It Could Happen Here - On the Ground at Stop Cop City, Part 3: The Riot and State Repression

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

Police and politicians continue to intensify repression against the movement with domestic terrorism charges and unprecedented high bail costs. Meanwhile, a protest in downtown Atlanta ends with a police car in flames. https://atlsolidarity.org/https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund Music by the Narcissist Cookbook and Propaganda.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. The few days leading up to Saturday, January 21st felt like the calm before the storm. Nobody knew exactly what was going to happen at the weekend protest in downtown Atlanta, but there was a sense that something would. Shortly after the Wednesday shooting, a flyer went out calling for a gathering at Underground Atlanta on Saturday, January 21st, and to wear black clothes in mourning. This is It Could Happen Here, I'm Garrison Davis, and I arrived at Underground Atlanta just a bit before 5pm. The crowd was still slowly growing,

and a bunch of big news cameras were filling up the central area. As more people filtered in, some who knew Tort went up in front of everyone to share memories of Tortuguita and talk about the continuing fight to defend the forest. Obviously we're all here because Tort was an amazing person and their life meant a lot, but Tort also shared something in common with all of us, and that was the values and things that they were fighting for. And all of us are fighting for a great cause, and we all have it in common, but it makes us all targets.

They will always target us because they don't believe in the things that we believe in, and they will always be after us. And we all have to stand here and stay together and stay resilient to fight for what we believe in and never let TORC's memory go without honor. If they would kill an innocent person like TORC, someone who loved their community, they won't stop to kill us. They won't stop to kill everyone in that forest. stop to kill everyone in that forest. They won't stop to kill anyone who defies them. And that is pretty much all I had to say. That's right! That's right!

A few people from the Atlanta Resistance Medics, a local street medic group dedicated to the liberation of medicine and providing medical resources for underprivileged and marginalized people, spoke about Tortuguita, who was a member of their collective. If there's one thing that we want people to remember Tort for, it's that they were somebody who protected the people around them, who went through the training along with the rest of us to be able to provide medical resources to the people that were around them that may not have access to those. No matter what else the news says about tort, they were a protector. Everything they did was out of love.

Everything they did was out of hope for a better world. And I don't care what the police say. I don't care what the media says. I don't care what anybody says. Tort I don't care what the media says. I don't care what anybody says. Torb is out here working for a better world. They may want to smear them as an extremist. They were not. They were out here protecting their fellow people.

And that's what we want everybody to remember about them. They were out here trying to build a better world, no matter what anybody else says. We're out here trying to build a better world no matter what anybody else says. Alright, I'd love you all to repeat after me. Tortuga vive! Tortuga vive! La lucha sigue! La lucha sigue!

Tortuga vive! Tortuga vive! La lucha sigue! Tortuga vive. La lucha sigue. La lucha sigue. Tortuguita was a medic in our collective. They were a forest defender. They were a friend. They were funny. They were kind.

Tortuguita was constantly thinking of others. They were constantly trying to protect other people, trying to protect the forest, trying to protect everyone who was marginalized. They centered voices who were on the margins and brought them into the center. They recognized that our struggles are interconnected. They recognized that Cop City will never be built.

They died defending that forest. The memory of Tortuguita that I keep returning to is after the police destroyed the gazebo at Wilani People's Park in the parking lot. They were at a meeting and they said, yeah, so the cops think they can destroy our morale? They can't. Y'all, Tartu Hita was one of the most resilient, strongest people I know. They hugged everyone. They were so kind and so giving. And even as the state tries to assassinate their character in addition to their body, they were a freedom fighter. They were a person that I am honored to have known, that I am honored to have called a friend. have known that I'm honored to have called a friend. About 400 people eventually gathered around underground Atlanta. It seemed like slightly more people than were at the vigil

the previous night. Everything in modern life serves to atomize you, to make you feel like you were an individual divorced from any sense of collective identity, divorced from any sense that you have a purpose and that there is good in the world. The fact that you're here means that you're fighting against that. Don't let go of that. That is powerful and that's why Cop City isn't going to be built. It's because we have love for ourselves and for the people around us. All right, so I'm sure all of you are fairly upset about this. I am. So I'm sure all of you are fairly upset about this. I am.

