Speaker 1: Cool zone media, get ready for anarchy in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Visit you got me first, or you won't be a
Speaker 2: rend anarchist start work. They struck again this week.
Speaker 3: Cops are approaching now obviously.
Speaker 4: Got a flashbuyn there. This is it could Happen Here.
Speaker 4: I'm Garrison Davis. For the past three years, a wide
Speaker 4: range of people in Atlanta, Georgia have been working to
Speaker 4: prevent the construction of a now one hundred and ten
Speaker 4: million dollar militarized police training facility in the South River
Speaker 4: Forest in southeast Atlanta. I've continuously covered the evolving struggle
Speaker 4: on it Could Happen Here for the past few years.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: In this episode, I will attempt to summarize some of
Speaker 4: the actions from the past six months and the wave
Speaker 4: of recent repression targeted against the movement. I will also
Speaker 4: so who offers some analysis and critique on behalf of
Speaker 4: anonymous Force Defenders who spoke with me in dedicated conversations.
Speaker 4: After the last week of action in summer of twenty
Speaker 4: twenty three, it was clear the movement needed a new
Speaker 4: way of people to engage in the struggle against Cop City,
Speaker 4: beyond the referendum and the occasional night time sabotage. Forest
Speaker 4: encampments were essentially impossible, and the weeks of action seemed
Speaker 4: to expunge their usefulness. A small group of people began
Speaker 4: organizing what would become known as block cop City. The
Speaker 4: idea was that on Monday, November thirteenth, a mass mobilization
Speaker 4: would descend upon the cop City construction site in an
Speaker 4: act of non violent protest, and perhaps plant tree saplings
Speaker 4: where the forest once stood. This marks the first time
Speaker 4: that the framing of quote unquote strategic nonviolence and nonviolent
Speaker 4: direct action were embraced for a mass action like this,
Speaker 4: hoping that it may attract NGOs and activist groups to
Speaker 4: co sign onto the action. Historically, throughout this struggle, such
Speaker 4: quote unquote nonviolent framing was at least avoided, if not
Speaker 4: explicitly rejected, as a limiting restriction toward achieving measurable victories
Speaker 4: against the Atlanta Police Foundation and Cop City contractors. Throughout
Speaker 4: the end of summer and the start of fall, a
Speaker 4: speaking tour for Block cup City traveled to over eighty
Speaker 4: cities around the country to promote the action and recruit
Speaker 4: people to travel to Atlanta come November. Block cup City
Speaker 4: started as a very vertical top down plan the central
Speaker 4: Conceit was decided upon by a small number of individuals,
Speaker 4: many of whom were not from Atlanta, and the finer
Speaker 4: details would be worked out in a series of public
Speaker 4: meetings in the days before the action. Whether or not
Speaker 4: local force defenders liked or disliked the proposal, block up
Speaker 4: City acted as a gravity well, sucking nearly all of
Speaker 4: the energy, time, and attention into its orbit for the
Speaker 4: entirety of a fall in Atlanta throughout the nationwide block
Speaker 4: cop City. Speaking to her, a small subset of attendees
Speaker 4: voiced objections and disagreements with the proposed strategy and its
Speaker 4: use of time and resources. Those opposed to block cop
Speaker 4: City thought the idea of a large public march to
Speaker 4: the worksite was going to put people in unnecessary harm
Speaker 4: without doing much to achieve a measurable blow against cop City.
Speaker 4: I'm going to quote from a report back that was
Speaker 4: published online shortly after the action. Quote. Something that tends
Speaker 4: to happen in autonomous action is that there ends up
Speaker 4: being an inner circle at the core, which can limit
Speaker 4: the scope of who is able to meaningfully contribute to
Speaker 4: the direction of an action, because it creates a hierarchy
Speaker 4: at Spokes Council. It felt like this at times because
Speaker 4: it was primarily a small group of speakers who were
Speaker 4: directing the entire Block cop City movement. This led to
Speaker 4: dismissal of certain concerns which were brought up by affinity
Speaker 4: groups unquote. In the planning stages, organizers pushed back on
Speaker 4: the notion that getting arrested was part of the plan,
Speaker 4: but on the day before the November thirteenth action, a
Speaker 4: Block Up City organizer told press and media in a
Speaker 4: private meeting to have your cameras ready because there will
Speaker 4: be arrests at noon, demonstrating some form of intent to
Speaker 4: use people's safety and freedom as a way to generate
Speaker 4: online buzz with the hope of inspiring people to once
Speaker 4: again take action in the forest. The possibility of arrest
Speaker 4: was obviously mentioned at the spokes Council meetings, but was
Speaker 4: framed as far from a certainty, with rallying cries insisting
Speaker 4: that the march will be able to all leave together.
Speaker 4: During the two days of Spokes Council meetings, the route
Speaker 4: and formation of the march to the construction site was
Speaker 4: decided upon, and quote unquote, direct action trainings took place
Speaker 4: to prepare people for the march on Monday morning. The
Speaker 4: march was to be split into three distinct clusters, a frontline, middle,
Speaker 4: and rear. Before the march, there was limited communication between clusters,
Speaker 4: making it difficult to have informed expectations of how a
Speaker 4: confrontation with police will happen. Part of the quote unquote
Speaker 4: strategic nonviolence stipulation meant that throne objects and projectiles were
Speaker 4: explicitly disallowed. On the morning of the march, words started
Speaker 4: to spread around that what was left of the frontline
Speaker 4: cluster decided that only bullets will make the frontline fall back,
Speaker 4: and that they would withstand all other forms of police violence,
Speaker 4: mostly les, lethal rounds, tear gas, batons, etc. Now, this
Speaker 4: whole thing about live rounds was not widely communicated to
Speaker 4: people who just showed up for the action. On Monday morning,
Speaker 4: during the spokes councils, it was learned that a vast
Speaker 4: majority of attendees had never before been to Atlanta or
Speaker 4: the forest, and a great many of whom had never
Speaker 4: attended a protest or engaged in a clash with police before.
