It Could Happen Here - Stop Cop City, Dispatch from Weelaunee Summer: Part 1

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

After City Council approved Cop City construction funds in early June, people in Atlanta seek new paths of resistance during another Week of Action.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. This summer has been a critical junction in the fight against Cop City, the Atlanta Police Foundation's massive proposed training facility in DeKalb County, which is slated to begin construction later this very month. The last week of action, in March of 2023, drew in over a thousand people against Cop City and saw hundreds of forest defenders attack en masse the construction equipment and police infrastructure stored on the site, in a pretty successful action.

The police repression came down hard, but the militancy of the forest defenders left a pretty impressionable mark. Later that month, DeKalb County closed and barricaded Entrenchment Creek Park, citing public safety concerns and allegedly found booby traps. Police did an exhaustive sweep of the forest and established a relatively firm control of the territory. After a year and a half of there being a nearly continuous presence in the Wolani by forest defenders, now the police began a forest occupation of their own.

During the month that followed, the Atlanta Police Foundation, or the APF, rushed to clear-cut around 90 acres of the Wolani Forest, seemingly in a ploy to show investors and the city that they are committed to the project and to crush the spirits of those who spent years opposing the facility and defending the forest. People then set their sights on the Atlanta City Council, who in early June was to vote on whether or not to provide taxpayer funding for the APF's project. Over 23 hours of public comment across multiple days, almost universally against Cop City, culminated at the June 5th City Council meeting, which lasted into the early hours of the next morning. Despite the record-breaking turnout opposing the facility, in the early morning

of Tuesday, June 6th, the Atlanta City Council voted 11-4 in favor of the $67 million funding package to build Cop City. The next day, a group of community organizers announced a referendum campaign to collect tens of thousands of petition signatures from Atlanta voters to put the Cop City land lease on the upcoming ballot. City Council approving public funds for Cop City was certainly disappointing, but not quite unexpected, because another week of action to stop Cop City was already planned for later that same month. This is It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. In this three-part series, I'll be talking about what's been happening in Atlanta this summer to stop Cop City. If you want to hear more about the background of this movement, in the month of May we put out a five part series on the week of action from that spring, along with the few other previous Defend the

Forest and Stop Cop City miniseries published over the course of the last year and a half. With much of the forest already destroyed and no easy access to Entrenchment Creek Park, this week of action in June was set to be very unlike any that had come before. The kickoff rally was to begin on Saturday, June 24th at Brownwood Park in East Atlanta. I made my way there and met up with Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective. My first feeling walking in is like it felt very Society of the Spectacle in terms of like the ratio of cameras to participants was the most extreme that I've really ever, ever seen for like, you know, a week of action. Like there was there was outside of like a press conference.

Yeah. And like it felt like there was so many just cameras looming around. And it's like it's like there's so many people trying to make a simulacrum of the movements to sell back to other people at this point in time. to make a simulacrum of the movements to sell back to other people at this point in time. And there's just a very large, pervasive feeling, and that combined with the more liberalization of certain aspects. Again, compared to the last week of action,

which felt there was a strong militant contingent there. And even the liberal contingent was still chanting, if you build it, we will burn it. And that's not the vibe here. Those are not the vibes. That's not the vibe here.

There's definitely a big separation in terms of what types of people are at what side of the park right now. There's a more forested section of the park with a creek on the south side, which is where people are setting up some camping sites. They have a kitchen. That's where the welcome tent is. And then there's the other side of the park that has the rec center and the playground, which seems more like family-friendly stuff.

Yeah, there are kids there. There's the popcorn setup. There's more like... Bouncy house. There is a bouncy house, which is great. Return. Return to the bouncy house. Return to the bouncy house.

They couldn't keep this moving down. I won't rest until... Until there's a bouncy house in every protest. Until the cops destroy every bouncy house in Atlanta is destroyed. Until every bouncy house in Atlanta. Until every bouncy castle is deflated. That is the new movement slogan. In contrast to the last kickoff rally at Gresham Park, which felt very unified, this time there was a noticeable separation in terms of

what types of people are on the two sides of the park. People wearing camouflage and masks were more situated on the south side of the park, where tents were being set up, versus people by the playground who were going around with the referendum sign-up sheet and where all the food was being handed out. It's so separated. You can't even see. No. The two groups cannot see each other. And even like people... There's a metaphor there.

