Speaker 1: Come Monday morning, Basically no one was in the forest.
Speaker 1: The police raid the night prior pushed out most of
Speaker 1: the people gathered for the music festival and week of action,
Speaker 1: and it was still unclear how the rest of the
Speaker 1: week would now proceed. This Monday happened to be the
Speaker 1: Jewish holiday Porum. Initially there were plans to have a
Speaker 1: Perum celebration in the forest that evening, but it was
Speaker 1: unknown if people would feel comfortable returning to the woods.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis.
Speaker 1: This is episode three of my mini series covering the
Speaker 1: March twenty twenty three Week of Action to defend the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Forest. Monday, March sixth also happened to be the
Speaker 1: day of an Atlanta City Council meeting, and the Stopcop
Speaker 1: City Clergy coalition held a well attended press conference at
Speaker 1: noon outside City Hall. Reverend on To Jones opened up
Speaker 1: at the press conference by making the Clergy's position clear.
Speaker 2: We are the Faith Coalition against Cop City, and we
Speaker 2: are here to again raise our voices so that Mayor
Speaker 2: Andre Dickens and the members of the City Council of
Speaker 2: Atlanta know that we will not stand for the atrocities
Speaker 2: that have been occurring. We will not stand for cop
Speaker 2: City to go forward. The community came out and made
Speaker 2: public comment for over seventeen hours when given an opportunity,
Speaker 2: and said emphatically, no, we don't want your cop City.
Speaker 2: We don't want more repression of black people. We don't
Speaker 2: want more polluted air, we don't want less green space
Speaker 2: in our community. We don't want more policing and terrorizing
Speaker 2: of black, brown, indigenous bodies in our community.
Speaker 1: Referend To Jones gave her own perspective as a local
Speaker 1: atlant with deep ties to the city.
Speaker 2: So we are here as faith leaders today and we
Speaker 2: are here to say, Mayor Dickens, if you didn't hear
Speaker 2: us the first time, we are here once again to
Speaker 2: let you know that we don't want cop City. This
Speaker 2: is our community, this is our land. I am a
Speaker 2: daughter of East Atlanta. I still live in East Atlanta.
Speaker 2: I don't want cop City. My granny owns a home
Speaker 2: that she's been in for almost fifty years in the
Speaker 2: heart of East Atlanta Village. She does not want cop City.
Speaker 2: My neighbor across the street does not want cop City.
Speaker 2: The teachers at my daughter's school do not want Cop City.
Speaker 1: She also addressed the outside agitator's narrative that police and
Speaker 1: media have continued to craft against force defenders, including by
Speaker 1: only arresting and charging people thought to be from out
Speaker 1: of town at the music festival that previous night.
Speaker 2: So we're here today to make sure that we ring
Speaker 2: the alarm and dispel the false narrative that it's outside
Speaker 2: agitators who don't want this. We know that this is
Speaker 2: the rhetoric that's been going on ever since abolition began,
Speaker 2: that it's outside agitators. They said slaves didn't want to
Speaker 2: be free, but it was white people from the North
Speaker 2: who wanted it. That's a lie. They said that black
Speaker 2: people in the South didn't want civil rights, but it
Speaker 2: was white people from the North. That's a lie. Today
Speaker 2: they are claiming that the.
Speaker 3: Black people love Cop City.
Speaker 2: It's outside agitators from elsewhere, and that again is a lie.
Speaker 2: Simply because the police have chosen to systematically arrest people
Speaker 2: from out of state doesn't mean that what they're saying
Speaker 2: is the truth.
Speaker 1: Reverend Leoshe addressed to other faith leaders and asked them
Speaker 1: to join in their calls to stop the Cop City project.
Speaker 4: We local Atlantic clergy and religious leaders representing diverse communities
Speaker 4: call on clergy, religious leaders and people of faith and
Speaker 4: moral conscience across this nation and in solidarity with local
Speaker 4: Atlanta leaders, to stop cop City, stop the swap, and
Speaker 4: defend the Atlanta forests. Wilani People's part. Today, we're gathered
Speaker 4: for this press conference and we will be delivering a
Speaker 4: letter to Atlanta City Council.
Speaker 3: But we invite you to.
Speaker 4: Continue in this faithful work that we are doing and
Speaker 4: contribute wherever you find your space in this growing movement.
Speaker 4: We call on clergy religious leaders, who are a moral
Speaker 4: authority in our society, to use your power in support
Speaker 4: of the forest protectors. We are deeply concerned for the
Speaker 4: greater Atlanta community and the implications for the future of
Speaker 4: public safety in the United States if Copsuity moves forward.
Speaker 1: At the press conference, the coalition presented a letter to
Speaker 1: the City Council signed by over two hundred clergy members.
Speaker 1: Reverend Leoshe also read it aloud.
Speaker 4: Despite a record breaking amount of public comment opposing the facility,
Speaker 4: Atlanta City councils still passed legislation to build Copcity. We
Speaker 4: are troubled by leadership that stops acting on the will
Speaker 4: of the people and aligns itself instead with corporate money
Speaker 4: and the dominant power structure. Urged on by the message
Speaker 4: of peace and compassion in all our faiths, we deplore
Speaker 4: escalating militarization by city and state government, most recently since
Speaker 4: the police killing of Rayshard Brooks here in twenty twenty
Speaker 4: by the Atlanta Police Department and Tortugita January eighteenth of
Speaker 4: this year by Georgia Patrol. We applaud the rising consciousness
Speaker 4: and the need to protect humans and the more than
Speaker 4: human by resisting police violence everywhere. And may I add
Speaker 4: that in the face of the violent raid that took
Speaker 4: place last night, as city residents gathered in solidarity to
Speaker 4: defend this forest, that is an example of the militarization
Speaker 4: that we are calling out. Through violence and greed, these
Speaker 4: lands have been subjected to centuries of abuse, from the
Speaker 4: forced removal of indigenous communities, to serving as a plantation
Speaker 4: for enslaved African labor, to the site of the old
Speaker 4: Atlanta Prison honor Farm in the twentieth century that produced
Speaker 4: immense profits for the prison system.
Speaker 3: Today, the sounds of berg.
Speaker 4: Song from the forest Canopy live alongside the sound of
Speaker 4: gunfire and the adjacent APD firing range.
