Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer Paul the Blackjack King Decant. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want.
Speaker 4: You to know.
Speaker 3: We are officially back from Vegas. Fellow conspiracy realist. What
Speaker 3: a ride. As we were on the road, like most
Speaker 3: folks from Atlanta, we stayed glued to the news about
Speaker 3: an ongoing controversy, quite possibly a conspiracy afoot in our
Speaker 3: fair metropolis. If Atlanta's powerful have their way, our town
Speaker 3: will become home to something called the Atlanta Public Safety
Speaker 3: Training Center street name cop City. Now, we've talked about
Speaker 3: this a little bit on the show, right, we've definitely
Speaker 3: talked off.
Speaker 4: Air, Oh for sure. I think we've covered it in
Speaker 4: Strange News several times. It's kind of been an ongoing thing,
Speaker 4: but we haven't done a full episode yet, and now
Speaker 4: is definitely the time because we have a lot of
Speaker 4: information at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a lot of there's a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff being said about this, right, and it's tough to
Speaker 2: know what's real, what's not real, what's propaganda from either side.
Speaker 2: So you're just like, Okay, I think I have an
Speaker 2: understanding of what's going on and why, but honestly I
Speaker 2: was confused going in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, agreed, and full disclosure. All three of us might
Speaker 3: not be necessarily on the same page in different aspects
Speaker 3: of this. Again, being from this city, we do have
Speaker 3: on the ground experience, we have opinions, we have a
Speaker 3: horse in the race, quite literally, right, So here are
Speaker 3: the facts. When you hear cop city, that's an attention
Speaker 3: grabbing phrase, when you will never hear that from the
Speaker 3: supporters of this facility. You'll hear them instead describe it
Speaker 3: as the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. What does that mean?
Speaker 3: What do they say? What do they say about this concept?
Speaker 4: Well, it certainly sounds harmless enough. Public safety to me
Speaker 4: just sounds like, yeah, we're good with that. But this
Speaker 4: would essentially be a quite large compound dedicated to training
Speaker 4: police personnel for all kinds of situations. And they'll have,
Speaker 4: you know, the most I guess cutting edge equipment for
Speaker 4: said training and lots of space to do it well.
Speaker 2: And it includes large areas for all kinds of things,
Speaker 2: a canine training center, I believe, stables and even training
Speaker 2: for mounted police so horse police.
Speaker 3: Copter pads, burn towers.
Speaker 2: A big old firing range.
Speaker 3: Brand new still got that new cartridge smell.
Speaker 2: But would sound baffling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, we audiophiles love that. Also, in full disclosure,
Speaker 3: they are aiming to train the Atlanta Fire Department. So
Speaker 3: if you are familiar with some outfits in the Gulf
Speaker 3: Coast in Louisiana and Mississippi, you may this may sound familiar.
Speaker 3: The idea of setting up not quite atomic city, fake
Speaker 3: towns wherein people can practice different tactics. In some ways,
Speaker 3: it's similar to the School of the Americas in Fort Benning.
Speaker 3: You're not going to read that on the official website.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, But like School in America's had some some
Speaker 2: aims right there were is like hey, let's do girl
Speaker 2: warfare kind of thing, you know, but.
Speaker 3: They're a alumni were positioned for different careers.
Speaker 4: You could also think about it like Quantico, you know,
Speaker 4: or like a like a giant headquarters for training. FBI agents,
Speaker 4: you know with like ropes, courses and shooting ranges. If
Speaker 4: you've seen the beginning of Silence of the Lambs, similar
Speaker 4: stuff to that.
Speaker 2: And just to so, where I live now, there's a
Speaker 2: fire department training facility that has what you're talking about,
Speaker 2: like a building or two that they use to actually
Speaker 2: go in and put out fires that they set to
Speaker 2: train the fire department, and that.
Speaker 3: Is inarguably important. It's mission critical to be competent in
Speaker 3: that stuff. Again, when you're in a stressful situation, you
Speaker 3: need to rely on established experienced muscle memory. Right. No
Speaker 3: one wants to No one wants to be caught on
Speaker 3: the fifteenth floor of a burning building and then hear
Speaker 3: the call, Hey, we got this guy coming up. It's
Speaker 3: his first time though, so it's pretty cool. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: his first stage, just a job training. No, not in
Speaker 3: these types of situations. And we're obviously going to get
Speaker 3: into the various sides that you mentioned, Ben in terms
Speaker 3: of their various propagandistic tactics and aims. But one of
Speaker 3: the issues at play here is where the facility is located,
Speaker 3: which is in eighty five acres of city owned green space,
Speaker 3: and anyone that's been to Atlanta does tend to comment
Speaker 3: that who's maybe from like New York City or another metropolis.
Speaker 3: We've got a lot more green spaces than most of
Speaker 3: those other cities do. And this is a massive one
Speaker 3: in a proper forest, you know that as up to
Speaker 3: now I believe been you know, used as almost like
Speaker 3: a park. Yeah, currently right, this is not for me.
Speaker 3: Is Atlanta known as the city in a forest? It
Speaker 3: has massive green space, massive tree canopies. If you live here,
Speaker 3: you're very lucky to do. So we'll talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about the ecological aspects here. If you look at
Speaker 3: a map, like if you've never visited this city, you
Speaker 3: can look on whatever your big brother of choice is
Speaker 3: and when you look there, you will see something called
Speaker 3: the South River Forest, which used to have many other names.
Speaker 3: As you said, Noel, the facility proposed is pretty big,
Speaker 3: eighty five acres of city owned land. Opponents say it's
Speaker 3: more than three hundred acres in terms of impact, and
Speaker 3: the official website for this site. The official website for
Speaker 3: this site says quote. The land also served as the
Speaker 3: site of the original Atlanta Police Academy, unfortunately not related
Speaker 3: to the Astonishing film series, which is just a bummer
Speaker 3: for everybody. And then it was also an explosive ordnance
Speaker 3: disposal site, then it was a landfill, and then they
Speaker 3: go on with a little bit of Depending on where
Speaker 3: you fall, it's either it's either a sincere thing about
Speaker 3: preserving history or its lip service. But what the official
Speaker 3: website does not mention is that this was also the
Speaker 3: location of the old Atlanta Prison Farm, which was a
Speaker 3: slave plantation and then a forced labor camp, which is
Speaker 3: another kind of slave plantation that ran under extremely sketchy
Speaker 3: circumstances from about nineteen twenty to nineteen eighties, nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2: And quickly, just to jump in here so you can
Speaker 2: get a picture of where this is if you're not
Speaker 2: able to look at a map right now. If you've
Speaker 2: experienced Atlanta and you're not from here, you've probably flown
Speaker 2: into Hartsfield Jackson Airport. It's one of the busiest on
Speaker 2: the planet, they say. And if you get into the
Speaker 2: city and you are actually going to Atlanta from the airport,
Speaker 2: you would travel north on one of our highways, probably
Speaker 2: eighty five and or seventy five, and those two large
Speaker 2: highways head north into Atlanta proper. If you were to go.
Speaker 2: I guess it's if you're to follow too eighty five,
Speaker 2: which is the wrap around highway that goes around Atlanta,
Speaker 2: and you followed that to the east, it would take
Speaker 2: you towards the area that we're talking about here where
Speaker 2: the training center slash cop City is going to reside.
Speaker 4: So it is what like locals might call outside the perimeter, right,
Speaker 4: it's inside.
Speaker 3: Just barely yeah, kind of like it's actually down the
Speaker 3: street from Doll's Head Trail. Well, yes, on a positive note,
Speaker 3: Dollshead Trail is pretty cool. If you like stuff they
Speaker 3: don't want you to know, you'll enjoy Dollshead Trail, assuming
Speaker 3: you don't get shot.
Speaker 4: It's an industrial part of town to Moorland Avenue Little
Speaker 4: five Points if anyone is familiar with that area. If
Speaker 4: you keep going down Moorland, I forget which direction. I'm
Speaker 4: bad at geography, it does become much more of like
Speaker 4: a you know, freight depots and stuff like that. There
Speaker 4: used to be a crazy biker bar called Southern Comfort
Speaker 4: out there that did karaoke, and there's also an old
Speaker 4: timey drive in called the Starlight Drive In.
Speaker 3: So the city is very the city is very fortunate
Speaker 3: to have that drive in drive in theaters are amazing,
Speaker 3: and they are an endangered They are an endangered species. Currently,
Speaker 3: the nomenclature you will hear describing this area that you
Speaker 3: just map Forest met is the South River Forest. The
Speaker 3: issue is that, look, we'll get to the powers that
Speaker 3: be in a second, but the issue is that there
Speaker 3: are people who live in this area. They are not
Speaker 3: the wealthy neighborhoods of the Atlanta metro area. They are
Speaker 3: not the people who have good encounters with law enforcement. Okay,
Speaker 3: And this area has always been a forest, way way
Speaker 3: back in the day. The original human population Skogie Creek.