There's a metaphor. Turnout seemed to be a bit lower than some people expected. And it was definitely much lower compared to the previous few weeks of action. And overall, the rally was very muted and lacked a sense of energy or focus. The rally was supposed to start at 11, but it kind of just like nothing happened. It felt very directionless. It felt like people did not quite know why they were there at this point in time. It was almost noon before anyone really spoke on the bullhorn,

and the music didn't start until noon. And then, what was it it like a half hour ago so like 12 30 probably when when the first like speaker yeah anything from the faith coalition i don't know so far the rally kind of feels like a microcosm of the entire movement at this point just not quite sure where to direct the energy to there's a feeling that like people should do something but they don't quite know how to... They haven't decided how that should be directed yet. And so there's some people showing up,

but it's just like, it feels kind of stagnant. And there's this need to evolve right now. And I don't know, I think maybe people got burnt out from the city council things, and there's a lot of energy being pumped into that. And then I guess some people... And that was like three weeks of pushing energy.

And that was only like two weeks ago. That's still very recent. Three weeks ago now. It still feels very raw. Walking down the pathway on the south side of Brownwood, you could see people setting up tents, carrying camping supplies, and big jugs of water. Other people were assembling a makeshift kitchen in the tree line.

And all of that was physically reminiscent of the last week of action. But being four miles away from the forest at Brownwood Park, instead of the Wolani, impacted the feeling on the ground. We're both, we're so far away from the forest, there's like that separation of space. Like it feels so distant. Distant even more than Gresham Park. Even more than Gresham. If this were happening in Gresham Park, I think that might even be a different feeling. Because at least you're attached to the Wailani.

There was more determination on the south side of the park. You could feel like people want, at least people wanted to do something physically and they were, but it's even still unclear how it's going to get directed towards like, what is this doing to Stockpops City right now?

That's the big thing, is people are trying to figure that out. And there's people here, but what are people actually going to be doing? That's the question that is going to be unanswered, at least today, I would say. The last week of action in March was very important in terms of setting the stage for what the next few months would look like. The direct action that happened on Sunday during the music festival was very important and successful, but also carried large ramifications for how the rest of the movement would be shaped

in terms of the police repression and increased police presence in the forest. The weeks of action definitely have this ability to affect how the movement as a whole evolves in the subsequent months. On Saturday, there were worries that if things were simply going to continue to be like this kickoff rally, that wouldn't be a positive direction and would be a bad sign. It's just so, I mean, it's hard not to compare this to the last week of action kickoff rally at Gresham, which just felt so felt so different like that there was like almost 10 times as many people there was like a feeling of like motion there was a feeling of like we can we have we have to go do a thing and we're gonna do it no matter what like we we don't know it's gonna

be on the other side of the tunnel but we're we're going there to do it anyway we're gonna find out together and there was a there was a lot of determination and then there was a lot of like there was like a pointedness like they knew where they were going and this does not it lacks that pointedness um it feels like people aren't quite sure why they're here or what to do at this point in time and if the movement wants to be able to continue in its goals it has to find some way to evolve in these next two months as construction is going to ramp up and i guess guess this week will be kind of... The bellwether. Either, well, either a bellwether or a learning experience. Like it, yeah, it might not be any sort of death knell, but it will have to be a learning experience probably.

Yeah, that's kind of most of my thoughts so far based on walking through both places. There's just not much else to talk about because there's not much else happening. Soon enough, however, other things did start happening, thanks to the Atlanta Police Department. But throughout that afternoon, things remained mostly low-key, and

as the day went on, the gathering at Brownwood Park turned into a community barbecue, and people started to get a much more clear idea of what the expectations for that day were. As people settled into the park, there ceased to be any big anticipation for what everyone was going to be doing that first day. There was supposed to be a vigil for Tortuguita in the park that evening, which was interrupted by Atlanta police officers who swept through the park, issuing a quote-unquote friendly reminder that the park closed at 11 p.m.