Tort was a friend of mine. They were a friend of the community. Their death, their death will not be in vain. Fuck cop city! Fuck it all! By 5.30, about half the crowd gathered at Underground Atlanta were in Black Block, and the rest were a variety of activists, organizers, and random people who decided that it was important to be at this event. After some speeches, chants, and stories of tort, the gathering of people turned into a march and took to the streets. A march is starting just left underground Atlanta. Around 300 people, maybe more, are marching down the street. There's a mix of people in block. There's medics here, people just kind of in regular clothes holding signs. There's a banner in the front that reads,

clothes, holding signs. There's a banner in the front that reads, they can't kill us all. No peace! No killer! No peace! No killer! Firework! Stop cop city! Stop cop city! Banner at the front that says, trees give life, police take it. Stop cop city! Stop cop city! After just a minute of marching down one street, the crowd suddenly stopped. Looks like the march is turning around, going to the other side. Drop the charges! Drop, drop, drop the charges! Some more small fireworks being launched in the sky. Banners getting moved to the front. Looks like the march is now heading north into downtown. Organizers from the Party for Socialism and Liberation attempted to take control of the

march and lead the group south in the direction of the state capitol building or possibly looping around to the CNN center. But autonomous activists in the crowd turned the march around and the group, 400 strong, headed north. It sounds like the PSL people who were gathered at the underground tried to lead the march in one direction and everyone was like, no, we don't want to go that way. The PSL people were going to lead everyone into the federal building section of downtown, going south. And very quickly they turned around.

Well, other people turned around and were like, no, we're not going that way. They're taking a right down Peachtree, heading north into downtown, right beside the Coca-Cola sign on Marietta. The march entered the commercial district, a section of the city completely gutted out by years of the Atlanta Way neoliberal policies that we talked about in the Defend the Forest episodes from last May. The area is populated almost exclusively by business people, university students, and unhoused citizens, and was a common site for Atlanta's 2020 BLM protests. Now that the march is moving, it's easier to see everyone in black, all of the people in block. It's looking more just like a large, large mass of people in block now.

Have not seen much police presence downtown yet, besides just a few, few patrol cars. It's really unclear how Atlanta police are going to respond to this. Got some flares, a lot more of those smoke fireworks. Or smoke grenade things. It's not a grenade, it's like a cardboard tube shooting smoke out.

The block continued to travel north. Road flares and fireworks lit the path in the darkening evening. Graffiti quickly sprung up on walls with phrases like, R.I.P. Little Turtle and Stop Cop City. The march is now approaching an Atlanta police vehicle who's trying to back up. The cop just not want to... The cop car is right in the middle of where the march is going to go.

They're like less than 100 feet away. Just one single cop car that happens to be in the path. They are trying to back be in the path. They are trying to back out of the street. The march has the Trees Give Life, Police Take It banner. There's a big cardboard cutout of a tree right behind it. Police have their lights turned on now. Looks like the cop car is turning around. Yeah, and the cop car is leaving rather quickly. The sun was just starting to set as the block arrived at the main goal of the night, the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters at 191 Peachtree Street. They've stopped in front of Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters.

People are throwing stuff at the windows and doors. Broken windows at the Atlanta Police Foundation Headquarters. The people funding Cop City. Firework thrown. Umbrella's moved in to block local news cameras as windows shattered. Rocks emerged from backpacks and smashed into the front of the building. Hammers met the glass entrance as fireworks lit up the scene. Another firework at the Atlanta Police Foundation. The march is tightening up a decent bit.

March is definitely tightening up. A lot of people just in block now. Shouts of, be water, kept the mass moving forward as bank windows received a similar pelting of rocks and hammers. People chanting to move like water. A few Atlanta police cars right beside the march. I'm guessing they're going to pull in behind the march. Two Atlanta police cars right there. march. Two Atlanta police cars right there. People hitting Chase Bank and other stuff being dragged into the street like a barricade. Chase Bank's head of regional investment banking, John Richard, serves on the board of the Atlanta Police Foundation. Police officers exited the two

cop cars that were trailing the march and quickly ran away from the crowd, leaving their vehicles abandoned. Co-workers trying to keep track of where the police are in relation to the march. Looks like I got some cars pulling up behind. The police car pulled up behind the march. Just got their windows broken, firework thrown under. Another firework. Another Atlanta police vehicle had their windows smashed.

So there's two. The two that was behind the march. The two Atlanta police officer cars that were behind the march just got hit. Wells Fargo, one of the main cop city funders, received special love and attention from the block. The Atlanta area president for Wells Fargo, Mitch Grawl, is also on the board of trustees for the Atlanta Police Foundation. A few other banks hit around this area.

Wells Fargo, one of the contributors to the Atlanta Police Foundation, one of their big funders and backers. A lot of the media here are very, very thirsty to get stuff of, you know, footage of people breaking windows and shit. It was kind of surprising that the crowd made it this far without any real police response. Time almost stretches during these brief moments of uprising. About seven minutes after the first window shattered, Atlanta police finally arrived and made their move.

