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Speaker 1: Welcome back to it could happen here. This is a

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Speaker 1: bonus fifth episode following my coverage of the Stopcop City

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Speaker 1: Week of Action in March of twenty twenty three. This

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Speaker 1: will be a more critical retrospective on the week as

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Speaker 1: a whole and offer a glimpse into what the movement

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Speaker 1: might look like in the next few months as we

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Speaker 1: are rapidly approaching summer. In the last episode, we talked

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Speaker 1: about the police repression of protests and demonstrations as they happen,

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Speaker 1: but we have yet to mention the various methods of

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Speaker 1: state repression the movement is facing day to day. Repression

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Speaker 1: for the Week of Action started well before the kickoff

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Speaker 1: rally in Gresham Park. Emails from early February obtained via

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Speaker 1: public records requests found that the Atlanta Police Foundation and

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Speaker 1: its contractors were waiting for quote indictments to the leaders

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Speaker 1: unquote of the Stopcob City and defendly Atlanta Forest movement

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Speaker 1: to quote the Atlantic Community Press Collective. In a February

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Speaker 1: third email to APF board members, the director of Public Affairs,

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Speaker 1: Rob Baskin, calls the Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop

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Speaker 1: Coop City movement a quote conspiracy of protesters against the

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Speaker 1: Public Safety Training Center, investigated by a consortium of federal, state,

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Speaker 1: and local law enforcement agencies. Baskin promised the APF board

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Speaker 1: in an email quote that the recent arrests our receipt

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Speaker 1: of the land and disturbance permit, the mayor's announcement of

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Speaker 1: the project will be moving forward, and the continued investigation

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Speaker 1: by law enforcement will dampen activists' efforts. We will likely

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Speaker 1: see more indictments in the coming weeks unquote. Back in February,

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Speaker 1: Brassfield and Gory, the general contractor for the project, planned

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Speaker 1: to mobilize for land clearing around April, but told the

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Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Foundation that subcontractor bidding wouldn't happen quote until

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Speaker 1: indictments have happened unquote, And then, of course, a few

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Speaker 1: weeks later, twenty three people were charged with domestic terrorism

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Speaker 1: at a music festival. Matt from the Atlanta Community Press

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Speaker 1: Collective talked about the history of domestic terrorism charges in

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Speaker 1: the movement and how they affected bail proceedings.

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Speaker 2: The domestic terrorism charges go back to the middle of December,

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Speaker 2: that's when the first of them happened, and up until

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Speaker 2: the week of action. There have been a total of

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Speaker 2: nineteen arrest or individuals who have been charged with domestic terrorism.

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Speaker 2: And then of those people, anyone who did not have

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Speaker 2: either a Georgia license or could not prove like Georgia residency,

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Speaker 2: they were all initially denied bond, but everyone who lives

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Speaker 2: here they were able to get bond before the bond hearing.

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Speaker 2: We're kind of there are discussions that there's no way

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Speaker 2: that they're going to hold twenty three people without bond

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Speaker 2: with on such flimsy evidence.

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Speaker 1: That's the most that have been like arrested and held

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Speaker 1: one in one day. It really is in relation to

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Speaker 1: the movement so far.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the largest mass arrest of the of

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Speaker 2: the movement. So it's it's kind of inconceivable for twenty

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Speaker 2: three people to be held without bond. So we get

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Speaker 2: to the bail hearing. The first person has their mother

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Speaker 2: come on. Their lawyer brings their mother on, who swears

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Speaker 2: essentially on like every religious text ever written, that her

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Speaker 2: child will immediately go home with her and she will

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Speaker 2: personally bring her child back to every court hearing and

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Speaker 2: her child will have no you know, further contact with

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Speaker 2: the movement and all of these things and the judge

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Speaker 2: denies the bond. So at that point it's like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: they're you know, I guess we're going to go back

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Speaker 2: to the old thing. If you can't prove residency, you're

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Speaker 2: you're you're not getting out. It was like person number

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Speaker 2: five is from Athens, Georgia, which is about an hour

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Speaker 2: outside of Atlanta, and the judge denies her bond, not

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Speaker 2: because the judge thinks she's a flight risk, but because

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Speaker 2: she is a threat to the community. And that was

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Speaker 2: the moment where the understanding changed. It was like, oh no,

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Speaker 2: like nobody's getting out of me.

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Speaker 1: Yes, this isn't this isn't a real This isn't a

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Speaker 1: real bond.

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Speaker 3: Here.

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Speaker 1: At the press conference after the leaf raid, Camal Franklin

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Speaker 1: from the Community Movement Builders spoke about the years of

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Speaker 1: state repression against people fighting to stop Cop City.

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Speaker 4: This movement has been repressed by the state, by the

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Speaker 4: city since its very beginnings. When we first started organizing

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Speaker 4: in twenty twenty one, when we had rallies and demonstration,

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Speaker 4: we would have police break them up, throw people to

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Speaker 4: the ground, pepper spray them, and arrest them. We had

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Speaker 4: over twenty arrest in our first years of and demonstrating

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Speaker 4: against cop City. At the time, those folks were charged

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Speaker 4: with resisting arrests obstruction of governmental administration. And then the

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Speaker 4: police decided to step up their tactics and they started

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Speaker 4: to form a task force, a task force that included

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Speaker 4: the Atlanta Police, the TKAP County Police, the Georgia Bureau

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Speaker 4: of Investigation, Georgia State Troopers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,

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Speaker 4: and Homeland Security, where they began to talk about bringing

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Speaker 4: charges of domestic terrorism against organizers and activists. And so

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Speaker 4: now we're coming to a point where they're raiding houses,

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Speaker 4: where they're telling organizers and activists that they can't stand

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Speaker 4: on corners and legally give out leaflets.

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Speaker 2: And then the judge kept saying like, I'm not here

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Speaker 2: to hear anything on evidentiary claims and I'm not here

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Speaker 2: to engage with the domestic terrorism statute. Like both of

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Speaker 2: those were I think valid things that defense attorneys kept

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Speaker 2: bringing up, because yeah, they're problematic.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the defense attorneys mentioned that the way

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Speaker 1: people are being charged with domestic terrorism right now doesn't

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Speaker 1: really have any legal basis in the state of Georgia

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Speaker 1: because the terrorism law works as like an enhancement for

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Speaker 1: other felonious charges, and these people aren't being charged with

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Speaker 1: anything besides domestic terrorism. There's no evidence these people committed

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Speaker 1: any actual crimes, so they're just being charged with terrorism.

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Speaker 1: This like nebulous concept. The judge said that the legal

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Speaker 1: basis of these claims will have to be decided on

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Speaker 1: another day. Similarly, they said that in regards to like

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Speaker 1: actual evidence that these people charged did any crimes, she

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Speaker 1: said that she had none of this evidence in front

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Speaker 1: of her and that evidence is for another day. One

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Speaker 1: of the main reasons the judge said that defendants were

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Speaker 1: denied bond was due to quote a lack of ties

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Speaker 1: to community in Atlanta. But regarding this ties to the

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Speaker 1: community aspect, the judge had this weird double standard. There

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Speaker 1: was this one person arrested and charged who lives with

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Speaker 1: their partner in Atlanta, who also had ties to another

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Speaker 1: state where they had previously lived. So despite them having

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Speaker 1: ties to the community in Atlanta, which was one of

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Speaker 1: the main things the judge considered for this one individual,

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Speaker 1: they were still denied bond on the basis that this

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Speaker 1: individual also has ties to a different community, thus deeming

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Speaker 1: them a flight risk even though they currently live in Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: One of the reasons that the judge mentioned is based

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Speaker 1: on the arrest warrants that she was given, for why

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Speaker 1: these people were a threat to the community is that

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Speaker 1: the state claims that they were in possession of metal

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Speaker 1: shields as they were being arrested. You know, shields, the

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Speaker 1: offensive weapon that shows that you are a threat you

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Speaker 1: holding a shield. And so, first of all, that's funny

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Speaker 1: on us on that on that level.

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Speaker 2: When you and I were coming in on Saturday and

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Speaker 2: along with the march, we passed by a bunch of shields,

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Speaker 2: right and they were kind of placed near the end

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Speaker 2: of the path, like in anticipation that there might be

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Speaker 2: police presence. And I took pictures of the shields, and

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Speaker 2: they are evidently plastic shields. There's no way of mistaking

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Speaker 2: them for anything other than plastic.

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Speaker 1: The plastic five gallon shields that you see at almost

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Speaker 1: every protest in every city across the country. The cops

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Speaker 1: know what these things are. That the fact that they

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Speaker 1: claimed that people were arrested carrying metal shields is so

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Speaker 1: ludicrous because there was not There was not a single

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Speaker 1: metal shield at this music festival, and there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of footage of these arrests. I don't there's I've not

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Speaker 1: seen evidence that every that any person was arrested that

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Speaker 1: was carrying a shield, let alone a metal one.

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Speaker 2: There's this weird thing where so typically when you do

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Speaker 2: these these bale hearings, the the defense attorneys waive the

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Speaker 2: reading of the warrant, typically because they have already gone

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Speaker 2: over that with their client, and you know, everybody's aware,

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Speaker 2: and it just kind of speeds up the process. And

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Speaker 2: it was like, really notable that these attorneys weren't doing it,

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Speaker 2: and once you started to listen to them, you noticed

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Speaker 2: this very repetitive nature of them. And so about halfway

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Speaker 2: through we get to a lawyer who straight up calls

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Speaker 2: out the fact that these warrants seem like they were

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Speaker 2: just copy.

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Speaker 1: Pasted, like every single person all the way downline. During

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Speaker 1: the first hearing, only one person was let out on bail,

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Speaker 1: and they were an NLG legal observer and lawyer at

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Speaker 1: the Southern Poverty Law Center. After the week of action,

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Speaker 1: on March twenty third, there were a second set of

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Speaker 1: bail hearings for ten of the people arrested on March

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Speaker 1: fifth at the South River Music Festival in a rare move.

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Speaker 1: The second in command of the State of Georgia's Attorney

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Speaker 1: General's Office, John Fowler, was deployed to argue against granting bond. Fowler,

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Speaker 1: along with several top county prosecutors, weaved a complex narrative

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Speaker 1: of a grand conspiracy of protesters dating back to twenty nineteen,

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Speaker 1: saying that the unquote organization behind Defend the Forest is

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Speaker 1: responsible for quote one hundred incidents nationwide unquote. Fowler claimed

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Speaker 1: that the force defenders are a well funded group with

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Speaker 1: millions of dollars hiding behind five oh one c three

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Speaker 1: nonprofit organizations, and that the so called autonomous zone at

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Speaker 1: the Wendy's where Rayshard Brooks was murdered in twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: is a part of the same organization. Fowler also tempted

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Speaker 1: to tie the use of laser pointers in the forest

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Speaker 1: to a racial justice protests in twenty twenty, as well

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Speaker 1: as a sophisticated communication network of prepaid phones, telegram channels,

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Speaker 1: proton mails, and rise up accounts. Prosecutor Lance Cross stated

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Speaker 1: that the quote unquote leader of the Defend the Atlanta

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Speaker 1: Forest movement never actually goes into the forest. Okay, so,

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Speaker 1: to paraphrase a friend of mine. As potentially dangerous as

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Speaker 1: claims like these are, it will never stop being funny

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Speaker 1: that the state just simply can not conceive of horizontal

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Speaker 1: organizing as like a real thing that exists and not

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Speaker 1: just a smoke screen for this shadowy cabal of protesters.

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Speaker 1: Prosecutor Lance Cross claimed that anyone at the music festival

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Speaker 1: is a party to the crime of the direct action

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Speaker 1: that took place around one and a half kilometers away

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Speaker 1: at the construction site, and that after the direct action,

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Speaker 1: individuals left to return to the other side of the woods,

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Speaker 1: crossing over the creek and changing out of their black block.

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Speaker 1: For the first defendant. At this hearing, Prosecutor Cross said

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Speaker 1: that there's police helicopter video of this first person changing

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Speaker 1: out of their black block, But when asked by the

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Speaker 1: judge if the state has any evidence that this defendant

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Speaker 1: did anything illegal, not just change clothing in a forest,

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Speaker 1: the prosecutor was unable to provide any such evidence. This

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Speaker 1: defendant received a twenty five thousand dollars bond with a

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Speaker 1: stay away from Georgia order and a no contact order

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Speaker 1: with any co defendants or anyone associated with the Defend

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Speaker 1: the Atlanta Forest Movement Only one other defendant was granted

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Speaker 1: bond during this hearing, a second year law student who

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Speaker 1: was arrested as they were eating food at a food truck.

