Cop City and the birth of protest

 

In October 2017 The Atlanta Police Foundation release a report titled “Vision Safe Atlanta - Public Safety Action Plan,” which cited the need for a new police training facility.

On March 31, 2021 In the State of the City Address, then Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced a collaboration with philanthropic and corporate partners to build a “top-notch” public safety training center.

On June 7, 2021 an Atlanta City Council member introduced a city ordinance to lease 381 acres of public land owned by the city of Atlanta and located in unincorporated DeKalb County to the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) for 50 years for $10 a year . A plan to lease 85 acres for a police training center was adopted by the City Council (Ordinance 21-0-0367) on September 7, 2021.

The remaining 265 acres was designated as green space with no particular designation leaving it open to the possibility of military tactical use.

Atlanta's relatively high crime rates and low police morale were cited by the APF as the primary reasons to build the "Atlanta Public Safety Training Center" commonly called Cop City. It was proclaimed that it would become the largest training center in the country; four times the size of the 20-acre Los Angeles Police Department training campus, and more than 2.6 times the size of the New York Police Department training academy, which measures 32 acres.

Atlanta's citizens voiced disapproval in response to surveys conducted by various non-governmental interests, the courts, and subsequent appeals to stop construction. Seventeen hours of public input had revealed strong opposition to the proiect.

In response to growing opposition to Cop City, Atlanta's Mayor Andre Dickens, said in a press conference on January 31, 2023 that the facility was needed because Atlanta “has the most extensive training requirements in the Southeast. He described the training center as a modest footprint sited in the middle of a huge park.

The projected [direct] cost to construct the facility was estimated by the APF at $90 million. $30 million of which would fall to citizens whose tax burden would increase by a million dollars a year.

Plans for Cop City originally called for 150 acres to include a mock city for urban warfare training, explosive testing sites, (the latter abandoned under a compromise) bomb testing sites, tear gas deployment areas, firing ranges, a Black Hawk helicopter landing pad, as well as a number of horse stables, firefighting training resources, and comfort amenities. The plan also called for public green space with little description.

The training facility would generate revenues by offering training to other agencies. It was estimated that 43% of trainees would come from out-of-state.

The "largest" training facility in the country would be built in an environmentally vulnerable urban forest owned by the city of Atlanta and located in DeKalb County. The Weelaunee Forest ( the Indian name) was once the home of the Muscogee Indians though today it is known as the South River Forest.

The land would be further impacted by a commerical enterprise. Intrenchment Creek Park, public land located directly across from the Cop City site, had been previously donated to the county on the condition that it be used in perpetuity as a park. However, despite citizen opposition, the DeKalb County Commission traded 40 acres of the park with Blackhall Studios (now called Shadowbox Studios) in 2020.

Protests over the Cop City facility engaged both local and out-of-state activists (e.g., forest protectors) followed Atlanta's city council's final decision in September 2021 to lease the land to the APF.

In December 2022 trees were felled without notice and without a permit in Intrenchment Creek Park Citizens sought an injunction against further land disturbance. Despite the fact that the land was still a public park, and not yet in private hands, the public was denied entry to the park while a ruling pended. Confrontations between the police and concerned residents escalated.

As submitted to the Atlanta Community Press Collective, on January 18, 2023 dozens of heavily armed Atlanta and DeKalb police acting with the Georgia State Police shut down the public park and entered the Weelaunee Forest. This was not their first raid against activists in the forest. This time, however, activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán (called "Tortugita") was fatally shot while he (they) sat in his (their) tent. He (they)was accused of having a gun. Who shot whom is still unclear and under investigation. What is clear is that dozens of armed officers in a militaristic stance raided the forest in order to remove all activists and this threatened constitutionally protected speech.

The proposed construction of the police and firemen training center was opposed by diverse groups for a number of reasons.(1) The training center would have an environmental impact on what is claimed to be the largest urban forest in the country. The city of Atlanta made a prior commitment to protect the Weelaunee Forest as green space and as a critical asset to mitigate climate change (2) The City Council decision in favor of leasing land for Cop City was made based on less-than-transparent processes, (3) There would be adverse impacts on mostly Black, low income neighborhoods surrounding the site, (4) The need for such a large, militarized training center as an effective answer to crime rates was unproven, (6) The APF and its private equity donors are not accountable to the public for the acquisition or the use of project funds.

