It Could Happen Here - Stop Cop City, Dispatch from Weelaunee Summer: Part 2

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

As the Week of Action comes to a close, a resurgent wave of direct actions happen across the country.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. This is part two of my mini-series about what's been happening this summer in Atlanta to stop Cop City. Last episode, we left off with the attempted march from Gresham Park to Entrenchment Creek Park, which some might say was a disappointment, but it also gave everyone more clarity about the current state of these types of direct action marches in Atlanta and the necessity for evolution. Atlanta and the necessity for evolution. The main event on Thursday, June 29th, was a protest outside the Home Depot in the upscale retail district off of Ponce de Leon Avenue. Home Depot

is one of the Atlanta Police Foundation's financial backers. There had been a rumor that Home Depot was going to close earlier in the day. I got there at 4.30, it wasn't closed, so I didn't see any signage. So I went and parked my car and came back. And like, I think I got there at 4.50 and people were starting to line up along the road. Like there's a Starbucks, then they were lining up along Ponce next to the Starbucks. And you know, I'm talking to them, watching this,

they're chanting, they're pulling out banners, and we get a call that they are arresting Lorraine Fontana. So Lorraine Fontana is a 76-year-old activist in Atlanta, and she's great. Like, she pops up everywhere. She's beloved by everyone. And so we get this call that Lorraine Fontana is being arrested and I bolt as far as my little legs will take me. And then I have to stop and catch my breath like right before I get there.

But Lorraine and one other person were arrested in the parking lot right outside the Home Depot. It's a store, but Home Depot corporate is here. They did not want anybody protesting in the store. When they start reading out the letter, I asked them to go ahead and exit the premises. At that time, I also issued them a formal trespass warning, telling them that Home Depot did not want their business or them inside the store. After protesters left the store, they stood by a corner in the parking lot holding signs, where they were then approached by APD officers,

who then arrested two people without warning. It does kind of just show APD, like, basically doing exactly what they would with anyone, except in this case it's a 76-year-old woman who's like 5 or 4'11 or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. 5 or 4 11 or something like that yeah

a lot of people were like surprised that this happened be like how could the police do this I think others were like not as surprised be like no it's the APD it was a good demonstration for people being like showing that they do not care

they don't care if you're a 77 year old woman or if you're a 77-year-old woman or if you're a 19-year-old eco-terrorist. They're going to treat you roughly the same. Yep. After Lorraine's arrest, more and more people began showing up across the street from Home Depot, calling for their divestment from the Atlanta Police Foundation. It got up to like 30, maybe 40 people.

Mostly just like chanting on the sidewalk, walking around. But then they started to like 30, maybe 40 people. Mostly just like chanting on the sidewalk. Mostly chanting on the sidewalk. But then they started to like walk back and forth when the crosswalk was like there. Yeah. And they were pushing the limit, like seeing what they could get. But there was also my favorite part was the APD officer who was sitting in his... I'm sorry. My favorite part was,

fuck, I gotta do this without breaking down in the middle. I did hear a little bit about this. All right, take three. Take three. There was the APD officer that was sitting in his Ford Explorer on Ponce, and at one point, he calls out on his loudspeaker, I'm not an idiot. I swear, I'm not an idiot. I swear, I'm not an idiot.

While he's backing up on ponds with his lights on, just like, what are you doing? I'm not an idiot. I promise. I'm not an idiot. A lot of people are asking a lot of questions. Already answered by my shirt. I'm not an idiot shirt. Oh, it was great.

So I caught like the briefest snippet of that audio, thankfully. That's funny. On Thursday night, after the Home Depot rally, there was a jail vigil around 10 p.m. for Lorraine at the Rice Street Fulton County Jail. So there are two jails. There's Atlanta City Detention Center, and then there's Fulton County Jail, which we just call Rice Street because it's off Rice Street.

Okay. So when you get charged with criminal trespass, it's like a misdemeanor charge. And typically you would go to Atlanta City Detention Center, which is still a jail, still terrible, but relatively better. Fulton County Jail is atrocious. It is, you know, LaShawn Thompson, of course, the guy who was eaten alive in his cell by bugs because of neglect. That is Rice Street Jail. That's the Fulton County Jail. That's the Fulton County Jail. So we get word that Lorraine is at Fulton County Jail and not ACDC, which is pretty striking.