Speaker 4: Some local force defenders took issue with the perceived strategy
Speaker 4: of primiery recruiting young people from across the country with
Speaker 4: little to no experience going up against police. Come Monday morning,
Speaker 4: the number of people gathered to march on cop City
Speaker 4: was far fewer than what was initially hoped. It's impossible
Speaker 4: to say for sure whether the limiting of acceptable tactics
Speaker 4: and the non violent framing hurt or helped the final
Speaker 4: number of attendees. Regardless, the four hundred or so brave
Speaker 4: people that departed Gresham Park was not the mass action
Speaker 4: initially envisioned by organizers.
Speaker 3: Got about three dozen riot cops and SWAT teams stationed here,
Speaker 3: blocking off the road heading to the west. Got police shields,
Speaker 3: We have air of fifteen's, We have tactical response vehicles ATV,
Speaker 3: A lot of cops behind us, a lot of cops
Speaker 3: in front of us. We are completely sandwiched in by
Speaker 3: the police.
Speaker 4: Right now, the front liners approach the police riot line
Speaker 4: at the big intersection near the entrance to Entrenchment Creek Park.
Speaker 4: Two large banners formed a V shaped wedge and the
Speaker 4: crowd advanced into the police line.
Speaker 3: People are pushing through, Cops are putting out the fight.
Speaker 4: People are continuing to move forward. The march is pushing
Speaker 4: the cops back. Under the pressure from a few hundred people,
Speaker 4: The police line was pushed back by one or two
Speaker 4: dozen feet front liners. We stood, police batons and leslie communitions.
Speaker 4: Steady progress was being made. That was until tear gas
Speaker 4: got deployed. Cops are continuing to loop back, flash bang,
Speaker 4: we got a gap. Cs Gas was first launched into
Speaker 4: the middle of the crowd. Police paused to put on
Speaker 4: their own gas masks, but instead of using this moment
Speaker 4: to advance further, the bulk of the crowd held their position,
Speaker 4: with large sections of the middle cluster subsequently entering into
Speaker 4: the tree line of Entrenchment Creek Park as continuing volleys
Speaker 4: of tear gas were fired by police. This caused the
Speaker 4: front line to retreat back, effectively ending the offensive portion
Speaker 4: of the action. As the group that entered into the
Speaker 4: forest was later escorted out by police, rejoined the march
Speaker 4: and eventually returned to Gresham Park. Everyone knew that it
Speaker 4: was a near certainty that police would confront a mobile crowd,
Speaker 4: and out maneuvering police all the way to the construction
Speaker 4: site would be highly unlikely. The only way a mass
Speaker 4: of people would be able to get to the work
Speaker 4: site is if police allowed it. Still, there's much to
Speaker 4: learn from Block cop City, and even just the brief
Speaker 4: skirmish with police. So forgive me for engaging in some
Speaker 4: tactical analysis based on the good portion of my life
Speaker 4: spent in riot jousts and input from others with more
Speaker 4: on the ground experience. We first have to think about
Speaker 4: what will cause a mass of people to break up, scatter,
Speaker 4: and retreat. Both on the protester side and on the
Speaker 4: police side. The front lines are meant to act semi fluid. Typically,
Speaker 4: projectile launchers are behind the front line and are designed
Speaker 4: to scatter the opposing front line and middle sections of
Speaker 4: the enemy side to disrupt an offensive formation so that
Speaker 4: it loses its capacity for for momentum, or to stagger
Speaker 4: a defensive line enough to force retreat, as was the
Speaker 4: case on November thirteenth. When a layered defensive police line
Speaker 4: is backed up with vehicles like a bearcat, the on
Speaker 4: foot line will most likely not retreat back behind their vehicles. Frustratingly,
Speaker 4: these massive police vehicles occupy a sort of paradoxical role
Speaker 4: as a ten ton roadblock that would force a center
Speaker 4: advancing line to break apart in order to pass, putting
Speaker 4: the advancing line in a less strategic position, even though
Speaker 4: if the vehicle was threatened by being overrun, police would
Speaker 4: probably attempt to pull the vehicle back, signifying retreat. So
Speaker 4: how has this paradox been solved before? Well with ranged
Speaker 4: attacks like bottles, fireworks and what the State of Ukraine
Speaker 4: was teaching its civilians to make in the early days
Speaker 4: of the Russian invasion. This is why projectiles are of
Speaker 4: such a strategic importance. One cannot break through a police
Speaker 4: line without employing violence. Utilizing projectiles is necessary to force
Speaker 4: rear police vehicles to retreat, along with the CoP's own
Speaker 4: projectile launchers placed behind their riot line, which are used
Speaker 4: to break up the opposing front line, and police have
Speaker 4: no such tactical non violence scruples against using projectiles. Some
Speaker 4: Atlanta anarchists have also noted that the resources put towards
Speaker 4: acquiring a great number of plants that ended up just
Speaker 4: being abandoned could also have been used to acquire gas
Speaker 4: masks for the middle cluster, reinforced shields, and ancillary materials
Speaker 4: put towards prioritizing the crowd's efficacy and safety against the
Speaker 4: use of crowd controlled munitions. Thankfully there were no arrests
Speaker 4: made in direct connection to the march, but I don't
Speaker 4: believe this can be accredited to any comprehensive organizing. When
Speaker 4: the day prior, media was told that arrests would be
Speaker 4: taking place by lunchtime, for whatever reason, the police let
Speaker 4: a kettled crowd of people go free. We can only
Speaker 4: speculate on why, between the logistical hassles, the stretching of
Speaker 4: prosecutor resources, and the bomb squad that was actively sweeping
Speaker 4: the area of Entrenchment Creek Park and checking all of
Speaker 4: the bags and backpacks that were dropped in the area
Speaker 4: where the splinter of the march was escorted out by police.
Speaker 4: When talking with Force defenders in Atlanta who've spent years
Speaker 4: now engaging in militant struggle against police, they offered a
Speaker 4: more fundamental critique of this action. If the choice to
Speaker 4: employ a strategy of nonviolence is in response to grossly
Speaker 4: inflated charges and repression the movement is facing, as some
Speaker 4: block op City organizers have stated, that means that you're
Speaker 4: a allowing the state to determine your rules of engagement.
Speaker 4: The entire idea of announcing your plan to walk onto
Speaker 4: one of the most policed areas in the country, did
Speaker 4: in fact prevent people with more on the ground experience
Speaker 4: from participating On the day of the action. Risk requires reward.
Speaker 4: A small core of organizers were so steadfast in one
Speaker 4: particular version of how this event would take shape, branding
Speaker 4: people with disagreements as all overly online disaffected nihilists no
Speaker 4: longer involved in the struggle in Atlanta. Not only were
Speaker 4: online critiques discarded, but opportunities for in person conversations and
Speaker 4: input from people with more on the ground experience in
Speaker 4: Atlanta were also turned down. And I think it is
Speaker 4: important to state hats off to the many young people
Speaker 4: that traveled from around the country to participate in this action.
Speaker 4: One can hope that block cop City broadly and going
Speaker 4: up against this line of armed riot police was a
Speaker 4: useful learning experience for whatever happens next in these people's
Speaker 4: lives as we approach the twenty twenty four election and
Speaker 4: who knows what is to come. The night after Block
Speaker 4: Cop City, six vehicles owned by the company Ernst Concrete
Speaker 4: were set on fire in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Earlier that fall,
Speaker 4: Ernst Concrete trucks were seen working on the cop City
Speaker 4: construction site. After the arson, Ernst Concrete released a statement
Speaker 4: saying that they were not going to work on the
Speaker 4: cop City project. In an Atlanta Police Department press conference
Speaker 4: from December twenty twenty three, Chief Darren Sheerbaum discussed a
Speaker 4: wave of recent arsons Gonda.
Speaker 1: The most recent one happened in Gwinnette County this past November.
Speaker 1: This was Ernst Concrete when a number of construction equipment
Speaker 1: was set on fire. Then we go to three arsons
Speaker 1: that happened right here in Atlanta mcdonna Boulevard where a contractor,
Speaker 1: Brent Scarborough, was targeted three different times in the month
Speaker 1: of October of this year, July of this year, as
Speaker 1: well as April this year. We see that the same
Speaker 1: group takes credit each and every time on their source
Speaker 1: of giving information out and so it is likely to
Speaker 1: be that same group, very small in number, moving from.
Speaker 2: State to state. Is likely the profile of these individuals.
Speaker 2: It's very very small.
Speaker 1: It is a handful of individuals that are having a
Speaker 1: much larger impact on the safety of the city than
Speaker 1: they should have.
Speaker 4: Atlanta Fire Chief Roderick Smith and John King, the Georgia
Speaker 4: Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner. Both talked about how these
Speaker 4: arsons negatively affect the contractors working to build cop city.
Speaker 6: As we talk about impacts caused by arson, it affects
Speaker 6: our businesses, those that are participating in helping out building
Speaker 6: the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. We suffer from additional
Speaker 6: cost due to arson that these companies face. An individual
Speaker 6: Jeel's faith.
Speaker 5: This affects every one of our citizens in the area because
Speaker 5: all these losses. Yes, there's an insurance company that will
Speaker 5: probably cover some of the costs, but those losses will
Speaker 5: be passed on to customers, so we all will take
Speaker 5: the losses.
Speaker 4: On January seventeenth, APD put out another press conference to
Speaker 4: discuss even though the police are already doing such a
Speaker 4: great job outstopping crime when it's fourteen degrees and homicides
Speaker 4: continue to decline, even still, a new state of the
Speaker 4: art police training facility is vital to maintain safety in
Speaker 4: the city of Atlanta.
Speaker 1: We've asked you to come together again today because there
Speaker 1: is an effort underway by very small groups of individuals
Speaker 1: anarchists that want to impact the safety of Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 2: Just yesterday, piece.
Speaker 1: Of equipment aligned with one of the construction companies that
Speaker 1: is building the public safety training center for every Atlantin
Speaker 1: set on fire. Next door in a neighboring state of
Speaker 1: South Carolina, we had a construction company that had a
Speaker 1: loose connection to the project here that was targeted by
Speaker 1: an individual that used one of the tools of violence
Speaker 1: sphere and intimidation that has been used mainly by this group,
Speaker 1: which is arson, set equipment on fire, going after concrete trucks,
Speaker 1: and so soon the individuals that have been in the
Speaker 1: dark of night, impacting everyone of our neighborhoods will be
Speaker 1: held responsible as we bring these individuals to justice.
Speaker 4: Police in South Carolina were able to identify a suspect
Speaker 4: and ended up arresting and charging them with arson. The
Speaker 4: fire chief elaborated on the theoretical risks of arson, such
Speaker 4: as injury to human life and the ugly sight of
Speaker 4: burnt rubble left over in neighborhoods, as well as reiterating
Speaker 4: how it affects the cop City project.
