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Atlanta, GA: Elders Say Stop Cop City!

Atlanta, Georgia - On Monday, March 6th, a group of elders and a young person in support visited the corporate offices of Brasfield & Gorrie, as well as five B&G worksites around Atlanta, to call on the company to Drop Cop City. It is currently the general contractor on the project, officially known as the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. At each site, they held banners for the workers and passersby to see, and tried to talk to the construction manager in charge. At one site, after speaking with and handling flyers to dozens of workers from many countries, the manager appeared and threatened to have us arrested.

Anti-Fascists Explain The Importance Of Anonymity In Demonstrations

New protest legislation is criminalising many forms of protest. Anti-fascists are labeled aggravated activists by the police, and you don’t need to have a criminal record to be added to a police database. Simply associating with a known person and going to several protests is enough to justify an entry. This information has, in the past, been used by the police to harass and intimidate campaigners. No-one should face police intimidation for standing up to fascists. Meanwhile, when the Public Order Bill comes into force, protesters who haven’t even committed an offence, can be issued with Serious Disruption Prevention Orders. These are essentially banning orders that will prevent people from attending protests, stop them seeing named people, prevent them from organising online and can even be enforced by electronic tags.

The ‘Stop Cop City’ Movement Roots Go Back Decades

On Jan. 18, 2023, a squad of local and state police officers marched into the Weelaunee Forest in southeast Atlanta, where they shot and killed a young, queer, Indigenous-Venezuelan protester named Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán. Tortuguita was one of many Atlanta forest defenders, a decentralized group of activists that has been living in the forest since 2021 to protect against its proposed destruction and replacement with “Cop City”—a massive police militarization facility complete with a “mock city” inside for police to practice their many tactics of urban warfare and repression.

Protesters Charged With Terrorism In Atlanta

At least 23 protesters have been charged with domestic terrorism amid a week of action against the construction of “Cop City” in Atlanta, a proposed $90 million police training complex. Atlanta police detained 35 people and arrested 23 on the night of March 5, they claim, for vandalism against the Cop City construction site and violence towards police. Activists dispute this narrative. While video footage shows a small group torching the construction site and throwing fireworks towards police, according to activists, none of the 35 people detained were detained at the construction site itself.

66 Organizations Urge That Domestic Terrorism Charges Be Dropped

Atlanta, Georgia - 66 environmental, human rights, and civil liberties organizations sent a letter to Georgia prosecutors urging them to drop domestic terrorism charges against Stop Cop City/Defend the Atlanta Forest protesters. The charges represent a draconian escalation seemingly intended to chill First Amendment protected activity. The letter reads, in part: Civil disobedience and disruptive activism are part of the American protest tradition. From the Boston Tea Party to the civil rights movement, Americans have long drawn on civil disobedience tactics akin to the occupation of the Atlanta forest by the Stop Cop City protesters.

Rally In Solidarity With Resistance To Cop City In Avon, Massachusetts

The Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta is the proposed site of a massive police training facility, known to most as “Cop City.” Cop City is the logical outgrowth of violent, racialized capitalism in the United States. Corporations and wealthy Atlantans believe that they need a large and well-equipped police force to tamp down “crime” in the city they are working to gentrify, and have thus contributed financially to this project. As landlords and cops push Black residents out, wealthy, mostly white neighborhoods like Buckhead demand ever more police intervention to keep them and their ill-gotten wealth “safe.” With all their militarized training, equipment, and qualified immunity from prosecution, police murder thousands of people per year — disproportionately Black, Brown, and Indigenous.

Police Raid Atlanta Forest After ‘Cop City’ Opponents Overrun Security Post

Dekalb County, Georgia – At least 30 people were arrested on Sunday evening in the South River Forest during a ‘week of action’ music festival taking place near the location of the proposed controversial ‘Cop City’ facility. UPDATE: 3/6/23 – According to the Atlanta Police Department press release, there were at least 35 people detained. Unicorn Riot also learned that of those arrested, approximately 22 were charged with state-level domestic terrorism charges. Earlier in the evening, a march of several hundred opponents of the project (generally known as ‘forest defenders’) took over a police surveillance outpost along a power line clearing near Intrenchment Creek.

Voices On The Frontlines Of The Fight To Stop Cop City

Atlanta, Georgia - “A massive victory,” is how one participant, “Jean,” who spoke to It’s Going Down in a recent interview, described this weekend’s mobilization against “Cop City” in Atlanta. The movement is currently at a high-point, following an outpouring of support and rage over the brutal murder of Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran, an anarchist and forest defender, who was shot and killed by law enforcement during a raid on tree-sits and protest encampments on January 18th. Statements of solidarity and support have come in from across the Left and the environmental movement, spanning from the Sierra Club and 350.org, to grassroots collectives and organizations all over the US and the world.

