Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to It could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Recently,
Speaker 1: I just wrapped up a whole five episodes about the
Speaker 1: previous week of action to stop cop City in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: In a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to shorten the running time
Speaker 1: of those episodes, I had to cut out many of
Speaker 1: the funny bits, jokes, gaffs, goofs, bloopers, and related tomfoolery.
Speaker 1: But as demonstrated by the police's massive mobilization to shut
Speaker 1: down a canceled comedy event in the woods on March seventh,
Speaker 1: the Willani Forest and surrounding area of Atlanta are often
Speaker 1: home to manifestations of absurdist humor. There's been a lot
Speaker 1: of not great news recently. Well, there's kind of always
Speaker 1: a lot of not great news now that we live
Speaker 1: in an ever expanding hyperreality oversaturated with information. But I digress.
Speaker 1: I think it's just as important to not overlook the comedic,
Speaker 1: lighthearted side of things as it is to keep up
Speaker 1: with all of the doom and gloom that we usually
Speaker 1: platform on our show. So, without further ado, I present
Speaker 1: to you jokes from the Atlanta Forest. Side note, I
Speaker 1: am now invoking Jester's privilege. Legally, everything we say in
Speaker 1: this episode is a joke as a little heads up. Okay,
Speaker 1: this episode will probably make more sense if you listened
Speaker 1: to the four part Week of Action series or the
Speaker 1: retrospective episode. But also I will do my best to
Speaker 1: pop in via this narration to help fill in any
Speaker 1: gaps so that listeners will not be completely lost if
Speaker 1: you've not listened to those other episodes. Anyway, we shall
Speaker 1: start by tuning back into my conversation with Matt from
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Community the Press Collective as we discuss the
Speaker 1: March fifth police raid of the South River Music Festival. Welcome,
Speaker 1: it could happen here. Cast I'm Garrison Davis.
Speaker 2: In World of Warcraft. You can shield bash.
Speaker 1: So that there's been this effort from police and media
Speaker 1: to frame these arrests as like these were arrests that
Speaker 1: happened at a crime scene, like these these arrests were
Speaker 1: people who were who were torching equipment, who were involved
Speaker 1: in all these actions, who are doing domestic terrorism. But
Speaker 1: all the rest that happened were at a music festival,
Speaker 1: like they were in a completely different section of the forest, like.
Speaker 2: At a music festival at the parking lot even away
Speaker 2: from the music festival. And you know, police surveillance may
Speaker 2: be good and they may have been able to pick
Speaker 2: out an individual or two, but for the most part,
Speaker 2: like you had something like two hundred people partake in
Speaker 2: this direct action and then disappear into the woods, there's
Speaker 2: really no way too And of course most of them
Speaker 2: were wearing block of some form that there's really no way.
Speaker 1: Much of that block, which has now been burnt and
Speaker 1: it's no longer existing in the physical material realm, so
Speaker 1: there's no way to like really tell who was there,
Speaker 1: and other than allegedly having mud on your clothes, you
Speaker 1: want to talk about what the warrants were in the
Speaker 1: oddity of how the warrants were formatted.
Speaker 2: Once you started to listen to them, you noticed this
Speaker 2: very repetitive nature of them. And so about halfway through
Speaker 2: we get to a lawyer who straight up calls out
Speaker 2: the fact that these warrants seem like they were just copy.
Speaker 1: Pasted, like every single person all the way downline. And
Speaker 1: one of the such claims the mud mud.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, I don't know how many festivals
Speaker 2: you've attended in your life, but I've been to a few,
Speaker 2: and they are never clean affairs.
Speaker 1: So it it rained like one day before the night
Speaker 1: before the festival started, there was a tornado warning in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: I've forgotten about that, and there was rain, which makes
Speaker 1: I don't know if the prosecutors know this, but when
Speaker 1: rain mixes with dirt, it creates something called that we
Speaker 1: that we refer to as mud. My dock martins are
Speaker 1: still caked in mud. Future me cutting back in here
Speaker 1: for a sec So for the record, I have since
Speaker 1: cleaned my dock Martins, but the mud was still on
Speaker 1: there for well over a month until I was forced
Speaker 1: to wash my shoes after I stepped in much much
Speaker 1: more mud while in the Telemac forest as I was
Speaker 1: failing to shoot a Keltech, which yeah, that is that
Speaker 1: was That was probably my bad. These charges don't make
Speaker 1: any sense. There's no evidence these people committed any actual crimes,
Speaker 1: so they're just being charged with terrorism. This is like
Speaker 1: a nebul this 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 like
Speaker 1: actual evidence that these people charged did any crimes, she
Speaker 1: said that she had none of this none of the
Speaker 1: She said that she had none of this evidence in
Speaker 1: front of her, and that evidence is for another day.
Speaker 2: So it's absolutely I think bonkers it is an appropriate word.
Speaker 1: One of those one of those kangaroo court moments.
Speaker 2: It really my faith in the legal system was really
Speaker 2: solidified this day. There was also the threat of arrest
Speaker 2: for the New York Times reporter that happened. I forgot
Speaker 2: to mention that. So yeah, we'll leave that commentary by itself.