Police are in front of the march now. Police are in front of the march. People might be turning around. They want to do a float like water type thing. Yeah, multiple cop cars are approaching the march from the front. Unclear what the crowd is going to do. Atlanta PD is now approaching the march. They're getting closer.

They're going after one of the banners. Dragging somebody down, pulling someone to the ground. They're chasing people. One person's being arrested. Marches splitting in two different directions. Officers started randomly tackling and arresting anyone they could get their hands on. More police arrived from the south and chased down a small section of the march that branched off. A line of police coming from behind as well.

So we've got a line of police on both sides. Not many officers, though. Just a few officers. Looks like the majority of the march went... Out in the street! Get the fuck out! Get the fuck out in the street! Get out! Out in the street! Out in the street! Out in the street! Keep moving! Disperse! Disperse! Disperse! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get

out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Get out of the room! Police getting more aggressive. Pushing a lot of people. Footage and audio of these violent arrests were shared by the Defend the Forest account, Unicorn Riot, and myself. Stop holding them! You're holding them! Stop holding them! Fucking kids! Fucking murderers! Can you give your badge numbers? I hear screams coming from multiple directions. Looks like the march kind of split in two.

Get out of the street! Out of the street! I've seen a lot of arrests. The individuals targeted likely committed no crime other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The majority of the march split away and in a different direction from the cops. So I stayed where the cops were. Most of the march was able to get away by going through two different directions.

We have, it looks like, an Atlanta PD vehicle is on fire. Atlanta PD vehicle burning in the street. Burning cop car. Policed with AR-style rifles. So I feel like most of the march had to hit it on that way. I saw a mass over there. It seems one of the cop cars that got smashed also spontaneously lit on fire. When the police first confronted the march,

most of the block was able to peel off and disappear into the night. Affinity groups reconnected, block was shed, and protesters evacuated out of downtown as the police flooded the mile-long stretch of Peachtree Street that the crowd marched on. After a fire truck put out the burning cop car, police taped off the area, and as they were pushing people out, I recorded an officer saying this amazing line. an officer saying this amazing line. The whole thing's blocked.

There's fireworks and bombs going off. Bombs or discount New Year's Eve fireworks. You choose. All in all, the actions that night only took about an hour, and crews made it home in time for dinner. Before your flesh and bone Before you build on Before they chop them down And while the forest... Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter?

Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows Presented by iHeart and Sonora an anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America from ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone chilling brushes with supernatural creatures I know you take a trip to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean.

He had lost his mother, trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian.

Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzales wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom.

At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters.

From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Six people were arrested at the protest Saturday night. Five were tackled and pinned down as the crowd initially scattered,

and one other person was chased by a cop car. Sam from the Atlanta Community Press Collective has more on that. A protester who was subsequently arrested was witnesses state they were basically followed through the streets by an Atlanta police vehicle before witnesses say that they were hit by the same vehicle and they were then taken to jail. with a few witnesses because as i'm sure everyone saw on social media this weekend the arrests were a familiar brutal a familiar brutal sight before we continue i do want to play two short clips that were circulating the night of the protest first is police scanner audio of the cop whose car spontaneously combusted you want to call, we out here with these protesters. They blew my damn car up.

I ain't able to go get nothing to eat. I'm hungry. You know, I just want to be a chance. This next one is from live news coverage of the march, and this clip became an instant meme. So they're now saying GBI sucked my dick. GBI is the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Mayor Andre Dickens and the chief of police gave a press conference hours later,

which gave us a look at how the state was going to try and frame the protest and acts of targeted vandalism. My message is simple to those who seek to continue this type of criminal behavior. We will find you and we will arrest you and you will be held accountable. We have arrested several of them this evening, and Chief Sherbaum will give you the details on that. And some of them were found with explosives on them. You heard that correctly, explosives. And that has led to a police officer's car being set on fire.

During the press conference, the chief of police clarified that no law enforcement officers were injured as a result of the protest, and neither were any bystanders, which means the only violence against people was done by the cops who randomly tackled any protester that they could chase down. And so it doesn't take a rocket scientist or an attorney to tell you that breaking windows and setting fires, not protest that is terrorism and that they will be charged accordingly. And they will find that this police department and the partnership is equally committed to stop that activity. We already have prosecutors in the room as we speak,

and we're reviewing everything. We have a lot of evidence to still go through. So even charges you see tonight, those can easily be upgraded and they will be upgraded if appropriate. I brought up the police chief's comments to a few of the forest defenders that I spoke with. After the protest on Saturday in downtown, police chief Schneierbaum, it's hard. I've read it before. Schneerbone? None of us know. It's hard. I've read it before on my... None of us know and none of us care.

