Speaker 1: It's a warm spring afternoon in Atlanta, Georgia. You and
Speaker 1: some of your friends are dancing in the sunlight at
Speaker 1: a music festival in South Atlanta. It's day two of
Speaker 1: the South River Music Festival. Last night, you stayed up
Speaker 1: till three am, alternating between moshing in the pit and
Speaker 1: laying down on a blanket looking up at the night sky,
Speaker 1: trying to see stars through the light pollution. After you
Speaker 1: had your fill of DM you called it a night
Speaker 1: and hastily set up a tent in the forest near
Speaker 1: the edge of the festival. You tried to sleep as
Speaker 1: long as you could, but soon enough the hustle and
Speaker 1: bustle around the forest beckoned you out of your tent.
Speaker 1: As you mosed on over back to the music festival,
Speaker 1: immediately something new caught your eye, a large, multi colored
Speaker 1: inflatable bouncy castle sitting right in the middle of the
Speaker 1: field with a big stopcop City banner hung along the side.
Speaker 1: After you fully woke up, you grabbed a free breakfast
Speaker 1: burrito and took a walk through the winding forest. Now
Speaker 1: that you've finished your breakfast, you're back at the far
Speaker 1: end of the open field in front of the stage,
Speaker 1: where there's been live music playing for the past few hours.
Speaker 1: You and some friends briefly try a stint in the
Speaker 1: bouncy castle, but quickly return to the festival stage as
Speaker 1: you tire out much faster than you expected. As the
Speaker 1: sun is barely starting to set around six pm, suddenly
Speaker 1: you notice the faint scream of police sirens piercing through
Speaker 1: the music being blasted from on stage. You stand up
Speaker 1: as the sirens get louder and closer, until a burst
Speaker 1: of police cars zoom past the music festival at high speed.
Speaker 1: A short sigh of relief is followed by confusion where
Speaker 1: else would a whole bunch of police cars be going,
Speaker 1: But as nothing seems to come of it, everyone starts
Speaker 1: to relax and begin enjoying music once again with the
Speaker 1: apparent absence of police. There's a if you brief moments
Speaker 1: of peace at the festival as things continue as scheduled,
Speaker 1: except you can't help but notice the police helicopter is
Speaker 1: flying across the forest toward the festival. As you take
Speaker 1: note of the chopper, you receive a signal message from
Speaker 1: a friend quote cops have entered the parking lot with
Speaker 1: AR fifteen's. You lift up your mask and start running
Speaker 1: across the field to the parking lot at Willawnee People's Park.
Speaker 1: But before you even make it halfway across, you notice
Speaker 1: up ahead a few dozen police officers sprinting into the
Speaker 1: open field from the festival side entrance. As the sun
Speaker 1: is setting, a group of cops run past the bouncy
Speaker 1: house and start chasing down seemingly random concert goers and
Speaker 1: loan stragglers. One officer points his rifle at the bouncy
Speaker 1: house as another turns off the generator. You group up
Speaker 1: with other people from the festival in hopes of working
Speaker 1: together to incentivize police to leave the area. As you
Speaker 1: get closer, the cops start getting more aggressive. Just up ahead,
Speaker 1: a bit further into the woods, close to where you
Speaker 1: set up your tent, you hear some loud bangs and
Speaker 1: see a flash of bright light. First, you assume it's
Speaker 1: just fireworks being used to hold off the cops, until
Speaker 1: you start coughing and see the faint plume of tear
Speaker 1: gas seeping in from the forest. You're forced to fall
Speaker 1: back to the festival and regroup with people by the
Speaker 1: stage where music is still being played. As you're running back,
Speaker 1: you can see dozens of people in zip ti cuffs,
Speaker 1: many still pinned to the ground, still coughing from the gas.
Speaker 1: You make your way back to where you are washing
Speaker 1: the previous night. The crowd of festivalgoers tightens up as
Speaker 1: riot vans and a bear cat pull into the field
Speaker 1: next to the deflated bouncy castle. Police swat teams surround
Speaker 1: the South River Music Festival and creep towards the stage,
Speaker 1: threatening to charge hundreds of people with domestic terrorism. Hanging
Speaker 1: on the backdrop of the stage is a massive banner
Speaker 1: that reads, quote in the eyes of the state, all
Speaker 1: who resist white supremacy, colonialism, environmental racism, gentrification, and police
Speaker 1: militarization are domestic terrorists unquote. That was the evening of Sunday,
Speaker 1: March fifth, twenty twenty three. This is it could happen here.
Speaker 1: I'm Garrison Davis. I arrived in Atlanta a few days
Speaker 1: prior in preparation for the March Week of Action to
Speaker 1: defend the Atlanta Forest and stop cop City. This is
Speaker 1: part one of a four part series covering this week
Speaker 1: of action, featuring interviews, reportbacks, and analysis from both participants
Speaker 1: and observers like myself. This four part series will be
Speaker 1: a follow up of sorts to the four stop Coop
Speaker 1: City episodes we put together last January following the death
Speaker 1: of forest defender Tortigita at the hands of the Georgia
Speaker 1: State Patrol, as well as building off my previous year
Speaker 1: of work covering the movement to defend the Atlanta Forest.
Speaker 1: But in case you're new or need a refresher, For
Speaker 1: over two years now, activists and community members have been
Speaker 1: in a fight to save the Wallani Forest from being
Speaker 1: turned into a massive ninety million dollar police training facility
Speaker 1: stretching across one hundred and seventy acres, with plans to
Speaker 1: include a mock city for urban combat training to quell
Speaker 1: civil descent. The cop City project is being led by
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Police Foundation, one of the most powerful police
Speaker 1: lobbying groups in the country. Following seventeen hours of public comment,
Speaker 1: seventy percent of which was against the facility, the Atlanta
Speaker 1: City Council voted to approve the project's lease in September
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty one, despite months of protests and community organizing.
Speaker 1: Later that fall, people started occupying and camping out in
Speaker 1: the Wallani Forest to maintain a physical presence in the woods.
Speaker 1: In hopes of preventing or delaying construction. Infrastructure to support
Speaker 1: long time ter encampments grew over the next year, with
Speaker 1: forest defenders erecting treehouses, road blockades, and making the forest
Speaker 1: a place that people could actually live in with outdoor kitchens,
Speaker 1: community gardens, and places to sleep, whether that be up
Speaker 1: in a tree or in a tent. For a while
Speaker 1: it seemed to be working. Throughout twenty twenty two, construction
Speaker 1: continued to stall. Almost every time cops and workers came
Speaker 1: in to start cutting trees, they were met with resistance.
Speaker 1: Construction equipment left around the forest was routinely sabotaged, and
Speaker 1: last year a tertiary targeting campaign resulted in the general
Speaker 1: contractor for a cop City Reeves Young construction, to drop
Speaker 1: out of the project. Police enacted multiple raids on the
Speaker 1: forest in twenty twenty two, trying to flush out any
Speaker 1: forest defenders camping out in the woods and tear down
Speaker 1: encampment infrastructure, but the occupation was generally able to bounce
Speaker 1: back pretty quick. As the movement to stop cop City
Speaker 1: was seemingly winning, police intensified their repression as a series
Speaker 1: of raids in December of last year decimated much of
Speaker 1: the infrastructure that was built up over the course of
Speaker 1: that year and left six people with domestic terrorism charges.
Speaker 1: But things got worse just a month later. In January
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, multiple police agencies engaged in a
Speaker 1: mass raid of the Wallani Forest, destroying all remaining campsites.
Speaker 1: About an hour into the January eighteenth raid, the Georgia
Speaker 1: State Patrol swat team killed a twenty six year old
Speaker 1: forest defender, Manuel Tehran, also known by their forest name Tortigita.
Speaker 1: Decab County's autopsy found at least fifty seven gunshot wounds
Speaker 1: from multiple officers. We'll talk more about the results from
Speaker 1: various autopsies in a later episode, but just a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, tort would have turned twenty seven. The other
Speaker 1: side of the Defend the Forest movement is focused on
Speaker 1: a smaller section of the Wallani Forest just east of
Speaker 1: Entrenchment Creek. Initially in hopes of expanding his movie studios,
Speaker 1: The now former own of Blackhall Studios, Ryan Millsap, has
Speaker 1: been trying to gain control of forty acres of public
Speaker 1: parkland through a shady landswap deal with Decap County that's
Speaker 1: currently subject to legal disputes. The slate of land in
Speaker 1: question contains the popular meeting spot in the forest known
Speaker 1: as the Living Room, which acts as a sort of
Speaker 1: central hub, as well as what's referred to as Wilawni
Speaker 1: People's Park, where the Park gazebe used to be before
Speaker 1: Ryan Millsap demolished it, later ripping out all of the
Speaker 1: grass and sidewalks in a once again legally questionable move.
Speaker 1: In January, Wilani People's Park also became home to the
Speaker 1: vigil site for Tortigita all at Let Matt from the
Speaker 1: Atlantic Community Press Collective explain the other happenings in the
Speaker 1: woods since January.
Speaker 2: They got their land disturbance permit in late January, and
Speaker 2: the first phase of the land disturbance permit only allows
Speaker 2: for soil erosion control work, So to this point, essentially
Speaker 2: what they've done is they've cut some paths into the
Speaker 2: forest into the proposed site, and then around the exterior
Speaker 2: of the site they've clear cut a line in order
Speaker 2: to install silt fencing, so there isn't a large amount
Speaker 2: of infrastructure. They're not allowed to do a large amount
Speaker 2: of disturbance right now. They're in like the pre construction
Speaker 2: phase right now. So they started in February and they
Speaker 2: did a lot of work very quickly. They installed a
Speaker 2: privacy fence, so you can't really see what's going on,
Speaker 2: so our general understanding of it, like comes from drone footage.
Speaker 2: It actually slowed down a couple weeks later, and from
Speaker 2: what I understand, they began to pull some construction equipment out,
Speaker 2: probably not wanting to leave, you know, a target for
Speaker 2: shall we say, any sort of spicy activities.
Speaker 1: But not all of their construction equipment was removed, As
Speaker 1: everyone would soon find out, the deadly Jenny left the
Speaker 1: community in the morning and unsure of how the fight
Speaker 1: to stop copp City would evolve. With the use of
Speaker 1: lethal force and the loss of a friend, the Forest
Speaker 1: Defender's semi permanent occupation of the Wallani Forest ended after
Speaker 1: that raid, but the fight was far from over. About
Speaker 1: a month after the January raid, local Atlantans put out
Speaker 1: a call for supporters across the country to converge in
Speaker 1: Atlanta in early March for a mass gathering known as
Speaker 1: a Week of Action. There have been four previous Weeks
Speaker 1: of Action, but this one, more than any other, would
Speaker 1: be crucial in reifying what the next stage of the
Speaker 1: movement would be. I started off this episode with the
Speaker 1: Sunday night police raid on the South River Music Festival, because,
Speaker 1: for better or worse, what happened on that evening set
Speaker 1: the proverbial stage for what the majority of this Week
Speaker 1: of Action would look like and how its effects would
Speaker 1: ripple out in the coming months. But before we get
Speaker 1: to the rest of the week, we first have to
Speaker 1: go back to the official start of this Week of
Speaker 1: Action to explain how we got here in the first place.
Speaker 1: To kick off the Week of Action, a rally was
Speaker 1: planned for the morning of Saturday, March fourth, at Gresham
Speaker 1: Park in southeast Atlanta. By the time I arrived around
Speaker 1: eleven am, hundreds of people were already in the park.
Speaker 1: Music was blaring from loudspeakers. Some kids and a few
Speaker 1: brave adults were running around throwing multicolored powdered paint at
Speaker 1: each other. It was a pretty festive time. Soon enough,
Speaker 1: it was time for things to begin. Matthew Johnson, the
Speaker 1: interim executive director of Beloved Commune, formerly kicked off the week.
Speaker 3: Hoday, let's get started, all right.
Speaker 4: I just want to make sure that everybody is in
Speaker 4: the right way. I came here to stop cop city.
Speaker 5: What did you all come here to do? What did
Speaker 5: we come to do? What are we come to do?
Speaker 5: What have we come here to do?
Speaker 6: All right?
Speaker 7: I'm glad that everybody found the right address. Thank you
Speaker 7: everybody for joining us.
Speaker 8: It's about two years ago.
Speaker 7: In what was formerly known as Entrenchment Creek Park now
Speaker 7: known as Wolani People's Park, where a ragtag bunch of
Speaker 7: individuals gathered under a gazebo. That gazebo was illegally destroyed
Speaker 7: by Ryan Millsap and his henchmen in an attempt to
Speaker 7: break this movement, in an attempt to bury this movement.
Speaker 7: Yet every single time that they have tried to bury us,
Speaker 7: they have forgotten that we were seeds. Every time they
Speaker 7: thought that they backed us into a corner with their repression,
Speaker 7: we had more of you show up and support this movement,
Speaker 7: and we thank you so much. They have set every
Speaker 7: hurdle in the way of every day at Lantern's to
Speaker 7: intimidate them and stop them from.
Speaker 4: Supporting this movement, and we still show up. We appreciate
Speaker 4: every single person that has come here to support us
Speaker 4: in spite of the terror that the state has right
Speaker 4: to instill in us. We must be very careful and
Speaker 4: understand the gravity of the situation that we are in,
Speaker 4: especially after we've lost a friend.
Speaker 7: Okay, thank you for standing with us. And now there
Speaker 7: are many things that we do not agree on. But
Speaker 7: what did we all come here to do?
Speaker 9: So let's remember what got us this far was a
Speaker 9: diversity of tactics, and now it's time for.
Speaker 8: Us to double down.
Speaker 1: The crowd gathered was a pretty diverse mix of people
Speaker 1: from a variety of backgrounds, beliefs, and preferred tactics. On
Speaker 1: this is Saturday morning, everyone felt pretty united, whether you
Speaker 1: were a kid running around with paint all over your
Speaker 1: body or an anarchist to dressed head to toe and camo.
Speaker 1: Next up, somebody read a statement from the Muscogee elder
Speaker 1: Miko Chabon.
Speaker 10: Colonel, I'm here to read.
Speaker 11: A statement from my Miko, Miko Shabbon.
Speaker 6: Yeah, my name is Marty. I'm Muscoge on my father's side.
Speaker 11: On my mother's side, I'm Atham both Acmel and Thana,
Speaker 11: and my dad's also Filipino. Miko asked me to read
Speaker 11: this statement. Band Strijaio mart At this time, I would
Speaker 11: like to express my gratitude to all who have conversed
Speaker 11: onto these ancestral territories of Muscogean ancestors and modern spiritual
Speaker 11: inhabitants of the earth that we now stand on today.
Speaker 11: We represent a vast society of peoples whose presence in
Speaker 11: the colonized named states of Georgia, Alabama, and.
Speaker 6: Florida have existed for over thirteen thousand years.
Speaker 11: We represent a way of life that strove to minimize
Speaker 11: the harm that humans can.
Speaker 6: Do to the earth, to other species, and to each other.
Speaker 11: Today, we continue this movement that begun many years ago,
Speaker 11: and we honor those who have taken footsteps to protect
Speaker 11: this forest and our relative who gave the greatest of sacrifices,
Speaker 11: just as ancestors existed on these very grounds and carried
Speaker 11: of faith and confidence in what our ancient ones passed
Speaker 11: on to us. May the hope of peaceful existence for
Speaker 11: all be achieved for many more centuries to come. This
Speaker 11: existence can only occur when we realize the sacredness of
Speaker 11: the Wilani Forest, that all that is natural on this earth, Mother.
Speaker 11: This type of existence can only occur when we realize
Speaker 11: that we all belong to this earth, and she does
Speaker 11: not belong to us. This type of holy existence can
Speaker 11: only occur when we realize that no cop city can
Speaker 11: ever exist because more weapons only create more violence. With
Speaker 11: these efforts to begin today, perhaps reason will prevail and
Speaker 11: we could create a future where all people have.
Speaker 6: The right to exist.
Speaker 11: Today, may our dreams for this forest and the surrounding
Speaker 11: community come true.
Speaker 6: For those who can hear, let them hear.
Speaker 1: The next speaker was from Community Movement Builders, a local
Speaker 1: black collectives that focuses on combating and gentrification and police violence.
Speaker 12: I may be a little bit selfish, and my reason
Speaker 12: for being here I want to be free.
Speaker 6: I want my children to be free.
Speaker 3: I want my mother to be free.
Speaker 12: I want my father, my brothers and sisters to be free.
Speaker 12: And I don't want to have to live a life
Speaker 12: in ten years when my babies, my nieces and my
Speaker 12: nephews come to me and ask, come, I see, where
Speaker 12: were you What were you doing when they destroyed our
Speaker 12: clean water, destroyed our clean air happened?
Speaker 6: Why were you not around?
Speaker 12: What were you doing when when my babies twenty ten
Speaker 12: years and they say, comasie, what were you doing when
Speaker 12: this country turned into a fascist dystopia?
Speaker 13: What were you doing?
Speaker 14: Where were you where you're around. I can't sit here
Speaker 14: best shit back and say I just sat home and
Speaker 14: watched this.
Speaker 3: Whole world burn to hell.
Speaker 6: I don't believe in the power.
Speaker 5: I don't believe in the power of being periless.
Speaker 13: I believe in the power of the people.
Speaker 14: So I said to everyone today that during this week
Speaker 14: of action, I don't know where you will be. I
Speaker 14: don't know what you will be doing, but we standing
Speaker 14: behind you and we're staying with you. And we want
Speaker 14: to show the city of Atlanta. We want to show
Speaker 14: Mary Dickens that he is not fit to rule and
Speaker 14: he does not runing city way.
Speaker 15: We want to show.
Speaker 12: Them said, the ninety million dollars that they took to
Speaker 12: build this very warfare training facility will not cross our
Speaker 12: communities wheo. And we also want to show the city
Speaker 12: of that letter that again we are ready to stop
Speaker 12: really surviving to start living.
Speaker 1: Finally, our last person Reverend Leo'she is a Baptist minister
Speaker 1: part of the Stop Copp City Clergy Coalition, which we'll
Speaker 1: talk a bit more about in the next episode.
Speaker 16: And I believe my faith compels me and convicts me
Speaker 16: that in this moment, the work that has been.
Speaker 13: Done, and the work that is to come to.
Speaker 16: Defend this, our beloved family, this, our siblings.
Speaker 6: The earth is a holy and righteous work.
Speaker 16: It is a holy and righteous work that is grounded
Speaker 16: in a faithful rage, rage which has been boiling in
Speaker 16: the human family's blood for centuries and meets us care
Speaker 16: at this moment and asks us, what will you do
Speaker 16: to defend those who have no defense?
Speaker 13: What will you do to protect those who have no shelter?
Speaker 16: What will you do when the time comes to decide
Speaker 16: on whose side you are on? Will you stand for
Speaker 16: oppression or will you stand for the liberation of all people?
Speaker 16: My friends, I come with so good news if that's okay.
Speaker 16: And the good news is that God stands on the
Speaker 16: side of the oppress. God stands on the side of
Speaker 16: the forest defenders. Law stands on the side of the
Speaker 16: most marginalized. And let us make no mistake that in
Speaker 16: our protests and in our rage, we also have to
Speaker 16: cry out and lament. We cannot be silent as dou
Speaker 16: Gita's blood cries out from the ground. We must honor
Speaker 16: a life that did not have to be lost. It
Speaker 16: did not have to be this way. Do not listen
Speaker 16: to anyone who tells you that there is not a
Speaker 16: better way, there is always a better way. I come
Speaker 16: with my faith and the conviction that in this work,
Speaker 16: in this moment, a prophetic imagination, a creative vision, is
Speaker 16: needed for the world that we want to see. I'm
Speaker 16: not here to wait for the Kingdom of God. I
Speaker 16: want the Kingdom of God right now, right now.
Speaker 1: After the speeches were finished, it was announced that the crowd,
Speaker 1: now nearing a thousand strong, would gather up together and
Speaker 1: march to Wilani People's Park to retake the forest. As
Speaker 1: everyone was getting ready to leave, you could see the
Speaker 1: care and solidarity people had for each other on full display.
Speaker 1: Bike scouts were checking to see if the path was clear,
Speaker 1: volunteer street medics ready to help anyone in need. Water
Speaker 1: bottles are being handed out to keep everyone hydrated, while
Speaker 1: others autonomously coordinated rides for people unable to make. The
Speaker 1: walk looks like approximately one thousand people marching from Gresham
Speaker 1: Park to Alani People's Park on.
Speaker 10: The bike path.
Speaker 1: That's a I can't even see the end of where,
Speaker 1: of where, the of where the people's it's a long,
Speaker 1: long stretch of people marshing, hundreds and hundreds of feet.
Speaker 1: There's some banners in front of the march. One of
Speaker 1: them reads disarm, defund, dismantle, no cop city. There's one
Speaker 1: of the sun shining over a pink sky with a
Speaker 1: little blue turtle and their shell is the earth. Massive
Speaker 1: like ten person banner that reads defend the Forest. The
Speaker 1: energy of the march remained high as people chanted to
Speaker 1: the beat of drums. I sat down with Matt from
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Community Press Collective towards the end of the
Speaker 1: week to talk about what we saw throughout this week
Speaker 1: of action.
Speaker 2: At one point, the entire crowd, seemingly the entire crowd
Speaker 2: was chanting if you build it, we will burn it,
Speaker 2: which seems.
Speaker 10: Almost like a thousand people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was being chanted like, you know, looking
Speaker 2: around the crowd, you saw everyone for the most part,
Speaker 2: partaking in that.
Speaker 10: So that was a very interesting.
Speaker 2: Moment where it felt like there was that sort of
Speaker 2: solidarity amongst the varied groups that make up the Defend
Speaker 2: the Atlanta Forest movement.
Speaker 1: As the march went on, the path was getting increasingly forested.
Speaker 1: About two thirds of the way to Allani People's Park,
Speaker 1: after turning a bend, the crowd noticed three deer frolicking
Speaker 1: alongside the march from further within the tree line. To
Speaker 1: quote the Atlanta Community Press Collectives right up of the
Speaker 1: march quote. The joyous mood shifted slightly as the protest
Speaker 1: closed in on the People's Park, passing over the remains
Speaker 1: of the bike path destroyed in December by film executive
Speaker 1: Ryan Millsap. Activists were uncertain what they were walking into
Speaker 1: or whether the police would offer any resistance.
Speaker 2: Activists thought that there was going to be an issue.
Speaker 2: They were concerned about the police being in willani People's Park.
Speaker 2: So about halfway we saw that stack of makeshift shields
Speaker 2: made out of plastic rain barrels.
Speaker 1: About two dozen of those five gatlandrum shields just mysteriously
Speaker 1: showed up along the bike path. We are arriving at
Speaker 1: Willannee People's Park, no cops.
Speaker 2: But then when we got there there was no police whatsoever.
Speaker 2: From what the scanner people told us, there were police around,
Speaker 2: they were just kind of monitoring from afar, but no
Speaker 2: police ever entered the park. And it was I would
Speaker 2: say it was a really nice high point return to the.
Speaker 1: Forest, banners and shields moving around Willane People's Park as
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of more people still pour in from
Speaker 1: the bike path. As the back of the march finally arrived,
Speaker 1: the crowd gathered up one more time to all chant
Speaker 1: out a promise.
Speaker 17: In unison, I will, I Will.
Speaker 1: One of the activists I interviewed during the Week of
Speaker 1: Action was Matthew Johnson, the person who kicked off the
Speaker 1: rally at Gresham Park. We talked about the methodology of
Speaker 1: starting off this Week of Action with this big inclusive
Speaker 1: march and how that may have helped achieve the goal
Speaker 1: of retaking the forest that first day.
Speaker 18: We wanted to be sure that we would be able
Speaker 18: to reoccupy the park and what that would entail is
Speaker 18: having a wide swath of the larger public involved with
Speaker 18: any efforts to enter into the park. And so we
Speaker 18: had the rally Aggresshiam Park and there was a march
Speaker 18: planned from that part to Wallani People's Park. There is
Speaker 18: violence that people have become accustomed to when it is
Speaker 18: people on the political fringes. That's just where we're at
Speaker 18: in the political situation in Atlanta. However, when you have
Speaker 18: several people that you would consider more normal, liberal, progressive, etc.
Speaker 18: Like representatives from NGO's nonprofit organizations, just normal people that
Speaker 18: also wanted to see the project shut down cop City.
Speaker 18: That's when you have the ability to move towards people
Speaker 18: that want to reoccupy, having the space to do that
Speaker 18: without seeing tons of police repression as we have seen
Speaker 18: in the movement recently.
Speaker 1: After reaching Wolaanni People's Park, many of those who arrived
Speaker 1: from out of town for this week of action, myself included,
Speaker 1: stopped by the shrine for Tortigita just off of the
Speaker 1: tree line. People added new wildflowers and packs of fruit snacks.
Speaker 1: I'm going to walk over to the Torti Guita vigil site.
Speaker 1: Looks about the same as last time I was here.
Speaker 1: Many candles, little turtles, still a few fruit snacks. Although
Speaker 1: the vigil shrine was the same as last time I
Speaker 1: saw it, almost everything else about being in this place
Speaker 1: was different. When I was here last time in January,
Speaker 1: it was a dark place of grief. The forest was barren,
Speaker 1: with all of the trees in their bare winter state.
Speaker 1: But looking around the forest this first sunny day, you
Speaker 1: could see new life growing all around you. To quote
Speaker 1: the Community Press Collective again quote, small campsites began to
Speaker 1: crop up across the landscape. Some nestled in sunny air spaces.
Speaker 1: Others tucked into thickets, providing shelter and cooler climate for
Speaker 1: the new residence. The trees themselves reflected this next phase.
Speaker 1: Sprigs of new growth leaves appeared on the ends of
Speaker 1: barren branches. Small white flowers bloomed along the periphery of
Speaker 1: the parking lot. After months of desolation and death, life
Speaker 1: prevailed and spring arrives in the forest.
Speaker 10: I'm excited to.
Speaker 1: Get back into the forest because it is so hot,
Speaker 1: and get back in the forest I did. One of
Speaker 1: the events that happened almost daily throughout the week was
Speaker 1: tours of the eastern side of the Wallani Forest. The
Speaker 1: walks through the woods were led by Joe Perry, a
Speaker 1: member of the South River Forest Coalition. I was able
Speaker 1: to attend the first tour during the Week of Action
Speaker 1: and got consent to record some of the forest walk.
Speaker 19: All right, hey, y'all, welcome to the living room, so
Speaker 19: named because it's it's a very inviting and comfortable place.
Speaker 20: Relax.
Speaker 19: This is where a lot of the meetings happened during
Speaker 19: the previous Week of action. People gather and have different
Speaker 19: events here. Oftentimes it will be food available here campfires, silverware.
Speaker 19: So it's also just a very very comfortable place to
Speaker 19: relax because it's in this pine forest and so not
Speaker 19: really any undergrowth and just super comfortable. It's a really
Speaker 19: good place to have meetings and just kind of get
Speaker 19: to know each other and establish some calm.
Speaker 1: We made our way from the living room to the
Speaker 1: Grandmother Tree, a large oak that is estimated to be
Speaker 1: a few hundred years old. On our way to Ryan
Speaker 1: Millsaps proposed a site for so called Michelle Obama Park,
Speaker 1: which is currently a forty acre mount of dirt about
Speaker 1: thirty feet high. We walked past to some old tents
Speaker 1: that were slashed apart during the January raid. Among the
Speaker 1: destroyed remains were little pink flowers growing out of the ground. Next,
Speaker 1: we headed to Entrenchment Creek. Joe Perry explained some of
Speaker 1: the background regarding the environmental state of the watershed and
Speaker 1: how protecting the forest is a crucial step in the
Speaker 1: process of helping the land heal itself.
Speaker 19: I got involved with a group called the South River
Speaker 19: Forest Coalition. We are trying to help further the vision
Speaker 19: of the South River Forest that Ryan Gravelle and the
Speaker 19: Nature Conservancy came up with to try to interweave about
Speaker 19: thirty five hundred acres of forest with the other businesses
Speaker 19: and homes and lands around this area that are in
Speaker 19: the watershed of the South River forest. And the Entrenchment Creek,
Speaker 19: which we will see on this tour, is the main
Speaker 19: tributary to the South River. The South River is the
Speaker 19: fourth most endangered river in this country, and Trenchmit Creek
Speaker 19: is one of the most polluted creeks in this county.
Speaker 19: And so that is what we're trying to protect. And
Speaker 19: in order to protect a river and a creek and
Speaker 19: a watershed, you have to protect the forest that's around it.
Speaker 19: I've been exploring these woods for the last decade and
Speaker 19: leading tours and talking to people about it, trying to
Speaker 19: explain what's going on with a lawsuit, trying to explain
Speaker 19: what's going on the difference between in Trenchmen Creek Park
Speaker 19: and the prison farm and the acreage and all these
Speaker 19: other things, and all that stuff. It's just like it's
Speaker 19: just gears turning in your head because when you come
Speaker 19: out here and enjoy this, I mean, this is really
Speaker 19: what it's all about. This is all we have to
Speaker 19: do to convince people that this is worth saving it.
Speaker 19: Just bring you out here and let you appreciate it.
Speaker 1: As masses of people converged at Wallani People's Park Saturday afternoon,
Speaker 1: almost immediately a whole bunch of pop up infrastructure was
Speaker 1: set up to facilitate an encampment in the woods once again,
Speaker 1: really for the first time in any kind of large
Speaker 1: capacity since January and even December. The December raids decimated
Speaker 1: much of the camp infrastructure, which still had not been
Speaker 1: rebuilt since then. But upon arriving from Gresham Park on Saturday,
Speaker 1: both first time of visitors to the Wallani Forest and
Speaker 1: seasoned forest defenders worked together to rebuild a lot of
Speaker 1: that infrastructure to support camp life for the next week.
Speaker 2: One of the things that we saw on the march
Speaker 2: in was like eight cinder blocks right at the entrance
Speaker 2: to the living room, and then you and I went
Speaker 2: into the living room, we saw these huge water tanks.
Speaker 2: So later they moved those water tanks to those cinder
Speaker 2: blocks and they that has become or a watering point
Speaker 2: for everyone. So like twice a day a truck comes
Speaker 2: with a water tank on the back and then they
Speaker 2: go through the arduous process of filling that water. So
Speaker 2: that everybody in camp can have water, and they had
Speaker 2: this system that was seemingly self organized. And then that
Speaker 2: first day we were sitting in the parking lot and
Speaker 2: it seemed like every time you turn around there was
Speaker 2: like a different train of people carrying supplies into the
Speaker 2: living room. The second day, there was a woman who
Speaker 2: was shoveling gravel from the torn up concrete on the side,
Speaker 2: and she was filling all of the brandom holes in
Speaker 2: the ground so that carts could go up them. And
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, did somebody assign this to you?
Speaker 2: She's like, no, I saw this. It just needed to
Speaker 2: be done, and I did it. And that was very
Speaker 2: much the entire vibe of those first I would say
Speaker 2: twenty four hours was Okay, what do we need to
Speaker 2: do to get this thing running?
Speaker 1: As encampments were being established, simultaneously, infrastructure for the South
Speaker 1: River Music Festival was being erected in the adjacent radio
Speaker 1: control field. Within a short amount of time, a full
Speaker 1: stage was constructed, complete with lights and speakers, lining the
Speaker 1: sides of the field, where various tables and booths. One
Speaker 1: side featured a large variety of refreshments, as well as
Speaker 1: a medic tent, and the other side was home to
Speaker 1: free hot food and freshly grilled burgers and hot dogs.
Speaker 1: Next to the food were a few tables distributing an
Speaker 1: array of radical literature posters and stickers. What was your
Speaker 1: favorite stuff at the music fest? Suture?
Speaker 2: So well, there was an arapa table, and I'm very
Speaker 2: food motivated, so the arapas were delicious, and we had
Speaker 2: walked a bunch that day, so I needed sustenance. And
Speaker 2: then there was the burger table as well, but we
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't know if you got a burger,
Speaker 2: but I did not get a burger.
Speaker 1: I got I got one burger, but they were out
Speaker 1: of buns when I got a burger, so I had
Speaker 1: a lettuce burger. And then soon after they got the
Speaker 1: buns back, and I was kind of kind of bummed.
Speaker 2: Yeah I did not at least you got something, but
Speaker 2: I had the arapis.
Speaker 1: So I mean still hardworth to be fair, hundreds of
Speaker 1: people were they've fed for They've had five hundred people,
Speaker 1: you know, And at one point they made announcement that
Speaker 1: like they needed to do another food run just to
Speaker 1: go get more more food, and like a bunch of
Speaker 1: people volunteered and you know, only I think two or
Speaker 1: three went down to Walmart to get a bunch of
Speaker 1: more burgers and hot dogs, and it was just a
Speaker 1: really cool moment.
Speaker 2: So I think by the end the end of the
Speaker 2: night when I was there, there were about five hundred
Speaker 2: people just enjoying the music and looking at the sky.