The groundswell of support under the banners “Stop Cop City” and "Save the Weelaunee Forest" included locals as well as individuals and organizations around the state and the country and received international attention.

The individuals who came to Atlanta to take direct action, including occupying the forest as public land to be defended, were mostly peaceful. As is common in a large movement. there were some exceptions such as vandalized construction equipment. Elite interests in Atlanta, including City Council members, closed ranks against protesters they called "outsiders" and criminalized activists in the eyes of the public helped by conservative media sources such as Fox News.

 

Then there was the horrific death of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán. His death by police as an environmental activist was the first in the country. This sparked outrage from activists and in return a closing of the ranks by proponents of Cop City.

In what would become a battle of narratives about Cop City, Atlanta's Mayor Andre Dickens promised in a press conference shortly following the death of Tortugita that the police training requirements would include civil rights classes. The civil liberties of the mostly young activists occupying the urban forest who were presented as outsiders had been ignored. There was no mention of constitutionally protected civil liberties as a training requirement.

BROKEN PROMISES AND THE ROOTS OF CONFLICT

A proposal, including the land now leased to the APF, had called for a green space that would restore eroding natural habitats and provide future public recreation uses. It was adopted into the city's official city charter in 2017.

However, despite the plan's 2017 adoption into the city charter a plan for a police training facility on the current site had also been presented to the City Council that same year.

Four months before the City Council’s final decision on June 8, 2021 to lease the land to the APF, a Saporta Report , carried the headline South River Forest: A big green dream starts coming true. Most of the report contents followed a visionary document originating from Atlanta’s Planning Department.
Under a master plan and in the name of unity the South River Forest would effectively become an appendage of Atlanta's BeltLine transportation and economic plan. The One Atlanta Strategic Transportation plan included goals such as addressing climate change challenges and building a more equitable society.

In the midst of growing conflict over Cop City, a March 2023 report prepared by the Nature Conservancy and the Atlanta Regional Commission served as a reminder of Atlanta's original commitment to address climate change. The report identified the 1,200-acre forest preserve as a critical undertaking.

The urban forest might be a bulwark in regard to climate change as well as a rich vestige of Atlanta's history with extensive biodiversity. However, the orphaned South River Forest, bordered by underserved neighborhoods, is far removed from Atlanta's wealthier and more influential zip codes such as Buckhead representing progress, growth, and greater wealth compared to the general population.

The proposed plan should have been a choice made by fully informed voters as diverse stakeholders but the public was not offered a choice between these different pathways that pitted a version of public safety against critical climate change measures. Rather, the APF argued that the visionary green plan that had been submitted to the City Council in 2017 was "non-binding."

 

ACT LOCAL, THINK GLOBAL

The causes and impacts of climate change have no boundaries. There are no outsiders.

The South River Forest, designated as one of four strategic pillars critical to Atlanta's ability to adapt to climate change in the 2017 planning document, has importance to the entire state of Georgia as the largest forested watershed of any urban area in the country. It has importance to the country and the world.

Along with many parts of the country, Atlanta's environmental stewardship was failing as well as its need to address environmental injustices. In 2020 Atlanta's Department of City Planning noted the important role of trees in Atlanta's urban forest. They filter particulates from the air and provide essential protection against flooding and extreme heat, The loss of Atlanta’s canopy increased erosion and diminished wildlife habitat.

Atlanta City's loss of trees already included the disappearance of a rich canopy that included magnolias, dogwoods, southern pine, and ancient oak. In 2008 Atlanta’s loss of tree coverage was estimated at 47.9%. According to a 2014 study this complex and interdependent canopy continues to decline due to assaults by zoning, clear cutting, deforestation from development as well as flooding events. It is well established that the loss of trees brings unbearable heat to low income families.

Atlanta's water quality also diminished. In April 2021, the nonprofit American Rivers had named the South River No. 4 on its annual list of the nation’s 10 most endangered rivers. The South River has been flooded with raw sewage for years due to neglect. Intrenchment Creek, (Weelaunee People’s Park) South River's major tributary, was also at risk.

On April 13, 2023 plaintiffs before the DeKalb County Zoning Board of Appeals attempted to block a land disturbance permit citing violations in reference to stormwater runoffs delivering sediments into Intrenchment Creek. Plaintiffs cited the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, and the federal Clean Water Act. They provided evidence of a lack of due diligence and a history of poor enforcement on the part of the County. The zoning board denied the appeal claiming that the matter was not part of its mandate.

