Speaker 1: Welcome back to It could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis,
Speaker 1: and this is the last episode in my trilogy covering
Speaker 1: what's been happening this summer in Atlanta to stop Cop City.
Speaker 1: Last episode we covered the end of the Week of Action,
Speaker 1: the resurgence of nighttime sabotage, and Atlas long Engineering dropping
Speaker 1: out of the Cop City project. A relatively new, big
Speaker 1: aspect of the movement that I've really only mentioned peripherally
Speaker 1: is the Cop City vote referendum. The goal of the
Speaker 1: referendum is to let the people of Atlanta vote on
Speaker 1: whether to repeal an ordinance authorizing the land lease of
Speaker 1: three hundred and eighty one acres of forest into Cab
Speaker 1: County that was given to the Atlanta Police Foundation in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one to use the land for the construction
Speaker 1: of Cop City. In order to get the referendum on
Speaker 1: an upcoming ballot, the petition had to gather sixty thousand
Speaker 1: signatures in six days. Every signature must be from an
Speaker 1: Atlanta resident who was registered to vote in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: and initially those who gathered signatures had to also be
Speaker 1: Atlanta residents. Sixty thousand signatures in sixty days was a
Speaker 1: lofty goal, but volunteers around the city were being increasingly
Speaker 1: mobilized during and after the week of action. For the
Speaker 1: first few weeks of the referendum, the city stayed mostly quiet,
Speaker 1: but then on the July fifth APD press conference, Mayor
Speaker 1: Andre Dickens addressed the referendum.
Speaker 2: Mayor, some of these protesters and posters of the twenty
Speaker 2: Center have biggun connecting signatures in the hope of having
Speaker 2: a referendum, putting the November p Mu's your reaction to that?
Speaker 3: What's your comment on that?
Speaker 1: Will you allow them to do what they're doing right
Speaker 1: now and possibly have in the referendum?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, the referendum process is one that's legally documented. It's
Speaker 4: in the city code, and anybody can attempt to get
Speaker 4: the petition going and get the necessary signatures. We asked
Speaker 4: they do so with honesty and truth, collect the signatures
Speaker 4: from real people, with sharing the truth about what they
Speaker 4: are looking to do. And so I don't personally believe
Speaker 4: they're going to be successful. I believe that based on
Speaker 4: what we know about the citizens of Atlanta, they are
Speaker 4: a supportive of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. We
Speaker 4: know that this is going to be unsuccessful if it's
Speaker 4: done honestly, and so we're making sure that we continue
Speaker 4: to monitor the process.
Speaker 1: This statement by the Democrat mayor of Atlanta, I don't
Speaker 1: think has been highlighted enough. The mayor is trying to
Speaker 1: frame a successful referendum as a fraudulent one. Dickens is
Speaker 1: priming propaganda channels and testing the waters for blatant election
Speaker 1: fraud stile messaging in the future by very clearly insinuating
Speaker 1: that if you win this, that means you're cheating.
Speaker 2: The referendum kept popping up like throughout the Week of
Speaker 2: Action without It wasn't tailing up space.
Speaker 1: It was never never the focus. It was always just
Speaker 1: like on the sidelines.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it was everywhere, Like every I think every
Speaker 2: event the referendum was in some way shape or form.
Speaker 2: You know, they're like the Home Depot rally and people
Speaker 2: walking by they were talking about the referendum and talking
Speaker 2: about the Week of Action collecting signatures.
Speaker 1: It did not feel like it was taking space away
Speaker 1: from any of the other aspects of the movement I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I think some people were definitely worried about that, Like
Speaker 1: people worried that the referendum might act as like a
Speaker 1: release out for both the movement and like the people
Speaker 1: who are like out of the movement and still like
Speaker 1: looking at cop City being like, how can you get
Speaker 1: involved in this thing? And you see this like very
Speaker 1: like above for electoral strategy of slanning stuff like what
Speaker 1: if people's efforts just get funneled into that and they
Speaker 1: missed that on the other much more expensive aspects of
Speaker 1: the movement. One of the few more referendum focused events
Speaker 1: during the Week of Action was a community town hall
Speaker 1: discussion put on by the Hip Hop Caucus at the
Speaker 1: gathering Spot on the evening of Friday, June thirtieth. Before
Speaker 1: the panel discussion, myself and Matt from the Atlantic Community
Speaker 1: Press Collective talked with two members of the Hip Hop
Speaker 1: Caucus about the event and their hopes for the referendum.
Speaker 1: This is Brandy Williams, an organizer with the Hip Hop Caccus.
Speaker 5: So the Hip Hop Coccus is a national nonpart is
Speaker 5: a nonprofit organization that uses hip hop culture to connect
Speaker 5: people to the civic and political process. And essentially we
Speaker 5: do that in four areas. We do that with I
Speaker 5: think one hundred percent, Climbate and environmental justice work. We
Speaker 5: were founded as a voting and democracy organization out of
Speaker 5: the Voter Die movement, so we still do that work
Speaker 5: under our respect my Vote platform. We also have our
Speaker 5: Good Trouble civil and human rights work. It's our multiissue
Speaker 5: platform and we look at it as the justice department
Speaker 5: for hip hop, so we do it. We work on
Speaker 5: everything from police reform to education and healthcare, and then
Speaker 5: our justice Paid in Full, which is our economic justice platform,
Speaker 5: So how do we achieve economic justice. We actually started
Speaker 5: our activation like on the groundwork in La last week
Speaker 5: during be et weekend, so we did a similar event
Speaker 5: in La. We're doing this one here and we're planning
Speaker 5: to be here in Atlanta and through the referendum and
Speaker 5: through the election.
Speaker 1: We also talked with Leonajaha Lone Wolf, an Atlanta resident
Speaker 1: and national community organizer. Recently she had been working de
Speaker 1: spread awareness across the country about what's been going on
Speaker 1: in Atlanta.
Speaker 6: Myself, hip Hop Quark is movement for Black Lives Until Freedom,
Speaker 6: community movement builders. We all came up with this idea
Speaker 6: to create this photo shoot campaign similar to Voter Die
Speaker 6: or in anything you know, with these where you have
Speaker 6: a nice shirt or a sticker and you're taking and
Speaker 6: just being there in solidarity. So we did it during
Speaker 6: La BT Awards weekend last weekend. We had a nice
Speaker 6: turnout of folks that came. I was in LA for
Speaker 6: the Hollywood Climate Summit. I spoke on the panel with
Speaker 6: Jane Fonda, so there was a lot of people from
Speaker 6: Hollywood that came and said, oh my god, that's what's
Speaker 6: happening in Georgia. We have to be if we cannot
Speaker 6: sign for on the referendum, but we stand with you
Speaker 6: all because what we are also educating people at is
Speaker 6: that if Cop City is built, they already having contracts
Speaker 6: with police nationally to come here. This will be the
Speaker 6: largest police training facility in the United States. I went
Speaker 6: to Universal Studios, Hollywood, Universal Studios. Rollercoat says, its huge,
Speaker 6: just nice. It's four hundred acres. That's fifty acres. Lest
Speaker 6: will be Cop City. And then you know, and I'm like,
Speaker 6: that's an amusement park of nothing but real real gunfire,
Speaker 6: real bombs, real real everything. It's not gonna be fake.
