.
And so, the “Hollywood dystopia” conversation is that at the same time they’re ripping apart a forest to build this militarized training center, they’re also ripping apart a part of the forest to build a Hollywood studio. And so, apparently, the forest is no good to anybody, in terms of these elite circles, unless it’s torn down.
Kolhatkar: Maybe there’s an interesting symbolism there, because Hollywood has been, for decades, the perpetrator of “copaganda,” and you just pointed out the liberal mayor, Dickens, who is, like President Biden, very much pro-police. So, liberal forces and Hollywood have lined up behind police in spite of whatever lip service they paid to Black Lives Matter in summer 2020. So finally, let’s wrap up this conversation with looking at why you think this ought to be a national story and how people outside of Atlanta can express solidarity, especially those who got activated in the summer of 2020 in the largest mass movement in American history.
Franklin: Yeah, well, we think this is a national and international story because of some of the points made earlier. The idea of Cop City is basically the idea of training police all around the country with connections to police departments all around the world in tactical and strategic ways, we think, to shut down movements.
This idea was birthed after the 2020 uprisings when the Atlanta policing establishment, and the political establishment, and the corporate establishment felt that Atlanta did not control protest here. And this is the outcome: to militarize the police further and give them a place to train for that militarized outlook that they can bring back on the community.
And again, this will continue the over-policing of Black and Brown communities. And so, nothing was solved in 2020. This issue is still alive. Instead of talking about defunding, or talking about abolition of the police, or alternatives to public safety, the city of Atlanta has doubled down on its policing tactics and has invited other policing agencies to come here and train with them.
So, this is very much a national issue. We want people to get involved wherever they are. They can get involved—you know, we’re doing this week of action—by coming here to Atlanta. They can get involved where they’re located, on the website of CommunityMovementBuilders.org. We have a “Stop Cop City” page, which lists some of the actions that people can take: everything from calling and chastising these corporations, to calling and chastising these developers who are actually working on the building of Cop City, calling the mayor, calling the city council.
We have petitions. We’re going to start a fight soon to stop the DNC from coming to Atlanta, to stop FIFA, the World Cup, from coming to Atlanta. We must make Atlanta pay a political price for their actions, and we can only do that through a national effort.
And so, we welcome those who were part of the 2020 struggle who have to understand that that struggle was not completed. In fact, it was diverted into mass elections, into political elections. And we have to get back out in the streets. We have to continue organizing. And that is the way that we fight back against police violence and police terror.
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Family of Forest Defender Killed by Police Demands Answers
"I do not understand why they will not even privately explain to us what happened to our child," said the mother of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán.
Feb 06, 2023
Family members of climate activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán are demanding answers regarding the January 18 police killing of their 26-year-old relative, commonly known as "Tortuguita."
At a press conference held Monday morning outside the DeKalb County courthouse in suburban Atlanta, family members and lawyers discussed the results of a private autopsy and demanded access to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's (GBI) full record of events amid its ongoing probe.
According to the private autopsy, multiple officers from a joint task force shot Tortuguita at least 13 times during a raid on an encampment in the Weelaunee Forest. Tortuguita was part of a collective that occupied the forest in an attempt to prevent the construction of a $90 million, 85-acre police and fire training facility popularly known as Cop City.
The GBI alleges that Tortuguita fired a weapon before officers killed him. The GBI claims that it has traced the bullet that wounded a state trooper to a handgun found at the scene and has reportedly provided documents showing Terán purchased the firearm in 2020. However, law enforcement officials continue to evade basic questions about the fatal shooting.
"Manny was a kind person who helped anyone who needed it," Tortuguita's mother, Belkis Terán, said in a statement shared ahead of the press conference. "He was a pacifist. They say he shot a police officer. I do not believe it."
"I do not understand why they will not even privately explain to us what happened to our child," she added.
Civil rights attorney Jeff Filipovits lamented that "the GBI has selectively released information about Manny's death."
"They claim Manny failed to follow orders," said Filipovits. "What orders? The GBI has not talked about the fact that Manny faced a firing squad, when those shots were fired, or who fired them."
"Any evidence, even if it is only an audio recording, will help the family piece together what happened on the morning of January 18. This information is critical, and it is being withheld."
The GBI has stated publicly that body camera footage of the shooting does not exist. However, the bureau has not yet stated whether there is any audio or video from other sources, such as drones or helicopters that were being used at the time.
Tortuguita's family has requested that the GBI release whatever audio or video recordings of the shooting exist or any other information that could help illuminate what occurred.
"Any evidence, even if it is only an audio recording, will help the family piece together what happened on the morning of January 18," said Brian Spears, a civil rights attorney with nearly five decades of experience litigating police shootings. "This information is critical, and it is being withheld."