In terms of additional impacts related to building Cop City activists cited chemical runoffs, shooting ranges that often result in heavy-metal pollution along with fire fighting training executed in the “Burn Building”, along with the inevitable loss of trees during site preparation and construction, as high environmental risks.

 

RICH AND POOR ATLANTA

 

Crime rates and police morale were presented as arguments for Cop City by the APF and the City Council. However, there were unanswered questions surrounding building the "largest police training facility in the country" supported by donors such as Bank of America, JP Morgan, Delta and others representing large corporate interests as well Cox Enterprises, publisher of the local newspaper.

Whose public safety, or perhaps more true, what property was Cop City and its military technologies intended to protect? The loss of Atlanta's environmental resiliency due to profit-driven fast development and gentrification represented environmental injustices. Compared to the general population the mostly Black lower income neighborhoods near the training facility site would experience periodic higher water levels, higher costs for water, flooding, and substandard drinking water quality because of decisions out of their control

How was 'crime' defined in Atlanta? What crime or crimes, warranted building the "largest" police training site in the country and further weaponizing the Atlanta's police.

Wealth can determine perceptions of crime. Atlanta has significantly higher wealth disparities compared to most of the rest of the nation. Crime risks and the causes of crime as perceived by different Atlanta residents were characteristically geographical. Did relative wealth, accompanied by political favors, determine the construction of Cop City more than crime figures?

A poll showed that Buckhead District residents support for Cop City was higher compared to Atlanta's less wealthy areas with higher crime rates.

Atlanta's heavy concentration of large corporations provide investments in crime prevention through the APF and other police foundations. These investments meet a range of needs including money for recruitment drives, surveillance, and the creation of the militarized SWAT teams and their equipment. Many of the companies’ top executives have existing or former ties to other police foundations around the nation and in general donations reduce their taxes through directing money through their donations often leading to further wealth disparities.

Atlanta aims to build a beautiful interconnected city, which will help realize its desire to become the high tech capital of the South. Private equity is critical to these ambitions. The question is in what ways do unaccountable funding streams limit public involvement in the most critical municipal decisions that determine the kind of city Atlanta should be?

Cop City is not the only largest- in- the- nation project to receive corporate support for crime prevention. Once Atlanta had 17 surveillance cameras. Supported by the APF, a multimillion dollar initiative called Operation Shield made Atlanta the most surveilled city in the United States with more than 12,800 private and public interconnected eyes on the public. Private enterprises connected their cameras to the network for a fee.

What do underlying networked local and global socioeconomic power structures look like? Motorola Solutions, named in a UN database for human rights violations related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was contracted to develop Atlanta's integrated surveillance system. Silver Lake, a global investment company invested $1 billion in Motorola Solutions. The investment company also purchased Blackhall Studios which was established on Intrenchment Creek in a trade with DeKalb County.

Corporate control over law enforcement is a trend that affects civil actions. It could be argued that perceptions of crime risks and reactive measures that encourage corporate involvement are a fear-based reaction to social movements. Today, there are around 150 police foundations around the nation. Many of these foundations were formed in early 2000. One study found that nearly 40 percent of Foundation's were founded in the two years after the 2014 demonstrations over the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.

Regarding accountability, Makhani (2023) writes "ultimately the investment in Atlanta policing is funded through pensions, etc. by teachers, nurses, firefighters and state employees without their knowledge.

 

MILITARIZATION

In the United States, the mark of militarism is omnipresence in the deference paid to all things military. “Militarism constitutes a socially constructed institutionalized structure, including habits of thought and patterns of reflexive action (e.g., ‘patriotism’) as well as tangible entities such as military forces and arms contractors. Militarism finds its expression both as ideology and as national policy exercised through state apparatuses. Cypher ( 2022).

A percentage of funding for police departments comes from surplus due to endless wars that result in the disposition of military weapons and other equipment.

The militarization in response to protests over Cop City sent a message across the country. Is Cop City's "morale" booster justification cited by the APF worth violence against citizens? One 2017 study showed that police forces that received military equipment were more likely to have violent encounters with the public, regardless of local crime rates and the nature of the crime. Whatever the crime, Cop City is inevitably going to require the newest and best castoffs, often free, turning yet another police department into a domestic army.