Anyway, the Atlanta police chief said that breaking windows and setting fires is terrorism. I'm curious to get everyone's thoughts on that. So I think, you know, the police and Andre Dickens are doing what a lot of city governments have done especially during 2020 which was like do things like call property destruction terrorism which like it's not you can call it whatever you want you can call it like property destruction

terrorism is a very like specific political strategy that exists i think the right one does it a lot and it would be worth calling that. Because Defend the Forest doesn't have a body count. The police have only murdered an activist for Defend the Forest, whereas Defend the Forest has not struck out violently against anybody except in defense against the police. You cannot

do violence to property. You cannot be violent towards a police car. It's the same way that Andre Dickens is now getting on TV and claiming that, like, calling fireworks explosives. It's like, yes, there are objects that explode, but this is very

clearly being done in bad faith because it is, it is, it justifies, and this is the same way, like, the DOD and the FBI, there's a lot of other shit. You call something terrorism, the money just pours in. You get funding, you get justification to do things like that. And you can arrest people and charge them with domestic terrorism.

That makes continuing a movement incredibly hard. That's a really dangerous implication that any act in dissidence to the state could be called domestic terrorism should really scare the shit out of everybody, not just here, but around the country, and should not be allowed to stand and should be combated against on every front. I talked with Peter about how if the police are viewing vandalism or destruction of inanimate objects as domestic terrorism, if breaking a window is terrorism, that begs the question, what exactly is destroying a forest? That juxtaposition of what the police consider violence and like what sort of like destruction of objects is violence. To me,

this demonstrates what they see like as valuable And also, this demonstrates the police state and the corporation's inability to understand the aliveness of all things and how sacred the earth is. It shows that what they consider sacred, what they hold as sacred is property, and specifically their property. I think they fear the woods in part because it moves in ways that they can't comprehend.

It moves in non-linear ways. Cricket also had something to say on this topic. Well, and what is destroying a forest? What is destroying a person? They're more upset about the destruction of property than the destruction of a person, a whole human being who is 26 years old. They were young. They had just started. And

that does not seem to measure up against some glass panes. That doesn't seem to register. And what about the terror they inspire in the forest? What about the, I mean, obviously there are these rhetorical questions when I'm preaching to the choir, but I mean, God, no, it's just, it's just infuriating. There's no, I long for the day when the line is not drawn at, well, you can do anything except touch private property. Noah mentioned the juxtaposition of broken windows being terrorism, but violent actions that actually hurt people seemingly not mattering nearly as much, at least compared a clear double standard. In the same way that during 2020, people setting fire to police precincts was insurrection and anarchy and all these things, but when the National Guard would shoot know, and pour them through pipe bombs at protests. It does not get treated with the same levity because the powers that be can never, will never, will obviously never hold themselves to the same standards that they will call us as their enemies. The meaning of words does not matter to them. What matters

is being able to get good soundbites to put on like Antifa watch and shit and make themselves, because the city has decided that they can't back down from the pro-cop people, that they're not willing to like back down on that front, that this is where they're going to stick their flag and try and hold it out. From the start of the movement, the police have aggressively arrested and persecuted protesters associated with the struggle to stop Cop City, starting all the way back with the first arrest of 11 peaceful protesters snatched off the sidewalk during the city council's vote to approve Cop City. As corporations and the state move to push Cop City's development forward, despite all public opposition, repression has increased dramatically over the last few months. Since December, everyone arrested in connection with the movement against Cop City has been charged with domestic terrorism. It's not a huge surprise. Terms like terrorism and eco-terrorism have been coming up, I mean,

in private conversations probably since the beginning, but we can trace it back to at least last summer when, and some emailed, emails we've obtained through open records requests where a city council member at the police foundation were just kind of pejoratively throwing around the term terrorists in response to, I think it was graffiti or something like, I hope they catch these terrorists soon. The terrorists who graffitied a building. It has also shown up in a couple different public meetings that are about the training center, you know, committee members who are pro-public safety training center, anti-anyone being opposed to it, have also used the term eco-terrorism. The dangerous escalation of protest suppression is not limited to people

engaging in passive resistance or direct action. Some of our open records requests have even shown that since last fall, for several months now, anyone who participates in, like, a write-in or a call-in campaign, sometimes those very simple emails of, hey, I don't think your company should be participating in this project, will get forwarded up to the chief of police. You know, people's names, emails, just very, very simple call-in campaign type stuff. The most innocuous stuff gets forwarded as part of, you know, security alert. This is the anti-democratic chilling effect in action. Politicians and police are trying to create a political climate where people are too scared to exercise their right to protest, organize, and take action. Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp, has bolstered this alarming escalation of violence and repression against political speech