While the family searches for answers, Tortuguita's killing "escalates concerns related to the construction of a police training center and the government's willingness to deem activists as terrorists," Fossil Free Media noted. "The power used against these activists will soon be used against other protesters."
Several Weelaunee Forest defenders were arrested and charged—under a 2017 Georgia law that expanded the definition of "domestic terrorism" to include certain property crimes—during mid-December raids on their encampment.
More forest defenders were detained on the same charges on January 18, the day police fatally shot Tortuguita—the first or possibly second time that police have killed an environmental activist in modern U.S. history, according to experts. Additional activists are also facing prosecution as a result of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp's crackdown on demonstrations held since Tortuguita's killing.
According to Grist:
Over the course of December and January, 19 opponents of the police training center have been charged with felonies under Georgia's rarely used 2017 domestic terrorism law. But Grist's review of 20 arrest warrants shows that none of those arrested and slapped with terrorism charges are accused of seriously injuring anyone. Nine are alleged to have committed no specific illegal actions beyond misdemeanor trespassing. Instead, their mere association with a group committed to defending the forest appears to be the foundation for declaring them terrorists. Officials have underlined that an investigation is ongoing, and charges could yet be added or removed.
Atlanta Police Department Assistant Chief Carven Tyus was recently quoted as saying, "Protests by non-locals are inherently terrorism," according to Fossil Free Media. Moreover, Tyus has admitted in private meetings with his advisory council: "Can we prove they did it? No. Do we know they did it? Yes."
Fossil Free Media noted that "the city of Atlanta has also admitted to using Georgia's hands-free driving law as a pretext to arrest at least one person for filming officers at Cop City."
Gerry Weber of the Southern Center for Human Rights said that "police who behave legally have no reason to fear being filmed and should welcome it."
"Law enforcement has a vested interest in this training center that demands scrupulous transparency and impartiality," said Weber. "Unfortunately, we are getting the exact opposite."
"Cop City is something that no one in the community asked for, and survey after survey shows that the majority of Atlanta residents are opposed. The mayor continues to run roughshod over the desires of the community."
While Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond announced what they called a "compromise" for Cop City last week, opposition to the project remains strong among locals.
"Cop City is something that no one in the community asked for, and survey after survey shows that the majority of Atlanta residents are opposed," Kamau Franklin from Community Movement Builders, one of the organizations fighting against Cop City. "The mayor continues to run roughshod over the desires of the community."
The Atlanta City Council gave the Atlanta Police Foundation, a private organization, permission to build Cop City in 2021, four years after the Atlanta City Planning Department recommended that the Weelaunee Forest—deemed one of four "city lungs"—be turned into a massive urban park.
A coalition of more than 1,300 progressive advocacy groups published a letter last week calling for an independent investigation into the killing of Tortuguita. The groups also demanded the resignation of Dickens, a Democrat who they said parroted "the rhetoric of extreme right-wing Gov. Brian Kemp" when he condemned protesters rather than police officers after the shooting.
The coalition pointed out that Dickens and the Atlanta City Council have the authority to terminate the land lease for Cop City and implored local policymakers to do so immediately.
Ikiya Collective, a signatory of the letter, noted that the training set to take place at Cop City "will impact organizing across the country" as police are taught how to repress popular uprisings.
"This is a national issue," said the collective. "Climate justice and police brutality are interconnected, which is why we are joining the Stop Cop City calls to action with the frontline communities in Atlanta."
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Deadly Violence Against Protesters Is the New Normal
When it comes to deadly force, the doctrine of qualified immunity, recently reaffirmed by the courts, means an officer can effectively shoot to kill without consequences.
Feb 03, 2023
On the morning of January 18, agents from nine agencies, including the FBI and its local counterpart, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, descended on a section of Atlanta’s South River Forest occupied by activists. For the past two years, hundreds had lived in the section of the Weelaunee forest, in tents and treehouses, in order to block its planned conversion into a police training facility—a “cop city” complete with a mock village, firing ranges, and a Black Hawk landing pad. That morning, the agents were under orders to “eliminate the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center of criminal activity.”
It is still unclear why the task force opened fire. But after twelve shots rang out, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as Tortuguita (or “Little Turtle”), a young, trans forest defender of Afro-Venezuelan and Indigenous ancestry, had been hit and killed.
Terán’s death marks the fifth protest fatality at the hands of US law enforcement since the start of the George Floyd rebellion in May 2020: David “Ya Ya” McAtee, was killed by a National Guardsman’s bullet in Louisville, Kentucky, on June 1, 2020; Sean Monterrosa, was gunned down by undercover police in Vallejo, California, the very next day. Michael Reinoehl and Winston “Boogie” Smith, Jr., both antifascists, were hunted down and “neutralized” by US Marshals within months of each other. And it’s not just protesters: In the past month, the police have killed Tortuguita, Tyre Nichols and Keenan Anderson.