The militarization of police departments also has racial overtones. Increases in militarism is the product of a reactive, circle the wagons mentality, a cancerous part of society that has co-opted meanings of 9/11, the murder of George Floyd and the movement for Black lives. Research shows that police departments in Black communities acquire more military equipment than those in white communities, and that SWAT teams are more readily deployed to Black than to white neighborhoods. Importantly, these studies find that the link between racial demographics and police militarization cannot be explained by differences in crime. 

Ultimately a militarized Cop City cannot bring balance to the serious inequities Atlanta has reinforced over time. It cannot bring peace or make peacekeepers. Effectively Cop City will further divide citizens and police even as good cops succumb to more dangerous weapons in order to protect property interests and capital gain.

 

THE MOVEMENT

"The fact that they’re talking about a compromise after they killed a protester in the woods, the compromise is their fiction that they think is going to work to kill the momentum of what is an extremely strong movement, a movement that’s getting stronger every day,”

Movements grow in response to grave injustices. Over the years, there had been local efforts to save the South River Forest by groups and coalitions who understood the value of the urban forest to Atlanta and the rest of the world. Localized efforts like Stop Cop City represent an urgent message about climate change, nature, and the human condition happening around the world.

A number of coalitions and special interests protesting Cop City were more or less successful using multi-pronged approaches to halt the construction of the training facility. However, ultimately the true sustainability of the decentralized "Stop Cop City" movement in Atlanta and elsewhere, according to one coalition organizer, is "... if one organization went down, there was still a broad base of people to keep fighting". Nolan Huber - Rhodes

Events sparked by the proposed Cop City use organizational models shared by other movements that have been described as leaderless and sustained movements, with qualities such as staying power and increasingly thoughtful strategizing, that are for the most part peaceful and somehow enduring. They share interlocking themes including a focus on environmental justice, anti-racism, wealth inequities, poverty, and alternatives to capital-intensive, exclusionary development practices. They represent cultural meanings that unite people and causes.
 

For instance, Jewish activists used Tu Bishvat as a launching point for fundraising across the country to support Cop City protesters. One Jewish fundraiser in California said that although the protest against Cop City is not inherently Jewish, it has ties to timeless Judaic themes. Some local Jewish activists related the conflict over Cop City to the Israeli invasion of Palestine.

The extent of police crackdowns, the misinformation campaigns, the accelerated construction before permits were issued, and the vitrolic response from elite interests and the state to protesters have caused the Stop Cop City movement to enhance national strategies for public awareness and for fundraising campaigns under banners such as the "Weelaunee Defense Society in order to name and undermine those interests that practiced systematic wrongs against humanity and nature.

 

IDENTIFYING DOMESTIC TERRORISM

 

A common definition of terrorism is…Involving acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; Appearing to be intended to:

Intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to Influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion; or, Affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping; and occurring primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States (reference U.S. Code at 18 U.S.C. 2331(5).

Currently, 34 states and the District of Columbia have antiterrorism legislation In some states domestic terrorism is variously and vaguely defined. Some states require evidence of motivation (usually a difficult point of law to establish) in fashioning domestic terrorism laws while other states do not.

In 2017 Georgia created its domestic terrorism law following a 2015 shooting by Dylan Roof, an admitted white supremacist resulting in nine deaths of black church members in South Carolina. Georgia's law included the term any felony intended to intimidate civilians or coerce the government. Other states with that language include Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Utah.

Incident reports reveal the extent to which police officers were fed false narratives about Forest Defenders as “domestic terrorists” before entering the forest on January 18, including the suggestion that officers could become infected with sexually transmitted diseases if protesters in the trees were to throw feces and urine on them. Police used the phrase “domestic terrorist” or “domestic terrorists” at least nine times in the 20-page incident reports, (Truthout, April 13 2023).

 
In the case of young Cop City activists charged with domestic terrorism during a January 23, 2023 bond hearing the prosecution showed no evidence that they were a threat to human life or that they had engaged in activities threatening public safety. The charge shocked legal experts around the country because it was based on guilt by association, no matter where they were located or whether they knew each other or not. rather than evidence.
The defendants were given the same list of charges by rote, including the charge of domestic terrorism. This was the first time the charge has been leveled against environmental activists.

The accused were repeatedly described as a danger to community by prosecutors and commercial media. It was posited that an out-of-state offender was more likely to reoffend. One defendant had a previous charge of domestic terrorism in his home state therefore he was said to be a particularly "extreme" risk to the community. According to his legal defense the only evidence supporting potentially criminal charges against him was that an officer saw him spit.