Speaker 3: We are troubled.
Speaker 4: By the commodification of community, land, water, and air on
Speaker 4: which all of us depend. We are profoundly troubled by
Speaker 4: the use of military tactics and escalated legal charges on
Speaker 4: members of our community, suppressing legitimate resistance, while at the
Speaker 4: same time clearcutting the forest trees despite not having the
Speaker 4: appropriate permits. The lands and the people of Atlanta have
Speaker 4: suffered violence for too long. We say no more. We
Speaker 4: declare with faith, commitment and hope that this land will
Speaker 4: be a part of healing and repair. We Atlanta clergy,
Speaker 4: religious leaders, and all of those across the nation and
Speaker 4: world who are in agreement join our voices with calling
Speaker 4: for the following, a complete stop of the cop City
Speaker 4: project and cancelation of the Atlanta Police Foundation's lease, dropping
Speaker 4: all charges against forest defenders and protesters. We demand an
Speaker 4: independent investigation into the uses of domestic terrorism charges. We
Speaker 4: demand an independent investigation into the killing of Manuel Tehran Tortugita.
Speaker 4: We speak their name, for which recently release video footage
Speaker 4: of the event suggests there was lying and deceit surrounding
Speaker 4: the incident. On part of law enforcement in their initial
Speaker 4: reporting of the incident.
Speaker 1: The Muskogee elder Miko Chabbon, Colonel spoke at the press
Speaker 1: conference and called for a land back and for the
Speaker 1: Muskogee people to return and remtreat the Wilani Forest in
Speaker 1: community with the black and brown residents of the area.
Speaker 5: Our ancestors lived here for over thirteen thousand years, and
Speaker 5: if you're to do the math correctly, this country that
Speaker 5: we now call the United States is somewhere in the
Speaker 5: neighborhood of two hundred and forty just over nearly two
Speaker 5: years ago. I came here to the Rilawni Forest. I
Speaker 5: came here with my own family, my own children were
Speaker 5: some of my elders, to just share a little bit
Speaker 5: about how this territoryiness land feels to us as Muskogee people,
Speaker 5: because let it be known today, it was not our
Speaker 5: choice to leave here. We did go to war to
Speaker 5: protect these areas. We did go through much to protect
Speaker 5: these areas, only to be forced to leave here under
Speaker 5: military occupation, but also to be forced to leave here
Speaker 5: after treachery, after illegally lands were taken from us. This
Speaker 5: is our homeland, my ancestors for generation upon generation for
Speaker 5: millennia are buried on the very ground that you walk
Speaker 5: on every day. And I think we have a say
Speaker 5: in how we should live as a society in this
Speaker 5: day and time. And so in this moment, our hope
Speaker 5: is to be able to come back, to rematriate, to
Speaker 5: take our lives back and to the intimacy that we
Speaker 5: once had with everything that grows here in what you
Speaker 5: now call the state of Georgia, because no matter who
Speaker 5: we are and where we come from, we have to
Speaker 5: have air, we have to have water, we have to
Speaker 5: have the elements of this earth to take care of us.
Speaker 5: Regardless of what we think. We're dependent on this Earth's mother,
Speaker 5: and she has been faithful in taking care of us.
Speaker 5: It's us that has not been faithful in respecting her.
Speaker 5: Hope is that this earth is not destroyed before we
Speaker 5: even have a chance to come back, that lives aren't
Speaker 5: destroyed before we have a chance to come back. So today,
Speaker 5: in whatever way, I come here to join the choruses
Speaker 5: of voices that you hear all around you saying what
Speaker 5: is going on now is a violence against all of creation.
Speaker 5: What is going on now bringing death and harm and
Speaker 5: hurt is a violence against all of creation, and we
Speaker 5: stand in solidarity as Muskogee people. I stand in solidarity
Speaker 5: with the voices that we hear of those tenets, those
Speaker 5: persons who live in the land now. But my hope
Speaker 5: is now, at this moment in time, that somehow we
Speaker 5: can change the trajectory of our species and go into
Speaker 5: a direction where we can value each other, and we
Speaker 5: can stop the criminalizing of descent. We should be able
Speaker 5: to say no, the increasing of the militarized forces out
Speaker 5: there does not ever create peace. It only creates harm,
Speaker 5: and it only harms those that are most vulnerable. That's
Speaker 5: the prayer that I carry today.
Speaker 1: Reverend Darcy Jarrett joined in the call for stewardship of
Speaker 1: the Wallani Forest to be returned to the Muscogee people.
Speaker 6: City Schools of Decatur has a statement of solidarity an
Speaker 6: acknowledgment of harms to cab County and the City of Atlanta.
Speaker 6: We call on you to make good on these words,
Speaker 6: to give the land back to our indigenous siblings, so
Speaker 6: that they, as they have stated and will do and
Speaker 6: always have done, work in collaboration with the black and
Speaker 6: brown community right there near where the site is, outside
Speaker 6: of the Wilawni Forest. The City of Atlanta is ready
Speaker 6: to lease this land at just ten dollars an acre. Instead,
Speaker 6: give this land and to the native inhabitants. Repatriate this
Speaker 6: land to the people to whom is their sacred call,
Speaker 6: to defend and work a community with the black and
Speaker 6: brown communities that are there. We call on you, Atlanta
Speaker 6: City Council, to be the moral compass and to not
Speaker 6: just halt the building of this structure, but to repatriate
Speaker 6: the land to the sovereign Muscogee Nation, the sacred keepers
Speaker 6: of this land. May it be so amen.
Speaker 1: Finally, Matthew Johnson spoke about the worrying amount of police
Speaker 1: repression and violence the movement has already seen.
Speaker 7: We're projecting by the end of the day, there will
Speaker 7: be forty people that have domestic terrorists and charges, many
Speaker 7: of which just for being in a parking lot. I
Speaker 7: don't know how anybody can accept this when you have
Speaker 7: a projected forty people that are committed of domestic terrorism,
Speaker 7: not one dead body. Meanwhile, we can't even show the
Speaker 7: bruise on the police officer that was allegedly shot at,
Speaker 7: but our friends' ashes. We have the ashes of a
Speaker 7: friend that we will spread. We can no longer accept
Speaker 7: this as a people as at lanterns. If we can't
Speaker 7: figure out a way to fix public safety without lacking
Speaker 7: tons of black kids up in the blackest city in America,
Speaker 7: every person in that building needs to step down. If
Speaker 7: we can't do it here, we can't do it anywhere.