Speaker 6: It's not amusement park in that way. But this is
Speaker 6: their call of duty in real.
Speaker 2: Life, and it's in the middle of a residential neighborhood.
Speaker 6: They're not here to protect and serve. They're here to
Speaker 6: shoot to kill. And so police from all across this
Speaker 6: nation will be coming here to Georgia for this militarized
Speaker 6: police training and that's a problem for me. And the
Speaker 6: turnout in California showed that that's a problem for them too.
Speaker 6: So we had a lot of people that came for that,
Speaker 6: and today we're doing the same thing and we're having
Speaker 6: a community town hall discussion because I think there's a
Speaker 6: lot of people that don't understand why is cop city
Speaker 6: because the mayor. I want to meet the mayor's publicists
Speaker 6: because the way that this whole thing has been spinned
Speaker 6: on his side that no, it would be great for
Speaker 6: the EMT and the firefighters, and they're pushing EMT firefighters
Speaker 6: more than the police part, but the police part is
Speaker 6: a huge part. I think these type of conversations need
Speaker 6: to be talked about, and so that's what this community
Speaker 6: town hall is all about as well for those that
Speaker 6: are kind of wavering neutral, maybe don't know, maybe they
Speaker 6: know it a lot, you know, because the number one
Speaker 6: thing that we've been like, I was on V one
Speaker 6: O three yesterday on the radio station, and I also
Speaker 6: have been doing a couple of other media and call ins,
Speaker 6: and a lot of people don't understand, like they a
Speaker 6: lot of people don't understand, like why is this a
Speaker 6: bad thing? You know, you can move it somewhere else,
Speaker 6: they say. But even if it's moved somewhere else, I'm
Speaker 6: still gonna fight against cop city, you know, just because
Speaker 6: I have this hits home for me too. Many of
Speaker 6: my friends and family have been murdered by the hands
Speaker 6: of radical power hungry, gun happy, trigger happy police officers.
Speaker 6: And I feel that there is and then also another
Speaker 6: thing too, I there is answers, you know, in regards
Speaker 6: to we don't need more police, we need resources. They
Speaker 6: shut down our hospital, they shut down the shelters. It's
Speaker 6: not like they don't know, right, Like we tell them,
Speaker 6: we need more jobs, not just any job, good quality jobs.
Speaker 6: We need pristine health, not just affordable healthcare. And then
Speaker 6: most importantly, it just are unsheltered friends to see that
Speaker 6: they put bulldozers. They, this administration, this this city continues.
Speaker 4: To ignore.
Speaker 6: Ignore the people. We have the hugest the biggest wealth
Speaker 6: gap in the nation. They and they call it Wakanda,
Speaker 6: the blackest City. But if this is how you treat
Speaker 6: us our people, our people need resources. That's where this
Speaker 6: sixty seven million dollars should be going. It should not
Speaker 6: be going towards a more police. We don't need more
Speaker 6: police because when you go to Cobb County, when you
Speaker 6: go over to Alpharetta, they don't have a lot of police,
Speaker 6: they don't have a lot of Why would they need
Speaker 6: a lot of police because they already got the resources.
Speaker 1: On top of the community town hall discussion, there were
Speaker 1: a few other things to do at the event that,
Speaker 1: you know, Jaha talked about.
Speaker 6: Stop Cop City photo campaign. One, you come and take
Speaker 6: your photo and just showing that you stand in solidarity,
Speaker 6: and then most importantly is to get some signatures.
Speaker 1: As well throughout the referendum process. It's been interesting how
Speaker 1: many people, even in Atlanta are just now learning about
Speaker 1: cop City.
Speaker 2: When did you first hear about cop City?
Speaker 3: Honestly earlier this year, And.
Speaker 5: Like a lot of the people that I am talking
Speaker 5: to now, I was also kind of confused about the issue.
Speaker 5: I wasn't really sure why, you know, they were so
Speaker 5: opposed until I started learning a little more about what
Speaker 5: actually was going to happen.
Speaker 3: At this training facility.
Speaker 5: So the idea of building a mini city with the
Speaker 5: helicopter landing pad with a shooting range or a firing
Speaker 5: range military grade in a community.
Speaker 3: So this is not on the outskirts.
Speaker 5: This is in a community, and then in a community
Speaker 5: of color, and you're bringing police from around the country
Speaker 5: in to learn military tactics, tactics that we use in
Speaker 5: foreign countries to protect citizens.
Speaker 3: We should not be thinking about our.
Speaker 5: Citizens, our residents, as people who need to be protected
Speaker 5: from themselves.
Speaker 3: If that, if I'm making sense, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So it's sort of like enemy combatants in your own.
Speaker 5: In your on backyard, but you're training them up in
Speaker 5: a black community. So I can only imagine that some
Speaker 5: of that many cities is going to spill over into
Speaker 5: the communities.
Speaker 3: Then you're bringing.
Speaker 5: Police officers from around the country here, so they're taking
Speaker 5: that back.
Speaker 1: The specific community where the Atlanta Police Foundation is trying
Speaker 1: to build a cop city has already been traumatized by
Speaker 1: the violence of the States for hundreds of years. Now.
Speaker 1: This whole area was violently stolen from Muscogee Creek, then
Speaker 1: it became a slave plantation, and then part of it
Speaker 1: was sold to the city of Atlanta, and then it
Speaker 1: became a prison firm. Since then, the land has been
Speaker 1: home to two landfills and three detention facilities. This is
Speaker 1: the history of just this neighborhood for the last few
Speaker 1: hundred years. Now, the carstor of violence inflicted on this land,
Speaker 1: it's attempting to be exported, as police will soon come
Speaker 1: from around the country and even the world to train
Speaker 1: at copp City.
Speaker 5: No one wants it in their community, but you're going
Speaker 5: to continue to burden this particular community with the same
Speaker 5: thing over and over and over again. The people of
Speaker 5: that community for generations have experienced all kinds of harm
Speaker 5: at the hands of the people that they supposedly are
Speaker 5: electing to represent and protect them from these types of.