Speaker 3: They called it the Wailndi, which roughly translates to the
Speaker 3: land of brown water. Not the most impressive name.
Speaker 4: Not great.
Speaker 3: Not that I don't think it's a poop joke.
Speaker 4: I don't think zo either. Maybe it's just got lots
Speaker 4: of silt in it or something. And the original inhabitants
Speaker 4: of this land, who lived there thousands of years, were
Speaker 4: forced out during the Trail of Tears era. Fast forward,
Speaker 4: Fast forward, Paul, if we get a little of the
Speaker 4: HS festival perfect.
Speaker 3: The proposal for cop City comes on the heels of
Speaker 3: the nationwide anti law enforcement anti police protest. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: over fifty cities in the United States rose up in
Speaker 3: some form or another to protest the police murder of
Speaker 3: George Floyd.
Speaker 2: Well, and it's theoretically it's a good thing. Some of
Speaker 2: the big calls during those protests were we need better
Speaker 2: trained officers, right, because these officers were literally killing people.
Speaker 2: So the thought was, at least from the establishment, the
Speaker 2: law enforcement side, was we need to train our officers better,
Speaker 2: and maybe this is a solution we offer to the
Speaker 2: public or something, you know, at least that's the way
Speaker 2: I'm choosing to view it. Maybe that's the way I
Speaker 2: see it now.
Speaker 3: From a perspective, it does seem.
Speaker 4: Like it was there was some pr involved, and they
Speaker 4: just seem to have slightly miscalculated in terms of what
Speaker 4: the response would be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, agreed, And lest we be remiss, let's point
Speaker 3: out that many other innocent people died, each of which
Speaker 3: triggered another wave of protest. It was not just George Floyd.
Speaker 3: These were innocent people executed by state power. And the
Speaker 3: operative definition of any real state is a monopoly on violence. Right,
Speaker 3: It's legal when we do it. So in twenty twenty, one,
Speaker 3: then Mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, teamed up with
Speaker 3: a weird sort of I don't want to call them avengers,
Speaker 3: but a weird consortium that is technically a nonprofit called
Speaker 3: the Atlanta Police Foundation, and Mayor Bottoms hung out with
Speaker 3: a guy named Dave Wilkinson. Dave Wilkinson is the CEO
Speaker 3: of this non profit, the Atlanta Police Foundation. They did
Speaker 3: something really interesting. They skipped past the idea of whether
Speaker 3: a training center should be built at all, and instead
Speaker 3: they immediately said, we can only build it here at
Speaker 3: the South River part of Atlanta. It is the only
Speaker 3: option for the site. And then locals living in the area,
Speaker 3: activists from outside the city. In full disclosure, some of
Speaker 3: our friends who have been on the show before immediately
Speaker 3: began collective action. And collective action is the bedrock of
Speaker 3: the American experiment. We're talking protests, sit ins, attendants at
Speaker 3: local hearings. Well.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting too because it was a reaction to
Speaker 4: the facility itself and the plan. But it seems like
Speaker 4: the early protests were largely about conservation and about the
Speaker 4: green space and challenging the idea that this was the
Speaker 4: only sight and they felt that it was a loss
Speaker 4: of habitat of again green space for people to hang
Speaker 4: out and camp or whatever it might be. So that
Speaker 4: was a big part of some of the early protesters was,
Speaker 4: you know, more of a green kind of attitude.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Forest defenders, the loose collective of people occupying now
Speaker 3: what is a street named cop City, refer to themselves
Speaker 3: as force defenders, and there is sand to that. It
Speaker 3: reminds me this idea of skipping the original question. Like
Speaker 3: imagine you walked into a car dealership and they said, look,
Speaker 3: you can only buy a green car, and then you said, well,
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily want to buy a car, or I
Speaker 3: don't want to buy this specific car, and they say, well, okay,
Speaker 3: we're agreed, then you have to buy a green car,
Speaker 3: and they're just not hearing you, you know. And the
Speaker 3: response locally was pretty vehement, including surprisingly members of law
Speaker 3: enforcement themselves, who are saying, why push this? If the
Speaker 3: city doesn't want it, why push it? You might make
Speaker 3: things more dangerous for us, You might make us the enemy.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah. It makes you feel like maybe there's some
Speaker 2: other back room stuff going on even more than just
Speaker 2: the mayor the former mayor, and you know, the head
Speaker 2: of this thing called the Atlanta Police Foundation.
Speaker 3: I mean also the people living in the neighborhood, like
Speaker 3: you know, people living off Key Road and Constitution and stuff.
Speaker 3: They're they're asking a very valid question, why does nimby
Speaker 3: apply to certain wealthy parts of the city and not
Speaker 3: to us. Why can't we be the people who say
Speaker 3: not in my backyard?
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I completely agree. Well, guys, I'm just looking
Speaker 2: around and to other parts of the city kind of
Speaker 2: close to that area, at places that are not they
Speaker 2: don't look like their official parkland of and it looks
Speaker 2: like you could probably put a training facility on those.
Speaker 2: It just I wonder if it's a money problem, if
Speaker 2: it is a NIMBI problem, like, no matter where you
Speaker 2: propose to put this thing, it would have gotten crazy backlash.
Speaker 4: I don't know. It seems like they would have had
Speaker 4: some sort of industrial site or something that ladies in
Speaker 4: the city's portfolio of real estate, even if it was
Speaker 4: multiple facilities. You know, why does it have to be
Speaker 4: this massive police mall situation. It feels like they were
Speaker 4: going for prestige and kind of wow factor with the
Speaker 4: whole thing, and they just overlooked I think again, what
Speaker 4: the pr backlash would be. But to your point, Matt,
Speaker 4: there also I think has to be some stuff behind
Speaker 4: the scenes that we're not seeing, because yeah, it just
Speaker 4: doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, despite the despite the local protest, and despite the
Speaker 3: fact that there were people not from Atlanta or not
Speaker 3: from Georgia who traveled to participate in the ecological side
Speaker 3: of the protest, despite all that, overwhelmingly the public was
Speaker 3: against it, and in twenty twenty one, the Atlanta City
Speaker 3: Council approved the whole thing. Basically, this was not a
Speaker 3: surprise because a specific nonprofit quote unquote Atlanta Police Foundation
Speaker 3: had their back, and the APF has a lot of
Speaker 3: juice in the city or what are they called the
Speaker 3: wire section, They have a lot of suction. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: we'll get to them in a moment. But what you
Speaker 3: need to know, folks, in May of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: authorities began clearing up the site. For most of us,
Speaker 3: you know, if you've ever lived in a forest environment,
Speaker 3: clearing up means picking up, removing dead fall trees, maintaining trails.
Speaker 3: For this project, clearing up and this is from them themselves.
Speaker 3: Clearing up meant their removal of personal property and illegal
Speaker 3: squatters from the site, as well as the construction of
Speaker 3: just a big ass fence.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they basically occupied it, you know they did.
Speaker 3: Huh, they had their occupy movement.
Speaker 2: Isn't that interesting because if if people that the state
Speaker 2: decides are just random squatters are occupying occupying that space,
Speaker 2: those people have no rights whatsoever. But if but okay,
Speaker 2: hold on, does the city own that land officially? Yeah,
Speaker 2: the city does, then I guess, okay, But it.
Speaker 4: Was a classified as part of the park system, was
Speaker 4: it not? Or I don't know exactly what the official
Speaker 4: designation is, but it is my understanding that it was
Speaker 4: okay to like camp there or do maybe not. Maybe
Speaker 4: it was just kind of like a Wild West situation.
Speaker 4: But that was a part of the whole thing that
Speaker 4: I always kind of maybe didn't fully get.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's also it's also a matter of convenience. You
Speaker 3: own the land, you don't want to mess with the
Speaker 3: people who may be able to raise a rucus in
Speaker 3: court right to legally respond to your actions. So you
Speaker 3: want to target the vulnerable. And then also it's not
Speaker 3: to make these folks sound necessarily malicious, right, We're not
Speaker 3: automatically saying they're bad faith actors. We are saying that
Speaker 3: they probably own this land and saw an economic opportunity. Look,
Speaker 3: we are folks. I think it's safe to say we
Speaker 3: are folks who overwhelmingly love and support the place where
Speaker 3: we live. We also all acknowledge the deep problems it
Speaker 3: has with corruption. Most American cities past a certain size
Speaker 3: are riddled with corruption. It's just a function of the process.
