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Atlanta’s Attack On Cop City Protesters Should Be A Warning To Us All

June 30, 2023 Angela Y. Davis and Barbara Ransby, 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.

Sixth ‘Stop Cop City’ Week Of Action

June 28, 2023 Unicorn Riot. , , , ,
Atlanta, GA — This week (June 24 – July 1) activists, organizers, and community members opposed to ‘Cop City’ are converging in Atlanta for a “Week of Action” against the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. From June 24 through July 1, people will gather in and around Atlanta to mobilize against the Atlanta Police Foundation’s proposed urban warfare training center. In the months since the last national convergence against the project, clear cutting in Weelaunee, where the training facility may be built, has escalated, the city of Atlanta has approved millions in additional funds for the project, and repression against organizers has continued.

Atlanta Is Already A ‘Cop City’; This Is Why The Fight Is Intensifying

June 27, 2023 Demetrius “Dee” Vaughn, Reckon. , , , , ,
I’ve lived in Atlanta for my entire life. I tried to leave a few times, but l always somehow made my way back. I’ve never felt the sense of community that I feel here anywhere else. It’s a Black city, steeped in southern hospitality. That means that we’ll find a way to help each other, even if we don’t have the resources. It’s a community of deep creativity, a city of hustlers and artists with a culture of Blackness that people from other places often can’t understand. But it’s also a place where the gap between the rich and the poor is painfully clear. That gap is marked by the presence of police in low-income Black neighborhoods like mine.

Forest Defender Speaks From Bartow County Jail

June 22, 2023 Ryan Fatica, Unicorn Riot. , , , ,
Bartow County, GA — Over 7 weeks after they were arrested while distributing fliers in a small suburb of Atlanta, Charley Tennenbaum continues to be held in the Bartow County Jail for actions they say are protected by the First Amendment. On April 28, Charley and two other individuals were arrested in the city of White, Georgia and slapped with felony charges for distributing fliers containing information about Jonathan Salcedo, a Georgia State Patrol trooper who has been linked to the killing of Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Esteban Paez Terán. Tortuguita was killed by police during a raid on the Weelaunee Forest on January 18.

Week Of Action Demands Stop Cop City!

June 22, 2023 Dianne Mathiowetz, Workers World. , , , ,
Within a day of the massive community turnout at the June 5 Atlanta City Council meeting — where, despite 16 1/2 hours of public comment opposing the over $67 million of taxpayer money to build the militarized police training center in the Weelaunee Forest, the Council approved the expenditure — a new strategy to stop “Cop City” was announced on the steps of City Hall. Representatives of multiple organizations, including Community Movement Builders, the NAACP Legal Fund, Movement for Black Lives, Working Families Party and Black Voters Matter, described the referendum process to allow the people of Atlanta to vote on the fate of Cop City.

US-Based Black Radicals Convening In Atlanta, Georgia

June 21, 2023 By​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
We are immersed in the irreversible contradictions of the end of the epoch of U.S. and European capitalist domination to a world in which for the first time in more than five hundred years, the Western world will no longer be in a position to establish the rules and enforce its “order” on a global scale without effective opposition from the 90 % that makes up the rest of global humanity. But the white world is not ready to accept the end of white world supremacy without a fight. Under the leadership of the United States, the U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination has demonstrated that it is prepared to use unrestrained, murderous violence, the same tools it deployed to establish its hegemony beginning in 1492 – in order to maintain white civilizational dominance.

Atlanta City Council Approves USD 31 Million For Controversial ‘Cop City’

June 6, 2023 People's Dispatch. , , , ,
Atlanta’s 15-member City Council approved USD 31 million in funding to help build “Cop City,” the “urban warfare” training facility proposed to be built in the forest in the southern city. The 11-4 vote took place after 15 hours of public comments were heard regarding the project, with the vast majority expressing overwhelming concern over the project and and rejecting it. Throughout the session, over 1,000 people gathered inside and outside Atlanta City Hall to protest the controversial project. The Atlanta Police Foundation (APF), ostensibly a nonprofit but which provides support for the Atlanta Police Department and is spearheading the project of Cop City, believes that the facility is necessary.

Training Center Costs Call Years Of Promises Into Question

June 5, 2023 Riley Bunch and Brian Eason, Atlanta Journal Constitution. , , , ,
In the spring of 2021, the Atlanta Police Foundation announced an attractive deal for city taxpayers. If the city put up $30 million for a public safety training center, the nonprofit and its philanthropic partners would handle the rest of the project’s $90 million price tag. That promise was repeated month after month, year after year, by one mayor and then the next. Today, the Atlanta Police Foundation still asks for donations to the project on a fundraising page that says the city will only contribute $30 million to the cause. But that’s not true. And it hasn’t been true for years.