All right, it's around 8.30. About 40 police officers just walked through Brownwood Park, telling people that are gathered here that the park closes at 11. And everyone's basically anticipating that police are going to try to sweep the entirety of the park, including the sections where people are trying to camp out around 11 p.m. sweep the entirety of the park, including the sections where people are trying to camp out around 11 p.m. The cops were walking south through the park as the crowd was walking and chanting along the way as well. Cops left under the heels of like maybe 75 to 100 people who were chanting along the south side of Brownwood. They've been staging around Brownwood Park and Portland Avenue for the past like hour or so. They had like 20, 30 cars, around 40, 50 officers.

People decided they did not wish to stand their ground and fight off a possible police raid at Brownwood Park. So they spent the next few hours packing up all the supplies and equipment that they just spent all you know, packing up, breaking down the tents, leaving, heading to other locations. And then at 11, we kind of just expected police to do a standard sweep through, you know, destroy anything they find. If they find people, tell them to leave or else get arrested. Standard stuff. At this point, there's about seven or eight police cruisers staged around the south side of the park, but they're not actually sweeping through because it's pretty clear that there's like no one actually in the park at this point. It's just very clearly like empty and quiet. So I don't even, I don't even think cops are going to sweep through. It's, it's been already like 10, 15 minutes. We expected them to kind of sweep on the hour,

but they just like, don't need to. It's very clear that no one's in the park. So they just kind of like successfully bluffed themselves into getting everyone to leave. I mean, if there were people still here in a visible capacity, I'm sure police would sweep through, but there's really, there's no one visible in the park for many of like the perimeters around. So they're just not even going to bother sweeping through. perimeters around, so they're just not even going to bother sweeping through. But yeah, it looks like this is the end of Brownwood day one and the very kind of low-key kickoff rally. Still, the week definitely is lacking a sense of direction. There's been DeKalb SWAT doing perimeter sweeps around the Wolani Forest and around Gresham Park, where there's some future events planned. We will see how that plays out in these next few days.

It certainly seemed like police wanted to make some show of force early on in the week to stifle the week of action. The threat of a raid the very first night was indeed disruptive to the logistics for the week, but ultimately people were able to band together to keep each other safe and cared for. Welcome, I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter?

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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. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

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Check out betteroffline.com. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment.

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During this current general sense of directionlessness, there were a lot of questions on how the movement will change during this turning point, with little in the way of obvious answers or new paths of resistance. The following Sunday and Monday of the week continued to be mostly low-key. People used those days to facilitate workshops and discussions to work through the shift the movement was going through. At the end of the week, I sat down with Matt in East Atlanta Village to talk about the week as a whole and compare notes. Here's a bit of our conversation talking about the discussions that started happening during those first few days. This was a week of discussions.

It was. It really was. There was a lot of meetings. There was a lot of discussions happening. People figuring out, what do we do? If we actually want to stop Cobb City, and and it's gonna get built in these next few months, like now is the time to figure out what the fuck to do next. So people have been having those discussions this week and if anything the Week of Action has been useful in this in this sense that it's brought a lot of people together so they can have these generative conversations and there was a lot more conversations during this

week than last week. There was one on what the state of the movement is now, especially with the referendum taking up more visibility, how are radicals going to navigate this space and this movement with a lot of things in flux. And I think that was definitely my first read. Even on the kick-off rally, I felt like there was a lot of people not sure what to do. It was very directionless. People were asking a lot of questions. And more questions were being asked all throughout the week. There's a lot of discussions a lot of meetings about like What do we do now? Like if construction is gonna start in the next two months like what is this movement going to do like that?

People can chant if you build it we will burn it but chanting it and doing it's two different things And the movement is it's gonna go through a period of evolution in these next few months. And with all those questions being asked, I feel like the answer to those questions is going to be the actions people do take in these next few months. In the aftermath of the clear-cutting, it felt like in some ways that the window of possibility for this movement was closing. As options seemed to be getting smaller, more people started pursuing the referendum as a potential means of stopping Cop City. But those in the more militant anarchist wing of the movement were left questioning, after two years of employing a diversity of tactics