Speaker 2: It was just an immaculate vibe. There was a little
Speaker 2: fire pick off to the side. And yeah, you talked
Speaker 2: about the setting up the stage. You know, I didn't
Speaker 2: know what to expect walking in there is not expecting
Speaker 2: quite that much of a production. I wasn't expecting a
Speaker 2: light pledged stage with lights all around sort of in
Speaker 2: this really like the lighting worked really well for it's
Speaker 2: it backdropped the surrounding for.
Speaker 1: It like nice like green and purple lighting.
Speaker 10: Yeah, it was. It was great.
Speaker 2: And then they had that green room tent back there,
Speaker 2: and then they had a separate tent for a quick like.
Speaker 2: It was a very well thought out festival in the
Speaker 2: middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: The South River Music Festival began early Saturday evening at
Speaker 1: five point thirty, kicking off two days of local musical
Speaker 1: artists playing shows free of charge. Before the lineup of
Speaker 1: live music began. Someone on stage read out a small
Speaker 1: flyer that was being passed around, detailing the reasoning for
Speaker 1: the festival and its place within the fight to defend
Speaker 1: the forest, and I got permission to share that reading.
Speaker 21: In the limitless possibilities of the cosmos, in the mad
Speaker 21: flecks of events, reactions and anomalies of the past twelve
Speaker 21: billion years since the birth of our universe, it's a
Speaker 21: statistical impossibility.
Speaker 20: That we would be here now, But here we are alive.
Speaker 21: Together Such incredible circumstances have brought us here. Among them
Speaker 21: the incredible and innovative resistance to defend this place. From
Speaker 21: becoming a poet least training compound.
Speaker 10: Magic mushrooms out.
Speaker 21: This resistance, which brings us together the most cunning and
Speaker 21: resilient techniques of the radical environmentalist movement with the incredible
Speaker 21: courage and ferocity of the George Floyd Uprising, is not
Speaker 21: just about a small piece of land.
Speaker 20: It's not about being fought.
Speaker 21: Between police and their goons on one hand and some
Speaker 21: activists and their friends on the other. We are witnessing
Speaker 21: a collision of two competing ideas of happiness.
Speaker 20: Of life, of the future.
Speaker 21: In this competition experiments with new types of free culture
Speaker 21: play a decisive role. This movement cannot be reduced to
Speaker 21: what is happening in city hall, on social media, or
Speaker 21: in meetings. For two years, we have descended on these woods,
Speaker 21: finding refuge from the high rents and predatory bookings fees
Speaker 21: of the corporate venues and bars. We have not come
Speaker 21: here to redecorate the actions of some activists as allies,
Speaker 21: lending our service to the drab and loveless militancy of
Speaker 21: something we do not otherwise care about. As the gentrification
Speaker 21: of Atlanta intensifies, more and more diy venues and clubs
Speaker 21: are shutdown, and free spaces to play, shows and dance
Speaker 21: are push further and further from the city center. Our
Speaker 21: free time is pinched as rents increase and traffic keeps
Speaker 21: us waiting longer and longer.
Speaker 20: That is going to change.
Speaker 21: Music is not like other forms of human culture. It
Speaker 21: is different from painting, drawing, poetry, literature, or film art. Politics,
Speaker 21: and symbolic culture in general represent the passions conjuring strong
Speaker 21: feelings from the shadows of reality, pulling them from the
Speaker 21: depths of the soul or the back of consciousness.
Speaker 20: Music, on the other hand.
Speaker 21: Is perhaps the only form of human creativity that contacts
Speaker 21: those feelings without any mediations. Music is physics, music is reality.
Speaker 21: The system we live in is at war with reality.
Speaker 21: The system is destroying forests, rivers, mountaintops, and oceans. It's
Speaker 21: destroying our imaginations, our bodies, and our world. To defend
Speaker 21: ourselves from certain annihilation, it will not be sufficient to
Speaker 21: strike the right notes at the right time. We will
Speaker 21: have to make recourse to other means, to more direct means,
Speaker 21: and that is why we're all here. The defend the
Speaker 21: Atlanta Forest Revolution will be economic, political, as well as cultural.
Speaker 21: We're building a new era of human history where music
Speaker 21: will be at the steering wheel. What is needed cannot
Speaker 21: be taught without first being discovered. We are those adventurers
Speaker 21: plunging the depths of the cosmos for the contours and
Speaker 21: textures of a free existence, of a life without dead time.
Speaker 21: When it is necessary, we will defend ourselves by the
Speaker 21: means appropriate to the task. Not with words, not with denunciation,
Speaker 21: but with actions, real and concrete, actions as real as
Speaker 21: this sounds, as real as reality.
Speaker 20: I'm so lucky to be here with y'all. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Across the middle of the field, hundreds of people laid
Speaker 1: out blankets on the grass and dirt. Concertgoers alternated between
Speaker 1: a dancing in front of the stage and relaxing and
Speaker 1: eating food on picnic blankets. As the night approached, over
Speaker 1: a thousand people were spread out across the RC field.
Speaker 1: Amoshe pit had formed directly in front of the stage.
Speaker 1: Musicians led stop Coopcity chants, and between sets, people spoke
Speaker 1: on mic about the movement.
Speaker 22: Everybody say stop cop City, Stop cop City.
Speaker 3: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: Saturday Night was headlined by local Atlanta rapper Zach Fox.
Speaker 1: Zach told stories about how he and his friends used
Speaker 1: to hang out in this very forest as teenagers.
Speaker 23: All Right, man, hey, i'm gonna say this, Fuck the mayor.
Speaker 23: I'm gonna say this, fuck the mayor, and fuck all
Speaker 23: this shit. And I love everybody for coming out to
Speaker 23: support this ship.
Speaker 8: And you're really fucking.
Speaker 13: When I tell you me, Archie.
Speaker 24: Everybody used to walk back in these woods and drink
Speaker 24: red stripes and and walk our dogs and shoot guns
Speaker 24: and shiit. So I really don't want to see this
Speaker 24: shit happen. And I really appreciate Allia for coming out
Speaker 24: to do this shit.
Speaker 1: Fuck cop City Chance erupted pretty regularly throughout the night.
Speaker 23: And this is all I'm gonna tell the police. This
Speaker 23: is all I'm gonna tell the police. Okay, hold on,
Speaker 23: let me make sure I push the right button.
Speaker 25: Say that ship. Let's go. Fucking run it. Fucking run it. Fucko,
Speaker 25: run it, fucking run it, fucking run it, fucking run it.
Speaker 3: FUCKO, run it, Atlanta. I love y'all so much.
Speaker 23: Man, Hell yeah, hey, man, let me say something real quick.
Speaker 23: Let me say something real quick before I get the
Speaker 23: fuck out saves. Let my hummies right this shit. I
Speaker 23: love y'all so much for supporting this shit I have.
Speaker 23: Let me tell you. Let me tell you something. I'm
Speaker 23: thirty two. A lot of niggas start getting old and
Speaker 23: they lose faith in the youth. I got so much
Speaker 23: faith in everybody in this motherfucking bitch. Wherever y'all going,
Speaker 23: I'm going, I truly believe that y'all gonna save this
Speaker 23: motherfucking world.
Speaker 26: So I'm with y'all.
Speaker 23: Fuck cop City, fuck cops in general, fuck twelve, fuck authoritarianism,
Speaker 23: fuck capitalism, fuck all that bullshit. I'm with y'all to
Speaker 23: the end. So I motherfucking die so let me hear
Speaker 23: y'all say this one more time.
Speaker 25: Start bawow, start bobow. Stiit bob wow, side bobow.
Speaker 1: Besides the domestic terrorism banner I mentioned in the opening
Speaker 1: of this episode, another banner was hung up beside the
Speaker 1: stage featuring turtles and butterflies, along with the Asada Shakur quote.
Speaker 1: Love is our sword, truth is our compass.
Speaker 19: This kind of.
Speaker 1: Music is about the Nazi to nature, filling the trees,
Speaker 1: feeling the ground, filling each other.
Speaker 3: Look right up there, look.
Speaker 10: At the fucking moon.
Speaker 1: To quote a communicate from the Sonic Defense Committee quote.
Speaker 1: At this point, it was impossible to imagine a meaningful
Speaker 1: police intervention. The crowd was made up of elderly people,
Speaker 1: university students, rappers and did US activists, toddlers and newborns, skaters,
Speaker 1: people of all imaginable Atlanta demographics. The night ended around
Speaker 1: three thirty am to sounds of house techno and drum
Speaker 1: and bass without any notable incident.
Speaker 10: Unquote.
Speaker 1: Tents were set up all over the eastern side of
Speaker 1: the forest, with many people choosing to sleep under the
Speaker 1: tree canopy between the living room and the music festival
Speaker 1: for that first night. As the night went on, people
Speaker 1: carefully tended small campfires both in the festival field and
Speaker 1: in the middle of the living room. To quote the
Speaker 1: Press Collective, the movement was once again living in joyous
Speaker 1: harmony with the forest it had promised to protect. Tomorrow's
Speaker 1: episode will cover day two of the music festival, the
Speaker 1: frankly unprecedented direct action that took place Sunday afternoon, and
Speaker 1: a more detailed look at the police raid that happened
Speaker 1: later that evening. See you on the other side, welcome
Speaker 1: back to it could happen here. This is part two
Speaker 1: of my mini series detailing the March Week of Action
Speaker 1: to defend the Atlanta Forest and stop Coop City. Last episode,
Speaker 1: we covered the Week of Action kickoff rally at Gresham
Speaker 1: Park and day one of the South River Music Festival.
Speaker 1: Will be picking up basically right where we left off,
Speaker 1: starting with my conversation with Matt from the Atlanta Community
Speaker 1: Press Collective. Saturday night, there was music going on to
Speaker 1: like four am. It was a long night, but like
Speaker 1: a really good night. What was your Sunday?
Speaker 3: Like Sunday?
Speaker 2: You know, Sunday started off really great, Like walking in
Speaker 2: the first thing you see when you walked back onto
Speaker 2: the festival grounds was this amazing bouncy house that they
Speaker 2: had written some guidelines up there that it did seem
Speaker 2: like everyone followed. You could fit six adults, which like
Speaker 2: for a bouncy house, that's pretty large.
Speaker 10: It was a big bouncy house.
Speaker 2: It was like six of dollars through twelve kids or
Speaker 2: something like that. So, yeah, you see bouncy house and
Speaker 2: like when you see that the first thing, but I
Speaker 2: think that visually sets the entire expectation, like that is
Speaker 2: a statement in and of itself of like what they
Speaker 2: were going for that first.
Speaker 1: Day, Day two of the music festival started around noon.
Speaker 1: Right in the middle of the RC field was this
Speaker 1: large rainbow colored bouncy castle adorned with a stop Copcity banner.
Speaker 1: People slowly trickled in all over the course of the afternoon,
Speaker 1: culminating in about a thousand people scattered across the field
Speaker 1: by four pm. Just like the night before, people enjoyed
Speaker 1: free food, Defend the Forest related literature, and a bustling
Speaker 1: refreshment booth while listening to live music. People played a
Speaker 1: soccer and frisbee in the open field, while others were
Speaker 1: continuing to build camp infrastructure in the forest.
Speaker 2: So I think the bouncy Castle set the tone, and
Speaker 2: everything was really lighthearted for the first few hours. I
Speaker 2: spent most of that day walking around watching the autonomous
Speaker 2: infrastructure in the forest kind of pop up on its own.
Speaker 2: It's like everywhere I went, you know, to the parking lot,
Speaker 2: you saw trains of people carrying like water and supplies
Speaker 2: deep into the forest. Everyone seemed to just be trying
Speaker 2: to find a place to fit in and to work
Speaker 2: and to really participate in the week of Action.
Speaker 1: As the day went on, rumors started to circulate about
Speaker 1: inaction happening later that afternoon. Word quickly spread that people
Speaker 1: would meet up in the RC field at five pm. Eventually,
Speaker 1: a flyer was posted to social media, and sure enough,
Speaker 1: come five o'clock, a group of a few hundred people
Speaker 1: made up of individuals and affinity groups, gathered behind the
Speaker 1: bouncy Castle, most of whom were masked up and a
Speaker 1: donning some form of black block or camo block. A
Speaker 1: communicating posted later on the website scenes dot no blogs
Speaker 1: dot org described the feeling on the ground quote the
Speaker 1: air was tense, no visible rage, just a stealed determination.
Speaker 1: No one knew what was coming next, but we knew
Speaker 1: it was something big that.
Speaker 2: That was quite the visual like this, this crowd of
Speaker 2: Camo and black block and like some people wearing normal
Speaker 2: clothes who I don't think quite knew what they were
Speaker 2: about to do next to this massive bouncy castle. And
Speaker 2: I think that that the visual of it kind of
Speaker 2: represents like two aspects of the movement, right, like the
Speaker 2: militant aspect and the joyful aspect, and I think they're
Speaker 2: both very central to what you know, the movement is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pretty good encapsulation of the diversity present
Speaker 1: around the Defend the Forest and Stop cup City movement.
Speaker 10: There's a few.
Speaker 1: Hundred people in Camo Block walking down, I believe is
Speaker 1: a constitution, a lot of people addressed in Black Block,
Speaker 1: mix of legal observers here, police shoppers overhead are Currently
Speaker 1: people are marching west in the direction of the old
Speaker 1: Atlanta prison farm, the slate of the forest that cop
Speaker 1: City is planned to be built on. There has not
Speaker 1: really been a mass convergence of people like this in
Speaker 1: the forest in a long long time. I cannot remember
Speaker 1: the last time there was anything quite like this. This
Speaker 1: is definitely the biggest group of people who's ever like
Speaker 1: converged on marching on the old Atlanta Prison farm area.
Speaker 1: Last year, people were occupying and living in the forest
Speaker 1: in that side. Since the repression has intensified, more people
Speaker 1: have moved over across on the other side of the
Speaker 1: Churchman Creek Park, on the slate of land closer to
Speaker 1: Wollani People's Park and the section that Lion MILLSAP is
Speaker 1: wanting to develop. Definitely never seen this many people marching
Speaker 1: like this near the forest. In a much more militant
Speaker 1: seeming group of the crowd, as opposed to Saturday's first march,
Speaker 1: which was like a thousand people of various types. Everyone
Speaker 1: here looks much more willing to throw down. As the group,
Speaker 1: around three hundred strong, left the RC field, they calmly
Speaker 1: marched west down Constitution Road toward the power line cut,
Speaker 1: accompanied overhead by a police chopper equipped with a thermal camera.
Speaker 10: Popped as still overhead. I'm sure you can hear it.
Speaker 1: To get a clear picture of what actually happened that day.
Speaker 1: It's useful to understand the geography of the Wilauni Forest,
Speaker 1: especially since the police have tried to make it sound
Speaker 1: like the individuals who were arrested later that night were
Speaker 1: apprehended at this scene of the crime, which is not
Speaker 1: actually the case.
Speaker 2: The entire area that the defenders are trying to defend,
Speaker 2: the entire Weilani Forest, the contiguous part of it is
Speaker 2: surrounded in sort of a triangle by three different roads, Constitution,
Speaker 2: Key and Bouldercrest. All the way to the east is
Speaker 2: Wilani People's Park, and like just to the west of
Speaker 2: that is the RC Field where the music festival was happening,
Speaker 2: where the bouncy castle is and where our group that
Speaker 2: we're following here starts to gather. And then all the
Speaker 2: way to the west is the proposed site of copp
Speaker 2: City along Key Road. So to get there through the
Speaker 2: forest takes a good thirty forty five minutes to get there,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're on the road, is still like
Speaker 2: a twenty five thirty minute walk. It is not like
Speaker 2: anywhere close on foot. No, it's from point A to
Speaker 2: point B.
Speaker 1: And if you're crossing through the woods, you also have
Speaker 1: to like jump over Entrenchment Creek, which is not the
Speaker 1: easiest creek to cross over.
Speaker 2: It's not the easiest and it's not the cleanest something
Speaker 2: you want to step in.
Speaker 10: I'm at the back of the march.
Speaker 1: Now everyone's kind of tightened up into one larger, larger group.
Speaker 1: They've paused briefly and are retrieving some tires that have
Speaker 1: been found near the ditch on the road here, dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens of tires are blocking are blocking the road.
Speaker 1: They're getting moved out pretty quick and the march is
Speaker 1: moving on. Oh, and looks like people arrived at the
Speaker 1: power line cut. This massive clearing for power lines to
Speaker 1: run north south. People are now marching on the green
Speaker 1: grass underneath the power lines. The thin clear cut for
Speaker 1: power lines has been there for years and directly leads
Speaker 1: to where cop City pre construction work is taking place
Speaker 1: near the North Gate. The open area makes it easy
Speaker 1: to traverse, but on the flip side that also makes
Speaker 1: it easy to surveil. There were only a little over
Speaker 1: a dozen cops stationed at the North Gate, as well
Speaker 1: as the police chopper circling overhead. The group of block
Speaker 1: is slowly, slowly moving north along the power line cut.
Speaker 1: I'm keeping my distance for now so that I can
Speaker 1: continue doing stuff without being extremely jeopardized. The block approached
Speaker 1: the North Gate in broad daylight, with shields in hand
Speaker 1: and people behind throwing projectiles in the direction of police,
Speaker 1: a barrage of fireworks, rocks, and just the sheer size
Speaker 1: of the crowd overwhelmed police, causing officers to retreat as
Speaker 1: a swarm of hundreds of people overtook the proposed cop
Speaker 1: city construction site and current police security upost within the
Speaker 1: Wollani Forest. All right, the group has marched a decent
Speaker 1: ways up. There's now fireworks in the distance. Police helicopter
Speaker 1: is still overhead. Looks like most of the crowd is
Speaker 1: still in the area of the power line cut.
Speaker 10: Pretty condensed.
Speaker 1: Large group of people up there, lots of fireworks. Like
Speaker 1: I said, some individuals chose to focus their efforts on
Speaker 1: pelling the nearby police, giving the opportunity for others to
Speaker 1: set their sights on various targets. The large number of
Speaker 1: people in the block together allowed for individuals to feel
Speaker 1: more safe and capable of taking action. The APDs put
Speaker 1: a call out to get any available units down here
Speaker 1: by the old line of prison farm property and a
Speaker 1: quote from the scanner audios get here now assholes. Forest
Speaker 1: defenders smashed up and set ablaze and office trailer, two UTVs,
Speaker 1: a surveillance tower and a front end loader as the
Speaker 1: police ran for cover behind a fenced off secondary, smaller
Speaker 1: outpost across from Key Road, despite the police helicopter circling
Speaker 1: overhead the gathering spot for a good thirty minutes. It
Speaker 1: seems APD was not fully prepared in their response or
Speaker 1: just did not know what was going on, because they
Speaker 1: made a decent way without any visible resistance so far.
Speaker 1: A communicate posted online reads quote when we approached the gate,
Speaker 1: finally it was not chaos, but it was something like it.
Speaker 1: Our crowd unleashed a wild burst of energy. It was
Speaker 1: incredible and I will never forget it. It was rhythmic
Speaker 1: almost We devastated all of their work, their vehicles, the trailer, everything.
Speaker 1: But it looks like Atlanta Police is now trying to converge.
Speaker 1: Lots of fireworks are still. I see smoke. Oh, a
Speaker 1: lot of smoke. WHOA A lot of smoke very fast
Speaker 1: is filling up, filling up the area around the little
Speaker 1: It looks like it's by the little control tower in
Speaker 1: the middle of the power line cut. Wow, that smoke
Speaker 1: is thick. That's a fire. That is a decent fire.
Speaker 1: You can I can see the orange flame now as
Speaker 1: the few police officers stationed at the North Gate were
Speaker 1: forced to fall back under pressure. Force defenders leveled months
Speaker 1: of their work within a few minutes. To quote the
Speaker 1: scenes dot no blocks communicate quote. This act of mass
Speaker 1: collective sabotage was done methodically and without anxiety. The crowd
Speaker 1: destroyed all of their equipment with ease and confidence.
Speaker 2: So the excavator there was a utility train vehicle, which
Speaker 2: is what the police have been using to sort of
Speaker 2: move in and around the woods, and sort of motorized
Speaker 2: move in and around the woods. And then the office
Speaker 2: space and the storage space.
Speaker 10: We're all torched.
Speaker 2: I think that that comprised like everything that was over.
Speaker 1: There, and then the police surveillance tower, which has been
Speaker 1: taken down a few times.
Speaker 2: Surveillance towers in that area, they have this tendency.
Speaker 10: To fall over.
Speaker 1: The fire has gotten a lot lot bigger. Police scanner
Speaker 1: audio is saying officer needs help, calling for all available
Speaker 1: units to converge on the spot. Wow O, the fire
Speaker 1: is getting so much brighter, smoke is incredibly thick. It
Speaker 1: looks like some people are starting to move out of
Speaker 1: the area back into the woods.
Speaker 10: But wow, that is.
Speaker 1: A huge fire. It was at least two separate things
Speaker 1: lit on fire. There were, in fact, more than two
Speaker 1: things on fire. Looks like crowd is going to be
Speaker 1: starting to move because a lot of police is about
Speaker 1: to show up. Unsure what the response will be for
Speaker 1: people at the music festival or at a Wolani People's
Speaker 1: park who are camping out for the Week of Action.
Speaker 1: But this is a pretty pretty big action for Week
Speaker 1: of Action Day two. Wow, this smoke plume is massive.
Speaker 1: While the action itself was a success, the notion of
Speaker 1: an overall one sided victory was about to come crashing down.
Speaker 1: A whole bunch of sirens just flew by about a
Speaker 1: dozen cop cars, lots of cop cars by the music
Speaker 1: festival entrants as well by the RC field. Looks like
Speaker 1: the cop cars are converging at the festival, not at
Speaker 1: the fire. Okay, back at the music festival. As you
Speaker 1: can hear, it is it is. It is still ongoing.
Speaker 1: There's still hundreds of people, probably like five hundred people
Speaker 1: gathered here at the music festival. You can see smoke
Speaker 1: in the air from this vantage point, from the spot
Speaker 1: by the power line cut where.
Speaker 10: Those two fires took place.
Speaker 1: One indication that this night was far from over was
Speaker 1: that the police helicopter seemed to be moving toward the festival.
Speaker 1: The chopper has moved from being near the power line
Speaker 1: cut to the music festival and Wailani People's Park. Vibe
Speaker 1: seems to be pretty chill on the ground here. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure how many people that are present know what's
Speaker 1: going on, but the chopper is still stationed above the
Speaker 1: entrance to the festival, so I think they're looking to
Speaker 1: see if the group that march is going to march
Speaker 1: back the same direction, which I don't think they will, but.
Speaker 10: That is what's currently going on.
Speaker 1: People still still seem to be coming like to and
Speaker 1: from the festival. Sure enough, within minutes, an increasingly large
Speaker 1: number of police started to stage by the entrance to
Speaker 1: the RC field. Doesn't the police cars are now stationed
Speaker 1: outside the entrance to the RC field where the music
Speaker 1: festival is taking place. There's a lot of police here,
Speaker 1: some with rifles. They're getting their zip ti cuffs ready.
Speaker 1: They've not entered the festival area yet, but I got
Speaker 1: word from somebody that they have entered the Wolani People's
Speaker 1: Park parking lot and it looks like movement is to
Speaker 1: be expected very soon. At around six thirty pm, police
Speaker 1: began to raid the South River Music Festival and started
Speaker 1: what I think is accurately described as the police's own
Speaker 1: counter protest to the events that transpired the past hour.
Speaker 2: So when the police came running up onto the tarmac
Speaker 2: at Rcy Field where the bouncy castle was, of course
Speaker 2: they had to point a rifle at the bouncy castle.
Speaker 2: And if that doesn't show that police are not here
Speaker 2: to have fun and have joy, I don't know what is.
Speaker 2: I don't know if anyone was in it at the time.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think they were literally just
Speaker 2: pointing a gun at an empty bouncy castle, which they
Speaker 2: have they destroyed, And I think we have to take
Speaker 2: a moment to mourn that.
Speaker 10: Lots of police running into the music festival.
Speaker 1: They're running someone down, chasing down a few people, Cops
Speaker 1: approaching for multiple sides. Instead of immediately trying to confront
Speaker 1: the hundreds of music festival attendees head on, the still
Speaker 1: extremely outnumbered cops ran to the opposite side of the
Speaker 1: music festival and started to indiscriminately go after isolated stragglers
Speaker 1: people running into the woods trace by police. Someone's tackled,
Speaker 1: no one early arounded to arrest someone else being arrested one, two, three,
Speaker 1: four or five six people currently arrested that I can
Speaker 1: see or at least being detained.
Speaker 10: Looks like an NLG person's on the ground.
Speaker 1: Eventually, the certain goers realized what was happening, and a
Speaker 1: little over one hundred people mobilized to pressure the cops
Speaker 1: out of the field.
Speaker 10: People from the.
Speaker 1: Music festival are now running behind the police that have
Speaker 1: rushed into the RC field, cops being flanked by hundreds
Speaker 1: of people.
Speaker 2: So the first thing that happened was a few officers
Speaker 2: entered the RC field, which is where the music festival
Speaker 2: was happening, and made a few quick arrests.
Speaker 10: Yeah, like five or six, I would say.
Speaker 2: And I would assume, seeing like the crowd and realizing
Speaker 2: that a small force of officers is easily overwhelmed, kind
Speaker 2: of pulled back with their arrests. And then just after that,
Speaker 2: over in Wielani People's Park, that's when the CAB came
Speaker 2: in with their SWAT teams. There was a group that
Speaker 2: was meeting in the gazebo and they report like dozens
Speaker 2: of police officers running by. One of them stood up
Speaker 2: to record, and an officer with an ar fifteen and
Speaker 2: yelled at them and told them to sit the fuck
Speaker 2: back down, and they did. They were allowed to finish
Speaker 2: their meeting. But they report this very surreal experience of
Speaker 2: just officers like flying by and also making arrest of
Speaker 2: individuals who were running.
Speaker 3: And then the third.
Speaker 2: Wave, I would say, came in on the back of
Speaker 2: a armored police vehicle with an L RAD, good old
Speaker 2: DJ L rad.
Speaker 1: It brings it brings back all the memories.
Speaker 2: And so from there they sort of launched into the forest,
Speaker 2: launching tear.
Speaker 1: Gas again also brings back all of the memories. Police
Speaker 1: are starting to come back into the music festival. Fireworks
Speaker 1: are happening in the woods near the living room.
Speaker 10: It looks like.
Speaker 1: The police that entered via the RC field advanced up
Speaker 1: to join another group of cops who came in from
Speaker 1: Wolani People's Park and were already in the woods. What
Speaker 1: I first assumed were just fireworks were actually in exchange
Speaker 1: of munitions, with cops firing explosive tear gas canisters into
Speaker 1: the forest and people trying to hold the cops off
Speaker 1: with fireworks.
Speaker 10: Tear gas is in the woods. Fucked, it's hard. I
Speaker 10: can't get any I didn't I didn't bring my gas
Speaker 10: masks because this was a music festival.
Speaker 1: It's just the woods are completely caked and gas everyone
Speaker 1: who's inside. I don't know how they're gonna get out.
Speaker 1: Cops have the place surrounded. It's so gassed up in there.
Speaker 10: Police raided.
Speaker 1: They tear gased a section of the woods close to
Speaker 1: the RCA field, kind of blocking off the RCA Field
Speaker 1: from from the Wanni People's Park parking lot and the
Speaker 1: camp sits nearby, So you couldn't like really get away
Speaker 1: or run through that area because your breathing would stop,
Speaker 1: as mine temporarily did as I tried, as I tried
Speaker 1: to run through there, and then policer just took over
Speaker 1: this entire section of southeast Atlanta, just this entire section
Speaker 1: of the woods, all the intersections in this.
Speaker 2: Area, except for the very small space at the music
Speaker 2: festival was still going on during this entire time.
Speaker 1: The section like right in front of the stage where
Speaker 1: people continued to have the music festival for the next
Speaker 1: few hours. As police were as like, I kid you not,
Speaker 1: Like over five hundred police officers were in this surrounding area.
Speaker 1: There was the most amount of police I've ever seen
Speaker 1: respond to anything ever, it was wild.
Speaker 10: I am currently heading out.
Speaker 1: I will try to loop back around to a lot
Speaker 1: of People's Park because there's just no way through it
Speaker 1: right now with all the tear gas. But a cop
Speaker 1: van has pulled into the rc Field Music Festival. People,
Speaker 1: some of them are study by the stage, others are
Speaker 1: kind of dispersing. Night's getting pretty hectic. Cops fully surrounding
Speaker 1: a lot of People's Park and the music festival on
Speaker 1: all sides. There was at least one individual of note
Speaker 1: who was witnessed to be at the music festival the
Speaker 1: entire time during the direct action, and they were one
Speaker 1: of the very first arrests. Police chased this person down,
Speaker 1: tased and violently tackled them. Were you on the festival
Speaker 1: at that time?
Speaker 18: I was around the festival at that time. I even
Speaker 18: saw the police tackle someone at the festival and tackle
Speaker 18: and tase an indigenous person at the festival. And initially
Speaker 18: the police officer Georgia State Patrol and these are the
Speaker 18: folks that were responsible for killing Tortigita and making up
Speaker 18: a lie about it. They started running and there were
Speaker 18: three people in front of them. All three of those
Speaker 18: people started running and then there were two white folks
Speaker 18: that veered off to the left and one Indigenous person
Speaker 18: that veered off to the right.
Speaker 8: Go figure, the.
Speaker 18: Georgia State Patrol veered to the right and then tased
Speaker 18: and tackled the indigenous person. And then and there's the
Speaker 18: footage of this that may may not be released, where
Speaker 18: I was trying to de escalate the situation because this
Speaker 18: police officer, with no grounds to attack this person, is
Speaker 18: choking them on the ground and then really just asking
Speaker 18: you like literally what are you doing, Like why are
Speaker 18: you doing and then the persons that I didn't do anything,
Speaker 18: and then the Jorgia State Patrol officer responded, well, you ran, right,
Speaker 18: as if running when somebody with a gun chasing you
Speaker 18: is an admission of guilt of something. So the response
Speaker 18: was nonsensical and stupid.
Speaker 2: So they're tear gassing the forest and again, you know,
Speaker 2: grabbing from reports anyone who's who's running, anyone who who
Speaker 2: you know rightfully runs from a police officer running at
Speaker 2: them with an AR fifteen, which you know, we've been
Speaker 2: around police all week, and like the instinct to run,
Speaker 2: you know, even even now, is still pretty high.
Speaker 1: No, absolutely, and if you've never been chased by police before.
Speaker 1: Your first instinct isn't to like let them get you.
Speaker 1: Like I've had police just charge at me for filming
Speaker 1: police brutality before, and yeah, you generally want to move away.
Speaker 10: It is your immediate reaction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyone running at you with a gun is caused
Speaker 2: for fear and a police officer even more so.
Speaker 10: Okay, I am out of the area.
Speaker 1: Police have surrounded on basically every side of the line
Speaker 1: People's Park, the section of the four people are camping
Speaker 1: out of the music festival, All entrances and exits are stage,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of intersections.
Speaker 10: This police stage.
Speaker 1: They're letting some people go, obviously they're arresting a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of other people. No clear indication on who they're arresting
Speaker 1: or why. It's pretty chaotic right now.
Speaker 2: They put out this officer needs help. Call that expanded
Speaker 2: beyond just APD. But the first thing they did was
Speaker 2: was calling every available APD officer. Fulton County Sheriff's Office
Speaker 2: joint to cab County started to mount up, and then
Speaker 2: of course the Georgia State Patrol definitely had to get
Speaker 2: in on this action. So jurisdictionally wide or this multi
Speaker 2: jurisdiction wide force of police amassed on Key Road with
Speaker 2: the cab kind of coming in on the other side.
Speaker 1: I passed through at least five hundred individual police officers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that like that would check out because I walked a
Speaker 1: decent a decent, decent ways, I passed by many an
Speaker 1: intersection with at least fifty to one hundred cops was
Speaker 1: stationed at like each intersection.
Speaker 2: Oh and we can't forget the Sandy Springs Police Department
Speaker 2: also ends way down from outside the premier.
Speaker 1: Multiple swat teams. There was like I think three different bearcats.
Speaker 1: After I evacuated the area, I was still in shock
Speaker 1: about how many police officers mobilized to raid the festival.
Speaker 1: This is the biggest police response I've seen to anything
Speaker 1: in Atlanta in the time that I've been here. This
Speaker 1: is bigger than the police response is to most of
Speaker 1: like Portland actions compared to like twenty twenty, massive, massive
Speaker 1: amount of cops from multiple agencies taking over a huge
Speaker 1: area of South Atlanta and de kep County. As the
Speaker 1: second wave of police charged in and detained several music
Speaker 1: festival attendees, panic spread throughout the crowd. Hundreds of people
Speaker 1: rushed to the exits in an attempt to evacuate. Police
Speaker 1: blocked exits and arrested, detained, or harassed and threatened those
Speaker 1: trying to leave. One concertgoer reported that they received death
Speaker 1: threats from an intruding officer quote you're going to get shot.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to put it, but you're going
Speaker 1: to get shot with a bullet unquote. That same person
Speaker 1: who recorded that interaction also reported that you heard an
Speaker 1: officer with his side arm drawn in the living room
Speaker 1: is say, quote, I swear to God, I will fucking
Speaker 1: kill you unquote. Some people opted for safety in numbers
Speaker 1: and decided they'd rather stay together as a group as
Speaker 1: opposed to the risk of trying to escape through the
Speaker 1: woods alone. That night, about one hundred and fifty people
Speaker 1: congregated in front of the festival stage, and musicians that
Speaker 1: stuck around continued to play music.
Speaker 2: So the music festival continues unhindered until dusk, and about
Speaker 2: then is when DJ l Rad comes up and officers
Speaker 2: get out and call over like five people from the crowd.
Speaker 2: And so at this point I think there's like somewhere
Speaker 2: between one hundred seventy five to one hundred people still
Speaker 2: at the music fest, watching the music, and people are
Speaker 2: calling out from the stage like we have a legal
Speaker 2: right to be here, this is public property.
Speaker 1: We had we had dueling loud speakers trying to two
Speaker 1: people having a regular conversation across a field via opposing
Speaker 1: loud speakers.
Speaker 2: Very Scott Pilgrim versus the world right, like.
Speaker 1: You know, as the police are trying to shut down
Speaker 1: a concert, and there's like punks screaming into the bike
Speaker 1: and police officers using the yell red to scream back.
Speaker 2: It's just amazing. I mean, the visuals of this whole
Speaker 2: day I think are kind of really easy to imagine,
Speaker 2: even if you're not there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Roughly after two hours of hunting down and detaining
Speaker 1: stragglers from the festival, dozens of swat in riot gear
Speaker 1: with high end rifles and armored vehicles slowly moved in
Speaker 1: towards the stage. Police told festival goers that they had
Speaker 1: three minutes to leave the festival under threat of arrest
Speaker 1: for domestic terrorism, to which festivalgoers responded by shouting no.
Speaker 1: In front of the stage. The crowd linked arms and
Speaker 1: enchanted let us go home. And we have children who
Speaker 1: apparently unable to mass arrest one hundred and fifty people.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, police called for five individuals from the
Speaker 1: festival to engage in a brief discussion. After this odd
Speaker 1: negotiation with a handful of random concertgoers, festival attendees were
Speaker 1: told they had ten minutes to walk to their cars
Speaker 1: and go home or else be charged with domestic terrorism.
Speaker 2: About half the crowd has cars parked in the rc field,
Speaker 2: and the police allow them to go to their cars
Speaker 2: and leave, leaving like somewhere between you know, three dozen
Speaker 2: somewhere around three dozen people without cars still remaining at
Speaker 2: the festival, And this whole time they're also chanting, we
Speaker 2: have kids, let us go, and like it's this very
Speaker 2: big moment of solidarity that I've been told from like
Speaker 2: people who were there that you could tell that everybody
Speaker 2: was like really interested in keeping each other safe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was weird because police, definitely they were letting
Speaker 1: some people walk away and leave a place, some people
Speaker 1: drive away, arresting others not really with no clear indication
Speaker 1: for why they're letting some go and not letting others go.
Speaker 1: But then this crowd of people around the stage were
Speaker 1: eventually allowed to leave the music festival in big rent
Speaker 1: of vans. The police then id'd the people who rented
Speaker 1: the vans and were driving the vans, but everyone was
Speaker 1: able to exit who stayed by the music festival. Around midnight,
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Police Department posted a press release saying that
Speaker 1: thirty five people have been detained, which was kind of
Speaker 1: weird language because everyone assumed that those who had been
Speaker 1: taken by police were all going to be arrested and charged.
Speaker 1: But then less than an hour later, twelve individuals were
Speaker 1: suddenly released from police custody back to Gresham Park. Since then,
Speaker 1: witnesses and lawyers have claimed that police separated out people
Speaker 1: with Atlanta addresses on their IDs and released those individuals,
Speaker 1: and then the remaining twenty three people, mostly with out
Speaker 1: of state ideas or a non Atlanta address, were arrested
Speaker 1: and charged with domestic terrorism to continue the outside agitator narrative,
Speaker 1: bringing the total number of people charged with domestic terrorism
Speaker 1: to forty two. Ever, since Sunday night, there's been this
Speaker 1: effort from a police and their media allies to frame
Speaker 1: these arrests as if they happened at the scene of
Speaker 1: the crime, alleging that the twenty three people arrested were
Speaker 1: themselves torching equipment or actively engaged in domestic terrorism. Yet
Speaker 1: all of the arrests took place almost a mile away
Speaker 1: at the music festival, and even further away in some cases,
Speaker 1: like in the parking lot, which is on the other
Speaker 1: side of the forest from the north gate. To quote
Speaker 1: an article in Truth Out by Candice Burned, quote, law enforcement,
Speaker 1: failing to apprehend specific individuals at the site itself, indiscriminately
Speaker 1: targeted the music festival, pouring into the field, campgrounds and
Speaker 1: parking lot with weapons drawn. They issued commands, chased people down,
Speaker 1: and threatened to shoot and arrest festival attendees. Still, major
Speaker 1: news outlets all but ignored the fact that all arrests
Speaker 1: occurred seemingly at random. During a police raid of the
Speaker 1: nearby South River Music Festival, where people gathered to see
Speaker 1: Zack Fox Live, to jump in a bouncycastle and enjoy
Speaker 1: the outdoors. Many attendees had little to no idea of
Speaker 1: what had occurred at the cop City construction site. Those
Speaker 1: who got lucky were forced to walk through tiergas to
Speaker 1: get to their cars, while others were assaulted by police
Speaker 1: and charged with domestic terrorism, risking thirty five years in prison.
Speaker 1: Here's a clip from NBC's Today Show, We.
Speaker 27: Got breaking news out of Atlanta over night. Dozens arrested
Speaker 27: after what's being described as a coordinated criminal attack. It
Speaker 27: happened at the future site of a police training center.
Speaker 27: And this is Blaine Alexander's on the story for US
Speaker 27: Blaine Good.
Speaker 28: Officials say protesters burned construction vehicles and a trailer and
Speaker 28: set off fireworks toward officers stationed nearby.
Speaker 29: And this wasn't about a public safety training center.
Speaker 30: This was about anarchy, and this was about the attempt
Speaker 30: to destabilize.
Speaker 28: Police point to a group of what they call outside agitators,
Speaker 28: saying they left an event nearby, changed into black clothing,
Speaker 28: and mounted a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers.
Speaker 1: To quote a statement from the Sonic Defense Committee. Quote,
Speaker 1: the indiscriminate brutalization and arrest of festivalgoers suggests that law
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies will go to great lengths to paint the
Speaker 1: movement to stop Copcity and Defend the Atlanta Forest as
Speaker 1: a criminal organization. It is, in fact, a broad, decentralized
Speaker 1: movement with no ideological or organizational unity, only of shared goal.
Speaker 1: They believe that the movement is made up of bad
Speaker 1: actors who betray otherwise peaceful protesters, but the movement is
Speaker 1: not committed to any particular tactic, instead accepting the diversity
Speaker 1: of approaches to stop the project. The police claim that
Speaker 1: the movement is not made up of any Atlantans, while
Speaker 1: Atlanta University Center students, local clergy, faith leaders, small businesses,
Speaker 1: and dozens of locally famous artists and musicians organize themselves
Speaker 1: within the movement. The police's false narrative and heavy handed
Speaker 1: approach to dealing with the opposition to the Cop City
Speaker 1: project is slowly starting to enclose them in. As the
Speaker 1: movement grows and city and state officials refuse to see
Speaker 1: the reality of what they are dealing with, their own
Speaker 1: authority is being brought into question. If they are not careful,
Speaker 1: the stakes of the movement will soon exceed the bounds
Speaker 1: of the forest and Cop City. In fact, that process
Speaker 1: may already have begun.
Speaker 2: I think to talk about what happened, we kind of
Speaker 2: do have to go back to put it in context
Speaker 2: and going back to January that was the end of
Speaker 2: the occupation or the you know, continuous encampments in Wilani
Speaker 2: and then flash uh fast forward to to late January,
Speaker 2: they get the LDP and so all of these people
Speaker 2: who have been protecting the forest for so long are
Speaker 2: now watching construction equipment roll in and they're watching clear
Speaker 2: cutting and they can't do anything about it. And you
Speaker 2: had that action, uh, just after Tortigita's death in January,
Speaker 2: which was a very targeted you know, only two funders
Speaker 2: and other supporters of cop City and you know, maybe
Speaker 2: a random police vehicle. But it wasn't really like this
Speaker 2: this letting of energy. It was a very like specific
Speaker 2: sort of purpose. And so you have this like build
Speaker 2: up of energy that I think is really important to
Speaker 2: keep in mind with with what is about to happen
Speaker 2: in this story. And they so they can't do anything.
Speaker 2: And then you have Saturday where you see this massive
Speaker 2: people return to the forest, and I think it's almost
Speaker 2: unavoidable in retrospect to look at that and for them
Speaker 2: not to have said, what can we do now that
Speaker 2: we couldn't do before? So they gather and they do
Speaker 2: what they couldn't do before they head over to the
Speaker 2: construction site.
Speaker 1: There had not been an action like this in the
Speaker 1: woods for a long time. Bulldozers and equipment had not
Speaker 1: been damaged in quite a while, but on Sunday, people
Speaker 1: were able to use the safety in numbers that comes
Speaker 1: with a week of action to feel more empowered to
Speaker 1: take direct action against the actual machinery that is destroying
Speaker 1: the forest and building cop City. Sunday's action can be
Speaker 1: seen as a demonstration of the pent up righteous anger
Speaker 1: from watching the slow destruction of the forest. Participants view
Speaker 1: what happened as a justified strike against the active struction
Speaker 1: of the forest, a strike back made an anger after
Speaker 1: watching the Atlanta Police Foundation make steady progress over the
Speaker 1: course of the past few months.
Speaker 2: The day before, there was this chant that was taken
Speaker 2: up by the entire crowd, and I think we talked
Speaker 2: about this and.
Speaker 8: Earlier.
Speaker 2: If you build it, we will burn it. And that
Speaker 2: was something that if you looked all throughout the crowd,
Speaker 2: like they were chanting everybody, everybody, like not just people
Speaker 2: wearing camera or black block, like.
Speaker 1: A thousand people, everybody, Yeah, a thousand people watching from
Speaker 1: Gresham Park.
Speaker 2: And I think that this is that promise come true.
Speaker 1: Sunday's action was itself a pretty unique moment in the
Speaker 1: recent history of environmental and anti police struggles. Watching hundreds
Speaker 1: of people go on the offensive. To participate in a
Speaker 1: mass coordinated sabotage in defense of both the forest and
Speaker 1: targets of police of Islands felt like an unprecedented moment
Speaker 1: in our modern paradigm of resistance in the United States.
Speaker 1: But the raid on the music festival on March fifth
Speaker 1: was also just the start of an unparalleled wave of
Speaker 1: police repression during this week of action, which we will
Speaker 1: cover in the next episode. But throughout the whole week,
Speaker 1: the assurance that copcity will never be built never faltered,
Speaker 1: as demonstrated by common chance such as I believe that
Speaker 1: we will win. So I'm going to end this episode
Speaker 1: with the final chant from the Saturday a Gresham Park rally,
Speaker 1: right before a thousand people marched to the Wallani Forest
Speaker 1: in Atlanta.
Speaker 31: We always in with the asslogan.
Speaker 3: We're with the words of our.
Speaker 32: Love or assonas schoor because we have a judy.
Speaker 33: There's been so much blessed built here.
Speaker 34: Repeat up to me, give us our duty, the flag
Speaker 34: for our freedom.
Speaker 20: It's our judy to wed.
Speaker 10: Does not each other, irons at each other. I'm not
Speaker 10: gonna lose flaun Change.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna loose Balanche.
Speaker 35: I'm not annose, but godzizea.
Speaker 1: Music festival audio courtesy of Unicorn Riot. Come Monday morning,
Speaker 1: basically no one was in the forest. The police raid
Speaker 1: the night prior pushed out most of the people gathered
Speaker 1: for the music festival and week of action, and it
Speaker 1: was still unclear how the rest of the week would
Speaker 1: now proceed. This Monday happened to be the Jewish holiday Perham.
Speaker 1: Initially there were plans to have a Perham celebration in
Speaker 1: the forest that evening, but it was unknown if people
Speaker 1: would feel comfortable returning to the woods. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. This is episode
Speaker 1: three of my mini series covering the March twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three Week of Action to defend the Atlanta Forest. Monday,
Speaker 1: March sixth also happened to be the day of an
Speaker 1: Atlanta City Council meeting, and the Stop Coop City Clergy
Speaker 1: coalition held a well attended press conference at noon outside
Speaker 1: City Hall. Reverend Keana Jones opened up at the press
Speaker 1: conference by making the Clergy's position clear.
Speaker 36: We are the faith Coalition against Cop City, and we
Speaker 36: are here so again raise our voices so that Mayor
Speaker 36: Andre Dickens and the members of the City Council of
Speaker 36: Atlanta know that we will not stand for the atrocities
Speaker 36: that have been occurring. I will not stand for cop
Speaker 36: City to go forward. The community came out and made
Speaker 36: public comment for over seventeen hours when given an opportunity,
Speaker 36: and said emphatically, no, we don't want your cop City.
Speaker 13: We don't want more repression of black people.
Speaker 36: We don't want more polluted air, we don't want less
Speaker 36: green space in our community. We don't want more policing
Speaker 36: and terrorizing of black, brown, indigenous bodies in our community.
Speaker 1: Reverend Jones gave her own perspective as a local Atlanta
Speaker 1: with deep ties to the city.
Speaker 36: So we are here as faith leaders today and we
Speaker 36: are here to say, Mayor Dickens, if you didn't hear
Speaker 36: us the first time, we are here once again to
Speaker 36: let you know that we don't want cop City. This
Speaker 36: is our community, this is our land. I am a
Speaker 36: daughter of East Atlanta. I still live in East Atlanta.
Speaker 36: I don't want cop City. My granny owns a home
Speaker 36: that she's been in for almost fifty years in the
Speaker 36: heart of East Atlanta village. She does not want cop City.
Speaker 36: My neighbor across the street does not want Cop City.
Speaker 36: The teachers at my daughter's school do not want Cop City.
Speaker 1: She also addressed the outside agitators narrative that police and
Speaker 1: media have continued to craft against force defenders, including by
Speaker 1: only arresting and charging people thought to be from out
Speaker 1: of town at the music festival that previous night.
Speaker 36: So we're here today to make sure that we ring
Speaker 36: the alarm and dispel the false narrative that it's outside
Speaker 36: agitators who don't want this. We know that this is
Speaker 36: the rhetoric that's been going on ever since abolition began,
Speaker 36: that it's outside agitators. They said slaves didn't want to
Speaker 36: be free, but it was white people from the North
Speaker 36: who wanted it.
Speaker 28: That's the lie.
Speaker 36: They said that black people in the South didn't want
Speaker 36: civil rights, but it was white people from the North.
Speaker 36: That's a lie. Today they are claiming that the black
Speaker 36: people love Cop City. It's outside agitators from elsewhere, and
Speaker 36: that again is a lie. Simply because the police have
Speaker 36: chosen to systematically arrest people from out of state doesn't
Speaker 36: mean that what they're saying is the truth.
Speaker 1: Reverend Leoshe addressed to other faith leaders and ask them
Speaker 1: to join in their calls to stop the cop City project.
Speaker 16: We local Atlanta clergy and religious leaders representing diverse communities
Speaker 16: call on clergy, religious leaders and people of faith in
Speaker 16: moral conscience across this nation and in solidarity with local
Speaker 16: Atlanta leaders to stop cop City, stop the swap, and
Speaker 16: defend the Atlanta forests.
Speaker 13: Wilani People's part.
Speaker 37: Today, we're gathered for this press conference and we will
Speaker 37: be delivering a letter to Atlanta City Council. But we
Speaker 37: invite you to continue in this faithful work that we
Speaker 37: are doing and contribute wherever you find.
Speaker 13: Your space in this growing movement.
Speaker 37: We call on clergy religious leaders, who are a moral
Speaker 37: authority in our society, to use your power in support
Speaker 37: of the forest protectors.
Speaker 13: We are deeply.
Speaker 37: Concerned for the greater Atlantic community and the implications for
Speaker 37: the future of public safety in the United States if
Speaker 37: Kopsudy moves forward.
Speaker 1: At the press conference, the coalition presented a letter to
Speaker 1: the City Council signed by over two hundred clergy members.
Speaker 1: Reverend Leoshe also read it aloud.
Speaker 37: Despite a record breaking amount of public comment opposing the facility,
Speaker 37: Atlanta City councils still pass legislation to build cop City.
Speaker 37: We are troubled by leadership that stops acting on the
Speaker 37: will of the people and aligns itself instead with corporate
Speaker 37: money and the dominant power structure. Urged on by the
Speaker 37: message of peace and compassion in all our faiths, we
Speaker 37: deplore escalating militarization by city and state government, most recently
Speaker 37: since the police killing of Rayshard Brooks here in twenty
Speaker 37: twenty by the Atlanta Police Department and Tortugita January eighteenth
Speaker 37: of this year by Georgia Patrol. We applaud the rising
Speaker 37: consciousness and the need to protect humans and the more
Speaker 37: than human by resisting police violence everywhere.
Speaker 13: Yes, and may I add that in the face.
Speaker 37: Of the violent raid that took place last night, as
Speaker 37: city residents gathered in solidarity to defend this forest, that
Speaker 37: is an example of the militarization that we are calling out.
Speaker 37: Through violence and greed, these lands have been subjected to
Speaker 37: centuries of abuse, from the forced removal of indigenous communities,
Speaker 37: to serving as a plantation for enslaved African labor, to
Speaker 37: the site of the old Atlanta prison farm in the
Speaker 37: twentieth century that produced immense profits for the prison system.
Speaker 13: Today, the sounds of berg.
Speaker 37: Song from the forest canopy live alongside the sound of
Speaker 37: gunfire and the adjacent APD firing range.
Speaker 13: We are troubled.
Speaker 37: By the commodification of community, land, water, and air on
Speaker 37: which all of us depend. We are profoundly troubled by
Speaker 37: the use of military tactics and escalated legal charges on
Speaker 37: members of our community, suppressing legitimate resistance, while at the
Speaker 37: same time clearcutting the forest trees despite not having the
Speaker 37: appropriate permits. The lands and the people of Atlanta have
Speaker 37: suffered violence for too long.
Speaker 13: We say no more.
Speaker 37: We declare with faith, commitment and hope that this land
Speaker 37: will be a part of healing and repair. We Atlanta clergy,
Speaker 37: religious leaders, and all of those across the nation and
Speaker 37: world who are in agreement join our voices with calling
Speaker 37: for the following, a complete stop of the cop City
Speaker 37: project and cancelation of the Atlanta Police Foundation's lease, dropping
Speaker 37: all charges against forest defenders and protesters. We demand an
Speaker 37: independent investigation into the uses of domestic terrorism charges. We
Speaker 37: demand an independent investigation into the killing of Manuel Tehran Tortugita.
Speaker 37: We speak their name, for which recently released video footage
Speaker 37: of the event suggests there was lying and deceit surrounding
Speaker 37: the incident on part of law enforcement in their initial
Speaker 37: reporting of the incident.
Speaker 1: The Muscogee elder Miko Chabbon, Colonel spoke at the press
Speaker 1: conference and called for land back and for the Muscogee
Speaker 1: people to return and remtreat the Wailani Forest in community
Speaker 1: with the black and brown residents of the area.
Speaker 38: Our ancestors lived here for over thirteen thousand years, and
Speaker 38: if you're to do the math correctly, this country that
Speaker 38: we now call the United States is somewhere in the
Speaker 38: neighborhood of two hundred and forty just over nearly two
Speaker 38: years ago.
Speaker 3: I came here to the Launi Forest.
Speaker 38: I came here with my own family, my own children,
Speaker 38: with some of my elders, to just share a little
Speaker 38: bit about how this territoryiness land feels to us as
Speaker 38: Muskogee people, because, let it be known today, it was
Speaker 38: not our choice to leave here. We did go to
Speaker 38: war to protect these areas. We did go through much
Speaker 38: burden to protect these areas, only to be forced to
Speaker 38: leave here under military occupation, but also to be forced
Speaker 38: to leave here after treachery, after illegally lands were taken
Speaker 38: from us.
Speaker 3: This is our homeland.
Speaker 38: My ancestors for generation upon generation, for millennia are buried
Speaker 38: on the very ground that you walk on every day.
Speaker 38: And I think we have a say and how we
Speaker 38: should live as a society in this day and time.
Speaker 38: And so in this moment, our hope is to be
Speaker 38: able to come back to rematriate, to take our lives
Speaker 38: back and to the intimacy that we once had with
Speaker 38: everything that grows here in what you now call the
Speaker 38: state of Georgia, because no matter who we are and
Speaker 38: where we come from, we have to have air, we
Speaker 38: have to have water, we have to have the elements
Speaker 38: of this earth to take care of us.
Speaker 3: Regardless of what we think.
Speaker 38: We're dependent on this earth Mother, and she has been
Speaker 38: faithful in taking care of us. It's us that has
Speaker 38: not been faithful and respecting her. Our hope is that
Speaker 38: this earth is not destroyed before we even have a
Speaker 38: chance to come back, that lives aren't destroyed before we
Speaker 38: have a chance to come back. So today, in whatever way,
Speaker 38: I come here to join the choruses of voices that
Speaker 38: you hear all around you saying what is going on
Speaker 38: now is a violence against all of creation? What is
Speaker 38: going on now bringing death and harm and hurt is
Speaker 38: a violence against all of creation. And we stand in
Speaker 38: solidarity as Muskogie people. I stand in solidarity with the
Speaker 38: voices that we hear of those tenants, those persons who
Speaker 38: live in the land now. But my hope is now,
Speaker 38: at this moment in time, that somehow we can change
Speaker 38: the trajectory of our species and go into a direction
Speaker 38: where we can value each other, and we can stop
Speaker 38: the criminalizing of descent. We should be able to say no,
Speaker 38: the increasing of the militarized forces out there does not
Speaker 38: ever create peace. It only creates harm, and it only
Speaker 38: harms those that are most vulnerable.
Speaker 3: That's the prayer that I carry today.
Speaker 1: Reverend Darcy Jarrett joined in the call for a stewardship
Speaker 1: of the Wallani Forest to be returned to the Muscogee people.
Speaker 34: City Schools of Decatur has a of solidarity an acknowledgment
Speaker 34: of harms to cab County and the City of Atlanta.
Speaker 34: We call on you to make good on these words,
Speaker 34: to give the land back to our indigenous siblings, so
Speaker 34: that they, as they have stated and will do and
Speaker 34: always have done, work in collaboration with the black and
Speaker 34: brown community right there near where the site is outside
Speaker 34: of the Wilawni Forest. The City of Atlanta is ready
Speaker 34: to lease this land at just ten dollars an acre. Instead,
Speaker 34: give this land to the native inhabitants. Repatriate this land
Speaker 34: to the people to whom is their sacred call, to
Speaker 34: defend and work in community with the black and brown
Speaker 34: communities that are there. We call on you, Atlanta City Council,
Speaker 34: to be the moral compass and to not just halt
Speaker 34: the building of this structure, but to repatriate the land
Speaker 34: to the sovereign Muskogee Nation, the sacred keepers of this land.
Speaker 34: May it be so amen.
Speaker 1: Finally, Matthew Johnson spoke about the worrying amount of police
Speaker 1: repression and violence the movement has already seen.
Speaker 18: We're projecting by the end of the day, there will
Speaker 18: be forty people that have domestic terrorism charges, many of
Speaker 18: which just for being in a parking lot. I don't
Speaker 18: know how anybody can accept this when you have a
Speaker 18: projected forty people that are committed of domestic terrorism, not
Speaker 18: one dead body. Meanwhile, we can't even show the bruise
Speaker 18: on the police officer that was allegedly shut at but
Speaker 18: our friend's ashes. We have the ashes of a friend
Speaker 18: that we will spread. We can no longer accept this
Speaker 18: as a people as at lanterns. If we can't figure
Speaker 18: out away to fix public safety without lacking tons of
Speaker 18: black kids up in the blackest city in America, every
Speaker 18: person in that build that needs to step down. If
Speaker 18: we can't do it here, we can't do it anywhere.
Speaker 1: Both myself and Matt from the Atlanta Community Press Collective
Speaker 1: were at the press conference and we met up after
Speaker 1: to discuss the events of the day. During the press conference,
Speaker 1: some of the media's line of questioning was very much
Speaker 1: like aligned with the types of narratives being put out
Speaker 1: by police in relation to the events that previous night,
Speaker 1: the Sunday Direct Action and Music Festival. I think it's
Speaker 1: also worth noting that the people at the clergy event
Speaker 1: did not openly like demonize the actions that people chose
Speaker 1: to take on Sunday, And it was very much like
Speaker 1: the media definitely gave them opportunities to try to throw
Speaker 1: people under the bus and that did not happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we've seen that all throughout the week. Every
Speaker 2: chance that the media is trying to throw somebody to
Speaker 2: like call cause dissension or a divide, amongst the movement
Speaker 2: has been really handily deflected by anyone who's come across it,
Speaker 2: and the clergy did not just a good job of
Speaker 2: like not falling into that trap, but of actually pointing
Speaker 2: out how that line of thinking was like missing the
Speaker 2: point and where the true violence was coming from this.
Speaker 39: And so why are there a majority of people engaging
Speaker 39: some funds coming from other states.
Speaker 36: The reality of it is that the ones who are
Speaker 36: engaging in violence are the police, and they're from right
Speaker 36: here in Atlanta, Georgia. You got APD, you got Georgia
Speaker 36: State Police, you got GBI, you got Georgia State troopers,
Speaker 36: you got everybody except the mart of police who are
Speaker 36: engaging in violence and terrorism against the people who are
Speaker 36: standing against this illegal land swap. So I would suggest
Speaker 36: that the next time you decide that you are going
Speaker 36: to bring up your police rhetoric that you get from
Speaker 36: whichever police source, you go ahead and discuss that with them.
Speaker 13: Because we don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 36: But what we do know is what we're doing and
Speaker 36: what we see from them that we know. I know
Speaker 36: when I get hit by an officer. I know when
Speaker 36: I see a mother with a child begging to be
Speaker 36: let up off the ground because her children are with her.
Speaker 36: I know when I see officers pointing a rifle inside
Speaker 36: a bouncy house.
Speaker 18: If I could just say, I'd like to just bring
Speaker 18: up a story. Initially, the colonizers that came onto this
Speaker 18: land attempted to use the indigenous folks as their slaves. However,
Speaker 18: the indigenous folks knew the land so they could get away. Now,
Speaker 18: when you ask me about why is it that you
Speaker 18: keep catching people that aren't from here that might not
Speaker 18: reflect the people that are actually involved in the resistance.
Speaker 8: God, bless you, thank you.
Speaker 1: After the press conference, people from the Clergy Coalition marched
Speaker 1: to the front door and entered City Hall before making
Speaker 1: it upstairs to sign up for public comment during the
Speaker 1: city council meeting.
Speaker 33: Hie, we shall not be moved. Fine for read now,
Speaker 33: we shall not be moved.
Speaker 20: Just like the street collided by the wall, We shall not.
Speaker 1: The large group of the clergy and the people gathered
Speaker 1: for the interfaith Coalition are now moving through City Hall.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of cops here that looks relatively
Speaker 1: nervous about the easily sized group of people. The scary
Speaker 1: Christians are now invading City Hall lookout.
Speaker 2: So usually in city Hall there there are several APD
Speaker 2: officers who you know, just kind of hang out. But
Speaker 2: while the clergy are walking up to city Hall, you
Speaker 2: can look out and there is APD on every corner.
Speaker 2: And then you enter into city Hall and there are
Speaker 2: clusters of APD. There are I think four floors to
Speaker 2: City Hall. There are clusters of APD on three sides
Speaker 2: of every floor of City Hall.
Speaker 1: After an unexpectedly long awards and proclamations ceremony, the public
Speaker 1: comment section of the city council meeting finally began.
Speaker 37: I'm standing here today with the Faith Coalition.
Speaker 13: We are clergy and faith leaders.
Speaker 37: We are citizens, and we are protectors of the land
Speaker 37: that doesn't belong to us, but belongs to God. We
Speaker 37: are deeply concerned for our community members, for ourselves, and
Speaker 37: the implications for the future of public safety in the
Speaker 37: United States if this cop city development goes forward. We
Speaker 37: are asking for all people of faith, those of you
Speaker 37: who sit on council, regardless of your tradition or background,
Speaker 37: and those who stand with moral conscience, to stop the
Speaker 37: cop city project. My faith convicts me and tells all
Speaker 37: of us that there is a better way. We have
Speaker 37: a prophetic, moral imagination and opportunity here to do something
Speaker 37: different in Atlanta, to do something different for the South. Finally,
Speaker 37: we're asking for a community process.
Speaker 13: A community process.
Speaker 37: Let us come together with moral imagination to envision how
Speaker 37: the Wilani River forests can be the heart and lungs
Speaker 37: of community wellness and healing, not more militarization of police.
Speaker 37: We want a process that centers the voice and needs
Speaker 37: of Muskokee leaders and community members, our Indigenous siblings, incarcerated
Speaker 37: folks and surrounding prisons, families and neighbors who live in
Speaker 37: cross proximity to the firing range and under police surveillance.
Speaker 13: We want holistic.
Speaker 37: Community safety, clean water, tree canopies, a future for every
Speaker 37: single one of our children. May it be so.
Speaker 1: Someone from the Muscogee Creek Reservation in Oklahoma spoke about
Speaker 1: the desire to return to their homeland.
Speaker 40: The Miko of our Hellbi ceremonial grounds back home in
Speaker 40: Oklahoma has come here where our original fire was started,
Speaker 40: and then it was taken all the way to Oklahoma,
Speaker 40: and now we want to bring it back to our
Speaker 40: land and we want to start those fires again. Well,
Speaker 40: when we come back. We need a land to come
Speaker 40: back to. This is my first time coming back to
Speaker 40: visit my homelands. I wanted to visit here where my
Speaker 40: ancestors are, as a spiritual and personal journey. I didn't
Speaker 40: want to come here to try to fight the violence
Speaker 40: that I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is from the residence
Speaker 40: is they need investments in housing and public spaces, and
Speaker 40: not investment in further melody tries policing. They want investment
Speaker 40: in the well being of incarcerated and not further violent incarceration,
Speaker 40: but the well being of the community members. Thank you,
Speaker 40: Moto Chichatis.
Speaker 15: I turned seventy last week and I've lived in Atlanta
Speaker 15: my whole life. I'm not an outsider, and I am
Speaker 15: here to say to you that I find cop City
Speaker 15: to be an abomination. My husband is a pastor of
Speaker 15: a church a couple of miles from here, and he
Speaker 15: could not be here today. He's out of town, but
Speaker 15: he stands with me with these comments. But people who
Speaker 15: have spoken before me have said the things I would say.
Speaker 15: But I would like to say that I pretty much
Speaker 15: agree with every single thing they have said about this
Speaker 15: insanity that you all are calling a police safety training facility.
Speaker 15: So I think you need to just cancel it, start
Speaker 15: having some real conversations with the people of this city
Speaker 15: to solve the real problems in a way that will
Speaker 15: actually be effective. And this facility is not going to
Speaker 15: be it. And the mayor's proposed task force is just
Speaker 15: one more way to try to propagandize us to believe
Speaker 15: that this is good for us, when we're not stupid
Speaker 15: and we know it's just lipstick on a pig.
Speaker 36: And if you heart in your heart, be reminded of
Speaker 36: the story of another pharaoh who had a very hard heart,
Speaker 36: who would not free the people of God, who would
Speaker 36: not lead them to their land. You know what happened
Speaker 36: in that story. Don't think that you will not suffer
Speaker 36: the same fate. Don't think that the infrastructure of this
Speaker 36: so called Black Mecca will not come toppling over, because
Speaker 36: it will.
Speaker 2: There are a couple like things to note about how
Speaker 2: City Council public comment works. City Council doesn't tend to
Speaker 2: pay attention to them. Essensibly, the only one who pays
Speaker 2: attention is City Council President Doug Shipman, because it is
Speaker 2: his job to call time and to call up the
Speaker 2: next person. But you know, city councilors will like step
Speaker 2: in and out of the room, get something to eat.
Speaker 2: During the seventeen hours of public comment for cop City,
Speaker 2: like one of them held a press conference.