Speaker 1: They should have they should have charged Sean Keenan with
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism. Sorry for making fun of noted trans ally
Speaker 1: the New York Times. I promise it won't happen again. Wait. Wait, no,
Speaker 1: that's that's a lie. There's at least two more New
Speaker 1: York Times jokes in this script. Fuck, I guess let's
Speaker 1: talk about Monday. Monday Monday, So, uh, don't.
Speaker 2: It is the editor? No, Daniel, Daniel, I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 2: so sorry.
Speaker 1: He's not going to hear any of this shit. Oh
Speaker 1: im because the way these work, as I transcribe them
Speaker 1: and then I copy and paste sections, so they only
Speaker 1: move the section over.
Speaker 2: So when I say ask Garrison about okay, So it
Speaker 2: turns out that was a lie.
Speaker 1: Daniel did need to hear that, So sorry, Daniel, full transparency.
Speaker 1: Most of those bleeps were me making horrible, horrible, slurping
Speaker 1: noises into the microphone, as Daniel can probably attest. So
Speaker 1: really all of you should be thanking Daniel for suffering
Speaker 1: through those to bleep them out. Daniel died for your sins.
Speaker 1: I mean content truly, truly braver than the troops insert joke. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back to me from the past. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: Let's talk about Monday. I want to talk about the
Speaker 1: clergy event that happened in from a city hall, so
Speaker 1: City council meeting. You work for the Atlantic Community Press Collective.
Speaker 1: You've you've covered a lot of city council meetings in
Speaker 1: Atlanta before. This was my first time covering an Atlanta
Speaker 1: City Council meeting. Due to your you know, wisdom in
Speaker 1: this in this field, I would like for you to
Speaker 1: to to discuss what happened at the city council meeting
Speaker 1: and in relation to your to your to your years
Speaker 1: of experience in covering these these uh these meetings.
Speaker 2: So I City Council meets every other week on Mondays.
Speaker 2: I cover several other committees but uh, you know, the
Speaker 2: big one is always the City Council meeting, and over
Speaker 2: over the course of time, there there's like a cast
Speaker 2: of characters that that you just begin to understand are
Speaker 2: going to appear either every week or or from time
Speaker 2: to time. And you you had the pleasure of actually
Speaker 2: getting to see a few of these and I was like,
Speaker 2: there were were there were a few of us media
Speaker 2: folks there, and I was actually really happy that like
Speaker 2: people got to experience this with me, because I usually
Speaker 2: have to do it by myself. So you got to
Speaker 2: meet three of the characters. You got to meet Brother Hakim,
Speaker 2: you got to meet Rachel, and you got to be
Speaker 2: your favorite chef doctor.
Speaker 1: So this is just somebody who everyone refers to as
Speaker 1: chef doctor. He is dressed up as what you can
Speaker 1: only describe as a chef doctor. I wondering half of
Speaker 1: a chef's outfit, half of a doctor's outfit. He had
Speaker 1: a Freemason pin on his shirt, because of course he did.
Speaker 1: And I just like watched him for a while because
Speaker 1: like initially in the City Council meeting, they were just
Speaker 1: like handing out awards to like the proclamation ceremony, the
Speaker 1: proclamations and awards to like various people, including like former
Speaker 1: city council members like whatever. And then eventually public comments
Speaker 1: started and I guess, let's let's talk about doctor so well, no,
Speaker 1: so for the entirety of the city council meeting during
Speaker 1: the proclamations in the back in the back of the
Speaker 1: back of City Council, there was this large red like
Speaker 1: like heart just sitting sitting in the back.
Speaker 2: But it looked like Bob the tomato from Vegetatis.
Speaker 1: Look it looked that was exactly what I thought. I
Speaker 1: like this heart, Like, why is there this Bob the
Speaker 1: tomato ass heart mascot just sitting in the back of
Speaker 1: city Council. No one was inside the costume. It was
Speaker 1: just like the heart sitting there next to like another
Speaker 1: massive heart made up of like flowers. I saw. I
Speaker 1: was kind of confused for why that was there. There
Speaker 1: was like a pediatric surgeon that got like one of
Speaker 1: the awards, and like, oh, maybe the heart's there because
Speaker 1: of like because of like heart surgery or something. I
Speaker 1: don't know.
Speaker 2: No, no, that would make sense. And you have to
Speaker 2: you have to get out of that mindset for public comment.
Speaker 1: For the most part, so then chef doctor gets ten
Speaker 1: minutes of public comments.
Speaker 2: So we should explain that mechanism. Everyone who signs up
Speaker 2: for public comment gets two minutes. You can award your
Speaker 2: time or give over your time to somebody else. So
Speaker 2: there were four other people who gave their time over
Speaker 2: to Chef Doctor to give him ten minutes, and he
Speaker 2: used all ten minutes.
Speaker 1: So what was chef doctor trying to get out of
Speaker 1: the city? Why was he giving public heart? So a
Speaker 1: shout out to chef doctor.
Speaker 2: Okay, like is Chef Doctor wants to create a soul
Speaker 2: food museum in the West side of Atlanta, and she's
Speaker 2: shown up a few times to kind of ask city
Speaker 2: council for money, and as far as I know, that
Speaker 2: has gone nowhere. But that was what he is ostensibly
Speaker 2: there for today. However, beyond just the heart, the dancing,
Speaker 2: we haven't got there yet. However, beyond just the big
Speaker 2: red heart, and like the paper mache flower heart, he
Speaker 2: he brought a floutest.