Speaker 3: And our local infrastructure here is riddled with scandal up
Speaker 3: to and including active homicide. I was when I was
Speaker 3: looking into this, guys, I remember that time a sheriff
Speaker 3: assassinated the other guy who might have become sheriff. That's history.
Speaker 4: The wild West have like pace, you know, however, many
Speaker 4: paces in the town square.
Speaker 2: No, that's wild That guy's related back to the Wayne
Speaker 2: Williams case as well.
Speaker 3: His name is Derwyn Brown. That's the guy Sidney Dorseyyah.
Speaker 3: Derwyn Brown is the victim, and they're supposed to be
Speaker 3: the people maintaining law and order. Look, in short, if
Speaker 3: you want to escalate this decades old continual militarization of
Speaker 3: state power and violence, it's kind of difficult to imagine
Speaker 3: a better training ground than Atlanta.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: So it's true that this like if we were the
Speaker 3: people supporting this, obviously we would like it. It would
Speaker 3: make sense for us to be absolutely fair. It is
Speaker 3: the right, the privilege, arguably the duty, of all Americans
Speaker 3: to disagree, to debate to as Charlie Day says to
Speaker 3: Jimber Jabber, to get at it, go back and forth,
Speaker 3: chop it up, chop it up. Yeah, the end goal
Speaker 3: being a betterment for all involved in whatever that conversation
Speaker 3: may be. Yet it seems here we are witnessing the
Speaker 3: other inherent side of American culture. Right here in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: The powerful wants something the public does not. The police
Speaker 3: start shooting.
Speaker 2: Yeah they do. All right, guys, Let's take a quick
Speaker 2: break here, word from our sponsor, and then we'll be
Speaker 2: right back.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets grazy. On January eighteenth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: a Georgia State Patrol trooper fatally shot Manuel Esteban paz Tran.
Speaker 3: Paizdaran is a Venezuelan born environmental activist, and the actual
Speaker 3: details of their death remain a matter of debate. You
Speaker 3: could say, the official law enforcement version argues that this
Speaker 3: person shot an officer in the leg, resulting in a
Speaker 3: non fatal injury, and were they themselves fatally shot in return.
Speaker 3: You may hear about this person as tortugita pardon my
Speaker 3: pronunciation here, little turtle it means.
Speaker 4: And that was the version of the story that we heard,
Speaker 4: you know, here in local news. But the medical investigation
Speaker 4: results were released not long after and they ran shockingly
Speaker 4: counter to that narrative about what, you know, the person
Speaker 4: being shot in the leg, a weapon, et cetera. This
Speaker 4: individual was shot fifty seven times, and the autopsy information
Speaker 4: showed initially I won't get to that, no gunpowder residue,
Speaker 4: which is obviously a thing if you've watched cop shows,
Speaker 4: you can see if someone has fired a gun, you know,
Speaker 4: by doing a test, and there was no visible gunpowder
Speaker 4: residue on their hands, and it was also clear they
Speaker 4: weren't wearing gloves, you know, to prevent that.
Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, and let's also paint the picture here. Wasn't
Speaker 2: this person in a tree at the time.
Speaker 3: Or occupying Yeah, there were one of those illegal squatters
Speaker 3: that counts as being cleared out.
Speaker 2: But so this person is in a tree and allegedly
Speaker 2: firing down at officers. That's what the officers were alleging correct, yeah.
Speaker 3: And continue to allege and then later you will see
Speaker 3: contesting autopsy reports. The GBI, which is like the state
Speaker 3: level version of the FBI, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation,
Speaker 3: later went back and said, we have found traces of
Speaker 3: gunshot primer, and they acknowledged that this could have been
Speaker 3: from Estan, it could have been from the police firearms,
Speaker 3: or it could have been you know, general contamination. Because
Speaker 3: they were not first to the plate on that investigation.
Speaker 4: So if they were in the tree at the time,
Speaker 4: what was the inciting event that led to this confrontation?
Speaker 2: Was it?
Speaker 4: I mean, you hear about these forest defenders and there's
Speaker 4: bits and TV series the kind of joke about I
Speaker 4: think there was something in Arrested Development where one of
Speaker 4: these characters was played by Ron Howard's brother. And usually
Speaker 4: this type of conflict results like from a bulldozer or
Speaker 4: something literally ready to tear the tree down, and these
Speaker 4: folks occupy the tree because they know that they're not
Speaker 4: going to murder them in order to tear down a tree.
Speaker 4: So do you know the details of that aspect of it,
Speaker 4: like what happened in that regard that led to this confrontation,
Speaker 4: yet it seems like they were again the law enforcement
Speaker 4: organizations were attempting to remove squatters or people who are
Speaker 4: living on city owned land. And we know that, we
Speaker 4: know that this person did have a firearm, a nine
Speaker 4: millimeter which they owned legally in acquired in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: But this story gets muddy because the official explanation sounds
Speaker 4: more and more like a narrative.
Speaker 3: At least. Critics are saying, you know, picture every picture
Speaker 3: every fiction cop show where someone says, we've got to
Speaker 3: make this look right, We've got to make this story fit,
Speaker 3: you know, like a true detective.
Speaker 4: Right. Sure.
Speaker 3: Season one The Shield.
Speaker 4: I've been watching about corrupt cops in Los Angeles and
Speaker 4: a lot of we got to get our story straight
Speaker 4: kind of talk, And I think I totally get this confrontation.
Speaker 4: It would be a matter of get down from that tree, no,
Speaker 4: and then it goes from there.
Speaker 2: So they weren't just a random person out there in
Speaker 2: a tree in the forest. They were specifically there to protest,
Speaker 2: which means this person wasn't gonna leave willingly, right, And
Speaker 2: as you described that conflict, the officers are like, oh,
Speaker 2: we got a job to do, We got to get
Speaker 2: this person out of the tree. It does seem as though,
Speaker 2: I don't know how the person in the tree would
Speaker 2: feel threatened enough to fire down below unless that person
Speaker 2: was being fired upon first, right in the scenario where
Speaker 2: a weapon is actually fired, right, why would you fire down?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And the idea is is this friendly fire? That's another
Speaker 3: that's another concept here. Did did someone on the same
Speaker 3: team shoot this officer in the leg? And that triggered
Speaker 3: this egregious thing of shooting someone fifty seven times? One
Speaker 3: person fifty seven times.
Speaker 4: Bonnie and Clyde got shot fifty seven times. That's and
Speaker 4: that's two people wild. I mean, that's unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Do we know how many officers were present? Like how
Speaker 2: many actual weapons are being fired? It must have been multiple, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it looks like so the family did not
Speaker 3: accept the official explanation, and they paid for an independent
Speaker 3: autopsy which confirmed bullet exit wounds in both hands. And
Speaker 3: this for anyone who has seen like stigmata or something
Speaker 3: like that, or you know, not to encourage too much martyrdom,
Speaker 3: but like christ on a cross kind of thing, like
Speaker 3: shots in the palms through the fingers, you know, probably
Speaker 3: in the wrist area. What that means is that is
Speaker 3: there's a high implication that the person being shot was
Speaker 3: not holding something.
Speaker 4: That's the problem actively surrendering, I mean, put your hands
Speaker 4: up here they are you know. That's and again I
Speaker 4: don't know this person. I never knew this person. But
Speaker 4: when this happened, there were people from the community that
Speaker 4: released a lot of photographs of this person with friends,
Speaker 4: and a lot of people speaking out about their experience
Speaker 4: with Tehran, and it was all very positive. This wasn't
Speaker 4: like a militant, you know, militia type organization, you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, having that weapon would be just for your
Speaker 4: squatting in like a area it's accessible by all kinds
Speaker 4: of potentially dangerous people. It's probably smart to protect yourself.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying yeah, and a lot of us listening
Speaker 4: this evening can agree with that. No, as we said earlier,
Speaker 4: any death, even if you don't like the person, any
Speaker 4: death is a tragedy, and the death of paes Taran
Speaker 4: galvanized the movement to stop cop City. Now there is
Speaker 4: a face right that can be associated with the movement,
Speaker 4: and there seems to be an active cover up of
Speaker 4: this death all its own or at the very least,
Speaker 4: There are a lot of unanswered questions. There is no
Speaker 4: official conclusion that jibes with the reckoning of people who
Speaker 4: knew this person or with this person's family. But this
Speaker 4: did not stop the push to build this thing. So
Speaker 4: many local people in Atlanta desperately did not want Whether
Speaker 4: or not you support the construction of training centers like this,
Speaker 4: and we do understand training is important, we can all
Speaker 4: hopefully agree that protesters should not be shot if they
Speaker 4: pose no dangers to others. That's one of the cool
Speaker 4: features of America.