Speaker 1: Both myself and Matt from the Atlanta Community Press Collective
Speaker 1: were at the press conference and we met up after
Speaker 1: to discuss the events of the day. During the press conference,
Speaker 1: some of the media's line of questioning was very much
Speaker 1: like aligned with the types of narratives being put out
Speaker 1: by police in relation to the events that previous night,
Speaker 1: the Sunday Direct Action and Music festival. I think it's
Speaker 1: also worth noting that the people at the clergy event
Speaker 1: did not openly like demonize the actions that people chose
Speaker 1: to take on Sunday, and it was it was very
Speaker 1: much like the media definitely gives them opportunities to try
Speaker 1: to throw people under the bus, and that did not happen.
Speaker 8: Yeah all, And we've seen that all throughout the week.
Speaker 8: Every every chance that the media is trying to throw
Speaker 8: somebody to like cause dissension or or divide amongst the
Speaker 8: movement has been really handily deflected by anyone who who's
Speaker 8: come across it, and the clergy did not just a
Speaker 8: good job of like not falling into that trap, but
Speaker 8: of actually pointing out how that line of thinking was
Speaker 8: like missing the point and where the true violence was coming.
Speaker 3: From and why Victorian people engaging and from other states.
Speaker 2: The reality of it is that the ones who are
Speaker 2: engaged in violence are the police, and they're from right
Speaker 2: here in Atlanta, Georgia. You got APD, you got Georgia
Speaker 2: State Police, you got GBI, you got Georgia State troopers,
Speaker 2: you got everybody except the martyr police who are engaging
Speaker 2: in violence and terrorism against the people who are standing
Speaker 2: against this illegal land swap. So I would suggest that
Speaker 2: the next time you decide that you are going to
Speaker 2: bring up your police rhetoric that you get from whichever
Speaker 2: police source, you go ahead and discuss that with them,
Speaker 2: because we don't know what they're doing. But what we
Speaker 2: do know is what we're doing and what we see from.
Speaker 3: Them that we know.
Speaker 2: I know when I get hit by an officer, I
Speaker 2: know when I see a mother with a child begging
Speaker 2: to be let up off the ground, because her children
Speaker 2: are with her. I know when I see officers pointing
Speaker 2: a rifle inside a bouncy house.
Speaker 7: If I could just say, I'd like to just bring
Speaker 7: up a story. Initially, the colonizers that came onto this
Speaker 7: land attempted to use the indigenous folks as their slaves. However,
Speaker 7: the indigenous folks knew the land so they could get away. Now,
Speaker 7: when you ask me about why is it that you
Speaker 7: keep catching people that aren't from here that might not
Speaker 7: reflect the people that are actually involved in their resistance. God,
Speaker 7: bless you, thank you.
Speaker 1: After the press conference, people from the Clergy Coalition marched
Speaker 1: to the front door and entered City Hall, before making
Speaker 1: it upstairs to sign up for public comment during the
Speaker 1: city council meeting.
Speaker 4: Hie, we shall not be moved.
Speaker 3: Fine for read now, we shall not be mole.
Speaker 9: Just like the street pleased by wall, we shall not.
Speaker 1: Ev The large group of the clergy and the people
Speaker 1: gathered for the interfaith Coalition are now moving through City Hall.
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of cops here that looks relatively
Speaker 1: nervous about the easily sized group of people. The scary
Speaker 1: Christians are now invading City Hall.
Speaker 8: Lookout, so usually in city Hall there are several APD
Speaker 8: officers who you know, just kind of hang out. But
Speaker 8: while the clergy are walking up to city Hall, you
Speaker 8: can look out and you there is APD on every corner.
Speaker 8: And then you enter into city Hall and there are
Speaker 8: clusters of APD. There are I think four floors to
Speaker 8: city Hall. There are clusters of APD on three sides
Speaker 8: of every floor of city Hall.
Speaker 1: After an unexpectedly long awards and proclamations ceremony, the public
Speaker 1: comment section of the city council meeting finally began.
Speaker 4: I'm standing here today with the Faith Coalition. We are
Speaker 4: clergy and faith leaders. We are citizens, and we are
Speaker 4: protectors of the land that doesn't belong to us, but
Speaker 4: belongs to God. We are deeply concerned for our community members,
Speaker 4: for ourselves, and implications for the future of public safety
Speaker 4: in the United States if this cop city development goes forward.
Speaker 4: We are asking for all people of faith, those of
Speaker 4: you who sit on council, regardless of your tradition or background,
Speaker 4: and those who stand with moral conscience, to stop the
Speaker 4: cop city project. My faith convicts me and tells all
Speaker 4: of us that there is a better way. We have
Speaker 4: a prophetic, moral imagination and opportunity here to do something
Speaker 4: different in Atlanta, to do something different for the South. Finally,
Speaker 4: we're asking for a community process. A community process. Let
Speaker 4: us come together with moral imagination to envision how the
Speaker 4: Lani River forests can be the heart and lungs of
Speaker 4: community wellness and healing. Not more militarization of police. We
Speaker 4: want a process that centers the voice and needs of
Speaker 4: Muskoge leaders and community members, our indigenous siblings, incarcerated folks
Speaker 4: and surrounding prisons, families and neighbors who live in cross
Speaker 4: proximity to the firing range and under police surveillance.
Speaker 1: We want holistic.
Speaker 4: Community safety, clean water, tree canopies, a future for every
Speaker 4: single one of our children. May it be so.
Speaker 1: Someone from the Muscogee Creek Reservation in Oklahoma spoke about
Speaker 1: the desire to return to their homeland.
Speaker 9: The Miko of our Hellobi Ceremonial grounds back home in
Speaker 9: Oklahoma has come here where our original fire was started,
Speaker 9: and then it was taken all the way to Oklahoma,
Speaker 9: and now we want to bring it back to our
Speaker 9: land and we want to start those fires again. Well,
Speaker 9: when we come back, we need a land to come
Speaker 9: This is my first time coming back to visit my homelands.