Speaker 1: There are two council members notoriously bad at paying attention
Speaker 1: to public comment. Dustin Hillis who is the committee chair
Speaker 1: for the Public Safety Legal Administration Committee. Basically he's in
Speaker 1: charge of police. And the other is Mary Norwood, who
Speaker 1: represents Buckhead and has what I would describe as ontologically
Speaker 1: evil vibes. Buckheed is the northern, primarily white neighborhood in
Speaker 1: Atlanta that is wanted to secede from the city, which
Speaker 1: in Atlanta has very uncomfortable segregation and redlining parallels. But
Speaker 1: despite not paying attention during public comment, these two in particular,
Speaker 1: both paid extra attention after public comment when Police Chief
Speaker 1: Darren Sheerbaum gave testimony on what happened the night previous, Where.
Speaker 41: There any firefighter or police city employee entries yesterday's event.
Speaker 30: Because memory there was not. We're very fortunate that that
Speaker 30: was the outcome. We're fortunate that there was no injuries.
Speaker 41: If this continues, do we have the ability to deploy
Speaker 41: even greater force to quill this. You know, the millions
Speaker 41: of damage, millions of dollars of damage to public and
Speaker 41: private properties.
Speaker 30: We will make adjustments as those that used various tactics.
Speaker 29: Yesterday was an escalation.
Speaker 30: We had not seen this large number of individuals engaged
Speaker 30: in this activity, and the aggressive manner in which the
Speaker 30: officers were attacked was a significant change from what we
Speaker 30: had seen before when it generally had been setting property
Speaker 30: on fire. We'd seen police cars set on fire, win
Speaker 30: those buses, but this was started as an attack against individuals,
Speaker 30: men and women who are employees of this city, So
Speaker 30: that was an escalation. Council Member hillis that we have
Speaker 30: already made adjustments for both within our capability as well
Speaker 30: as with our partners through out to Sheerbombs.
Speaker 1: To testimony, it was interesting the degree to which the
Speaker 1: Chief framed Sunday's direct action as primarily being targeted against
Speaker 1: officers and not the destruction of equipment and machinery at
Speaker 1: the North Gate. From the videos that APD themselves released
Speaker 1: of the incident, it's clear that engagement with the police
Speaker 1: was limited to keeping officers at bay as construction equipment
Speaker 1: was targeted, and despite the continued referring of fireworks as
Speaker 1: quote unquote mortars or explosives, as the chief himself admitted,
Speaker 1: no officers were harmed during the direct action. In a
Speaker 1: later episode, we'll hear more of Chief Sheerbaum's explanation of
Speaker 1: Sunday nights events, as it gives insight into the police's
Speaker 1: own surveillance capabilities and their ability to respond quickly to
Speaker 1: direct actions. But until then, back to the events of Monday,
Speaker 1: March sixth. After the city council meeting, I dressed up
Speaker 1: in the gayest little outfit that I had with me
Speaker 1: and went back to the woods for the first time
Speaker 1: since Sunday Night for Perhum. Initially, people were very cautious
Speaker 1: when entering the woods again, but as the night went on,
Speaker 1: more and more people started to pour into the forest,
Speaker 1: with some choosing to return to their camp. Later that night,
Speaker 1: I enjoyed an experimental noise show in the living room,
Speaker 1: probably to the detriment of people trying to sleep in
Speaker 1: the area. I went to the Perham in the woods.
Speaker 1: I got to share my memory of the Veggietail's esther
Speaker 1: story starring the Tickle Monsters. I got to bond with
Speaker 1: a few expangelicals about that, So that was fine. Then
Speaker 1: there was an experimental noise show in the forest, and
Speaker 1: really I think it actually is worth talking about because
Speaker 1: this was the first time.
Speaker 10: People returned to the forest. Yeah, this was the.
Speaker 1: First time that people like returned to the forest in
Speaker 1: mass since Sunday, and he started to kind of feel
Speaker 1: people's energy get reinvigorated. The woods became a place again
Speaker 1: that people were able to like be in and like
Speaker 1: they were able to be in community in the woods again.
Speaker 2: And that is in keeping with sort of how this
Speaker 2: movement is always responded to what we I guess could
Speaker 2: call a loss, right.
Speaker 1: Like twenty three people getting arrested in charged is is
Speaker 1: a great loss.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the bounce back period is pretty quick. Like
Speaker 2: the resiliency is continual and always strengthening every time that,
Speaker 2: you know, the repression grows, like it does seem like
Speaker 2: the resiliency grows with it.
Speaker 1: People were not scared away from the woods. People still
Speaker 1: still were like, no, this is something I care about.
Speaker 1: I am still going to be in the woods. I'm
Speaker 1: still going to defend these woods. And you kind of
Speaker 1: have like there's always this essence of like fear kind
Speaker 1: of kind of underlying whenever you're like in the Wollani forest,
Speaker 1: because you know, people have been arrested and charged for
Speaker 1: laying in a hammock like that with another defendant, with
Speaker 1: another defendant, and like, so you know that it is
Speaker 1: it is fundamentally a risky place to be, but people
Speaker 1: think the potential cost is worth it, Like they will
Speaker 1: they continue to be here because they know this is
Speaker 1: a winnable fight and they know that it is worth
Speaker 1: it to defend these woods. Early Tuesday morning, a few
Speaker 1: stop Coop City banner drops happened throughout the city. Two
Speaker 1: people were detained by police during one of these banner drops,
Speaker 1: but were later released with a traffic citation after being
Speaker 1: interrogated separately and extensively photographed by law enforcement officials only
Speaker 1: identified as quote Georgia Police and Homeland Security unquote. Tuesday
Speaker 1: was the start of a series of non violent direct
Speaker 1: actions that were being launched around downtown and midtown. Tuesday morning,
Speaker 1: I followed a small group that went to the headquarters
Speaker 1: of Norfolk Southern, one of the Atlanta Police Foundation's financial
Speaker 1: contributors and noted enemy of Ohio.
Speaker 2: They entered the lobby and it's a very small group,
Speaker 2: but like I think half of it was.
Speaker 1: It was like five people and another five like press people.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they enter and they read aloud a letter to
Speaker 2: Alan Shaw, the CEO of Norfolk Southern, calling forward investment
Speaker 2: from of Norfolk Southern from copsody, and immediately they are
Speaker 2: met with uh a security guard screaming like go you
Speaker 2: get out of the hobby. You're you're being criminally trust
Speaker 2: you're being trespassed. You have to leave. One of the
Speaker 2: other security guards runs around with cell phone camera and
Speaker 2: like shoves it in everybody's faces, reaching rather rudely over
Speaker 2: you to get my face, and.
Speaker 1: They got very close to me entering the Norfolk Southern building.
Speaker 23: Please this letter.
Speaker 33: Explaining a horrible role in the city, can you please?
Speaker 2: And so the whole thing lasts like less than five minutes,
Speaker 2: maybe ride about five minutes when they finished reading the letter,
Speaker 2: Like all they asked was that the letter go to
Speaker 2: the CEO.
Speaker 8: YEP.
Speaker 1: While people were inside the headquarters, security called ns Police,
Speaker 1: which is the Norfolk Southern Police, who are legally allowed
Speaker 1: to arrest people.
Speaker 20: Anyone you can see.
Speaker 5: For your building.
Speaker 2: But nobody was arrested at that non violent direct action.
Speaker 2: The whole thing was over pretty quickly, and you know,
Speaker 2: as we were walking out, we saw like the the
Speaker 2: a force of Norfolk Southern Police like swarm kind of
Speaker 2: the exterior of the campus and like keep an eye
Speaker 2: out on things.
Speaker 1: And then we moved over to Woodriff Park, which was
Speaker 1: the meeting place for these non violent direct actions that
Speaker 1: happened about every every day at noon starting on starting
Speaker 1: on Tuesday. It's Tuesday, March seventh, around noon, there's about
Speaker 1: fifty or so people gathered in Woodriff Park who are
Speaker 1: heading out and marching to go stop by two of
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Police Foundation corporate funders.
Speaker 2: We roll up and I think at that point they
Speaker 2: were like twenty ish protesters.
Speaker 14: It was.
Speaker 2: It started off very small. There was no police, like
Speaker 2: no real visible police presence. They were like maybe a
Speaker 2: cruiser or two like kind of around and actually start
Speaker 2: to gather and kind of talk about like what their
Speaker 2: plan is for the day, which was just to march
Speaker 2: around to three different sites. They wanted the EIGHTE and
Speaker 2: T Building, the Georgia Pacific Building, and GSU Georgia State University.
Speaker 1: They are they are now leaving Woodriff Park. They got
Speaker 1: to Georgia Pacific, one of the cop City financial backers.
Speaker 1: Without much incident and without much in terms of visible
Speaker 1: police presence, people called on Mayor Dickens, who is the
Speaker 1: chair of the board of directors for Georgie Pacific, to
Speaker 1: cancel the Atlanta Police Foundation lease of the land that
Speaker 1: copp City is slated to be built on.
Speaker 32: Mayor Diggis, we want you to cancel this leak. We
Speaker 32: know that you have the authority to do so.
Speaker 1: They finished up that Georgia Pacific, they set up a
Speaker 1: little vigil for Torti Guita.
Speaker 2: And from Georgia Pacific they began their trek to the
Speaker 2: AT and T building.
Speaker 1: They left a little vigil for Torti Ghita in front
Speaker 1: of the Georgia Pacific Center and the group of like
Speaker 1: more than fifty people are continuing to march north. Police
Speaker 1: eight to ten police officers are directly behind them, and
Speaker 1: the whole bunch of police cars are blocking Peachtree along
Speaker 1: the path to AT and T. Was the APF's headquarters
Speaker 1: just across the street, and as the crowd approached this intersection,
Speaker 1: the amount of police ballooned massively in the block around
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Police Foundation headquarters. There's got to be about
Speaker 1: thirty to forty officers station and walking off the entrance
Speaker 1: to the APF, and also just like following the crowd
Speaker 1: around as they're as they're marching through the sidewalks. There's
Speaker 1: definitely over god, there's I think around seventy five officers
Speaker 1: deployed in this area right now.
Speaker 10: The number keeps growing.
Speaker 1: As we start walking down different sidewalks and different streets,
Speaker 1: you just see more officers that are already stationed.
Speaker 2: There are fifty activists and what certainly over one hundreds
Speaker 2: some were probably between one hundred, one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: police officers started marching not like behind, not in front,
Speaker 2: but directly beside the march, sort of pinning the march
Speaker 2: to the wall and like essentially kettling the march.
Speaker 1: There was police station in front, there was police station behind,
Speaker 1: and police stationed on the side. It was surrounding the
Speaker 1: surrounding like these fifty people who were simply walking on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk stumbling upon a new group of officers.
Speaker 10: Got to be about one hundred officers in this area
Speaker 10: right now.
Speaker 1: At one point, a police vehicle was just parked on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk, completely blocking it. During this entire time, police
Speaker 1: were blocking all of the traffic in these intersections and roads.
Speaker 2: Driving wrong way up a one way like just you know,
Speaker 2: doing police things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a Doorida State University canine unit. This blocking off
Speaker 1: the entire sidewalk next to a Fulton County Sheriff's vehicle.
Speaker 1: They're trying to make it impossible for people to actually
Speaker 1: move on the sidewalk.
Speaker 10: But for the most part, if.
Speaker 1: People have been able to move around the police and
Speaker 1: keep their movement going instead of just stalling in one
Speaker 1: spot or like trying to physically confront what is now
Speaker 1: like hundreds and hundreds of law enforcement officers from Fulton
Speaker 1: County Sheriffs and Atlanta Police Department and even like Georgia
Speaker 1: State University Police.
Speaker 10: So the group is split up in.
Speaker 1: Between two streets right now because people are trying to
Speaker 1: follow the follow the crossing signals because otherwise police are
Speaker 1: going to tackle and violently assault people. No one was arrested,
Speaker 1: People marched to their perspective locations.
Speaker 2: People very pointedly kept to laws. There was a couple
Speaker 2: of times when like the crosswalk changed and the group
Speaker 2: kind of had to split. They would stay and wait
Speaker 2: until the crosswalk went back to walk, and then crossover
Speaker 2: and join it's.
Speaker 1: So funny that the cops are so insistent if you
Speaker 1: stepped on the street, you're going to get arrested, and
Speaker 1: make sure people stay on the side of walks.
Speaker 10: But the result of that.
Speaker 1: Is that all the cops are standing in the street
Speaker 1: and they're blocking off like miles of traffic downtown Right now,
Speaker 1: people just arrived at the fifty one Peachtree Center Avenue
Speaker 1: AT and T Building in downtown Atlanta. Police were already
Speaker 1: stationed in front of the AT and T building, so
Speaker 1: there wasn't much to do. After a brief speech talking
Speaker 1: about AT and T's contributions to the Police Foundation and
Speaker 1: Cop City, the crowd moved on. Now people are turning
Speaker 1: west in the opposite direction from the AT and T headquarters,
Speaker 1: heading back into the Woodruff Park area where this march began.
Speaker 1: Police with long guns here. Finally, the crowd stopped at
Speaker 1: Georgia State University and talked about GSU's connections to the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Foundation. What is of note for this action,
Speaker 1: and really all of the actions that happened the next
Speaker 1: few days, is not what the protesters did. It's the
Speaker 1: police's disproportionate response to just fifty people walking on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: chanting and giving short speeches outside of businesses tied to APF.
Speaker 2: With a small line of officers in front of GSU.
Speaker 2: They gave their last round of speeches and sort of
Speaker 2: dispersed for the day before.
Speaker 32: We wrap today and gave these clouds something else to
Speaker 32: go do.
Speaker 10: We will be out here.
Speaker 6: We won't be out here for the rest.
Speaker 42: Of the week, for the rest of the hunt, for
Speaker 42: the rest of that year.
Speaker 20: We won't fight.
Speaker 10: That's here we wait.
Speaker 1: Some of the police are now grouping up and opening
Speaker 1: up the sidewalk so people can actually It seems officers
Speaker 1: were in fact instructed to make arrests during this action,
Speaker 1: but for some reason did not follow through on those orders.
Speaker 1: According to scanner audio from Atlanta Police Department's SWAT team.
Speaker 8: That's about of them.
Speaker 5: The problem is they've been telling them to make a risk,
Speaker 5: but also is not taking a risk.
Speaker 8: I guess they weren't supposed to. I don't know.
Speaker 10: But un lit with that, we'll just hold what we
Speaker 10: got at fawn as leaders.
Speaker 1: Extensive police activity continued later that night. At around five
Speaker 1: thirty to six pm, police started staging around the forest
Speaker 1: in a way that usually indicates that a raid is forthcoming.
Speaker 1: Word spread around the recovering encampment that police could be
Speaker 1: preparing for a raid.
Speaker 2: So the initial reports were like that there were fifty
Speaker 2: police officers staged at Key Road and ready to go,
Speaker 2: and then the Decab County Swat starts to roll up
Speaker 2: at the fire station, and I would say a fair
Speaker 2: amount of like panic starts to set it at camp.
Speaker 1: Multiple multiple police copters are are getting flown overhead, multiple
Speaker 1: different SWAT teams are being brought in. At least like
Speaker 1: three or four different agencies are stationing officers around the woods.
Speaker 1: I believe it's estimated that at least one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty police officers were being staged in the area directly
Speaker 1: surrounding the forest and in the area by the power
Speaker 1: line cut on Key Road.
Speaker 2: And it should be said that you know, up until
Speaker 2: this point, the police have never brought in that many
Speaker 2: resources to any protest action that I'm aware of, and
Speaker 2: not come in and engaged. So I was with a
Speaker 2: group offsite who like immediately began to fear, like you know,
Speaker 2: for they wouldn't be able to get back to their
Speaker 2: camp size, they wouldn't be able to get their gear,
Speaker 2: They wouldn't be able to get their medication, and that,
Speaker 2: from what I understand, was the general vibe around. But
Speaker 2: nothing happened.
Speaker 1: Nothing seemed to happen, and then at around seven police
Speaker 1: started to almost like express confusion on what was going on,
Speaker 1: and then everyone else expressed confusion for why the police
Speaker 1: were confused. And we think we've kind of put together
Speaker 1: what may have happened. So Clark, what is suspected of
Speaker 1: going down here?
Speaker 2: So the one thing that police don't understand and probably
Speaker 2: will never understand, is humor. Now, they become the butt
Speaker 2: of the joke often, but they don't understand comedy. So
Speaker 2: at seven o'clock that evening was scheduled Comedy in the Forest.
Speaker 2: And from what we've gathered, the police thought that the
Speaker 2: Comedy in the Forest event was going to be a
Speaker 2: cover for another Sunday night like action.
Speaker 1: So this event was scheduled on the public Defend the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Forest calendar that anyone can look at online is
Speaker 1: this Comedy in the Woods event for people to tell
Speaker 1: jokes around a campfire. And I guess they thought it
Speaker 1: was like it was like this event that was like
Speaker 1: a red herring so that people could then go do
Speaker 1: violent militancy in around the woods. So when seven o'clock
Speaker 1: came and went, like police were expecting people to like
Speaker 1: arrive at the woods or something, and that just didn't happen,
Speaker 1: because it turns out a few minutes before seven o'clock,
Speaker 1: this comedy event was canceled for like unrelated reasons. The
Speaker 1: organizer had had things come up, So this event just
Speaker 1: didn't happen. But there still was comedy in the woods.
Speaker 1: It just was that the police wasted probably over one
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars mobilizing over one hundred officers. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: I think some people in the woods were you know,
Speaker 1: had some frustration that that that you know, they experienced
Speaker 1: this fear of this possibly incoming rate that then resulted
Speaker 1: in there being nothing. I think it's always important to
Speaker 1: when people are relaying information, they relay information that is
Speaker 1: no without like unadue speculation. So like it is a
Speaker 1: fact to say that there's over one hundred cops stationing
Speaker 1: by the woods, and they've never had that many cops
Speaker 1: there before without doing some sort of raid or some
Speaker 1: sort of some sort of like activity in the forest.
Speaker 2: And part of what I've heard go on since then
Speaker 2: was you know, some very generative conversations about how they're
Speaker 2: going to take into account like this, this new paradigm
Speaker 2: that developed that night, And I think that again speaks
Speaker 2: to sort of just how the movement continues to develop
Speaker 2: and grow and like you know, handle new new challenges
Speaker 2: and shifts.
Speaker 1: So with the forest camp is still intact, the week
Speaker 1: of action continued on as planned, with another downtown nonviolent
Speaker 1: direct action that next morning.
Speaker 2: So Wednesday and noon is a lot smaller of direct
Speaker 2: action than the day before.
Speaker 1: It starts with like a dozen people. It slowly grows
Speaker 1: to like a few dozen, but yeah, it started extremely,
Speaker 1: extremely small. So this was one difference from Tuesday is
Speaker 1: that when we arrived, police already had a visible presence
Speaker 1: in downtown, stationed around Woodriff Park. So a group of
Speaker 1: people just launched from Woodriff Park, they kind of split
Speaker 1: off in different different little sub subgroups. Lots of people
Speaker 1: are just stationed outside of Marta Stops handing out flyers,
Speaker 1: and that is what people are doing right now. Police
Speaker 1: seem relatively confused and are trying to like mobilize the
Speaker 1: different areas where they feel like something might happen. But
Speaker 1: it's just people handing out flyers.
Speaker 2: And they decided to split into groups and engage in
Speaker 2: like just some typical outreach activity that you would see,
Speaker 2: you know, from any group, like just passing out flyers
Speaker 2: and pamphlets and attempting, from what I saw, to have
Speaker 2: like one on one conversations with anyone who wanted to.
Speaker 1: So, this this group that it broke off into these
Speaker 1: smaller subgroups. The group that we kind of accompanied stationed
Speaker 1: themselves around some Marta stops around I believe it was
Speaker 1: like the it was the Peachtree Lata station prep. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they stationed at the like the three different exits
Speaker 1: or entrances for that, just just handing out flyers, handing
Speaker 1: out leaflets, trying to talk to anybody who walks by.
Speaker 1: Another group of people standing outside of a public transit
Speaker 1: spot handing out flyers, probably like I don't know, four
Speaker 1: or five other small, small groups doing similar things throughout downtown,
Speaker 1: which means police have a lot more places to be
Speaker 1: as opposed to just following one big group.
Speaker 2: The group that we followed had its own police presence
Speaker 2: follow it, and then when they split into three more groups,
Speaker 2: each group had its own police presence follow it, and
Speaker 2: police stuck to the protesters the entire time. And of course,
Speaker 2: like there's white transport vans that are full of cops
Speaker 2: kind of driving by.
Speaker 1: Thin white van full of police officers just showed up
Speaker 1: across the street. Army green tan SWAT vehicle just parked
Speaker 1: a block away from the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters. There
Speaker 1: was an Atlanta SWAT vehicle parked outside of the Hooters.
Speaker 2: Totally normal response, totally normals. And so the leafleting goes
Speaker 2: on for you know, like forty five minutes, and then
Speaker 2: all of the groups start to gather together conveniently with
Speaker 2: the group that like we had embedded with.
Speaker 1: All right, there's actually a pretty decent number of people
Speaker 1: gathered here for the flywering event today. You know, normal
Speaker 1: police responds to people handing out flyers. Just fifty officers
Speaker 1: in the SWAT team. But yeah, there's probably at this point,
Speaker 1: like two or three dozen people that have kind of
Speaker 1: all converged together. It started off very small, people were
Speaker 1: very very spread out. They splintered off into little smaller groups,
Speaker 1: but now they've all kind of coalesced together back again.
Speaker 1: So all the little subgroups kind of meet up on
Speaker 1: Andrew Jung and peach tree right next to the Hooters
Speaker 1: and the hard Rock Cafe.
Speaker 2: This area is like the business district, so in the
Speaker 2: middle of the day, it's like really busy. It's a
Speaker 2: fairly like good spot to pass out leaflets.
Speaker 1: So they are passing out these leaflets. Pedestrians are still
Speaker 1: able to like walk through the side walks. It's pretty
Speaker 1: it's pretty chill. And then APD approaches the crowd, like
Speaker 1: the APD has already been around this area. There's there's
Speaker 1: this vehicle across the street watching people hand out flyers.
Speaker 1: But then Lieutenant Neil Welch approaches the crowd and gives
Speaker 1: them a dispersal order.
Speaker 3: Okay, can I read it this first order?
Speaker 17: All right?
Speaker 43: So I'm Lieutenant Neil Welch, a police officer, City of Atlanta.
Speaker 43: I hereby declare that, being on this sidewalk, you are
Speaker 43: obstructing or repeating the normal and reasonable movement a pedestrian
Speaker 43: traffic and violation of Atlanta City ordinates. Okay, and the
Speaker 43: name of the people is Saya, Georgia. I hereby command
Speaker 43: that all present in the sidewalk, all present here in
Speaker 43: the sidewalk immediately exit the street or the roadway or sidewalk.
Speaker 43: If you do not do so, you may be detained
Speaker 43: or arrested. Should you fail to exit the sidewalk in
Speaker 43: accordace with this lawful command, you shall be in violation
Speaker 43: of Section one five zero two six six substructing pedestrian traffic,
Speaker 43: which prehibits standing are being on any street, roadway, or
Speaker 43: sidewalk in a manner to obstructor impede the normal or
Speaker 43: reasonable pedestrian traffic.
Speaker 10: Cops threatened arrest and detainment.
Speaker 1: They claimed that people were blocking the sidewalk, which they
Speaker 1: absolutely were not. I was walking freely, as was all
Speaker 1: of like downtown pedestrian traffic. They were not blocking anything.
Speaker 1: This is this is pretty silly, utterly, utterly ridiculous response
Speaker 1: to people handing out flyers. So they were told they
Speaker 1: cannot be on the sidewalk. Obviously they can't be on
Speaker 1: the street. Where are you allowed to protest if not
Speaker 1: the sidewalk or the street. Seemed like very like flimsy
Speaker 1: legal footing. But obviously they police can arrest anyone they
Speaker 1: want to at any time for any reason. So people
Speaker 1: decided to move. They cross over the street, they walk
Speaker 1: like a block north, they cross the street again, and
Speaker 1: they they move onto this part of the sidewalk that
Speaker 1: is like really large, like a massive, massive open open
Speaker 1: section that.
Speaker 2: Right in front of the mall. So it's it's it's
Speaker 2: it's meant to like have a bunch of people passed
Speaker 2: by it.
Speaker 1: So people continue to hand out flyers.
Speaker 10: While this is happening.
Speaker 2: Uh, there's another group who comes in to the side
Speaker 2: of Petree Center Mall and enters the mall to find
Speaker 2: Mayor Andre Dickens. There are a couple of boards in
Speaker 2: Atlanta that stipulate the mayor is like the head of
Speaker 2: the board, and this is one of them, and it
Speaker 2: meets in Peatree Center Mall as one does.
Speaker 1: So the mayor is having a meeting in the mall.
Speaker 2: Office space is you know, sort of above the mall,
Speaker 2: and this group of.
Speaker 1: People from the Muscogie Nation enter and try to meet
Speaker 1: up with the mayor to hand off a letter.
Speaker 44: Objection to objection, we have a letter being delivered from
Speaker 44: the Creek Nation on behalf of Muscogee Creek Spiritual Leadership, and.
Speaker 31: I came all the way on the trial of tears
Speaker 31: to deliver this letter to you folks. We want you
Speaker 31: to know that the contemporary Muscogee people are now making
Speaker 31: their journey back to our homelands, and hereby give notice
Speaker 31: to Mayor Andrew Dickens, the Atlanta City Council, the Atlanta
Speaker 31: Police Department, the Atlanta Police Foundation, the Dakob County Sheriff's Office,
Speaker 31: and so called copp City that you must immediately vacate
Speaker 31: Muscogee homelands and cease violence and policing of Indigenous and
Speaker 31: Black people and Muscogee lands. We lived as stewards and
Speaker 31: in relationship to this land for more than thirteen thousand
Speaker 31: years until the illegitimate State of Georgia negotiated with the
Speaker 31: Tyrant Andrew Jackson for the militarized for the militarized force
Speaker 31: removal of Muscoge and Cherokee relatives to Indian territories. Mayor Dickens,
Speaker 31: can I give this letter to you? He got one, Mayor,
Speaker 31: we want to talk to you about our homelands.
Speaker 13: A Muskogee Cree people.
Speaker 2: Three indigenous an activists along with Kamal Franklin arrive and
Speaker 2: they find the mayor. They enter the board meeting and
Speaker 2: they begin to read this letter from the Muscoge Nation aloud.
Speaker 2: And in the letter it essentially says that Atlanta is
Speaker 2: being evicted out of the Wui Laanni forest and the
Speaker 2: most Scogi people are going to return and reclaim their
Speaker 2: ancestral land. Mayor Dickens, in true mayor fashion, bolts away
Speaker 2: from this, running through an exit door, which is then
Speaker 2: like blocked by a guard, which I think that has
Speaker 2: its own like set of legal issues, essentially just ignoring
Speaker 2: them over his shoulder. He calls out, I've got a
Speaker 2: copy of the letter and hides just completely. Trying to
Speaker 2: escape is not a good look for him.
Speaker 1: The Atlanta Police Department APEX Swatch team was called to
Speaker 1: the mall, and right as the activists were able to exit,
Speaker 1: the special police units rushed into the building, finding no one.
Speaker 1: By now, the police repression during this week of action
Speaker 1: far exceeded police activity during any of the prior weeks
Speaker 1: of action, and this trend would continue as the week
Speaker 1: entered its last few days. The next episode will wrap
Speaker 1: up our coverage for the week, as well as contain
Speaker 1: a bit more analysis of the police repression and the
Speaker 1: fallout of Sunday's direct action. But then there will be
Speaker 1: a fifth bonus episode that gives an overview of what's
Speaker 1: happened in the Malani Forest in the intervening two months.
Speaker 1: See you on the other side, Welcome back to it
Speaker 1: could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. This is episode four
Speaker 1: of my mini series and detailing the March twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three week of action to stop cop City in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: This episode, we'll be hearing from a lot of new
Speaker 1: people as we close out the day to day coverage
Speaker 1: of this week of action. One of the last big
Speaker 1: organized rallies was on Thursday night and it was put
Speaker 1: on by community movement builders and other black led groups
Speaker 1: from Atlanta.
Speaker 2: The big event Thursday night was a six o'clock rally
Speaker 2: that met at the Martin Luther King National Historic Site.
Speaker 1: There was police stationed at King Center before anyone got there,
Speaker 1: we saw like dozens and dozens of police cars going by.
Speaker 2: All around the site are various quick response forces and
Speaker 2: riot cops just ready.
Speaker 35: To move in.
Speaker 1: Large police response in the area already, as has been
Speaker 1: expected for the past few days. Multiple Sandy Springs police
Speaker 1: buses were driving by. There was multiple unmarked white vans
Speaker 1: full of officers. The areas crawling with police cars and
Speaker 1: now there's a small detail of officers across the street
Speaker 1: from the people gathering here in the park.
Speaker 2: We are currently surrounded on every side by groups of
Speaker 2: police officers in riodegear. The crowd started off like actually
Speaker 2: fairly decently sized, maybe like fifty people, and then continued
Speaker 2: as well as the speeches progressed to I would say
Speaker 2: like two hundred two hundred fifty, maybe even a little
Speaker 2: bit more. They were passing out signs, so like anyone
Speaker 2: who came, like they had a sign ready for you.
Speaker 2: Andre Dickins is a sellout of course, as a very
Speaker 2: popular one. There were stop Coop City like banners that
Speaker 2: people could like hold atl of verse twelve, like, you know,
Speaker 2: just a bunch of like really clever sort of protest
Speaker 2: slogans and things that people can get behind. The makeup
Speaker 2: of the crowd was definitely leaned like far less like
Speaker 2: white anarchists than certainly the accusations of this movement, I think,
Speaker 2: more representative of the movement as a whole, Like it
Speaker 2: was a mix of a bunch of different people. I
Speaker 2: would say, like it probably accurately reflected Atlanta demographics.
Speaker 1: Defend the forest signs and banners and being handed out
Speaker 1: throughout the crowd. Other people are passing around the Jail
Speaker 1: Support number and Jill Support contact information.
Speaker 10: People are starting to get ready.
Speaker 2: So it meets it at six o'clock and for about
Speaker 2: an hour and a half we listened to a series
Speaker 2: of speeches as the crowd begins to swell.
Speaker 32: So we are here in solidarity together today to make
Speaker 32: it clear to the mayor that he's not gonna keep
Speaker 32: lying on our names. They'll literally be building the mock
Speaker 32: city of Atlanta practice how to repress life.
Speaker 17: They kill.
Speaker 13: We find it.
Speaker 20: Ridiculous, we find it disgusting.
Speaker 32: We find it embarrassing that a mayor Andre Tickets would
Speaker 32: fix this, not to say that black people what if
Speaker 32: we killed by.
Speaker 33: The woolie that black people walk clock city.
Speaker 42: Yeah, the mayor must have for guy in that our
Speaker 42: ancestors will literally fighting abolition since they were brutally brought
Speaker 42: to this country. They were fighting for freedom, fighting the
Speaker 42: original police right, the slave patrols that captured black bodies
Speaker 42: to take them back to their white masters.
Speaker 20: He's talking to the same.
Speaker 42: Black people whose elders were fighting here in the same
Speaker 42: streets in the sixties.
Speaker 32: And the seventies to stop police occupation of our communities.
Speaker 20: That's right.
Speaker 32: Resistance to police, resistance to state violence is literally in
Speaker 32: our blood as black people.
Speaker 28: It is in our DNA.
Speaker 32: They're lying on our name because they want money from
Speaker 32: the same white corporations that are funding Cop City, Home Depot,
Speaker 32: Chick fil A, Coca Cola, Norfolk, Southern.
Speaker 28: At and t.
Speaker 32: COT enterprises who own say ajac and this is a
Speaker 32: fight that we will win, that we are committed to winning.
Speaker 32: And so when we talk about winning, it's important to
Speaker 32: say what do we mean when we say that we'll win.
Speaker 36: We mean no Cop City anywhere.
Speaker 32: Now in South Atlanta, not into cab not in North Atlanta, nowhere.
Speaker 32: When we say that we will win, we are meaning
Speaker 32: that this fight does not stop with Cop City. This
Speaker 32: is a fight for the liberation of all oppressed people
Speaker 32: here and abroad.
Speaker 20: That's right.
Speaker 32: And now, client's disgusting that the mayor and that these
Speaker 32: corporations will talk about outside agitators. Okay, the reason that
Speaker 32: there are people coming from all over the world to
Speaker 32: support this fight is because this is a fight that affects.
Speaker 12: All of us.
Speaker 20: That's right.
Speaker 32: The Atlanta Police Foundation admitted that percent of the cops
Speaker 32: being trained at that facility will not be in Georgia.
Speaker 22: So when people came from.
Speaker 32: Tennessee, from New York, from California, it's because they know
Speaker 32: that their local police might learn how to kill them better.