Speaker 3: On paper. You can just walk out into the commons.
Speaker 3: You can talk trash right, People can eject you from
Speaker 3: a place, but by and large, they can't kill you
Speaker 3: by shooting. Fifty seven times. Even the authorities remain divided
Speaker 3: on whether this person and actually shot an officer, and
Speaker 3: that the next question then naturally becomes, if the public
Speaker 3: does not want this thing to be built, why is
Speaker 3: it being built. That's where we go back to the
Speaker 3: Atlanta Police Foundation, as well as TAKHN Consultants t E. R.
Speaker 3: R ac o N, the engineering firm that's helping make
Speaker 3: this happen. So maybe we learn a little bit about
Speaker 3: the APF again a nonprofit quote unquote.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking at their website right now.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: Tight.
Speaker 2: One of the big things they have coming up. Actually
Speaker 2: this is tomorrow as we're recording this, on the twenty
Speaker 2: fifth of September. They've got their Crime is Toast, which
Speaker 2: is a it's an event, it's a breakfast.
Speaker 4: I felt that Toast was worthy of being called criminals.
Speaker 4: Toast is lovely. I don't understand. That's fun.
Speaker 2: It's interesting. I'm just gonna read it says, along with
Speaker 2: more than a thousand business and community members and attendance,
Speaker 2: we honor the men and women of APD the Atlanta
Speaker 2: Police Department by recognizing awards for outstanding service, including Officer
Speaker 2: of the Year, Purple Heart, and Meritorious.
Speaker 3: Service Deserving of Award. Interesting. Yeah, crime is Toast, and at.
Speaker 2: This breakfast they're going to get a state of public
Speaker 2: Safety and State of the Force address from the mayor
Speaker 2: and the Chief of Police together.
Speaker 3: Ah, yes, I see that. Yeah. And this organization is
Speaker 3: not new. They've been around for right about two decades now.
Speaker 3: They're founded in two thousand and three, and they describe
Speaker 3: themselves as employing quote a broad array of twenty first
Speaker 3: century public safety initiatives to accomplish their mission. These initiatives
Speaker 3: include community programs designed to provide resources to underserved neighborhoods,
Speaker 3: as well as training to cultivate a mindset of true
Speaker 3: servanthood among the Atlanta Police Department sworn personnel. So they're saying,
Speaker 3: greater good, We're looking out for you, especially if you
Speaker 3: are in an historically bad neighborhood.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, well, you know they run the crime Stoppers in
Speaker 2: the Greater Atlanta area we just mentioned in our Strange
Speaker 2: News episode, which gives everybody the ability to send in
Speaker 2: an anonymous tip about something which does feel like maybe
Speaker 2: a good thing, And they do have stuff that. Again,
Speaker 2: on the surface, when you read it on their website,
Speaker 2: it looks like positive initiatives to help out the city
Speaker 2: of Atlanta, but.
Speaker 4: Also like even crime Stoppers is like made for a poster,
Speaker 4: I mean, the the whole term. I mean it's pr Yes,
Speaker 4: it is a good thing. Being able to give an
Speaker 4: anonymous tip and feel safe is a good thing. But
Speaker 4: when you brand it like that, you know, and have
Speaker 4: it as this like look at what we did, look
Speaker 4: at the good job that we're doing. It's another way
Speaker 4: of deflecting some of the bad things that police have
Speaker 4: been more than accused, have been found to have done
Speaker 4: over many years.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm not I'm not sure I advocate for it.
Speaker 2: I guess I just want to make sure I'm being
Speaker 2: clear on that. The programs do look positive. Let's say,
Speaker 2: if you're a voter, right and you go to their
Speaker 2: website and you're like, oh, well, what are they doing?
Speaker 2: This looks good. The at Promise initiative to help, you know,
Speaker 2: reduce crime in you shore seems like a great idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. And the board of Directors and the Board
Speaker 3: of Trustee or the Executive Committee and the Board of
Speaker 3: Trustees are also very interesting aspects of the website. The
Speaker 3: APF describes itself as a public private partnership, you know,
Speaker 3: like the Federal Reserve. Nothing to see here. They're aiming
Speaker 3: to create a safe and just city for every citizen
Speaker 3: of Atlanta, driving out crime, enhancing the safety of neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: But black Monday murders style. You gotta follow the money,
Speaker 3: So riddle me this guys who runs the operation big wigs.
Speaker 2: Walt Emmer of waffle House. He's just on the executive
Speaker 2: board or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, ty Darlin from Georgia Pacific, got some Equifax, some
Speaker 3: King and Spaulding, all the hits, all the good ones.
Speaker 3: In Vesco, which I thought was a cartoon name for
Speaker 3: a long.
Speaker 2: Time, a sign I think in like Alpharetta or something.
Speaker 4: It's not a building somewhere. I think it's like Globocam
Speaker 4: or you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah. A lot of legal entities and they're all run
Speaker 3: by people who surprise, surprise, don't live in the South
Speaker 3: River area and don't hang out there, you know what
Speaker 3: I mean, That's not where they get their groceries. It's
Speaker 3: also kind of a food desert. The Board of Trustees
Speaker 3: also and gems. A lot of big wheels in Atlanta,
Speaker 3: Home Depot, Delta, southebyst JP Morgan, Georgia power Ups, a
Speaker 3: lot of real estate developers, a lot of the type
Speaker 3: of folks who build industrial compounds or those live laugh
Speaker 3: love mixed use developments.
Speaker 4: I love those here in Atlanta. I mean, it's kind
Speaker 4: of almost a joke. If you follow any local Atlanta
Speaker 4: meme pages, you'll see the joke being made, because it's
Speaker 4: kind of sad. The city is famous for bulldozing, not
Speaker 4: just for us, but also a lot of history and
Speaker 4: just building up condos and these types of things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the old Atlanta Crackers baseball field is a whole
Speaker 3: foods now so go team. So there's also in case
Speaker 3: you think we're being hyperbolic here, another member of the
Speaker 3: board of trustees is Andre Anderson from the Federal Reserve
Speaker 3: Bank of Atlanta. So this is all publicly available information. Again,
Speaker 3: you can go on the website, you can read this.
Speaker 3: To your heart's discontent, these companies, the legal entities in particular,
Speaker 3: they have ties to some of the most powerful corporate
Speaker 3: actors in the Atlanta metro area. And they don't want
Speaker 3: to look threatening, they don't want to look cash grabby,
Speaker 3: they don't want to look like they're super duper down
Speaker 3: with fascism. And yet, and yet, it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 3: you are the biggest fan of these corporations or whether
Speaker 3: you hate them. The reality is simply that they are
Speaker 3: already by far the most financially and politically powerful consortiums
Speaker 3: in the local game. And look, you know, people respond
Speaker 3: to buzzwords, right, So you hear words like or phrases
Speaker 3: like collective action, and you might I think, oh, Marxism, socialism, untrue,
Speaker 3: your favorite corporations, even the ones you really like. They
Speaker 3: love collective action so long as it works for them.
Speaker 3: They are not averse to teaming up.
Speaker 2: No, and they also make use of police forces all
Speaker 2: the time to do things like move money and protect property.
Speaker 3: And they employ also. I know it sounds like we're
Speaker 3: going back and forth. We're not dithering. We're being fair
Speaker 3: and objective. They employ hundreds of thousands of people in
Speaker 3: the metro area alone. They are no fooling the economic
Speaker 3: engine powering the existence of a city that would have
Speaker 3: been an historical footnote were it not for railroads and
Speaker 3: an airport.
Speaker 2: That's really close by to this this property is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's easy to fly there if you come from
Speaker 3: another police force and you need to train.
Speaker 2: So that is the idea.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's so it would be so big
Speaker 4: that it wouldn't just be the southeast, or is it
Speaker 4: particularly to serve the southeast.
Speaker 3: That's how it starts. It reminds me, and that's a
Speaker 3: great question.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 3: It reminds me a little bit of years back when
Speaker 3: we were talking about sesame credit when it was an
Speaker 3: opt in thing for the for the public of for
Speaker 3: the public of China. This is a precedent. At least
Speaker 3: that's what the critics and opponents of this compound say.