by blaming out-of-state rioters and a, quote, network of militant activists who have committed similar acts of domestic terrorism across the country, unquote. Rhetoric that has been mirrored by liberal politicians in the city of Atlanta. The broad labeling of environmental and racial justice movements as quote-unquote terrorism and those who get associated with such movements as domestic terrorists is an extremely dangerous precedent designed to stifle public opposition and scare anyone concerned about police militarization and climate change away from protesting. It's a crude attempt to use as powerful tools as possible to crush opposition and remove the protest from public spotlight while creating cover for intense suppression of protest movements. Police are making an example

out of people by trying to pin the actions of autonomous individuals in a decentralized movement on anyone that was unlucky enough to cross paths with the police by threatening 35 years in prison uh let's talk a bit about the role of the domestic terrorism charges and how they are being applied because they're not even being applied to people that are like tied to specific acts like you specifically we have evidence that you burned down an escape like it like a like a construction equipment that's that's that's not how they're being used not even being used for like we saw you we we saw you break this window that's not even how they're being used like the people restaurant saturday all six of them got the same exact charges yes how how can all six

people have done all the exact same thing so they're obviously not being used for any type of like factual evidence-based way. It's all about like us trying to turn the movement itself into a criminal association. Yeah. Yeah. APD has even said that themselves in a public meeting that's supposed to kind of like provide advice on like how the public wants this project built. You know, they, in the December meeting, which I think took place a day after those raids, they bragged about pulling someone over illegally for filming the police. They said they were very proud of themselves for taking that person to jail. And then they just blatantly said that anyone arrested in connection with this movement will get a domestic terrorism charge that which creates an equivalency that

being opposed to this project is domestic terrorism you know the the chief of police darren sheer bomb went before cameras on saturday and i think pretty much verbatim said breaking a glass window that is terrorism a lot of people have opinions about how to protest, right? But what people have conveyed to us is that even those who are, you know, kind of horrified by property damage, it's just not domestic terrorism. It's just not. Being opposed to the police, wanting the police to do something differently is not terrorism. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund said of the six people charged after Saturday's protest, quote, protest, even disobedient protest, is not terrorism. It's tragic that we're at a point where this even needs to be said,

but that makes it all the more important that the public speak out against this divisive and dangerous rhetoric. We have reason to believe these activists were arrested at random during the march. All six face the same blanket charges. They are being held responsible for committing the same crime by virtue of simply being present at a protest where property damage occurred, unquote. 20 people have been charged with felonies under Georgia's domestic terrorism laws since last December. Police affidavits have detailed the alleged acts of so-called terror, which include, quote, criminally trespassing on posted land, sleeping in a forest, sleeping in a hammock with another defendant, being known members of a prison abolitionist

movement, unquote, and aligning themselves with Defend the Atlanta Forest by, quote, occupying a treehouse while wearing a gas mask and camouflage clothing, unquote. A review of the 20 arrests showed that none of those arrested and slapped with terrorism charges are accused of seriously injuring anyone. Nine are alleged to have committed no specific illegal acts beyond misdemeanor trespassing. Instead, mere association with a group committed to defending the forest appears to be the foundation for declaring them terrorists. The seven people arrested during the police raid where the Georgia State Patrol shot and killed Tortuguita were given a bond amount totaling $117,000. Escalating repression is taking form as egregious bail amounts for protesters, inflated charges, and, as last month saw, the killing of an activist.

The environmental justice attorney Stephen Donziger said, killing of an activist. The environmental justice attorney Stephen Donziger said, for weeks, these people were called terrorists, which is a complete misuse of the word. The police have been conditioned to believe these people are terrorists. And what do you do with terrorists? In the United States, you kill them. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, unquote. A whole bunch of bail information just got released for the six people arrested at the protest in downtown Atlanta on Saturday, January 21st. And it's pretty high.

It's the highest bail for a protest that I've ever seen. Two people that are slightly more local to the area were granted $355,000 each for their bonds. That's over $700,000 with ankle monitoring and a 24-hour curfew. So that's a lot. Four other people who were arrested were determined to be from too far out of town and deemed flight risks by the judge and they were completely denied bond so they're going to be held in jail in perpetuity until both further legal challenges like this is going to get you know pushed up to a higher level judge but who knows how long they're going to be in pre-trial detention now um for pretty pretty

ridiculous charges think like this arson um riot like felony jaywalking essentially like pedestrian when they're going over the bail hearing, there was, there was, they were talking about how, like, this hearing is not for

going over evidence. This isn't for actually... We are not in a time to litigate facts. Yeah. They're not, they're not interested in dealing with

what the facts actually were because there's no evidence that any of, any of the people arrested did anything wrong besides march in a street, which has been a staple of the history of Atlanta for almost a century. There's absolutely no evidence, but that doesn't matter.