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Speaker 1: At the hearing, they presented letters of support from Tibetan monks,

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Speaker 1: a former mayor, numerous academics, and Charlotte's mayor pro tem

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Speaker 1: was on the call. Bond was also set at twenty

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Speaker 1: five K, along with having to surrender their passport, where

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Speaker 1: an ankle monitor, and maintain no contact with co defendants

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Speaker 1: nor join any future protests. To paraphrase my friend again,

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Speaker 1: these are old Green Scare tactics back in action and

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Speaker 1: kicked into high gear. Courts are being used as a

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Speaker 1: meat cleaver to hack off and isolate people from their communities,

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Speaker 1: regardless of evidence. This is the type of repression that

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Speaker 1: courts were born to do. Much of the repression we're

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Speaker 1: seeing in Atlanta is a revamped version of the Green

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Speaker 1: Scare with additional tactics and knowledge the state gained from

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Speaker 1: the twenty twenty protests, including the targeting of jail support

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Speaker 1: and bail fund organizations. Another thread in this Grand Cabal

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Speaker 1: of Forest Defender's narrative that the state was trying to

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Speaker 1: weave was that prosecutors claimed that having an Atlanta Solidarity

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Speaker 1: Fund jail support number on your person is evidence of

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Speaker 1: criminal intent and that the Solidarity Fund is quote being

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Speaker 1: investigated as a part of this whole thing, unquote. The

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Speaker 1: majority of the eight individuals denied bond were not even

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Speaker 1: found to be at the site of the direct action,

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Speaker 1: and none of the eight individuals had any evidence against

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Speaker 1: them showing they committed any crime at that location, but

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Speaker 1: were still deemed a risk to the community and denied bond.

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Speaker 1: Being held against them is the fact that they had

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Speaker 1: a jail support number on their person. As former communications

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Speaker 1: director at the Southern Center of a Human Rights Hannah

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Speaker 1: Riiley said, it is a gross irony that a jail

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Speaker 1: support number is being framed as evidence of intent to

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Speaker 1: commit crimes, where in fact it's evidence that we live

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Speaker 1: in a horrifying police estate. A defense a turn, He

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Speaker 1: pointed out that all of the warrants had the same

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Speaker 1: bits of evidence copy pasted like this alleged possession of

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Speaker 1: a metal shield, to which the prosecution claimed this was

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Speaker 1: simply a typo, meaning that people were being held in

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Speaker 1: jail based on typos, and also the prosecutor responded by saying, quote,

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Speaker 1: there were thirty forty fifty shields out there, I can't

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Speaker 1: attest that he was carrying one. When referring to a

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Speaker 1: specific defendant. For one individual denied bond, prosecutors claimed that

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Speaker 1: they were an anarchist based on information provided by Customs

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Speaker 1: and Border Protection, and yet no evidence of criminal acts

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00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:41,200
Speaker 1: were presented. Extra scrutiny was put on two defendants who

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Speaker 1: were foreign nationals, with prosecutors wondering how someone from out

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Speaker 1: of country could possibly know the solidarity funded jail support number.

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Speaker 1: A defense attorney tried to point out that jail support

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Speaker 1: numbers are often passed out to everyone present at protests

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Speaker 1: by volunteers, and in the case of the circumstances regarding

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Speaker 1: the raid of the music fest, of all panicked concertgoers

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Speaker 1: were instructed to write down the jail support number as

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Speaker 1: it became clear that police were indiscriminately grabbing people. Deputy

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Speaker 1: Attorney General Fowler argued that wearing black clothes at a

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Speaker 1: protest is akin to wearing a football uniform, indicating a

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Speaker 1: player was part of the team who took to the

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Speaker 1: field during the game, and even if we may not

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Speaker 1: know they carried the football we do know that they

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Speaker 1: were on the field, which I don't even want to

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Speaker 1: get into, but it is still a fact that the

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00:15:34,320 --> 00:15:38,760
Speaker 1: majority of people were denied bond because some had black clothing,

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Speaker 1: mud on their shoes and ran from police. This is

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Speaker 1: what made them a quote unquote threat to our community,

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Speaker 1: and this is the evidence being used against people who

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Speaker 1: were allegedly engaged in domestic terrorism. Near the end of

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Speaker 1: the hearing, the judge claimed that everyone is presumed innocent

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Speaker 1: and that the state does have to bear the burden

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Speaker 1: of proof beyond a reasonable doubt at some point, but

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Speaker 1: not now. During this spell hearing, one of the claims

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Speaker 1: was that the reason why people were arrested is because

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Speaker 1: they had mud on their clothes. The night before the

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Speaker 1: festival started, there was a tornado warning in Atlanta. I've

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Speaker 1: forgotten about that, and there was rain, which makes I

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Speaker 1: don't know if the prosecutors know this, but when rain

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Speaker 1: mixes with dirt, it creates something called that we that

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Speaker 1: we refer to as mud. So when people are, you know,

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Speaker 1: at this music festival in a field full of dirt,

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Speaker 1: they might get mud on their clothes.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, so if you've ever been to a music festival,

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Speaker 2: standing around for a very long period of time, really annoying.

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Speaker 2: People like to sit down, So I like, my feet

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Speaker 2: were caked in mud, and I sat down a few times.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm my dock partments are still caked in mud.

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Speaker 2: Not to mention the parking lot completely torn up, covered

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Speaker 2: in mud, and as I mentioned earlier, the you know

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Speaker 2: the person having like fill in mud all along the

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00:17:00,720 --> 00:17:03,760
Speaker 2: trails with gravel, So there's mud everywhere, and it is

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00:17:03,800 --> 00:17:07,760
Speaker 2: an inescapable fact of just being in both the forest

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Speaker 2: and the festival.

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Speaker 1: At the time of the bail hearings, they've very clearly

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00:17:10,680 --> 00:17:14,240
Speaker 1: had no evidence linking individuals two crimes. So the best

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Speaker 1: they could come up with was metal shields and mud,

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Speaker 1: two things that are completely nonsense. There was no metal

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00:17:20,880 --> 00:17:23,919
Speaker 1: shields and oh wow, you have mud on your You

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Speaker 1: have mud on your clothing. This is why you're a terrorist.

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Speaker 1: During the hearing, a defense lawyer alleged that the twelve

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Speaker 1: people who were detained at the music festival but not

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00:17:31,760 --> 00:17:35,120
Speaker 1: arrested and were later released at Gresham Park were all

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00:17:35,240 --> 00:17:38,879
Speaker 1: from Atlanta, and by releasing these twelve locals, police can

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Speaker 1: claim that the people arrested were from fourteen different states.

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00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:45,760
Speaker 1: Which is obviously part of an attempt to continue accelerating

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Speaker 1: the outside agitator narrative that they've been pushing out since

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Speaker 1: last in December.

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Speaker 2: Of the twenty three who were charged, only two had

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Speaker 2: the Georgia licenses, the person from Athens and the legal observer.

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Speaker 2: The rest were out of state and two were out

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00:18:04,960 --> 00:18:09,040
Speaker 2: of country. So at one point during the proceedings the

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Speaker 2: bail proceedings, one of the lawyers says that from what

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Speaker 2: they understand, the twelve individuals who were let go Sunday

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Speaker 2: night all had in state licenses, So it does appear

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Speaker 2: that APD released people to continue this outside agitator narrative

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Speaker 2: that they have been using for months now, since May,

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Speaker 2: since early summer.

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Speaker 1: Prosecutor Cross responded to claims that detained local Atlantans were

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Speaker 1: let go by saying that the people released were interviewed,

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00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:46,320
Speaker 1: did not have the jail support number on their arm,

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Speaker 1: and quote unquote knew little about the movement. At a

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Speaker 1: press conference, Marlin from the Solidarity Fund talked about how

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Speaker 1: repression has taken form and concerns of what other tactics

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Speaker 1: the state may try to employ.

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Speaker 5: No evidences were presented to support any of these claims

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Speaker 5: of domestic terrorism, including on the other eighteen people who've

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Speaker 5: been given this charge previously. In this movement, police and

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Speaker 5: prosecutors are not involved in a law enforcement effort. They're

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Speaker 5: involved in a political campaign to suppress a political movement,

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Speaker 5: which they find objectionable because as the police, they have

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Speaker 5: a vested interest in the construction of Copcity. From a

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Speaker 5: civil liberties perspective, we find this very concerning. We find

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Speaker 5: it to be an abuse of power, and we're committed

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Speaker 5: to ensuring that all of the activists who are targeted

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Speaker 5: have access to the legal resources that they need, not

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00:19:36,359 --> 00:19:39,359
Speaker 5: only to defend themselves from these bogus charges, but also

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Speaker 5: to pursue civil litigation against police who have abused their

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Speaker 5: power and violated people's rights. We are concerned about the

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Speaker 5: possibility that prosecutors may try to use RICO charges against

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Speaker 5: organizers because RICO is understood as a way of suppressing organizations,

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Speaker 5: and the narrative that we've seen coming from police and

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00:20:00,640 --> 00:20:05,359
Speaker 5: prosecutors is their belief that the broad and diverse Stock

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Speaker 5: Top City movement is in fact a criminal conspiracy whose

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00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:13,399
Speaker 5: members conspire to commit acts of terrorism. This could not

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00:20:13,480 --> 00:20:15,960
Speaker 5: be further from the truth. This is like a clear

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Speaker 5: misrepresentation of a broad movement that encompasses all of society.

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Speaker 5: But this is the narrative that prosecutors are trying to

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Speaker 5: promulgate to make it easier to target activists.

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Speaker 1: In the intervening month and a half, five more people

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00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:32,399
Speaker 1: were led out on bond. Then on May third, a

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Speaker 1: series of preliminary hearings took place for the last three

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Speaker 1: people being held into Cab County Jail from amongst the

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Speaker 1: twenty three individuals arrested at the music festival and charged

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Speaker 1: with domestic terrorism. Before the changes to the law in

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Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, the State of Georgia required ten or more

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Speaker 1: people to be killed for domestic terrorism charges to even

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00:20:50,800 --> 00:20:54,760
Speaker 1: be filed. During a wave of anti protest bills, while

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Speaker 1: citing racially motivated mass shootings. To get the bill passed,

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00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:01,720
Speaker 1: the State of Georgia removed any death threshold and essentially

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Speaker 1: replaced it with references to property damage. To quote a

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Speaker 1: write up by the Atlantic Community Press Collective Quote, Decab

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Speaker 1: County Magistrate Judge James Altman explained that he decided whether

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00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:17,159
Speaker 1: to uphold the charges based on two criteria. The first

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00:21:17,280 --> 00:21:20,560
Speaker 1: was whether prosecutors provided enough evidence to satisfy the conditions

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Speaker 1: set forth in the Georgia Domestic Terrorism Statute, namely the

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Speaker 1: threat to critical infrastructure. The second criteria prosecutors needed to

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00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:31,720
Speaker 1: meet was identification, or their ability to show that the

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00:21:31,760 --> 00:21:35,560
Speaker 1: defendants were each a party to the alleged crimes committed

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Speaker 1: on March fifth, unquote, and it's worth noting that the

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00:21:39,320 --> 00:21:42,680
Speaker 1: threshold for probable cause is much lower than the threshold

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Speaker 1: needed to convict someone of a crime. In opening arguments,

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Speaker 1: Assistant da Lance Cross claimed that to defend the forest,

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00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:53,720
Speaker 1: activists are well funded and quote have a pretty good

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00:21:53,800 --> 00:21:58,439
Speaker 1: propaganda arm on social media unquote, and that doing direct

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00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 1: action while chanting stop Coop City qualifies activists to be

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Speaker 1: charged under the Georgia Domestic Terrorism Statute because it's using

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Speaker 1: violence to advocate change of government policy. Judge Altman found

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00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:14,840
Speaker 1: that the first criteria of the domestic terrorism charges were

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Speaker 1: met for all three defendants on the basis that setting

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00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: fires at the construction site in such close proximity to

378
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:25,160
Speaker 1: a power line tower was an attack on critical infrastructure,

379
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Speaker 1: even if the defendants did not themselves start any fires.

380
00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:33,600
Speaker 1: Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Ryan Long testified that

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Speaker 1: the entire music festival was cover for the direct action

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00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:41,199
Speaker 1: against the construction site, even without evidence of defendants in

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00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:44,679
Speaker 1: black bloc or proof that they engaged in any destructive acts.