Georgia State Students Demand The University Denounce Cop City

May 20, 2023 GSU Student Coalition Against Policing and Militarism, Scalawag Magazine. , , , ,
We, the Georgia State University Student Coalition Against Policing & Militarism, write this letter to express our solidarity with the Stop Cop City movement. We demand that the university end its sprawling investments in carceral projects, including, but not limited to, Cop City.  The university heavily invests in policing, surveillance, and other forms of state violence that disproportionately impact racially-oppressed students, both historically and in our contemporary time, who comprise most of the school's population. Further, while the institution increases funding for GSU Police Department (GSUPD), which enacts racialized violence against its students, departments face budget cuts that reduce the educational capacity of the university.

Union Win At Bus Factory Electrifies Georgia

May 18, 2023 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. , , , ,
After a bruising three-year fight, workers at school bus manufacturer Blue Bird in Fort Valley, Georgia, voted May 12 to join United Steelworkers (USW) Local 697. “It’s been a long time since a manufacturing site with 1,400 people has been organized, let alone organized in the South, let alone organized with predominantly African American workers, and let alone in the auto industry,” said Maria Somma, organizing director with the USW. “It’s not a single important win. It’s an example of what’s possible—workers wanting to organize and us being able to take advantage of a time and a policy that allowed them to clear a path to do so.”

Three Face Felonies For Allegedly Flyering Near Home Of Georgia Trooper

May 14, 2023 Ryan Fatica, Unicorn Riot. , , , ,
Bartow County, Georgia — More than 3 ½ months after Georgia State Patrol agents killed forest defender Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Esteban Paez Terán during a raid on the Weelaunee Forest, officials still refuse to name the officers responsible for their death or take any steps toward bringing them to justice. After months of waiting, it appears that activists and community members have begun stepping up to provide transparency themselves. In late April, researchers with the Atlanta Community Press Collective released the names of six Georgia State Patrol SWAT agents believed to be involved in Tortuguita’s killing.

Forest Defenders Appear For Preliminary Hearings

May 7, 2023 Sean Summers, Unicorn Riot. , , , ,
DeKalb County, Georgia - Two defendants arrested in March during a music festival against ‘Cop City’ were again denied bond Wednesday in DeKalb County Magistrate Court, while a third was granted $25,000 bond with conditions. The defendants, all of whom are facing domestic terrorism charges for their alleged participation in the movement against the sprawling police training complex, have been detained since their arrests two months ago. Luke Harper and Victor Puertas were denied bond, while Fredrique Robert-Paul was granted a $25,000 bond with conditions including relinquishing her passport, remaining in Georgia pending trial, severing contact with codefendants, and avoiding discussing the movement against ‘Cop City’ on social media.

March And Encampment At Georgia Tech To Stop Cop City

May 6, 2023 It's Going Down. , , ,
On April 24th, demonstrations took place at Emory University, Georgia Tech, Agnes Scott College, Clark Atlanta, Spelman, and Morehouse. At Georgia Tech, a few dozen of us gathered on Tech Green, an open green space located on campus. A graduate student hosted one of their classes on the Green while we set up tents and gazebos. For several hours, we distributed literature about the movement to defend the Weelaunee forest and to stop Cop City. We also distributed a zine about the 2017 murder of queer anarchist and Pride Alliance student Scout Schultz by GTPD officer Tyler Beck, and the subsequent revolt on campus in the wake of the killing.

Our Missing Middle Housing Didn’t Just Go Missing

April 24, 2023 David S. Rotenstein, Next City. , , ,
In early February, the city commission in Decatur, Georgia voted to amend the city’s zoning law to allow the construction of “duplex, triplex, and quadruplex residential units” in “single-family residential zoning districts” — what many housing advocates call missing middle housing. The legislation followed on the heels of 20 years of special studies, litigation and resident agitation over the city’s declining affordable housing stock, gentrification and displacement. By early 2023, it was too late to preserve the Atlanta suburb’s affordable housing stock. As for Decatur’s diversity, the tipping point for demographic and economic inversion had been reached long ago.

Cities Across The US Are Mobilizing To Honor Tortuguita’s Birthday

April 23, 2023 It's Going Down. , , , , ,
Supporters of the fight against Cop City in so-called Atlanta, Georgia are planning solidarity demonstrations, educational events, benefit concerts, and solidarity events to mark the birthday of anarchist and forest defender Tortuguita. This call for continued action comes after forty-two people now face “domestic terrorism” charges for simply “their participation in the movement, with arrest warrants citing the flimsiest grounds, including protesters having mud on their shoes and the number for a legal support group scrawled on their arms.” Moreover, the call for continued solidarity comes as the Dekalb County Medical Examiner has released the damning results of their autopsy, which directly contradicts claims made by law-enforcement that Tortuguita fired upon them, causing them to fire back and kill them in mid-January of this year, when police carried out a raid on protest encampments in the Weelaunee forest.
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