Speaker 3: Things, and they're actually the ones doing it to them.
Speaker 5: You were elected by people to represent them, and they've
Speaker 5: told you for two years, we don't want this.
Speaker 3: You are ignoring their voice.
Speaker 1: On the day of the Hip Hopcoccus Panel, an air
Speaker 1: quality alert was issued due to incoming smoke from wildfires
Speaker 1: up north in Atlanta. The AQI reached one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty the ocean.
Speaker 6: These fish, these birds, they're screaming at us right now.
Speaker 6: What we are doing to Mother Earth right now is
Speaker 6: we are from cutting down the trees, fossil fuels, everything,
Speaker 6: this is, this is, and especially this being the lungs
Speaker 6: of Atlanta. Today, I'm wearing my mask because on my
Speaker 6: weather advisory it said it said the air quality is
Speaker 6: not good today for sensitive people. And that is just
Speaker 6: with the trees. And they keep on cutting down these trees.
Speaker 6: I moved here because of the trees. I'm from Arizona,
Speaker 6: so I needed trees. That was nothing but desert. But
Speaker 6: I moved here because of these trees because I love
Speaker 6: the life force that trees give us. Even when we
Speaker 6: see a tree, the Earth is talking back to us, saying,
Speaker 6: stop doing what you're doing. The dolphins, the orcas, the wells,
Speaker 6: they're all migrant. They're like, you're you're the ocean is
Speaker 6: hot right now, the so they are. They're yelling at us,
Speaker 6: and we're not listening. And and as a native in
Speaker 6: my native way, our elders, our chiefs have said that
Speaker 6: we plan for seven generations from now. I am a
Speaker 6: mother of two sons, and what this administration is doing
Speaker 6: and what these corporations are doing, they're not looking at
Speaker 6: seven generations from now they're not looking at how this
Speaker 6: is gonna affect us on the long run. And and
Speaker 6: and I love the fact of everyone that is standing
Speaker 6: firm and saying stop cop City, because we see the vision.
Speaker 6: We know what this, this Uchi Marca, this mother Earth
Speaker 6: is going to look like seven generations from now. And
Speaker 6: we're fighting to our death because the fact that we
Speaker 6: want to make sure that our children's children's children's children
Speaker 6: could still live here and be in a peaceful, safe
Speaker 6: place and environment to live.
Speaker 1: Since being elected as the Progressive candidate in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: there's been an ever growing animosity towards Mayor Dickens from
Speaker 1: all of his unfulfilled promises. When talking with you Najaha,
Speaker 1: she expressed that she felt disappointed that herself and this
Speaker 1: big block of people helped Andre get elected. And now
Speaker 1: Mayor Dickens is fully committed to the cop City project
Speaker 1: and is even having conversations with other black leaders in
Speaker 1: the city to bring them on board and prevent them
Speaker 1: from opposing Cop City.
Speaker 6: The mayor is in his position because of the blood,
Speaker 6: sweat and tears and arrest and beat ups that we
Speaker 6: got during Freedom Summer twenty twenty. He used the social justice,
Speaker 6: the civil rights organizations and activists voices to get him
Speaker 6: in the position that he used them and say, y'all
Speaker 6: help me. I'm gonna be there for you all. And
Speaker 6: it's all a slap in the face. So I don't
Speaker 6: like hypocrisy. And I see I see hypocrites all throughout
Speaker 6: this and on the on this administration side, from the
Speaker 6: governor all the way down, even when we try to
Speaker 6: help our unsheltered friends. In December, when it was so
Speaker 6: cold out here, I went on social media. I raised
Speaker 6: five thousand dollars in two hours. I went and went,
Speaker 6: Me and my friends went and got them all tents, tents,
Speaker 6: sleeping bags, everything. The mayor called my comrade. Mayor Andre
Speaker 6: called my comrade and was all like, why are you
Speaker 6: saying that they don't have no heating stations? And I
Speaker 6: set up a heating station. Not everyone wants to go there,
Speaker 6: because so is there? Where is your mental health services?
Speaker 6: What's the transitioning team that you should have on the
Speaker 6: ground to helped transition them. Don't just open up a
Speaker 6: temporary heating shelter. Where's a transition team to go and
Speaker 6: talk to the people of saying, hey, let me walk
Speaker 6: you in to go get heated. There was none of that.
Speaker 6: You're just expecting people to just go in there or
Speaker 6: they knew where.
Speaker 4: It was at.
Speaker 6: So we went to the cab. We went to the cab,
Speaker 6: and we also went down to Atlanta. We gave them tents.
Speaker 6: The police went down there. The Atlanta Pede went down
Speaker 6: there and put holes all in their tents. They slight
Speaker 6: They used a knife and put and sliced their tents
Speaker 6: open so it wouldn't they couldn't even stay in it. Yes, yes,
Speaker 6: while it was still below freezing. This is all under
Speaker 6: the administration of Mayor Andre. So no, we can't trust
Speaker 6: We can't trust them.
Speaker 2: Do you feel betrayed by Andre?
Speaker 6: Yes, because I voted for him. I voted for him.
Speaker 6: I voted for him because I think I voted for
Speaker 6: him like every other person voted for vote for someone.
Speaker 6: Is that their care is? They talk an amazing game.
Speaker 6: And on top of it, my friends that were close
Speaker 6: with him voted for him. My friends in the movement activists,
Speaker 6: people that I look up to from as mentorship. They said, man, Andre,
Speaker 6: He's gonna have fund a lot of the things that
Speaker 6: we're doing.
Speaker 1: Leonajaha spoke about how Mayor Dickens worked to build mutually
Speaker 1: beneficial relationships between the city and non governmental quote unquote
Speaker 1: progressive organizations. So while some NGOs have received money from
Speaker 1: the city, now many of these big quote unquote civil
Speaker 1: rights orgs are scared of jeopardizing potential funding and are
Speaker 1: now currently refusing to speak out against cop City.
Speaker 6: Yeah. When I talk so the same people that have
Speaker 6: spoken to Andre are the same people. I'm like, why
Speaker 6: don't you involved, you know, And they're just like, I
Speaker 6: think it's gonna be built, and at least I'm at
Speaker 6: the table. A lot of them think that way. They
Speaker 6: was like, I was there at the beginning fighting. I
Speaker 6: had to sit down with the mayor. I believe this
Speaker 6: is gonna be built. So since this is gonna be built,
Speaker 6: let me figure out at least I'm at the table
Speaker 6: in the community and there's community engagement. At least there's
Speaker 6: some type of bridging happening. That's their angle. Anyone that
Speaker 6: said black Lives Matter was on the front line with
Speaker 6: us in twenty twenty, that is that was horrified by
Speaker 6: the videos that they saw. This we are at prime time,
Speaker 6: this is the epicenter of police terrorism being built. This
Speaker 6: is it, this is this is it. This is not
Speaker 6: each individual. We're trying to prevent more families, because if
Speaker 6: they build this, it's gonna be a lot more families
Speaker 6: that's gonna be crying and saying, they killed my baby.