Speaker 3: They argue that it is only going to accelerate the
Speaker 3: creation of similar compounds across the United States. I mean,
Speaker 3: all right, the question always is qui bono, who stands
Speaker 3: to gain? Who benefits from the construction of a controversial
Speaker 3: thing like this. Proponents will tell you the training facility
Speaker 3: is necessary for men any reasons, improving police morale, improving
Speaker 3: competence and keeping training up to date, fighting crime, preventing mishaps,
Speaker 3: preventing danger to innocent people. Additionally, if you're hanging out
Speaker 3: and just chatting with supporters, they will say, look, recruitment
Speaker 3: is down for law enforcement and the fire department in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: That is true. They will say, this will improve recruitment,
Speaker 3: this will reduce turnover, and in any industry, a better
Speaker 3: prepared organization equates to lower burnout rates. So there is
Speaker 3: some sand to that last part. But again, I don't
Speaker 3: know about you, guys. I keep sticking on this point
Speaker 3: where the supporters say there's no alternative location for the
Speaker 3: site because it has dangerous assumptions. First, they're assuming it
Speaker 3: must be built. Second, they're assuming it must be built
Speaker 3: in Italy Atlanta, right with a lot of private entities
Speaker 3: holding a sheep's wool, a sheep's wool mask over of nonprofit,
Speaker 3: over the fact that they are going to make a
Speaker 3: lot of money, and then they say it has to
Speaker 3: be built as soon as possible. Yeah, greater good.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, okay, So let me just I'm gonna
Speaker 2: play Devil's advocate for a moment. I was reading some blogs.
Speaker 2: I think they're just blogs from law enforcement officers who
Speaker 2: were commenting on this and generally saying things that are
Speaker 2: very negative towards people who are protesting this building or
Speaker 2: this establishment facility. And I just wanted to see, like,
Speaker 2: why would why would an individual officer be into this?
Speaker 2: And several of them that I read were about it
Speaker 2: was usually stories about their own training and how when
Speaker 2: they were going to academy and being hired as an officer,
Speaker 2: it was usually the same time, so they got hired
Speaker 2: and they were actually going out on patrols while they
Speaker 2: were also going to academy and supposed to be getting
Speaker 2: their training right and it'll shake and bake stuff, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: like good luck and literally going out at night in
Speaker 2: the first week you know, on patrol, which to me
Speaker 2: is just egregious and insane.
Speaker 3: That puts them in unsafe situations.
Speaker 2: Absolutely puts them in unsafe situations. But every single person
Speaker 2: they interact with then is in an unsafe situation. And
Speaker 2: it's not because that's a bad person. It's because they
Speaker 2: aren't properly trained for the work they're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 2: Which so in my mind, I kind of got a
Speaker 2: shape of a picture of Oh, I can see why
Speaker 2: maybe an officer would want to go to ten weeks
Speaker 2: of training or you know how however long it would
Speaker 2: take to become an officer at a specialized place, so
Speaker 2: I can see that as an actual positive, but then
Speaker 2: putting it in this specific place, making it this large,
Speaker 2: it's just it. I'd like you were saying. It doesn't
Speaker 2: match up to me.
Speaker 3: Teaching military tactics as well. There is a reason those
Speaker 3: are supposed to be separate skill sets.
Speaker 4: No, and that's the part we haven't really gotten into
Speaker 4: that we will soon. But the other side of the protest,
Speaker 4: outside of just the you know, the forest demolition, is
Speaker 4: that a facility of this size is can potentially be
Speaker 4: dangerous because of the idea of militarization of the police,
Speaker 4: that concept that you were just talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well yeah, and on that you will hear rumors,
Speaker 2: so like you'll hear rumors that they're gonna be black
Speaker 2: Hawk helicopters at this place. They're gonna be tanks rolling
Speaker 2: around this sucker. There's gonna be like full on military, right,
Speaker 2: which is often an exaggeration of what's actually going to
Speaker 2: be there. But it won't be a Blackhawk necessarily, but
Speaker 2: there will be helicopters involved for sure, and it won't
Speaker 2: be a tank, but there might be an APC or two.
Speaker 3: And I might sound like a jerk here, but kind
Speaker 3: of fun, right to play around on one of those
Speaker 3: like kind of fun. You know, like there's a place
Speaker 3: up in La j Georgia, a bit north of Atlanta
Speaker 3: where you can drive a tank recreationally, could run over
Speaker 3: cars and stuff like that, and it's very It might
Speaker 3: sound like, uh, like we're being rednecks when we say
Speaker 3: that's kind of fun, but that's kind of fun. We're
Speaker 3: still trying to get a budget approved for us to
Speaker 3: do that. Yeah, we were.
Speaker 2: Gonna do that at some point. We're gonna fill that.
Speaker 2: We're gonna yeah, yeah, I think we're gonna shoot video, Paul, Well,
Speaker 2: we're gonna.
Speaker 3: Take turns with the hero shots. They're called of us
Speaker 3: driving the tank. Yeah. But but aside from that, what
Speaker 3: what you hear? Please don't please don't confuse that with
Speaker 3: us being clib or dismissive. We're attempting to practice empathy
Speaker 3: and objectivity, and we with that in mind, we also
Speaker 3: have to look at the financial motivations. That is the
Speaker 3: most provable conspiracy of foot in this situation, and again
Speaker 3: is ideologically agnostic. I think it was June sixth, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three this year as we record the Atlantic City,
Speaker 3: I keep saying in Atlantic, not Atlantic City. But the
Speaker 3: Atlanta City Council approved thirty one million dollars of construction
Speaker 3: funds for this training center street named cop City, and
Speaker 3: they also provided this caveat. And they said, we as
Speaker 3: the city of Atlanta, which means that if you live, visit,
Speaker 3: or shop here, you're helping pay this. The city's going
Speaker 3: to pay one point two million dollars per year for
Speaker 3: the right to use this thing that your tax dollars
Speaker 3: are paying for. But wait, as a Hellish Billy Mays
Speaker 3: was wont to say, that's not the bulk of the funding,
Speaker 3: Most of the money ninety million dollars is coming from
Speaker 3: private donations to our buddies at Atlanta's favorite nonprofit, the
Speaker 3: Atlanta Police Foundation. That's kind of posh, right for nonprofit,
Speaker 3: But like do.
Speaker 4: Private donations mean like anonymous donor, We don't get to
Speaker 4: know where the money comes from.
Speaker 2: But look at the board members and the trustees and
Speaker 2: come on, that's got to be where the money is
Speaker 2: coming from, right, all those corporations we mentioned, well, but that's.
Speaker 4: But I guess the point is this is like a
Speaker 4: smart way to disguise some more specifics.
Speaker 3: Right, I'm just saying, Paul cleaned up at Blackjack. Oh no,
Speaker 3: So yeah, you're right. It's a good com It's an
Speaker 3: important question. It's mission critical. This is a nonprofit ostensibly,
Speaker 3: yet it is founded by a complex shell game of
Speaker 3: thoroughly private for profit entities, and philanthropy is an umbrella
Speaker 3: that a lot of people can stand under. And each
Speaker 3: of these industries, each of these for profit entities, they
Speaker 3: stand to make a killing financially and arguably literally from
Speaker 3: sweetheart infrastructure deals. Somebody's got to build this stuff, got
Speaker 3: some company has to Haliburton over an overpriced lunch program. Right,
Speaker 3: Someone's got to provide different funding vehicles. Someone's got to
Speaker 3: have the maintenance where you're gonna have the janitors, right,
Speaker 3: Who is who is going to be support work for this?
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean you could argue that that side
Speaker 4: of it is positive as well, because it does make jobs.
Speaker 4: It's new deal type stuff construction project. We were just
Speaker 4: of the Hoover Dam. I mean, again, the video was
Speaker 4: quite propagandistic, but it employed thousands of people, you know,
Speaker 4: at a time when the Great Depression had really ravaged
Speaker 4: a lot of folks and their ability to earn a
Speaker 4: living to you know, support their family. But that's a
Speaker 4: pr spin as well, you know, I think that's the
Speaker 4: least important part, and the most important part, Ben is
Speaker 4: like the actual businesses that will be benefiting, whether it
Speaker 4: be construction, whether it be like you said, the food hall,
Speaker 4: whatever it is, the mischi. I mean, I'm sure these
Speaker 4: shooting ranges don't come cheap, and they're proprietary made by technology,
Speaker 4: you know, weapons technology type companies and all of these
Speaker 4: facilities that will be the cutting edge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's a great point. We also, let's be honest,
Speaker 3: these folks are the rulers of the city. The folks
Speaker 3: who are found are funding the Atlanta Police Foundation also
Speaker 3: make a lot of money if things don't burn down.