Speaker 9: I wanted to visit here where my ancestors are, as
Speaker 9: a spiritual and personal journey. I didn't want to come
Speaker 9: here to try to fight the violence that I'm hearing.
Speaker 9: What I'm hearing is from the residence is they need
Speaker 9: investments in housing and public spaces, and not investment in
Speaker 9: further militarized policing. They want investment in the well being
Speaker 9: of incarcerated and not further violent incarceration, but the well
Speaker 9: being of the community members. Thank you, Moto Chichatis.
Speaker 10: I turned seventy last week and I've lived in Atlanta
Speaker 10: my whole life. I'm not an outsider, and I am
Speaker 10: here to say to you that I find cop City
Speaker 10: to be an abomination. My husband is a pastor of
Speaker 10: a church a couple of miles from here, and he
Speaker 10: could not be here today. He's out of town, but
Speaker 10: he stands with me with these comments. The people who
Speaker 10: have spoken before me have said the things I would say,
Speaker 10: but I would like to say that I pretty much
Speaker 10: agree with every single thing they have said about this
Speaker 10: insanity that you all are calling a police safety training facility.
Speaker 10: So I think you need to just cancel it, start
Speaker 10: having some real conversations with the people of this city
Speaker 10: to solve the real problems in a way that will
Speaker 10: actually be effective. And this facility is not going to
Speaker 10: be it. And the mayor's proposed task force is just
Speaker 10: one more way to try to propagandize us to believe
Speaker 10: that this is good for us, when we're not stupid
Speaker 10: and we know it's just lipstick.
Speaker 9: On a pig.
Speaker 2: And if you heart in your heart, be reminded of
Speaker 2: the story of another pharaoh who had a very hard heart,
Speaker 2: who would not free the people of God, who would
Speaker 2: not lead them to their land. You know what happened
Speaker 2: in that story. Don't think that you will not so
Speaker 2: for the same fate. Don't think that the infrastructure of
Speaker 2: this so called Black Mecca will not come toppling over,
Speaker 2: because it will.
Speaker 8: There are a couple like things to note about how
Speaker 8: City Council public comment works. City Council doesn't tend to
Speaker 8: pay attention to them. Essensibly, the only one who pays
Speaker 8: attention is City Council President Doug Shipman, because it is
Speaker 8: his job to call time and to call up the
Speaker 8: next person. But you know, city councilors will like step
Speaker 8: in and out of the room get something to eat.
Speaker 8: During the seventeen hours of public comment for cop City,
Speaker 8: like one of them held a press conference.
Speaker 1: There are two council members notoriously bad at paying attention
Speaker 1: to public comment. Dustin Hillis who is the committee chair
Speaker 1: for the Public Safety Legal Administration Committee. Basically he's in
Speaker 1: charge of police. And the other is Mary Norwood, who
Speaker 1: represents Buckhead and has what I would describe as ontologically
Speaker 1: evil vibes. Buckheed is the northern, primarily white neighborhood in
Speaker 1: Atlanta that is wanted to from the city, which in
Speaker 1: Atlanta has very uncomfortable segregation and redlining parallels. But despite
Speaker 1: not paying attention during public comment, these two in particular,
Speaker 1: both paid extra attention after public comment when police Chief
Speaker 1: Darren Scherbaum gave testimony on what happened the night previous.
Speaker 11: Were there any firefighter or police Citty employee entries yesterday's event.
Speaker 12: Because mamerhillis there was not. We're very fortunate that that
Speaker 12: was the outcome. We're fortunate that there was no injuries.
Speaker 11: If this continues, do we have the ability to deploy
Speaker 11: even greater force to quill this? You know, the millions
Speaker 11: of damage, millions of dollars of damage to public and
Speaker 11: private properties.
Speaker 12: We will make adjustments as those that used various tactics.
Speaker 12: Yesterday was an escalation. We had not seen this large
Speaker 12: number of individuals engaged in this activity. In the aggressive
Speaker 12: manner in which the officers were attacked was a significant
Speaker 12: change from what we'd seen before when it generally had
Speaker 12: been setting properly on fire. We'd seen police cars set
Speaker 12: on fire when those busters, but this was started as
Speaker 12: an attack against individuals, men and women who are employees
Speaker 12: of this city, so that was an escalation. Council Member
Speaker 12: hillis that we have already made adjustments for both within
Speaker 12: our capability as well as with our partners.
Speaker 1: Throughout to Sheerbaum's testimony, it was interesting the degree to
Speaker 1: which the chief framed Sunday's direct action as primarily being
Speaker 1: targeted against officers and not the destruction of equipment and
Speaker 1: machinery at the North Gate. From the videos that APD
Speaker 1: themselves released of the incident, it's clear that engagement with
Speaker 1: the police was limited to keeping officers at bay as
Speaker 1: construction equipment was targeted, and despite the continued referring of
Speaker 1: fireworks as quote unquote mortars or explosives, as the chief
Speaker 1: himself admitted, no officers were harmed during the direct action.
Speaker 1: In a later episode, we'll hear more of Chief Sheerbaum's
Speaker 1: explanation of Sunday Night's events, as it gives insight into
Speaker 1: the police's own surveillance capabilities and their ability to respond
Speaker 1: quickly to direct actions. But until then, back to the
Speaker 1: events of Monday, March sixth. After the city council meeting,
Speaker 1: I dressed up in the gayest little outfit that I
Speaker 1: had with me and went back to the woods for
Speaker 1: the first time since Sunday night for Perhum. Initially, people
Speaker 1: were very cautious when entering the woods again, but as
Speaker 1: the night went on, more and more people started to
Speaker 1: pour into the forest, with some choosing to return to
Speaker 1: their camp. Later that night, I enjoyed an experimental noise
Speaker 1: show in the living room, probably to the detriment of
Speaker 1: people trying to sleep in the area. I went to
Speaker 1: the Perham in the woods. I got to share my
Speaker 1: memory of the Veggietail's ester story starring the tickle monsters.
Speaker 1: I got to bond with a few exangelicals about that,
Speaker 1: so that was fine. Then there was an experimental noise
Speaker 1: show in the forest, and really I think it actually
Speaker 1: is worth talking about because this was the first time.