Speaker 6: So we're at the epicenter of a cop city and
Speaker 6: you are silent. You're silent, but you was there for
Speaker 6: the families. You was there posting black lives matter. You
Speaker 6: was there saying stop police terrorism. But they're building a
Speaker 6: they're building a terrorist headquarters, and you don't have nothing
Speaker 6: to say. You're a hypocrite. You're a hypocrite, period, point blank.
Speaker 1: Brandy also talked about the hypocrisy of pushing forward cup
Speaker 1: City after the George Floyd uprising in twenty twenty.
Speaker 5: You know, three years ago, just in May, all these
Speaker 5: companies were sending out these emails saying that black lives matter.
Speaker 5: After George Floyd. They were pouring money into the community
Speaker 5: to show their support for black lives. But some of
Speaker 5: those same communities Home Depot, Coca Cola, Delta Airlines, waffle House.
Speaker 5: You guys are I'm sure sent those emails out, and
Speaker 5: now you're putting money into something that does not respect
Speaker 5: black lives. So I think there's just this huge contradiction
Speaker 5: in who these companies say they are how they're showing up.
Speaker 1: Part of the growing propaganda battle over cop City is
Speaker 1: an attempt to frame this state of the arched militarized
Speaker 1: police training facility as a quote unquote public safety training center,
Speaker 1: embodying the call for police reform that liberals protested for
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty. Not only does this erase the abolitionist
Speaker 1: corps of the twenty twenty uprising, but it also obfuscates
Speaker 1: the fact that cop City is indeed a direct response
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty, not in terms of police reform, but
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of the neoliberal police state being under
Speaker 1: genuine threat. Corporate America and police have made this pact
Speaker 1: to maintain each other's legitimacy, as one cannot survive without
Speaker 1: the other. Cop City is to ensure that what happened
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty will never happen again. After the clear
Speaker 1: cutting of around eighty acres to the Wahlani Forest, there's
Speaker 1: been more of a focus on the stop Coop City
Speaker 1: wing of the movement than defend the forest. Sure, there
Speaker 1: are still three hundred acres to defend and eighty acres
Speaker 1: to restore. But as construction is getting more imminent, the
Speaker 1: specific cop city focus has taken center stage in messaging.
Speaker 5: When it was initially talked about, it was all about
Speaker 5: the environment.
Speaker 3: They're tearing down the.
Speaker 5: Forest and as marginalized poor people. If I am hearing that,
Speaker 5: I'm not seeing it as important. I'm trying to figure
Speaker 5: out how much pay my rent, how much my kids,
Speaker 5: how i'm i pay my bills, how I'm getting to
Speaker 5: and from work, and so those things I think made
Speaker 5: it difficult to break into the household of people who
Speaker 5: really need to be paying attention, and I would dare
Speaker 5: to say even the people in the community. I watched
Speaker 5: some of the testimony from the city council meeting several
Speaker 5: weeks ago. In the the state representative that spoke first
Speaker 5: talked about how the church right next door to the
Speaker 5: facility didn't even know what was happening next door to them.
Speaker 5: So for the city of Atlanta to say, oh, we've
Speaker 5: done outreach people in the community, no, that's not true, right,
Speaker 5: But part of that is the way that the narrative
Speaker 5: has started.
Speaker 3: And I think they were like, Okay, that ain't got
Speaker 3: nothing to do with me.
Speaker 5: And then also the fact that the faces that they
Speaker 5: saw on TV, it was they're thinking, this is a
Speaker 5: white led, white organization, white problem, it's not our problem,
Speaker 5: so they haven't engaged. So I think those are all
Speaker 5: things that we have to consider that and let people
Speaker 5: know this is a diverse problem.
Speaker 3: It impacts everybody.
Speaker 5: It's going to impact people of color and poor and
Speaker 5: marginalized communities more than anybody else, just because of the
Speaker 5: nature of how policing is done in America and so.
Speaker 3: And the and the problems that we still have with that.
Speaker 5: So our program is from Red Dogs to cop City,
Speaker 5: the Dirty South history of over policing Atlanta. So helping
Speaker 5: them understand how this is just new iteration of what's
Speaker 5: been happening. So the Red Dog Unit was at some
Speaker 5: call it a gang within Atlanta PD for many years.
Speaker 5: It was disbanded in twenty eleven, but they were terrorizing
Speaker 5: low poor communities of color, and so cop City in
Speaker 5: the way that they're thinking about training these officers.
Speaker 3: Would be just a new iteration of that.
Speaker 5: So helping them understand that just because we have come
Speaker 5: far with the civil rights, with our civil rights and
Speaker 5: I'm not even talking specifically about the sixties movement, but
Speaker 5: civil rights for people of color, women, LGBTQIA plus communities.
Speaker 3: Just because we've come far doesn't mean it can't go back.
Speaker 1: Atlanta's Red Dogs inspired the Scorpion Unit in Memphis that
Speaker 1: killed Tyree Nichols this past January, and the current iteration
Speaker 1: of the Red Dogs in Atlanta is the Apex Unit,
Speaker 1: who have been very active in suppressing stop Cop City protests.
Speaker 1: I'm going to play three brief clips from the panel discussion.
Speaker 1: The first is from Mariah Parker, a local activist and
Speaker 1: former Georgia County commissioner.
Speaker 3: This is a war on the Uprising of twenty twenty.
Speaker 7: Okay, this is in the aftermath of the largest uprisings.
Speaker 5: In North America.
Speaker 7: The Atlanta Police Foundation, who is the main driver and
Speaker 7: the main funder and actually the owner of Cross City.
Speaker 7: I keep forgetting the fact that this is not actually
Speaker 7: going to go bust. The Limp Police Foundation trying to
Speaker 7: rehas certain their control over Black communities at a time
Speaker 7: when people are starting to understand that communities are made
Speaker 7: safe for bi bordable housing and healthcare, child.
Speaker 5: Care and edger.
Speaker 7: And where their supremacy in the public safety apparatus has
Speaker 7: been challenged, their dominance has been challenged, and so in
Speaker 7: response to that uprising, they seized hold of the narrative
Speaker 7: that more police training, more diversity in our officers would
Speaker 7: be the magic key to heal all the wounds in
Speaker 7: our communities and to actually deliver a style of police
Speaker 7: thing that serves some people. And so with that they
Speaker 7: were able to make arguments that cop city would be
Speaker 7: the answer to right allegedly rising crime rates, heal at
Speaker 7: these divides, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, they it's.
Speaker 7: Like it's a form of counterinsurgency. The people rose up,
Speaker 7: and so this is the police right.
Speaker 3: For that one response to reassert their dominance.
Speaker 1: Next is kJ Henson, an Atlanta local and organizer with
Speaker 1: Black Men Build and Blackmail Initiative Georgia.
Speaker 8: We're clear that the police are not our protectors.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 9: We suffer at the hands of the system on a
Speaker 9: daily basis. Right, the system was built upon our backs literally, So.
Speaker 3: We see that we've been discarded, we've been.
Speaker 4: Abused by the system. And that's the point.
Speaker 8: It's not that we're disengaged because we don't care. We're
Speaker 8: disengaged because we do care right. Every election cycle, it's
Speaker 8: black voters to the rescue. We're the folks that are
Speaker 8: most impacted by the decisions of the same elected officials
Speaker 8: that beg us to put them in a position.
Speaker 3: We suffer because these people will.
Speaker 8: Come to us and beg for votes, for canvassers, for money, and.
Speaker 9: They turn around and they sell us out the first
Speaker 9: chance they need.
Speaker 8: So it's we're dis engaged of a matter of I
Speaker 8: can't get what I need from these people that say.
Speaker 4: That they're for me.
Speaker 8: Right, the very means of the people are at risk.
Speaker 8: Cop city threatens are very right to protest. Right, cop
Speaker 8: city threat is the right.
Speaker 9: For us to stand in the street and use our
Speaker 9: voice as a means of building collective.
Speaker 8: Power, as a vehicle for making societal change. You can
Speaker 8: come a domestic terrorist, you get jail, without bed, without bond,
Speaker 8: you won't have a courtin I've been there myself, not
Speaker 8: for testic terrorism.
Speaker 1: We've just been from Corda.
Speaker 9: So we're seeing the rise of fascism in a very
Speaker 9: real way.
Speaker 8: Like in the realistic ways cop City, like you said,
Speaker 8: it is ground zero for what would become a very
Speaker 8: popular trend.
Speaker 7: Not this in America, but.
Speaker 8: Across the world right, So it's on us to make
Speaker 8: sure that we do everything that's.
Speaker 6: In our power to make sure that this.
Speaker 7: Day is stop.
Speaker 3: Cop City is.
Speaker 9: Given police the training and the ability to have urban
Speaker 9: warfare and suppression tactics at their will to be used
Speaker 9: against the people.
Speaker 3: Urban warfare and suppression.
Speaker 8: Not like thy not unlike what we see in other countries,
Speaker 8: in other cities with organized resistance everywhere.
Speaker 1: Lastly, we have Reverend Keana Jones, member of the Faith
Speaker 1: Coalition to Stop Cop City, whom we've heard from on
Speaker 1: this show before.
Speaker 10: I want every Black Atlanta to think about what you
Speaker 10: don't have. If you don't have affordable housing, it's because
Speaker 10: they put the money in the cop CIT. If you
Speaker 10: can't pay your life bill, it's because that assistance got
Speaker 10: given back to the federal government.
Speaker 3: What they're paying for cop CIT.
Speaker 10: If there are no policing alternatives and no urgent initiatives
Speaker 10: in your community, is that they've given the money and
Speaker 10: hop sick. If you fell into that pot hole on Passilion,
Speaker 10: it's because they.
Speaker 3: Give it the money to pop C.
Speaker 10: If you can't walk out of your door and brief
Speaker 10: clean air, it's because they rather get it to top C.
Speaker 10: So Andrea Hickins does.
Speaker 3: Not care about black people.
Speaker 10: I'm gonna do a Kanye West right now, but I'm saying,
Speaker 10: are Gibbons.
Speaker 3: Don't care about black people?
Speaker 10: And Andrea Nickens ain't no different than nobody else, and
Speaker 10: some of those other consul people out there who have
Speaker 10: no soul called legacy names ain't doing nothing for black people. So,
Speaker 10: once again, what is Andre Niggins doing for you? If
Speaker 10: he is willing to take police and make sure that
Speaker 10: they got slot takes to roll around in they walking
Speaker 10: around the ars in your neighborhood, your children walking out
Speaker 10: the house to hearing gunshots constantly, what do Andre Niggins
Speaker 10: care about you?
Speaker 3: Does his children hear that?
Speaker 1: Okay, it is important to mention the venue that that
Speaker 1: this was, that this panel took place in, because this
Speaker 1: is like a very much like a it feels it
Speaker 1: feels like a Black Excellence type of like space. It's
Speaker 1: like that is the space that it is. It's it is,
Speaker 1: it is a private club. It holds like an amount
Speaker 1: of like respect.
Speaker 2: There cultural significance.
Speaker 1: And on this panel at the gathering spot, the panelists
Speaker 1: were We're talking about how why why is the mayor
Speaker 1: who meant many of these people helped get elected because
Speaker 1: he had promises about, you know, helping out the community,
Speaker 1: giving millions of dollars to affordable housing. Why is he
Speaker 1: using now, like sixty seventy million dollars that could go
Speaker 1: to affordable housing, that could go towards supporting black people
Speaker 1: in Atlanta? Is funneling all of that money into the
Speaker 1: police and and into not even like the police department,
Speaker 1: a private police foundation, like funding funding the APFS project,
Speaker 1: not a city project. I think it was Keana who
Speaker 1: said that Andre Dickens does not care about black people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and having that be said at the gathering spot, I
Speaker 1: think actually is very important and is worth talking about.
Speaker 1: As the referendum was progressing and people from across all
Speaker 1: sides of the movement, we're working in conjunction just spread
Speaker 1: awareness of Copcity and engage in action. The mayor was
Speaker 1: making attempts to divide the movement.
Speaker 4: Criminals are hiding in the middle of peaceful protests and
Speaker 4: sometimes they are doing their own separate acts of violence.
Speaker 4: Some of them are career arsonists and vandals from across
Speaker 4: the nation. Local activists have been alerted to this numerous times.
Speaker 4: These are the actions of blatantly outrageous, dangerous, and violent criminals.
Speaker 4: How are arsonists, vandals, violent actors able to be alongside
Speaker 4: peaceful protesters. You have individuals that will burn up construction equipment,
Speaker 4: light a fire to police vehicles, and then have a
Speaker 4: bouncy house party the next day with peaceful protesters at
Speaker 4: a park. So they will go to a park by day,
Speaker 4: and then by night they're burning up police equipment or
Speaker 4: setting fires or trying to destroy construction equipment. So these
Speaker 4: individuals are trying to use the guys of peaceful protests
Speaker 4: that maybe some local Atlantans may actually be engaged in
Speaker 4: a desired conversation about their views on public safety. But
Speaker 4: these individuals have different views than those folks. These individuals
Speaker 4: are anarchists. They want to destroy. So these individuals are
Speaker 4: alongside these arsonists, these criminals are alongside peaceful protesters, and
Speaker 4: sometimes the peaceful protesters are aware of it, and sometimes
Speaker 4: they are not. We have made it clear to local
Speaker 4: activists that we know and individuals that tend to be peaceful.
Speaker 4: We're letting them know that we are aware that there
Speaker 4: are individuals that are in our city that have committed
Speaker 4: crimes across the nation and that they are on your
Speaker 4: social media or in your network saying they're coming to
Speaker 4: your event to do the same.
Speaker 1: Mayor Dickens went further and essentially threatened that if you
Speaker 1: are a so called activist and you don't snitch, then
Speaker 1: the APD will treat you the same as a violent criminal.
Speaker 4: So when we give you that heads up as a
Speaker 4: local organizer, you should take that heads up and also
Speaker 4: see something, say something, as we're asking any other citizen
Speaker 4: to do. When peaceful protesters, when organizers are not utilizing
Speaker 4: their best judgment, then bad things can happen with them
Speaker 4: being alongside them, and it makes it real tough for
Speaker 4: APD to know who was the one with the dirty hands,
Speaker 4: so to speak. And so that's what the message that
Speaker 4: we want to get out to the public is that
Speaker 4: these individuals mean harm and you don't want to be
Speaker 4: around them or associated with them. When you are, it
Speaker 4: makes it difficult to tell who.
Speaker 1: The city wants. The various wings of the fight to
Speaker 1: stop cop City to turn on each other, to resent
Speaker 1: each other, to so distrust and undermine any collective power.
Speaker 1: That's why the referendum's Statement of solidarity explicitly rejecting respectability
Speaker 1: politics and the framing of violent and nonviolent resistance was
Speaker 1: so important. An online communicate claiming responsibility for torching police
Speaker 1: motorcycles on the last day of the Week of action
Speaker 1: addressed this dynamic quote. We took action after non combative
Speaker 1: demonstrations at Cadence Bank and Home Depot. The police attacked
Speaker 1: those demonstrations with no cause, as they do wherever and
Speaker 1: however the movement gathers. There can be no separation of
Speaker 1: time and space for tactics when police have turned society
Speaker 1: into a war zone. Despite this, we dispersed our activity
Speaker 1: as much as possible across their area of control. We
Speaker 1: encourage those who are pursuing a strategy of referendum to
Speaker 1: continue supporting all methods to stop cop City. If you
Speaker 1: defy the state's unilateral authority in any way, you will
Speaker 1: be seen as a valid target. As demonstrated throughout the
Speaker 1: history of this movement, including during this last Week of action,
Speaker 1: police will treat you like a violent criminal, whether you're
Speaker 1: holding a sign in a parking lot, bailing activists out
Speaker 1: of jail, or smashing a cop car. On July sixth,
Speaker 1: a group of activists in unincorporated Decab County near the
Speaker 1: potential site of cop City, filed a lawsuit against the
Speaker 1: City of Atlanta and the State of Georgia, claiming the
Speaker 1: requirement that signature gatherers must themselves be Atlanta residents violated
Speaker 1: their First Amendment right to free speech and petition the
Speaker 1: government due to the potential constitutional violation, the lawsuit also
Speaker 1: requested the court reset the sixty day clock for gathering
Speaker 1: signatures while still counting the signatures that were already gathered.
Speaker 1: In mid July, the City of Atlanta filed a reply
Speaker 1: in federal court arguing that the cop City referendum was
Speaker 1: wholly invalid since it seeks to provoke a land lease
Speaker 1: that has already been signed. The filing reads, in part, quote,
Speaker 1: repeal of a year's old ordinance cannot retroactively revoke authorization
Speaker 1: to do something that has already been done. But if
Speaker 1: the referendum could claim to result in a revocation or
Speaker 1: cancelation of the lease, it would still be invalid because
Speaker 1: it would amount to an imformissible impairment of that contract unquote.
Speaker 1: The city also argued that if the court does deem
Speaker 1: the Atlanta residency requirement for gathering signatures unconstitutional, then the
Speaker 1: entire referendum should be deemed unlaw. A rebuttal by the
Speaker 1: plaintiffs said that the city did not provide factual or
Speaker 1: legal evidence for its claims and misread the cited precedence.
Speaker 1: According to the plaintiffs, the land lease contract is ongoing,
Speaker 1: not an irreversible quote unquote one time event, and since
Speaker 1: the city authorized and issued the petition form, they skipped
Speaker 1: their chance to argue that the referendum is somehow invalid
Speaker 1: by already approving the language of the petition and letting
Speaker 1: the referendum process begin. Near the end of July, US
Speaker 1: District Court Judge Mark Cohen ruled in favor of the
Speaker 1: cop city referendum, allowing non Atlanta residents to collect signatures
Speaker 1: and reset the sixty day clock to collect the roughly
Speaker 1: sixty thousand signatures needed to put the land lease on
Speaker 1: the ballot. In his ruling, Judge Mark Cohen said, quote
Speaker 1: requiring signature gatherers to be residents of the city imposes
Speaker 1: a severe burden on core political speech and does little
Speaker 1: to protect the city's interest in self governance unquote. Mary Hooks,
Speaker 1: the tactical lead of the referendum coalition, reacted to the ruling, saying, quote,
Speaker 1: we are thrilled by Judge Cohen's ruling and the expansion
Speaker 1: of democracy to include our cab neighbors and level the
Speaker 1: playing field for our coalition unquote. The city quickly filed
Speaker 1: for an appeal, which was subsequently denied on August fourteenth,
Speaker 1: with the judge stating quote, the city's real concern may
Speaker 1: be that now that non residents have the ability to
Speaker 1: gather signatures on the petition for the entire time that
Speaker 1: they would have been permitted to do so had their
Speaker 1: initial request been granted, there is an increased possibility that
Speaker 1: a sufficient number of valid signatures could be obtained unquote.
Speaker 1: As liberals cheered on the Fulton County District Attorney in
Speaker 1: Atlanta for indicting Trump and co conspirators for election tampering
Speaker 1: under reco charges, the same exact sort of charges that
Speaker 1: this office has used against young black rappers and have
Speaker 1: been wielded against the Stop Cop City movement, the City
Speaker 1: of Atlanta's own election interference by repressing the referendum has
Speaker 1: been largely ignored. Fulton County court set Trump's bond for
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars for attempting to overthrow a federal election.