Speaker 3: They may be very well intentioned. Likely they are. They
Speaker 3: don't see themselves as villains. They may want to prevent
Speaker 3: things like the two thousand and six police murder of
Speaker 3: a ninety two year old woman in her home. That incident,
Speaker 3: in particular, changed the way that APD Atlanta Police Department operates,
Speaker 3: and if you are friends with folks in law enforcement,
Speaker 3: you know everyone heard about that, and everyone knew that
Speaker 3: things had gone terribly, fatally wrong. So there is the
Speaker 3: argument that this will increase the safety of both the
Speaker 3: police force, the fire department, and civilians. And the Atlanta
Speaker 3: Police Foundation's puppet masters they may mean that as well,
Speaker 3: but they also want to make a profit every step
Speaker 3: of the way, kind of like how Vegas wants you
Speaker 3: to have fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really sucks because I totally do see the
Speaker 2: need for it and the possible good things of a
Speaker 2: facility like that. But you're absolutely right this thing, the
Speaker 2: way it's coming together, and especially when you think about
Speaker 2: what actions have been taken when it comes to hey,
Speaker 2: we'd love to get your opinion public about what's going on.
Speaker 2: Why don't you tell us, We'll incorporate your thoughts and
Speaker 2: you know, we'll really think about what you have to say,
Speaker 2: and then what actually happened.
Speaker 4: Oh man, there's so much more to come, y'all. We're
Speaker 4: going to get into an example of how that opportunity
Speaker 4: was presented, and the powers that be said, Nope, we
Speaker 4: don't want to hear that, and we're going to do
Speaker 4: everything we can to ice you out the public.
Speaker 3: You know, we hear you. We're listening. That's the vibe
Speaker 3: from folks like Kelsey Hull, a spokesperson for the APF.
Speaker 3: Whull objects to claims that these organizations are not listening
Speaker 3: to the people of Atlanta and points out this is
Speaker 3: true that APF provided a draft plan of the training
Speaker 3: center to Atlanta City officials to different committees on the
Speaker 3: Atlanta City Council. I'm sure no one shook hands in
Speaker 3: a back room or got any money, of course, and
Speaker 3: there's a specific quote we wanted to share here, Hull said. Quote.
Speaker 3: More than four hundred comments, some twenty plus hours of
Speaker 3: comments were received by the council, which then voted overwhelmingly
Speaker 3: to approve building the Public Safety Training Center. Seventy percent
Speaker 3: of the comments were absolutely opposed to the new facility,
Speaker 3: and guys, full disclosure, We the four of us know
Speaker 3: people who went not just to that hearing, but to
Speaker 3: other hearings created one of the longest running hearings in
Speaker 3: the history of the city. Everyone was saying, beat me here, Paul.
Speaker 3: Everyone speaking at that hearing was saying this, and the
Speaker 3: Atlanta City Council said, tight, we hear you.
Speaker 2: We're doing it approved.
Speaker 4: But I mean they did hear them. They they gave
Speaker 4: them audience, you know what I mean, And they streamed
Speaker 4: this or at least portions of it. I think it
Speaker 4: was live. But I certainly saw some friends of ours
Speaker 4: do their you know, give their testimony or whatever you
Speaker 4: want to call it. And yeah, it was wild. People
Speaker 4: were camping out in the lobby of the building, and
Speaker 4: like you know, free pizzas were being brought in. I've
Speaker 4: never seen anything.
Speaker 3: Like it, and you get in trouble for the pizza,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: That's I just what result would have led to them
Speaker 4: changing course, I would argue none. So it's all just
Speaker 4: lip service, and it's also a giant waste of people's time.
Speaker 4: You know, it's insulting.
Speaker 2: Really, you know what would have changed their minds? A
Speaker 2: random billionaire from Atlanta shows up and says, Hey, I've
Speaker 2: got eighty five acres of land you can have for free.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's kind of on our city. Atlanta needs more billionaires.
Speaker 3: They're just great.
Speaker 2: Think about the amazing thing you could have done here,
Speaker 2: billionaire from Atlanta.
Speaker 3: Just no, seriously, think about it, dude. We know you
Speaker 3: listen to this show. So we're giving the supporter claims.
Speaker 3: You can tell that we, being locals, we have a
Speaker 3: bit of a horse in the race because we have
Speaker 3: lived here for some time. Let's go to the claims
Speaker 3: of the detractors. You made an excellent point about some
Speaker 3: of the original aspects of the protests. Not for nothing
Speaker 3: are people calling themselves ourselves force defenders. There is a
Speaker 3: huge potential ecological consequence for the construction of this thing.
Speaker 4: That's right. The South River Forest is one of what's
Speaker 4: referred to as the city's four lungs, which is part
Speaker 4: of an ecosystem. You know, it serves as a very
Speaker 4: important part of our climate infrastructure that keeps surface temperatures cooler,
Speaker 4: cleans the air, you know, through the trees you know,
Speaker 4: that's a thing. We also did hear that climate change
Speaker 4: might prevent like like stop trees from processing oxygen or
Speaker 4: something like that bad stuff on the horizon, But when
Speaker 4: you cut them down, they're definitely going to stop. So
Speaker 4: that's a big part of it, not to mention regulating
Speaker 4: temperatures and preventing flooding.
Speaker 3: Yet prevents flooding, keeps things from overheating, cleans up the air.
Speaker 3: Those are yeah, those are things everyone likes, every human
Speaker 3: at least. And there's a great investigation by Brookings. The
Speaker 3: Brookings Institution might not be everybody's cup of tea, but
Speaker 3: nevertheless they do have some excellent research on this ecological
Speaker 3: impact that you're referring to NOL. They use data from Atlanta, Chicago,
Speaker 3: and New York and what they found was, time and
Speaker 3: time again, disadvantaged neighborhoods are disproportionately exposed to climate impacts
Speaker 3: and to higher rates of policing relative to other neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: We talked about this in San Francisco and the Bay Area,
Speaker 3: talked about it in Afrikville. You know as well up
Speaker 3: north it's happening. So you know, to that point, you
Speaker 3: don't have to get into the bow tie world of
Speaker 3: policy wonks. You don't have to be one of those
Speaker 3: one of those nerds to understand the reality on the ground.
Speaker 3: History is cyclical, just like the way back in the
Speaker 3: Trail of Tears days. This greater good rationalization is arguably
Speaker 3: an iteration of manifest destiny, which means that whatever the
Speaker 3: intention may be, it will result in damage to a
Speaker 3: majority Black community of innocent people who are inevitably getting
Speaker 3: punished for the crime of existing in an inconvenient place.
Speaker 3: And that's gross.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: Lets let's take another break, guys, We need to take
Speaker 2: a break. We'll hear word from our sponsor, will be
Speaker 2: right back, and let's keep going down some of this track,
Speaker 2: because I think there's more to uncover, guys, before we
Speaker 2: get in the next part. How does this Blackhall Studios
Speaker 2: slash Shadow Box Studios work into this whole thing, because
Speaker 2: it's a I think they own some of the land
Speaker 2: or something, and then they ended up selling the land
Speaker 2: or doing some kind of handshake deal for some of
Speaker 2: the land. And this is a huge movie production studio thing,
Speaker 2: which is the whole like another wave of money coming
Speaker 2: into the city, which is another reason why this is
Speaker 2: probably I don't know how it's tied in, but I.
Speaker 4: Know I hadn't heard a bit of this. This is interesting.
Speaker 2: I just had no idea that this new film production,
Speaker 2: television production in Atlanta touched this subject at all.
Speaker 4: No, I definitely didn't.
Speaker 3: This is the angle. It gets into the black I
Speaker 3: love these black box of course, but it gets into
Speaker 3: the true black box of private equity funding.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Oh well, sorry, Ben, I said, black hole studio.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, sorry, black hall. Yes, is just black box funding? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're right. That's a that's a good called. There are
Speaker 3: also things like what is it Rourke Capital, which is
Speaker 3: private equity for here in Atlanta. You know, guys, I'm
Speaker 3: starting to think that we're going to be pulled over
Speaker 3: more often for this one in particular.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I just figured with a giant, you know,
Speaker 4: police training facility nearby, we just start getting pulled over
Speaker 4: more in general, which I think is maybe part of
Speaker 4: the argument, you know, the idea that, like you know,
Speaker 4: on paper, this thing shouldn't necessarily be a like home
Speaker 4: base for militarized police, but the very existence of it
Speaker 4: just implies a higher concentration of police that in a
Speaker 4: way that some people don't trust understandably.
Speaker 3: So all right, this is maybe a hot take, but
Speaker 3: anybody who's experienced it can agree. What is the typical
Speaker 3: neighborhood like around a US military base in the domestic
Speaker 3: in the contiguous United States?
Speaker 4: Impoverished?