largely led by direct action, if it's the right move to switch to an electoral strategy now when the situation is approaching its most dire. But since it is happening, whether they like it or not, anarchists were wondering, what can people do so that the referendum doesn't completely dominate the narrative of the movement or disincentivize other evolutions of the struggle? Now, obviously, a group of people pursuing a referendum does not prohibit other people from engaging in direct action, but there still were worries that the referendum could become a sort of release mechanism for the movement, both in terms of new people's involvement being pushed toward this more

liberalized electoral strategy instead of radical action, or if the petition or even potential ballot vote fails, then that being used is an indicator that most people in the city actually do want cop city. But through all this, what anarchists can do, and what they typically do, is to encourage radical autonomy and self-determination, regardless of electoral strategies or outcomes. Whether or not a petition gets 60-some thousand signatures does not affect a burning construction vehicle. Just as these sort of discussions were happening, it's kind of fitting that on Monday, June 26th, we saw the first communique in months claiming responsibility for equipment sabotage.

After the last week of action in March and subsequent police raids on the forest, increased security, the rapid clear-cutting, and subsequent police raids on the forest, increased security, the rapid clear-cutting, and big push for city council public comment followed by the start of the referendum, throughout that series of events, there really hadn't been much in the way of nocturnal direct action sabotage happening in Atlanta or across the country in solidarity. Once a core component of this movement was seriously lacking in the months leading up to this summer. And then suddenly, after the June Week of Action's mostly uneventful start, a post went up on the sketchy website scenes.noblogs.org claiming that a group of anonymous individuals snuck into a subcontractor's machine storage lot

and poured hydrochloric acid into the oil tanks of three vehicles. The target was Brent Scarborough and Company, a Georgia-based subcontractor who was hired to clear-cut the Wallani forest and was currently engaged in mass land grading on the site. I drove by the site on Monday and I saw like over 20 machines like actively working on the land. Very Avatar. Yes. Or Ferngully. Or Ferngully, the superior film. But no, like it's like the site's being very actively worked on. I've never seen that many machines doing active work. Yeah. Like all moving at the same time. Early Monday morning, the Stop Cop City referendum put out a strong statement of solidarity with, quote, all tactics on the road to collective liberation, unquote, and openly rejected the

state's framing of, quote, unquote, violent and nonviolent resistance. To briefly quote a few of the last sentences of the statement, quote, The referendum is one piece of a vibrant, multifaceted movement, one that defies respectable categorization as well as state violence and repression. The Cop City Vote Referendum Coalition stands in solidarity and full support of the Stop Cop City Week of Action, the larger movement, and abolitionist organizers and activists across the city. Unquote. Unintentionally, these two things coincided. There was the release of the scenes, like the first sabotage in months, and then the referendum released that same day, this solidarity statement for all actions taken to stop Cop City.

I just think that the statement itself needs to be highlighted. And I think it seems like they're going to stick to that. The solidarity statement was widely applauded and seen as a good sign regarding the referendum's place in the larger fight against Cop City and how it was not intending to take space away from other aspects of the movement. Tuesday morning, there was a small protest outside the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners building to call for the reopening of Entrenchment Creek Park. The park was a common gathering spot for the movement, and where many people camped during previous weeks of action. An executive order from DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond

closed the park late last March as the police geared up to fortify Wolani and speed run all of the tree felling. So I sat in the board of commissioners meeting and it's different than a city council meeting where like anybody who signs up to do public comment can do public comment. They only allot 30 minutes of public comment.

So about, that amounts to 10 speakers and i think about six of them were actually there for you know to talk about opening the park and then the rally i think it was something like 30 30 people it was a student organized rally um and they did a couple speakers and then that was it. Not much from DeKalb. DeKalb only came out to make sure that they weren't blocking a pathway, and it was kind of hands-off. I did get a parking ticket. That was my fault. You did? Yeah, I let my parking expire for 12 minutes. Illegalist Matt Scott at the ACPC. Wow. And yeah, the minute I do something illegal, I get a traffic ticket. Previously in June, the DeKalb CEO proposed a $1.8 million construction plan necessary to reopen the park, but no clear date on when that would happen.

One county commissioner has been trying to fast-track reopening the park, but their resolution has repeatedly been deferred by the county board. The soonest it will be reconsidered is October 10th. Meanwhile, the park will remain indefinitely closed. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonorum. 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. 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. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season

digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse

and naming and shaming those responsible Don't get me wrong though, I love technology I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough so join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives.