Speaker 1: The same court set bond at three hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars each for multiple protesters arrested for being
Speaker 1: merely present at a protest. After Georgia State Patrol killed
Speaker 1: force defender Torteguita in January of this year, during all
Speaker 1: of the glowing press for District Attorney Fannie Willis and
Speaker 1: the City of Atlanta, it was revealed that on August eleventh,
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Police Department killed a sixty two year old,
Speaker 1: unarmed black man named Johnny Holman while responding to a
Speaker 1: minor traffic accident. Both Holman and the unnamed second driver
Speaker 1: called nine one one after the accident. Holman told nine
Speaker 1: one one operators quote, somebody ran into truck after waiting
Speaker 1: for over an hour for police to arrive. Twenty three
Speaker 1: year old officer Kiaran Kimbro responded to the scene. Kimbro
Speaker 1: joined APD in March of twenty twenty one and currently
Speaker 1: as an open complaint for quote sexual misconduct non criminal unquote.
Speaker 1: Johnny Holman, who served as a deacon in his church,
Speaker 1: called his kids to listen to how the officer was
Speaker 1: escalating the situation, and then an unknown witness helped this
Speaker 1: APD officer wrestle sixty two year old Johnny Holman to
Speaker 1: the ground and put him in handcuffs as the officer
Speaker 1: used his taser. To quote the Atlantic Community Press Collective quote,
Speaker 1: the children listened for seventeen minutes as they drove to
Speaker 1: the scene of the accident, hearing their father call for
Speaker 1: help after officer kimbro tased him. When they arrived on scene,
Speaker 1: they found officers giving chrest compressions to their father. Unquote.
Speaker 1: Johnny Holman was then pronounced dead at Grady Hospital. A
Speaker 1: week after APD killed Holman, another person incarcerated at Fulton
Speaker 1: County Jail died while being held on five thousand dollars
Speaker 1: bond after being denied signature bond for shoplifting less than
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars of goods. The City of Atlanta's own
Speaker 1: alleged voter suppression has continued. Initially, the cop City vote
Speaker 1: referendum hoped to not have to use the extra day
Speaker 1: is granted by the judge and submit the collected signatures
Speaker 1: on August twenty first, with the intention of getting them
Speaker 1: verified in time to put the cop City vote on
Speaker 1: the upcoming November ballot come Monday, August twenty first, the
Speaker 1: referendum put out a statement that, despite collecting over one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand signatures, that they are delaying submitting the petition
Speaker 1: due to concerns that the city was going to employ
Speaker 1: voter suppression tactics during the validation process. The statement reads,
Speaker 1: in part quote, In recent days, we began to hear
Speaker 1: from reporters and sources inside city Hall that the City
Speaker 1: of Atlanta is planning to argue for a higher than
Speaker 1: previously reported legal minimum signature count for ballot access. More
Speaker 1: concerning were reports that they also planned to utilize signature
Speaker 1: match in their verification process, an archaic and widely abandoned
Speaker 1: tool of voter suppression that has been widely condemned across
Speaker 1: the political spectrum, including by the Republican controlled Georgia State legislator.
Speaker 1: Signature matching is a subjective form of a vote validation
Speaker 1: which uses election workers to visually match signatures on a
Speaker 1: ballot or in this case of petition, to a previous
Speaker 1: signature on their driver's license or voter registration card. Hours
Speaker 1: after the referendum's statement, the City of Atlanta officially announced
Speaker 1: their intention to use his signature matching for the cop
Speaker 1: city vote referendum. Back in twenty eighteen, a federal judge
Speaker 1: in Georgia ruled that signature matching did not serve any
Speaker 1: legitimate in interest and disenfranchised black and brown voters disproportionately.
Speaker 1: For years, the ACLU has advocated against and won multiple
Speaker 1: court cases against discriminatory signature matching processes. Fair Fight Action,
Speaker 1: a Georgia based voting rights organization founded by Stacy Abrams,
Speaker 1: responded to the news Atlanta would be using signature matching
Speaker 1: with a statement saying quote signature matching is a tool
Speaker 1: of voter suppression that litigated extensively in Georgia and removed
Speaker 1: from the mail in ballot process because of its harm
Speaker 1: to voters resulting in mass disenfranchisement. Using the discredited process
Speaker 1: of signature matching is unacceptable and risks unfairly rejecting thousands
Speaker 1: of valid petitions. Signature verification is notoriously subjective, disproportionately impacts
Speaker 1: voters of color, and as biased against disabled and elderly voters.
Speaker 1: There is extensive precedent in Georgia showing the harms of
Speaker 1: this process. It must be relegated to them. Past Fair
Speaker 1: fight calls on the City of Atlanta to rescind their
Speaker 1: intent to use this process and to enact steps that
Speaker 1: fairly evaluate these petitions unquote. Facing the City of Atlanta's
Speaker 1: quote open and ongoing hostility to the cop city vote referendum,
Speaker 1: the coalition has decided to use the time extension granted
Speaker 1: by federal Judge Mark Cohen to continue collecting signatures to
Speaker 1: quote leave no doubt as to the will of Atlanta
Speaker 1: voters unquote. They now plan to submit petition signatures on
Speaker 1: September twenty third. The City Council will then have fifty
Speaker 1: days to validate the signatures, which means that if successful,
Speaker 1: and assuming the city doesn't further interfere the referendum would
Speaker 1: get put on the ballot during the March primary election
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four. The vote being pushed into March
Speaker 1: adds a few complications. Turnout may skew more Republican as
Speaker 1: it's unlikely there will be a Democratic presidential primary, and
Speaker 1: the vote being seven months away disrupts the momentum that
Speaker 1: the campaign has been gaining over the past couple of months.
Speaker 1: People who signed the petition back in June would have
Speaker 1: to wait almost a whole year to vote on the ballot.
Speaker 1: The few extra months does give more time to educate
Speaker 1: the public about cop City during a lead up to
Speaker 1: the election, but that goes both ways, which means that
Speaker 1: after two years of this movement mostly taking form as
Speaker 1: a ground war over territory, now for the time being,
Speaker 1: much of the fight to stop Cop City will change
Speaker 1: into a pr war in the public sphere. This shift
Speaker 1: from a physical offense to a metaphysical offense was something
Speaker 1: that I already felt coming back during the Week of
Speaker 1: action in terms of like cameras and spectacle the other
Speaker 1: The big feeling I had on the Saturday kickoff rally
Speaker 1: was like this just feels like society of the spectacle,
Speaker 1: Like there's.