Speaker 8: People return to the forest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was the first time that people like returned
Speaker 1: to the forest in mass since Sunday, and he started
Speaker 1: to kind of feel people's energy get reinvigorated. The woods
Speaker 1: became a place again that people were able to like
Speaker 1: be in and feel like they were able to be
Speaker 1: in community in the woods again.
Speaker 8: And that is in keeping with sort of how this
Speaker 8: movement has always responded to what we I guess could
Speaker 8: call a loss, right.
Speaker 1: Like twenty three people getting arrested in charge is is
Speaker 1: a great loss.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and the bounce back period is pretty quick, Like
Speaker 8: the resiliency is continual and always strengthening. Every time that
Speaker 8: you know, the repression grows, like it does seem like
Speaker 8: the resiliency grows with it.
Speaker 1: People were not scared away from the woods. People still
Speaker 1: still were like, no, this is something I care about.
Speaker 1: I am still going to be in the woods. I'm
Speaker 1: still going to defend these woods. And you kind of
Speaker 1: have like there's always this essence of like fear kind
Speaker 1: of kind of underlying whenever you're like in the Wollani
Speaker 1: Forest because you know, people have been arrested and charged
Speaker 1: for laying in a hammock like that with another defendant,
Speaker 1: with another defendant, and like so you know that it
Speaker 1: is it is fundamentally a risky place to be, but
Speaker 1: people think the potential cost is worth it, Like they
Speaker 1: will they continue to be here because they know this
Speaker 1: is a winnable fight and they know that it is
Speaker 1: worth it to defend these woods. Early Tuesday morning, a
Speaker 1: few stop Coop City banner drops happened throughout this city.
Speaker 1: Two people were detained by police during one of these
Speaker 1: banner drops, but were later released with a traffic citation
Speaker 1: after being interrogated separately and extensively photographed by law enforcement
Speaker 1: officials only identified as quote Georgia Police and home Land
Speaker 1: Security unquote. Tuesday was the start of a series of
Speaker 1: non violent direct actions that were being launched around downtown
Speaker 1: and midtown. Tuesday morning, I followed a small group that
Speaker 1: went to the headquarters of Norfolk Southern, one of the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Police Foundation's financial contributors and noted enemy of Ohio.
Speaker 8: They entered the lobby and it's a very small group,
Speaker 8: but like I think half of it was.
Speaker 1: It was like five people and another five like press people.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So they enter and they read aloud a letter to
Speaker 8: Alan Shaw, the CEO of Norfolk Southern, calling forward investment
Speaker 8: of Norfolk Southern from Copcity, and immediately they are met
Speaker 8: with a security guard screaming like go you're get out
Speaker 8: of the lobby. Leave, you're being criminally or you're being trespassed.
Speaker 6: You have to leave.
Speaker 8: One of the other security guards runs around with cell
Speaker 8: phone camera and like shoves it in everybody's faces, reaching
Speaker 8: rather rudely over you to get my face.
Speaker 1: And they got very close to me entering the Norfolk
Speaker 1: Southern Building building.
Speaker 3: Please this letter, it's playing a horrible in the city.
Speaker 3: Can pave the building.
Speaker 8: And so the whole thing lasts like less than five minutes,
Speaker 8: maybe ride about five minutes when they finished reading the letter,
Speaker 8: Like all they asked was that the letter go to
Speaker 8: the CEO.
Speaker 1: While people were inside the headquarters, security called n S Police,
Speaker 1: which is the Norfolk Southern Police, who are legally allowed
Speaker 1: to arrest people.
Speaker 8: Anyone, but nobody was arrested at that non violent direct action.
Speaker 8: The whole thing was over pretty quickly, and you know,
Speaker 8: as we were walking out, we saw like the the
Speaker 8: a force of Norfolk Southern Police like swarm kind of
Speaker 8: the exterior of the campus and like keep an eye
Speaker 8: out on things.
Speaker 1: And then we moved over to Woodriff Park, which was
Speaker 1: the meeting place for these non violent direct actions that
Speaker 1: happened about every every day at noon starting on starting
Speaker 1: on Tuesday. It's Tuesday, March seventh, around noon, there's about
Speaker 1: fifty or so people gathered in Woodriff Park who are
Speaker 1: heading out and marching to go stop by two of
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Police Foundation corporate funders.
Speaker 8: We roll up and I think at that point they
Speaker 8: were like twenty is protesters.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 8: It started off very small. There was no police, like
Speaker 8: no real visible police presence. There were like maybe a
Speaker 8: cruiser or two like kind of around and actually start
Speaker 8: to gather and kind of talk about like what their
Speaker 8: plan is for the day, which was just too march
Speaker 8: around to three different sites. They wanted the eight and
Speaker 8: T Building, the Georgia Pacific Building, and GSU.
Speaker 1: Georgia State University City. They're now leaving Woodriff Park. They
Speaker 1: got to Georgia Pacific, one of the COP City financial backers,
Speaker 1: without much incident and without much in terms of visible
Speaker 1: police presence. People called on Mayor Dickens, who is the
Speaker 1: chair of the board of directors for Georgia Pacific, to
Speaker 1: cancel the Atlanta Police Foundation lease of the land that
Speaker 1: cop city is slated to be built on.
Speaker 2: Mayor Dickens, we want you to cancel this leaks.
Speaker 3: We know that you have the authority to do so.
Speaker 1: They finished up that Georgia Pacific, they set up a
Speaker 1: little vigil for Torti Guita.
Speaker 8: And from Georgia Pacific they began their trek to the
Speaker 8: AT and T building.
Speaker 1: They left a little vigil for Torti Ghita in front
Speaker 1: of the Georgia Pacific Center and the group of like
Speaker 1: more than fifty people are continuing to march north. Police
Speaker 1: eight to ten police officers are directly behind them, and
Speaker 1: the whole bunch of police cars are blocking Peach Tree
Speaker 1: along the path to AT and T. Was the APF's
Speaker 1: headquarters just across the street, and as the crowd approached
Speaker 1: this intersection, the amount of police ballooned massively in the
Speaker 1: block around the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters. There's got to
Speaker 1: be about thirty to forty officers stationed walking off the
Speaker 1: entrance to the APF and also just like following the
Speaker 1: crowd around as they're as they're marching through the sidewalks.
Speaker 1: There's definitely over god, there's I think around seventy five
Speaker 1: officers to play in this area right now. The number
Speaker 1: keeps growing as we start walking down different sidewalks and
Speaker 1: different streets, you just see more officers that are already stationed.
Speaker 8: There are fifty activists and what certainly over one hundreds,
Speaker 8: and we're probably between hundred and hondred and twenty police
Speaker 8: officers started marching not like behind, not in front, but
Speaker 8: directly beside the march, sort of pinning the march to
Speaker 8: the wall, and like essentially kettling the march.
Speaker 1: There was police station in front, there was police station behind,
Speaker 1: and police stationed on the side. It was surrounding the
Speaker 1: surrounding like these fifty people who were simply walking on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk stumbling upon a new group of officers. Got
Speaker 1: to be about one hundred officers in this area right now.
Speaker 1: At one point, a police vehicle was just parked on
Speaker 1: the sidewalk, completely blocking it. During this entire time, police
Speaker 1: were blocking all of the traffic in these intersections and.
Speaker 8: Roads, driving wrong way up one way like just you know,
Speaker 8: doing police things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a door to State University canine unit. This blocking
Speaker 1: off the entire sidewalk next to a Fulton County Sheriff's vehicle.
Speaker 1: They're trying to make it impossible for people to actually
Speaker 1: move on the sidewalk.
Speaker 3: But for the most part, people.
Speaker 1: Have been able to move around the police and keep
Speaker 1: their movement going instead of just stalling in one spot
Speaker 1: or like trying to particually confront what is now like
Speaker 1: hundreds one hundreds of law enforcement officers from Fulton County
Speaker 1: Sheriffs and Atlanta Police Department and even like Georgia State
Speaker 1: University Police. So the group is split up in between
Speaker 1: two streets right now because people are trying to follow
Speaker 1: the crossing signals because otherwise police are going to tackle
Speaker 1: and violently assault people. No one was arrested, people marched
Speaker 1: to their perspective locations.
Speaker 8: People very pointedly kept to laws. There was a couple
Speaker 8: of times when like the crosswalk changed and the group
Speaker 8: kind of had to split. They would stay and wait
Speaker 8: until the crosswalk went back to walk, and then crossover
Speaker 8: and join.
Speaker 1: It's so funny that the cops are so insistent if
Speaker 1: you stepped on the streets, you're going to get arrested
Speaker 1: and make sure people stay on the side of walks.
Speaker 1: But the result of that is that all the cops
Speaker 1: are standing in the street and they're blocking off like
Speaker 1: miles of traffic downtown. Right now, people just arrived at
Speaker 1: the fifty one Peachtree Center aff new AT and T
Speaker 1: building in downtown Atlanta. Police were already stationed in front
Speaker 1: of the AT and T building, so there wasn't much
Speaker 1: to do. After a brief speech talking about AT and
Speaker 1: T's contributions to the Police Foundation and Cop City, the
Speaker 1: crowd moved on. Now people are turning west in the
Speaker 1: opposite direction from the AT and T headquarters, heading back
Speaker 1: into the Woodruff Park area where this march began. Police
Speaker 1: with long guns here. Finally, the crowd stopped at Georgia
Speaker 1: State University and talked about GSU's connections to the Atlanta
Speaker 1: Police Foundation. What is of note for this action, and
Speaker 1: really all of the actions that happened the next few days,
Speaker 1: is not what the protesters did. It's the police's disproportionate
Speaker 1: response to just fifty people walking on the sidewalk, chanting
Speaker 1: and giving short speeches outside of businesses tied to APF.
Speaker 8: With a small line of officers in front of GSU.
Speaker 8: They gave their last round of speeches and sort of
Speaker 8: just first for.
Speaker 2: The day before we wrap today and give these clouds
Speaker 2: something else to go do.
Speaker 8: We will be out here.
Speaker 2: We won't be out here for the rest of the week,
Speaker 2: for the rest of the month, for the year.
Speaker 3: We won't fight us here.
Speaker 9: We wait.
Speaker 1: Some of the police are now grouping up and opening
Speaker 1: up the sidewalk so people can actually leave. It seems
Speaker 1: officers were in fact instructed to make arrests during this action,
Speaker 1: but for some reason did not follow through on those orders.
Speaker 1: According to scanner audio from Atlanta Police Department's SWAT team, that's.
Speaker 3: About the of them. The problem is they've been telling
Speaker 3: them to make a risk, but also is not making
Speaker 3: a risk. I guess they weren't supposed to.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but I'm with that.
Speaker 3: We'll just hold what we got and Fawn is needed.
Speaker 1: Extensive police activity continued later that night. At around five
Speaker 1: thirty to six pm, police started staging around the forest
Speaker 1: in a way that usually indicates that a raid is forthcoming.
Speaker 1: Words spread around the recovering encampment that police could be
Speaker 1: preparing for a raid.
Speaker 8: So the initial reports were like that there were fifty
Speaker 8: police officers staged at Key Road and ready to go,
Speaker 8: and then the Dacab County Swat starts to roll up
Speaker 8: at the fire station, and I would say a fair
Speaker 8: amount of like panic starts to set it at camp.
Speaker 1: Multiple multiple police copters are getting flown overhead, multiple different
Speaker 1: SWAT teams are being brought in. At least like three
Speaker 1: or four different agencies are our stationing officers around the woods.
Speaker 1: I believe it's estimated that at least one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty police officers were or were being staged in the
Speaker 1: area directly surrounding the forest and in the area by
Speaker 1: the power line cut on Key Road.
Speaker 8: And it should be said that, you know, up until
Speaker 8: this point, the police have never brought in that many
Speaker 8: resources to any protest action that I'm aware of, and
Speaker 8: not come in and engaged. So I was with a
Speaker 8: group offsite who like immediately began to fear, like you know,
Speaker 8: for they wouldn't be able to get back to their
Speaker 8: camp size, they wouldn't be able to get their their gear,
Speaker 8: they wouldn't be able to get their medication, and that,
Speaker 8: from what I understand, was the general vibe around, but
Speaker 8: nothing happened.