I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Throughout the first few days of the week of action, there was something kind of looming over everyone's heads. There was a march planned from Gresham Park towards Wolani that was to take place on the evening of Wednesday, June 28th.

The police response to this action was primed to be the most intense out of the week. The path to Entrenchment Creek Park is a pretty closed-in bike path, with a tunnel going under an overpass where police have been staging to prevent people from entering the forest. No, I definitely felt like on Monday and Tuesday, everyone was still thinking about what would happen on Wednesday, what would happen on the march from Gresham Park. That was the big unknown, That was the big danger. Like very palpable concern

about how that was going to play out. Yeah. That probably, I mean, all the way back to Saturday, that was probably like playing through people's minds and causing some of that like uncertainty. Police were setting up perimeters around the forest in an increased capacity than the usual detail. Pretty early on in the day, there was a DeKalb County SWAT mobile command center posted up in a school parking lot next to the tunnel and bike path

leading from Gresham to Wolani. Kind of as expected, this entire section of South Atlanta was crawling with police. Before people even gathered at Gresham Park, the day began with an unfortunately rocky start and the first arrest of the week outside Cadence Bank in Midtown. The protest was calling on the bank to cancel their $20 million construction loan given to the Atlanta Police Foundation.

So there was this action at Cadence Bank that they specifically didn't want media. And so none of us were there. And that was early in the morning. I think we found out about it like noon or something. After I woke up. Yeah. I think it was like they said 30 people, kind of like we saw the other day. On Friday, yeah. On Friday, but as they were walking away, somebody gets, well, multiple. They try to arrest multiple people. Police start chasing people.

Someone gets grabbed and arrested. Another person gets detained and then let go. Seemed like a pretty chaotic scene. That's not a great way to start off the day where you have your most stressful action planned for later. You wake up, you get chased by cops, and you're expecting to go do a march in a few hours in the most heavily policed area of Atlanta right now. The march was to take place on the same bike path

from Gresham Park to Enteragement Creek Park that people took during the kickoff rally at the last week of action. But much has changed on the ground since then. As people started to gather at Gresham Park on Wednesday evening, the numbers were quite small. As the night progressed, around 150 people eventually amassed, but it was still a small fraction of the number of people

at the previous Gresham Park march, and with a much greater police presence. The exact plan for the night was heavily dependent on a lot of factors that it was impossible to explicitly know beforehand, like how many people would show up and what they would feel comfortable doing based on the police response. All right, this is Wednesday, June 28th. Me and Matt from the Community Press Collective are gathered at Gresham Park. Overhead, you can hear the DeKalb helicopter circling. Our favorite sound.

Our favorite sound, yes. There's about, I don't know, maybe 75... No, we're more. We might be over 100 now. Close to 100 people gathered here in Gresham Park, and people have plans to march towards Wolani or at least to the tunnel and then what happens after that's kind of a big mystery. Definitely very different than the last time we were gathered in Gresham Park with a crowd of people. We're missing the music, we're missing the Diwali like paint clouds, we're missing the kids we're missing uh maybe the the vibes just in

general another 800 people or so um but I mean people are setting out signs and some banners police have a decent presence around uh the around like um the tunnel or like the overpass over the tunnel and around Wilani right now. Yeah, all around the Wilani Triangle. There are APD and DeKalb County police just hanging out more than usual. And at the fire station, there was more cops than I've seen since March 5th. Since the last week of action. Yeah. Earlier this morning, I saw a DeKalb County SWAT mobile command unit Right as of 6.30. So I'm guessing this crowd will start moving the next 30 minutes to 40 minutes. Probably a half hour.

Yeah. All right. Right as the crowd was about to set off, someone made an announcement that due to small numbers and large police presence, there was to be a change of plans. Instead of going all the way to Entrenchment Creek Park or even the tunnel,

they were going to march one third of the way and stop on the bike path. All right, it's around 7.20 p.m. About 150 people are leaving Gresham Park, and they announced they're going to be going to hold a small vigil near one of the felled trees on the bike path. For a little while, the march was getting along fine. There was music and chanting, when suddenly, police made an early appearance. Okay, so it's what, 740, 750? 741.