And that's not really the point either. The point is that this is a brutal form of punishment and a deterrent for other people to say that if you're going to go to a protest, if you're going to go to a march, you don't need to do anything at all and we'll give you bond that's worth almost $400,000 per person

or we'll just hold you until this case gets litigated. Yeah, so if you want to come from out of town to just go to a march, you could do nothing else and get arrested for a pet-right-of-way slap with a domestic terrorism add-on, and then they decide that because you're from,

I don't know, like an hour and a half away and just happen to be across the state line that you're now at flight risk and are going to be held indefinitely on pretrial. What do you mean with the Atlanta court system that this could be, we could be talking years? They could be 18 months before trial talking years? There's no... 18 months before trial, if people are

obviously they want people to just plead guilty and not have go to trial, which is nonsense because there's no evidence. But if it does get carried out all the way to trial, that could take over a year. That could be just being held for things that you clearly didn't do.

But because the police and prosecutors have decided to use these intense charges as a deterrent, it's just extremely blatant. Abuse of the legal system, abuse of power, but I say abuse, but this is the way it's also designed.

This is the purpose of prosecutors. This is the purpose of police. They're doing their job as it's supposed to be. They just make it unfeasible for people to participate in this event and to make it so any chance at getting bail for people is made so near impossible. I think for most people, looking at an amount like $355,000, it's just an impossible amount of money to come up with.

It's so out of the realm of what is possible for so many normal, everyday people who are participating in acts of protest that it's just designed to hold people for as long as possible. It's not even people who...

This would be, in many ways, justice for efficacy if these charges were from people who were, like, in the forest. These are people, like, in a downtown marching. Yeah. Downtown marching where, like, the most serious thing that happened was that a car spontaneously

caught fire. Like, that is that is it. And there's no evidence that any of these people were in any way involved in that. It was even noted inside during these hearings that many of these people were arrested before the car even caught fire.

And the judges just decided that, again, they were not ready to litigate facts of any kind. And making it so obvious that the point of this is not to in any kind that this was not and making it so obvious that the point of this is not to in any way treat this with any realms like reality or what happened but just to make sure that we are that the people are as punished as possible for any actions taken by a group that they were like intentionally just even in like the vicinity of downtown affidavits for the seven people arrested at the deadly police raid on January 18th,

in which Tortuguito was killed, begin by alleging that the defendants were, quote, participating in actions as a part of the Defend the Atlanta Forest group, a group classified by the United States Department of Homeland Security as domestic violent extremists, unquote. But a DHS spokesperson has responded to media inquiries by saying, quote, the Department of Homeland Security does not classify or designate any groups as domestic violent extremists, unquote. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund responded to this news by saying, quote, when police brought terrorism charges against Stop Cop City protesters, they justified it by claiming that Defend the Atlanta Forest had been designated a domestic violent extremist

organization. This was a lie. DHS has never designated any movement-aligned organization in this way. What does this mean? It suggests that police and prosecutors have been lying not just to the public, but to judges in an effort to justify outrageous, sensational charges against activists. This cannot be tolerated in a free society. The public has a long process ahead of unraveling the tangle of lies, distortions, and cover-ups that the police, prosecutors, and their private backers have woven to suppress the right to protest. We are determined to follow that thread to its end. Injustice cannot go unchallenged."

To date, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund has supported over 60 people arrested for protesting the proposed cop city development. Just a few days before the killing of Tortuguita, It Could Happen Here released an interview with people from the Solidarity Fund and Anti-Repression Committee if you want to learn more about those organizations. The Solidarity Fund is dedicated to continue supporting protesters in Atlanta, but with the unprecedented $700,000 bail for just two people, they need help to continue supporting activists with bail and legal counsel, while they are also supporting civil litigation against unjust arrests and police violence,

including an independent investigation into the death of Tortuguita. In a statement released after the bail hearing, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund said, quote, The arrested protesters and all other future protesters targeted for political activity in Atlanta need your help. If the state is successful in creating this precedent of domestic terrorism, protesters across the country could be facing similar speech-chilling charges. Activists and civil rights lawyers have called for everyone to strongly reject this extreme level of repression here and now before it becomes the norm for activists in every movement. What happens here will have legal implications for the whole nation. It creates, and it creates fear. It creates a chilling effect. It was after the December raids, a lot of folks in the community were really questioning what was next.