Speaker 20: Here, that's right.
Speaker 32: And when people come from abroad, they know that currently
Speaker 32: the Atlanta Police Department trains with the Israeli police. So
Speaker 32: the same techniques being used to brutalize black people are
Speaker 32: being used to practice genocide on the Palestinian people. And
Speaker 32: the same tactics being used to practice genofide on the
Speaker 32: Palestinian people are being used to brutilize black people right here.
Speaker 32: So when people came from all over the world to
Speaker 32: say stop Coup City, they're not outside agitators. They're standing
Speaker 32: in solidarity with us, because this is the fight.
Speaker 1: All as the rain picked up, Tortihita's mother, Belquise Taran
Speaker 1: spoke next on the.
Speaker 45: Cards the friend that I called them, I called them
Speaker 45: to come here to support us on the people from
Speaker 45: different religions come here and help us.
Speaker 20: This is a matter of the earth. You're talking a.
Speaker 45: Mountain's saying, right need.
Speaker 46: Our love, The earth needs our attention, and we are
Speaker 46: we have conscience.
Speaker 45: We know that this is not right. Don't go by
Speaker 45: yourself when we go to activities, stay together, don't go
Speaker 45: outside by yourself.
Speaker 46: Don't We need to.
Speaker 45: Make understand that this is the right thing to do.
Speaker 45: We we are the correct people. We are right because
Speaker 45: we are driving by love, by carry and concern, and.
Speaker 20: We love all of I love you and I know
Speaker 20: that you love me.
Speaker 1: A speaker from Black Votes Matter addressed to the crowd next,
Speaker 1: starting off by talking about the importance of mass action.
Speaker 22: I just want to explain something because sometimes people get confused,
Speaker 22: they get it twisted.
Speaker 7: They say, oh, y'all, look like vote.
Speaker 29: It's better all y'all do is talk about voting.
Speaker 22: Be clear, we understand that the way that we get
Speaker 22: to liberation is not going to come.
Speaker 7: Just through a vote.
Speaker 22: That's never been how it's worked for our people in
Speaker 22: this country. Sister Harry didn't get a chance to vote
Speaker 22: for liberations. She didn't get a chance to vote to
Speaker 22: take our people off the plantation right. So we are
Speaker 22: very clear that what we have got to be. In fact,
Speaker 22: we just celebrated, commemorated the anniversary of Selma and the
Speaker 22: marks of Montgomery. But be clear, the people of Selma
Speaker 22: didn't vote for a Voting Rights Act. They had to
Speaker 22: fight for it, they had to march for it. In
Speaker 22: some cases, they bled for it, they had to resist
Speaker 22: for it, they had to take to the streets for it.
Speaker 22: It's a that tradition that we are out here today.
Speaker 18: So yes, hot it.
Speaker 10: I believe.
Speaker 22: I believe in the power of the vote, but I
Speaker 22: also believe in the power of mass action.
Speaker 1: He then talked about the intersection of Copcity and efforts
Speaker 1: to further restrict the democratic process in Georgia.
Speaker 22: The same corporations that are that are funding cop City
Speaker 22: are the same ones that are funding the bonus questions,
Speaker 22: the same ones we've did our whole campaign a couple
Speaker 22: of years ago in Georgia, says that bonus prison bill.
Speaker 22: And we called out Home Depot and Coca Cola and
Speaker 22: tell them many of the other corporations that give money
Speaker 22: to the people, that are that are taken away our.
Speaker 46: Rights to vote.
Speaker 22: And then if you don't have a government that reflects
Speaker 22: the people, then what you need. You need a police
Speaker 22: force to enforce the fact that you don't have a
Speaker 22: government that reflects the people. And so our message from
Speaker 22: Mary Dickets, our message for the City Council is that
Speaker 22: If you don't respond to the people, you want to
Speaker 22: lose those chile you want to lose your job.
Speaker 46: Because we've got that power.
Speaker 22: We've got the power to make that happen.
Speaker 1: Students from the Atlanta University Center consortium of four black
Speaker 1: colleges in Atlanta, where some of the last people to
Speaker 1: give speeches before the march.
Speaker 47: We have attempted to reform our police force, add de
Speaker 47: el escalation training, add civil rights history training, and give
Speaker 47: more money to our police, but we continue to see
Speaker 47: black bodies across social media platforms, television, and other media
Speaker 47: platforms being displayed being murdered. The victims have received no justice.
Speaker 47: And when we say no justice, what do we say?
Speaker 11: No justice, no justice, no justice.
Speaker 42: The building of the Atlanta Public Training Center is an
Speaker 42: insult and an act of the utmost disrespect from our
Speaker 42: city leaders.
Speaker 46: We have a duty to fight for the change that
Speaker 46: we seek.
Speaker 32: As an active member of this community, I refuse to sit.
Speaker 28: By and be idle and just let things happen.
Speaker 48: This city has been my home ever since I was born.
Speaker 4: I have been to.
Speaker 46: Various events here.
Speaker 48: I have seen the sights and have lived through some
Speaker 48: of the most important events here in this City. This
Speaker 48: is my home. This is your home, This is our home.
Speaker 48: This is the home of Black excellence. This is the
Speaker 48: home of doctor Martin Luther King Junior. This is the
Speaker 48: home of John Lewis. This is the home of Joseph
Speaker 48: Evelyn and Joseph E.
Speaker 46: Lowy. This is the home of civil rights. This is
Speaker 46: the home of CT.
Speaker 5: Gibon.
Speaker 13: This is the home of great blackness itself.
Speaker 22: This is the home of every single black person here
Speaker 22: in America. This city, this house, this place of Black
Speaker 22: excellence says no to Cop City.
Speaker 49: My Afro pessimist friends and revolutionaries both agree we are
Speaker 49: at war. The police in the city have said as
Speaker 49: much loudly with their words and their actions. It feels
Speaker 49: obvious to me that we need warriors weapons, and I
Speaker 49: know that fact may give some of us trepidation, but
Speaker 49: I want to assure you that we need so much
Speaker 49: more than soldiers to win this fight. Whatever it is
Speaker 49: that you do, whatever skill you bring, I just ask
Speaker 49: that you make it a weapon. If we are ever
Speaker 49: going to experience democracy, we need your tools to be
Speaker 49: repurposed in this fight against Cop City. If you're a
Speaker 49: writer like me, child that Patty better look like a
Speaker 49: threat to cop city. If you do mutual aid, caring
Speaker 49: for community ain't gonna get any easier. Please show us
Speaker 49: the way.
Speaker 4: If you're an artist, where my artist at.
Speaker 8: You got a lot of them out here.
Speaker 49: Let every painting reveal the truth, including the joy and
Speaker 49: freedom that abolition calls us to. Let us make songs
Speaker 49: that inspire revolution. If you're a healer, get ready, we
Speaker 49: need you.
Speaker 5: Much will be lost in this struggle.
Speaker 8: Let us not forget.
Speaker 49: If you're a teacher, well, we got a lot to
Speaker 49: learn about this war we're fighting and how police practice
Speaker 49: urban warfare. If you're a lawyer, guide us when they
Speaker 49: say that any fighter.
Speaker 4: Is a criminal.
Speaker 49: If you're a digital organizer, to keep your finger on
Speaker 49: the pulse and tell our stories far and wide. And
Speaker 49: if you're a community organizer, we need to tend to
Speaker 49: our relationships, not just use them. We need real solidarity
Speaker 49: which goes beyond unity. We need pluralism, making space for
Speaker 49: many strategies to coexist, and ultimately we need to practice democracy.
Speaker 49: If we plan to build one cop city, is the
Speaker 49: police in the establishment preparing for domestic war right here
Speaker 49: in the city of Atlanta. Any further training of the
Speaker 49: police is training against our existence. That shit cannot be built.
Speaker 29: It will.
Speaker 49: We all must fight for the democracy we've never seen before.
Speaker 4: What are you willing to do?
Speaker 35: Thank you?
Speaker 1: So, after about an hour of speeches, people are now
Speaker 1: finally getting ready to move.
Speaker 10: They announced on the.
Speaker 1: Loudspeaker where we are going. We are marching to the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters on Peachtree, the same location that
Speaker 1: had the front windows broken on the protest following the
Speaker 1: killing of Tortighita that Saturday. So people leave, they stick
Speaker 1: onto the sidewalk because there's cops staring at them, and
Speaker 1: cops that definitely had had had indicated that if if
Speaker 1: people step on to the street, they would be arrested.
Speaker 1: The length of the march is stretching for about two
Speaker 1: or three city blocks, just because you know, trying to
Speaker 1: cram three hundred people onto a sidewalk.
Speaker 10: Makes sense stretch out really long.
Speaker 1: But the cops have been pretty pretty adamant that if
Speaker 1: anyone steps onto the street, they're going to get arrested.
Speaker 1: That is a banner being carried across that says what
Speaker 1: you water grows fund our future, Stop cop city, defend
Speaker 1: the forest. People with the stop cop City signs in
Speaker 1: the Coca Cola font signs that read Atlanta versus cop City,
Speaker 1: no cop city on stolen Land. The Thursday march definitely
Speaker 1: had the most amount of signs out of all of
Speaker 1: the individual marches or actions that I went to, both
Speaker 1: small handheld signs and also signs with really tall handles
Speaker 1: to hold up above the crowd. All right, people are
Speaker 1: being led into the street now after walking, after walking
Speaker 1: on the hidewalk for a decent while, people have now
Speaker 1: taken to the streets along the path of the march.
Speaker 1: The projector was set up projecting like stop stop coop
Speaker 1: city slogans onto the side of a building, almost like
Speaker 1: really really good graphic design.
Speaker 2: Visuals is definitely a strength of the movement.
Speaker 1: There's this police riot helmet that has a tree growing
Speaker 1: underneath it and breaking apart of the helmet. It says,
Speaker 1: trees give life, police take it. We got a police
Speaker 1: riot line set up a few blocks ahead of the
Speaker 1: people marching on the street right next to the building
Speaker 1: with these with the stop cop City stuff projected onto
Speaker 1: the side. Rather than let the police do an escalatory
Speaker 1: show of violence, people opted to move back onto the
Speaker 1: sidewalk to continue the march uninhibited. People seem to be
Speaker 1: moving closer back onto the sidewalk as they're staring down
Speaker 1: this riot line, and police are now heading back inside.
Speaker 1: They're white rent to bush little vans that they've been
Speaker 1: staging their riot cops out of, and they're driving off.
Speaker 1: People are now in downtown Atlanta outside of the Georgia
Speaker 1: Pacific Center.
Speaker 10: We have like twelve regular police.
Speaker 1: Cars, the two white vans full of riot cops and
Speaker 1: lots of them cops the stage in places I cannot
Speaker 1: currently see. All right, We're marching north along Peachtree Street,
Speaker 1: heading heading to the Atlantic Police Foundation got the two
Speaker 1: the two bus Max rent of buses full of riot
Speaker 1: cops right right beside the march. Cops really out of
Speaker 1: it about not letting anybody march in the street. It's
Speaker 1: funny because a few days ago they wouldn't let people
Speaker 1: stand on the sidewalk either. Most of the cops that
Speaker 1: are surrounding the march right now are still in their vehicles,
Speaker 1: at least from this current vantage point. As opposed to
Speaker 1: the non violent direct act of march, I was opposed
Speaker 1: to the non violent direct action marches and actions that
Speaker 1: have happened launching out of woodword Park the past week
Speaker 1: in which the police just tailed and surrounded the march
Speaker 1: on foot, I think this march is just slightly I
Speaker 1: think this march is just slightly too big to use
Speaker 1: that tactic, so they're surrounding them with vehicles instead. As
Speaker 1: the march arrived at the Atlanta Police Foundation, the hundreds
Speaker 1: of protesters crammed onto the sidewalk were greeted by armed
Speaker 1: APD officers. Riot police are standing in front of the
Speaker 1: boarded up Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters at one nine to
Speaker 1: one Peach Tree. There is a large, large crowd in
Speaker 1: front of these relatively small amount of officers standing in
Speaker 1: front of the board and up doors a few dozen cops,
Speaker 1: some armed with AR fifteen's, A lot of cops stationed
Speaker 1: outside the APF headquarters and even more stationed inside APF headquarters.
Speaker 1: Police blocked off traffic in the on this section of
Speaker 1: Peachtree Street, the sandwiching everybody in. They could have mass
Speaker 1: arrested as I'm sure they wanted to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the police were ready to mass rest the entire time.
Speaker 10: This is this is kind of a wild sighte.
Speaker 1: We have hundreds of people staring down about three dozen
Speaker 1: officers from the Atlanta Police Department on their fifteen's, obviously
Speaker 1: all of their handguns from hundreds of hundred, hundreds of
Speaker 1: people holding signs staring down the police. You can you
Speaker 1: can feel the kind of you can feel the temperature.
Speaker 10: Rising a little bit here. The cops look very nervous
Speaker 10: as one.
Speaker 1: Hundreds of people who are chanting at them, and I'm
Speaker 1: not very happy are facing them down. They're so they're
Speaker 1: so close together, we're they're just sandwiched in. This is
Speaker 1: such a tense situation right now. No one in the
Speaker 1: crowd has any visible weapons of any kind. Of course,
Speaker 1: they're holding big signs. Cops have some zipcuffs ready, cops
Speaker 1: have all of their all their guns ready. I was
Speaker 1: able to see inside the building via a small slit
Speaker 1: in the plywood. There were tons of riot cops inside
Speaker 1: with shields, and all the cops on the inside of
Speaker 1: the building had gas masks strapped to their leg. At
Speaker 1: least one riot cop on the other side of the
Speaker 1: door was wearing a unique armored suit, not like the
Speaker 1: regular police suits with riot armor like on the outside,
Speaker 1: this armored padding was built into the clothing. He had
Speaker 1: these massive bulky leg pants with armor on the insides
Speaker 1: of them and like a massive riot helmet. He was
Speaker 1: one of those cops who doesn't need a riot shield
Speaker 1: because his body is the riot shield. It was very weird,
Speaker 1: But for those first few minutes, it was a very
Speaker 1: high stress situation in front of the APF building. It
Speaker 1: felt like neither the crowd nor the police knew exactly
Speaker 1: what was about to go down as a few hundred
Speaker 1: angry protesters were pushed up against a line of armed police.
Speaker 1: But as time went on, you got the impression that
Speaker 1: this crowd was probably not going to initiate conflict with
Speaker 1: the police, and I feel like some of the moods
Speaker 1: maybe kind of died down. Cops are trying to kind
Speaker 1: of move around the crowd a bit. There's there's cops
Speaker 1: being stationed to the north, to the south, to behind
Speaker 1: the crowd on the other side of the street. We
Speaker 1: this could go so many ways right now, This could
Speaker 1: end in so many different scenarios. But people have not
Speaker 1: initiating anything other than standing on the sidewalk and.
Speaker 10: Chanting and given speeches.
Speaker 1: If you look, there's a small section of the FF
Speaker 1: building where there's still a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of
Speaker 1: glass by one of the doors, and you can see
Speaker 1: lots of lots of cops stationed inside with riot shields.
Speaker 1: But I do not believe this crowd is gonna be
Speaker 1: busting down any doors. Camu Franklin, the founder of Community
Speaker 1: Movement Builders, was the last person to speak in front
Speaker 1: of the Atlanta Police Foundation.
Speaker 35: No cops, it's nothing but a chry go over. Please
Speaker 35: think our communities. We know a cop city. There's nothing
Speaker 35: but a strategy to stop our movements.
Speaker 3: And what movements are those?
Speaker 35: The moments against police follans and terrorism in our community.
Speaker 35: It is in twenty twenty one that they introduced this
Speaker 35: idea to stop, to put cop city out here to
Speaker 35: stop our movements. When people were talking about the fund
Speaker 35: the police, abolish the police, find our turn it is
Speaker 35: the public safety, they.
Speaker 7: Said, hell no, we.
Speaker 10: Want more police.
Speaker 35: And I put that idea out there, and the movement
Speaker 35: was born to stop cop city. This movement is two
Speaker 35: years old and it doesn't look like.
Speaker 4: It's going to stop.
Speaker 49: To me.
Speaker 1: By the end, you got this sense that this march
Speaker 1: did exactly what it wanted to. There were three hundred
Speaker 1: people standing like a foot away from two dozen cops,
Speaker 1: starring them down, giving speeches chanting. If people wanted to
Speaker 1: other things could have happened. This rally could have resulted
Speaker 1: in many ways, many of them probably very ugly and
Speaker 1: carrying a very high cost.
Speaker 35: The reason we did in march like this today was
Speaker 35: to say to all the na saves. Black folks don't
Speaker 35: want cop City. In people don't want cop City. White
Speaker 35: folks don't want cop City. At Lantis don't want cop City.
Speaker 35: Folks from outside Atlanta don't want cop City. Don't body
Speaker 35: in the United States wants cop City because Ronestitians.
Speaker 7: Don't work Cops City.
Speaker 3: So people in Latin America.
Speaker 46: Don't want cop City.
Speaker 16: Don't were in.
Speaker 21: This world don't we.
Speaker 46: Work cop City.
Speaker 35: We wanted to make sure that we came in safety
Speaker 35: and we leave in safety. We wanted to make sure
Speaker 35: that we don't have any more political prisoners today. That
Speaker 35: we wanted this to be a march about our unity
Speaker 35: and our safety in numbers, and as we wrap up today,
Speaker 35: that's what we want. It's not like we gotta give
Speaker 35: them an excuse. When you are around the cop the
Speaker 35: same way when you're around the wild animal.
Speaker 7: What do you gotta do.
Speaker 35: You gotta be cautious, you gotta be careful. You gotta
Speaker 35: move a certain way, you gotta know which way to
Speaker 35: go because you're looking to protect your safety. And right
Speaker 35: now I'm looking to protect our safety. So as we
Speaker 35: depart here today, we are departing in unit, We are
Speaker 35: departing together. We are gonna walk back in close quarters
Speaker 35: together where our cars work. If you're going to Martyr,
Speaker 35: you're gonna walk close together with other people as you
Speaker 35: go to Marta if you need a van to pick
Speaker 35: you up, if you can't take Marta two blocks this
Speaker 35: way by deposit. So we want you to be safe, secure,
Speaker 35: because you want to be.
Speaker 46: Here gig the fight.
Speaker 1: There was this sense that the people there wanted to
Speaker 1: show that if they wanted to do things, they could have,
Speaker 1: but they knew that this was not This was not
Speaker 1: the right time nor the right place.
Speaker 2: Restraint and and understanding of what like practice I would
Speaker 2: say in that situation is.
Speaker 1: And I mean in the speeches that happened beforehand, there
Speaker 1: was people from community movement builders, from Black Votes Matter,
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of other black led groups in the city.
Speaker 1: And similarly, like like like what happened at the Clergy event,
Speaker 1: there was not a single whiff of condemnation of militant tactics,
Speaker 1: of of of property, destruction of actions that people take this.
Speaker 1: They people there who gave speeches recognized that such tactics
Speaker 1: were a staple of the civil rights movement. Early Saturday morning,
Speaker 1: I woke up to news that police had begun another raid.
Speaker 1: But instead of writing the Mulani Forest the the police
Speaker 1: were searching the ten acre property of the Lakewood Environmental
Speaker 1: Arts Foundation or LEAF, a local nonprofit that was offering
Speaker 1: safe haven for people during the week of Action. All right,
Speaker 1: so the Lant police have executed a warrant on the
Speaker 1: LEAF meet up spot in southeast Atlanta that people have
Speaker 1: been using as a welcome center, as like a medic
Speaker 1: station and just another spot to hang out. It was
Speaker 1: set up after the raid Sunday night and it is
Speaker 1: now Saturday morning. The police have executed this warrant to
Speaker 1: search Parmasis ID everyone who's there.
Speaker 10: We got a group of people. It's being able to
Speaker 10: leave right now.
Speaker 1: There has been a prison transport vehicle called in and
Speaker 1: cops have like blocked off intersections around the area. No
Speaker 1: one's allowed to get close. People are not allowed to
Speaker 1: return to their cars. People are not allowed to return
Speaker 1: to their private property. Since Sunday night, the land was
Speaker 1: being used as a medic hub and provided a secondary
Speaker 1: place to camp for those who didn't feel safe staying
Speaker 1: in the forest. During their raid Saturday morning, police detained
Speaker 1: at least twenty two people and refused to show anyone
Speaker 1: the search warrant. And yeah, the group that got released
Speaker 1: is just walking up now. Maybe like two dozen people
Speaker 1: have been able to walk up.
Speaker 26: We just goat through their police lines and we're gonna, yeah,
Speaker 26: huddle up and get to a safe place. We were
Speaker 26: woken up by helicopters. There had been helicopters doing rounds
Speaker 26: all evening and I don't even know what time. Seven something,
Speaker 26: we heard loud speakers saying that they had a warrant
Speaker 26: to search the property private property, and that was very disorienting.
Speaker 26: Obviously I was in the middle of sleeping. We came
Speaker 26: out with our hands open, our hands up. We had
Speaker 26: more than twenty guns pointed at us. Some people have
Speaker 26: their fingers on triggers. Certainly they were screaming at me.
Speaker 26: And as I was waking up, we came through the line.
Speaker 26: They said that they had a warrant to search the property.
Speaker 26: We know that Homeland Security was one of the departments
Speaker 26: that was arrested that was part of the arrest crew
Speaker 26: or extraction crew or whatever. It's very traumatic. Obviously, it's freezing.
Speaker 26: This is the coldest day this week, and so we are,
Speaker 26: you know, worried about people's health because people are cold.
Speaker 26: They detained us, they took identification. It was extremely violent situation,
Speaker 26: but everyone here was really taking care of each other
Speaker 26: and remaining calm.
Speaker 1: To address the raid, activists scheduled a press conference for
Speaker 1: later that day after a youth rally to defend the
Speaker 1: forest was to take place in East Village. And I
Speaker 1: think you can hear said youths in the background, so
Speaker 1: excuse their joyous young screams.
Speaker 36: We thought that it was important for us to not
Speaker 36: only amplify the wonderful children's march that happened here today,
Speaker 36: the community in East Atlanta, this community where they are
Speaker 36: proposing to build cop City, came out this morning overwhelmingly
Speaker 36: to say that they don't want cop City.
Speaker 13: So we had parents, we.
Speaker 36: Had children, we had other neighbors and community stakeholders who
Speaker 36: gathered right here in Brownwood Park today in East Atlanta
Speaker 36: to say that we are East Atlanta and cop City
Speaker 36: is not a part of what we imagine an envision
Speaker 36: for this community. Also this morning, unfortunately, there is a
Speaker 36: place that was held as a commune for campers who
Speaker 36: wanted to stand in solidarity during this week of action.
Speaker 36: The place is called Leith l EAF. That is, the
Speaker 36: Lakewood Environmental Arts Foundation, a nonprofit or organization that's dedicated
Speaker 36: to combating food insecurity here within the city of Atlanta,
Speaker 36: offered up their space to be used for people who
Speaker 36: did not feel safe camping in the forest because of
Speaker 36: the over aggression of police there and they wanted to
Speaker 36: stand in solidarity with this week of action, so LEIF
Speaker 36: offered up their space for those people to camp safely. Unfortunately,
Speaker 36: this morning, a gang of police officers descended upon that
Speaker 36: sacred space.
Speaker 1: During the raid, up to forty officers swarmed the property,
Speaker 1: ransacking the infrastructure set up at the Leaf Encampment site.
Speaker 1: Cops slashed aparts two medical supply tents, disrupting metical operations,
Speaker 1: broke windows of a camper van parked on the site,
Speaker 1: and ripped apart a greenhouse. Police took pictures of the
Speaker 1: people detained at Leaf and collected their ideas, but after
Speaker 1: being held for several hours, the police let all but
Speaker 1: one person go free. To quote an article by Candice
Speaker 1: Burned in Truth Out Quote, one person was arrested for
Speaker 1: an outstanding parking ticket, demonstrating the state's desperation to snatch
Speaker 1: up anyone associated with the Stop Copcity movement.
Speaker 50: Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Marlon Kautz.
Speaker 51: I'm an organizer with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, where civil
Speaker 51: liberties and anti repression organization that exists to make sure
Speaker 51: that people who participate in social movements have the right
Speaker 51: to protest and don't suffer from repression. So the reason
Speaker 51: I'm here is because, as we've all heard previously, there
Speaker 51: was an incident of political repression. Early this morning, police
Speaker 51: executed a search warrant and performed a raid against the
Speaker 51: Lakewood Environmental Arts Foundation, which is a community space in Lakewood,
Speaker 51: Atlanta that exists primarily to serve artists and musicians. It's
Speaker 51: clear that it was part of a political strategy to
Speaker 51: repress and intimidate protesters who are associated with the Stop Pop.
Speaker 50: City movement, a movement to defend the forest.
Speaker 51: This is very concerning, especially when taken in context. Of course,
Speaker 51: it's very likely that police are going to report that
Speaker 51: this was part of a routine investigation, a law enforcement
Speaker 51: matter that they had every right to conduct. The other
Speaker 51: thing that police are likely to claim is that they
Speaker 51: made an arrest on scene, and our understanding is that
Speaker 51: they did make an arrest due to somebody who was
Speaker 51: there having an old traffic ticket from a long time ago.
Speaker 51: So it's important to clarify that the arrest was because
Speaker 51: of a traffic ticket, not because of any alleged crimes
Speaker 51: related to the movement or any other serious criminal activity.
Speaker 51: So it's important that we understand this raid as part
Speaker 51: of a series of ongoing abuses of the legal process
Speaker 51: to harass and intimidate political throw testers. They were unable
Speaker 51: to demonstrate any criminal activity during their raid on the
Speaker 51: Lakewood Environmental Arts Foundation, but they're continuing.
Speaker 3: To abuse.
Speaker 50: Every justification that they can.
Speaker 51: To raid spaces, to make arrests, and to hold people
Speaker 51: in jail.
Speaker 36: So before the police come out and say we raided
Speaker 36: this place where all of these outside aggressors were and
Speaker 36: we picked up some violent offenders, we want you to
Speaker 36: know that our brothers and sisters who were standing with
Speaker 36: us in solidarity just saying hey, we want to camp here,
Speaker 36: since we don't feel safe camping in the people's park
Speaker 36: that's been overrun with police repression and aggression.
Speaker 13: They raided that place.
Speaker 36: They snatched people up, some people were sleeping, They took
Speaker 36: pictures of people, They took their IDs, and they searched
Speaker 36: and searched, found nothing else, never to warrant, and only
Speaker 36: one person was arrested because of an outstanding parking ticking.
Speaker 1: About a week after the raid, the Guardian obtained evidence
Speaker 1: of the search warrant. The warrant stated that there was
Speaker 1: probable cause for believing that evidence of quote conspiracy to
Speaker 1: commit domestic terrorism unquote could be found at the Lakewood location.
Speaker 1: Listed in the warrant were objects officers sought, which included quote, cameras, radios,
Speaker 1: boxes of nails, lighters, tents, camping equipment, spray paint, black clothing,
Speaker 1: and literature related to defend the forest. These were the
Speaker 1: materials tied to domestic terrorism. As the week progressed, there
Speaker 1: were an increasing number of reports of police tailing people
Speaker 1: coming and going from a march's and especially the actions downtown. Basically,
Speaker 1: officers would follow people suspected of participating in the movement,
Speaker 1: pull them over try to id anyone within the vehicles
Speaker 1: and then issue some nonsense traffic citation. This continued on
Speaker 1: Thursday after the Community Movement Builders march, as people were
Speaker 1: heading home from the public Park, police stalked a few
Speaker 1: individuals and pulled over multiple vehicles. A van carrying one
Speaker 1: of the speakers was targeted, as well as two other
Speaker 1: cars that were pulled over as they were leaving the protest.
Speaker 1: Marlin from the Atlanta Solidarity Fund talked about the various
Speaker 1: ways police had been using their power to intimidate activists
Speaker 1: and suppress protest.
Speaker 51: Our organization has gotten many reports of pretext stops of
Speaker 51: political protesters or people who are suspected of being political
Speaker 51: protesters because of bumper stickers on their car or the
Speaker 51: state that their license plate is ProMED. We've gotten report
Speaker 51: people being stop and frisked simply because they're profiled as
Speaker 51: looking like political acts the lists, and of course we've
Speaker 51: seen dozens of protesters or suspected protesters arrested and charged
Speaker 51: with domestic terrorism simply because they were found at a
Speaker 51: music festival that's associated with the stock Coop City movement.
Speaker 51: And so we can see that every step of the
Speaker 51: way police and prosecutors are abusing the legal process to
Speaker 51: intimidate and discourage this movement.
Speaker 2: Throughout this time, police have been watching or monitoring one
Speaker 2: of the off site locations in the forest. They've parked
Speaker 2: in front of this site and kept up surveillance on it.
Speaker 2: And then leading all the way up into Friday, there
Speaker 2: was a journalist pulled over leaving the final non violent
Speaker 2: direct action from Woodruff Park. They were pulled over with
Speaker 2: two other people in the car and like detained briefly,
Speaker 2: ostensibly to you know, continue to identify and connect people.
Speaker 1: A big part of the story for this week of
Speaker 1: Act is the excess of the police response to quite
Speaker 1: typical acts of quote unquote nonviolent protest, the sort that
Speaker 1: the government and even the police loved to claim that
Speaker 1: they actually protect. With every single action downtown this week,
Speaker 1: virtually no laws were being broken, not even any civil disobedience.
Speaker 1: People were handing out flyers, marching on sidewalks, giving out letters,
Speaker 1: and the police's response was to deploy SWAT, to mobilize
Speaker 1: hundreds of officers, to shut down multiple city blocks, to
Speaker 1: carry ar fifteens as they tail crowds of a few
Speaker 1: dozen people just walking on the sidewalk and yelling at
Speaker 1: people if they accidentally miss step off the curb and
Speaker 1: threaten violent arrest. This was the sort of extremely aggressive
Speaker 1: response to people doing protest quote unquote the right way.
Speaker 2: We should highlight that. That is the apparent goal of
Speaker 2: these protests was to show that even when they are
Speaker 2: doing things the right way, this is how the state
Speaker 2: reacts to dissent.
Speaker 1: It reacts in this militarized fashion where you like it's
Speaker 1: it's I think a big part of what's happened in
Speaker 1: these types of protests that have happened the past week
Speaker 1: is demonstrating why people are campaigning to stop cop City
Speaker 1: because the sheer amount of resources that the police already
Speaker 1: have in the city. To to be deploying hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of officers every single day to respond to people
Speaker 1: handing out flyers, it's like to respond to people who
Speaker 1: are walking on the sidewalks. They have this massive amount
Speaker 1: of resources. They're using tear gas in the woods, they're
Speaker 1: using paper balls, they're using flash bangs, they're they're having
Speaker 1: multiple different swat teams follow around people handing out pamphlets.
Speaker 1: The level of police militarization in Atlanta is already at
Speaker 1: this extremely high point, and COP City is only going
Speaker 1: to intensify that. And that is the reason they want
Speaker 1: to build cop City. It's for this type of urban
Speaker 1: counterinsurgency training to quell civil unrest and to quell protests.
Speaker 36: On Thursday night, we held a very peaceful and successful
Speaker 36: march in downtown Atlanta, starting at the King Center.
Speaker 28: We had someone who.
Speaker 36: Was stopped by the police and asked if he was
Speaker 36: picking up protesters taking out of the vehicle, handcuffed for
Speaker 36: no reason. They couldn't find a reason to detain him
Speaker 36: any longer, so they had to let him go. But Atlanta,
Speaker 36: this is why we're standing against cop City, because if
Speaker 36: cop City is built, you can guarantee that you won't
Speaker 36: even be able to go to the grocery store without
Speaker 36: being harassed by the police for no reason at all.
Speaker 1: When I spoke with Matthew Johnson, he brought up a
Speaker 1: similar point.
Speaker 18: With the resources that the police had to respond in
Speaker 18: the way that they did.
Speaker 8: The assertion that.
Speaker 18: They need more training in a militarized facility or they
Speaker 18: need more resources is crazy because you had them literally
Speaker 18: out numbering protesters kettling them, and we have credible sources
Speaker 18: that say that there were swat forces who had instructed
Speaker 18: the officers to arrest nonviolent protesters, and there were actually
Speaker 18: police officers that refused to take that order, which I
Speaker 18: think is another fascinating dynamic that is worth exploring and
Speaker 18: understanding more. But just with the resources that they had
Speaker 18: to try to shut down protesters, harass folks, constantly, ticket
Speaker 18: and pull over people that they saw, you know, creating
Speaker 18: like a logistical framework for the week of action is nuts,
Speaker 18: and they're making our point for us. On Friday, the
Speaker 18: word came out that Tortugita had bullet holes through both
Speaker 18: of their palms and that they were more than likely
Speaker 18: sitting cross leg with their hands up when they were
Speaker 18: shot by police. And now we are supposed to be
Speaker 18: convinced that these people that lied about this killed somebody
Speaker 18: that was absolutely no threat to them. On the same
Speaker 18: grounds that they're trying to build this police training facility,
Speaker 18: we're supposed to believe that this is going to make
Speaker 18: them less violent towards people like as you're building a
Speaker 18: militarized police training facility, and like people that try to
Speaker 18: convince themselves that these is going to be a place
Speaker 18: where people are also being taught de escalation tactics, while
Speaker 18: like everything around that is militarized. It's like if you
Speaker 18: had somebody build a water park and you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 18: I'm just trying to stay dry. I don't want to
Speaker 18: get splashed or anything like that, and it's like, oh no, no, no,
Speaker 18: don't worries. We have a food court right in the
Speaker 18: middle of it, and it's great, you're really just coming
Speaker 18: there for the food court, so don't worry about it.