Speaker 3: Ish, it's they're not the nicest places often, and that
Speaker 3: that is another function of NIMBI. That's another function. That's
Speaker 3: what people are worried about, Right, will this make our
Speaker 3: neighborhood worse? Whatever the intentions, because you know, people will
Speaker 3: still live there unless they are driven out and unless
Speaker 3: they are you know, imminent domained out to some other
Speaker 3: part of the area, whatever you want to call this
Speaker 3: training center or a cop city. The critics are saying
Speaker 3: that this is to your earlier point, this is a
Speaker 3: blueprint for future iterations of militarization. The militarization of the
Speaker 3: police is a known ongoing issue in the United States,
Speaker 3: and it has provably resulted in rising socioeconomic inequality, intergenerational trauma,
Speaker 3: and perhaps most importantly, the erosion of democracy. And the
Speaker 3: whole reason that you hang out in the US at
Speaker 3: all is because you thought democracy was dope. Right, If
Speaker 3: that's the whole reason you choose to stay if you
Speaker 3: have the opportunity to leave.
Speaker 2: The militarization of police has been one of those actual
Speaker 2: slippery slope, actual ones that have been occurring since police
Speaker 2: forces were out gunned. I think it was in the
Speaker 2: late eighties early nineties when there were several major instances
Speaker 2: of police being outgunned by like bank robbers in a
Speaker 2: couple instances and a couple other instances, Yeah, where there
Speaker 2: were heavy weapons being used against police officers that generally
Speaker 2: had revolvers and shotguns and that's all they had. Then
Speaker 2: you know, started going into bigger weaponry that they carried,
Speaker 2: and then went into other forms of not I was
Speaker 2: gonna say, toys. We were just talking about on Strange
Speaker 2: News the what was that fighter jet? We called it
Speaker 2: like a toy, a military toy toy. Yeah, but like
Speaker 2: police officers gaining access to those things under the the
Speaker 2: banner of we're going to keep you safer by making
Speaker 2: sure our police have the the tools they.
Speaker 3: Need, and that's valid. I agree with you that that
Speaker 3: is absolutely valid, because otherwise you're looking at a situation
Speaker 3: where the legitimacy of rule of law could be compromised.
Speaker 3: Right now, now you're in an Escobar situation, you know.
Speaker 2: So you almost need it to some extent.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a microcosm of like military spending. You know,
Speaker 4: we got to keep the wolves at bay, you know,
Speaker 4: we've got to keep the bad guys that want to
Speaker 4: ruin our democracy, challenge our democracy. We've got to outgun them.
Speaker 4: So that's why, you know, war spending just gets the
Speaker 4: green light every time.
Speaker 3: It's easy to say yes to m right, yeah, And
Speaker 3: the other the other aspect of this is that when
Speaker 3: opponents are arguing these facilities amount to a war base
Speaker 3: functionally right, and they're saying the police will be learning
Speaker 3: things that are less public safety and more sort of
Speaker 3: active operation of broad type stuff. When they talk about that,
Speaker 3: they're talking about explosive or demolition testing sites like like
Speaker 3: we pointed out earlier, very fancy, objectively very cool shooting ranges,
Speaker 3: helicopter pads designed for military aircraft. And where does it
Speaker 3: stop in pursuit of preventing the collapse of a state?
Speaker 3: Could you create the collapse of a state in practice? Right?
Speaker 3: That's a question that is very easy to ignore if
Speaker 3: you are going to make millions and millions, hundreds of
Speaker 3: millions of dollars off creating this thing, and so the
Speaker 3: local folks organized. I don't want to sound too Pixar
Speaker 3: to like Captain Planet about it or what was that
Speaker 3: one thing. There's so many forest people banding against bad
Speaker 3: folks there.
Speaker 2: Avatar.
Speaker 3: Fer and Bully last r YEA yeah, yeah, Princess Mononoke, etc.
Speaker 3: Your mileage may vary, but there's a reason those things
Speaker 3: are tropes, you know. These these folks are not sent
Speaker 3: by Russia to protest. Although Russia, when Russia was doing
Speaker 3: better with their foreign des info, they were not adverse
Speaker 3: to putting a hand on any social movement. These folks
Speaker 3: are local people fighting to save their neighborhoods, like your bubby,
Speaker 3: your grandma, whatever. There are activists who did travel from
Speaker 3: outside of Georgia, that is true, who believe that this
Speaker 3: is a dangerous precedent, either for further militarization or for
Speaker 3: further ecological damage, and they leveraged the system or are
Speaker 3: attempting to the constitution of the State of Georgia. Says
Speaker 3: that residents can force the decision on local governments if
Speaker 3: fifteen percent of registered vote sign a petition. And I
Speaker 3: think we've all seen the petition by now, right.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, and it got a ton of signatures,
Speaker 2: didn't it.
Speaker 4: Well, originally you had to be a resident of Fulton
Speaker 4: County to sign the petition. So I was approached and
Speaker 4: I very much wanted to sign it, and I'm a
Speaker 4: resident of Dacab County, and they said I couldn't sign it.
Speaker 4: But then that changed. There was an order from a
Speaker 4: judge I believe that allowed that opened it up to
Speaker 4: anybody in the community, which I think is totally fair.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, Decab County is just a hopskip
Speaker 4: and a jump away from all this stuff. It's all
Speaker 4: pretty centralized. And yes, they got to my understanding the
Speaker 4: appropriate number of signatures needed to force a ballot measure.
Speaker 3: M yeah, I don't think it is a crazy wack
Speaker 3: a do idea to allow the people who live in
Speaker 3: a place to vote on what happens in that place
Speaker 3: and their money.
Speaker 4: That's using their money.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right. Yeah, yeah, you're paid for it, even
Speaker 3: if you just buy a sandwich in the airport. Congratulations.
Speaker 3: You're part of a larger effort and you're absolutely right. Guys.
Speaker 3: The protester networks, the stop Coop City movement has obtained
Speaker 3: more than one hundred and sixteen thousand petition signatures that
Speaker 3: legally forces the city government to allow people to vote
Speaker 3: on what happens in their city. And that's supposed to
Speaker 3: be how democracy works. In fact, a great many people
Speaker 3: died to make that the case. And yet, and yet,
Speaker 3: as we record this evening, the letter of the law
Speaker 3: does not seem to manifest in practice. Just two weeks ago,
Speaker 3: AP News reported that Atlanta officials are saying they're legally
Speaker 3: barred from even beginning to verify the forms, and they
Speaker 3: said the organizers missed this deadline from August twenty first,
Speaker 3: the deadline have been extended until September by a federal judge,
Speaker 3: but then an appellate court came in and they were like,
Speaker 3: hold the phone, scratch the record, and now this whole thing,
Speaker 3: this whole petition process, is in a legal limbo, which
Speaker 3: is nuts because this is one of the biggest ostensibly,
Speaker 3: this is one of the biggest grassroots movements in the
Speaker 3: history of the state of Georgia. And if you hear
Speaker 3: the supporters, they're saying, look, we're not here to overthrow
Speaker 3: the United States, we're not terrorists. We want to defend
Speaker 3: this city. We want to keep this forest around, and
Speaker 3: we want to stick up for these neighborhoods. And they also, yeah,
Speaker 3: the people who support this training center or Copcity, they
Speaker 3: alleged the protesters are part of a conspiracy. The protesters
Speaker 3: alleged that the powers that be are part of a conspiracy.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, when I was approached to sign the pot,
Speaker 4: and I'm sure y'all may have been as well and
Speaker 4: had similar experience, they're so buttoned up, like it's got
Speaker 4: to be blue ink, it's got to be this. You
Speaker 4: got to make sure that they're looking behind you, to
Speaker 4: make sure you tick all the right boxes, your addresses right.
Speaker 4: And that's because situations like this and systems like this
Speaker 4: are the red tape is outrageous, and these protesters are,
Speaker 4: these activists. They achieved it, they followed the rules, they
Speaker 4: did it right, and still somehow this bull comes down to,
Speaker 4: just like you know, stemy, the whole thing, just like
Speaker 4: the public comment was ignored. And this is even worse
Speaker 4: because it seems like they found it's very smartly not
Speaker 4: a loophole, an actual part of the law that's designed
Speaker 4: to do this very thing, and somehow they were still
Speaker 4: had the rug pulled out from under them. I don't
Speaker 4: get it. I mean, I do get it. It's just
Speaker 4: because people influence people, and you're gonna have another lawyer
Speaker 4: or somebody that's employed by one of these entities, perhaps
Speaker 4: these corporate entities pushing and figuring out the real loophole
Speaker 4: to get rid of this whole process, because it's it's
Speaker 4: inconvenient to say the least.