‘Stop Cop City’ Week Of Action Begins In Atlanta

Atlanta, Georgia – Atlanta-area forest defenders, community activists and their allies from around the country and the world are initiating a ‘week of action’ against a proposed ‘Cop City’ urban warfare campus and a movie industry facility that would demolish much of the largest urban forest in the country. The upcoming week of protests and direct actions comes less than two months after Georgia State Patrol shot and killed Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Terán in suspicious circumstances at a defense encampment near the proposed site on January 18, 2023. The week of action is kicking off with a rally at Gresham Park, with a music festival scheduled for the rest of the weekend.

Cities Across The Us Take Part In ‘Week Of Action’ Against Cop City

Over the past week, dozens of cities across the so-called US took part in the recent week of action in solidarity with Tortuguita and the ongoing struggle to stop Cop City and defend the Weelaunee Forest. This out-pouring of solidarity has been amazing to see, both from the wider autonomous movement and even mainstream environmental and Left groups. Many towns organized small events, including nights of writing letters to those facing charges, benefit shows, and informational teach-ins and film showings on the struggle itself. Other cities organized mass marches and protests, bringing attention to the various corporations and banks that are currently funding the Cop City project and demanding that they drop their contracts.

Minneapolis Teachers Union, Cops Battle Over Student Recruitment

Minneapolis, Minnesota – A Minneapolis Public Schools teacher talked to Unicorn Riot about the Minneapolis Police Department’s (MPD) newly created PEACE Recruitment Program and the teachers union’s recent decision to oppose it. Minneapolis North High School Special Education teacher and union board member at-large Jessica Garraway brought the idea to the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT59) to oppose the MPD’s PEACE Recruitment Plan targeting high school students. She helped draft a resolution and bring it to the body for a vote. Garraway, a police abolitionist, participated in the Lake Street protests outside of the Third Precinct in the days following George Floyd’s murder by officer Derek Chauvin.

Most ‘Progressive’ Police Force In US Slammed For Response To Police Killing

Cambridge, Massachusetts - Over 200 students from over seven universities, and dozens of local residents poured into the City Hall of Cambridge, Massachusetts on the evening of February 27, holding a demonstration with chanting, singing, and speeches. Demonstrators chanted, “No good cop in a racist system!” and “One solution, revolution!” The occupation was initiated to demand justice for Arif Sayed Faisal (20), a Bangladeshi immigrant student killed by Cambridge police on January 4 as he was having a mental health crisis. “We are engaged in the critical struggle of demanding justice for Arif Sayed Faisal, our fellow student who was murdered by the police,” said Emerson College student Daven McQueen.

There Is No Cop City In The Beloved Community

Atlanta, Georgia - As members of the Morehouse College faculty, we have grown accustomed to consoling and counseling our students as they attempt to grapple with cycles of police brutality. Year after year, as Black people continue to be abused and killed at the hands of the police, jailed and surveilled in barbaric ways, we struggle to make sense of it all. We struggle to help our students determine where we go from here. But events that have transpired in Atlanta in recent months—specifically, the City’s initiative to build a $90 million police training facility, commonly known as “Cop City”—give us a clear indication of where we need to direct our energies.

Report On Minneapolis Police Raid Of ‘Roof Depot’ Occupation

Minneapolis, Minnesota - During the February 19th-26th week of solidarity everywhere to Defend the Welaunee Forest and Stop Cop City, Minneapolis is also fighting a local and connected struggle against toxic harm in the southside East Phillips Neighborhood. The struggle centers on what is to become of the 7.7 acre lot at 28th Street and Longfellow Ave known for its most recent occupant, Roof Depot. The lot is home to the so-called “arsenic triangle” previously occupied by a pesticide manufacturer, and adjacent to existing major polluters Bituminous Roadways and Smith Foundry.

Forest Defenders Vow Resistance After Court Okays Phase I Of ‘Cop City’

Georgia - The Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia, issued an order last week denying three plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order to halt clearing and construction work at the forested site of a planned police training facility that activists in Atlanta have dubbed “Cop City.” The ruling paves the way for construction activity even as the DeKalb County Zoning Board of Appeals considers the merits of the plaintiffs’ legal appeal of the project’s land disturbance permit. The 85-acre, $90 million police militarization and training complex is being spearheaded by the Atlanta Police Foundation.
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