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00:22:45,200 --> 00:22:48,159
Speaker 1: Assistant da Cross said that everyone at the site was

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Speaker 1: enabling the destruction of the property and as such is

386
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 1: party to the crime. Due to the assertion that the

387
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:57,080
Speaker 1: alleged crimes were only possible due to the large size

388
00:22:57,119 --> 00:23:00,639
Speaker 1: of the crowd, one of the state's witnesses, Sergeant of

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00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 1: the APD, said that he wouldn't be able to recognize

390
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: anyone who was at the site, and that he could

391
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 1: not tell if the defendant was even in the crowd

392
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:11,920
Speaker 1: of people at the North Gate, let alone through rocks

393
00:23:12,040 --> 00:23:15,879
Speaker 1: or set fires. Defense argued that mere presence at a

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00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:19,679
Speaker 1: location should not be automatic aiding and a betting, but

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00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 1: Judge Altman said there was a sufficient evidence presented showing

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Speaker 1: the acts of the crowd and that the defendant's presence

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00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:28,439
Speaker 1: is at least sufficient for being party to the crime

398
00:23:28,880 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: even by simply participating at the music festival. One of

399
00:23:33,080 --> 00:23:35,880
Speaker 1: the hearings was for the Indigenous person who was tased

400
00:23:35,920 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: at the music festival, who was specifically witnessed to be

401
00:23:39,080 --> 00:23:42,400
Speaker 1: there during the duration of the direct action. Under questioning

402
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:45,440
Speaker 1: from the defense, special Agent Long said that the defendant

403
00:23:45,480 --> 00:23:48,080
Speaker 1: was not visible on the helicopter footage of the incident.

404
00:23:48,600 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: After initially suggesting that the defendant was identified by a

405
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:55,159
Speaker 1: helicopter pilot, Long rolled that back by saying he was

406
00:23:55,400 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: unsure if the chopper was able to track the defendant

407
00:23:58,400 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 1: and then had to leave to go make a few

408
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,919
Speaker 1: calls to get a more definitive answer, which he failed

409
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 1: to provide, But the judge still found that the second

410
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,840
Speaker 1: criteria of identification was sufficient to find two of the

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00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:15,160
Speaker 1: defendants at least party to the actions at the construction site.

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00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:18,000
Speaker 1: Special Agent Long testified that there is a quote unquote

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00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,800
Speaker 1: command structure in the Stop Coop City movement and described

414
00:24:21,840 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 1: the movement as a pyramid scheme created by activists with

415
00:24:24,800 --> 00:24:27,359
Speaker 1: different names like stop Coop City and Defend the Forest

416
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: to act as little different subgroups to attract new subordinate

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00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 1: members to operate under leadership. Long asserted that activists pretend

418
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:41,000
Speaker 1: to be ecologists one day and then anarchists the next

419
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:44,520
Speaker 1: to further their cause, which, once again we have to

420
00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:47,720
Speaker 1: point out, is on one hand, a dangerous thing to claim.

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00:24:47,800 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 1: On the other hand, extremely funny social media posts were

422
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:55,320
Speaker 1: brought up by prosecutors as evidence linking defendants to criminal

423
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:59,639
Speaker 1: acts and a conspiracy of terrorism. During the first hearing,

424
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: special Agent Long claimed that they knew that the defendant

425
00:25:03,520 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 1: was at the construction site due to street pool camera

426
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 1: footage and social media posts allegedly made by the defendant's friend.

427
00:25:12,600 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 1: In another hearing, agent Long claimed that on the defendant's

428
00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:20,640
Speaker 1: social media there were posts of stop Coop City banners

429
00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 1: and flyers, demonstrating an awareness of the nature of the

430
00:25:24,359 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 1: stop cop City movement. The state also cited alleged social

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00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:33,199
Speaker 1: media posts of the defendant self describing as anti capitalist

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00:25:33,280 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 1: and anti colonial as proof of criminal intent. Near the

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00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:41,760
Speaker 1: end of the last hearing, Judge Altman said that social

434
00:25:41,800 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 1: media posts do not count towards probable cause. However, the

435
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:49,080
Speaker 1: framing of social media posts by prosecutors as an indication

436
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: of guilt is still cause for alarm, and what gets

437
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 1: admitted as evidence during trial is still yet to be determined.

438
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 1: When the prosecution asked if a defendant had a jail

439
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:02,720
Speaker 1: support number on their arm, the judge noted that quote

440
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: the existence or non existence of an organization doesn't really

441
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,439
Speaker 1: seem to me as an element of the crime unquote.

442
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,880
Speaker 1: Similar to the March twenty third hearings. Prosecutor Johnson tried

443
00:26:13,880 --> 00:26:16,639
Speaker 1: to argue that the solidarity fund and jail support is

444
00:26:16,680 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 1: an arm of the stop Cop City movement, to which

445
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:24,280
Speaker 1: the judge reiterated that participation in an alleged organization is

446
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:28,760
Speaker 1: not part of the crime of domestic terrorism. For one defendant,

447
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: the judge granted bond on the conditions of twenty five

448
00:26:31,560 --> 00:26:34,080
Speaker 1: thousand dollars bail, with the defendant having to turn over

449
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 1: her passport, a no contact order with other co defendants,

450
00:26:37,280 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: and no participation in discussion of stop coopsity on social media.

451
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:46,840
Speaker 1: Bond for the other two defendants was denied. Ultimately, Judge

452
00:26:46,840 --> 00:26:50,960
Speaker 1: Altman upheld the domestic terrorism charges against all three defendants

453
00:26:51,960 --> 00:26:55,800
Speaker 1: on the low barrier of evidence sufficient for ruling probable cause.

454
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 1: Judge Altman said that quote whether it gets any further

455
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 1: than that is not my problem, unquote, and that if

456
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: the DA wanted further charges brought against defendants, he must

457
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,359
Speaker 1: use a grand jury. As the judge did not find

458
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: a probable cause for arson or assault on an officer.

459
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: Judge Altman mentioned that he was concerned about alleged witness

460
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:22,439
Speaker 1: intimidation by members of the Defend the Forest movement. Meanwhile,

461
00:27:22,560 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 1: in the adjacent Fulton County, there was also a preliminary

462
00:27:26,080 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 1: hearing for one of the six people arrested at the

463
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:32,639
Speaker 1: protest in downtown Atlanta on January twenty first, the Saturday

464
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 1: following the killing of Tortighita. Judge Ashley Drake upheld a

465
00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: total of eight charges, including one of domestic terrorism, and

466
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 1: the next day the defendant was released on bail. One

467
00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: thing of note from this hearing is that Deputy Attorney

468
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:51,639
Speaker 1: General John Fowler compared the Defend the Forest movement to

469
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 1: nine eleven by saying, quote, protesters were trying to knock

470
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: out the windows of one to nine to one Peachtree Street.

471
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 1: That is a dangerous situation. That's a twin Towers ut.

472
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 1: When talking about the various hearings, I mentioned helicopter and

473
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,200
Speaker 1: street pole camera footage of the direct action on Sunday

474
00:28:22,560 --> 00:28:25,639
Speaker 1: that both prosecutors and the defense were using to support

475
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,760
Speaker 1: their claims, and I think it's worth diving a bit

476
00:28:28,800 --> 00:28:33,159
Speaker 1: deeper into specifically the police helicopter footage, since I like

477
00:28:33,280 --> 00:28:35,679
Speaker 1: keeping up with the methods that police are using to

478
00:28:35,720 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: surveil and suppress protest. I'm going to start by letting

479
00:28:39,440 --> 00:28:43,080
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Chief Darren Sheerbaum walk us through what was

480
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,959
Speaker 1: able to be observed via helicopter mounted cameras based on

481
00:28:47,000 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: his testimony during the city council meeting that took place

482
00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 1: less than twenty four hours after the incident.

483
00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 6: Individuals were seeing changing out of the clothes that they

484
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,000
Speaker 6: were wearing at the concert and were now dressing themselves

485
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:01,960
Speaker 6: in all black with backpacks with items fenceive nature approaching.

486
00:29:02,160 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 6: What we saw is this group moved rather quickly to

487
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 6: the site for the proposed public Safety Trading center. They

488
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 6: move quickly on the group of officers that were assembled there.

489
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 6: These officers had been stationary at the site protecting the location.

490
00:29:15,120 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 6: In the first line, there are individuals with shields that

491
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 6: are forming.

492
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:19,520
Speaker 7: The officers attempted to.

493
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 6: First to de escalate by repositioning themselves, thank you, repositioning

494
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 6: themselves inside of the fenced in area. The officers again

495
00:29:27,760 --> 00:29:30,080
Speaker 6: start to reposition because they can tell this is not

496
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,680
Speaker 6: a peaceful demonstration. So you just start to see smoke

497
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 6: occurring as fires are set, molotov cocktails are thrown, and

498
00:29:38,080 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 6: fireworks are discharged from our air unit that is deployed

499
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:43,680
Speaker 6: in the area. You will see individuals that have started

500
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 6: to move against the officers. They will have start throwing

501
00:29:47,200 --> 00:29:51,000
Speaker 6: rocks fireworks as they are pushing the officers in the

502
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 6: area where we see individuals as another group is engaging

503
00:29:53,680 --> 00:29:57,120
Speaker 6: the officers with rocks, Malotov cocktails and bottles are moving

504
00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 6: to set fire to the various equipments in the area.

505
00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:01,479
Speaker 6: While you see in the left hand of the gentleman

506
00:30:01,520 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 6: with the mask over his face as a Maltov cocktail,

507
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 6: there will be accelerants in his hands that will be

508
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 6: used also to attack some of the construction equipment that

509
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 6: is in the area. These individuals are massed to hide

510
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 6: their identity. This is playing out across the area that

511
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 6: had been previously been fenced in.

512
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:21,000
Speaker 7: There will be generators.

513
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 6: That are will be destroyed, other pieces of equipment that's

514
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 6: being destroyed. There you see more accelerant being thrown onto

515
00:30:27,080 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 6: the vehicle that is being.

516
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,960
Speaker 7: Set on fire. And what you see here, ladies and.

517
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:34,560
Speaker 6: Gentlemen, is as some of the individuals that had just

518
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:37,720
Speaker 6: previously attacked the work site returned back into the woods.

519
00:30:37,720 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 6: They start changing back into the clothes that they were

520
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 6: just wearing moments before, as they were portraying themselves to

521
00:30:43,760 --> 00:30:46,760
Speaker 6: be attendees of the event that was occurring in the music.

522
00:30:46,800 --> 00:30:49,440
Speaker 6: So there was clear today that we saw repeat of

523
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 6: what we've seen in the past, where events that are

524
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 6: shown to be peaceful and being publicized as to be

525
00:30:56,480 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 6: peaceful are being used by individuals as cover to launch

526
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:04,320
Speaker 6: illegal and criminal attacks. We had a rapid response from

527
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 6: our partners at the decap County Police Department, the Sheriff

528
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:08,720
Speaker 6: of Fulton County.

529
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:10,280
Speaker 7: As well as the Georgia State Patrol.

530
00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 6: Those officers entered into the woods as individuals were attempting

531
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:16,479
Speaker 6: to flee hide the weapons they had just used, as

532
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 6: well as to change their clothing, and we began to

533
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:21,080
Speaker 6: make a number of arrest I.

534
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:24,840
Speaker 1: Spoke with the unnamed force defender about the surveillance capabilities

535
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:27,560
Speaker 1: of the state on full display during the week of Action.

536
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 8: I find that the thermal helicopter video fascinating for a

537
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 8: variety of reasons. One, it's interesting to look at the

538
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 8: surveillance capacity of the state. It's to my memory, the

539
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 8: first time the APD has ever posted their own thermal

540
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 8: chopper footage. It's a very similar camera to the type

541
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 8: you would see on a director on some kind of armed,

542
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 8: unmanned aerial vehicle. What I found most interesting about the

543
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 8: thermals is exactly how they were using that type of

544
00:31:49,640 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 8: targeting software to attract people, and I think it's worth

545
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 8: people knowing what they were doing with it, so we

546
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:56,000
Speaker 8: have an idea how to counter it. When you're using

547
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 8: a software to tract targets on optical lens, at least

548
00:31:58,640 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 8: during a daytime event, thermals are easier because it breaks

549
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 8: the image up into just two colors, white and then

550
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 8: like black and gray, so they can track the body

551
00:32:05,040 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 8: heat shapes of people in white and then just click

552
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 8: the thermals off, get a snapshof the outfit they're wearing,

553
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:11,400
Speaker 8: click the thermals back on, and track them easier than

554
00:32:11,400 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 8: it is to track them with just a normal camera.