Speaker 2: What I don't get is how can the people who
Speaker 2: want to build this facility, how are what is the
Speaker 2: mechanism of conspiracy that they're leveraging against detractors and people
Speaker 2: who don't want it?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, the heavy implication is that there are foreign
Speaker 3: actors called everything but domestic terrorists who are attempting to
Speaker 3: subvert the rule of law and sow chaos, exploiting a
Speaker 3: vulnerability exposed during the protest of the pandemic. However, that
Speaker 3: logic doesn't quite carry the water, because if you look
Speaker 3: at quote unquote conspiratorial actions, you need to look no
Speaker 3: further than of course, Rico law. Earlier this year, it
Speaker 3: was unprecedented retaliation. On the twenty ninth of August this year,
Speaker 3: Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr indicted sixty one protesters on
Speaker 3: racketeering charges. Rico law, if you're not familiar, is we
Speaker 3: talked about it a little bit because a former president
Speaker 3: is getting in trouble with this one too. The Rico
Speaker 3: law is meant for organized crime. It's meant to further
Speaker 3: punish and penalize people who participate in things like running guns,
Speaker 3: human trafficking, the cocaine or heroin, opiums. That opiums that
Speaker 3: I said, old, look at the internet's over here.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, yeah, this is a gross misuse. I mean,
Speaker 4: I think it's clear what you're talking about and what
Speaker 4: this is. These people are making Instagram posts, they're like
Speaker 4: running Twitter campaigns like it is.
Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, but what's being alleged that they're doing. Are
Speaker 2: We have to keep an open mind here because I know,
Speaker 2: we know in some of the instances of protests there
Speaker 2: have been there have been stuff like a couple one
Speaker 2: or two little peppered things that may have been a
Speaker 2: little violent, right, A little bit a tiny bit.
Speaker 3: I think we can imagine that, I mean more than
Speaker 3: a little bit of tiny bit. Okay, we're talking molotovs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, because there were actually molotovs. But when you're
Speaker 2: charging sixty one people with, you know, possessing the accelerant
Speaker 2: to build molotovs to then be used as weapons basically
Speaker 2: against police officers.
Speaker 3: Or getting venmode for going in on food for your crew.
Speaker 3: You know that's that's if that's Rico law, then you're guilty.
Speaker 2: Bro, Do you have both of those things?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it doesn't I don't know.
Speaker 3: This person paid for some glue for protest side. We're
Speaker 3: in a viv for vendetta situation. Burn it down. That's like, okay.
Speaker 3: Current Governor Brian Kemp, you know, I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 3: is described as described the accused in this Rico case
Speaker 3: as quote, out of state radicals.
Speaker 4: Got a bunch of agitators on our hands.
Speaker 3: As he SIPs his julip in his linen suit, I
Speaker 3: can't talk trash on linen suits. I love him, but
Speaker 3: right now we are not sure how things will proceed.
Speaker 3: It is here in the city. It is abundantly clear
Speaker 3: that there are a lot of problems. Okay, and it's
Speaker 3: a beautiful city, but it is not by any means
Speaker 3: a perfect city. And the city itself, at least according
Speaker 3: to the petitions, according to things you will hear if
Speaker 3: you talk to the averag person, the city itself doesn't
Speaker 3: really want this thing built, at least not the way
Speaker 3: it's proceeding. Yet the city's power structure has already decided
Speaker 3: this will occur. It is a foregone conclusion. Both sides
Speaker 3: say the other is conspiring. It will continue to escalate.
Speaker 3: And you know, an ugly truth is better than a
Speaker 3: beautiful lie. To be honest, your average cop, your average
Speaker 3: police is not staying awake at night going oh gosh,
Speaker 3: I can't wait to go to like the New School
Speaker 3: of America's. They're people just like you. They are often
Speaker 3: in dangerous situations, and they, just like you, do not
Speaker 3: want to die. So anything that can help prevent that
Speaker 3: is a net positive. And then you know, again, like
Speaker 3: I'm soapboxing here, guys, I know we're running long, But
Speaker 3: the US, the whole experiment is founded on this idea
Speaker 3: that people can decide what they do or do not like.
Speaker 3: And I would argue that, I think we'd all argue
Speaker 3: that to ignore that principle is to delegitimize the entire
Speaker 3: foundation upon which this experiment rests.
Speaker 4: You know, well, and we haven't talked much about like
Speaker 4: abolitionist movements in terms of like defunding the police and
Speaker 4: calls for stuff like that in the wake of a
Speaker 4: lot of these, you know, horrific incidents involving police killing civilians.
Speaker 4: But I don't fully understand what the alternative is. There
Speaker 4: is part of me that says, let's be more transparent
Speaker 4: about the training, let's learn from these mistakes, let's train
Speaker 4: the right people to do the job correctly so they
Speaker 4: don't kill people. But I think folks on the other
Speaker 4: side of that are saying, it's not possible. These people
Speaker 4: are inherently targeting these underserved communities and populations and there's
Speaker 4: no amount of training that will ever change that. I
Speaker 4: think that might be too extreme on one side of
Speaker 4: the pendulum. And then obviously the folks on the other
Speaker 4: side that want to build this and think it's the
Speaker 4: only way to do it. I think there's this is
Speaker 4: not quite right there either. I don't know the answer,
Speaker 4: you know, I don't have the solution, but it certainly
Speaker 4: seems like there's definitely something going on in terms of
Speaker 4: why this is happening, where it's happening, who's involved, and
Speaker 4: why they just seem just absolutely disinterested in what the
Speaker 4: community thinks about it, those Q.
Speaker 3: Four numbers are going to be dope though. If that
Speaker 3: goes through those folks, Yeah, this is I mean, this
Speaker 3: is the question, right, and I think that's a great
Speaker 3: way for us to wrap this the dilemma here. Various
Speaker 3: powerful entities will can attempt to convince you that the
Speaker 3: statements of the public do not matter, or that the
Speaker 3: public is uninformed. While the latter is arguably true, in
Speaker 3: many cases, the former is false. The public does deserve
Speaker 3: a voice, and to argue otherwise is to be purposely malevolent,
Speaker 3: to be purposely dest and it goes against the United States.
Speaker 3: If the people of a place do not want a
Speaker 3: kind of a training center like this, if they don't
Speaker 3: want a cop city, if they want a nimby, then
Speaker 3: you know it's a country where you can nimby, right,
Speaker 3: But the powerful people do want it. And then the
Speaker 3: question becomes why you know.
Speaker 2: Well, it becomes how does a democracy actually function? Does
Speaker 2: it matter that those who live in the place who
Speaker 2: also vote don't want a thing? Or do the people
Speaker 2: who represent those folks do they get what they want?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: And the last little thing I just wanted to add
Speaker 4: is the truly conspiratorial side of this, and I don't
Speaker 4: I'm not saying there's any sand to this, but it's
Speaker 4: it's it's a place that the mind could go is
Speaker 4: that these corporations are training soldiers to defend their interests
Speaker 4: and their interests alone. This is extreme militarization of the police,
Speaker 4: and they will be under the thumb of these corporate
Speaker 4: entities to some degree, could be mobilized to occupy communities,
Speaker 4: to create, you know, martial law. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: I don't think I'm wrong in thinking that some people
Speaker 4: are going that far with their concerns about this type
Speaker 4: of thing.
Speaker 3: Sure, the evolution of corptocracy, corporatocracy, or whatever you want
Speaker 3: to call it, right, oligarchy and oligarchy by any other name,
Speaker 3: neo feudalism would be the uncomfortable armored elephant in that room.
Speaker 3: Just before we end, I want to reiterate this is
Speaker 3: important for this to be the final word. The ideology
Speaker 3: is being weaponized against people and in US versus them
Speaker 3: situation that is misleading. The United States is founded in
Speaker 3: theory on the concept of people deciding what they do
Speaker 3: or do not like and to agree with to aid
Speaker 3: and a bet anything in contradiction of that fundamental principle
Speaker 3: is to delegitimize the bedrock upon which this place is
Speaker 3: supposed to be built. It's something to think about. It's
Speaker 3: we would love to hear your opinions. You know, as
Speaker 3: we said, we do not have the answers. We do
Speaker 3: see some suspicious shenanigans play. But what should the solution be?
Speaker 3: What is to your point, Noel, what is the spectrum here?
Speaker 3: To your point, Matt, what is the what is the motivation?
Speaker 3: What is the end result for the people who live
Speaker 3: with the long tail consequences of this? We try to
Speaker 3: be easy to find online.
Speaker 4: We do. You can find us all over the Internet
Speaker 4: of the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on I'm
Speaker 4: just gonna call it the X platform because it just
Speaker 4: sounds dorky, but it still exists and hasn't shut down yet,
Speaker 4: but give it time. We are also conspiracy stuff on
Speaker 4: Facebook and YouTube, on Instagram and TikTok. We are conspiracy
Speaker 4: Stuff Show.
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