Speaker 1: Nothing seemed to happen, and then at around seven police
Speaker 1: started to almost like express confusion on what was going on,
Speaker 1: and then everyone else expressed confusion for why the police
Speaker 1: were confused. And we think we've kind of put together
Speaker 1: what may have happened, So Clark is what is suspected
Speaker 1: of going down here.
Speaker 8: So the one thing that police don't understand and probably
Speaker 8: will never understand is humor. Now they become the butt
Speaker 8: of the joke often, but they don't understand comedy. So
Speaker 8: at seven o'clock that evening was scheduled Comedy in the Forest.
Speaker 8: And from what we've gathered, the police thought that the
Speaker 8: Comedy in the Forest event was going to be a
Speaker 8: cover for another Sunday night like action.
Speaker 1: So this event was scheduled on the public Defend the
Speaker 1: Atlanta Forest calendar that anyone can look at online is
Speaker 1: this Comedy in the Woods event for people to tell
Speaker 1: jokes around a campfire. And I guess they thought it
Speaker 1: was like it was like this event that was like
Speaker 1: a red herring so that people could then go do
Speaker 1: violent militancy in around the woods. So when seven o'clock
Speaker 1: came and went like police were expecting people to arrive
Speaker 1: at the woods or something, and that just didn't happen
Speaker 1: because turns out, a few minutes before seven o'clock, this
Speaker 1: comedy event was canceled for like unrelated reasons. The organizer
Speaker 1: had had things come up, So this event just didn't happen.
Speaker 1: But there still was comedy in the woods. It just
Speaker 1: was that the police wasted probably over one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars mobilizing over one hundred officers. And I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: I think some people in the woods were you know,
Speaker 1: had some frustration that that that you know, they experienced
Speaker 1: this fear of this possibly incoming ray that then resulted
Speaker 1: in there being nothing. I think it's always important to
Speaker 1: when people are relaying information, they relay information that is
Speaker 1: known without like unadue speculation. So like it is a
Speaker 1: fact to say that there's over a hundred cops stationing
Speaker 1: by the woods, and they've never had that many cops
Speaker 1: there before without doing some sort of raid or some
Speaker 1: sort of some sort of like activity in the forest.
Speaker 8: And part of what I've heard go on since then was,
Speaker 8: you know, some very generative conversations about how they're going
Speaker 8: to take into account like this. This new paradigm developed
Speaker 8: that night, and I think that again speaks to sort
Speaker 8: of just how the movement continues to develop and grow
Speaker 8: and like you know, handle new new challenges and shifts.
Speaker 1: So with the forest camp still intact, the week of
Speaker 1: action continued on as planned, with another downtown nonviolent direct
Speaker 1: action that next morning.
Speaker 8: So Wednesday noon is a lot smaller of direct action
Speaker 8: than the day before.
Speaker 1: It starts with like a dozen people. It slowly grows
Speaker 1: to like a few dozen, but yeah, it started extremely,
Speaker 1: extremely small. So this was one difference from Tuesday is
Speaker 1: that when we arrived, police already had a visible presence
Speaker 1: in downtown, stationed around Woodriff Park. So a group of
Speaker 1: people just launch from Woodriff Park. They kind of split
Speaker 1: off in different different little sub subgroups. Lots of people
Speaker 1: are just stationed outside of Marta Stops handing out flyers,
Speaker 1: and that is what people are doing right now. Police
Speaker 1: seem relatively confused and are trying to like mobilized to
Speaker 1: different areas where they feel like something might happen, but
Speaker 1: it's just people handing out flyers.
Speaker 8: And they decided to split into groups and engage in
Speaker 8: like just some typical outreache activity that you would see,
Speaker 8: you know, from any group, like just passing out flyers
Speaker 8: and pamphlets and attempting, from what I saw, to have
Speaker 8: like one on one conversations with anyone who wanted to.
Speaker 1: So this this group that it broke off into these
Speaker 1: smaller subgroups. The group that we kind of accompanied stationed
Speaker 1: themselves around some Marta stops around I believe it was
Speaker 1: like them, it was the Peachtree Lata station. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: they stationed at the at the like the three different
Speaker 1: exits or entrances for that, just just handing out flyers,
Speaker 1: handing out leaflets, trying to you know, talk to anybody
Speaker 1: who walks by. Another group of people standing outside of
Speaker 1: a public transit spot handing out flyers, probably like I
Speaker 1: don't know, four or five other small, small groups doing
Speaker 1: similar things throughout downtown, which means police have a lot
Speaker 1: more places to be as opposed to just following one
Speaker 1: big group.
Speaker 8: The group that we followed had its own police presence
Speaker 8: follow it, and then when they split into three more groups,
Speaker 8: each group had its own police presence follow it, and
Speaker 8: police stuck to the protesters the entire time. And of course,
Speaker 8: like there's white transport vans that are full of cops
Speaker 8: kind of driving by.
Speaker 1: Big white van with police officers just showed up across
Speaker 1: the street. Army green Tan swat vehicle just parked a
Speaker 1: block away from the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters. There was
Speaker 1: an Atlanta swat vehicle parked outside of the Hooters.
Speaker 8: Totally normal response. Totally normal response. And so the leafleting
Speaker 8: goes on for you know, like forty five minutes, and
Speaker 8: then all of the groups start to gather together conveniently
Speaker 8: with the group that like we had embedded with.
Speaker 1: All right, there's actually a pretty decent number of people
Speaker 1: gathered here for the flyering event today. You know, normal
Speaker 1: police response to people handing out flyers, just fifty officers
Speaker 1: and a swat team. But yeah, there's probably a point
Speaker 1: like two or three dozen people that have kind of
Speaker 1: all converged together. They started off very small, people were
Speaker 1: very very spread out. They they splintered off into little, little,
Speaker 1: smaller groups. But now they've all kind of coalesced together
Speaker 1: back again. So all the little subgroups kind of meet
Speaker 1: up on Andrew Jung and Peach Tree, right next to
Speaker 1: the Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe.
Speaker 8: This area is like the business district. So in the
Speaker 8: middle of the day, it's like really busy, it's a
Speaker 8: fairly like good spot to pass out leaflets.