So everybody goes down to do a jail vigil and noise demo. For context, last September, LaShawn Thompson, a 35-year-old man, was found dead after spending three months in an infested Fulton County Jail psychiatric cell. His body was covered in a thousand bug bites and insects were found in his mouth, ears, nose, and all across his body. Such inhumane incidents are not an

irregularity in Fulton County Jail. Just earlier this month, a 35-year-old named Christopher Smith died in Fulton County Jail. He had been held in custody since October 6th, 2019, without bond, on several unspecified felony and misdemeanor charges, according to the county sheriff's office. Last month, a 19-year-old girl died in Fulton County custody after being arrested on a minor misdemeanor charge. This past year alone, six people have died in the Fulton County jail system. People in Atlanta have been doing jail vigils and noise demos for years, and it's never really been a problem. Cops might tell people to move off to the side

if the crowd gets to a certain size, but they have typically gone on without issue. But this time, Fulton County deputies came out and declared that people are not allowed to protest outside the jail and ordered everyone to completely leave the parking lot and go all the way to the other side of this big hill, off of Rice Street jail property, in order to continue protesting.

Which no one was really keen on doing. So this kind of game of chicken began. Eventually, they pull in a bunch more sheriff's deputies and threaten arrest. So people start making their way up the hill, linking arms. And they get to the top of the hill and they're met with another group of protesters who had tried to come down. But they were stopped by police at the top of the hill. So now the crowd size essentially doubled. And the energy just goes through the roof.

Both sides are just going back and forth. Uh this this deputy is like completely overmatched. Doesn't really, it didn't seem like Fulton County had a plan. You know, usually APD or DeKalb. They have some sort of protest plan and Fulton was flying by the seat of their pants and so all of our cars were down at the bottom of the hill they were back in the rice street parking lot and this this becomes like an issue because some of the protesters cars are there all of the media cars are there like down at the bottom of this hill

and um they're not letting anyone go down they're and this woman shows up to like put i think money on her son's commissary card and they don't let her down. Jeez. Like they're just shutting down jail. Nobody's allowed. Yeah, exactly. So they finally,

first they're like, we're going to let you go down one by one. And everyone's like, hell no. Like we're not trusting you. Yeah, sure. Sure.

Sure, buddy. Let's go. Let's isolate, let's isolated move through this police fortress in an isolated manner. Nothing could go wrong here. So then they're like, okay, you can go as a group. Yeah, okay. As long as you have your vehicles down there, you can go as a group.

So they slowly start to make their way down. Do not proceed in the next five minutes. We're going to start doing what we have to do. They get all the way to the bottom hill. They're in the parking lot and just like on the edge of where the cars are and they kind of stop moving. And the sheriff's deputy is like, y'all got to keep moving. And so they start moving again and then stop again. And then the sheriff's deputy says, all right, get him. And so then the deputy start moving in to make arrests and quickly, you know, this march kind of becomes this backward moving thing.

Yeah. Can't say that I'm moving my hands to show guys it, but it becomes this backward moving thing up the hill. That's the bottom line. All right, I'm going to call the beat. You in the street, you will be taken in for custody. Get out the street. Get out the street. You're in the street. You will be taken in for custody. Get out of the street. Get out of the street. You're in the street. You will be taken in. The crowd was able to leave before anyone was detained, but it was a quite tense situation.

The sort of dynamic we saw at the jail vigil and Home Depot protest led directly into the next event on Friday morning, a previously announced second protest outside of Cadence Bank in Midtown, calling on Cadence Bank to cancel the Atlanta Police Foundation's $20 million construction loan. All right, people at a protest on Friday morning at Cadence Bank in Midtown Atlanta. There's maybe like around a dozen people here chanting outside of the building. Also about a dozen APD officers walking down from up the street, preparing to meet the crowd. They're moving in closer. They're walking in. Again, people still, I don't think anyone's even touched the class door.

Most of the people are just standing here on the sidewalk. You know that game you play with your cats where they come at you, but they stop when you're watching them? Yeah, yeah. That's the game we're playing right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We turn away, the cops advance. This is also like half of the Looney Tunes gags.

They're doing a Michelin frog. All right, and they're now on the Cadence Bank property. They're starting to advance. Police were yelling at people that they couldn't touch any of the steps leading up to the bank entrance and that you weren't allowed to lean against any handrails because the metal pole was bank property. So once again, we got this little game of back and forth, except one side has guns and the power to arrest you. You get off the pole! What's the ordinance? What law? What law? What law?

What law? What law? What law? What law? What law? What law? What law? What law?

What law that prevents us from being on steps, huh? Criminal trespass. Is he trying to protect the building? This cop said that the crowd's trying to incite a riot. It feels very much like what you saw, I guess, in Portland. Obviously, I wasn't there. There's an object that becomes the sacred goal, right? And then you're battling over the thing because the thing has now been elevated.

You've given something like actual physical presence. And that is the thing that you are now fighting for. It becomes a symbolic. It's steps in front of a building that don't matter, but the police gave it significance. But because the police turn it into this symbolic thing, it now means more than it just being steps. So there was this camera guy who like kept kind of stepping up and like pushing the envelope. And eventually more activists put one foot on the steps being like,

okay, if you're going to come after us for putting a foot on the bank steps, fine. Come at us. Like call, call, call the bluff. Yeah.