741 on Wednesday, June 28th. We are walking on the bike path and staged... 25 minutes into the walk and here we come upon our first police presence of the day uh along our path so two looks like decap county yeah two decap county uh suvs parked side by side along the path but they're not out of their vehicles no um so i think the crowd will order they might try to give a dispersal order because there's too many people. Yeah. I didn't think they would try to fuck with it this soon.

I thought they would wait till the tunnel. A small number of police were posted up right before the first bridge on the bike path, roughly about halfway to the tunnel. If they wanted to, the crowd could have marched past the police, as they were not blocking the path. The two cop cars couldn't even follow behind, because there was big metal bulgyards preventing vehicles from going on the wooden bridge. But the visible police caused the group to pause. There was that one speech that we need to touch on from that night, and that was, the speaker said,

in order to win, we have to let go of the idea of losing while looking good. And that, I think, is going to inform whatever the direct action side of things are for this next phase of the movement. While paused in front of the police cruisers, the crowd deliberated on what they wanted to do and what they thought they could accomplish. The crowd deliberated on what they wanted to do and what they thought they could accomplish. After a few minutes of discussion, they decided that they were not prepared to unnecessarily sacrifice themselves. One of the people from the crowd spoke briefly not only on this decision, but also how it fits in to the difficult situation the movement has found itself in right now. I'm going to quote a little bit from this impromptu speech.

Quote, We shouldn't come away from this feeling demoralized. We should feel clarity because we believe we set out to participate in a movement to obstruct the construction of a police militarization site. But that is not being allowed to happen. The people we're fighting against believe we are a domestic insurgency. They are treating us like an insurgency. The state is using militaristic language like denying anarchists operating space. And so we're going to great lengths to be safe, to play it safe, and to go slow, and to proceed rationally, and defend one another.

But we're coming under constant attack. Everything we do, we're under attack, unquote. Just earlier that morning, people were attacked by the state and arrested as they stood on the sidewalk outside of a bank. Those who work to bail activists out of jail are attacked. People doing on-the-ground jail support are physically attacked and face police intimidation. Quote, we don't want to be engaged in a failing struggle. Our enemy is treating us like terrorists. That's what they're calling us. And that's what they believe we are. It's not just a rhetorical trick. That's how they're treating the movement. And so we have

to figure out how we're going to win because we intend to win. But you can't just only defend yourself. The safest thing for us to do is to never go to a protest about this movement again. If our top priority is safety, everyone who's not currently facing charges should move away, should not go to events or actions. But if we have a higher priority than safety alone, we're going to have to figure out what we're going to do to achieve that, which is going to require going on the offense when

we're able and how we're able. This movement has been very creative, and we're going to have to continue to be more and more creative. And we're going to have to continue to deploy all available means in order to have this kind of offensive, victorious, and strong movement that we all deserve. When we fight, when we attack the enemy, when we have our offensive actions, we have to follow through with them. We have to go all the way with them. We have to be willing to believe in ourselves, to believe that we can win. And so I believe that we are going to win this movement. And I think you guys believe that we're going to win this movement. But that's going to require us to abandon the idea of looking good while losing.

We can't look good losing. So are we going to look good losing? Or are we going to win? Unquote. All right, it is eight o'clock. The crowd sat in the middle of the trail behind the first bridge where two DeKalb County vehicles were parked.

They deliberated for a little bit, and then a few people spoke, and now the crowd has turned around at a marching back to Gresham Park. Marching back, no arrests. We do have two helicopters now hanging over us. That's my favorite thing in the world. And a lot of other DeKalb on the ground in other parts of the bike path and the trails. Yeah, they would have walked directly into what looked like a full SWAT team above the bridge.

So they made the right choice is what it seems like to me. Yeah, and they talked about their intentionality of the decision and how it's important to not just keep losing while trying to look cool and throw yourself at a line of police uh yeah and that hopefully i mean what what does that look like in practice i guess we'll see you over the next few months three days three days to two months yeah three days to several months but it does sound like there's some attempt now at directionality that wasn't that I wasn't seeing until this. This is the exact same march people tried to do back in March. And they did it and they are trying to do it here again in June.