Speaker 1: So they are passing out these leaflets. Pedestrians are still
Speaker 1: able to like walk through the sidewalks. It's pretty it's
Speaker 1: pretty chill. And then APD approaches the crowd, like the
Speaker 1: APD has already been around this area. There's there's this
Speaker 1: vehicle across the street watching people hand out flyers. But
Speaker 1: then Lieutenant Neil Welch approaches the crowd and gives them
Speaker 1: a dispersal order.
Speaker 13: Okay, alright, so I'm out of Neil Welch, Police Officers,
Speaker 13: City of Atlanta. I hereby declare that being on this sidewalk,
Speaker 13: you are obstructing or repeating the normal and reasonable movement
Speaker 13: of pedestrian traffic and violation of Atlanta City Ordinance. Okay,
Speaker 13: in the name of the people, is say to Georgia,
Speaker 13: I hereby command that all present in the sidewalk, all
Speaker 13: present here in the sidewalk, immediately exit the street or
Speaker 13: the roadway or sidewalk. If you do not do so,
Speaker 13: you may be detained or arrested. Should you fail to
Speaker 13: exit the sidewalk in accordance with this lawful command, you
Speaker 13: shall be in violation of Section one five zero two
Speaker 13: six six substructing pedestrian traffic, which prohibits standing or being
Speaker 13: on any street, roadway, or sidewalk in a manner to
Speaker 13: obstruct or impede the normal or reasonable pedestrian traffic.
Speaker 1: Cops threatened arrest and detainment. They claimed that people were
Speaker 1: blocking the sidewalk, which they absolutely weren't. I was walking freely,
Speaker 1: as was all of like downtown pedestrian traffic. They were
Speaker 1: not blocking anything.
Speaker 8: This is uh, this is.
Speaker 1: Pretty silly, utterly, utterly ridiculous response to people handing out flyers.
Speaker 1: So they were told they cannot be on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: Obviously they can't be on the street. Where are you
Speaker 1: allowed to protest if not the sidewalk or the street.
Speaker 1: Seemed like very like flimsy legal footing. But obviously they
Speaker 1: police can rest anyone they want at any time, for
Speaker 1: any reason. So people decide to move, They cross over
Speaker 1: the street, they walk like a block north, they cross
Speaker 1: the street again, and they move on to this part
Speaker 1: of the sidewalk that is like really large, like a massive,
Speaker 1: massive open open section that right.
Speaker 8: In front of the mall, so it's it's it's meant
Speaker 8: to like have a bunch of people passed by it.
Speaker 1: So people continue to hand out flyers.
Speaker 8: While this is happening, there's another group who comes in
Speaker 8: to the side of p Street Center mall and enters
Speaker 8: the mall. You find Mayor Andre Dickens. There are a
Speaker 8: couple boards in Atlanta that stipulate the mayor is like
Speaker 8: the head of the board, and this is one of them,
Speaker 8: and it meets in Peatree Center Mall as one does.
Speaker 1: So the mayor is having a meeting in the mall.
Speaker 8: The office spaces, you know, sort of above the mall, and.
Speaker 1: This group of people from the Muscogie Nation enter and
Speaker 1: try to meet up with the mayor to hand off
Speaker 1: a letter.
Speaker 3: Objection, objection.
Speaker 13: We have a letter being delivered from the Muscogee Creek
Speaker 13: Nation on behalf of Muscogee Creek spiritual leadership and opposition
Speaker 13: to copsidy.
Speaker 9: I came all the way on the trail of tears
Speaker 9: to deliver this letter to you folks. We want you
Speaker 9: to know that the contemporary Muscogee people are now making
Speaker 9: their journey back to our homelands and hereby give notice
Speaker 9: to Mayor Andrew Dickens, the Atlanta City Council, the Atlanta
Speaker 9: Police Department, the Atlanta Police found the Dacob County Sheriff's
Speaker 9: Office and so called copp City, that you must immediately
Speaker 9: vacate Muscogee homelands and cease violence and policing of Indigenous
Speaker 9: and Black people and Muscogee lands. We lived as stewards
Speaker 9: and in relationship to this land for more than thirteen
Speaker 9: thousand years until the illegitimate State of Georgia negotiated with
Speaker 9: the Tyrant Andrew Jackson for the militarized for the militarized
Speaker 9: force removal of Muscogee and Cherokee relatives to Indian territories.
Speaker 9: Mayor Dickens, can I give this letter to you? He
Speaker 9: got one, Mayor, we want to talk to you about
Speaker 9: our homeland, the Muskogee Creek people.
Speaker 8: Three indigenous activists along with Kamal Franklin arrive and they
Speaker 8: find the mayor. They enter the board meeting and they
Speaker 8: begin to read this letter from the Muscogi Nation allowed
Speaker 8: and in the letter, it essentially says that Atlanta is
Speaker 8: being evicted out of the Louis Lanni Forest and the
Speaker 8: most Scogee people are going to return and reclaim their
Speaker 8: ancestral land. Mayor Dickens, in true mayor fashion, bolts away
Speaker 8: from this, running through an exit door, which is then
Speaker 8: like blocked by a guard which I think that has
Speaker 8: its own set of legal issues, essentially just ignoring them
Speaker 8: over his shoulder. He calls out, I've got a copy
Speaker 8: of the letter and hides just completely trying to escape
Speaker 8: what is not a good look for him.
Speaker 1: The Atlanta Police Department APEX Swatch team was called to
Speaker 1: the mall, and right as the activists were able to exit,
Speaker 1: the special police units rushed into the building, finding no one.
Speaker 1: By now, the police repression during this week of action
Speaker 1: far exceeded police activity during any of the prior weeks
Speaker 1: of action, and this trend would continue as the week
Speaker 1: entered its last few days. The next episode will wrap
Speaker 1: up our coverage for the week, as well as contain
Speaker 1: a bit more analysis of the police repression and the
Speaker 1: fallout of Sunday's direct action. But then there will be
Speaker 1: a fifth bonus episode that gives an overview of what's
Speaker 1: happened in the Malani Forest in the intervening two months.
Speaker 1: See You on the Other Side Music Festival audio courtesy
Speaker 1: of Unicorn Riot. It Could Happen Here as a production
Speaker 1: of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4: For more podcasts from cool zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 4: coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 4: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 9: You can find sources for It could Happen Here, updated
Speaker 9: monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.