Speaker 1: A floutest. So a floutest is someone who plays the flute.
Speaker 1: If you are like an uncultured person, who's who's who's
Speaker 1: listening to this? And he walked up to the microphone,
Speaker 1: and then for five minutes, he got a floutist to
Speaker 1: play a flute cover of Amazing Grace.
Speaker 2: Yes, but but he had backing music from a laptop
Speaker 2: that just kind of appeared up of nowhere, and so
Speaker 2: he played into the microphone.
Speaker 1: They played this funeral song as as this now Heart
Speaker 1: that's been brought to life. It starts dancing, starts dancing.
Speaker 1: So this person wearing like heart pajama pants changed into
Speaker 1: this hard question at some point. I didn't see them
Speaker 1: change into this. I don't know how this happened. I
Speaker 1: must have missed it.
Speaker 2: It's City Council magic.
Speaker 3: Nice will be Chef, doctor Kenneth Wolhoyt.
Speaker 2: You'll have ten minutes due to yielded time.
Speaker 3: Chef, let's go ahead and get started.
Speaker 4: My name is.
Speaker 5: A chef, doctor Kenneth Wildhord. I'm the president of the
Speaker 5: Soul Food Museum and the Soul Food University. We are
Speaker 5: celebrating our twentieth anniversary and we are asking for the
Speaker 5: City Council and an honorable Mayor to get behind us
Speaker 5: and support us with donating a museum space, building and
Speaker 5: land with parking in the city of Atlanta for our
Speaker 5: tourists that come here to have a place to come
Speaker 5: and experience our hospitality, agriculture service of Atlanta. I'm gonna
Speaker 5: sell quick prayer because I'm spirit lead.
Speaker 2: I do things by spirit.
Speaker 5: I'm at that age you know it's not about me,
Speaker 5: it's about the spirit. Now we'll have a song that
Speaker 5: was selected by the spirit of the ancestors, not by me,
Speaker 5: but by the spirit of dancers. I asked God to say, Hey, God,
Speaker 5: what song should we introduce today? This is the one
Speaker 5: that was.
Speaker 1: But this, this guy in the hard costume walks up
Speaker 1: and he starts like kind of dancing to this float
Speaker 1: music for five minutes. Talk about the dancing.
Speaker 2: I don't think it was so much dancing as a
Speaker 2: swaying with a little bit of hand motion along with
Speaker 2: the swang. But like I, I wasn't expecting it.
Speaker 1: I thought someone like dosed me with hallucinogens.
Speaker 2: I did. Actually, there were some stress ballad I put
Speaker 2: them in your water bottle when you were looking.
Speaker 1: This explained so much about what happened on Monday.
Speaker 2: No, it would make much more sense if that's what happened. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: Atlanta is a cartoon town and that's not what happened.
Speaker 2: This was real life.
Speaker 1: So this, this this flood cover of amazing Grace played
Speaker 1: for five minutes along with the dancing Heart, and then
Speaker 1: we finally got to public comment for the reason for
Speaker 1: the reason we were for the reason for why we
Speaker 1: were there. Not only were we blessed with that stunning
Speaker 1: rendition of amazing grace, the floutist himself was was briefly
Speaker 1: able to address the city Council before President Dave Shipman rudely,
Speaker 1: very very rudely called time amazing grace. It's such a
Speaker 1: sort that made so much to the world.
Speaker 5: So that's it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, okay, and we are back. And just as
Speaker 1: a note, I have forgot to put this in the script,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna say it now. It turns out that
Speaker 1: that heart costume that was quote unquote dancing to the music,
Speaker 1: that's actually rentable. You can rent that in Atlanta. So
Speaker 1: I have some really good ideas for the next for
Speaker 1: the next week of action, since we can rent more
Speaker 1: bouncy castles and also that heart costume, I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of potential, extremely funny things that could happen. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back to my conversation with Matt from the Atlantic Community
Speaker 1: Press Collective.
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. Osensibly 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 like it is.
Speaker 1: It is weird, Heathery like legally allowed to not pay
Speaker 1: attention like that is that is bizarre?
Speaker 2: You would you would you would think that if you
Speaker 2: allegedly work for the people, like you.
Speaker 1: Would, you have to actually listen to them.
Speaker 2: So amongst the city Council, there are two in particular
Speaker 2: that I'm glad you got to see there. There's Mary Norwood,
Speaker 2: who represents Buckhead, and then there's Dustin Hillis, who is
Speaker 2: the the committee chair for the Public Safety Legal Administration Committee,
Speaker 2: So he's basically in charge of police here.
Speaker 6: Throwing molotov cocktails at officers and damaging millions of dollars
Speaker 6: of equipment.
Speaker 1: And he gives off that vibe, and neither one of
Speaker 1: them will pay attention. They were they were on their
Speaker 1: phone from almost the entire time I was there. The
Speaker 1: the the Buckhead woman gave off ontologically evil vibe. Like
Speaker 1: I I did not know like who she was when
Speaker 1: I went to the city council, but once I saw her,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, okay, this person is like obviously evil, right,
Speaker 1: And I asked people about it afterwards, like oh, yes,
Speaker 1: that is a person that represents Bucket. I'm like, okay, yes,
Speaker 1: of course, of course.