And it doesn't work. It didn't. It doesn't work the first time. It doesn't work the first time. It doesn't work the second time. So now it's time to change something. Change tactics. Yeah. On the walk back to Gresham Park, we got clear photos of the amount of riot police waiting for us at the tunnel. And it was a great many. Oh, yeah, that is a lot of...

Yeah, that's a lot of... That's a lot of... That's a lot of riot police. Yeah, and that was one of the vans posted above the tunnel. Yeah, so... Is that a trailer? Yeah, that's where they bring all their riot shields in. Yeah, okay.

Yeah, that would have sucked. That would not have been fun. No, that would have gone very poorly. Would have been tear gas, though. And I do miss being tear gassed. I can, like, spray you pepper spray if you want. It's not the same as tear gas. I can spray you right now if you want.

Matt ultimately declined to be pepper sprayed. Tortiguita's mother, Belkis Teran, came to Gresham Park to also join the march. So what we had was 150 people and Belkis Teran. And I think that that plays a role in how this goes on. No, having Belkis very visibly present, walking up to everybody there and greeting them, just having her presence there affects what people want to do, and it reminds you of the actual stakes at hand, so you're caring for everyone around you in a much more conscious capacity. Belkis spoke, a few other people spoke,

and then they turned around and headed back to Gresham. And that was the decision that was made. And no one was hurt. No one was arrested. People got back to Gresham Park. Some people had ice cream. Two people in particular had ice cream and they were very happy about it. And it definitely wasn't, maybe it was us. Other people also had ice cream. Other people did have ice cream. I don't think they were quite as excited as we were. Slightly overpriced ice cream. Throughout the week, you could tell that people were really wanting to be back in the forest

and Wolani People's Park. People made do gathering at Brownwood Park, but it wasn't the same. There was an undeniable distance between where people were gathered this week of action and the site of all the previous battles in the Wolani. The fact that so much of the forest had already been destroyed loomed heavily over the week, and that's something that people are still processing and are still comprehending. Another big aspect of the week, like, this is the first week of action where people haven't, like, gone in the Wolani. Yeah, there's no action in the Wolani.

Which feels weird well in in in we should say in the triangle because you know the walani forest obviously goes through but like yeah the site like this is the first time that people haven't been like in the forest and that's a new thing to navigate that's a new feeling to navigate like there's there's a different there's a different sense. There's multiple chance that we're... There's multiple chance being like... Not one leaf, not one tree. Don't cut down the trees. And, like, the trees are gone.

Like, it's... The site's been cleared. And I think people are still catching up to that and, like, rely, like... It's still something that people are processing. And they're going to have to process that if they want to, like, continue. Like, they have to, like, look at the situation

being like, this is... We have to accept what has happened so then we can choose what to do. Because you can't act as... You can't deny what the reality is. No, and you can't act as if the trees are still there because that's going to change the types of actions you do. You can't tree set in the trees.

It's changing the actual actions people are going to take to try to stop Cop City. I think the Wednesday action almost needed to happen. So many people still dream about, what if we could reoccupy Wolani? People are still caught in that headspace because they got so used to that over the course of almost two years. So inevitably, there was going to be an attempt where a few hundred people try to reenter Wolani People's Park. There almost needed to be an attempt just to see what would happen. And we saw what would happen.

And now people can use that action as reference when making future plans and decisions about actions. Because you can point back to this and demonstrate what the police response will be when people march to Wolani. Massive amounts of SWAT, riot police waiting for you, SWAT mobile command centers, heavily armed police staged on roads, overpasses, entrances, and all around the forest, specifically waiting for people to try to cross over or through the tunnel. So now people know what will happen if they try and do the same thing again. So now people know what will happen if they try and do the same thing again. In some ways it kind of needed to not just be theoretical speculation, but actually happen

so that people can now truly allow themselves to evolve so that you don't have this question in the back of your head. Because now that question has been answered, you would be throwing yourself at a wall of SWAT in Riot Gear. And now everyone can let themselves evolve and start figuring out what new things can be fostered and imagined. We'll hear more about those evolutions and conclude my coverage of the Week of Action in the next episode. See you on the other side. 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. Thanks for listening. modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture

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