555
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:15,520
Speaker 8: This gives them a clear image of what they're wearing

556
00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 8: before they de blocked, and then they can go back

557
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 8: to tracking that person, follow them to where they're dep blocking,

558
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 8: wait for them to deplock itet another picture with the

559
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:24,640
Speaker 8: regular camera, and then arrest them. So that meant that

560
00:32:24,680 --> 00:32:27,240
Speaker 8: when people were leaving, it was advantageous to be deplocking

561
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,040
Speaker 8: under overhead cover, under thick brush, under thick canopy, out

562
00:32:30,040 --> 00:32:31,719
Speaker 8: of direct line of site with the chopper, you know,

563
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 8: not in the open air. It's definitely a really hard

564
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 8: thing to counter. The surveillance State's one of the things

565
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 8: that I find the most fearful about the police state.

566
00:32:38,640 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 8: Not like individual beat cops. They're guns and shit are

567
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,960
Speaker 8: cool or whatever, but man, those cameras they're really something.

568
00:32:44,000 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 3: You know.

569
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:46,000
Speaker 8: I think the Portland Police Bureau just got a new

570
00:32:46,040 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 8: spy plane and new Cessna loaded up with surveillance equipment

571
00:32:48,560 --> 00:32:50,760
Speaker 8: and shit like that. All that stuff does so much

572
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:52,480
Speaker 8: more to fuck you up than just like a riot

573
00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 8: team does. You can throw mortars at a riot team.

574
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 8: Sorry I shouldn't say moordars fireworks that are called mortars,

575
00:32:57,480 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 8: my bad. Don't want to lean into the explosives narratives. Honestly,

576
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 8: they're fucking weird about fireworks. But you know, those surveillance

577
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 8: capacities are one of the hardest things to counter.

578
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: One term that's already come up during our coverage of

579
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: Stop Coop City is fuco's boomerang. And while that still

580
00:33:12,880 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 1: applies here, we're now also kind of getting into some

581
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: panaptocon territory as shown by this type of surveillance capacity,

582
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,880
Speaker 1: specifically at actions. And one of the biggest reasons why

583
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:26,400
Speaker 1: the panopticon works is that people are scared of it.

584
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,200
Speaker 1: It scares you away from even taking action in the

585
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 1: first place.

586
00:33:30,360 --> 00:33:32,520
Speaker 8: And like, as soon as you overcome that paralyzing fear,

587
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 8: the cops become really afraid of you. That's why we

588
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 8: say that, like the biggest weapon that the state has

589
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 8: is fear, because like the cops go from these big,

590
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,680
Speaker 8: fucking tough guys to like whining cowards. The second you

591
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 8: just become not afraid, you don't even have to beat them,

592
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 8: you don't have to overcome the actual physical weapons. But

593
00:33:48,280 --> 00:33:51,360
Speaker 8: once you get out of that headspace, that paralyzing fear,

594
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 8: once you let it pass over you and through you,

595
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 8: they're fucking terrified. And if we're gonna win, we need

596
00:33:56,920 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 8: to be their worst nightmare.

597
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: As state repression against the stop Cop City movement continues,

598
00:34:02,560 --> 00:34:06,720
Speaker 1: the coalition against the police training facility only continues to grow.

599
00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: Last month, Angela Davis returned an award proclamation given to

600
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:14,800
Speaker 1: her by the Atlanta City Council in protest of cop City.

601
00:34:15,400 --> 00:34:21,160
Speaker 9: If the attempts by the Atlanta Police to build the

602
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:26,680
Speaker 9: largest police training grounds in the country are successful, this

603
00:34:26,760 --> 00:34:31,760
Speaker 9: will represent a major setback for the movement for radical

604
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 9: democratic futures, not only throughout the US, but globally as well.

605
00:34:38,560 --> 00:34:44,879
Speaker 9: As a person who has participated in campaigns against prisons

606
00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 9: and police for far longer than a half century, I

607
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 9: want to salute all those who are involved in the

608
00:34:55,560 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 9: stop Cop City movement, and I want to urge people

609
00:35:01,000 --> 00:35:06,160
Speaker 9: everywhere to find ways to generate support for them.

610
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:09,440
Speaker 1: Angela Davis made it clear that she stood in solidarity

611
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: with force defenders facing repression from the police and the

612
00:35:12,480 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: city of Atlanta, and joined in calls to halt the

613
00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:18,719
Speaker 1: construction of this facility, which will only serve as a

614
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:23,480
Speaker 1: tool to advance what she called militarized police racism and repression.

615
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:29,600
Speaker 9: Atlanta activists are on the front lines of the abolitionist movement,

616
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 9: at its crucial intersection with movements to save our forests,

617
00:35:37,120 --> 00:35:43,120
Speaker 9: indeed to save our planet. The attempt to build a

618
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 9: massive militarized police training facility is a dangerous and ominous

619
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 9: development that we have to oppose with all our might,

620
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 9: and so I want to join those are standing strong

621
00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:06,080
Speaker 9: in defense of the forest, against the construction of this

622
00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 9: police training ground. I urge people everywhere to join the

623
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,800
Speaker 9: campaign to stop Cop City.

624
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,400
Speaker 1: After Angeliae Davis's announcement, the Walter Rodney Foundation released a

625
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:26,280
Speaker 1: statement supporting Davis's decision and against the construction of Cop City.

626
00:36:26,640 --> 00:36:31,280
Speaker 2: It's interesting to see their more mainline sort of center

627
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,839
Speaker 2: or center left like organizations that have begun to come

628
00:36:34,880 --> 00:36:39,279
Speaker 2: on board. Even with what happened Sunday and especially the

629
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 2: Thursday march and rally, had it necessitated a response from

630
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 2: the city. So Friday morning there was actually an organization

631
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 2: concerned Black Clergy who had a press conference like calling

632
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:56,759
Speaker 2: out Cop City protesters, and so you had this like

633
00:36:56,880 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 2: very state run. One of the city council members, Antonio Lewis,

634
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 2: was there like live streaming at the entire time. And

635
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 2: so you can tell the efficacy of a lot of

636
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:09,800
Speaker 2: things that have happened this week by how the city

637
00:37:09,840 --> 00:37:13,640
Speaker 2: is reacting and how like it is necessitating them going

638
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 2: to greater and greater lengths to try to show that

639
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:19,320
Speaker 2: the movement is wrong.

640
00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:22,200
Speaker 1: One way that the city has been working to advocate

641
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:24,920
Speaker 1: for the further development of the Cop City project is

642
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:27,840
Speaker 1: by launching a website of their own for the Public

643
00:37:27,880 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: Safety Training Center, full of videos of the mayor and

644
00:37:31,480 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: police chief walking through South Atlanta trying to convince neighbors

645
00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: that the project is a good idea. In the past

646
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 1: few months, the city has also been turning the official

647
00:37:42,040 --> 00:37:45,560
Speaker 1: City of Atlanta Twitter account into a hilarious copp City

648
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: propaganda outlet. About two weeks after the end of the

649
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:52,640
Speaker 1: Week of Action, on March twenty fourth, to Cab County

650
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 1: CEO Michael Thurmond announced an executive order to indefinitely close

651
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 1: Entrenchment Creek Park, also known as Walanti People's Part, claiming

652
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:03,319
Speaker 1: that the park was a danger to the public due

653
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: to booby traps allegedly found in the forest. At a

654
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,760
Speaker 1: press conference, Thurman displayed photos of wooden boards with nails

655
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:14,480
Speaker 1: sticking out of them allegedly found in the park. The

656
00:38:14,520 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: executive order reads that the park will quote remain closed

657
00:38:17,760 --> 00:38:21,719
Speaker 1: until further notice to protect the safety of the families, residents,

658
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 1: and visitors and their pets in the area, and to

659
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:29,680
Speaker 1: county personnel. A few days after the announcement, to Cab

660
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,080
Speaker 1: police led a joint task force in a raid of

661
00:38:32,120 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 1: the Willani Forest and Entrenchment Creek Park. The land was

662
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 1: effectively cleared of all forest defenders, with one person being

663
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,880
Speaker 1: arrested during the raid. The memorial for Tortugito was destroyed

664
00:38:43,880 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: by the police, and cement barricades were set up around

665
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: the entrances and exits to the park. Days later, police

666
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: and contractors began cutting trees in the Willani Forest, with

667
00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:58,839
Speaker 1: no one around to resist the destruction. The Solidarity Fund

668
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:01,840
Speaker 1: put out a statement saying, quote, closing down a public

669
00:39:01,880 --> 00:39:04,319
Speaker 1: park in order to prevent protests from happening in that

670
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:09,400
Speaker 1: space is unconstitutional. TOCAB CEO Michael Thurmond is trying to

671
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: do an end run around the First Amendment unquote. Dacab

672
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,160
Speaker 1: County Commissioner Ted Terry is pushing to reopen the park

673
00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:20,760
Speaker 1: through a resolution expected to be introduced in early May.

674
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 1: But it wasn't just the park's closure that made force

675
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:27,439
Speaker 1: defense more challenging. After the mass action at the North

676
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:31,120
Speaker 1: Gate in early March, security was greatly increased at the

677
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 1: construction sites in the Wullani Forest, with massive spotlights illuminating

678
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:38,960
Speaker 1: the area to daylight levels twenty four hours a day,

679
00:39:39,680 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 1: which made returning to the sort of night time sabotage

680
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 1: actions in the forest that pioneered some of the movements.

681
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:49,439
Speaker 1: Militancy in its early days to be much more complicated.

682
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: During my conversations with force defenders, there was still a

683
00:39:53,640 --> 00:39:57,200
Speaker 1: desire to see more of those small sabotage actions as

684
00:39:57,239 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 1: the large daytime mass actions seem to result in more

685
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:05,319
Speaker 1: people getting arrested near the site of militant activity.

686
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:08,240
Speaker 8: People are angry, you know, like their friend, our friend

687
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:11,400
Speaker 8: was murdered. You can just feel however you want about this,

688
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:13,840
Speaker 8: but like a lot of people, and I guess myself included,

689
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 8: are just really angry. There's this like kind of blinding

690
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 8: rage that comes with it of just like eye for

691
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:23,000
Speaker 8: an eye, blood for blood. You know that the police

692
00:40:23,120 --> 00:40:25,440
Speaker 8: killed our friend and that they need to hurt for

693
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:27,080
Speaker 8: that one, and they need to hurt for all the

694
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 8: people that they've murdered and all the things they're trying

695
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:31,759
Speaker 8: to do. And that leads people to take actions that

696
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,359
Speaker 8: may not be well thought out, but that are very

697
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:37,359
Speaker 8: well intentioned and have tangible results that hurt the police state,

698
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:40,240
Speaker 8: but that are actions that do bring harm to themselves

699
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:43,680
Speaker 8: or others, because there are not you know, these like

700
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:46,239
Speaker 8: middle of the night slash and run sabotage attacks that

701
00:40:46,280 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 8: don't have arrests happen, that are safer, and I think

702
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:52,239
Speaker 8: we should see a return of that tactic because the

703
00:40:52,320 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 8: level of police presence that we saw at all the

704
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:57,719
Speaker 8: actions this week post Sunday, like doing shit at downtown protests.

705
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:01,919
Speaker 8: Fuck that, Like, that's not like we're not pulling shit

706
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 8: off there without a mass arrest or like everyone's getting gassed.

707
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:08,560
Speaker 8: Like it's not a tactically advantageous or viable way of

708
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:10,880
Speaker 8: doing things. But I think people wanted to prove to

709
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 8: the cops that like, no, no, no, we could open

710
00:41:13,640 --> 00:41:16,200
Speaker 8: field fuck them up. And yeah, there were consequences to that,

711
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:18,239
Speaker 8: but people fuck them up in the open field, and

712
00:41:18,239 --> 00:41:19,439
Speaker 8: that's worth a Plotting.

713
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 1: The bounds of the forest is not the only location

714
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:25,919
Speaker 1: actions take place. Just about a week after the park

715
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 1: closure and when some of the clearcutting began, a report

716
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,279
Speaker 1: back was posted online that read quote, on the night

717
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 1: of Wednesday, April fifth, we set fire to three excavators

718
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: owned by Brent Scarborough Company on a site across from

719
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:43,240
Speaker 1: the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta. Brent Scarborough is the company

720
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: and individual responsible for clearcutting the Willani Forest. Cop City

721
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:51,879
Speaker 1: will never be built unquote. The March twenty twenty three

722
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: Week of Action was always going to be a kind

723
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,000
Speaker 1: of turning point in showcasing what will be seen in

724
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,520
Speaker 1: the struggle to defend the forest to this spring, and

725
00:41:59,640 --> 00:42:02,160
Speaker 1: how that will then lead into the summer, and what

726
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 1: forms of resistance people will choose to take, whether that

727
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:08,719
Speaker 1: be another singular week of action or taken notes from

728
00:42:08,719 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 1: the Old Earth First playbook and try to do a

729
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: whole summer of action. How do you kind of see

730
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 1: the movement to stop papacity like changing or evolving in

731
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:21,320
Speaker 1: the next few months. I mean, because all this is

732
00:42:21,400 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: kind of felt like it's been kind of very much

733
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 1: on the heels of what happened in January. People have

734
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:29,680
Speaker 1: tried to, like, you know, just try to find new

735
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,720
Speaker 1: paths of resistance in the wake of the police killing.