It was clear to many legal experts who reviewed the bond hearing that the charges were based on their opposition to Cop City. There was little evidence that the defendants were actually involved in what was being defined as “acts of domestic terror”such as breaking a store front window or burning a police car and that they obviously posed no threat to human life.

A defense attorney for several of the defendants noted that some individuals were not in the area of the events cited, but rather were sitting in a police car prior to the event or had already been arrested for being a pedestrian in a roadway.

Violence needs to be understood in historical context. The number of fatalities from terrorist attacks in the U.S. homeland is still relatively small compared to some periods in U.S. history, making it important not to overstate the threat.

Mass media ignores or normalizes why and how the term domestic terrorism is used. At its worse it capitalizes on fear either by omission, repetition, or implicit and direct attacks on protesters. In terms of the latter, according to Fox News and representatives of its wide audience, the Atlanta movement, as reported on February 14, 2023, might be considered to be domestic terrorism evidenced by dramatic scenes of looting and destruction by cop hating "privileged pampered out of towners from out of state" "...grinning in their mug shots." These dangerous scenarios, provided further evidence of why Cop City was necessary.

But why did the January 6 participants escape being charged with domestic terrorism where there was plenty of evidence in contrast to the state charges brought against these young activists?

Michael Moore former head of the FBI said unequivocally that the January 6 participants had committed domestic terrorism.

The FBI, the NDAA (the National Defense Authorization Act), the DHS, and the NIS (National Intelligence Strategy provided a unified definition of domestic terrorism. In addition, the DHS had a category of domestic violent extremists (DVE) (there are requests under the Freedom of Information (FOI) to understand how a federal presence relates to Cop City are currently pending).

However, federal charges rely on sedition and conspiracy not domestic terrorism.

According to Time Magazine, March 23, Thomas Webster a former New York City Police Officer and Marine Corps veteran, who swung a metal flagpole at police before tackling one officer and yanking his gas mask off, received a ten year sentence. The judge decided, against the requests of the prosecutors, that a domestic terrorism charge would represent a disparity in relation to other January 6 defendants. Thirdly, in other cases, Gerstein writes in Politico, prosecutors have avoided terrorism charges against the January 6 defendants citing unspecified "facts and circumstances".

Some have asked what if the January 6 offenders had been predominately Black?

The question is, given the clear lack of evidence, why did these judgments not also apply to the six Atlanta defendants in the bond hearing in the state of Georgia?

This leads to broader questions regarding the term ‘domestic terrorism’. It is reported that incidents of domestic terrorism increased by 357% between 2013 and 2021. What does this statistic actually mean? A number of states have vaguely codified domestic terrorism and rely on the phrase... "any felony intended to intimidate civilians or coerce the government". This open-ended meaning at the federal and state levels might be considered dangerous in its potential denial of free speech and its use in the political realm in association with signs of unrest that represent a need for change.

If a state such as Georgia legitimizes ‘domestic terrorism’ in these circumstances in a divided country and this provides further fodder for the FBI and the DHS to define legitimate protest as violence, is this an abuse of the rule of law. Will domestic terrorism on some level become sedition and conspiracy?

The criminalization of activists has become even more pervasive in Georgia. On May 13, 2023, The Guardian reported that three Cop City activists passing out leaflets in a neighborhood outside of Atlanta had been charged under an obscure Georgia law making it a felony to intimidate a law enforcement officer.

The convenient interpretations of the term ‘domestic terrorism’, absent of any proven or serious determination of a threat to human life or understanding of intention, can become a political weapon that feeds on fear. It can lead to weaponized rhetoric applied as law. It can block meaningful dialogue. It can lead to a shoot first and ask questions later mentality. It can further divide fearful citizens and communities. It is a potential loss of constitutional space that has negative psychosocial effects on both the police and civilians.

Environmental activist Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, 26, was gunned down after a large contingent of law enforcement representing different jurisdictions, inoculated with the term domestic terrorism, were sent to defend property rather than civil liberties.

Does Cop City exist to deny civil liberties? Is this the reality of unaccountable Cop Cities in America where the clash between the police and citizens is fundamentally about the future of our society and the need to address meanings and perceptions of public safety and social good.

In these divisive times, the improper defense of a militarized and unaccountable Cop City that denies civil liberties cannot bring balance to the serious inequities in Atlanta and the nation and it distracts from global threats such as climate change. It cannot bring peace or make peacekeepers. This affects all of us.