Speaker 2: Such a performance.
Speaker 1: It was very performative, but it was like almost like
Speaker 1: with all of the cameras looking at everything all the time,
Speaker 1: it was like are people trying to make a proximily
Speaker 1: of this movement for the cameras? Like is that has
Speaker 1: become almost more important? Or like it felt that way.
Speaker 1: This is a conversation that people have, like is it
Speaker 1: worth creating moments where we expect the police to lash
Speaker 1: out violently? Like is that effective as a propaganda tactic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that if comes with losing while looking good,
Speaker 2: it does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is like that is losing while looking good.
Speaker 1: But also I don't think that's nearly as effective as
Speaker 1: people think it is. I think after twenty twenty, I
Speaker 1: think people are kind of desensitized to a lot of
Speaker 1: police violence at protests. The visual the visuals of police
Speaker 1: hurting protesters, I don't think is nearly as impactful as
Speaker 1: it was even three years ago. So I think people
Speaker 1: are also realizing that and realizing that, hey, the sacrifice
Speaker 1: inherent in up actions where you know that you're probably
Speaker 1: going to get sucked up by police, that's not worth it.
Speaker 1: That that one, it treats people as like tools. That
Speaker 1: treats people as disposable, which is, you know, that's not
Speaker 1: great if you want to build a long lasting movement,
Speaker 1: And that's not even very effective. As the public relations
Speaker 1: battle over the fate of cop City intensifies in the
Speaker 1: lead up to the vote, with the City of Atlanta
Speaker 1: undoubtedly ready to run a full election, propaganda campaign strategies
Speaker 1: of resistance cannot overlook the physical construction of the facility.
Speaker 1: Pre construction has been active and ongoing for a few
Speaker 1: months now, mostly in the form of tree clearing and
Speaker 1: land grading. Just a few days ago, the Atlanta Police
Speaker 1: Foundation updated their construction timeline, saying that they had just
Speaker 1: began installing a stone base for the main roadway, that
Speaker 1: irrigation and site lighting is now underway, and full lawn
Speaker 1: construction is set to quote begin in the next week
Speaker 1: or or soot that now may be out of date,
Speaker 1: but based on the progress being made on the site,
Speaker 1: it's clear that construction is now imminent, and with the
Speaker 1: threat of the referendum, the APF will try to get
Speaker 1: as much built as quickly as possible to help with
Speaker 1: the pro copcity side of election messaging. One of the
Speaker 1: original goals of the referendum was to try to place
Speaker 1: an injunction on further construction until the ballot vote, but
Speaker 1: it's unknown if or when that would happen. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: activists may take a cue from Earth First, and instead
Speaker 1: of trying to occupy the site, instead they might find
Speaker 1: creative ways to make the construction site hard to work on. Also,
Speaker 1: with the increased element of spectacle placing a lot of
Speaker 1: extra eyes on pre announced public demonstrations, more secretive actions
Speaker 1: may start becoming more common. There's other actions that can
Speaker 1: happen more covertly, like if you're doing sabotage where you
Speaker 1: don't need to invite a camera crew to film you
Speaker 1: do crimes.
Speaker 2: Why is move not?
Speaker 6: Why is?
Speaker 1: But it's also as a rule like why That's the
Speaker 1: other thing is like so many of these events during
Speaker 1: during these weeks of action are pre planned that not
Speaker 1: only gives media heads up on like we're gonna film this,
Speaker 1: and this is also gonna that's gonna change the actions
Speaker 1: that happened while this is happening because everyone knows they're
Speaker 1: being launched, it also gives police heads.
Speaker 2: Up to to shut down the paths your in jurudchment career.
Speaker 1: So that I think that comes with the week of
Speaker 1: Action format because if people people coming in from out
Speaker 1: of town, they don't know where to go, if they're
Speaker 1: not already tied in with the movement, they don't know
Speaker 1: what what what exactly to do. So that's that's another
Speaker 1: thing that thinks could change during future actions that may
Speaker 1: not be part of the Week of Action is more covert,
Speaker 1: less less pre planned, pre announced actions that are maybe
Speaker 1: uh maybe a little bit more mischievous in their recent
Speaker 1: statement on voter suppression. The referendum also announced quote the
Speaker 1: coalition will consider using upcoming opportunities for non violent direct
Speaker 1: actions to direct the people's frustration with the city council's
Speaker 1: obstruction of the democratic process unquote. Camal Franklin of Community
Speaker 1: Movement Builders added quote, if the city needs to see
Speaker 1: a demonstration of the people's commitment to the issue, we're
Speaker 1: happy to provide one. Unquote. Police intentionally denying anarchists operating
Speaker 1: space by occupying the Wolani themselves may shift the more
Speaker 1: liberal side of the movement to now focus on rallies
Speaker 1: and events around the construction site, which could also inadvertently
Speaker 1: draw eyeballs away and open up other territory across the
Speaker 1: city that might be more vulnerable to attack by small
Speaker 1: groups to quote the direct action communicate claiming responsibility for
Speaker 1: torching the police motorcade on July first. Quote, while signatures
Speaker 1: are collected, the police are still killing. We cannot wait.
Speaker 1: If the referendum fails, actions like ours and Boulder will
Speaker 1: be the only means available. Unquote. With construction imminent, subcontractor
Speaker 1: tensions increasing and the City of Atlanta gambling with voter suppression,
Speaker 1: right now the movement really cannot afford to alienate the
Speaker 1: Green anarchists that pioneered the early legitimacy of this movement
Speaker 1: with bold direct action. The Atlanta Police Foundation is trying
Speaker 1: to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat. What
Speaker 1: happens in the next few months may push Atlanta to
Speaker 1: a dangerous tipping point. No matter the endpoint of this
Speaker 1: particular struggle, victory or defeat cannot be imagined as the end.
Speaker 1: The fight against Copcity is one large battle in an
Speaker 1: ongoing war, a war of police militarization, racism, environmental justice,
Speaker 1: and against the incestuous neoliberal police state in its leviathan
Speaker 1: like formation. Based on what happens here in Atlanta, similar
Speaker 1: police project proposals will be recalibrated. As the South goes,
Speaker 1: so goes the nation. Capitalist realism posits that history is over,
Speaker 1: that it's a literal thing of the past, But it
Speaker 1: turns out you're living through it right now, So what
Speaker 1: will you do to create it? You can read more
Speaker 1: about the fights to stop Coopcity at Atlpresscollective dot com
Speaker 1: and donate to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund at Atlsolidarity dot org.
Speaker 1: See you on the other side. It could Happen here
Speaker 1: as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com
Speaker 1: or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 1: for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot
Speaker 1: com slash sources. Thanks for listening.