Speaker 18: And then like you go there and then you get splashed.
Speaker 18: What were you expecting? Like, that's obviously not what that
Speaker 18: facility is for, because all the infrastructure around it is
Speaker 18: made to be a water park or a militarized police
Speaker 18: training facility. So don't be surprised when maybe they might
Speaker 18: have one de escalation program and like you know where
Speaker 18: the food court would be, and then somebody gets killed, right,
Speaker 18: because they're actually building the infrastructure for killing.
Speaker 8: So that's where we're at.
Speaker 1: This week of action has shown a lot about how
Speaker 1: the police are operating post the twenty twenty Uprising, how
Speaker 1: they will respond to people exercising their First Amendment right,
Speaker 1: and the indiscriminate way that police will respond to any
Speaker 1: active protest. One of the main takeaways from this week
Speaker 1: is that their response to protest is deployed against people
Speaker 1: without target or focus. They care very little if you
Speaker 1: are breaking a window or if you're marching on the sidewalk,
Speaker 1: They're still gonna send the SWAT team. Police are acting
Speaker 1: as if they are entirely in case of differentiating between
Speaker 1: acts of descent. Toward the end of the week, I
Speaker 1: sat down and talked with an unnamed forest defender to
Speaker 1: get their thoughts on the week of action. For security reasons,
Speaker 1: we did a vocal replacement.
Speaker 52: The police presence has been pretty unprecedented. I haven't seen
Speaker 52: shit like that here since twenty twenty, not downtown at least.
Speaker 52: I mean shit, I don't think we had seen gas
Speaker 52: in Atlanta in a minute, and then they gassed the forest.
Speaker 52: It'd been a while, but yeah, I mean they're punching out,
Speaker 52: especially like Tuesday, they were putting out one hundred and
Speaker 52: fifty two hundred cops the entirety of downtown. I mean
Speaker 52: multi jurisdictional task forces deployed multiple different Atlanta APD SWAT
Speaker 52: teams between like regular APD SWAT and APEX, which is
Speaker 52: like the Drug and Gang Interdiction unit. I mean a
Speaker 52: fucking whole drone unit, GSP, some weird unmarked cars that
Speaker 52: I won't speculate on, helicopters, all that shit. You know,
Speaker 52: the type of police response you would expect to see
Speaker 52: in like a dystopian fucking police state. For some people
Speaker 52: handing out flyers that just say this is bad for
Speaker 52: the environment, doesn't matter how much milk toast or not,
Speaker 52: and like I shouldn't say milk toasts like that's not
Speaker 52: a bad thing. We need people to go hand out flyers.
Speaker 52: We need to inform people as far as what this
Speaker 52: is to get people involved, but like as non violent
Speaker 52: as you can get, and still they're going to treat
Speaker 52: you like your fucking al Qaeda, you know, and it
Speaker 52: puts you in a weird position because then it's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 52: if you're going to treat us the exact same for
Speaker 52: being nonviolent, why not do crime. If the police response
Speaker 52: to an assault on an outpost that drove the police
Speaker 52: out and burned five things down, the police response to
Speaker 52: fifteen people handing out flyers downtown are going to be
Speaker 52: about the same, then why not take more militant radical action?
Speaker 1: The twenty three people arrested on Sunday, March fifth were
Speaker 1: not arrested as anyone was torching equipment. They were not
Speaker 1: arrested at the power line cut. It was people who
Speaker 1: were attending a music festival. Arrests were not widely targeted
Speaker 1: against people who police knew were engaged in property destruction.
Speaker 1: They were targeted against anyone the cops could grab. Same
Speaker 1: was the case at the January twenty first action, where
Speaker 1: people were marching downtown Saturday after Tortugita was killed. The
Speaker 1: only people arrested and subsequently charged with domestic terrorism was
Speaker 1: anyone the police could get their hands on. Officers went
Speaker 1: after people who were carrying banners the entire duration of
Speaker 1: the march. It was not targeted against people who were
Speaker 1: engaged in militant action. Among all this talk of police
Speaker 1: repression and multiple raids, it's easy to overlook that throughout
Speaker 1: the week people still sought opportunities for finding joy and resistance,
Speaker 1: because most people wouldn't dedicate years of their life to
Speaker 1: this if it was just miserable battles with police the
Speaker 1: whole time.
Speaker 2: I think one thing that's been lost in all of this, too,
Speaker 2: is all of the lighthearted events that have continued to
Speaker 2: go on through the week, and like the joy of
Speaker 2: the movement that was represented in the Bouncy Castle rip.
Speaker 1: But that joy is continuing in the woods, like people
Speaker 1: have still continued to camp in the woods. People still
Speaker 1: having dinner in the woods, people are still having camp fires,
Speaker 1: people are still talking the woods. It is still a
Speaker 1: place that people are gathering at and are enjoying each other.
Speaker 1: This company in now are enjoying the woods, and it
Speaker 1: is a place that the morale has never been fully crushed.
Speaker 3: The moral has never been fully crushed.
Speaker 2: And like the participatory acts of the Week of Action
Speaker 2: are continuing like none of that has been quashed.
Speaker 1: An example of the joyful, continuous resistance during the Week
Speaker 1: of Action can be found at the youth rally that
Speaker 1: happened on Saturday the eleventh.
Speaker 10: All right, So I'm at the youth rally Saturday.
Speaker 1: After the warrant was served on the meetup spot in
Speaker 1: Southeast Atlanta. There's around two hundred people marching through East
Speaker 1: Village in Atlanta. Pretty pretty joyous group here actually, and
Speaker 1: they're actually like on the streets.
Speaker 10: This is the first time we've had a large march
Speaker 10: like this.
Speaker 1: Take to the streets because every action that was in
Speaker 1: downtown or midtown Atlanta was just so heavily surveilled by
Speaker 1: police who were not letting anyone get near the street
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 10: But there's no police here.
Speaker 1: They were busy doing the search war and so this
Speaker 1: group is actually is actually able to take to the streets.
Speaker 1: It's like everyone everyone kind of in this area of
Speaker 1: Atlanta is pretty pretty pro pro this little protest here.
Speaker 1: There's like workers from the little shops and stores nodding
Speaker 1: along Bullden County.
Speaker 2: Shares just walked by the march like on there, just
Speaker 2: you know, off shift workout routine, wearing Fulden County gear.
Speaker 10: That's pretty funny.
Speaker 1: People dancing in the streets, Families walking with their kids
Speaker 1: through the streets all right, walking around the park that
Speaker 1: the youth rally started at, and the press conference about
Speaker 1: the raid this morning just ended at there's as you
Speaker 1: can probably hear kids playing in the park.
Speaker 10: People are handing out food.
Speaker 1: It's a massive, massive amount of food just in the
Speaker 1: middle of the park with all these tables set up. Overall,
Speaker 1: this is kind of one of the more joyous events
Speaker 1: that we've had since the initial Saturday rally at Gresham Park,
Speaker 1: just with the amount of food, the amount of kids
Speaker 1: just running around and playing, all the information tables that
Speaker 1: are handing out literature and giving you know, making connections
Speaker 1: with people. Yeah, when I was down here in January,
Speaker 1: the mood was very somber. The mood was very grim
Speaker 1: like coming to the vigil when there was the destroyed
Speaker 1: remains of the gazebo, the torn up parking lot, all
Speaker 1: of the trees in there still within their like winter
Speaker 1: state with all of the leaves gone. Everything was very
Speaker 1: kind of barren. And the first thing I noticed on
Speaker 1: Saturday as we were marching is like there's new life
Speaker 1: springing in the woods. There's this invigorated sense of the
Speaker 1: almost assurance of victory that people are carrying with them
Speaker 1: as they take action. And I think that really does
Speaker 1: change what the action you take is, and that does
Speaker 1: change the types of results that people will see. Is
Speaker 1: if they go at this with the idea that we
Speaker 1: are going to win this.
Speaker 2: And I think that that is kind of why the
Speaker 2: non violent direct actions have become like that have moved
Speaker 2: to the floor. Right when you think that you're going
Speaker 2: to lose and you have nothing to lose, you engage
Speaker 2: in these incredibly radical actions because what else are you
Speaker 2: going to do. And then when you have this belief
Speaker 2: that no, we can win, we just have to find
Speaker 2: that pathway.
Speaker 1: And that is a part of the diversity of tactics
Speaker 1: is using both of those and almost every ecological movement
Speaker 1: that's been successful has demonstrated that the pathway to success
Speaker 1: is often paved with a diversity of tactics, with people
Speaker 1: doing non violent action at noon, which will pull a
Speaker 1: massive militarized police response as people are doing regular ass shit.
Speaker 1: And then a part of diversity of tactics is also
Speaker 1: people leaving a music festival to go towards a bulldozer,
Speaker 1: and both both of those things are a diversity of tactics.
Speaker 1: Now I stand by most of that statement. However, where
Speaker 1: issues can arise when there is a ticking clock and
Speaker 1: during the time spent looking for this pathway, the enemy
Speaker 1: meanwhile is making steady progress. Issues may also arise when
Speaker 1: a large diversity of tactics is shoved under just one roof.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of conversations with movement participants regarding
Speaker 1: the direct action that happened on Sunday night and how
Speaker 1: it cast a shadow of repression over the whole week
Speaker 1: of action to synthesize the many conversations. In general, most
Speaker 1: people thought that what physically happened was good. The actual
Speaker 1: actions at the North Gate were successful and justified. But
Speaker 1: there are other things on the periphery of that action
Speaker 1: that make it slightly more complicated.
Speaker 18: And now we can have lots of questions about tactics
Speaker 18: and cost benefit analysis about that action, which I did
Speaker 18: not think it would be wise, especially being so visible
Speaker 18: for me to have to be anywhere near on that day.
Speaker 18: We can have questions about that. But what was for
Speaker 18: certain was that the way in which the police responded
Speaker 18: was absurd and predictably so.
Speaker 8: Now with the destruction that I saw, etc.
Speaker 18: It cost them less than a million dollars and maybe
Speaker 18: like two weeks actually of construction that they were.
Speaker 8: Pushed back max. These are like max numbers.
Speaker 18: Was that worth twenty three people being arrested and quaching
Speaker 18: what could have been a larger occupation and wider participation
Speaker 18: and wider buying in the movement. Instead, by the time
Speaker 18: we got to Monday, the clergy was having to do
Speaker 18: clean up rather than like cast division of what the
Speaker 18: world could be, And so these are trade offs right
Speaker 18: where even though we have to be very clear about
Speaker 18: what a diversity of tactics means and also a separation
Speaker 18: of time and space. So I mean, we can't just
Speaker 18: look at a diversity of tactics and everybody does what
Speaker 18: they want as if they're operating in asylo, but rather
Speaker 18: we give space for one another to do different things
Speaker 18: that may work, respectful of the fact that some of
Speaker 18: our actions may affect one another.
Speaker 1: In the lead up to the Week of Action, nighttime
Speaker 1: sabotage actions decreased around Atlanta in favor of these big
Speaker 1: public demos during daylight. That seems to result in more
Speaker 1: people getting arrested. And one of the results of Sunday's
Speaker 1: action happening in such close proximity to the festival and
Speaker 1: the encampments is that the people at the festival and
Speaker 1: in the woods who did not consent to participating in
Speaker 1: a high profile direct action got disproportionately hit with the
Speaker 1: immediate repression from police. A lot of the people who
Speaker 1: were arrested were completely unaware of the actions that took
Speaker 1: place at the North Gate. Even if those actions were
Speaker 1: one hundred percent justified in the end, it still creates
Speaker 1: a dynamic with an unequal distribution of police violence. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously the woods are an inherently dangerous place to be
Speaker 1: and people are not responsible for actions that police choose
Speaker 1: to take. But there are still considerations to be had
Speaker 1: regarding the proximity of space and time when engaging in
Speaker 1: more risky actions, and how the consequences of those actions
Speaker 1: may affect people who did not consent to participating in
Speaker 1: actions at other locations, especially when people are lulled into
Speaker 1: a false sense of safety by claiming that police have
Speaker 1: never cracked down hard in the forest during previous weeks
Speaker 1: of action.
Speaker 52: Yeah, in terms of the actions done Sunday, in reference
Speaker 52: to a group of people assaulting a like police position,
Speaker 52: driving them out with force, and then burning their shit,
Speaker 52: that was all good, and we should not denounce that
Speaker 52: A step away from it. It only harms the movement
Speaker 52: to back away from radical action and act like there
Speaker 52: are definitions of good or bad protesters, because eventually the
Speaker 52: logical conclusion of that is snitching, and that only furthers
Speaker 52: like the GBI's motivations to tear the movement apart. What
Speaker 52: went wrong Sunday is as a result of two things
Speaker 52: it's one that the police used indiscriminate violence when people
Speaker 52: beat them. They were beaten, they got angry, and they
Speaker 52: were beaten because they got their shit rock by like fireworks.
Speaker 52: And then they use in discriminate violence against people who
Speaker 52: they knew were on the side of like where the
Speaker 52: events were that weren't where all the militants were coming
Speaker 52: back from. They didn't want to go up against those
Speaker 52: people because they're cowards. And second, because of how big
Speaker 52: the movement's gotten over the past two years, the strategy
Speaker 52: of the Weeks of Action has stagnated. It's made it
Speaker 52: so work, so compact in a singular week that when
Speaker 52: you have all the diversity of tactics that exist within
Speaker 52: Defend the Atlanta Forest and stop Coop City, those tactics,
Speaker 52: with how big everything is now, they start to step
Speaker 52: on each other's toes. They can hurt each other sometimes
Speaker 52: because yeah, not everyone who was at the RC field
Speaker 52: was like ready for the consequences of like a militant
Speaker 52: radical action like that. And that doesn't mean that the
Speaker 52: action wasn't good or justified, because the action was wildly successful.
Speaker 52: There were no arrests made at that action. There were
Speaker 52: a rest made when the police got angry and used
Speaker 52: indiscriminate violence because they were pissed off and they wanted.
Speaker 1: To riot, so they retaliated at a music festival that
Speaker 1: was happening nearby.
Speaker 52: Yes, and that's the fault of nobody but the police.
Speaker 52: That's not the fault of the people who went and
Speaker 52: assaulted that outpost. That's only the fault of the police,
Speaker 52: and really the fault of a bad long term strategy
Speaker 52: of two heavily compacting factors of you know, being just
Speaker 52: like a weak and where making it so this movement
Speaker 52: where people can take radical action, it feels so limited
Speaker 52: to just inside the forest because that puts people in
Speaker 52: harm's way, and that put people in harms way, including
Speaker 52: the people who you know, went and did the thing
Speaker 52: on Sunday. But no, it would be wrong as the
Speaker 52: movement to like balk out a radical action like that.
Speaker 52: Radical action like that is such a big part of
Speaker 52: why this movement has been as successful as it has been.
Speaker 52: It's a huge part of why the police did do
Speaker 52: like a full sweep or a larger sweep or a
Speaker 52: series of raids in the following days because they were
Speaker 52: afraid that those three hundred to four hundred people who
Speaker 52: hit that out posts were lying and waiting in the forest,
Speaker 52: ready to attack them because they were afraid of militant
Speaker 52: radical action.
Speaker 1: On Thursday, when I was in front of the APF building,
Speaker 1: I could like hear some of the supervisors and coordinators
Speaker 1: talking about being scared of ambushes or like being scared
Speaker 1: of splinter groups, like being staged to attack officers. It's
Speaker 1: it's bizarre how fearful they are. Of the types of
Speaker 1: people who are opposing the cop city project, they're.
Speaker 52: The most afraid of the people who are willing to
Speaker 52: go do physical violence to them, and not even physical violence,
Speaker 52: but people who are just willing to like throw a
Speaker 52: rock at them or like a firework. Once they realize
Speaker 52: that they haven't paralyzed somebody with fear, once they realize
Speaker 52: that they have not made you so afraid of taking action,
Speaker 52: they become such cowards.
Speaker 1: In the aftermath of the police killing forest defender Tortigita,
Speaker 1: law enforcement agencies tried to claim that Tortigita shot at
Speaker 1: the first leaving one officer injured, but recently released findings
Speaker 1: from multiple autopsies have cast more doubt on the state's
Speaker 1: version of events. On the afternoon of Friday, March tenth,
Speaker 1: Towards the end of the week of action, the family
Speaker 1: of Tortighita released the findings of an independent autopsy done
Speaker 1: by former GBI Chief Medical Examiner, doctor Chris Sperry. The
Speaker 1: results suggested that Tortighito was sitting cross legged with their
Speaker 1: hands in front of their face when shot and bullet
Speaker 1: exit wounds through the palms of both of their hands.
Speaker 1: The family ordered autopsy also did not find any evidence
Speaker 1: of gunshot residue from a GSR test kit. And then
Speaker 1: a month later, De Cab County released the results of
Speaker 1: their official autopsy, which found at least fifty seven bullet
Speaker 1: wounds across Tortigita's body and according to this autopsy, torte
Speaker 1: did not have any gunpowder residue on its hands. Then,
Speaker 1: a few days later, via a public records request, the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Community Press Collective received the gunshot residue test kit
Speaker 1: from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's crime Lab. The document
Speaker 1: contained the names of six Georgia State Patrol SWAT members
Speaker 1: who shot and killed Tortigita, Bryland L. Myers, Jerry A. Parish,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Salceda, Jonathan Mark lamb Ronaldo Kegel, and Royce Zaw,
Speaker 1: with Zaw being the subject of a lawsuit after he
Speaker 1: shot a protester in the face with a les lethal
Speaker 1: round during the George Floyd protests in May of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: The document also included the results of the GBI's crime
Speaker 1: lab report, claiming that they found quote the presence of
Speaker 1: more than five particles characteristic of gunshot primer residue unquote
Speaker 1: from a test kit, with the report also stating quote,
Speaker 1: it should be noted that it is possible for a
Speaker 1: victim of gunshot wounds to have gas are present on
Speaker 1: their hands, considering that among the more than fifty seven
Speaker 1: gunshot wounds were entrance and exit wounds on Tortighita's hands,
Speaker 1: which could be caused for gunshot residue if the crime
Speaker 1: lab findings are genuine. The findings do not point to
Speaker 1: any specific interpretation of events, as it's not unusual to
Speaker 1: find primer residue on the hands of a victim following
Speaker 1: the path of a bullet. Plus, coupled with the ever
Speaker 1: changing story from the GBI, on the ground chatter from
Speaker 1: APD officers claiming that Georgia State Patrol quote fucked their
Speaker 1: own officer Upot. As well as reports from forced defenders
Speaker 1: from the day of the shooting, there is indication that
Speaker 1: Georgia State Patrol most likely suffered from so called friendly fire,
Speaker 1: with many people believing that the killing of Tortighita was
Speaker 1: essentially an execution.
Speaker 10: Instant.
Speaker 1: Reports obtained via public records requests also revealed that GSP
Speaker 1: fired a quote unquote, a Leslie Thual pepperball gun at
Speaker 1: d Tortighita's tent as SWAT initially approached, once again contradicting
Speaker 1: the claims made by GBI officials in the months since
Speaker 1: the killing. As the week came to a close on Sunday,
Speaker 1: March eleventh, a memorial service for Tortighita was held in
Speaker 1: the Malani Forest, where Tort's family spread their ashes in
Speaker 1: the forest it died to protect. I attended the Sunday
Speaker 1: morning memorial. The sky opened up and poured down rain
Speaker 1: in South Atlanta throughout the whole morning. Hundreds of people
Speaker 1: gathered in Wollanne People's Park to light candles under a
Speaker 1: canopy and hear from Towrt's family. Then, led by Tortighita's mother,
Speaker 1: we walked through the forest to the site of the shooting,
Speaker 1: where a banner hung that read, quote on this ground
Speaker 1: gsp assassinated forest defender, comrade, friend, lover Tortigita unquote. Family
Speaker 1: and friends spread Tortigita's ashes throughout the woods along the
Speaker 1: path to quote Candice burned in truth out. In contrast
Speaker 1: to its tumultuous start, Sunday's vigil and ceremony provided a
Speaker 1: somber and heartfelt close to the fifth week of Action.
Speaker 1: I met up with Matthew Johnson after the memorial to
Speaker 1: discuss the week of Action, and we briefly touched on
Speaker 1: the memorial in the forest.
Speaker 8: I think that.
Speaker 18: We have to hold space for very real grief. We
Speaker 18: lost a friend, and at the same time, just two
Speaker 18: days ago, on a Friday, what we always knew to
Speaker 18: be true was found to clearly be true. Tortigita was murdered,
Speaker 18: and we have to bear the burner of that pain.
Speaker 18: And all the people in power lied and even gave
Speaker 18: their condolences to a state trooper that seemed.
Speaker 8: As if he was shot by a state trooper.
Speaker 18: And did not say a mumbling word to even acknowledge
Speaker 18: our friend's existence and the value of their life. And
Speaker 18: this morning was beautiful. I had been able to meet
Speaker 18: Bilkis Tortugita's mother previously, and she really does have a
Speaker 18: beautiful spirit. I've really grown appreciation for that family, and
Speaker 18: just to see just how large these gatherings were like
Speaker 18: throughout the week, even in spite of the hoopla and
Speaker 18: the opening weekend, it was very encouraging. But in a
Speaker 18: lot of ways, Tortugita has become the face of this
Speaker 18: movement because they really did light up wherever they were.
Speaker 18: One thing that's gotten me through thinking about when you
Speaker 18: would just see them sometimes and they would just give
Speaker 18: you the biggest, like cheesiest smile, like out of nowhere.
Speaker 8: I just.
Speaker 18: And like that like got me through the first week
Speaker 18: after their passing. Yeah, but I've grown a great appreciation
Speaker 18: for that family because in so many ways, tord Ti
Speaker 18: Gita is their hero. And just learn how consistent they
Speaker 18: were as like such a welcoming and loving and caring
Speaker 18: person just meant so much. I mean to know that
Speaker 18: this wasn't something new that they had stumbled upon. They
Speaker 18: had lived this whole life of caring and making space
Speaker 18: for others.
Speaker 1: Some of Toward's friends have raised concerns that a side
Speaker 1: effect of toward unwittingly becoming the face of the movement,
Speaker 1: is that the details around their death have eclipsed some
Speaker 1: of what they died fighting for in doing so, stripping
Speaker 1: toward of their individuality and removing their own agency to
Speaker 1: turn them into this perfect liberal, friendly avatar of the
Speaker 1: movement to simply be used as a political tool and
Speaker 1: add to a list of demands.
Speaker 52: There's a thing that's been happening more and more recently
Speaker 52: that I've been bothered by, which is when organizations, specifically
Speaker 52: more liberal organizations, are invoking towards name actions, they're misgendering
Speaker 52: the hell out of them, and it's alienating a lot
Speaker 52: of people. And I understand that Sunday's action alienated a
Speaker 52: lot of liberal orgs. This is a problem with the
Speaker 52: week of Action type strategy, with the diversity of tactics
Speaker 52: all being forced under one roof. But we cannot stand
Speaker 52: to alienate each other. And it's really frustrating and really
Speaker 52: angering to see this really beautiful soul be flattened into
Speaker 52: just a murder that these liberals want them to be,
Speaker 52: stripping them of so much of their life and what
Speaker 52: was a revolutionary life and a revolutionary death into just
Speaker 52: martyrdom by taking away their identity and who they were
Speaker 52: and making them nothing more than someone who was murdered
Speaker 52: when they were someone who is living such a full
Speaker 52: and beautiful life until the day they died. And this
Speaker 52: movement will tear itself apart if we do not accept
Speaker 52: the fullness of towards life, what it stood for, and
Speaker 52: what they live for. This movement has always been built
Speaker 52: on a lot of trans people in the woods fucking
Speaker 52: the cops up, and if we alienate those people were fucked,
Speaker 52: there's no winning and we can't lose. We don't have
Speaker 52: a choice about this anymore. We have to win by
Speaker 52: any means necessary.
Speaker 1: That will wrap up our day to day coverage of
Speaker 1: the entire week of action, but much has happened in
Speaker 1: the intervening two months, so in the next episode we'll
Speaker 1: cover where the movement is now, discuss the future of
Speaker 1: the fight to stop Cop City, and offer a more
Speaker 1: critical retrospective on the fifth week of action. See you
Speaker 1: on the other side, welcome back to it could happen here.
Speaker 1: This is a bonus fifth episode following my coverage of
Speaker 1: the Stop Coop City Week of Action in.
Speaker 10: March of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: This will be a more critical retrospective on the week
Speaker 1: as a whole and offer a glimpse into what the
Speaker 1: movement might look like in the next few months as
Speaker 1: we are rapidly approaching summer. In the last episode, we
Speaker 1: talked about the police repression of protests and demonstrations as
Speaker 1: they happen, but we have yet to mention the various
Speaker 1: methods of state repression the movement is facing.
Speaker 10: Day to day.
Speaker 1: Repression for the Week of Action started well before the
Speaker 1: kickoff rally in Gresham Park. Emails from early February obtained
Speaker 1: via public records requests found that the Atlanta Police Foundation
Speaker 1: and its contractors were waiting for quote indictments to the
Speaker 1: leaders unquote of the Stopcob City and Defend the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Forest movement to quote the Atlantic Community Press Collective. In
Speaker 1: a February third email to APF board members, the director
Speaker 1: of Public Affairs, Rob Baskin, calls the Defend the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Forest and Stop Coop City movement a quote conspiracy of
Speaker 1: protesters against the Public Safety Training Center investigated by a
Speaker 1: consortium of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies unquote.
Speaker 1: Baskin promised the APF Board in an email quote that
Speaker 1: the recent arrests, our receipt of the land and disturbance permit,
Speaker 1: the mayor's announcement of the project will be moving forward,
Speaker 1: and the continued investigation by law enforcement will dampen activists' efforts.
Speaker 1: We will likely see more indictments in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1: Back in February, Brestfield and Gory, the general contractor for
Speaker 1: the project, planned to mobilize for land clearing around April,
Speaker 1: but told the Atlanta Police Foundation that subcontractor bidding wouldn't
Speaker 1: happen quote until indictments have happened unquote, And then, of course,
Speaker 1: a few weeks later, twenty three people were charged with
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism at a music festival. Matt from the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Community Press Collective talked about the history of domestic terrorism
Speaker 1: charges in the movement and how they affected bail proceedings.
Speaker 2: The domestic terrorism charges go back to the middle of December,
Speaker 2: that's when the first of them happened, and up until
Speaker 2: the week of action, there have been a total of
Speaker 2: nineteen arrest or individuals who have been charged with domestic
Speaker 2: terrorism and then of those people, anyone who did not
Speaker 2: have either a Georgia license or could not prove like
Speaker 2: Georgia residency, they were all initially denied bond, but everyone
Speaker 2: who lives here they were able to get bond. Before
Speaker 2: the bond hearing, we're kind of there are discussions that
Speaker 2: there's no way that they're going to hold twenty three
Speaker 2: people without bond with on such flimsy evidence.
Speaker 1: That's the most people that have been arrested and held
Speaker 1: in one day. It really is in relation to the
Speaker 1: movement so far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the largest mass arrest of the movement,
Speaker 2: So it's kind of inconceivable for twenty three people to
Speaker 2: be held without bond. So we get to the bail hearing.
Speaker 2: The first person has their mother come on. Their lawyer
Speaker 2: brings their mother on, who swears essentially on like every
Speaker 2: religious text ever written, that her child will immediately go
Speaker 2: home with her and she will personally bring her child
Speaker 2: back to every court hearing and her child will have no,
Speaker 2: you know, further contact with the movement and all of
Speaker 2: these things. And the judge denies the bond. So at
Speaker 2: that point it's like, okay, there, you know, I guess
Speaker 2: we're going to go back to the old thing. If
Speaker 2: you can't prove residency, you're you're you're not getting out.
Speaker 2: It was like person number five is from Athens, Georgia,
Speaker 2: which is about an hour outside of Atlanta, and the
Speaker 2: judge denies her bond, not because the judge thinks she's
Speaker 2: a flight risk, but because she is a threat to
Speaker 2: the community. And that was the moment where the understanding changed.
Speaker 2: It was like, oh no, like nobody's getting out of me.
Speaker 1: Yes, this isn't this isn't a real this isn't a
Speaker 1: real bond. Here at the press conference after the leaf raid,
Speaker 1: Kamal Franklin from the Community Movement Builders spoke about it
Speaker 1: the years of state repression against people fighting to stop
Speaker 1: Cop City.
Speaker 39: This movement has been repressed by the states, by the
Speaker 39: city since its very beginnings. When we first started organizing
Speaker 39: in twenty twenty one, where we had rallies in demonstration,
Speaker 39: we would have police break them up, throw people to
Speaker 39: the ground, pepper spray them, and arrest them. We had
Speaker 39: over twenty arrest in our first years of rallying and
Speaker 39: demonstrating against Cop City.
Speaker 3: At the time, those.
Speaker 39: Folks were charged with resisting arrests, obstruction of governmental administration,
Speaker 39: and then the police decided to step up their tactics,
Speaker 39: and they started to form a task force, a task
Speaker 39: force that included at the Atlanta Police so, the Cab
Speaker 39: County Police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia State Troopers,
Speaker 39: the Federal Bureau of Investigation at Homeland Security, where they
Speaker 39: began to talk about bringing charges of domestic terrorism against
Speaker 39: organizers and activists. And so now we're coming to a
Speaker 39: point where they're raiding houses, where they're telling organizers and
Speaker 39: activists that they can't stand on corners and legally give
Speaker 39: out leaflets.
Speaker 2: And then the judge kept saying like, I'm not here
Speaker 2: to hear anything on evidentiary claims and I'm not here
Speaker 2: to engage with the domestic terrorism statute. Like both of
Speaker 2: those were I think very valid things that defense attorneys
Speaker 2: kept bringing up, because.
Speaker 10: Yeah, they're problematic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the defense attorneys mentioned that the way
Speaker 1: people are being charged with domestic terrorism right now doesn't
Speaker 1: really have any legal basis in the state of Georgia
Speaker 1: because the terrorism law works as like an enhancement for
Speaker 1: other folonial charges, and these people aren't being charged with
Speaker 1: anything besides domestic terrorism. There's no evidence these people committed
Speaker 1: any actual crimes. So they're just being charged with terrorism.
Speaker 1: This like nebulous concept. The judge said that the legal
Speaker 1: basis of these claims will have to be decided on
Speaker 1: another day. Similarly, they said that in regards to actual
Speaker 1: evidence that these people charged did any crimes, she said
Speaker 1: that she had none of this evidence in front of
Speaker 1: her and that evidence is for another day. One of
Speaker 1: the main reasons the judge said that defendants were denied
Speaker 1: bond was due to quote a lack of ties to
Speaker 1: community in Atlanta. But regarding this ties to the community aspect,
Speaker 1: the judge had this weird double standard. There was this
Speaker 1: one person arrested and charged who lives with their partner
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, who also had ties to another state where
Speaker 1: they had previously lived. So despite them having ties to
Speaker 1: the community in Atlanta, which was one of the main
Speaker 1: things the judge considered for this one individual, they were
Speaker 1: still denied bond on the basis that this individual also
Speaker 1: has ties to a different community, thus deeming them a
Speaker 1: flight risk even though they currently live in Atlanta. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons that the judge mentioned is based on
Speaker 1: the arrest warrants that she was given for why these
Speaker 1: people were a threat to the community. Is that the
Speaker 1: state claims that they were in possession of metal shields
Speaker 1: as they were being arrested. You know, shields the offensive
Speaker 1: weapon that shows that you are a threat you holding
Speaker 1: a shield. And so first of all, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: funny on us on that on that level.
Speaker 2: When you and I were coming in on Saturday and
Speaker 2: along with the march, we passed by a bunch of shields,
Speaker 2: right and they were kind of placed near the end
Speaker 2: of the path, like in anticipation that there might be
Speaker 2: police presents. And I took pictures of the shields and
Speaker 2: they are evidently plastic shields. There's no way of mistaking
Speaker 2: them for anything other than plastic.
