The Fight Over ‘Cop City’

It's Tuesday, March 28th.

So Sean, tell me about this planned police training facility just outside Atlanta that's become so controversial.

S all said We're talking about a $90 million investment could even go over. That. $30 million of that is coming from the city, meaning taxpayers, and the other $60 million is being covered by the Atlanta Police Foundation, which is really spearheading the development. And it's seen as this culmination of years of concern about how to address this surge in violent crime in Atlanta, which really spiked during the brunt of the pandemic, just like it did in many other major cities.

This is being hailed by public officials as one of the primary answers to our crime troubles.

You know, she acknowledged that the facilities were really old and crummy. The roof is leaking, it has mold. The list goes on and on. But they also, you know, they needed some kind of carrot to dangle in front of. Current officers, potential officers, anything to strengthen the police force at a time when tensions were high.

We want our officers and the men and women who serve us at Atlanta Fire Rescue to have a good attitude and disposition when they encounter us in our communities. It's important that we live up to that end of the bargain as well. We've talked about 21st century training, 21st century policing. You can't do that in subpar facilities. So at a time when citizen police relationships are incredibly strained, this was seen as a bridge for that gap.

And the city and the Police Foundation are also billing it as a potentially big moneymaker. Because they plan to not just use it to train Atlanta police officers. But they will be renting out the space to other jurisdictions outside the city, outside the state, so there could be officers from around the country who come to train here.

The public safety training facility then ended up tallying over 17 hours of public comment. What was supposed to be a regular city council meeting ended up stretching over two days.

These resources can be used by so many different communities. Folks who are worried about police militarization, they think that they're already watching police forces become bigger and badder. And they see this plan, especially for the mini city, as sort of a blueprint for this police playground where they can dress up as soldiers. It seems inappropriate to disturb this land in order to support a military training facility. In a residential area in the middle of a planned green space, there are also environmentalists who are adamantly opposed to this facility.

You know, Atlanta has been nicknamed the City in the Forest because it has more tree canopy than any major city across the country. A lot of environmentalists have even nicknamed the South River Forest, which is where the training facility is planned, one of the lungs of Atlanta because of its benefits to the air and water quality across the city. And even further, you've got this gorgeous forested land with lakes, and we can do so much more with that land.

The city says most of the forest is still going to be preserved. But it's also more than that. It's not just about policing, it's not just about the environment. There's a lot of middle ground in this Venn diagram, where people are seeing this as what's been called environmental racism. Meaning this project is clear cutting right beside a predominantly Black neighborhood called Gresham Park, southeast of the city. The police already have a gun range down the street from where the facility is planned, and the neighbors are already frustrated by hearing gunshots in their backyard regularly.

Now they're thinking things could be getting louder and in theory, there are going to be even more police. And a lot of the neighbors that I've spoken to don't want to think about police lurking around every corner. And the thinking among activists and opponents is that, you know, why is the city not going to a wealthy, white part of town to have their way with the ecosystem there?

Activists are attempting to block a new police training facility from being built by camping out in the nearby woods and hiding out in tree houses. And I think these reserves of rage, everybody needed an outlet. They say the goal is to get enough people out there to make it impossible for the city of Atlanta to move forward with its plans.

So some of them are organizing on social media, some of them are meeting privately. And some people just start camping out in the woods protesting what they're derisively calling cop city. Atlanta police say that it is considered trespassing for the protesters and those living on that property to remain there. So first there are a few of them moving out there, camped out in tents and these makeshift tree houses, and then there are dozens of them. And they create these little villages, you know, with houses, and they're cooking and cleaning, you know, they're picking up litter off the forest floor.

They're organizing food drives, little communes. I talked to countless activists throughout my reporting on this story and they seem really committed to staying there.

There's pretty much been some sort of encampment out there for the last 18 months and change.

It really is. At this point, it might sound like, oh, that's just the rowdy activists, you know, trying to pump themselves up. It's a matter of life and death for a lot of bodies that won't have a choice in the matter.

And you know, 18 months is a long time for a protest of this sort. I've been covering racial justice activism in Atlanta for years, and I followed roving protests around town for weeks at a time. But almost always they fizzle out. But at the end of 2022, it seemed like most of the Stop Cop City protesters had sustained a level of commitment and relative calm. That was pretty striking. And then, in January of this year, everything started to change.

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Then they claim Tortuguita responded with gunfire, shooting through the tent at officers and hitting one trooper in the belly. State police say they have records of Tortuguita legally purchasing a handgun in 2020, and they say ballistic forensics connect that gun to the bullet found in the trooper's belly.