Speaker 2: What are the effects of arson financial?
Speaker 6: As we've heard earlier, the impact that the equipment being
Speaker 6: burned plays of role with the company's working delays in
Speaker 6: the project due.
Speaker 4: To this, less than a week later, the city had
Speaker 4: a other press conference in front of burnt husks of
Speaker 4: equipment outside a construction site run by a Cop City contractor.
Speaker 1: If you look over my shoulder, you will see the
Speaker 1: equipment that was burned.
Speaker 2: It belongs to a private contractor.
Speaker 1: There were total four pieces of heavy construction equipment that
Speaker 1: were damaged this morning.
Speaker 4: Chief Scheerbomb quickly linked the attack to stop coop City
Speaker 4: due to a post online about the attack accompanied by
Speaker 4: the hashtag stop cop City.
Speaker 2: The hashtag is present.
Speaker 4: Scherbomb also gave an updated account on the number of
Speaker 4: arson attacks which have targeted construction equipment.
Speaker 1: I believe now we're right at thirty four that have
Speaker 1: occurred here in the state of Georgia and elsewhere. The
Speaker 1: vast majority of them are concentrated in North Georgia, but
Speaker 1: there are others that have occurred elsewhere. We're very fortunate
Speaker 1: of an arrest in South Carolina. There's clearly at least
Speaker 1: one other person. This individual or individuals don't care about
Speaker 1: life and safety. If they fire bombed police precincts. Their
Speaker 1: go is to a road, proper public safety infrastructure, and
Speaker 1: to row the government.
Speaker 4: Very cool stuff. Indeed, I do believe that thirty four
Speaker 4: number is a gross undercount, but hey, if they've forgotten
Speaker 4: a few attacks, really no real harm in that. We have, however,
Speaker 4: gotten a few recent numbers on the monetary damages caused
Speaker 4: by stop cop city activity. In a Georgia State Senate
Speaker 4: committee meeting near the end of January, State Senator Debra
Speaker 4: Silcox said that APD Chief Administrative Officer Peter Amman told
Speaker 4: her earlier that day that the estimated cost of nationwide
Speaker 4: property damage made in protest of cop City exceeds one
Speaker 4: hundred million dollars. That beats the ELF numbers. Now four
Speaker 4: days later, the Atlanta Police Department tried to backtrack that
Speaker 4: number to New York Times reporter Sean Keenan, now saying
Speaker 4: that it was ten million dollars in property damage, a
Speaker 4: one thousand percent difference, which either way is a massive
Speaker 4: amount of money. And we do know for sure that
Speaker 4: the city has spent at least one point three million
Speaker 4: dollars just in the legal fees related to cop City.
Speaker 4: We know at least some of that one point three
Speaker 4: million dollars was used to combat the cop City referendum campaign,
Speaker 4: an initiative started last summer to collect petition signatures to
Speaker 4: put cop city on an upcoming ballot. I talked with
Speaker 4: Sam Barnes of the Atlantic Community Press Collective to get
Speaker 4: an update on the current state of the referendum.
Speaker 7: The referendum has more or less been stalled out since
Speaker 7: last fall. In response to a lawsuit from Decab County
Speaker 7: residents who claimed that their First Amendment rights were being
Speaker 7: infringed upon because they were not allowed to canvas for signatures,
Speaker 7: A core issued down an injunction, basically allowing the referendum
Speaker 7: campaign to have addition time to collect and then turn
Speaker 7: in signatures. The city then appealed that injunction. That whole
Speaker 7: situation is currently before the US Court of Appeals, who
Speaker 7: heard arguments from the city's lawyers and the vote campaign's
Speaker 7: lawyers in January and who have not yet issued a
Speaker 7: ruling on that appeal.
Speaker 4: The referendum campaign has turned in what they say are
Speaker 4: one hundred and sixteen thousand signatures, which, if verified, should
Speaker 4: be more than enough to get the referendum onto the ballot,
Speaker 4: but the City of Atlanta has said that they cannot
Speaker 4: start counting these signatures until the Court of Appeals issues
Speaker 4: their ruling.
Speaker 7: It's not really clear where in case law, or in
Speaker 7: Georgia code, or wherever they are getting that legal precedent from.
Speaker 7: But it is the line they are sticking to. So
Speaker 7: long story short, even if the city was to start
Speaker 7: counting votes today, and even if there were enough to
Speaker 7: get this referendum on the ballot the next election, it
Speaker 7: could appear on the ballot in is the general election
Speaker 7: in November twenty twenty four. Cop City for APD and
Speaker 7: the APF's repeated claims is going to open and fall
Speaker 7: of twenty twenty four. Now, I don't personally have a
Speaker 7: lot of faith in that at one point it was
Speaker 7: going to open in August twenty twenty three, just the
Speaker 7: simple fact of every construction project runs into delays. But
Speaker 7: I think it is pretty clear, especially given the clear
Speaker 7: cutting and the concrete pouring that has already happened on
Speaker 7: the site, that it will make significant progress by by November.
Speaker 7: It's pretty obvious that the city strategy here is to
Speaker 7: just delay and delay and delay the referendum until the
Speaker 7: thing gets built, effectively just making the refere random dead
Speaker 7: in the water.
Speaker 4: On February eighth, the Federal Bureau of Investigation connected a
Speaker 4: series of house raids on three homes in South Atlanta
Speaker 4: that they suspected of being linked to Stop Coop City activists.
Speaker 4: Phones and computers were seized, along with stop Coop City
Speaker 4: related zines and posters. Occupants of the house were dragged outside,
Speaker 4: sometimes literally. A few were detained for hours on end,
Speaker 4: with one being driven to a police headquarters for interrogation,
Speaker 4: but was released later that evening.
Speaker 1: This morning, at six am, investigators of the Land of
Speaker 1: Fire Rescue, Georgia berl of Investigation, Federal Burial of Investigation,
Speaker 1: Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Atlanta Police Department,
Speaker 1: joined by uniformed elements of this department, the Georgia State Patrol,
Speaker 1: executed search warrants signed by judges who'd review the probable cause,
Speaker 1: allowing us to enter three locations to seek evidence connected
Speaker 1: to acts of vandalism and arson that have occurred over
Speaker 1: the last few months. As investigators went to those locations,
Speaker 1: they were armed with an arrest.
Speaker 4: War It's worth noting that the search warrants cited federal
Speaker 4: statutes on the destruction of vehicles and reco While executing
Speaker 4: one of these raids, police located in individual whom an
Speaker 4: arrest warrant was issued for days prior and brought them
Speaker 4: into custody. This arrest, along with the one in South Carolina,
Speaker 4: also marked the very first arrests linked to clandestine nighttime
Speaker 4: attacks in the three year history of the movement.
Speaker 2: We're processing all the locations now.
Speaker 1: The evidence to make that arrest had already been in
Speaker 1: possession of law enforcement even before we executed the search
Speaker 1: warrants this morning, So the arrest wort was signed before today,
Speaker 1: and the arrest wort was not connected with the search
Speaker 1: warsols were independent of the arrest we'd be making once
Speaker 1: we located this gentleman.
Speaker 4: In a city press conference, the mayor opened by saying
Speaker 4: this arrest was quote linked to multiple acts of vandalism
Speaker 4: and arson unquote, yet they were only charged with one
Speaker 4: account of first arrearson, which police linked to the burning
Speaker 4: of eight police motorcycles last July, near the end of
Speaker 4: that summer's week of action. This particular arson is unique
Speaker 4: from the many other copcity related at arsens in a
Speaker 4: few ways. This was not targeting construction equipment. Instead, it
Speaker 4: was directly targeting police infrastructure. An unexploded plastic andcendiary device
Speaker 4: was left at the scene and the police training building
Speaker 4: that was singed, the city now claims was occupied by
Speaker 4: a police officer.
Speaker 1: WI was often overlooked as inside of that precinct was
Speaker 1: a protector of the city Atlanta police officers inside.
Speaker 4: As police have said they only had enough information to
Speaker 4: make this one arrest linked to this one specific instance
Speaker 4: of arson. Thus, these raids can be seen both as
Speaker 4: an intimidation attempt and a last ditch effort to collect
Speaker 4: additional information necessary to make future arrests.
Speaker 2: More rest will come.
Speaker 1: It will come soon and will continue to hold people
Speaker 1: accountable to Everyone that has been involved in these acts
Speaker 1: are in jail before a judge. The investigation is very active, ma'am.
Speaker 1: There's a reason we serve three search warrants today.
Speaker 2: We do. We are looking in a wide range of areas.
Speaker 1: We believe evidence as hell that will identify whose responsible
Speaker 1: for the others and who else was responsible.
Speaker 2: Besides this gentleman.
Speaker 1: The investigation will play that out, but there are others
Speaker 1: that I anticipate will be resting in the end the
Speaker 1: weeks to come.
Speaker 4: This messaging from Chief Sheerbam is obviously meant to spread
Speaker 4: panic and paranoia amongst activists, organizers, and the anarchists of Atlanta.
Speaker 4: Those in Atlanta were quick to prove that repression would
Speaker 4: not stifle attacks against copp City. On the night of
Speaker 4: February ninth, a police car was torched outside of the
Speaker 4: home of an APD officer in the Lakewood neighborhood of Atlanta.
Speaker 4: The next day, police claimed that they track the movements
Speaker 4: of two alleged arsonists via ring, doorbell and street cameras
Speaker 4: to a house in Lakewood and conducted a raid that afternoon.
Speaker 4: Nothing was found and no arrests were made. The FBI
Speaker 4: and the ATF viewed the vehicle arsen outside of the
Speaker 4: home of Atlanta police officer as a significant escalation and
Speaker 4: made their first on camera speaking appearance on Channel two
Speaker 4: to discuss the possibility of introducing federal charges. The house
Speaker 4: raids threats, doing all these press conferences, it's all part
Speaker 4: of this media frenzy to elicit fear. Earlier this year,
Speaker 4: Chief Sheerbomb unveiled plans to put four hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: billboards all across the country offering reward money for information,
Speaker 4: specifically placed in cities they believe anarchists are traveling from
Speaker 4: to set fires in Atlanta. Every single press conference the
Speaker 4: police do. They are desperately begging for members of the
Speaker 4: public to snitch, saying the only way this case will
Speaker 4: be solved is if anonymous tipsters come forward with information,
Speaker 4: offering increasingly comical amounts of money if information leads to
Speaker 4: a conviction. Fear is one of the greatest tools this
Speaker 4: state has to bear. But through this sequence of events,
Speaker 4: police and investigators are also kind of showing their hand here,
Speaker 4: demonstrating the current limit of their actionable evidence. It has
Speaker 4: now been well over a month since these raids, and
Speaker 4: as of now, no subsequent arrests have been made. The
Speaker 4: timing of these house raids also seemed intended to disrupt
Speaker 4: an event planned for later that month called the Nationwide
Speaker 4: Summit to Stop Coop City, a convergence located in Tucson, Arizona,
Speaker 4: on Amazonia that was planned for February twenty third to
Speaker 4: the twenty sixth. I was not able to attend, but
Speaker 4: I spoke with Sam from the Atlantic Community Press Collective,
Speaker 4: who covered the summit in person.
Speaker 7: It was a four day convergence in Tuo Sun, Arizona,
Speaker 7: called for by the pretty well entrenched radical organizing scene
Speaker 7: there in Tucson that was just intended to be the
Speaker 7: kind of summits we've seen here in Atlanta that are
Speaker 7: often called weeks of Action that can no longer take
Speaker 7: place here in Atlanta. So it was intended to be
Speaker 7: just a gathering of like minded people to share ideas,
Speaker 7: build community, have fun, frankly, and there also were some
Speaker 7: direct actions that occurred during the week. The hub for
Speaker 7: the summit was a park kind of on what i'd
Speaker 7: call the north end of Tucson called Mansfield Park, and
Speaker 7: there was a small camp space set up and organized
Speaker 7: by locals.
Speaker 2: The structure of.
Speaker 7: The summit and of the camp space in general was
Speaker 7: again very familiar to anyone who has attended any of
Speaker 7: the Weeks of Action in Atlanta. There were camp meals breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 7: and dinner. There were camp announcements, a lot of spontaneous
Speaker 7: activities within the camp. A couple movie nights were held.
Speaker 4: Tucson, Arizona on Amazonia is about one hundred miles from
Speaker 4: the US Mexico border. Sam told me about a panel
Speaker 4: they attended on the intersections between the border, Gaza and Atlanta.
Speaker 4: If you've been paying attention to the cop city struggle,
Speaker 4: you're probably already familiar with these themes. The Atlanta Police
Speaker 4: Department participates in the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange the
Speaker 4: GILLY program, where they trained with members of the IDF.
Speaker 7: The talk featured Jewish Americans, Palestinian Americans. A correspondent from
Speaker 7: Indian Collective who was there to cover the summit as well,
Speaker 7: also spoke during that event, and that intersection was I
Speaker 7: think even before Aaron Bushnell self immolated that Sunday was
Speaker 7: probably the most profound theme wunning through the weekend, again,
Speaker 7: especially with Tucson's proximity to the border and to native
Speaker 7: lands that are on the border and which are often
Speaker 7: surveilled using wait for it, Israeli military technology. The sort
Speaker 7: of official name of the summit was the Nationwide Summit
Speaker 7: to Stop cup City, which was a sort of wink wink,
Speaker 7: nudge nudge at Nationwide Insurance, which is the main underwriter
Speaker 7: of the insurance policies that ensure what would be cop City.
Speaker 7: Nationwide has a major corporate office in Scottsdale, Arizona, which
Speaker 7: is in between Tucson and Phoenix.
Speaker 4: On the first night of the summit, a small group
Speaker 4: of anonymous vandals attacked three subsidiaries of Nationwide Insurance in Tucson, Arizona,
Speaker 4: tous'n Azugna, breaking windows and vandalizing their buildings. Later on
Speaker 4: in the week, there were two more public direct actions
Speaker 4: that happened during the summit. The first was a black
Speaker 4: block march on the night of February twenty fifth in
Speaker 4: downtown Tucson, Arizona, tousann Azugnia as a crowd of a
Speaker 4: little under one hundred people moved through downtown stop Coop City.
Speaker 4: Graffiti filled the plaza and a P and C bank
Speaker 4: as well as they recently closed Wells Fargo branch had
Speaker 4: their windows a smashed. Wells Fargo is affiliated with the
Speaker 4: Atlanta Police Foundation and PNC is a financial backer of
Speaker 4: the Mountain Valley Pipeline in the Appalachians. Police were able
Speaker 4: to arrest at least three people suspected of participating in
Speaker 4: the march. Oddly, they were charged with arson of an
Speaker 4: occupied building, I believe due to fireworks being thrown in
Speaker 4: or near one of the banks. Given the name of
Speaker 4: the Nationwide Summit, it was expected that there would be
Speaker 4: a public action targeting nationwide insurance.
Speaker 7: So Monday morning we headed up to Scottsdale, Arizona again
Speaker 7: just outside of Phoenix. Phoenix is about two hours away,
Speaker 7: where we stopped by a sort of sidewalk rally type
Speaker 7: situation that was happening outside of the Nationwide Regional offices,
Speaker 7: which was honestly quite locked down, quite hard to get
Speaker 7: access to it. As we were leaving the sidewalk rally
Speaker 7: and being followed by Scottsdale's finest bicycle riders, I thought
Speaker 7: it was interesting that one of the bicycle cops had
Speaker 7: a life behind Bars personalized painted bicycle bell. It was
Speaker 7: Teal and said a Life behind Bars, And when when
Speaker 7: we asked him about it, he just said, I just
Speaker 7: thought it was funny because you know, I'm a cop
Speaker 7: and I'm behind bicycle bars.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 7: Delightful and look forward to further coverage of this exciting
Speaker 7: story in a soon to be released ACPC video feature.
Speaker 7: So after the rally outside of Nationwides offices, we got
Speaker 7: a tip that a lockdown style action would be happening
Speaker 7: somewhere in the Scottsdale Phoenix area that afternoon, So maybe
Speaker 7: around four or five o'clock, we traveled to the hills
Speaker 7: of Maricopa County, Arizona, formerly home to America's toughest Sheriff
Speaker 7: Joe Arpio into this sort of enclave of gated, dead
Speaker 7: end streets with fabulously expensive homes. One of these homes
Speaker 7: is owned by a nationwide insurance executive. So the activists
Speaker 7: that locked down placed their bodies in front of two
Speaker 7: entrances to this enclave with the intention of disrupting the
Speaker 7: evening of this nationwide executive and their neighbors. There were
Speaker 7: six activists in total that locked down, three at each entrance.
Speaker 7: They used a device that has been ascribed to me
Speaker 7: as being called a cupcake, meaning it was a bag
Speaker 7: of concrete placed on the inside of a car tire
Speaker 7: set with some rebar and a kind of pipe sticking
Speaker 7: out of it, where I assumed there was some sort
Speaker 7: of like handcuff locking on the inside of the pipe.
Speaker 7: The gates were also locked shut with like bicycle locks.
Speaker 4: People were locked to the entrance of the gated community
Speaker 4: for almost four hours before being arrested. All six were
Speaker 4: ultimately given misdemeanor charges and released within twenty four to
Speaker 4: forty eight hours. Sam also talks to me about how
Speaker 4: these big public gatherings like the summit in Tucson, Arizona, Son,
Speaker 4: not Azamia seem like they just can't really happen in
Speaker 4: Atlanta anymore.
Speaker 7: So in November here in Atlanta, we had the Block
Speaker 7: Cop City Convergence, which was organized to a pretty significant
Speaker 7: extent by folks not from Atlanta. I know. One reason
Speaker 7: I heard for that was it's pretty well known that
Speaker 7: organizers in Atlanta are tired, and there was a group
Speaker 7: of people from outside of Atlanta that felt like they
Speaker 7: could carry that lift to organize and action here in Atlanta.
Speaker 7: The summit in Tucson, to my knowledge, is the first
Speaker 7: major convergence that has been organized out side of Atlanta
Speaker 7: with a call for folks to come from the nation over.
Speaker 7: It was a very keen or a very sharp feeling
Speaker 7: of grief that this was not happening in Atlanta, that
Speaker 7: it could not happen in Atlanta, both because the forest
Speaker 7: has had a huge chunk of it bulldozed, but also
Speaker 7: due to the police occupation of the forest, that this
Speaker 7: could not happen in Atlanta right now in the Willani Forest,
Speaker 7: And I think, especially given recent events in Atlanta, in
Speaker 7: anywhere in Atlanta in Georgia.
Speaker 4: Frankly, even if due to continuating circumstances, events like this
Speaker 4: may not be able to happen in Georgia. Sam told
Speaker 4: me that once the summit kicked off and things got going,
Speaker 4: it became clear that, of course, convergences can and probably
Speaker 4: will continue to happen anywhere and everywhere. For a long time,
Speaker 4: a slogan of this struggle has been cop city is everywhere.
Speaker 7: Even if there weren't similar cop city like facilities planned
Speaker 7: or already being built all over the country. I believe
Speaker 7: the latest count was a sixty nine or seventy. I
Speaker 7: can't quite remember who did that research, But even if
Speaker 7: it wasn't for that again to go back to like
Speaker 7: the sharp through line of Gaza, the border, Indigenous lands,
Speaker 7: Gilly historal genocide, this struggle is the same everywhere. The
Speaker 7: police are the same everywhere. As I recently discussed on
Speaker 7: this podcast.
Speaker 4: As this episode draws to a close, I'd like to
Speaker 4: air out some thoughts I've had ruminating around my head
Speaker 4: for a while about inter conflict as desperation. These comments
Speaker 4: are not about any specific city or situation. This simply
Speaker 4: reflects a pattern I've observed in various struggles caught in
Speaker 4: a down spiral, particularly during the fallout of the twenty
Speaker 4: twenty protests nationwide. Historically, I think Atlanta has actually proven
Speaker 4: to be pretty resilient against this sort of thing. But
Speaker 4: as the stakes are quite high, I would hate to
Speaker 4: see something similar happen, as the cop city struggle here
Speaker 4: in Atlanta seems to be entering its latter stages. First,
Speaker 4: I'd like to say it's always a worrying ticking clock
Speaker 4: once people start getting treated as disposable or as political
Speaker 4: props to be sacrificed in the service of spectacle. But
Speaker 4: primarily I've been thinking about at a certain point far
Speaker 4: enough within a struggle, it becomes easier to fight each
Speaker 4: other than it is to fight police. Which is not
Speaker 4: to say all conflict is bad. Conflict can often be good.
Speaker 4: Tension can result in a new innovative action that otherwise
Speaker 4: might not materialize. But when said actionable conflict starts to
Speaker 4: materialize more frequently against each other rather than against the state,
Speaker 4: that signals impending doom. Being able to consistently put your
Speaker 4: beliefs into practice with a like minded group of people,
Speaker 4: to directly engage against systems of oppression like the police
Speaker 4: or the state, especially in your own city, is a
Speaker 4: life affirming process, almost intoxicating it's very easy to become
Speaker 4: addicted to high intensity conflict. Unfortunately, the state is a
Speaker 4: resilient bastard. Even if you can land a few sizeable blows.
Speaker 4: Over time, this state can gather a lot of resources
Speaker 4: to push back, and it take a few days, weeks, months,
Speaker 4: or even years. Only in our minds may the glorious
Speaker 4: first spark of uprising last forever, the burning of the
Speaker 4: Third Precinct, or the first year or so of defend
Speaker 4: the Atlanta Forest. But nostalgia is a trap, and eventually
Speaker 4: the empire does in fact strike back. But as it
Speaker 4: becomes harder, more dangerous, more frightening to engage against the state,
Speaker 4: the desire for that rush of conflict stays. It lingers.