736
00:42:34,520 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 1: How how do you see like the fight continuing at

737
00:42:36,840 --> 00:42:39,400
Speaker 1: this stage where like they have some land of Terman's permits,

738
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:44,600
Speaker 1: there's early construction. What are like the avenues of resistance

739
00:42:44,600 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 1: that people are trying to go down.

740
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:51,200
Speaker 3: I think that we have to be very clear in

741
00:42:51,320 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 3: assessing what has worked installing the project and what will

742
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:59,319
Speaker 3: work to stop the project, because those aren't necessarily the

743
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 3: same thing. I think there were nuances in particular strategies.

744
00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 3: There is a difference between, especially in our particular context.

745
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:14,919
Speaker 3: That's similar between the difference between guerrilla warfare and urban

746
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 3: guerrilla warfare. And I say that guerilla warfare is more

747
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 3: so when people have been destroying equipment, you know, at contractors,

748
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:30,120
Speaker 3: you know, offices or wherever, or like near the forest,

749
00:43:30,520 --> 00:43:33,200
Speaker 3: et cetera, and you could just hide off into the

750
00:43:33,239 --> 00:43:36,800
Speaker 3: woods and just like disappear back into nothingness. Nobody gets touched.

751
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 3: What we have to look at with the actions at

752
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:47,280
Speaker 3: the music festival were it exposed a lot of people.

753
00:43:48,760 --> 00:43:51,880
Speaker 3: And this is once again because the police acted so

754
00:43:51,960 --> 00:43:54,359
Speaker 3: heavy handedly. But we also know that the police act

755
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:56,839
Speaker 3: heavy handedly, which is why we're here. So that gets

756
00:43:56,920 --> 00:43:59,439
Speaker 3: kind of dicey because that's like kind of like urban

757
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:01,720
Speaker 3: guerilla war fair where you have the gorillas just shooting

758
00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:04,560
Speaker 3: pow pa pal and then like running into somebody's grandma's house.

759
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:08,240
Speaker 3: People do not fuck with the people that just running

760
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 3: grandma's house for cover, right, And that's where things get

761
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:16,359
Speaker 3: a little bit dicey, because in many ways a lot

762
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:18,880
Speaker 3: of us were looking at means to open up the

763
00:44:18,920 --> 00:44:21,279
Speaker 3: movement with this week of action, and that was what

764
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 3: was widely understood for a lot of people. And nevertheless,

765
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:29,320
Speaker 3: when you just come in with the boomstick from the beginning,

766
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 3: that dictates the tone of the rest of the week.

767
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 3: And then where you could, you know, for instance, operate

768
00:44:35,640 --> 00:44:40,839
Speaker 3: from a space of like moral authority, It becomes much

769
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,879
Speaker 3: easier for people on the fence to justify to themselves, well,

770
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 3: what are the police supposed to think? Right? I mean,

771
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 3: we have to realize that there are several like mental

772
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 3: resistances that have been taught to people for them to

773
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,719
Speaker 3: try to discredit us. And I just I think there's

774
00:44:57,719 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 3: some important context. Right when Martin Luther King Junior was

775
00:45:02,680 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 3: doing like the nonviolent direct action, at a certain point,

776
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 3: they had to make a calculated decision to include women

777
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:11,839
Speaker 3: and children in the marches because they had assisted in

778
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:15,840
Speaker 3: America had become too desensitized to seeing black men beaten

779
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:19,000
Speaker 3: in the streets, right, So that was a tactical decision

780
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 3: two bring in more people. Right. So there are like

781
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 3: calculations that people have to make and assessions that they

782
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 3: have to make based on the information that we're dealing with.

783
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,520
Speaker 1: Through talking with forced defenders, I've heard a variety of

784
00:45:31,600 --> 00:45:35,440
Speaker 1: internal critiques of the week of Action format because it

785
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 1: is such a concentrated time period. The week of Action

786
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:41,760
Speaker 1: can give police a very concentrated time to over police

787
00:45:41,800 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: and over surveil, and for activists it can open up

788
00:45:45,640 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 1: an expenditure of energy during the week, which then can

789
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:51,759
Speaker 1: lead to a lack of energy leading up to what's

790
00:45:51,760 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: been called the week of repression in the past. Every

791
00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:58,319
Speaker 1: time following a week of action, after people from out

792
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: of town leave, it then leads into a week of

793
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:03,719
Speaker 1: repression where police will then do a rate of the

794
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 1: forest and have their sort of retaliation the week after.

795
00:46:08,040 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: There's been talk of potential changes to some of the

796
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: Week of Action format, perhaps doing something more akin to

797
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:15,400
Speaker 1: a summer of resistance.

798
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:18,319
Speaker 8: So the week of repression is always the week that

799
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:21,240
Speaker 8: comes after the week of action, where the cops are like, Okay,

800
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:23,200
Speaker 8: the bulk of your reserves, you're out of state supporter

801
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:24,520
Speaker 8: is gone. We're going to come fuck you up.

802
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 3: Now.

803
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:26,799
Speaker 8: They're less of you. Now you're less ready to deal

804
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:30,799
Speaker 8: with us. And that is like a major strategic flaw

805
00:46:30,800 --> 00:46:33,320
Speaker 8: in the weeks of action because it kind of creates

806
00:46:33,440 --> 00:46:37,120
Speaker 8: an activist tourism for people coming out of state, and

807
00:46:37,160 --> 00:46:39,960
Speaker 8: not that Atlanta doesn't appreciate their support and their solidarity,

808
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 8: and that so many of those out of state people

809
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:44,800
Speaker 8: do stay long term, but it does create a situation

810
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 8: where like, yeah, we're having an influx of people for

811
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 8: a week building infrastructure for a week, and then the

812
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:51,719
Speaker 8: bulk of those people, a good percentage, are going to

813
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 8: go home because yeah, like traveling long term is hard.

814
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,919
Speaker 8: People have jobs, kids, whatever, you have commitments wherever you are,

815
00:46:57,520 --> 00:46:59,320
Speaker 8: and they have to go home. And then the cops

816
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,279
Speaker 8: just reckers and do raids, and like, unless people want

817
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:04,200
Speaker 8: to get on board with doing some pretty crazy shit,

818
00:47:04,239 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 8: those raids are hard to counter. It would behoove us

819
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 8: to take a realistic audit of what the weeks of

820
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 8: Action have meant and what they are actually useful for

821
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:13,919
Speaker 8: which the strategic gains of the weeks of Action are

822
00:47:14,160 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 8: always now going to be more metaphysical than physical. They

823
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 8: bring people to this space, They give them a closeness

824
00:47:19,520 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 8: to the forest that they would not achieve without actually

825
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 8: coming here. But as far as tangibly, like materially stopping

826
00:47:24,600 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 8: Cop City, those kind of middle of the night slash

827
00:47:26,640 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 8: and run attacks, tertiary targeting of contractors, all that stuff.

828
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 8: That's how you pressure the money, and the money is

829
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 8: where you win.

830
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:36,319
Speaker 1: Ultimately, it's up to the autonomous actors that make up

831
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:39,359
Speaker 1: this is so called movement and how their choices will

832
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:41,959
Speaker 1: determine how the fight to stop cop City will grow

833
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:54,240
Speaker 1: and evolve. As I'm writing this, just thirty minutes ago

834
00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:56,800
Speaker 1: we found out that the clear cutting at the Cop

835
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:01,720
Speaker 1: City construction site has essentially been completed. The overhead photos

836
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 1: are devastating. Where there were young, growing trees just weeks

837
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:09,880
Speaker 1: ago is now a flattened mound of red clay and dirt,

838
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 1: as if the ground itself was bleeding. I counted over

839
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:18,720
Speaker 1: one hundred trees uprooted from the earth. Hundreds of people

840
00:48:18,760 --> 00:48:22,160
Speaker 1: have dedicated years of their life to defending this forest,

841
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:25,920
Speaker 1: and the sight of sizeable destruction has brought out a

842
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:30,640
Speaker 1: variety of grieving reactions. If cop City doesn't get built

843
00:48:30,680 --> 00:48:34,400
Speaker 1: in the Wallawni, the land could be carefully reforested and

844
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:39,600
Speaker 1: healed via regenerative permaculture. With intentional stewardship, the forest could

845
00:48:39,600 --> 00:48:43,319
Speaker 1: grow to be ecologically healthier than it was before. In

846
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:46,560
Speaker 1: some ways, the destruction that has already taken place makes

847
00:48:46,560 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 1: it even more vital to try and stop the construction

848
00:48:49,640 --> 00:48:53,720
Speaker 1: of cop City. No one is advocating a defeatist approach

849
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: where force defenders essentially give up and let the Police

850
00:48:57,160 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: Foundation build it, because there are still new ways to

851
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:04,360
Speaker 1: fight against the construction of this facility. But now is

852
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 1: not the time to sugarcoat the dire situation people are in,

853
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:11,760
Speaker 1: and there should be time allowed to grieve this loss

854
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:15,839
Speaker 1: as well as strike back against the destruction. It would

855
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 1: be a mistake to gaslight each other and act as

856
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:21,280
Speaker 1: if we're closer than ever to halting the Cop City project.

857
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 1: The fact that it's gotten this far itself is devastating.

858
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:27,920
Speaker 1: From the beginning. People have said that even if they

859
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,800
Speaker 1: do believe that cop City will never be built, the

860
00:49:30,840 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Foundation and police will absolutely attempt to do

861
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:38,800
Speaker 1: as much damage as they can possibly get away with anyway,

862
00:49:39,360 --> 00:49:43,759
Speaker 1: both to force defenders and to the forest itself. The

863
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:47,400
Speaker 1: past few months, I've been increasingly hearing the vice versa

864
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:51,440
Speaker 1: of that sentiment. If Copcity does end up getting built,

865
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:54,319
Speaker 1: people have pledged that the Atlanta Police Foundation will have

866
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 1: to pay for every inch they take, even if there

867
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: is no longer hope to save the entire or Wilani Forest.

868
00:50:01,600 --> 00:50:04,680
Speaker 1: Then we must do so without hope. At least there

869
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:08,080
Speaker 1: is always vengeance. It is a long road ahead, and

870
00:50:08,120 --> 00:50:11,480
Speaker 1: there is still much to do. To quote my favorite

871
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 1: anarchomonarchist Tolkien, at this moment, the movement will hone its

872
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: focus to prevent or at the very least disincentivize, the

873
00:50:20,920 --> 00:50:22,960
Speaker 1: physical construction of Copcity.

874
00:50:23,640 --> 00:50:25,600
Speaker 8: I think it'd be worth thinking of this movement as

875
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:27,920
Speaker 8: an almost two year old movement that's outgrown the week

876
00:50:27,960 --> 00:50:30,520
Speaker 8: of action. You know, why limit ourselves to seven days?

877
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 3: Fuck it?

878
00:50:31,000 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 8: Do a summer, you know, do three months of like

879
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 8: we're doing three months of action in Atlanta. Come to

880
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,000
Speaker 8: Atlanta whenever you want, and then go home and do

881
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:39,359
Speaker 8: shit at home. There Wills fargos where you live. There

882
00:50:39,360 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 8: are Chase banks where you live. There are Atlas construction offices.

883
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:42,520
Speaker 9: Where you live.

884
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:45,000
Speaker 8: And yeah, you should come to Atlanta and you should

885
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:46,760
Speaker 8: come see the space, and you should be in the forest,

886
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:49,279
Speaker 8: and you should feel like the love and community that's there.

887
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:51,439
Speaker 8: We win by fighting on enough fronts that they can't

888
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 8: fight us back on all of them. The state dies

889
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:56,960
Speaker 8: by a thousand cuts, not by all of us being

890
00:50:57,000 --> 00:50:59,440
Speaker 8: in one place where they can kettle our asses, like

891
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:01,799
Speaker 8: that's that's not how we're gonna win. So yeah, if

892
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:04,920
Speaker 8: we had three months of like we're occupying the forest

893
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 8: for three months, come to the space whenever you feel

894
00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:09,960
Speaker 8: like it. But you know, hopefully when people go home,

895
00:51:09,960 --> 00:51:12,480
Speaker 8: they feel inspired to understand that they can do just

896
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 8: as much hitting those companies where they live as they

897
00:51:14,680 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 8: can here, because the money's all going to the same place.

898
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:19,359
Speaker 8: The CEO at the top doesn't care if you hit

899
00:51:19,400 --> 00:51:22,319
Speaker 8: their businesses in Georgia or in fucking Illinois, or in

900
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:24,959
Speaker 8: Oregon or Washington or whatever. The money's all the same.

901
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:28,399
Speaker 1: A phrase I've been hearing a lot lately is copp

902
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:32,400
Speaker 1: City is everywhere. To quote a communicate posted on scenes

903
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,520
Speaker 1: no Blocks dot Org quote, we will keep winning, not

904
00:51:35,719 --> 00:51:38,440
Speaker 1: just here in so called Atlanta, but we must attack

905
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:42,240
Speaker 1: all across these so called states. The money and power

906
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,959
Speaker 1: that seek to kill us and a destroyab LAUNI are nationwide,

907
00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:50,319
Speaker 1: and so our movement must be nationwide. A net of resistance,

908
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 1: too vast to comprehend and too resilient to suppress reality

909
00:51:55,640 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: is the battlefield. But so called America, all of it

910
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 1: is the backdrop. When Chief Sheerbaum gave testimony, at City

911
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 1: Council even he mentioned the far reaching manifestations of the

912
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:10,720
Speaker 1: fight to stop cop City.

913
00:52:11,200 --> 00:52:13,200
Speaker 6: We have been seeing over the last number of months

914
00:52:13,680 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 6: crimes that have been occurring in other cities focused toward

915
00:52:17,120 --> 00:52:20,200
Speaker 6: the public safety training center. So we have seen arsons

916
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:23,319
Speaker 6: and cities outside of Atlanta. We've seen the destruction of

917
00:52:23,360 --> 00:52:26,759
Speaker 6: property outside of Atlanta, and we've seen the harassment of

918
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:30,600
Speaker 6: private sector employees outside of Atlanta. So that is the

919
00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:33,880
Speaker 6: next is where the federal peer of investigation has been

920
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 6: assisting in this administigation.

921
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 1: Like I said in the second episode, the stakes of

922
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:42,960
Speaker 1: the movement may soon exceed the balunds of the forest

923
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 1: and a cop city, And in fact that process and

924
00:52:46,160 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 1: may have already begun. We are seeing stop cop City

925
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:52,719
Speaker 1: turn into a new mode of insurgency and resistance to

926
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:56,520
Speaker 1: modern policing in general, not simply limited to the construction

927
00:52:56,920 --> 00:53:00,400
Speaker 1: of this one training center, as the police are trying

928
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:04,360
Speaker 1: to build a training center to practice quelling future civil unrest.

929
00:53:04,920 --> 00:53:07,759
Speaker 1: The site of the Mulani Forest and beyond has been

930
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:10,840
Speaker 1: a training ground for anarchists and those who fight the

931
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:15,040
Speaker 1: ever growing police state the past two years. It's been

932
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:20,360
Speaker 1: a dangerous playground for experimentation and liberation. Applications for the

933
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:24,000
Speaker 1: lessons learned in the Mulani Forest extend far past the

934
00:53:24,040 --> 00:53:27,760
Speaker 1: barriers of the woods. As far right attacks on abortion

935
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:31,160
Speaker 1: and trans people are accelerating across this country, but especially

936
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 1: the South, perhaps some of the organizing infrastructure that's been

937
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 1: developed can take new focus on these battlegrounds, and even

938
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:42,600
Speaker 1: just the mere existence of the struggle against Copp City

939
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 1: in Atlanta has been a deterrent for other cities and

940
00:53:45,800 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: states seeking to push forward similar proposals. But as the

941
00:53:50,239 --> 00:53:54,359
Speaker 1: movement possibly expands past its original scope in these next

942
00:53:54,400 --> 00:53:56,279
Speaker 1: few months, people will need to be careful that the

943
00:53:56,400 --> 00:54:00,400
Speaker 1: idyllic notion of the struggle doesn't eclipse the original and

944
00:54:00,600 --> 00:54:04,360
Speaker 1: still active goal, which is to stop cop City. Cop

945
00:54:04,400 --> 00:54:08,440
Speaker 1: City is indeed everywhere, but the current manifestation in Atlanta

946
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:12,240
Speaker 1: is unique to Atlanta, and the corresponding struggle to stop

947
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:16,640
Speaker 1: the physical construction of this training facility cannot be overlooked

948
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:21,799
Speaker 1: in favor of fantasies of utopian anarchy. To steal an

949
00:54:21,840 --> 00:54:25,880
Speaker 1: idea from Matt of the Community Press Collective, one interpretation

950
00:54:26,120 --> 00:54:29,880
Speaker 1: of the phrase cop City is everywhere is the realization

951
00:54:30,080 --> 00:54:33,799
Speaker 1: that Atlanta is cop City, and it already has been

952
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:37,160
Speaker 1: for years without us knowing it. And if we don't

953
00:54:37,239 --> 00:54:41,160
Speaker 1: turn back the tide here, cop City will be exported everywhere.

954
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:46,160
Speaker 3: Atlanta, once again, because of the Atlanta Police Foundation, is

955
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 3: the most surveiled city in the country. Because of twenty

956
00:54:50,560 --> 00:54:53,760
Speaker 3: seventeen's Operation Shield program where they put tons of cameras

957
00:54:53,800 --> 00:54:56,879
Speaker 3: all throughout the city and essentially made it a surveillance state.

958
00:54:57,040 --> 00:55:00,640
Speaker 3: Once again, crime has continued to go up English time,

959
00:55:01,120 --> 00:55:04,680
Speaker 3: and that would have significantly more to do with the

960
00:55:04,680 --> 00:55:09,279
Speaker 3: disparity of wealth than opportunities of black at lanterns that

961
00:55:09,320 --> 00:55:12,600
Speaker 3: are born under the poverty line. Only five percent of

962
00:55:12,640 --> 00:55:16,520
Speaker 3: them are projected to ever cross that line. At the

963
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:22,640
Speaker 3: same time, the average median income of black households is

964
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 3: one third that of the average median income of white

965
00:55:27,200 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 3: households in Atlanta, So that's about thirty five thousand dollars

966
00:55:30,600 --> 00:55:34,920
Speaker 3: to one hundred and four thousand dollars. And so the

967
00:55:34,960 --> 00:55:41,360
Speaker 3: wealth is just so disproportionately spread, and so much of

968
00:55:41,560 --> 00:55:45,399
Speaker 3: the labor intensive economy is predicated on it that black

969
00:55:45,440 --> 00:55:50,399
Speaker 3: people are pigeonholed into service economy jobs and they have

970
00:55:50,640 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 3: very few opportunities here. Now that type of inequality breeds

971
00:55:59,200 --> 00:56:04,520
Speaker 3: discontent and people looking for other opportunities, and the police

972
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:07,600
Speaker 3: are ready to catch them at every turn for arresting

973
00:56:07,640 --> 00:56:11,279
Speaker 3: the juvenile. In the point system that they have for

974
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:15,520
Speaker 3: Atlanta Police Department, it's five points. However, you only receive

975
00:56:15,680 --> 00:56:18,279
Speaker 3: a quarter of a point as a police officer if

976
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:23,240
Speaker 3: you answer a service call. So police officers often ignore

977
00:56:23,400 --> 00:56:25,759
Speaker 3: service calls because that doesn't give them the credit that

978
00:56:25,800 --> 00:56:28,160
Speaker 3: they want. So just to put that in context, you

979
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:32,400
Speaker 3: get twenty times the credit in Atlanta's point quota system

980
00:56:32,960 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 3: for arresting a juvenile then going where people actually wanted

981
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:40,640
Speaker 3: police to show up. And we're supposed to be convinced

982
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:44,359
Speaker 3: that this system is made to keep us safe. Right.

983
00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:48,400
Speaker 1: The City of Atlanta and the Police Foundation wants Copcity

984
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:51,200
Speaker 1: to be a national training center for police to come

985
00:56:51,239 --> 00:56:56,399
Speaker 1: and practice militaristic counterinsurgency for export across the country. They

986
00:56:56,480 --> 00:56:59,920
Speaker 1: murdered someone to further this goal. All eyes must be

987
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:01,440
Speaker 1: on Atlanta.

988
00:57:01,640 --> 00:57:05,880
Speaker 10: Cop City is a symbol of police repression. Cop City

989
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 10: is a symbol of the oppression of the people of Atlanta.

990
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 10: I want you to look around and see the families

991
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 10: here in this part today.

992
00:57:15,320 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 1: These are people who came because.

993
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:19,680
Speaker 10: They're concerned for their children. These are people who are

994
00:57:19,680 --> 00:57:24,440
Speaker 10: concerned because they don't want their city overrun by militarization.

995
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:27,720
Speaker 1: The level of repression the movement is facing is a

996
00:57:27,760 --> 00:57:30,720
Speaker 1: sign that this state feels like this movement is a

997
00:57:30,760 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 1: threat and the state feels like this movement has the

998
00:57:34,360 --> 00:57:39,480
Speaker 1: possibility of actually succeeding, So in response, they're increasing repression.

999
00:57:40,160 --> 00:57:42,640
Speaker 1: And on the flip side of that, during this past

1000
00:57:42,640 --> 00:57:45,760
Speaker 1: week of action, I saw a lot of affirmation that

1001
00:57:45,800 --> 00:57:48,320
Speaker 1: this is going to be successful and that people believe

1002
00:57:48,400 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 1: that they will stop Cop City. A common refrain during

1003
00:57:52,640 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 1: the past week of action is that cop City will

1004
00:57:55,240 --> 00:57:58,160
Speaker 1: never be built, and I believe that we will win.

1005
00:57:59,040 --> 00:58:02,120
Speaker 1: There's been such a unique emphasis on the fact that

1006
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:05,480
Speaker 1: people believe that this fight is one winnable and that

1007
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:08,200
Speaker 1: people do have the ability to stop cop City, and

1008
00:58:08,240 --> 00:58:11,280
Speaker 1: the people who are participating truly believe that, and I

1009
00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:13,360
Speaker 1: think that is an important part of why it's gotten

1010
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:14,560
Speaker 1: as far as it has.

1011
00:58:15,000 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 9: But we can get everything we want for this city.

1012
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:19,440
Speaker 9: We can stop cod City.

1013
00:58:19,640 --> 00:58:21,920
Speaker 6: We've got the power, but we just got to.

1014
00:58:21,920 --> 00:58:25,000
Speaker 9: Believe, y'all. We have to believe with all power.

1015
00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:28,840
Speaker 6: The last thing on this, there's gonna be a lot

1016
00:58:28,880 --> 00:58:32,640
Speaker 6: of people telling us about what we can't do, about what.

1017
00:58:32,680 --> 00:58:34,360
Speaker 9: These organizers are here can't do.

1018
00:58:34,600 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 3: Tell me what it tell us about.

1019
00:58:35,800 --> 00:58:37,200
Speaker 9: What we what we can't do.

1020
00:58:37,320 --> 00:58:40,520
Speaker 6: I'm gonna tell you all of a sudden, here we're organizers.

1021
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:44,160
Speaker 9: We are in a business of taking that which all

1022
00:58:44,200 --> 00:58:47,600
Speaker 9: the people say it is impossible if we make it possible,

1023
00:58:51,960 --> 00:58:52,560
Speaker 9: as long.

1024
00:58:52,440 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 3: As we believe. I just need to say, We'll see her.

1025
00:58:56,760 --> 00:59:00,959
Speaker 9: Say I believe, I believe we will win.

1026
00:59:03,400 --> 00:59:06,560
Speaker 1: This is interesting to me because in my experience, a

1027
00:59:06,600 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 1: lot of leftists and anarchists approach much of their praxis

1028
00:59:10,760 --> 00:59:14,200
Speaker 1: with the concept of them expecting to not succeed, but

1029
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 1: they're going to do it anyway, which there is a

1030
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: kind of fated beauty to that in a certain way.

1031
00:59:20,520 --> 00:59:23,160
Speaker 1: And part of that is taking action even if you

1032
00:59:23,240 --> 00:59:26,240
Speaker 1: don't think it will lead to a decisive victory. But

1033
00:59:26,320 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 1: also I feel that being in that mindset might set

1034
00:59:29,360 --> 00:59:32,200
Speaker 1: you up for that outcome. If you're preparing to fail,

1035
00:59:32,480 --> 00:59:34,840
Speaker 1: that means you're probably going to fail or at the

1036
00:59:34,960 --> 00:59:38,240
Speaker 1: very least limit the ways that you do action. And

1037
00:59:38,480 --> 00:59:41,600
Speaker 1: throughout this movement thus far, it's been interesting the degree

1038
00:59:41,600 --> 00:59:44,200
Speaker 1: to which people are convinced that they are going to win.

1039
00:59:44,720 --> 00:59:47,320
Speaker 8: If you're being prepared to fail, you won't take the

1040
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,480
Speaker 8: radical action that it takes to win. Winning's hard, and

1041
00:59:50,520 --> 00:59:53,760
Speaker 8: winning means doing things that are scary and uncomfortable and

1042
00:59:53,840 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 8: doing things that put you in danger, and doing things

1043
00:59:56,440 --> 00:59:59,080
Speaker 8: that are new and unknown and different, and taking new

1044
00:59:59,080 --> 01:00:02,320
Speaker 8: strategies and do new things. And we in the US

1045
01:00:02,760 --> 01:00:04,520
Speaker 8: and a lot of other places, but this is US

1046
01:00:04,560 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 8: based movements. So there's so much learned helplessness on the

1047
01:00:07,720 --> 01:00:11,080
Speaker 8: left here from so many years of like we lost

1048
01:00:11,080 --> 01:00:14,800
Speaker 8: it Occupy and then we lost in Ferguson and Standing Rock,

1049
01:00:15,200 --> 01:00:18,240
Speaker 8: and in twenty twenty, all of these movements that put

1050
01:00:18,320 --> 01:00:21,320
Speaker 8: big body blows to the state put some hits in,

1051
01:00:21,400 --> 01:00:24,080
Speaker 8: but we're just followed by these waves and waves of oppression.

1052
01:00:24,800 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 8: We've learned so much helplessness. And for the first time

1053
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:30,280
Speaker 8: in my life, I'm looking at a movement that I'm like, no, no,

1054
01:00:30,600 --> 01:00:33,640
Speaker 8: we can fucking beat them. And people are stagnating, We're

1055
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:36,960
Speaker 8: blinking because of what happened on Sunday, and like, no, no, no,

1056
01:00:37,160 --> 01:00:39,680
Speaker 8: what happened on Sunday prove that we can win. It

1057
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:42,600
Speaker 8: proved that we can one fight them in the open

1058
01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:44,440
Speaker 8: field and beat them, that they are afraid of us,

1059
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:47,200
Speaker 8: that they will see territory if we hit them, and

1060
01:00:47,240 --> 01:00:49,240
Speaker 8: it proved that they are so afraid of us that

1061
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:52,760
Speaker 8: they need to mobilize fucking ten different police departments to

1062
01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:55,480
Speaker 8: come deal. And then they won't even step into the

1063
01:00:55,560 --> 01:00:57,760
Speaker 8: actual brush of the forest because they think we're the

1064
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:01,320
Speaker 8: fucking Vietcong. That proves we can more than anything that

1065
01:01:01,360 --> 01:01:04,880
Speaker 8: proves we can win. And if we do not accept that,

1066
01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:07,720
Speaker 8: what is proved that we can win is like property

1067
01:01:07,760 --> 01:01:11,360
Speaker 8: destruction and to a degree doing violence, we won't win.

1068
01:01:12,000 --> 01:01:14,880
Speaker 8: Those fireworks helped a lot. They pushed the cops out,

1069
01:01:14,920 --> 01:01:17,600
Speaker 8: and like, we shouldn't balk at that, And I guess

1070
01:01:17,640 --> 01:01:21,080
Speaker 8: I don't classify that as violence. The police classify that

1071
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:24,600
Speaker 8: is violence what they consider taking hits, I guess. But yeah,

1072
01:01:24,600 --> 01:01:26,000
Speaker 8: we are so on the cusp of a make or

1073
01:01:26,000 --> 01:01:27,960
Speaker 8: break kind of deal here, and the only way that

1074
01:01:27,960 --> 01:01:30,800
Speaker 8: we win is not this internal debate we're having about

1075
01:01:30,840 --> 01:01:33,280
Speaker 8: the efficacy of tactics. It's doubling down on what we

1076
01:01:33,320 --> 01:01:35,920
Speaker 8: are already doing because it's working, and expanding on it.

1077
01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:39,240
Speaker 1: Do you believe that cop City will be actually stopped?

1078
01:01:40,240 --> 01:01:44,160
Speaker 3: We got to And here's what I mean by that.

1079
01:01:45,840 --> 01:01:54,280
Speaker 3: This is the line. Right we have environmental racism, police

1080
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 3: militarization and brutality and police and racism, and it's all

1081
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:03,840
Speaker 3: come to a head right here in this particular movement.

1082
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:09,080
Speaker 3: We have to win because what they're doing now is

1083
01:02:09,120 --> 01:02:12,959
Speaker 3: to build capacity to make sure that we can't win,

1084
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:17,920
Speaker 3: right And so why people are pushing so hard is that,

1085
01:02:18,320 --> 01:02:20,840
Speaker 3: as we've seen over the past couple of weeks, the

1086
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:25,640
Speaker 3: police have plenty of tanks and shit and all sorts

1087
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:29,840
Speaker 3: of militarized and tactical gear, and now they're trying to

1088
01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:32,920
Speaker 3: build another base and the blackest part of the city

1089
01:02:34,360 --> 01:02:38,560
Speaker 3: and to build up more capacity to put down any

1090
01:02:38,600 --> 01:02:43,520
Speaker 3: sense of rebellion or pushback against empire. We cannot allow

1091
01:02:43,600 --> 01:02:47,760
Speaker 3: it to happen. And I mean, there is so much

1092
01:02:47,880 --> 01:02:53,439
Speaker 3: money going to kill people in end life. And if

1093
01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:57,440
Speaker 3: we win right here and make this stand right here,

1094
01:02:58,000 --> 01:03:01,840
Speaker 3: that changes the potentiality for how we view how to

1095
01:03:01,920 --> 01:03:07,040
Speaker 3: keep one another safe and how to reinvest in ourselves

1096
01:03:07,080 --> 01:03:11,160
Speaker 3: and our people throughout this country in a huge way.

1097
01:03:11,920 --> 01:03:13,920
Speaker 3: I think that we are at the precipice of not

1098
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:19,320
Speaker 3: only winning Cup City, but pushing back the tide of

1099
01:03:19,360 --> 01:03:22,120
Speaker 3: the cult of death that this country has become.

1100
01:03:22,960 --> 01:03:25,919
Speaker 1: The clearcuts in the Malani Forest at this stage serve

1101
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:29,680
Speaker 1: a threefold purpose. One, it obviously gets them closer to

1102
01:03:29,840 --> 01:03:32,760
Speaker 1: construction and the mass land grading that is scheduled to

1103
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:36,000
Speaker 1: start on May twenty third two, It's a ployee by

1104
01:03:36,040 --> 01:03:40,000
Speaker 1: the APF to secure additional needed funds from cop City investors.

1105
01:03:40,480 --> 01:03:43,880
Speaker 1: And finally, it's to demoralize the people who spent years

1106
01:03:43,880 --> 01:03:46,440
Speaker 1: of their life working to stop this project.

1107
01:03:46,840 --> 01:03:50,400
Speaker 2: Everything that police have done is essentially always a reprisal, right,

1108
01:03:51,200 --> 01:03:55,560
Speaker 2: the movement does something and the police clamp down in

1109
01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:57,480
Speaker 2: a reprisal to try to repress the movement.

1110
01:03:57,760 --> 01:04:00,200
Speaker 1: Police always escalate, but they have always been like in

1111
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:01,440
Speaker 1: response to something.

1112
01:04:01,480 --> 01:04:05,480
Speaker 2: And their goal, of course is to quiet and chill

1113
01:04:05,800 --> 01:04:10,560
Speaker 2: free speech and end the movement. But every time this happens,

1114
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:14,920
Speaker 2: the opposite effect is what comes out of it. And

1115
01:04:14,960 --> 01:04:19,400
Speaker 2: from the domestic terrorism rest in December, like really that's

1116
01:04:19,440 --> 01:04:23,000
Speaker 2: when this even larger groundswell of national support happened and

1117
01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:25,800
Speaker 2: people started to take notice because this was an extreme measure.

1118
01:04:26,280 --> 01:04:29,720
Speaker 1: And then with the killing of Tortigita in January that

1119
01:04:29,840 --> 01:04:34,160
Speaker 1: changed so much about the movement, including people's personal connection

1120
01:04:34,400 --> 01:04:38,360
Speaker 1: to this struggle, where no longer are people doing this

1121
01:04:38,480 --> 01:04:41,960
Speaker 1: simply because they believe it is what's right. They are

1122
01:04:41,960 --> 01:04:45,280
Speaker 1: doing this because they have to, because the state cannot

1123
01:04:45,280 --> 01:04:47,880
Speaker 1: get away with this, This death cannot be in vain,

1124
01:04:48,360 --> 01:04:51,000
Speaker 1: and now people believe that they have to succeed or

1125
01:04:51,040 --> 01:04:54,240
Speaker 1: at the very least make the state pay for every inch,

1126
01:04:54,760 --> 01:04:58,000
Speaker 1: and that may mean looking beyond the binary of a

1127
01:04:58,120 --> 01:05:02,920
Speaker 1: victory and defeat. According to a construction timeline from this

1128
01:05:03,000 --> 01:05:07,040
Speaker 1: past April, the Atlanta Police Foundation plans to start construction

1129
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:10,680
Speaker 1: on August twenty ninth, twenty twenty three, in order for

1130
01:05:10,800 --> 01:05:14,400
Speaker 1: a quote unquote soft opening of the facility in December

1131
01:05:14,480 --> 01:05:18,000
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four. One hiccup that the APF has

1132
01:05:18,080 --> 01:05:20,440
Speaker 1: run into is that it seems they have yet to

1133
01:05:20,480 --> 01:05:23,280
Speaker 1: secure enough money to finish the project and have been

1134
01:05:23,280 --> 01:05:26,400
Speaker 1: forced to ask their investors and the city for more

1135
01:05:26,440 --> 01:05:30,200
Speaker 1: additional money despite scaling back their plans for the project.

1136
01:05:30,800 --> 01:05:33,160
Speaker 1: As a short clip put together by the Atlanta Community

1137
01:05:33,160 --> 01:05:35,120
Speaker 1: Press Collective explains.

1138
01:05:34,880 --> 01:05:37,280
Speaker 11: The city Council will in fact have to vote on

1139
01:05:37,320 --> 01:05:40,960
Speaker 11: whether or not to allocate thirty three million taxpayer dollars

1140
01:05:41,000 --> 01:05:44,520
Speaker 11: to the construction of Cop City in the very near future. Additionally,

1141
01:05:44,720 --> 01:05:48,040
Speaker 11: the Atlanta Police Foundation budget documents show that current construction

1142
01:05:48,120 --> 01:05:50,920
Speaker 11: plans have been scaled back from what was originally promised.

1143
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:53,480
Speaker 11: This indicates a failure by the Foundation to raise the

1144
01:05:53,560 --> 01:05:56,720
Speaker 11: promise sixty million dollars in private funds. Should the city

1145
01:05:56,800 --> 01:06:00,080
Speaker 11: vote down this funding package of thirty three million, it

1146
01:06:00,120 --> 01:06:02,440
Speaker 11: is difficult to see a path forward for the Atlanta

1147
01:06:02,480 --> 01:06:06,640
Speaker 11: Police Foundation's effort to begin construction on cop City anytime

1148
01:06:06,760 --> 01:06:07,600
Speaker 11: in the near future.

1149
01:06:07,960 --> 01:06:11,040
Speaker 1: The City Council has actually not yet voted to approve

1150
01:06:11,120 --> 01:06:14,440
Speaker 1: the allocation of millions of dollars in city funds to

1151
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:15,920
Speaker 1: the cop City project.