Speaker 2: Bucket of course being the like primarily white neighborhood in
Speaker 2: North Atlanta, that part of it wants to secede from
Speaker 2: the city. And that's that's a whole. Yes, that is
Speaker 2: a whole another issue. But to kind of give context
Speaker 2: of what Buckhead is redlining.
Speaker 4: That's not a question, that's just a observation.
Speaker 2: And so sitting directly next to her is Dustin Hillis,
Speaker 2: who is known for not paying attention ever.
Speaker 1: Except except they did both pay attention after public comment
Speaker 1: when police gave their testimony on what happened to the night,
Speaker 1: and then these two people were very engaged. We will
Speaker 1: hear more from Mary Norwood ontologically evil in a bit,
Speaker 1: but first I have to saw Jesus Christ fucking fuck Jesus.
Speaker 1: My cats are just running amuck. All right, We will
Speaker 1: hear more from Mary Norwood ontologically evil in a bit,
Speaker 1: but first I have to include some of councilmen Antonio
Speaker 1: Lewis's response after Police Chief Darren Cherbaum gave his little
Speaker 1: presentation at City Council. Because I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: heard January sixth, the Atlanta Way, and six Flags all
Speaker 1: get mentioned in the same sentence before it.
Speaker 6: Looked like January sixth. I ain't never seen police run
Speaker 6: from a group of people, and so the only thing
Speaker 6: I could think about when I saw that video. I
Speaker 6: saw it on Ato Scoop, the videos all out there.
Speaker 6: I've been seeing it all over And when I saw
Speaker 6: the police officers run, I mean I was a little nervous.
Speaker 6: When I saw the heat map, I saw one hundred
Speaker 6: people I saw, I saw it. I mean, like that
Speaker 6: ain't the Atlanta Wait. I mean, I ain't never seen
Speaker 6: I'm just thinking about the At the same time, at
Speaker 6: six Flags, we had some young men that were fighting,
Speaker 6: some of our teenagers fighting at six Flags. They didn't
Speaker 6: run up on the police. They didn't run up on
Speaker 6: the police with molotail malory tail cocktails throwing to burn
Speaker 6: up stuff. What I will say, I thank you so
Speaker 6: much for last night for working. I want to really
Speaker 6: commend the officers because y'all were under some immense pressure
Speaker 6: and to not see a gun fire back because when
Speaker 6: I see the firecrackers, I'm from Cleveland Avenue. If they
Speaker 6: throw firecrackers at me, I don't know those firecrackers. I've
Speaker 6: never seen that. So I appreciate APD for doing that.
Speaker 1: Truly, truly a stunning admission, just perfect. So I had
Speaker 1: to listen to Atlanta Police Chief Darren Sheerbaum's testimony a
Speaker 1: few times for the five episodes that were released earlier
Speaker 1: this month, so I didn't really feel like fully listening
Speaker 1: through again to find any funny bits to put in
Speaker 1: this episode, so I just kind of like skimmed through
Speaker 1: while multitasking, and weirdly enough, I noticed that the chief
Speaker 1: said some pretty shocking things that I somehow just must
Speaker 1: have missed in my previous viewings. So I will play
Speaker 1: those for you now, and I will warn you it is.
Speaker 1: It is pretty disturbing, Like all the subjects we put
Speaker 1: on air. Their statements do not reflect our opinions or
Speaker 1: the official position held by whatever current company owns this podcast.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like I said, warning, these are shocking, but
Speaker 1: I will let the chief speak for himself.
Speaker 7: Take aggressive action against these officers. Move to the front gate,
Speaker 7: more accelerant, inflict vitily harm upon them, launch illegal and
Speaker 7: criminal attacks to attack members of law enforcement, bring harm
Speaker 7: to our officers.
Speaker 8: These attacks are.
Speaker 1: Going to you pretty pretty shocking stuff coming from a
Speaker 1: police chief to Jesus, but that is only the tip
Speaker 1: of the iceberg. Because to my surprise, after public COVID
Speaker 1: was over and all the news cameras that left after
Speaker 1: I left, and you know, everyone everyone left the building.
Speaker 1: It turns out Darren Sheerbaum gave a second testimony at
Speaker 1: the very end of the city council meeting that I
Speaker 1: just completely missed until now. So I will warn you
Speaker 1: it is kind of leude in nature. So if you
Speaker 1: want to skip past lewd police conduct, just fast forward
Speaker 1: like a minute or two. But anyway, without without further ado,
Speaker 1: here is the secret recently unearthed second testimony presented by
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Chief Darren Sheerbamb.
Speaker 7: Person ship, the members of the Council would like to
Speaker 7: brief you on evincent transpired yesterday. I'm going to let
Speaker 7: the video play here. Why I walked through each of
Speaker 7: the situations. What you see here is of our partners
Speaker 7: at the Decap County Police Department, the Share for Fulton
Speaker 7: County as well as the Georgia State Patrol. We're seeing
Speaker 7: changing out of the clothes that they were wearing. They're
Speaker 7: going to position themselves when it appears to be an
Speaker 7: attempt to keep pursuing the officers. As the officers see
Speaker 7: these we had a rapid response from our partners as
Speaker 7: well as to change their clothing. Different groups were performing
Speaker 7: acts within the manner of their training and their discipline.
Speaker 7: At this time. Our officers repositioning themselves inside of our partners.