And it is scary to think about, but it's been really heartening how people have seen through the bullshit, right? Atlanta has an incredible resilience, and so does this movement, even with domestic terrorism in mind. Peter also mentioned how the increased charges have inadvertently shown just how strong the community is. After domestic terrorism charges first got laid out in December, what was people's reaction to that? Because that's a pretty substantial legal state repression effort. You're in the woods, you hear that your friends are now getting these ridiculous charges. How does that change what's on the ground? Yeah, I think the terrorism charges.

Well, I'll say I was out of town when the terrorism charges happened. And hearing about those was actually what motivated me to come back to Atlanta and move back into the woods because I knew that the terrorism charges were a scare tactic to try and discourage people from participating in the woods and the movement at large. As the repression has intensified, and especially since the terrorism charges started coming in, the resolve and the strength of this community has intensified even more, and the increased repression has shown me the strength of this community, and also how deeply committed people are to being a part of this fight, no matter what. You can go to at jail underscore support on Twitter for information on how to write to incarcerated protesters in Atlanta. Before they chopped them down and were the first to go Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill.

Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows Presented by iHeart and Sonora An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba.

Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series,

Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them.

Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The terrorism charges being brought against Stop Cop City protesters stem from a 2017 law passed in Georgia in the wake of the Dillon Roof massacre. This law, allegedly created in response to a white supremacist mass shooting targeting Black people,

is being used for the first time as a bludgeon against anti-racist protesters who are fighting against the expansion and further militarization of police facilities. The state, as a concept as a whole, is pretty much incapable of doing things for altruistic means. facilities. problem to take away the abilities for the partisan people to defend themselves by oversimplifying it into a non-ideological issue. And it's so, like, there's such a clear pattern of who is perpetrating these things. It's all, like, the state at any moment it can grab at power, it will do so, and that looks better sometimes because it might be a law, like, going after somebody like Dylann Roof, but it gets turned around later and used by them to murder, you know, activists trying to defend the forest and make sure that people cannot make bail. And guys, if we're doing nothing more than asking the city to not do something that a

vast majority of people in Atlanta do not want to happen. Laws that are put into effect to stop far-right violence will inevitably be used to repress left-wing movements. Any expansion of state power will always come down the hardest on people who are actually pushing back on the power structures of the state, like the police. And now this domestic terrorism law is being used against force defenders for mere affiliation with Stop Cop City. The way the state is using these domestic terrorism charges is relatively unprecedented within the United States. But this stuff is not completely unheard of. It's new for white Americans who are protesting.

It's new in a very specific context, but it's not new for many other people who've experienced state repression and have experienced state repression in other countries around the world. You know, it's very similar to the way that, like, the U.S. would, you know, we had a lot of people who over the years during the global war, we had a lot of people who, over the years, during the global war on terror, locking up thousands of people who, you know, so many of them were just, the U.S. Army rolls into a country and is like, all of these people are terrorists. They do not have time to litigate the facts. They are looking at people as flight risks with no evidence, with unsubstantiated claims about affiliations to whatever the hell it is. evidence with unsubstantiated claims about affiliations to whatever the hell it is, and then

they, you know, in like the most extreme examples, end up detained in Guantanamo for the next 20 years, or in you know, bringing back to like the connection to all of this to the IDF, it's the similar ways that the IDF persecutes their war against the Palestinian people, so waging a war

on a population, and then taking as much, like, using as much force against the people who choose to fight that state power, and then just arresting huge numbers of people for claiming that they're, like, affiliated with Hamas or something for just living in the same neighborhood, and just throwing the key away. This is very similar to tactics that we've seen used across the world,

specifically during the global war on terror, just to lock up huge numbers of people with impunity without the ability for people to get proper legal representation or for there ever to be a moment to litigate the facts of what happened. And it's a really troubling development to have happening here. This has been so destructive in other countries all across the world

and we should all be extremely concerned that this is happening anywhere. Not just that it's touched the U.S. now, but this type of legal system should not find comfort anywhere in the world. One of the topics of the original It Could Happen Here series was Foucault's boomerang. The idea was also brought up during multiple conversations I had in Atlanta. It's about how the types of imperialist and colonialist violence that are done in other countries don't just go away. They get transported back to the homeland.

This boomerang effect resulted in a whole series of colonial models being brought back to the quote-unquote West so that it could endlessly practice something resembling colonialism or an internal colonialism on itself. The forces of extreme gentrification can be seen as one of these front lines. In that way, it only makes sense that this is happening in Atlanta to such an extreme degree. So, like, the idea of, like, when it comes to Foucault's boomerang is that any strategies, tactics, equipment, the U.S. is the best example where there has been tactics and equipment thus far,

that are used overseas in a country's colonial wars, imperial wars, will one day find their way returned to the core of said empire to subjugate their own dissidents and their own people. The best example of this in the U.S. was militarized policing. Cap City is a huge example of this. We've seen a return of weapons and equipment from the DoD to U.S. police. Just days ago, we saw a man murdering in his trailer by a SWAT team using night vision goggles and equipment that looks like it came off of Army Rangers in 2014.