1152
01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:18,520
Speaker 11: Through an open records request, we were able to get

1153
01:06:18,560 --> 01:06:21,480
Speaker 11: our hands on emails between the Atlanta Police Foundation and

1154
01:06:21,520 --> 01:06:25,200
Speaker 11: Atlanta's Deputy Chief Operating Officer le Chandra Berks. In this

1155
01:06:25,360 --> 01:06:28,240
Speaker 11: email exchange, the Police Foundation expressed a need for the

1156
01:06:28,280 --> 01:06:31,200
Speaker 11: city to provide thirty three point five million dollars in

1157
01:06:31,280 --> 01:06:34,800
Speaker 11: funding for the project. Berks responded by mentioning the need

1158
01:06:34,840 --> 01:06:38,240
Speaker 11: for legislative action to secure the funds. The emails state

1159
01:06:38,320 --> 01:06:41,560
Speaker 11: that the Police Foundation wants to pass this legislation before

1160
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:44,920
Speaker 11: June thirtieth because they need the City of Atlanta's money

1161
01:06:44,960 --> 01:06:46,600
Speaker 11: to secure their construction loan.

1162
01:06:46,920 --> 01:06:50,200
Speaker 1: It's expected that as soon as May fifteenth, a member

1163
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:53,800
Speaker 1: of the City Council will introduce legislation to allocate public

1164
01:06:53,840 --> 01:06:56,760
Speaker 1: funds to the Atlanta Police Foundation to build cop City,

1165
01:06:57,200 --> 01:06:59,920
Speaker 1: and a final vote could happen as soon as June five.

1166
01:07:01,440 --> 01:07:03,760
Speaker 1: One thing that the movement to stop coop City has

1167
01:07:03,760 --> 01:07:06,720
Speaker 1: shown us is that no matter what police do, people

1168
01:07:06,880 --> 01:07:10,280
Speaker 1: continue to show up despite what happens, and the movement

1169
01:07:10,440 --> 01:07:14,400
Speaker 1: keeps expanding. As the unnamed of Forest Defender told.

1170
01:07:14,160 --> 01:07:17,120
Speaker 8: Me, infrastructure wise, this Week of Action was the biggest

1171
01:07:17,120 --> 01:07:20,640
Speaker 8: infrastructure I've seen doing a Week of Action. I thought

1172
01:07:20,680 --> 01:07:23,040
Speaker 8: that the infrastructure we put together for Week one was

1173
01:07:23,040 --> 01:07:25,320
Speaker 8: pretty big, but I mean it doesn't even compare. It's

1174
01:07:25,360 --> 01:07:27,479
Speaker 8: not the same ballpark as what happened for Week five.

1175
01:07:28,240 --> 01:07:29,960
Speaker 8: Just from how the medics were set up and how

1176
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:32,600
Speaker 8: food was handled. There was a shuttle bus program, there

1177
01:07:32,600 --> 01:07:34,560
Speaker 8: was a welcome table at a church at one point,

1178
01:07:34,720 --> 01:07:37,400
Speaker 8: there was like twenty four to seven clinic spaces, there

1179
01:07:37,440 --> 01:07:40,400
Speaker 8: was twenty four to seven ride programs, and medics on standby,

1180
01:07:40,440 --> 01:07:42,880
Speaker 8: and like all these things that were ready to support everybody.

1181
01:07:43,400 --> 01:07:45,400
Speaker 8: Like there was all this infrastructure set up to make

1182
01:07:45,400 --> 01:07:47,560
Speaker 8: sure that people were as supported as possible and to

1183
01:07:47,600 --> 01:07:49,720
Speaker 8: make it as easy as possible and lower the barrier

1184
01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:52,280
Speaker 8: of entry to the movement as much as possible, more

1185
01:07:52,320 --> 01:07:54,520
Speaker 8: than there has been in any other week of action

1186
01:07:54,640 --> 01:07:57,880
Speaker 8: so far. I feel like the way that we continue

1187
01:07:58,360 --> 01:08:00,800
Speaker 8: that is to take lessons, learn from what happened this week,

1188
01:08:00,840 --> 01:08:03,479
Speaker 8: from the problems with the infrastructure, the issues that it had,

1189
01:08:03,640 --> 01:08:06,120
Speaker 8: expand on it, and then fucking do it for way longer,

1190
01:08:06,640 --> 01:08:08,920
Speaker 8: like we could do this for an entire summer. I

1191
01:08:08,960 --> 01:08:11,120
Speaker 8: am fully of the belief that the infrastructure I saw

1192
01:08:11,120 --> 01:08:13,120
Speaker 8: on display during the fifth week of Action, we could

1193
01:08:13,160 --> 01:08:15,280
Speaker 8: do that for a summer. I believe in the kind

1194
01:08:15,280 --> 01:08:17,120
Speaker 8: of people who put it together, and I believe in

1195
01:08:17,160 --> 01:08:19,800
Speaker 8: the people who did it. To do that, we just

1196
01:08:19,840 --> 01:08:21,840
Speaker 8: have to kind of look at what went wrong, what

1197
01:08:21,880 --> 01:08:24,479
Speaker 8: went right, and fix it. All the things that existed

1198
01:08:24,479 --> 01:08:26,519
Speaker 8: in this week of action, as far as they're being

1199
01:08:26,560 --> 01:08:29,519
Speaker 8: food rides, medics and like group supplies, all these things

1200
01:08:29,560 --> 01:08:32,559
Speaker 8: existed during weeks of Action one through four. It's just grown.

1201
01:08:32,640 --> 01:08:35,200
Speaker 8: It's gotten more logistically intense. There are more and more

1202
01:08:35,200 --> 01:08:37,760
Speaker 8: people filling those roles. There's more and more stuff coming in,

1203
01:08:37,840 --> 01:08:39,920
Speaker 8: like the amount of supplies that we just got sent

1204
01:08:40,280 --> 01:08:42,200
Speaker 8: in or people brought with them from out of state

1205
01:08:42,200 --> 01:08:45,120
Speaker 8: has just so vastly expanded since the first Week of Action.

1206
01:08:45,520 --> 01:08:47,840
Speaker 8: It's just gotten more i don't know, like not professional,

1207
01:08:47,920 --> 01:08:51,000
Speaker 8: but more polished. It's become a much more polished setup

1208
01:08:51,000 --> 01:08:53,160
Speaker 8: system as time went on, from the first camp that

1209
01:08:53,200 --> 01:08:55,400
Speaker 8: we had during the first Week of Action to now,

1210
01:08:55,520 --> 01:08:58,559
Speaker 8: you know, almost two years later. And that's a huge

1211
01:08:58,560 --> 01:09:00,639
Speaker 8: part of why I think we've outgrown the Week of Action.

1212
01:09:01,000 --> 01:09:03,479
Speaker 8: We have these types of thought processes and logistics to

1213
01:09:03,520 --> 01:09:05,680
Speaker 8: do this for a summer for a month, We just

1214
01:09:05,720 --> 01:09:08,840
Speaker 8: need people and resources. We need more people to be willing,

1215
01:09:08,880 --> 01:09:11,120
Speaker 8: because I don't want people to get tired.

1216
01:09:11,960 --> 01:09:15,240
Speaker 1: Just last month, another Week of Action was called for

1217
01:09:15,439 --> 01:09:19,840
Speaker 1: June twenty fourth to July first, directly leading into what's

1218
01:09:20,000 --> 01:09:24,400
Speaker 1: being called the Wollawnie Summer, with locals in Atlanta calling

1219
01:09:24,400 --> 01:09:27,960
Speaker 1: on supporters and forced defenders everywhere to come to Atlanta

1220
01:09:28,040 --> 01:09:31,839
Speaker 1: for the week and stay for the summer. With Entrenchment

1221
01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:35,320
Speaker 1: Creek Park still closed and there being ongoing efforts to

1222
01:09:35,320 --> 01:09:38,840
Speaker 1: have it be reopened, what the week and following summer

1223
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:41,200
Speaker 1: will look like is it still very unknown.

1224
01:09:41,920 --> 01:09:44,360
Speaker 8: We always are going to need more people. People are

1225
01:09:44,400 --> 01:09:47,400
Speaker 8: a most important resource always. The way that we limit

1226
01:09:47,439 --> 01:09:50,080
Speaker 8: burnout is by having more and more people so that

1227
01:09:50,080 --> 01:09:53,120
Speaker 8: the burden falls less and less heavy on small groups

1228
01:09:53,120 --> 01:09:55,559
Speaker 8: of people, and so that people can take breaks. And

1229
01:09:55,600 --> 01:09:57,920
Speaker 8: that's another problem I have with like the Week of

1230
01:09:57,960 --> 01:10:00,519
Speaker 8: Action as a strategy, is you're just go going non

1231
01:10:00,600 --> 01:10:02,679
Speaker 8: fucking stop for a week. If you had three months,

1232
01:10:02,760 --> 01:10:05,240
Speaker 8: You're like, ah, I'm gonna chill for a couple of weeks.

1233
01:10:05,280 --> 01:10:08,080
Speaker 8: I'll be back, you know, because I have all this time,

1234
01:10:08,120 --> 01:10:10,280
Speaker 8: and it frees up people from out of state to

1235
01:10:10,320 --> 01:10:12,679
Speaker 8: come in, have times to work it out in their

1236
01:10:12,760 --> 01:10:13,479
Speaker 8: schedule more.

1237
01:10:13,800 --> 01:10:16,080
Speaker 1: There will be more information put out in the coming weeks.

1238
01:10:16,360 --> 01:10:18,439
Speaker 1: You can keep up to date by following stop coop

1239
01:10:18,520 --> 01:10:22,320
Speaker 1: City on Instagram, Defend atl Forest on Twitter, or by

1240
01:10:22,400 --> 01:10:27,240
Speaker 1: checking out stopcopsitysolidarity dot org, ideally with a VPN and

1241
01:10:27,479 --> 01:10:29,040
Speaker 1: tour slash Brave browser.

1242
01:10:29,439 --> 01:10:31,519
Speaker 8: If you were at the music festival and you're just

1243
01:10:31,560 --> 01:10:34,320
Speaker 8: a normal person, you weren't involved with the movement before this,

1244
01:10:34,439 --> 01:10:36,439
Speaker 8: and you were at the music festival and you kind

1245
01:10:36,439 --> 01:10:38,719
Speaker 8: of saw why we're fighting for this. You saw that space,

1246
01:10:38,760 --> 01:10:40,080
Speaker 8: and then you saw the type of violence that the

1247
01:10:40,160 --> 01:10:42,800
Speaker 8: police were willing to output to do it. Let that

1248
01:10:42,880 --> 01:10:44,519
Speaker 8: move you to get involved further. You don't have to

1249
01:10:44,640 --> 01:10:45,600
Speaker 8: join an organization.

1250
01:10:45,800 --> 01:10:46,040
Speaker 4: You know.

1251
01:10:46,160 --> 01:10:48,160
Speaker 8: I don't want to speak for other people. I'm a

1252
01:10:48,160 --> 01:10:51,120
Speaker 8: hard anarchist. Fuck organizations to a large degree. But like,

1253
01:10:51,240 --> 01:10:53,479
Speaker 8: have an affinity group. Get your friends together. If you

1254
01:10:53,479 --> 01:10:55,479
Speaker 8: guys want to be helping out with the food people,

1255
01:10:55,520 --> 01:10:57,599
Speaker 8: help out with the food. People you want to be medics,

1256
01:10:57,640 --> 01:11:00,840
Speaker 8: go join a medic collective. Like find what everything calls

1257
01:11:00,880 --> 01:11:03,080
Speaker 8: to you and just go and do it. Because we

1258
01:11:03,120 --> 01:11:05,120
Speaker 8: need people and there's no barrier of entry to join

1259
01:11:05,160 --> 01:11:06,800
Speaker 8: the movement. There's no test you have to take. You

1260
01:11:06,880 --> 01:11:07,720
Speaker 8: just have to show up.

1261
01:11:08,720 --> 01:11:11,840
Speaker 1: I will end this Week of Action retrospective with a

1262
01:11:11,920 --> 01:11:17,600
Speaker 1: promise from the Forest Defenders. See you on the other side.

1263
01:11:17,439 --> 01:11:24,040
Speaker 3: Well well, build it well.

1264
01:11:32,120 --> 01:11:37,679
Speaker 1: Music festival audio courtesy of Unicorn Riot. It Could Happen

1265
01:11:37,720 --> 01:11:39,479
Speaker 1: Here as a production of cool Zone Media.

1266
01:11:39,720 --> 01:11:42,360
Speaker 5: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

1267
01:11:42,439 --> 01:11:44,640
Speaker 5: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the

1268
01:11:44,680 --> 01:11:48,080
Speaker 5: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

1269
01:11:48,680 --> 01:11:50,320
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here.

1270
01:11:50,439 --> 01:11:54,880
Speaker 3: Updated monthly at coolzonemedia, dot com, slash sources, Thanks for listening.