Officers retaliated, shooting dozens of rounds within a span of just a few seconds, ultimately killing Tortuguita. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family found that Tortuguita had been shot at least 13 times.

When I showed up around 5 p.

M On Sunday, the mood was very different.

All right, looks like, to some extent, the festival is still going on. So I pulled out my phone. I wanted to show the world what I was witnessing. As is my job, and as I'm panning from the peaceful activities to my left and going to the right, someone lunges at me and tries to take my phone out of my hand.

And so I have to wrestle it away from them for a second. I was clearly not welcome to hang out with that crowd and I decided, one way or another, I'm going with them wherever they go.

And then we start marching, and so we're trekking up this hill through the tall grass and the mud. And I could see at the top of the hill a chain link fence and, you know, little ant sized people. It dawned on me, OK, those are the police, this is the Cop City site.

That is the main construction site at the moment for the training center project, and as we get closer.

What surprised me was the police run away and I'm wondering what the hell is about to happen.

And once we get to that chain link fence, the police have for the most part completely fled. They are closing the fence on the far side of the construction site, and the activists ripped through that fence like a hot knife through butter. Construction vehicles are up in flames, like a trailer for the construction crew about to be up in flames.

I see a you know, some of these big yellow earth moving machines, just like, reduced to a plume of smoke pretty quickly.

And the whole thing lasts just a few minutes, it's just like a quick assault on this construction site. And then they slip back into the woods, strip off their black and camouflage, change into, you know, regular festival goer clothes and try to insert themselves back into the festival.

But after a bit of an unnerving lull, the state police storm onto the property.

That's tear gas, right?

They're tackling people left and right. I'm doing my darndest just to keep up with them.

They're looking into the tents now, they're pulling people out of tents. I was trying to follow along all the while the sun is going down, and then police told me I had to get out of there.

Two were actually from outside the country, we had one arrested who came here from France and another who came here from Canada. And while the out-of-towners are probably getting most of the national spotlight for the trouble they've gotten into, this is still very much a local movement. Now. After the attack on the construction site in early March, maybe the activity at the forest quieted down a little bit. I think there was still an occupancy out there.

But the grassroots efforts elsewhere in the city were still very much alive. I've now been on multiple marches through downtown and it was, you know, very loud and very emotionally charged, but it was completely peaceful. And so there's still plenty of people organizing and this movement is far from done. Although, whereas the forest has long been a flashpoint in the entire conversation. Dekalb County officials just last Friday announced that through an executive order, the park would be closed to the public.

That's not going to happen anymore. But all said, the main bullet points of the project are very much the same. And if you ask city officials or the police Foundation, they'll tell you there are no breaks on this train. This development is happening.

And what you see on this really local scale is this protest movement that managed to take a stand for a whole year and a half, quite a long time. Only to see it eventually spiral into violence and then face, potentially being shut down by the authorities, being kicked out of the forest. So do you think that? One way to see this whole story is as a case study in how hard it is for protesters to sustain their efforts with police reform?

This training facility carries with it this sort of sense of inevitability. That reflects a much larger reality about the politics of law and order right now, you know? The City of Atlanta says it's determined to respond to concerns about rising crime even now as crime numbers are dropping. And I think what the fight against Cop City shows is just how hard it is to go up against that tide.

Here's what else you should know today. On Monday, an armed attacker walked into a Christian school in Nashville called Covenant and shot and killed three nine-year-old students and three staff members. Police identified the assailant as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who lived in the Nashville area and was at one point a student at the school. There was initial confusion surrounding Hale's gender, but Nashville's police chief, John Drake, said Hale identified as transgender. They said Hale entered the building through a side door, armed with two assault rifles and a handgun and started firing.

Police officers who responded to the scene shot and killed Hale. The adult victims were all in their 60s and included the head of the school. President Biden spoke about the shooting, saying that the six deaths were quote sick, and calling on Congress to do more to enact gun control legislation.

And federal authorities have finally found a buyer for Silicon Valley Bank, the California-based bank they seized on March 10th after a run on its deposits left it insolvent. First Citizens Bank Shares, a family-run bank in North Carolina, will buy the bank and its assets at a steep discount. After the deal was announced. Shares of midsize banks rose sharply.

Today's episode was produced by Alex Stern, Eric Krupke, Rob Zipko and Asa Chaturvedi. It was edited by John Ketchum and Michael Benoit. Fact-checked by Susan Lee, contains original music by Marianne Lozano, Dan Powell, Sophia Landman and Rowan Nemesto, and was engineered by Chris Wood.

Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lansford of Wonderly.

That's it for the daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, see you tomorrow.