Speaker 1: The plastic five gallon shields that you see almost every
Speaker 1: protest in every city across the country. The cops know
Speaker 1: what these things are. That the fact that they claimed
Speaker 1: that people were arrested carrying metal shields is so ludicrous
Speaker 1: because there was not There was not a single metal
Speaker 1: shield at this music festival. And there's a lot of
Speaker 1: footage of these arrests. I don't there's I've not seen
Speaker 1: evidence that every that any person was arrested that was
Speaker 1: carrying a shield, let alone a metal one.
Speaker 2: There's this weird thing where so typically when you do
Speaker 2: these these bail hearings, the the defense attorneys waive the
Speaker 2: reading of the warrant typically because they have already gone
Speaker 2: over that with their client, and you know, everybody's aware,
Speaker 2: and it just kind of speeds up the process. And
Speaker 2: it was like really notable that these attorneys weren't doing it,
Speaker 2: and once you started to listen to them, you notice
Speaker 2: this very repetitive nature of them. And so about halfway
Speaker 2: through we get to a lawyer who straight up calls
Speaker 2: out the fact that these warrants seem like they were
Speaker 2: just copy pasted.
Speaker 1: Like every single person all the way downline. During the
Speaker 1: first hearing, only one person was let out on bail,
Speaker 1: and they were an NLG legal observer and lawyer at
Speaker 1: the Southern Poverty Law Center. After the week of action,
Speaker 1: on March twenty third, there were a second set of
Speaker 1: bail hearings for ten of the people arrested on March
Speaker 1: fifth at the South River Music Festival. In a rare move,
Speaker 1: the second in command of the State of Georgia's Attorney
Speaker 1: General's office, John Fowler, was deployed to argue against granting
Speaker 1: bond Fowler, along with several top county prosecutors, weaved a
Speaker 1: complex narrative of a grand conspiracy of protesters dating back
Speaker 1: to twenty nineteen, saying that the quote unquote organization behind
Speaker 1: Defend the Forest is responsible for quote one hundred incidents
Speaker 1: nationwide unquote. Fowler claimed that the Force Defenders are a
Speaker 1: well funded group with millions of dollars hiding behind five
Speaker 1: oh one c three nonprofit organizations, and that the so
Speaker 1: called autonomous zone at the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks was
Speaker 1: murdered in twenty twenty, is a part of the same organization.
Speaker 1: Fowler also tempted to tie the use of laser pointers
Speaker 1: in the forest to a racial justice protests in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: as well as a sophisticated communication network of prepaid phones,
Speaker 1: telegram channels, proton mails, and rise up accounts. Prosecutor Lance
Speaker 1: Cross stated that the quote unquote leader of the Defend
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Forest movement never actually goes into the forest. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: to paraphrase a friend of mine. As potentially dangerous as
Speaker 1: claims like these are, it will never stop being funny
Speaker 1: that the state just simply cannot conceive of horizontal organizing
Speaker 1: as like a real thing that exists and not just
Speaker 1: a smoke screen for this shadowy cabal of protesters. Prosecutor
Speaker 1: Lance Cross claimed that anyone at the music festival is
Speaker 1: a party to the crime of the direct action that
Speaker 1: took place around one and a half kilometers away at
Speaker 1: the construction site, and that after the direct action, individuals
Speaker 1: left to return to the other side of the woods,
Speaker 1: crossing over the creek and changing out of their black block.
Speaker 1: For the first defendant. At this hearing, Prosecutor Cross said
Speaker 1: that there's police helicopter video of this first person changing
Speaker 1: out of their black block, but when asked by the
Speaker 1: judge if the state has any evidence that this defendant
Speaker 1: did anything illegal, not just change clothing in a forest,
Speaker 1: the prosecutor was unable to provide any such evidence. This
Speaker 1: defendant received a twenty five thousand dollars bond with a
Speaker 1: stay away from Georgia order and a no contact order
Speaker 1: with any codefendants or anyone associated with the Defend the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Forest movement. Only one other defendant was granted bond
Speaker 1: during this hearing, a second year law student who was
Speaker 1: arrested as they were eating food at a food truck
Speaker 1: At the hearing, they presented letters of support from Tibetan monks,
Speaker 1: a former mayor, numerous academics, and Charlotte's mayor pro tem
Speaker 1: was on the call. Bond was also set at twenty
Speaker 1: five K, along with having to surrender their passport, where
Speaker 1: an ankle monitor, and maintain no contact with co defendants
Speaker 1: nor join any future protests. To paraphrase my friend again,
Speaker 1: these are old Green Scare tactics back in action and
Speaker 1: kicked into high gear. Courts are being used as a
Speaker 1: meat cleaver to hack off and isolate people from their communities,
Speaker 1: regardless of evidence. This is the type of repression that
Speaker 1: courts were born to do. Much of the repression we're
Speaker 1: seeing in Atlanta is a revamped version of the Green
Speaker 1: Scare with additional tactics and knowledge the state gained from
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty protests, including the targeting of jail support
Speaker 1: and bail fund organizations. Another thread in this grand Cabal
Speaker 1: of Forest Defender's narrative that the state was trying to
Speaker 1: weave was that prosecutors claimed that having an Atlanta Solidarity
Speaker 1: Fund jail support number on your person is evidence of
Speaker 1: criminal intent and that the Solidarity Fund is quote being
Speaker 1: investigated as a part of this whole thing unquote. The
Speaker 1: majority of the eight individuals denied bond were not even
Speaker 1: found to be at the site of the direct action,
Speaker 1: and none of the eight individuals had any evidence against
Speaker 1: them showing they committed any crime at that location, but
Speaker 1: were still deemed a risk to the community and denied bond.
Speaker 1: Being held against them is the fact that they had
Speaker 1: a jail support number on their person. As former communications
Speaker 1: director at the Southern Center of Human Rights Hannah Riley said,
Speaker 1: it is a gross irony that a jail support number
Speaker 1: is being framed as evidence of intent to commit crimes,
Speaker 1: where in fact its evidence that we live in a
Speaker 1: horrifying police estate. A defense attorney pointed out that all
Speaker 1: of the warrants had the same bits of evidence copy
Speaker 1: pasted like this alleged possession of a metal shield, to
Speaker 1: which the prosecution claimed this was simply a typo, meaning
Speaker 1: that people were being held in jail based on typos,
Speaker 1: and also the prosecutor responded by saying, quote, there were
Speaker 1: thirty forty fifty shields out there, I can't attest that
Speaker 1: he was carrying one. When referring to a specific defendant
Speaker 1: for one individual denied bond. Prosecutors claimed that they were
Speaker 1: an anarchist based on information provided by Customs and Border Protection,
Speaker 1: and yet no evidence of criminal acts were presented. Extra
Speaker 1: scrutiny was put on two defendants who were foreign nationals,
Speaker 1: with prosecutors wondering how someone from out of country could
Speaker 1: possibly know the solidarity fund of jail support number. A
Speaker 1: defense attorney try to point out that jail support numbers
Speaker 1: are often passed out to everyone present at protests by volunteers,
Speaker 1: and in the case of the circumstances regarding the raid
Speaker 1: of the music festival, panicked concertgoers were instructed to write
Speaker 1: down the jail support number as it became clear that
Speaker 1: police were indiscriminately grabbing people. Deputy Attorney General Fowler argued
Speaker 1: that wearing black clothes at a protest is akin to
Speaker 1: wearing a football uniform indicating a player was part of
Speaker 1: the team who took to the field during the game.
Speaker 1: And even if we may not know they carried the football,
Speaker 1: we do know that they were on the field, which
Speaker 1: I don't even want to get into. But it is
Speaker 1: still a fact that the majority of people were denied
Speaker 1: bond because some had black clothing mud on their shoes
Speaker 1: and ran from police. This is what made them a
Speaker 1: quote unquote threat to our community, and this is the
Speaker 1: evidence being used against people who were allegedly engaged in
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism. Near the end of the hearing, the judge
Speaker 1: claimed that everyone is presumed innocent and that the state
Speaker 1: does have to bear the burden of proof beyond a
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt at some point, but not now. During this
Speaker 1: spell hearing, one of the claims was that the reason
Speaker 1: why people were arrested is because they had mud on
Speaker 1: their clothes. The night before the festival started, there was
Speaker 1: a tornado warning in Atlanta. I forgot about that and
Speaker 1: there was rain, which makes I don't know if the
Speaker 1: prosecutors know this, but when rain mixes with dirt, it
Speaker 1: creates something called that we that we refer to as mud.
Speaker 1: So when people are, you know, at this music festival
Speaker 1: in a field full of dirt, they might get mud
Speaker 1: on their clothes.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so if you've ever been to a music festival,
Speaker 2: standing around for a very long period of time really annoying,
Speaker 2: people like to sit down. So I like, my feet
Speaker 2: were caked in mud, and I sat down a few times.
Speaker 10: I'm I'm my docker partons are still caked in mud.
Speaker 2: Not to mention the parking lot completely torn up, covered
Speaker 2: in mud, and as I mentioned earlier, the you know
Speaker 2: the person having like fill in mud all along the
Speaker 2: trails with gravel, So there's mud everywhere, and it is
Speaker 2: an inescapable fact of just being in both the forest
Speaker 2: and the festival.
Speaker 1: At the time of the bail hearings, they've very clearly
Speaker 1: had no evidence linking individuals to crimes, so the best
Speaker 1: they could come up with was metal shields and mud,
Speaker 1: two things things that are completely nonsense. There was no
Speaker 1: metal shields and oh wow, you have mud on your
Speaker 1: You have mud on your clothing. This is why you're
Speaker 1: a terrorist. During the hearing, a defense lawyer alleged that
Speaker 1: the twelve people who were detained at the music festival
Speaker 1: but not arrested and were later released at Gresham Park
Speaker 1: were all from Atlanta, and by releasing these twelve locals,
Speaker 1: police can claim that the people arrested were from fourteen
Speaker 1: different states, which is obviously part of an attempt to
Speaker 1: continue accelerating the outside agitator narrative that they've been pushing
Speaker 1: out since last in December.
Speaker 2: Of the twenty three who were charged. Only two had
Speaker 2: the Georgia licenses, the person from Athens and the legal deserver.
Speaker 2: The rest were out of state and two were out
Speaker 2: of country. So at one point during the proceedings the
Speaker 2: bail proceedings, one of the lawyers says that from what
Speaker 2: they understand, the twelve individuals who were let go Sunday
Speaker 2: night all had in state licenses. So it does appear
Speaker 2: that APD released people to continue this outside agitator narrative
Speaker 2: that they have been using for months now, since May,
Speaker 2: since early summer.
Speaker 1: Prosecutor Cross responded to claims that detained local Atlantans were
Speaker 1: let go by saying that the people released were interviewed,
Speaker 1: did not have the jail support number on their arm,
Speaker 1: and quote unquote knew little about the movement. At a
Speaker 1: press conference, Marlin from the Solidarity Fund talked about how
Speaker 1: repression has taken form and concerns of what other tactics
Speaker 1: the state may try to employ.
Speaker 51: No evidence has besially presented to support any of these
Speaker 51: claims of domestic terrorism, including on the other eighteen people
Speaker 51: who've been given this charge previously. In this movement, police
Speaker 51: some prosecutors are not involved in a law enforcement effort
Speaker 51: they're involved in a political campaign to suppress a political
Speaker 51: movement which they find objectionable because as the police, they
Speaker 51: have a vested interest in the construction of cop City.
Speaker 51: From a civil liberties perspective, we find this very concerning.
Speaker 51: We find it to be an abuse of power, and
Speaker 51: we're committed to ensuring that all of the activists who
Speaker 51: are targeted have access to the legal resources that they need,
Speaker 51: not only to defend themselves from these bogus charges, but
Speaker 51: also civil litigation against police who have abused their power
Speaker 51: and violated people's rights. We are concerned about the possibility
Speaker 51: that prosecutors may try to use RICO.
Speaker 50: Charges against organizers.
Speaker 51: Because RICO is understood as a way of suppressing organizations,
Speaker 51: and the narrative that we've seen coming from police and
Speaker 51: prosecutors is their belief that the broad and diverse stop
Speaker 51: Cop City movement is in fact a criminal conspiracy whose
Speaker 51: members conspire to commit acts of terrorism.
Speaker 50: This could not be further from the truth.
Speaker 51: This is like a clear misrepresentation of a broad movement
Speaker 51: that encompasses all of society. But this is the narrative
Speaker 51: that prosecutors are trying to promulgate to make it easier
Speaker 51: to target activists.
Speaker 1: In the intervening month and a half, five more people
Speaker 1: were led out on bond. Then, on May third, a
Speaker 1: series of preliminary hearings took place for the last three
Speaker 1: people being held into Cab County Jail from amongst the
Speaker 1: twenty three individuals arrested at the music festival and charged
Speaker 1: with domestic terrorism. Before the changes to the law in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, the State of Georgia required ten or more
Speaker 1: people to be killed for domestic terrorism charges to even
Speaker 1: be filed. During a wave of anti protest bills, while
Speaker 1: citing racially motivated mass shootings. To get the bill passed,
Speaker 1: the State of Georgia removed any death threshold and essentially
Speaker 1: replaced it with references to property damage. To quote a
Speaker 1: write up by the Atlantic Community Press Collective Quote, the
Speaker 1: Cab County Magistrate, Judge James Altman explained that he decided
Speaker 1: whether to uphold the charges based on two criteria. The
Speaker 1: first was whether prosecutors provided enough evidence to satisfy the
Speaker 1: conditions set forth in the Georgia Domestic Terrorism Statute, namely
Speaker 1: the threat to critical infrastructure. The second criteria prosecutors needed
Speaker 1: to meet was identification or their ability to show that
Speaker 1: the defendants were each a party to the alleged crimes
Speaker 1: committed on March fifth, quote, and it's worth noting that
Speaker 1: the threshold for probable cause is much lower than the
Speaker 1: threshold needed to convict someone of a crime. In opening arguments,
Speaker 1: Assistant da Lance Cross claimed that Defend the Forest activists
Speaker 1: are well funded and quote have a pretty good propaganda
Speaker 1: arm on social media, and that doing direct action while
Speaker 1: chanting stop Copcity qualifies activists to be charged under the
Speaker 1: Georgia Domestic Terrorism Statute because it's using violence to advocate
Speaker 1: change of government policy. Judge Altman found that the first
Speaker 1: criteria of the domestic terrorism charges were met for all
Speaker 1: three defendants on the basis that setting fires at the
Speaker 1: construction site in such close proximity to a power line
Speaker 1: tower was an attack on critical infrastructure, even if the
Speaker 1: defendants did not themselves start any fires. Georgia Bureau of
Speaker 1: Investigation Special Agent Ryan Long testified that the entire music
Speaker 1: festival was cover for the direct action against the construction site,
Speaker 1: even without evidence of defendants in black bloc or proof
Speaker 1: that they engaged in any destructive acts. Assistant DA Cross
Speaker 1: said that everyone at the site was enabling the destruction
Speaker 1: of the property and as such is party to the crime.
Speaker 1: Due to the assertion that the alleged crimes were only
Speaker 1: possible due to the large size of the crowd, one
Speaker 1: of the state's witnesses, a sergeant of the APD, said
Speaker 1: that he wouldn't be able to recognize anyone who was
Speaker 1: at the site, and that he could not tell if
Speaker 1: the defendant was even in the crowd of people at
Speaker 1: the North Gate, let alone through rocks or set fires.
Speaker 1: Defense argued that mere presence at a location should not
Speaker 1: be automatic aiding and a betting, but Judge Altman said
Speaker 1: there was sufficient evidence presented showing the acts of the
Speaker 1: crowd and that the defendant's presence is at least sufficient
Speaker 1: for being party to the crime, even by simply participating
Speaker 1: at the music festival. One of the hearings was for
Speaker 1: the indigenous person who was tased at the music festival,
Speaker 1: who was specifically witnessed to be there during the duration
Speaker 1: of the direct action. Under questioning from the defense, special
Speaker 1: Agent Long said that the defendant was not visible on
Speaker 1: the helicopter footage of the incident. After initially suggesting that
Speaker 1: the defendant was identified by a helicopter pilot. Long rolled
Speaker 1: that back by saying he was unsure if the chopper
Speaker 1: was able to track the defendant and then had to
Speaker 1: leave to go make a few calls to get a
Speaker 1: more definitive answer, which he failed to provide, But the
Speaker 1: judge still found that the second criteria of identification was
Speaker 1: sufficient to find two of the defendants at least party
Speaker 1: to the actions at the construction site. Special Agent Long
Speaker 1: testified that there is a quot unquot to command structure
Speaker 1: in the Stop Cop City movement and described the movement
Speaker 1: as a pyramid scheme created by activists with different names
Speaker 1: like stop Coop City and Defend the Forest to act
Speaker 1: as little different subgroups to attract new subordinate members to
Speaker 1: operate under leadership. Long asserted that activists pretend to be
Speaker 1: ecologists one day and then anarchists the next to further
Speaker 1: their cause, which once again we have to point out,
Speaker 1: is on one hand, a dangerous thing to claim. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, extremely funny social media posts were brought
Speaker 1: up by prosecutors as evidence linking defendants to criminal acts
Speaker 1: and a conspiracy of terrorism. During the first hearing, Special
Speaker 1: Agent Long claimed that they knew that the defendant was
Speaker 1: at the construction site due to street pool camera footage
Speaker 1: and social media posts allegedly made by the defendant's friend.
Speaker 1: In another hearing, agent Long claimed that on the defendant's
Speaker 1: social media they were posts of stop coop City banners
Speaker 1: and flyers, demonstrating an awareness of the nature of the
Speaker 1: stop cop City movement. The state also cited alleged social
Speaker 1: media posts of the defendant self describing as anti capitalist
Speaker 1: and anti colonial as proof of criminal intent. Near the
Speaker 1: end of the last hearing, Judge Altman said that social
Speaker 1: media posts do not count towards probable cause. However, the
Speaker 1: framing of social media posts by prosecutors as an indication
Speaker 1: of guilt is still cause for alarm, and what gets
Speaker 1: admitted as evidence during trial is still yet to be determined.
Speaker 1: When the prosecution asked if a defendant had a jail
Speaker 1: support number on their arm, the judge noted that, quote
Speaker 1: the existence or non existence of an organization doesn't really
Speaker 1: seem to me as an element of the crime unquote.
Speaker 1: Similar to the March twenty third hearings, Prosecutor Johnson tried
Speaker 1: to argue that the solidarity fund and jail support is
Speaker 1: an arm of the Stop Phpy movement, to which the
Speaker 1: judge reiterated that participation in an alleged organization is not
Speaker 1: part of the crime of domestic terrorism. For one defendant,
Speaker 1: the judge granted bond on the conditions of twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars bail, with the defendant having to turn over
Speaker 1: her passport, a no contact order with other co defendants,
Speaker 1: and no participation in discussion of stop coopsity on social media.
Speaker 1: Bond for the other two defendants was denied. Ultimately, Judge
Speaker 1: Altman upheld the domestic terrorism charges against all three defendants
Speaker 1: on the low barrier of evidence sufficient for ruling probable cause.
Speaker 1: Judge Altman said that, quote whether it gets any further
Speaker 1: than that is not my problem, unquote, and that if
Speaker 1: the DA wanted further charges brought against defendants, he must
Speaker 1: use a grand jury. As the judge did not find
Speaker 1: probable cause for arson or assault on an officer, Judge
Speaker 1: Altman mentioned that he was concerned about alleged witnesses intimidation
Speaker 1: by members of the Defend the Forest movement. Meanwhile, in
Speaker 1: the adjacent Fulton County, there was also a preliminary hearing
Speaker 1: for one of the six people arrested at the protest
Speaker 1: in downtown Atlanta on January twenty first, the Saturday following
Speaker 1: the killing of Tortigita. Judge Ashley Drake upheld a total
Speaker 1: of eight charges, including one of domestic terrorism, and the
Speaker 1: next day the defendant was released on bail. One thing
Speaker 1: of note from this hearing is that Deputy Attorney General
Speaker 1: John Fowler compared the Defend the Forest movement to nine
Speaker 1: eleven by saying, quote, protesters were trying to knock out
Speaker 1: the windows of one to nine to one Peachtree Street.
Speaker 1: That is a dangerous situation. That's a twin towers unquote.
Speaker 1: When talking about the various hearings, I mentioned helicopter and
Speaker 1: street pole camera footage of the direct action on Sunday
Speaker 1: that both prosecutors and the defense were using to support
Speaker 1: their claims, and I think it's worth diving a bit
Speaker 1: deeper into specifically the police helicopter footage, since I like
Speaker 1: keeping up with the methods that police are using to
Speaker 1: surveil and suppress protest. I'm going to start by letting
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Chief Darren Sheerbaum walk us through what was
Speaker 1: able to be observed via helicopter mounted cameras. Based on
Speaker 1: his testimony during the city council meeting that took place
Speaker 1: less than twenty four hours after the incident.
Speaker 30: Individuals were seeing changing out of the clothes that they
Speaker 30: were wearing at the concert and were now dressing themselves
Speaker 30: in all black with backpacks with items fensive nature approaching.
Speaker 30: What we saw is this group moved rather quickly to
Speaker 30: the site for the proposed public safety trading center. They
Speaker 30: move quickly on the group of officers that were assembled there.
Speaker 30: These officers had been stationary at the site protecting the location.
Speaker 30: In the first line, there are individuals with shields that
Speaker 30: are forming The officers attempted to first to de escalate
Speaker 30: by repositioning themselves. You repositioning themselves inside of the fenced
Speaker 30: in area. The officers again start to reposition because they
Speaker 30: can tell this is not a peaceful demonstration. So you
Speaker 30: just start to see smoke occurring as fires are set,
Speaker 30: malotov cocktails are thrown, and fireworks are discharged from our
Speaker 30: air unit that is deployed in the area. You will
Speaker 30: see individuals that have started to move against the officers.
Speaker 30: They will have start throwing rocks fireworks as they are
Speaker 30: pushing the officers in the area where we see individuals
Speaker 30: as another group is engaging the officers with rocks, Malotov
Speaker 30: cocktails and bottles are moving to set fire to the
Speaker 30: various equipments in the area. While you see in the
Speaker 30: left hand of the gentleman with the mask over his
Speaker 30: face is a Malotov cocktail it is being there will
Speaker 30: be accelerants in his hands that will be used also
Speaker 30: to attack some of the construction equipment that is in
Speaker 30: the area. These individuals are massed hide their identity. This
Speaker 30: is playing out across the area that had been previously
Speaker 30: been fenced in.
Speaker 29: There will be generators.
Speaker 30: That are will be destroyed, other pieces of equipment that's
Speaker 30: being destroyed. There you see more accelerant being thrown onto
Speaker 30: the vehicle that is being set on fire.
Speaker 29: And what you see here, ladies.
Speaker 30: And gentlemen, is as some of the individuals that had
Speaker 30: just previously attacked the worksite returned back into the woods.
Speaker 30: They start changing back into the clothes that they were
Speaker 30: just wearing moments before, as they were portraying themselves to
Speaker 30: be attendees of the event that was occurring in the music.
Speaker 30: So it was clear today that we saw repeat of
Speaker 30: what we've seen in the past where events that are
Speaker 30: shown to be peaceful and to being publicized as to
Speaker 30: be peaceful are being used by individuals as cover to
Speaker 30: launch illegal and criminal attacks. We had a rapid response
Speaker 30: from our partners at the Decab County Police Department, the
Speaker 30: Sheriff of Fulton County.
Speaker 29: As well as the Georgia State Patrol.
Speaker 30: Those officers entered into the woods as individuals were attempting
Speaker 30: to flee, hide the weapons they had just used, as
Speaker 30: well as to change their clothing, and we begin to
Speaker 30: make a number of arrest.
Speaker 1: I spoke with the unnamed Forest defender about the surveillance
Speaker 1: capabilities of the state on full display during the week
Speaker 1: of Action.
Speaker 52: I find that the thermal helicopter video fascinating for a
Speaker 52: variety of reasons. One, it's interesting to look at the
Speaker 52: surveillance capacity of the state. It's, to my memory, the
Speaker 52: first time the APD has ever posted their own thermal
Speaker 52: chopper footage. It's a very similar camera to the type
Speaker 52: you would see on a birector on some kind of
Speaker 52: armed unmanned aerial vehicle. What I found most interesting about
Speaker 52: the thermals is exactly how they were using that type
Speaker 52: of targeting software to attract people, and I think it's
Speaker 52: worth people knowing what they were doing with it, so
Speaker 52: we have an idea how to counter it. When you're
Speaker 52: using a software to tract targets on an optical lens,
Speaker 52: at least during a daytime event, thermals are easier because
Speaker 52: it breaks the image up into just two colors white
Speaker 52: and then like black and gray, so they can track
Speaker 52: the body heat shapes of people in white and then
Speaker 52: just click the thermals off, get a snapshot of the
Speaker 52: outfit they're wearing, click the thermals back on, and track
Speaker 52: them easier than it is to track them with just
Speaker 52: a normal camera. This gives them a clear image of
Speaker 52: what they're wearing before they d blocked, and then they
Speaker 52: can go back to tracking that person, follow them to
Speaker 52: where they're de blocking, wait for them to de block,
Speaker 52: get another picture with the regular camera, and then arrest them.
Speaker 52: So that meant that when people were leaving, it was
Speaker 52: advantageous to be deep blocking under overhead cover, under thick brush,
Speaker 52: under thick canopy, out of direct line of site with
Speaker 52: the chopper, you know, not in the open air. It's
Speaker 52: definitely a really hard thing to counter. The surveillance. State's
Speaker 52: one of the things that I find the most fearful
Speaker 52: about the police state. Not like individual beat cops. They're
Speaker 52: guns and shit are cool or whatever, But man, those cameras,
Speaker 52: they're really something.
Speaker 16: You know.
Speaker 52: I think the Portland Police Bureau just got a new
Speaker 52: spy plane and new Sessna loaded up with surveillance equipment
Speaker 52: and shit like that. All that stuff does so much
Speaker 52: more to fuck you up than just like a riot
Speaker 52: team does. You can throw mortars at a riot team. Sorry,
Speaker 52: I shouldn't say mortars. Fireworks that are called mortars.
Speaker 1: My bad.
Speaker 52: Don't want to lean into the explosives narratives. Honestly, they're
Speaker 52: fucking weird about fireworks. But you know, those surveillance capacities
Speaker 52: are one of the hardest things to counter.
Speaker 1: One term that's already come up during our coverage of
Speaker 1: Stop Coop City is Fuco's boomerang, And while that still
Speaker 1: applies here, we're now also kind of getting into some
Speaker 1: panaptocon territory, as shown by this type of surveillance capacity,
Speaker 1: specifically at actions. And one of the biggest reasons why
Speaker 1: the panopticon works is that people are scared of it.
Speaker 1: It scares you away from even taking action in the
Speaker 1: first place.
Speaker 52: And like, as soon as you overcome that paralyzing fear,
Speaker 52: the cops become really afraid of you. That's why we
Speaker 52: say that, like the biggest weapon that the state has
Speaker 52: is fear, because like the cops go from these big,
Speaker 52: fucking tough guys to like whining cowards the second you
Speaker 52: just become not afraid. You don't even have to beat them,
Speaker 52: you don't have to overcome the actual physical weapons. But
Speaker 52: once you get out of that headspace, that paralyzing fear,
Speaker 52: once you let it pass over you and through you,
Speaker 52: they're fucking terrified. And if we're gonna win, we need
Speaker 52: to be their worst nightmare.
Speaker 1: As state repression against the stop cop City movement continues,
Speaker 1: the coalition against the police training facility only continues to grow.
Speaker 1: Last month, Angela Davis returned an award proclamation given to
Speaker 1: her by the Atlanta City Council in protest of cop City.
Speaker 46: If the attempts by the Atlanta Police to build the
Speaker 46: largest police training grounds in the country are successful, this
Speaker 46: will represent a major setback for the movement for radical
Speaker 46: democratic futures, not only throughout the US, but globally as
Speaker 46: well as a person who has participated in campaigns against
Speaker 46: prisons and police for far longer than a half century.
Speaker 46: I want to salute all those who are involved in
Speaker 46: the stop cup City movement, and I want to urge
Speaker 46: people everywhere to find ways to generate support for them.
Speaker 1: Angela Davis made it clear that she stood in solidarity
Speaker 1: with force defenders facing repression from the police and the
Speaker 1: city of Atlanta, and joined in calls to halt the
Speaker 1: construction of this facility, which will only serve as a
Speaker 1: tool to advance what she called militarized police rights and repression.
Speaker 46: Atlanta activists are on the front lines of the abolitionist movement,
Speaker 46: at its crucial intersection with movements to save our forests,
Speaker 46: indeed to save our planet. The attempt to build a
Speaker 46: massive militarized police training facility is a dangerous and ominous
Speaker 46: development that we have to oppose with all our might,
Speaker 46: and so I want to join those who are standing
Speaker 46: strong in defense of the forest against the construction of
Speaker 46: this police training ground. I urge people everywhere to join
Speaker 46: the campaign to stop up City.
Speaker 1: After Angelie Davis's announcement, the Walter Rodney Foundation released a
Speaker 1: statement reporting Davis's decision and against the construction of Cop City.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to see their more mainline sort of center
Speaker 2: or center left like organizations that have begun to come
Speaker 2: on board. Even with what happened Sunday and especially the
Speaker 2: Thursday march and rally, had it necessitated a response from
Speaker 2: the city. So Friday morning there was actually an organization
Speaker 2: concerned Black Clergy who had a press conference like calling
Speaker 2: out Cop City protesters, and so you had this like
Speaker 2: very state run. One of the city council members, Antonio Lewis,
Speaker 2: was there like live streaming at the entire time. And
Speaker 2: so you can tell the efficacy of a lot of
Speaker 2: things that have happened this week by how the city
Speaker 2: is reacting and how like it is necessitating them going
Speaker 2: to greater and greater lengths to like try to show
Speaker 2: that the movement is wrong.
Speaker 1: One way that the city has been working to advocate
Speaker 1: for the further development of the Cop City project is
Speaker 1: by launching a website of their own for the Public
Speaker 1: Safety Training Center full of videos of the mayor and
Speaker 1: police chief walking through South Atlanta trying to convince neighbors
Speaker 1: that the project is a good idea. In the past
Speaker 1: few months. The city has also been turning the official
Speaker 1: City of Atlanta Twitter account into a hilarious copp City
Speaker 1: propaganda outlet. About two weeks after the end of the
Speaker 1: Week of Action, on March twenty fourth, to Cab County
Speaker 1: CEO Michael Thurmond announced an executive order to indefinitely close
Speaker 1: Entrenchment Creek Park, also known as Wallani People's Park, claiming
Speaker 1: that the park was a danger to the public due
Speaker 1: to booby traps allegedly found in the forest. At a
Speaker 1: press conference, Thurman displayed photos of wooden boards with nails
Speaker 1: sticking out of them allegedly found in the park. The
Speaker 1: executive order reads that the park will quote remain closed
Speaker 1: until further notice to protect the safety of the families,
Speaker 1: residents and visit and their pets in the area, and
Speaker 1: to County personnel. A few days after the announcement, to
Speaker 1: Cab police led a joint task force in a raid
Speaker 1: of the Willani Forest and Entrenchment Creek Park. The land
Speaker 1: was effectively cleared of all force defenders, with one person
Speaker 1: being arrested. During the raid, The memorial for Tortigito was
Speaker 1: destroyed by the police and cement barricades were set up
Speaker 1: around the entrances and exits to the park. Days later,
Speaker 1: police and contractors began cutting trees in the Wilani Forest,
Speaker 1: with no one around to resist the destruction. The Solidarity
Speaker 1: Fund to put out a statement saying, quote, closing down
Speaker 1: a public park in order to prevent protests from happening
Speaker 1: in that space is unconstitutional. To CAB CEO Michael Thurmond,
Speaker 1: is trying to do an end run around the First Amendment.
Speaker 1: Dacab County Commissioner Ted Terry is pushing to reopen the
Speaker 1: park through a resolution expected to be introduced in early May.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just the park's closure that made force
Speaker 1: defense more challenging. After the mass action at the North
Speaker 1: Gate in early March, security was greatly increased at the
Speaker 1: construction sites in the Willani Forest, with massive spotlights illuminating
Speaker 1: the area to daylight levels twenty four hours a day,
Speaker 1: which made returning to the sort of night time sabotage
Speaker 1: actions in the forest that pioneered some of the movements
Speaker 1: militancy in its early days to be much more complicated.
Speaker 1: During my conversations with forest defenders, there was still a
Speaker 1: desire to see more of those small sabotage actions as
Speaker 1: the large daytime mass actions seemed to result in more
Speaker 1: people getting arrested near the site of militant activity.
Speaker 52: People are angry, you know, like their friend, our friend
Speaker 52: was murdered. You can just feel however you want about this,
Speaker 52: but like a lot of people and I guess myself included,
Speaker 52: are just really angry. There's this kind of blinding rage
Speaker 52: that comes with it of just like eye for an eye,
Speaker 52: blood for blood. You know that the police killed our
Speaker 52: friend and that they need to hurt for that one,
Speaker 52: and they need to hurt for all the people that
Speaker 52: they've murdered and all the things they're trying to do.