This latest wave of police killings comes on the heels of the most lethal year on record for police-civilian encounters. Yet the response of the political class has been to capitulate to rightwing scare tactics and inflated claims of a crime wave, effectively writing yet another blank check for police violence.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between centrist and conservative talking points; the Atlanta Journal-Constitution can read like the lurid headlines of the New York Post with their condemnation of “police abolitionists, environmental extremists, and anarchists.” Talking heads at Fox News, in between segments like “Antifa Is Ravaging America,” have been using leading Democrats to make their point that the tree-sit protests amount to acts of terror. All of this has made strange bedfellows of centrist Democrats and MAGA Republicans who, in a rare show of unity, have been loudly calling for a clampdown on “out of control crime” and beating the drum for “law and order.”
Right-wing talking points notwithstanding, the current landscape for protest policing is one that’s been shaped by the legacy of American apartheid, Southern lynch law, and centuries of slavery. As such, it is structurally skewed in favor of the police – and, according to multiple studies, systematically biased against Black Lives Matter and the political left. The bias is so extreme that officers are fully three times more likely to use force on “leftwing” protesters than rightwing ones.
And when it comes to deadly force, the doctrine of qualified immunity, recently reaffirmed by the courts, means an officer can effectively shoot to kill without consequences. In a context of renewed protest and possible civil unrest, current US law enforcement strategy, as we saw in Terán’s fatal shooting, makes escalation almost inevitable, de-escalation unthinkable, and lethal outcomes ever more likely for those at the receiving end of state violence.
But several mechanisms work together to create these conditions. The first is a military-style chain of command which sees itself at war with enemies domestic and foreign. This hierarchy leaves little room for ambiguity as to who was responsible for the killing of Terán: the commanding officers who gave the orders, the agencies that employed them, and the elected officials who deployed them against the forest defenders. Governor Brian Kemp has been leading the charge, vowing to "bring the full force of state and local law enforcement down on those trying to bring about a radical agenda" and calling for "swift and exact justice" aimed at "ending their activities."
Georgia’s governor has since gone one step further, declaring a state of emergency and calling up to 1,000 members of the National Guard, who, according to the declaration, “shall have the same powers of arrest and apprehension as do law enforcement officers.” A similar state of exception was in effect when David McAtee and Sean Monterrosa were executed by a National Guardsman and an undercover policeman, respectively, in June 2020.
Another link in the chain is the pipeline between the military and the police, whereby the tools, tactics, technologies, and advanced weaponry from America’s counterinsurgency wars overseas are imported, requisitioned, and reinvented for use on civilian populations here at home. The Pentagon’s 1033 program, which has experienced something of a revival under the Trump and Biden administrations, is partly responsible for this military supply chain, equipping local law enforcement with a seemingly limitless supply of “less-lethal” munitions, high-powered rifles, Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, and full-spectrum battle equipment. Cop City itself represents a prime example of this failed approach to public safety.
Other military tools and tactics are brought to the police by way of programs like the private-sector Law Enforcement Charitable Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Areas Security Initiative, or the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, headquartered in Glynco, Georgia. And yet studies now show that while militarization increases the risk of loss of life, it has little to no observable effect on measures of crime or safety.
And it’s not just a matter of surplus supply. It is also a question of political demand: Who has an interest in building “Cop City,” in the process displacing DeKalb County’s Black communities, and empowering the police to use deadly force to evict the forest defenders and end the protests? It’s not the people of Atlanta: During a public comment period after the mayor announced the plan to build the training facility, nearly 70 percent of the 1,166 responders expressed opposition to it.
All signs point to the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF): a private-public partnership that’s been a driving force behind “Cop City” and a major player in local politics. Its executive board is a veritable who’s who of corporate power and inherited wealth. Last year, the foundation expended large sums of its donors’ money lobbying for police expansion.
Another leading partner in the land grab is Shadowbox Studios, an entertainment firm whose real-estate tycoon CEO, Ryan Millsap, is “ideologically” aligned with the project due to a “deep respect for private property.” Millsap plans to turn another 40 acres of the forest into what demonstrators have called a “Hollywood dystopia.” Millsap has likened the protests to “organized crime,” while APF (formerly Coca-Cola) spokesman Rob Baskin has called them a "fringe group" that has "routinely resorted to violence and intimidation" against "police officers [and] executives from construction companies." Between Shadowbox Studios and the Fortune 500 firms that make up the board of the APF, the donor class has been unabashed in its incessant demand for a heavier hand.
Meanwhile, homeland security in Georgia appears to be engaged in a similar strategy, conflating tree-sits with terrorist acts, local activists with “outside agitators,” and environmentalism with “homegrown extremism.” It doesn’t appear to matter whether the persons of interest are armed or unarmed, sitting in a treehouse or sowing chaos in the streets: As the domestic terrorism charges against the Atlanta 19 reveal, the treatment is effectively one and the same. Atlanta’s assistant police chief, Carven Tyus, has admitted in private meetings with his advisory council “Can we prove they did it? No. Do we know they did it? Yes.”
We do not know exactly how or under what pretext the task force opened fire. One of the tactical officers involved was injured during the raid, but in the absence of body cam footage—or of any independent inquiry whatsoever—we may never learn the full story of what went down that day. But we are obliged to name the shooting of Terán for what it was: an extrajudicial execution, carried out by hired men armed with military assault weapons, paramilitary training, and qualified immunity from prosecution—in other words, a death squad in all but the name.
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Activists Slam 'Compromise' Proposal for Georgia's Cop City
"Power concedes nothing without a demand," said the Atlanta Community Press Collective. "Ours is, 'Cop city must never be built—not here, not anywhere."
Feb 01, 2023
As Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond announced Tuesday that construction of the $90 million, 85-acre police and fire training center known as "Cop City" will proceed under what Dickens called a "compromise," critics of the project had a resounding message: "Defend the Atlanta Forest. Stop Cop City."
Speaking during a press conference at Atlanta City Hall, Dickens, a Democrat, outlined changes to the project. Acknowledging "concerns about the environmental impact" of the project, the mayor said a 100-foot tree buffer would be added, and that 100 new hardwood trees would be planted for each one destroyed during construction. Dickens also said the complex's firing range would be moved further away from a nearby residential area.
Dickens also defended the type of police training that would take place at the facility, saying it "includes vital areas like de-escalation training techniques, mental health, community-oriented policing, crisis intervention training, as well as civil rights history and education."
However, activists—many of whom protested inside and outside City Hall chanting slogans including "APD, shut it down," referencing the Atlanta Police Department, and "Cop City will never be built"—were not swayed in their opposition to the project.
"Our firm line is no Cop City anywhere," Jasmine Burnett, organizing director at Community Movement Builders, told Unicorn Riot outside City Hall. "No destruction of the forest at all. I know, they're trying to harp on the fact that it's only 85 acres. And allegedly, the rest will be left for public use. But that's 85 acres too much."
"We are also calling for the charges to be dropped against all of the protesters who've been charged with any crimes, but especially the domestic terrorism charges," Burnett added, referring to the 19 nonviolent protesters facing prosecution under a 2017 Georgia law that expanded the definition of "domestic terrorism" to include certain property crimes.
Over the objections of environmental, racial justice, Indigenous, and other groups, the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF)—a private organization whose backers include major corporations like Amazon, Home Depot, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and UPS—was given permission in 2021 to build what's officially called the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in the Weelaunee Forest in DeKalb County just outside Atlanta city limits. Cop City would be built on land stolen from the Muscogee people, many of whom were forced westward during the genocidal Trail of Tears period.
Last month, militarized police shot and killed Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a 26-year-old protester also known as "Tortuguita" who allegedly opened fire on them, during a raid to violently clear forest defenders from the site. While a few federal lawmakers have called for an independent probe, Georgia Democrats including U.S. Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff and former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams have said little to nothing about the killing, or about Cop City in general.
Also protesting outside City Hall on Tuesday, community organizer Micah Herskind said: "How dare they stand in front of people and say, 'Oh, this plan, where we're tearing down trees, is actually good for people, and it's good for the economy, and it's—you know, it's actually going to protect people?' It's obviously false, and I hope that it's reported as such, because it's such classic, blatant spin, that they're taking us for fools if they think anyone would believe that tearing down trees and putting cement over it is protecting the environment. That's outrageous."
In a statement, the Atlanta Community Press Collective said that "like all other points of 'compromise,' this has proved empty rhetoric to cover over the undemocratic railroading of this project on to unrepresented, disenfranchised residents of Atlanta and DeKalb County. This is more backroom talk between powerful elites and their dark money contributors."
"Now, the city, DeKalb County, the APF, the funders and builders of Cop City collectively have blood on their hands, and it seems they are willing to get bloodier: These are the people in power goose-stepping us to climate apocalypse," the collective continued. "Police continue to kill at higher and higher rates. In 2022, more people in the U.S. were killed than in any other year on record. The police and their corporate and political backers have used lies, misinformation, and distorted half-truths at every step of this process. Why should we believe a word they say?"
"Power concedes nothing without a demand," the authors asserted. "Ours is: 'Cop city must never be built—not here, not anywhere. Not one blade of grass! Not one tree! Free the prisoners, drop the charges!'"
"The fight continues. The movement to stop Cop City is only growing," they added. "On February 19-26 we are calling for a Week of Solidarity to Stop Cop City, with protests throughout the U.S .and around the world."
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