Speaker 4: So what is one to do? The walls are closing in,
Speaker 4: but you have this need to fight, so you take
Speaker 4: out your anxiety, PTSD and frustration on those around you.
Speaker 4: It is much more scary to fight the police. This,
Speaker 4: by comparison, is easy while still feeding that conflictual drive.
Speaker 4: We must keep on fighting. And since it's harder and
Speaker 4: more scary to continually fight the cops or the state,
Speaker 4: we instead are looking for ways to fight each other,
Speaker 4: to find scapegoats to purge, often in service of some
Speaker 4: unrelated personal grievance or in group self preservation constant attack,
Speaker 4: constant strength, constant purity. These conflicts can take form as
Speaker 4: blame as to why desired outcome is not being achieved,
Speaker 4: intensified a stratification of in group out group dynamics, as in,
Speaker 4: these are the bad people in the movement, whereas we
Speaker 4: are the enlightened definity group with the only successful strategy
Speaker 4: or conspiratorial co intel pro like actions such as cop jacketing,
Speaker 4: snitch jacketing, and more general bad jacketing against people who
Speaker 4: you have simple organizational disagreements with. This can also manifest
Speaker 4: as a deep unwillingness to hear preemptive critical commentary and
Speaker 4: the assumption that all criticism comes from a place of
Speaker 4: bad faith. A recent article in a popular anarchist publication
Speaker 4: roped in genuine critique and disagreement as somehow being in
Speaker 4: alignment with the state's motivations against the movement and is this
Speaker 4: not just a form of cop jacketing, saying that if
Speaker 4: you disagree with a particular strategy, that means you are
Speaker 4: in alignment with police because they also dislike a particular strategy,
Speaker 4: but the police dislike the strategy for a completely different reason,
Speaker 4: because they dislike any form of resistance. Claiming that critique
Speaker 4: from anarchists and criticism from the state come from the
Speaker 4: same fundamental place is simply laughable. It is in moments
Speaker 4: such as this, when repression is increasing, that justified frustration
Speaker 4: and fear leading to paranoia, can be turned into a
Speaker 4: weapon by the state. At these moments, people must be
Speaker 4: the most vigilant against their own fear, resulting in retreat
Speaker 4: from battle against the state and turning to intra conflict
Speaker 4: as a desperate form of alternative struggle. Solidarity, love and
Speaker 4: care are paramount, including harsh love, including well meaning critical commentary, debate,
Speaker 4: and constructive conversation. Well, that's enough of that. Finally, I'd
Speaker 4: like to give an update on the Copcity construction timeline.
Speaker 4: The past few months, city officials and the Atlanta Police
Speaker 4: Foundation have made a series of statements claiming construction is
Speaker 4: very much on schedule and quickly approaching completion.
Speaker 1: I want to say this, the construction of those training
Speaker 1: centers on schedule. We will be moving in in December.
Speaker 1: It will be operational this time next year.
Speaker 2: The new facility is almost seventy percent complete with construction.
Speaker 4: Many have pointed out that this is a ridiculously high number,
Speaker 4: considering that a video published by the police just a
Speaker 4: few days ago showed an unfinished foundation and a single
Speaker 4: paved road. Now Sam from the Atlantic Community Press Collective
Speaker 4: helped explain what this number might be referring to.
Speaker 7: There are no walls built, to say the least, I
Speaker 7: personally believe that to be a very charitable reading of
Speaker 7: a document with a construction timeline. We've seen as a
Speaker 7: result of our open records requests that sort of break
Speaker 7: the what a lay person such as myself would call
Speaker 7: it the construction process up into things like permitting, pre construction,
Speaker 7: development construction. On that timeline, they were about seventy percent
Speaker 7: done with the development, and they were also about seventy
Speaker 7: percent done with the whole process, ranging from permitting to
Speaker 7: cutting the red ribbon. What Again, as a lay person,
Speaker 7: I would also call the construction process, meaning the whole
Speaker 7: you know, roof, walls, doors, thing on. That particular document
Speaker 7: was zero percent complete, or like, I shouldn't say zero
Speaker 7: percent because they have like concrete paths and stuff. I
Speaker 7: don't remember exactly what the date on this document was
Speaker 7: but it was zero to a very small percentage of complete.
Speaker 7: So yes on the grand construction timeline of filing the
Speaker 7: first document to again literal walls. Yeah, sure, they're seventy
Speaker 7: percent complete by any measure of construction to the average season. No,
Speaker 7: they are not seventy percent complete.
Speaker 4: Before I close this episode out, I do want to
Speaker 4: let listeners know about ways to support Jack, the person
Speaker 4: rested in the house raid last month. In the show notes,
Speaker 4: I will link to a fundraiser that goes towards his
Speaker 4: legal fees, jail commissary, and phone calls. You can also
Speaker 4: go to the website free Jack dot co. That's free
Speaker 4: Jack dot Co for information on how to mail letters
Speaker 4: and books to Jack while he is currently being held
Speaker 4: in jail without bond. Trials and court cases related to
Speaker 4: the Georgia Copcity recoindittment have all been delayed till at
Speaker 4: least this summer. Follow the Atlantic Community Press Collective for
Speaker 4: updates on that as they happen. See you on the
Speaker 4: other side.
Speaker 2: If you think he's planed to stay, you.
Speaker 1: Know, obviously he's not here and we're seeking him, and
Speaker 1: so we would ask him to come in and answer
Speaker 1: our questions.
Speaker 4: It could Happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Well more podcasts from cool Zone Media.
Speaker 7: Visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
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Speaker 7: to podcasts.
Speaker 4: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, Updated
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Speaker 7: Thanks for listening.