Speaker 52: And that leads people to take actions that may not
Speaker 52: be well thought out, but that are very well intentioned
Speaker 52: and have tangible results that hurt the police state, but
Speaker 52: that are actions that do bring harm to themselves or others,
Speaker 52: because there are not you know, these like middle of
Speaker 52: the night slash and run sabotage attacks that don't have
Speaker 52: arrests happen that are safer. And I think we should
Speaker 52: see a return of that tactic because the level of
Speaker 52: police presence that we saw at all the actions this
Speaker 52: week post Sunday, like doing shit at downtown protests. Fuck that, Like,
Speaker 52: that's not like we're not pulling shit off there without
Speaker 52: a mass arrest or, like everyone's getting gassed. Like it's
Speaker 52: not a tactically advantageous or viable way of doing things.
Speaker 52: But I think people wanted to prove to the cops
Speaker 52: that like, no, no, no, we could open field fuck
Speaker 52: them up. And yeah, there were consequences to that, but
Speaker 52: people fuck them up in the open field, and that's
Speaker 52: worth ap Plotting.
Speaker 1: The bounds of the forest is not the only location
Speaker 1: actions take place. Just about a week after the park
Speaker 1: closure and when some of the clearcutting began, a report
Speaker 1: back was posted online that read quote, on the night
Speaker 1: of Wednesday, April fifth, we set fire to three excavators
Speaker 1: owned by Brent Scarborough Company on a site across from
Speaker 1: the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta. Brent Scarborough is the company
Speaker 1: and individual responsible for clearcutting the Willani Forest. Copcity will
Speaker 1: never be built unquote. The March twenty twenty three week
Speaker 1: of action was always going to be a kind of
Speaker 1: turning point in showcasing what will be seen in the
Speaker 1: struggle to defend the forest to this spring, and how
Speaker 1: that will then lead into the summer and what forms
Speaker 1: of resistance people will choose to take, whether that be
Speaker 1: another singular week of action or take notes from the
Speaker 1: Old Earth First playbook and try to do a whole
Speaker 1: summer of action. How do you kind of see the
Speaker 1: movement too top Cup City like changing or evolving in
Speaker 1: the next few months. I mean, because all this is
Speaker 1: kind of I felt like it's been kind of very
Speaker 1: much on the heels of what happened in January. People
Speaker 1: have tried to, like, you know, just try to find
Speaker 1: new paths of resistance in the wake of the police
Speaker 1: killing r How do you how do you see like
Speaker 1: the fight continuing at this stage where like they have
Speaker 1: some line of Germans permits, there's early construction. What are
Speaker 1: like the avenues of resistance that people are trying to
Speaker 1: go down.
Speaker 18: I think that we have to be very clear in
Speaker 18: assessing what has worked installing the project and what will
Speaker 18: work to stop the project, because those aren't necessarily the
Speaker 18: same things. I think there are nuances in particular strategies.
Speaker 18: There is a difference between especially in our particular context.
Speaker 18: That's similar between the difference between gorilla warfare and urban
Speaker 18: guerrilla warfare and I see that guerilla warfare is more
Speaker 18: so when people have been destroying equipment, you know, at contractors,
Speaker 18: you know, offices or wherever, or like near the forest,
Speaker 18: et cetera, and you could just hide off into the
Speaker 18: woods and just like disappear back into nothingness.
Speaker 8: Nobody gets touched. What we have to look at with.
Speaker 18: The actions at the music festival were it exposed a
Speaker 18: lot of people because and this is once again because
Speaker 18: the police acted so heavy handedly. But we also know
Speaker 18: that the police act heavy handedly, which is why we're here.
Speaker 18: So that gets kind of dicey because that's like kind
Speaker 18: of like urban guerrilla warfare where you have the gorillas
Speaker 18: just shooting paw pa pal and then like running into.
Speaker 8: Somebody's grandma's house.
Speaker 18: People do not fuck with the people that just running
Speaker 18: grandma's house for cover, right, And that's where things get
Speaker 18: a little bit dicey, because in many ways, a lot
Speaker 18: of us were looking at means to open up the
Speaker 18: movement with this week of action, and that was what
Speaker 18: was widely in stood for a lot of people. And nevertheless,
Speaker 18: when you just come in with the boomstick from the beginning,
Speaker 18: that dictates the tone of the rest of the week
Speaker 18: and then where you could, you know, for instance, operate
Speaker 18: from a space of like moral authority. It becomes much
Speaker 18: easier for people on the fence to justify to themselves.
Speaker 8: Well, what are the police supposed to think? Right?
Speaker 18: I mean, we have to realize that there are several
Speaker 18: like mental resistances that have been taught to people for
Speaker 18: them to try to discredit us. And I just I
Speaker 18: think there's some important context. Right when Martin Luther King
Speaker 18: Junior was doing like the nonviolent direct action, at a
Speaker 18: certain point, they had to make a calculated decision to
Speaker 18: include women and children in the marches because they had
Speaker 18: assessed in America had become too desensitized to seeing black
Speaker 18: men beaten in the streets. Right, So that was a
Speaker 18: tactical decision to bring in more people.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 18: So there are like calculations that people have to make
Speaker 18: and assessions that they have to make based on the
Speaker 18: information that we're.
Speaker 1: Dealing with through talking with forced defenders. I've heard a
Speaker 1: variety of internal critiques of the Week of Action format
Speaker 1: because it is such a concentrated time period. The week
Speaker 1: of Action can give police a very concentrated time to
Speaker 1: over police and over surveil and for activists. It can
Speaker 1: open up an expenditure of energy during the week, which
Speaker 1: then can lead to a lack of energy leading up
Speaker 1: to what's been called the week of repression in the past.
Speaker 1: Every time following a week of action, after people from
Speaker 1: out of town leave, it then leads into a week
Speaker 1: of repression where police will then do a rate of
Speaker 1: the forest and have their sort of retaliation the week after.
Speaker 1: There's been talk of potential changes to some of the
Speaker 1: Week of Action format, perhaps doing something more akin to
Speaker 1: a summer of resistance.
Speaker 52: So the week of repression is always the week that
Speaker 52: comes after the week of Action, where the cops are like, Okay,
Speaker 52: the bulk of your reserve, if you're out of state
Speaker 52: supporter is gone. We're going to come fuck you up.
Speaker 52: Now they are less of you. Now you're less ready
Speaker 52: to deal with us. And that is like a major
Speaker 52: strategic flaw in the weeks of action because it kind
Speaker 52: of creates a activist tourism for people coming out of state,
Speaker 52: and not that Atlanta doesn't appreciate their support and their solidarity,
Speaker 52: and that so many of those out of state people
Speaker 52: do stay long term, but it does create a situation
Speaker 52: where like, yeah, we're having an influx of people for
Speaker 52: a week, building infrastructure for a week, and then the
Speaker 52: bulk of those people, a good percentage are going to
Speaker 52: go home because yeah, like traveling long term is hard.
Speaker 52: People have jobs, kids, whatever, you have commitments wherever you are,
Speaker 52: and they have to go home. And then the cops
Speaker 52: just wreck our shit and do raids, and like, unless
Speaker 52: people want to get on board with doing some pretty
Speaker 52: crazy shit, those raids are hard to counter. It would
Speaker 52: behoove us to take a realistic audit of what the
Speaker 52: weeks of action have meant and what they are actually
Speaker 52: useful for which the strategic gains of the weeks of
Speaker 52: action are always now going to be more metaphysical than physical.
Speaker 52: They bring people to this space, They give them a
Speaker 52: closeness to the forest that they would not achieve without
Speaker 52: actually coming here. But as far as tangibly, like materially
Speaker 52: stopping cop City, those kind of middle of the night
Speaker 52: slash and run attacks, tertiary targeting of contractors, all that stuff,
Speaker 52: that's how you pressure the money, and the money's where
Speaker 52: you win.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, it's up to the autonomous actors that make up
Speaker 1: this so called movement and how their choices will determine
Speaker 1: how the fight to stop Cop City will grow and evolve.
Speaker 1: As I'm writing this, just thirty minutes ago we found
Speaker 1: out that the clearcutting at the Cop City construction site
Speaker 1: has essentially been completed. The overhead photos are devastating. Where
Speaker 1: there were young, growing trees just weeks ago is now
Speaker 1: a flattened mound of red clay and dirt, as if
Speaker 1: the ground itself was bleeding. I counted over one hundred
Speaker 1: trees uprooted from the earth. Hundreds of people have dedicated
Speaker 1: years of their life to defending this forest, and the
Speaker 1: site of sizeable destruction has brought out a variety of
Speaker 1: reaving reactions. If cop City doesn't get built in the Wallawni,
Speaker 1: the land could be carefully reforested and healed via regenerative permaculture.
Speaker 1: With intentional stewardship, the forest could grow to be ecologically
Speaker 1: healthier than it was before. In some ways, the destruction
Speaker 1: that has already taken place makes it even more vital
Speaker 1: to try and stop the construction of cop City. No
Speaker 1: one is advocating a defeatist approach where force defenders essentially
Speaker 1: give up and let the police foundation build it, because
Speaker 1: there are still numerous ways to fight against the construction
Speaker 1: of this facility, But now is not the time to
Speaker 1: sugarcoat the dire situation people are in, and there should
Speaker 1: be time allowed to grieve this loss as well as
Speaker 1: strike back against the destruction. It would be a mistake
Speaker 1: to gaslight each other and act as if we're closer
Speaker 1: than ever to halting the Cop City project. The fact
Speaker 1: that it's gotten this far itself is devastating. From the beginning,
Speaker 1: people have said that even if they do believe that
Speaker 1: Cop City will never be built, the Atlanta Police Foundation
Speaker 1: and police will absolutely attempt to do as much damage
Speaker 1: as they can possibly get away with anyway, both to
Speaker 1: force defenders and to the forest itself. The past few months,
Speaker 1: I've been increasingly hearing the vice versa of that sentiment.
Speaker 1: If Cop City does end up getting built, people have
Speaker 1: pledged that the Atlanta Police Foundation will have to pay
Speaker 1: for every inch they take. Even if there is no
Speaker 1: longer hope to save the entire Wilani Forest, then we
Speaker 1: must do so without hope. At least, there is always vengeance.
Speaker 1: It is a long road ahead, and there is still
Speaker 1: much to do. To quote my favorite anarchomonarchist, Tolkien, at
Speaker 1: this moment, the movement will hone its focus to prevent
Speaker 1: or at the very least disincentivize, the physical construction of
Speaker 1: cop City.
Speaker 52: I think it'd be worth thinking of this movement as
Speaker 52: an almost two year old movement that's outgrown the week
Speaker 52: of action. You know, why limit ourselves to seven days?
Speaker 52: Fuck it, do a summer, you know, do three months
Speaker 52: of like we're doing three months of action in Atlanta.
Speaker 52: Come to Atlanta whenever you want, and then go home
Speaker 52: and do shit at home. There wills fargos where you live.
Speaker 52: There are Chase banks where you live. There are Atlas
Speaker 52: construction offices where you live. And yeah, you should come
Speaker 52: to Atlanta and you should come see the space, and
Speaker 52: you should be in the forest, and you should feel
Speaker 52: like the love and community that's there. We win by
Speaker 52: fighting on enough fronts that they can't fight us back
Speaker 52: on all of them. The state dies by a thousand cuts,
Speaker 52: not by all of us being in one place where
Speaker 52: they can kettle our asses. Like, that's just not how
Speaker 52: we're going to win. So, yeah, if we had three
Speaker 52: months of like we're occupying the forest for three months,
Speaker 52: come to the space whenever you feel like it.
Speaker 16: But you know.
Speaker 52: Hopefully when people go home they feel inspired to like
Speaker 52: understand that they can do just as much hitting those
Speaker 52: companies where they live as they can here, because the
Speaker 52: money's all going to the same place. The CEO at
Speaker 52: the top doesn't care if you hit their businesses in
Speaker 52: Georgia or in fucking Illinois, or in Oregon or Washington
Speaker 52: or whatever. The money's all the same.
Speaker 1: A phrase I've been hearing a lot lately is cop
Speaker 1: city is everywhere to quota communicate, posted on scenes, dot no, blogs,
Speaker 1: dot org.
Speaker 10: Quote.
Speaker 1: We will keep winning, not just here in so called Atlanta,
Speaker 1: but we must attack all across these so called states.
Speaker 1: The money and power that seek to kill us and
Speaker 1: a Destroyablanni are nationwide, and so our movement must be nationwide.
Speaker 1: A net of resistance, too vast to comprehend and too
Speaker 1: resilient to suppress. Reality is the battlefield, but so called America,
Speaker 1: all of it is the backdrop unquote. When chief is
Speaker 1: sheerbamb gave testimony at city council even he mentioned the
Speaker 1: far reaching manifestations of the fight to stop cop City.
Speaker 30: We have been seeing over the last number of months,
Speaker 30: crimes that have been occurring in other cities focused towards
Speaker 30: the public safety training center. So we have seen arsons
Speaker 30: and cities outside of Atlanta. We've seen the destruction of
Speaker 30: property outside of Atlanta, and we've seen the harassment of.
Speaker 29: Private sector employees outside of Atlanta.
Speaker 30: So that is the next is where the Federal Pure
Speaker 30: of Investigation has been assisting in this administigation.
Speaker 1: Like I said in the second episode, the stakes of
Speaker 1: the movement may soon exceed the bounds of the forest
Speaker 1: and cop City, and in fact that process it may
Speaker 1: have already begun. We are seeing stop Coop City turn
Speaker 1: into a new mode of insurgency and resistance to modern
Speaker 1: policing in general, not simply limited to the construction of
Speaker 1: this one a training center, as the police are trying
Speaker 1: to build a training center to practice quelling future civil unrest.
Speaker 1: The site of the Malani Forest and beyond has been
Speaker 1: a training ground for anarchists and those who fight the
Speaker 1: ever growing police estate the past two years. It's been
Speaker 1: a dangerous playground for experimentation and liberation. Applications for the
Speaker 1: lessons learned in the Mulani Forest extend far past the
Speaker 1: barriers of the woods. As a far right attack on
Speaker 1: abortion and trans people are accelerating across this country, but
Speaker 1: especially the South. Perhaps some of the organizing infrastructure that's
Speaker 1: been developed can take new focus on these battlegrounds, and
Speaker 1: even just the mere existence of the struggle against cop
Speaker 1: City in Atlanta has been a deterrent for other cities
Speaker 1: and states seeking to push forward similar proposals. But as
Speaker 1: the movement possibly expands past its original scope in these
Speaker 1: next few months, people will need to be careful that
Speaker 1: the idyllic notion of the struggle doesn't eclipse the original
Speaker 1: and still active goal, which is to stop cop City.
Speaker 1: Cop city is indeed everywhere, but the current manifestation in
Speaker 1: Atlanta is unique to Atlanta, and the corresponding struggle to
Speaker 1: stop the physical construction of this training facility cannot be
Speaker 1: overlooked in favor of fantasies of utopian anarchy. To steal
Speaker 1: an idea from Matt of the Community Press Collective, one
Speaker 1: interpretation of the phrase cop city is everywhere is the
Speaker 1: realization that Atlanta is a cop city, and it already
Speaker 1: has been for years without us knowing it, and if
Speaker 1: we don't turn back the tide here, cop city will
Speaker 1: be exported.
Speaker 18: Everywhere Atlanta once again because of the Atlanta Police Foundation
Speaker 18: is the most surveiled city in the country because of
Speaker 18: twenty seventeen's Operation Shield program where they put tons of
Speaker 18: cameras all throughout the city and essentially made it a
Speaker 18: surveillance state once again. Crime has continued to go up
Speaker 18: during this time, and that would have significantly more to
Speaker 18: do with the disparity of wealth and opportunities of Black
Speaker 18: Atlantans that are born under the poverty line. Only five
Speaker 18: percent of them are projected to ever cross that line.
Speaker 18: At the same time, the average median income of black
Speaker 18: households is one third that of the average median income
Speaker 18: of white households in Atlanta, So that's about thirty five
Speaker 18: thousand dollars to one hundred and four thousand dollars.
Speaker 8: And so.
Speaker 18: The wealth is just so disproportionately spread, and so much
Speaker 18: of the labor intensive economy is predicated on it that
Speaker 18: black people are pigeonholed into service economy jobs and they
Speaker 18: have very few opportunities here. Now, that type of inequality
Speaker 18: breeds discontent and people looking for other opportunities, and the
Speaker 18: police are ready to catch them at every turn for
Speaker 18: arresting the juvenile in the point system that they have
Speaker 18: for Atlanta police department, it's five points. However, you only
Speaker 18: receive a quarter of a point as a police officer
Speaker 18: if you answer a service call. So police officers often
Speaker 18: ignore service calls because that doesn't give them.
Speaker 8: The credit that they want.
Speaker 18: So, just to put that in context, you get twenty
Speaker 18: times the credit in Atlanta's point quota system for arresting
Speaker 18: a juvenile then going where people actually wanted police to
Speaker 18: show up, and we're supposed to be convinced that this
Speaker 18: system is made to keep us safe.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 1: The City of Atlanta and the Police Foundation wants Copcity
Speaker 1: to be a national training center for police to come
Speaker 1: and practice militaristic counterinsurgency for export across the country. They
Speaker 1: murdered someone to further this goal. All eyes must be
Speaker 1: on Atlanta.
Speaker 36: Cop City is a symbol of police repression. Cop City
Speaker 36: is a symbol of the oppression of the people of Atlanta.
Speaker 36: I want you to look around and see the families
Speaker 36: here in this part today.
Speaker 10: These are people who came because.
Speaker 13: They're concerned for their children.
Speaker 36: These are people who are concerned because they don't want
Speaker 36: their city overrun by militarization.
Speaker 1: The level of repression the movement is face is a
Speaker 1: sign that the state feels like this movement is a
Speaker 1: threat and the state feels like this movement has the
Speaker 1: possibility of actually succeeding, so in response, they're increasing repression.
Speaker 1: And on the flip side of that, during this past
Speaker 1: week of action, I saw a lot of affirmation that
Speaker 1: this is going to be successful and that people believe
Speaker 1: that they will stop Cop City. A common refrain during
Speaker 1: the past week of action is that cop City will
Speaker 1: never be built, and I believe that we will win.
Speaker 1: There's been such a unique emphasis on the fact that
Speaker 1: people believe that this fight is one hundred percent winnable
Speaker 1: and that people do have the ability to stop cop City,
Speaker 1: and that people who are participating truly believe that, And
Speaker 1: I think that is an important part of why it's
Speaker 1: gotten as far as it has.
Speaker 22: We can get everything we want for this city. We
Speaker 22: can stop cop City. We got the power.
Speaker 46: We believe y'all.
Speaker 22: There's gonna be a lot of people tell us about
Speaker 22: what we can't do, about what these organizers are here
Speaker 22: can't do.
Speaker 46: Tell them what it tells about what we we we
Speaker 46: can't do. I'm to tell you all of us out here,
Speaker 46: we're organizers. We are in a business.
Speaker 22: I've taken that which other people say it is impossible,
Speaker 22: we make it possible.
Speaker 3: As long as we believe I say we are.
Speaker 20: Believe, I believe that we will win.
Speaker 1: This is interesting to me because in my experience, a
Speaker 1: lot of leftists and anarchists approach much of their practice
Speaker 1: with the concept of them expecting to not succeed, but
Speaker 1: they're going to do it anyway, which there is a
Speaker 1: kind of fated beauty to that in a certain way.
Speaker 1: And part of that is taking action even if you
Speaker 1: don't think it will lead to a decisive victory. But
Speaker 1: also I think fe that being in that mindset might
Speaker 1: set you up for that outcome. If you're preparing to fail,
Speaker 1: that means you're probably going to fail or at the
Speaker 1: very least limit the ways that you do action. And
Speaker 1: throughout this movement thus far, it's been interesting the degree
Speaker 1: to which people are convinced that they are going to win.
Speaker 52: If you're being prepared to fail, you won't take the
Speaker 52: radical action that it takes to win. Winning's hard, and
Speaker 52: winning means doing things that are scary and uncomfortable, and
Speaker 52: doing things that put you in danger, and doing things
Speaker 52: that are new and unknown and different and taking new
Speaker 52: strategies and doing new things, and we in the US
Speaker 52: and a lot of other places, but this is US
Speaker 52: based movements. So there's so much learned helplessness on the
Speaker 52: left here from so many years of like we lost
Speaker 52: it Occupy and then we lost in Ferguson and Standing Rock,
Speaker 52: and in twenty twenty, all of these movements that put
Speaker 52: big body blows to the state put some hits in,
Speaker 52: but we're just followed by these waves and waves of oppression.
Speaker 52: We've learned so much helplessness. And for the first time
Speaker 52: in my life, I'm looking at a movement that I'm like, no, no,
Speaker 52: we can fucking beat them. And people are stagnating, we're
Speaker 52: blinking because of what happened on Sunday, and like, no, no, no,
Speaker 52: what happened on Sunday prove that we can win. It
Speaker 52: proved that we can one fight them in the open
Speaker 52: field and beat them, that they are afraid of us,
Speaker 52: that they will see territory if we hit them, And
Speaker 52: it proved that they are so afraid of us that
Speaker 52: they need to mobilize fucking ten different police departments to
Speaker 52: come deal and then they won't even step into the
Speaker 52: actual brush of the forest because they think we're the
Speaker 52: fucking vietcom that proves we can win more than anything
Speaker 52: that proves we can win. And if we do not
Speaker 52: accept that, what is proved that we can win is
Speaker 52: like property destruction and to a degree doing violence, we
Speaker 52: won't win. Those fireworks helped a lot. They pushed the
Speaker 52: cops out and like, we shouldn't balk at that, And
Speaker 52: I guess I don't classify that as violence. The police
Speaker 52: classify that is violence what they consider taking hits, I guess.
Speaker 52: But yeah, we are so on the cusp of a
Speaker 52: make or break kind of deal here, and the only
Speaker 52: way that we win is not this internal debate we're
Speaker 52: having about the efficacy of tactics. It's doubling down on
Speaker 52: what we're already doing because it's working, and expanding on it.
Speaker 1: Do you believe that copsity will be actually stopped?
Speaker 8: We got to and here's what I mean by that.
Speaker 8: This is the line. Right we have.
Speaker 18: Environmental racism, police militarization and brutality, and police and racism,
Speaker 18: and it's all coming to a head right here in
Speaker 18: this particular movement. We have to win because what they're
Speaker 18: doing now is to build capacity to make sure that
Speaker 18: we can't win, right and so why people are pushing
Speaker 18: so hard is that, as we've seen over the past
Speaker 18: couple of weeks, the police have plenty of like tanks
Speaker 18: and shit and all sorts of militarized tactical gear. And
Speaker 18: now they're trying to build another base in the blackest
Speaker 18: part of the city and to build up more capacity
Speaker 18: to put down any sense of rebellion or push back
Speaker 18: against empire. We cannot allow it to happen. And I mean,
Speaker 18: there is so much money going to kill people in
Speaker 18: end life. And if we win right here and make
Speaker 18: this stand right here, that changes the potentiality for how
Speaker 18: we view how to keep one another safe and how
Speaker 18: to reinvest in ourselves and our people throughout this country
Speaker 18: in a huge way. I think that we are at
Speaker 18: the precipice of not only winning cup City, but pushing
Speaker 18: back the tide of the cult of death that this
Speaker 18: country has become.
Speaker 1: The clear cuts in the Malaune forest at this stage
Speaker 1: serve a threefold per one. It obviously gets them closer
Speaker 1: to construction and the mass land grading that is scheduled
Speaker 1: to start on May twenty third two. It's a ploy
Speaker 1: by the APF to secure additional needed funds from Copcity investors.
Speaker 1: And finally, it's to demoralize the people who spent years
Speaker 1: of their life working to stop this project.
Speaker 2: Everything that police have done is essentially always a reprisal, right,
Speaker 2: the movement does something and the police clamp down in
Speaker 2: a reprisal to try to repress the movement.
Speaker 1: Police always escalate, but they have always been like in
Speaker 1: response to something.
Speaker 2: And their goal, of course is to quiet and chill
Speaker 2: free speech and end the movement. But every time this happens,
Speaker 2: the opposite effect is what comes out of it. And
Speaker 2: from the domestic terrorism rest in December, like really, that's
Speaker 2: when this even larger groundswell of national support happened and
Speaker 2: people started to take notice because this was an extreme measure.
Speaker 1: And then with the killing of Tortighita in January, that
Speaker 1: changed so much about the movement, including people's personal connection
Speaker 1: to this struggle, where no longer are people doing this
Speaker 1: simply because they believe it is what's right. They are
Speaker 1: doing this because they have to, because the state cannot
Speaker 1: get away with this, This death cannot be in vain,
Speaker 1: and now people believe that they have to succeed or
Speaker 1: at the very least make this state pay for every inch,
Speaker 1: and that may mean looking beyond the binary of a
Speaker 1: victory and defeat. According to a construction timeline from this
Speaker 1: past April, the Atlanta Police Foundation plans to start construction
Speaker 1: on August twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, in order for
Speaker 1: a quote unquote soft opening of the facility in December
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four. One hiccup that the APF has
Speaker 1: run into is that it seems they have yet to
Speaker 1: secure enough money to finish the project and have been
Speaker 1: forced to ask their investors and the city for more
Speaker 1: additional despite scaling back their plans for the project. As
Speaker 1: a short clip put together by the Atlanta Community Press
Speaker 1: Collective explains.
Speaker 53: The city Council will in fact have to vote on
Speaker 53: whether or not to allocate thirty three million taxpayer dollars
Speaker 53: to the construction of cop City in the very near future. Additionally,
Speaker 53: the Atlanta Police Foundation budget documents show that current construction
Speaker 53: plans have been scaled back from what was originally promised.
Speaker 53: This indicates a failure by the foundation to raise the
Speaker 53: promise sixty million.
Speaker 29: Dollars in private funds.
Speaker 53: Should the city vote down this funding package of thirty
Speaker 53: three million. It is difficult to see a path forward
Speaker 53: for the Atlanta Police Foundation's effort to begin construction on
Speaker 53: Cop City anytime in the near future.
Speaker 1: The City Council has actually not yet voted to approve
Speaker 1: the allocation of millions of dollars in city funds to
Speaker 1: the Cop City project.
Speaker 53: Through an open records request, we were able to get
Speaker 53: our hands on emails between the Atlanta Police Foundation and
Speaker 53: Atlanta's Deputy Chief Operating Officer, Leachandra Berts. In this email exchange,
Speaker 53: the Police found expressed a need for the city to
Speaker 53: provide thirty three point five million dollars in funding for
Speaker 53: the project. Bergs responded by mentioning the need for legislative
Speaker 53: action to secure the funds. The emails state that the
Speaker 53: Police Foundation wants to pass this legislation before June thirtieth
Speaker 53: because they need the City of Atlanta's money to secure
Speaker 53: their construction loan.
Speaker 1: It's expected that as soon as May fifteenth, a member
Speaker 1: of the City Council will introduce legislation to allocate public
Speaker 1: funds to the Atlanta Police Foundation to build COP City,
Speaker 1: and a final vote could happen as soon as June fifth.
Speaker 1: One thing that the movement to stop Cop City has
Speaker 1: shown us is that no matter what police do, people
Speaker 1: continue to show up despite what happens, and the movement
Speaker 1: keeps expanding. As the unnamed forest defender told.
Speaker 52: Me, infrastructure wise, this week of Action was the biggest
Speaker 52: infrastructure I've seen doing a week of action. I thought
Speaker 52: that the infrastructure we put together for week one was
Speaker 52: pretty big, but I mean it doesn't even compare. It's
Speaker 52: not the same ballpark as what happened for Week five,
Speaker 52: just from how the medics were set up and how
Speaker 52: food was handled. There was a shuttle bus program, there
Speaker 52: was a welcome table at a church at one point,
Speaker 52: there was like twenty four to seven clinic spaces. There
Speaker 52: was twenty four to seven ride programs, and medics on standby,
Speaker 52: and like all these things that were ready to support everybody,
Speaker 52: Like there was all this infrastructure set up to make
Speaker 52: sure that people were as supported as possible and to
Speaker 52: make it as easy as possible and lower the barrier
Speaker 52: of entry to the movement as much as possible, more
Speaker 52: than there has been in any other Week of action
Speaker 52: so far. I feel like the way that we continue
Speaker 52: that is to take lessons learned from what's happened this
Speaker 52: week from the problems with the infrastructure, the issues that
Speaker 52: it had, expand on it and then fucking do it
Speaker 52: for way longer, Like we could do this for an
Speaker 52: entire summer. I am fully of the belief that the
Speaker 52: infrastructure I saw on display during the fifth week of action,
Speaker 52: we could do that for a summer. I believe in
Speaker 52: the kind of people who put it together, and I
Speaker 52: believe in the people who did it. To do that,
Speaker 52: we just have to kind of look at what went wrong,
Speaker 52: what went right, and fix it. All the things that
Speaker 52: existed in this week of action, as far as they're
Speaker 52: being food rides, medics, and like group supplies, all these
Speaker 52: things existed during weeks of Action one through four.
Speaker 13: It's just grown.
Speaker 52: It's gotten more logistically intense. There are more and more
Speaker 52: people filling those roles. There's more and more stuff coming in.
Speaker 52: Like the amount of supplies that we just got sent
Speaker 52: in or people brought with them from out of state
Speaker 52: has just so vastly expanded since the first week of action.
Speaker 52: It's just gotten more i don't know, like not professional,
Speaker 52: but more polished. It's become a much more polished setup system.
Speaker 52: As time went on from the first camp that we
Speaker 52: had during the first Week of Action to now you know,
Speaker 52: almost two years later. And that's a huge part of
Speaker 52: why I think we've outgrown the Week of Action. We
Speaker 52: have these types of thought processes and logistics to do
Speaker 52: this for a summer or for a month, We just
Speaker 52: need people and resources. We need more people to be willing,
Speaker 52: because I don't want people to get tired.
Speaker 1: Just last month, another Week of Action was called for
Speaker 1: June twenty fourth to July first, directly leading into what's
Speaker 1: being called the Wollawni Summer, with locals in Atlanta calling
Speaker 1: on supporters and forced defenders everywhere to come to Atlanta
Speaker 1: for the week and stay for the summer. With Entrenchment
Speaker 1: Creek Park still closed and they're being ongoing efforts to
Speaker 1: have it be reopened. What the week and following summer
Speaker 1: will look like is it still very unknown.
Speaker 52: We always are going to need more people. People are
Speaker 52: our most important resource.
Speaker 10: Always.
Speaker 52: The way that we limit burnout is by having more
Speaker 52: and more people so that the burden falls less and
Speaker 52: less heavy on small groups of people, and so that
Speaker 52: people can take breaks. And that's another problem I have
Speaker 52: with like the Week of Action as a strategy is
Speaker 52: you're just going non fucking stop.
Speaker 13: For a week.
Speaker 52: If you had three months, you're like, ah, I'm going
Speaker 52: to chill for a couple of weeks. I'll be back,
Speaker 52: you know, because I have all this time, and it
Speaker 52: frees up people from out of state to come in,
Speaker 52: have times to work it out in their schedule more.
Speaker 1: There will be more information put out in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1: You can keep up to date by following stop Coop
Speaker 1: City on Instagram, Defend atl Forest on Twitter, or by
Speaker 1: checking out stopcopcitysolidarity dot org. Ideally with a VPM and
Speaker 1: tour slash a Brave browser.
Speaker 52: If you were at the music festival and you're just
Speaker 52: a normal person, you weren't involved with the movement before this,
Speaker 52: and you were at the music festival and you kind
Speaker 52: of saw why we're fighting for this. You saw that
Speaker 52: space and then you saw the type of violence that
Speaker 52: the police were willing to output to do it. Let
Speaker 52: that move you to get involved further. You don't have
Speaker 52: to join an organization, you know, I don't want to
Speaker 52: speak for other people. I'm a hard anarchist. Fuck organizations
Speaker 52: to a large degree, but have an affinity group, get
Speaker 52: your friends together. If you guys want to be helping
Speaker 52: out with the food. People, help out with the food.
Speaker 8: People.
Speaker 52: You want to be medics, go join a medic collective
Speaker 52: like find what everything calls to you and just go
Speaker 52: and do it. Because we need people and there's no
Speaker 52: barrier of entry to join the movement. There's no test
Speaker 52: you have to take. You just have to show up.
Speaker 1: I will end this Week of Action retrospective with a
Speaker 1: promise from a forest defenders. See you on the other side.
Speaker 10: We well Barn.
Speaker 46: We well Burn, we well.
Speaker 1: Burn Music Festival. Audio courtesy of Unicorn Riot.
Speaker 10: It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 31: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 31: coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 31: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
Speaker 31: find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at
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Speaker 10: Thanks for listening.