Speaker 7: These officers had been stationary to ensure that they are
Speaker 7: being restrained. The officers are on city property and are
Speaker 7: positioning themselves and reposition themselves to be prepared to go
Speaker 7: back in. Our officers are showing great restraint. They remained
Speaker 7: in a position. It's what you see here is a
Speaker 7: lieutenant that is discharging. We're very fortunate that that was
Speaker 7: the outcome, and I want to commend every man and
Speaker 7: woman on duty yesterday as they stood in the gap
Speaker 7: to do their job, those officers entered our partners, and
Speaker 7: what you see here, ladies and gentlemen, is as some
Speaker 7: of the individuals that had just previously had entered into
Speaker 7: those officers, they start changing back into the clothes that
Speaker 7: they were just wearing moments before. Just last night, officers
Speaker 7: of this department, as well as the Cab County to
Speaker 7: the Georgia State Patrol and the Sheriff's Department moved in.
Speaker 7: And I want to think of the men and women
Speaker 7: again of the Atlanta Police Department, the Georgia State Patrol,
Speaker 7: the Sheriff's Department, as well as the Cap County Police
Speaker 7: Department for the professionalism that they demonstrated throughout the night
Speaker 7: and to the early hours of this morning while many
Speaker 7: of us were asleep, they continue to work through the night.
Speaker 6: I've never seen that, so I appreciate APD for doing that.
Speaker 4: I would have loved for every one of those very
Speaker 4: hysterical people that we've been sitting listening to for two
Speaker 4: or three hours to have seen an actual video of
Speaker 4: what really did happen. And there may be great reasons
Speaker 4: if the administration chose to do it this way, but
Speaker 4: our media is gone and all the people that needed
Speaker 4: to see this are gone. I'm glad that nobody was
Speaker 4: hurt and none of our none of our employees were hurt.
Speaker 3: Yesterday.
Speaker 1: Oh boy whoa oh well that was That was certainly
Speaker 1: something I did not did not want to know that
Speaker 1: much about what the the APD and their partners get
Speaker 1: up to after hours. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled comedic,
Speaker 1: James I Know a sheer bomb was was addressed with
Speaker 1: some questions by Unicorn Riot when he was trying to exit,
Speaker 1: which he then did not He hea have a very
Speaker 1: frustrated face and then denied answering and promptly left the
Speaker 1: building well.
Speaker 2: In the company of the New York Times journalist.
Speaker 1: Oh with with with a friend of the show, Sean Keenan.
Speaker 1: So that was that was? Uh? That was most of Monday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is everything that happened on Monday.
Speaker 2: So what uh Monday evening I went home to start
Speaker 2: working on article.
Speaker 1: What did you do?
Speaker 2: Guys?
Speaker 1: I went to the perm in the Woods. I got
Speaker 1: to share my my memory of the Veggietail's esther story
Speaker 1: starring the Tickle monsters. I got to bond with a
Speaker 1: few expangelicals about that, so that was fine. Then there
Speaker 1: was an experimental noise show in the forest.
Speaker 2: And then you had a tragic neck injury on Monday night.
Speaker 2: So Tuesday, the group that we followed left out of
Speaker 2: the church and went to Norfolk Southern, which is one
Speaker 2: of the funders of APF and Friend of the Environment
Speaker 2: in Ohio. When they finished reading the letter, like, all
Speaker 2: they asked was that the letter go to the CEO. Yep,
Speaker 2: And they denied that and all they had to do
Speaker 2: was accept it and and move on.
Speaker 1: But they, while people were inside the security called ns Police.
Speaker 1: And if you're wondering, you're like, you know, ns Plice,
Speaker 1: a city that isn't the city in Atlanta, What could
Speaker 1: that be? That is the Norfolk Southern Police who are
Speaker 1: legally allowed to arrest people.
Speaker 2: And we we thankfully we avoided going to Norfolk Southern Police.
Speaker 1: Jail, going to Norfolk Southern Court.
Speaker 2: Which certainly would have been a very legitimate court.
Speaker 1: So I mean, it would have been almost as legitimate
Speaker 1: as the real court that that the bail hearings happened
Speaker 1: at that same day. After successfully evading Norfolk Southern jail.
Speaker 1: Matt and I headed downtown for a march that was
Speaker 1: accompanied by a cadre of over one hundred officers. Pinning
Speaker 1: this crowd onto the sidewalk, got a whole police court
Speaker 1: blocking the sidewalk like a Doorida State University canine unit.
Speaker 1: This blocking off the entire sidewalk next to a Fulton
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's vehicle. I like the copturist, also commanding the
Speaker 1: corporate media on where they can stand and the whatever
Speaker 1: like boomer journalist is with whatever like mainstream news. Helle
Speaker 1: and was very peeered off at this cop for telling
Speaker 1: you to get on the sidewalk. The next day, a
Speaker 1: smaller crowd met up at the same spot and broke
Speaker 1: off into little subgroups to walk around downtown Atlanta and
Speaker 1: hand out defend the forest to leaflets. So all the
Speaker 1: little subgroups kind of meet up on Andrew Jung and Peachtree,
Speaker 1: right next to the Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe.
Speaker 2: To classic examples of Atlanted food.
Speaker 1: There was an Atlanta swat vehicle parked outside of the Hooters,
Speaker 1: fucking the fucking outside of fucking Hard Rock Cafe. So
Speaker 1: I can't I keep picking up this copyrighted music. But
Speaker 1: there's a big Atlanta Police swat vehicle parked on the
Speaker 1: block by the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters. All right, there's
Speaker 1: actually a pretty decent number of people gathered here for
Speaker 1: the flowering event today. They're at the Peachtree and Young
Speaker 1: International Boulevard intersection, right across from the Hooters and the
Speaker 1: Hard Rock Cafe. There's a swat vehicle parked right behind us.
Speaker 1: There is about, I don't know, twenty to thirty officersation
Speaker 1: a little bit to our north, you know, normal police
Speaker 1: responds to people handing out flyers, just fifty officers in
Speaker 1: a swat team. Lieutenant Neil Welch approaches the crowd and
Speaker 1: gives them a dispersal order. They cross the street walk
Speaker 1: like a black north, past some of the cops that
Speaker 1: are guarding the Wells Fargo building. At this point, people
Speaker 1: chanted the cops to quit your jobs, quit your job,
Speaker 1: and one of the cops guarding the Wells Fargo says,
Speaker 1: that's actually a good idea, you can always quit your job.
Speaker 4: That's actually a sound of box.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I already tried, And he's like, I tried to and
Speaker 2: they wouldn't let me. But like I don't like laughing,
Speaker 2: but that one got me. That one got me.
Speaker 1: The cop responded like, not in like a glib tone
Speaker 1: like he was it was actually actually he wanted serious,
Speaker 1: like yeah, that's actually yeah, that's actually a good idea,
Speaker 1: extremely funny moment.
Speaker 2: While this is happening, there's another group who comes in
Speaker 2: to the side of Peatree Center Mall and enters the
Speaker 2: mall to find Mayor Andre Dickens.
Speaker 1: Andre Dickens is like the head of some kind of
Speaker 1: like board or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a couple of boards in Atlanta that
Speaker 2: stipulate the mayor is like the head of the board,
Speaker 2: and this is one of them. And it meets in
Speaker 2: Peatree Center Mall as one does. So the mayor is
Speaker 2: having a meeting in the mall. It his office space is,
Speaker 2: you know, sort of above the mall. And so three
Speaker 2: Indigenous An activists along with Kamal Franklin arrive and they
Speaker 2: find the mayor. They enter the board meeting and they
Speaker 2: begin to read this letter from the Muscogie Nation aloud.
Speaker 2: Mayor Dickens, in true mayor fashion, bolts away from this,
Speaker 2: running through an exit door which is then like blocked
Speaker 2: by a guard which I think that has its own
Speaker 2: like set of legal issues, essentially just ignoring them over
Speaker 2: his shoulder. He calls out, I've got a copy of
Speaker 2: the letter and hides just completely trying to escape what
Speaker 2: is not a good look for him.
Speaker 1: This is what we call a Ted Wheeler moment. So
Speaker 1: as this happens, I think like Apex Swat is deployed.
Speaker 2: So Apex and Swat had had been elsewhere and they
Speaker 2: were called back to their vehicles like right before this,
Speaker 2: and then the activist exit and almost like in this
Speaker 2: very comical moment, after they get out and away, squads
Speaker 2: of these special units start rushing into the building, of course,
Speaker 2: finding no one.
Speaker 1: Charlie Chapman asks shit, truly okay, even a more future
Speaker 1: version of Garrison here. Apparently I've been told by Daniel
Speaker 1: that his name is Charlie Chaplin. I don't know he's
Speaker 1: a pedophile, so whatever, Charlie not Dan, oh boy, And
Speaker 1: I do want to say I did try multiple times
Speaker 1: to take Matt to the hard Rock Cafe or the Hooters,
Speaker 1: either one, and he refused my offer multiple times, very
Speaker 1: very rudely. So at some point when I'm back in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: I will have to gather a troop of fanboys and
Speaker 1: head over to the Hooters anyway. Next was the Community
Speaker 1: Movement Builder's rally on the evening of Thursday, March ninth,
Speaker 1: which had fewer jokes that night. But there are a
Speaker 1: few embarrassing recording bloopers at the expense of my own ego.
Speaker 1: So I will play those for your amusement, you absolute
Speaker 1: seck Fox. Yeah, we'll start thirteen years. It is kind
Speaker 1: of raining. We'll see how many people show up and
Speaker 1: how large the police response will be in comparison. So
Speaker 1: what what what could happen here?
Speaker 2: Well, it could happen here? A podcast by Robert Evans.
Speaker 2: We are at the site of the Martin Luther King Memorial.
Speaker 1: Did you see the two Sandy Springs police buses?
Speaker 2: I did see the Sandy I lived in Sandy Springs
Speaker 2: for a year and that brought back some memories. But yes,
Speaker 2: to Sandy Springs police buses. Sandy Springs, of course, being
Speaker 2: mostly outside of the perimeter. A good A good drive
Speaker 2: from here. That was good, That was good? All right,
Speaker 2: Hauger's absolutely Paugers.
Speaker 1: The police police has has been stating, well, I'll never mind,
Speaker 1: I cut that. What am I saying? Big puddle on
Speaker 1: the street, demonstrating the city's commitment to infrastructure. That was
Speaker 1: that was a joke because the dragon was plumped. I
Speaker 1: accidentally turned off my recording. But tripping on flo stairs.
Speaker 1: They're so they're so close together, we're they're just sandwiched in.
Speaker 1: Got a New York Times reporter standing in the middle
Speaker 1: of the street. Of course, the only person allowed to
Speaker 1: stand in the street the one, the one New York
Speaker 1: Times reporter. I would estimate almost about a kilometer, but
Speaker 1: I'm Canadian, so that's not very helpful to you.
Speaker 2: To you us listeners, the real outside agitators is Sandy Springs. Please. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the police were ready to mass arrest the entire time.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you mentioned this. So in between
Speaker 2: the police line in front of the APF building and
Speaker 2: the protesters was essentially like a mixture of cop Watch
Speaker 2: and National Lawyers Guild and a CLU, because of course
Speaker 2: you had to have like both both legal observer factions
Speaker 2: just to make sure everybody's watching each other.
Speaker 1: A still you can watch energy get the West rested?
Speaker 1: Who can watch a still you get arrested.
Speaker 2: It's turtles all the way down in Bigel Observers all
Speaker 2: the way down.
Speaker 1: Hello, and we are back. That's great, all right. One
Speaker 1: of the stops on the tour of the Blonnie Forest
Speaker 1: that Joe Perry was doing throughout the week was the
Speaker 1: area of the landswap between the former owner of Black
Speaker 1: Hall Studios, Ryan Millsap, and the Cabot County's Entrenchment Creek Park.
Speaker 1: So on one side there's this beautiful forested park that
Speaker 1: Ryan Millsap wants to trade for. Then on the other
Speaker 1: side is this massive mound of dirt that he currently owns,
Speaker 1: which is right next to Bouldercrest Road.
Speaker 3: That's a huge, huge dirt field that you see. And
Speaker 3: what happened is while that swap was being orchestrated, Blackhall
Speaker 3: was bringing thousands and thousands and thousands of dump truckloads
Speaker 3: of dirt and just filling it up, filling it up,
Speaker 3: filling it up. And somebody else is gonna have to
Speaker 3: do the math. But I don't know if you say,
Speaker 3: like fifteen acres of dirt that is twenty feet plus high,
Speaker 3: how much dirt that is.
Speaker 2: That's a lot.
Speaker 3: It's not natural. It's not something that's helping this flood
Speaker 3: prone area. All that's gonna run into here, no matter
Speaker 3: how many silk fences you put up. So that's what
Speaker 3: they're calling Michelle Obama Park. That's exactly exactly right. If
Speaker 3: somebody needs to talk to Michelle and say, nah, you
Speaker 3: need to take your name off of that one. I
Speaker 3: don't know who who got away with that, but that's
Speaker 3: not it.
Speaker 4: By the way, you're seeing the most picturesque side of that.
Speaker 6: Piece of land.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you get to get to the top, it's worse.
Speaker 7: It's just it's just it's garbage.
Speaker 3: Well the thing, and it is literally garbage because a
Speaker 3: lot of this stuff, this dirt keep you know, Ryan
Speaker 3: millsp has he is. He's not a movie mogul. He's
Speaker 3: he's a land baron. He's he's in real estate, and
Speaker 3: he's made billions of dollars in real estate. And so
Speaker 3: that dirt comes from other properties. He's he's digging up
Speaker 3: a place on you know, on Boulevard to put some
Speaker 3: apartments in. He's pulling dirt out of there. That's what's
Speaker 3: coming in here. That's dirt coming from all these other
Speaker 3: construction sites you have that is not top soil. You
Speaker 3: can and I believe me, I'm not saying I'm not
Speaker 3: making that up. I've been over there and I've walked
Speaker 3: and I've seen what's in there. I've seen water heaters
Speaker 3: in there. I've seen gutters in there, I've seen pipes,
Speaker 3: I've seen all kinds of crap.
Speaker 1: It's trash.
Speaker 3: It's a big trash mountain. That's what they want to
Speaker 3: have be Michelle Obama Park and hanging a hathen So, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's I just wanted you to kind of lay your
Speaker 3: eyes on what the county thought was a good idea,
Speaker 3: in what black Haw thought. Of course, you know, Ryan
Speaker 3: mill is a great idea for Ryan Millsepp because the
Speaker 3: land that he acquired is were way more millions more.
Speaker 3: It's now worth millions more than when he made the swap.
Speaker 3: So he has made a lot of money on this swap,
Speaker 3: and that's why he's angry that he can't get his
Speaker 3: hands on it. Yet nobody knows what he's gonna do
Speaker 3: with it, because the original agreement between him and the
Speaker 3: county was he was gonna build movie studios on that land.
Speaker 3: Well he can't now because he sold his rights to
Speaker 3: the movie studios to accompany. It's now called Shadowbox. They're
Speaker 3: the ones that owns his previous studios, so he can't
Speaker 3: have a rival company right across the street from them.
Speaker 3: So he hasn't said and nobody knows exactly what he's
Speaker 3: going to do with the property. If he wins this
Speaker 3: court case and gets those forty acres, who knows. It's
Speaker 3: a mystery. So that's that's where that stands right now.
Speaker 3: Hopefully we win the lawsuit. If we do, he will
Speaker 3: be he will have to put the bill for repaving
Speaker 3: the path and redoing the parking lot and putting a
Speaker 3: new gazebo in. That's what the judge decree. That's why
Speaker 3: they said we don't need a restraining order. All that
Speaker 3: is replaceable. So except for the trees that he tore down,
Speaker 3: you know those are going to take another seventy five years,
Speaker 3: but who's counting.
Speaker 1: The fate of Michelle Obama Park is still up in
Speaker 1: the air as of time of recording. So yeah, excited
Speaker 1: to visit that. If the landswap gets passed, almost done,
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna briefly, briefly tap back into my
Speaker 1: conversation with Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective, and
Speaker 1: then unfortunately, our jokes must come to an end.
Speaker 2: I think one thing that's been lost in all of
Speaker 2: this too is all of the lighthearted events that have
Speaker 2: continued to go on through the week. And you know,
Speaker 2: we have this this, this youth rally or there's the
Speaker 2: youth rally that's happening on Saturday, of course recording this beforehand,
Speaker 2: and like the joy of the movement that was represented
Speaker 2: in the bouncy castle rip which was first pointed at
Speaker 2: a Ford was pointing it.
Speaker 1: And we haven't talked about the gun, talking about the
Speaker 1: guns and the bouncy castle.
Speaker 2: So so one thing I think that that.
Speaker 1: We didn't mention.
Speaker 2: How can you forget about the guns and the bouncy castle.
Speaker 2: So when when the police came running up onto the
Speaker 2: tarmac at RCA Field where the bouncy castle was, of
Speaker 2: course 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
Speaker 2: what is I I don't know if anyone was in
Speaker 2: it at the time, I don't think so. I think
Speaker 2: they were literally just pointing a gun at an empty
Speaker 2: bouncy castle which they have they destroyed, and and I
Speaker 2: think we have to take a moment to mourn that.
Speaker 1: Did they destroyed or like defleate it?
Speaker 2: I think they destroyed It.
Speaker 1: Wasn't like a rental or something.
Speaker 2: Yes, so r I P. Bouncy house. You will be
Speaker 2: missed and all the joy that you represented. My girlfriend's
Speaker 2: texting me cringe.
Speaker 1: Let me let me check my my note, my notes.
Speaker 2: In case Garrison doesn't cut this. Ask about Garrison's neck?
Speaker 1: What hmm? What what did you say?
Speaker 2: Ask about what Garrison did Friday.
Speaker 1: Fire, burn tower Saturday, Gresham Park Sunday, Monday noon Tuesday.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, okay, I'm gonna just gonna look
Speaker 1: through my other notes app because I keep my notes
Speaker 1: in three different notes apps because I'm normal.
Speaker 2: So one thing that's been notable, especially in how the
Speaker 2: police talk about the forest, is they've begun using like
Speaker 2: these these militarized terms, like the denial of operating area
Speaker 2: that we saw when Ryan mill SAP was important to
Speaker 2: Cab County. He said the GBI told him to clear
Speaker 2: the area to deny operating space, and you know, the
Speaker 2: use of terrorism, like there's there's some eerie parallels between
Speaker 2: the language that was used to describe insurgencies in countries
Speaker 2: that America is invading or the United States is invading,
Speaker 2: and a lot of that language, like the military equipment
Speaker 2: that was used there has come home and is now
Speaker 2: being used against Americans engaged in like these liberation struggles.
Speaker 1: I wonder where we've talked about that before. I don't
Speaker 1: know it could happen where speaking of it is still happening.
Speaker 1: The last week, approximately five hundred people came out to
Speaker 1: City Hall as the city Council is now in the
Speaker 1: process of voting to approve public funds for the Cop
Speaker 1: City project. Nearly three hundred people signed up for public comment,
Speaker 1: with hundreds more waiting in line. A public comment lasted
Speaker 1: seven hours, and during so not a single person voiced
Speaker 1: support of using taxpayer money to fund the police training facility.
Speaker 1: The Atlanta Community Press Collective have recently reported that the
Speaker 1: proposed city funds toward the Cop City project have ballooned
Speaker 1: to a minimum of fifty one million dollars, with the
Speaker 1: thirty million dollar package awaiting final vote in City Council,
Speaker 1: plus another at least twenty million dollar chunk to be
Speaker 1: given to the Atlanta Police Foundation via a quote unquote loan,
Speaker 1: which indicates that the Atlanta Police Foundation's private fundraising has
Speaker 1: not gone as well as they initially had hoped. For
Speaker 1: more on that, I'd recommend checking out The Press Collective's
Speaker 1: recent article from May twenty fourth, and you can also
Speaker 1: donate to them to support their continued reporting of the
Speaker 1: happenings in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter at Atlanta Underscore Press.
Speaker 2: Our website is atl Press Collective dot com, and you
Speaker 2: can find our Instagram at at l Press Collective. We
Speaker 2: have partnered with Open Collective. We are fiscally sponsored now
Speaker 2: by Open the Open Collective Foundation in a way to
Speaker 2: transparently fundraise in order to sustain our reporting everything up
Speaker 2: until actually the Week of Action, we have everything that
Speaker 2: we have done up until the Week of Action was
Speaker 2: all unpaid. And it is our desire to to continue
Speaker 2: to grow with the movement. And uh so we were
Speaker 2: excited to find a partner in the Open Collective Foundation
Speaker 2: that can uh continue that sort of horizontal open organizing
Speaker 2: that that we have done internally.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I think, I think, I think we're good.
Speaker 2: I think we have a good job team.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, I wasn't required.
Speaker 8: It could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media.
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