It is a return of the tactics and the equipment and the strategy and the mindset of an occupying army come back to the center of the empire and are mindset of an occupying army come back to the center of the empire and are used to subjugate its people. And in this case, cop city is a huge expansion of this because of what it's designed to train people to do, which is urban combat, and even more so the legal system that the U.S. has used overseas to prosecute thousands of people with no evidence as a well-being return to prosecute those defending the forest. The man shot by SWAT in a trailer last month did end up surviving. But what Noah is talking about is that there is no true other. There is no true awayness. This new military urbanism that seems to be necessary to sustain hyper-capitalist gentrification is providing

zones of experimentation through which the state is able to try out and hone their techniques of oppression. In my conversation with Cricket, they talked about this phenomenon. It comes back or it starts here and we're the training ground and then they export it. I mean, there it's, it's, and I think you're absolutely right that there is no true other, right? Like that is a construct to keep us out of solidarity with one another. That is a strategy to keep us out of alliance, out of the same table and demanding more. I mean, it's something that I remember. I think it was, I think it was maybe something Buttigieg or I don't know, some other politician talked about in the wake of 2020, you know, saying like military weapons

should not be used against like military weapons should not be used against like, like should not be used in our streets or something like that. It's like, okay. But the logical extension of that is that they should be in other people's streets. Like, those are also civilians. Like those are also people's towns and cities and homes. Like, why are we deciding that it's okay for them to be there and not here? And obviously, we're not actually deciding that they're not okay to be here. But I feel like even the sort of attempts to try and address the insane militarization of the police still rely on that other, as if this is not a global issue, as if this is not something that affects everyone. The Solidarity Fund has said, quote, invoking terrorism is a dog whistle calling for more police violence.

Ever since 9-11, American policy has been to hunt and kill terrorists by any means. Applying this same terrorism label to activists in our communities is prompting police to approach protests as war zones, prepared to kill at any time. This can be seen in the way GSP stormed the Atlanta forest with militarized equipment and killed Tortuguita. And God, I think there's also this tendency to think of the assassination of environmental activists as something that happens elsewhere. Like this is something that happens in Central

America. This is something that happens in the Amazon. Like this is is something that happens in Central America. This is something that happens in the Amazon. Like, this is not something that happens in the U.S., and it absolutely is something that happens in the U.S. And I think just sort of to the name of your podcast, right? Like, it happens here. It's not, and it could be any of us. I think that that's another sort of possible strategy or idea behind this. Like, oh, they're outside agitators thing of trying to create this scary stranger danger and trying to make people think that the person who was murdered couldn't be them because

they're from here like oh like i'm local like i wouldn't have been murdered no like like no absolutely not like they will murder with impunity and it's really scary and it's really enraging like i i think it is both to me inspiring because if they're going to kill us no matter what, then why not cause as much good trouble as we can? On Thursday, January 26th, Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency in response to protests Saturday night sparked by Tortuguita's death. Under that order, 1,000 National Guard troops were mobilized to quell protests and police the streets of Atlanta. Once again, I'll end with the words of Tortuguita, Dear Comrades, We are in the trenches of the class war. The capitalists would rather see

us dead or enslaved, so we must fight like hell. Billionaires are causing a mass extinction Now that the war is here, how are we going to fight it? She was far from silent, no virus or violence But the fragrance of her flowers, it continued to invite us Her medicine, materials, our vitamins, our minerals And all that is essential, it just grew right beside us And Tysa started fighting over the gifts that she'd provide us Scorching the very soil that all of us derive from And when empires learn it can't withstand fire We return to the land where our ancestors reigned in We are all her creatures. We still

bear her features. The one and only reason all living things is breathing. The cities deceive and leave. Go see the dirt. Young will be among the lungs of Mother Earth. Before you found your voice there was a chorus. Before you take your throne

you must restore it Before your flesh and bone, before you build a home Before they chopped them down, there was a forest Before they chopped them down, there was a forest Music by The Narcissist Cookbook and Propaganda Before they chopped him down, there was a forest. Music by The Narcissist Cookbook and Propaganda. So they're now saying GBI sucked my dick. GBI is the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of riot. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking música, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight up comedia, and that's a song that only Nuestra Gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it.

Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards.