Atlanta

Despite 116,000 Signatures, Atlanta Won’t Validate Stop Cop City Petition

September 14, 2023 Mike Ludwig, Truthout. Educate! Atlanta, Cop City, Democracy, Georgia, Petitions, Police, Stop Cop City

The Vote to Stop Cop City Coalition in Atlanta submitted more than 116,000 signatures on Monday to put a referendum about the embattled police training complex on the ballot for local voters, but city officials quickly refused to validate the signatures and move the petition along due to an ongoing legal fight over the signature-gathering process. Stop Cop City activists accused Atlanta officials of once again subverting democracy after moving forward with the construction of the 85-acre, $90 million police training complex, despite months of fierce protest and loud community opposition to a facility that activists say would further militarize Atlanta cops.

Georgia’s RICO Law Makes News But Its Use To Silence Protesters Gets A Pass

September 13, 2023 Ari Paul, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Educate! Atlanta, Georgia, Media, Police, Political repression, RICO

Georgia’s RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) law, modeled on the federal statute designed to attack mob bosses, has been in the news a lot, ever since Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fani Willis used Georgia’s law to charge former President Donald Trump and his associates with attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. And with the news has come the inevitable hand-wringing about whether the RICO charges against Trump were a good idea. CNN (8/26/23) published an op-ed questioning whether the indictments were too broad, saying, “Casting a wide net can also raise serious First Amendment issues.”

Stop Cop City Activist Facing RICO Charges Speaks Out About Repression

September 13, 2023 Justin A. Davis, Waging Nonviolence. Resist! Atlanta, Cop City, Georgia, Police, RICO, State Repression, Stop Cop City

For the past two years, calls to “stop Cop City” and “defend the Atlanta forest” have shaken the political and corporate establishment of Georgia’s state capital. Although Atlanta City Council has approved a lease and funding for a massive Public Safety Training Center in the city’s Weelaunee Forest, the sustained, popular #StopCopCity movement has effectively halted its construction. In response, local and state government have used a variety of tactics to move things forward — including police raids (which led to the killing of protester Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán), domestic terrorism charges against activists and a highly-controversial “signature verification process” that could undermine a proposed referendum.

As A Working Class-Led Global Movement Rises, Elites Are Panicking

September 11, 2023 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast - Clearing The FOG Atlanta, Dilemmas of Humanity, Socialism, Working Class

Around the world, a major organizing effort is underway, led by civil society and unions with the International People's Assembly, to build a working class movement for alternative systems that address the many crises we face. A series of regional conferences called the Dilemmas of Humanity are taking place in preparation for an international conference in South Africa in mid October. Clearing the FOG speaks with Eugene Puryear of BreakThrough News about the recent meeting in Atlanta, which is part of this process. Puryear speaks about the significance of the Stop Cop City movement and the necessity of leadership coming from frontline communities in the South. He also talks about the threat of nuclear war and the growing state repression of activists and journalists who dare to challenge the wealthy class.

The Struggle To Stop Cop City By Any Means Necessary

September 10, 2023 Micah Herskind and Kamau Franklin, The Forge. Strategize! Atlanta, Cop City, Direct Action, Forest Defenders, Police

Cop cars on fire. Occupations of the Weelaunee Forest. Weeks of action. Volunteers with clipboards, collecting referendum petition signatures in the summer heat. Weekly canvassing. Town halls and open mic sessions. Direct action and civil disobedience. Record-breaking numbers of people showing up for public comment (on three separate occasions!). Regular food distributions and mutual aid. Surveillance cameras smashed. Music festivals in the forest. Comrade care clinics. Protests outside the homes of politicians and CEOs. Trivia night fundraisers at local restaurants. Shareholder divestment campaigns. Wheatpasting, movement art, and diss track competitions.

Construction Work Stopped Briefly As Cop City Protesters Enter Site

September 8, 2023 Matt Scott, Nolan Huber-Rhoades and Lev Omelchenko, Atlanta Community Press Collective. Resist! Atlanta, Cop City, Direct Action, Georgia, Police

Thursday morning a group of Cop City activists invoked a “people’s stop work order” and chained themselves to equipment at the construction site for the proposed Atlanta Safety Public Training Center, more commonly known as Cop City. “This is a war happening against protesters,” Ayeola Omolara Kaplan, one of the five activists arrested, said via written statement. “If we don’t stand up for our right to protest now, standing up in the future will be vain. Cop City is in the process of being built, and this can only continue if we allow it.” Kaplan, a self-described Atlanta based revolutionary artist, was joined by Jeff Jones...

NLG Condemns Georgia Indictments Of Stop Cop City Protesters

September 6, 2023 National Lawyers Guild. Educate! Atlanta, Cop City, Georgia, Lawfare, Legal System, Police

The National Lawyers Guild condemns in the strongest terms the state of Georgia’s indictments, announced today, Tuesday, September 5, against 61 people targeted for allegedly being part of the movement to #StopCopCity. These indictments, filed by Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, aim to quell the growing, massive public movement to bring an end to the construction of a military police training facility in the Atlanta Forest, and to use RICO, domestic terrorism and money laundering charges to portray a popular movement as an unlawful conspiracy. “The National Lawyers Guild strongly condemns the state of Georgia’s organized effort to silence, criminalize, and punish movements for justice,” says NLG President Suzanne Adely.

More Than 60 Atlanta ‘Cop City’ Activists Named In RICO Indictment

September 5, 2023 Jozsef Papp and Shaddi Abusaid, Atlanta Journal Constitution. Educate! Atlanta, Cop City, Legal System, Police, RICO

More than five dozen activists were indicted on RICO charges last week over the ongoing efforts to halt construction of the city of Atlanta’s planned public safety training center in DeKalb County. The sweeping indictment, handed up last Tuesday in Fulton County, is being prosecuted by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office. A total of 61 protestors have been charged with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act. Some face additional charges of domestic terrorism and money laundering. Most are not from Georgia.

Dilemmas Of Humanity Conference In The US Outlines Principle Task

September 4, 2023 Natalia Marques, People's Dispatch. Organize! Atlanta, Social Movements, Socialism, United States, Worker Rights and Jobs

“We know this system is in crisis,” said Manolo De Los Santos, co-executive director of the People’s Forum and lifelong communist, opening the Dilemmas of Humanity: A Socialist Horizon conference in Atlanta, Georgia. This conference was organized by the International People’s Assembly-North America as part of the IPA’s international conference series, “Dilemmas of Humanity,” which will conclude with an international conference in Johannesburg in October. The US-based conference was held in Atlanta’s Neighborhood Church on September 2, and supported by organizations such as Community Movement Builders, Faith Coalition to Stop Cop City, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Peoples Forum, Unión de Vecinos, and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.

Cop City Protesters Knock Atlanta PD For Soliciting ‘Outside Agitators’

September 4, 2023 Lydia Wei, The Indypendent. Resist! Atlanta, Cop City, Georgia, New York City (NYC), Police

In recent weeks, New Yorkers have been perplexed by Atlanta Police Department (APD) hiring advertisements plastered throughout the MTA announcing recruiting events in New York City. On Saturday afternoon, one of those events took place at the New York Hilton Midtown. A group of around 100 protestors chanting “From ATL to NYC, stop Cop City!” gathered on the sidewalk outside the hotel in opposition to the interstate recruitment. The demonstration drew a wide variety of participants.

Atlanta Prosector Fani Willis Sent Black Educators To Jail

August 26, 2023 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Atlanta, Black America, Educators, Legal System

Who was Fani Willis protecting when she used Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute to put twelve Black educators on trial in 2015? Atlanta, like other major cities, was not caught up in the corrupt influence of racketeers, but of school test score mania. The No Child Left Behind Act punished school districts with low scores, putting them at risk of state takeovers, or of schools being closed. Educators in Georgia, 38 other states and the District of Columbia , succumbed to these pressures and changed test scores to give the appearance that children had reached educational attainment levels when they hadn’t.

Atlanta: Referendum Coalition Says City Will Use Voter Suppression

August 23, 2023 Matt Scott, Atlanta Community Press Collective. Educate! Atlanta, Cop City, Georgia, Police, Voter Suppression

Atlanta, Georgia - On Monday, the Stop Cop City Coalition announced it had collected 104,000 signatures on a referendum petition that would allow Atlanta voters to decide whether to overturn the 2021 lease of 381 acres of city-owned land in the South River Forest to the Atlanta Police Foundation for the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, but it will not turn in those signatures yet, citing an argument by the city that will increase the minimum number of signatures required for the petition to be successful and concerns that city officials plan to use what the coalition says is a voter suppression technique when validating petition signatures.

Atlanta’s Appeal Of ‘Stop Cop City’ Referendum Denied

August 16, 2023 Dyana Bagby, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Atlanta, Cop City, Georgia, Legal System, Police, Stop Cop City

Opponents of Atlanta’s planned public safety training center scored another victory today when a federal judge denied the city of Atlanta’s appeal to try to halt the “Stop Cop City” referendum petition drive. The ruling comes as organizers with the Vote to Stop Cop City coalition say they have collected nearly 80,000 signatures, more than the 70,000 goal announced at the start of the campaign in June. U.S. District Court Judge Mark H. Cohen denied the city’s appeal of his ruling last month to allow those living outside the city to collect signatures as part of the referendum petition campaign. His ruling on the preliminary injunction also extended the amount of time to collect signatures.

Striking Amazon Drivers Extend Picket Lines To Atlanta, Georgia

July 30, 2023 Bill Aiman, Fight Back News!. Resist! Amazon, Atlanta, Picket, Tax Amazon, Worker Rights and Jobs

Atlanta, Georgia – On July 26 Amazon workers and community members picketed ATL 6, the Atlanta Amazon Sortation Center. The Amazon drivers in Palmdale, CA extended picket lines to Atlanta as part of their unfair labor practice (ULP) strike against Amazon. The Palmdale Amazon Drivers voted to join Teamsters Local 396 earlier this year and ratified a contract shortly thereafter. Amazon responded to the workers forming a union by retaliating and terminating the newly organized drivers. As a result, the Drivers began their ULP strike. “We’ve currently been on strike for over a month now since they cut our contract early because we unionized with the Teamsters,” said Jessie Moreno, one of the Palmdale Amazon drivers.

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