So there was like people yelling at the cop's face for like 45 minutes, maybe, maybe longer. Time always stretches during these sorts of things. It's hard to keep a sense of temporal stability. Even just during weeks of action in general, it's always hard to keep a sense of temporal stability. The sense of time warps around. Days blend into each other.

A day feels like a week. A week feels like a day. It gets very fuzzy. It gets incredibly trippy. And you're like, yeah, and the exhaustion, right? Like just compounds all of that. There's a lot of things that feed into it. Despite about a dozen people putting their foot on the sacred steps, the police did not decide to arrest anyone at this protest. And after about an hour of disruption, the crowd departed. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter?

Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. 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. 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. 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 Thank you. 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.

The week of action ended, much like the last one, with the final rally being the Youth March back at Brownwood Park. Lorraine just got out on bail and spoke about the jail conditions to the crowd of 100 or so people gathered in the park on the morning of July 1st. And I don't want people to forget that our movement is connected with lots of other stuff, one of which is prison abolition. And the idea that our so-called criminal justice system is such that people get just shoved behind bars. We don't want to see them. We don't care what happens to them. And even if they're not, haven't gone to trial yet, and they're in a jail awaiting

hearing or awaiting a trial, they're treated like they already are the people there. They're Lorraine said that she was in a crowded holding cell with 22 other women and just a few metal benches, nothing else. This is where nearly two dozen people had to sleep, had to eat, use the bathroom, all in one place for days on end. Women were trying to sit or sleep on either the hard benches or the floor. Some were attempting to use menstrual pads in place of a mattress. If they were lucky enough to be asleep, they were woken up at 2 a.m. for breakfast, and then again at 4 a.m. for head counting. They were so full, they didn't have room for the people that were being arrested.

So they were in this holding cell. Some of them had been there three days. It was something like 18 feet by 6 feet across. The last 6 feet were behind a divider that had a toilet, a single toilet. So it was even less room. The prison system is every day doing these kind of in-union treatments to people that get arrested or are not yet guilty of anything. Student organizers and parents also briefly spoke on why people are fighting against Cop City.

I don't want to live in a city. I don't want to live in a country, in a world that prioritizes the protection of private property through murder and state violence over the fundamental building blocks of life. I think we need to be focusing on giving people places to live, giving people food to eat, water to drink, not on giving the police playgrounds where they can blow up bombs and shoot their guns and that's why all of us together here need to come together be as one here in beautiful community with children with elders everything in between doing this amazing community building I love being out here with y'all it's so much fun to just like be working the popcorn machines and all that and that's why we're all here together, because we know that community is the key for us to stop Cop City.

Stop Cop City! Stop Cop City! And so as we fight to stop Cop City, we are fighting for investment in the things that make families thrive in this city. We tell them Andre Dickens, we tell them the Atlanta Police Foundation, that we demand that money be reinvested

into housing for the people. Childcare for the people. Education for the people. Healthcare for the people. Because those are the things that make our communities truly safe. And if they won't give it to us, we're going to build those networks of care in our communities ourselves. That is what makes days like today so beautiful. The fact that the people have the capacity

to feed the people. The people have the capacity to make sure that people stay hydrated. People have the capacity to give each other medical care. And as we build out those networks of care, we make the government irrelevant. They can try to tell us what to do all day long. But if we continue to build people's power,

well, they have to say, don't even matter. So are you ready to build that kind of world? As people got ready to depart, the energy was noticeably higher than most other events that week. All right, it is Saturday morning on July 1st. This is the last day of the sixth week of action. The youth rally just left Brownwood Park and is now marching through East Atlanta Village. Shortly before the youth rally, news started to circulate that early, early that morning,

just after midnight, several Atlanta police motorcycles and cop cars suffered mysterious damages, which possibly could have contributed to the more bolsterous energy among some of the radical attendees. People are driving by and honking in support as about 75 people, maybe 100, are marked as about 75 people, maybe 100, are marching next to Metropolitan Avenue. Do you think a fire truck would pull their air horn? The fire trucks were kind of busy last night, actually. I'm not sure. The fire trucks were busy doing what, Garrison?

Well, it seems like a lot of police motorcycles were found to be set on fire at the site of the old police training academy. It sounded like some police cruisers were wrecked somewhere else in the city, too. On Memorial Drive Southeast, it sounded like three cop cars were also smashed up. Do you think there's something going around? Is it contagious? So, yeah, the fire crews were a little bit busy last night. Spontaneous vehicle vandalism. That's certainly one way to end this week of action.

This definitely feels like the most positive part of the week of action so far. Yeah. People have been marching for about 20 minutes now. The march has now turned down Glenwood and is heading back towards Brownwood Park. No police presence at all so far. There was just complete... I've not seen a single cop car in this section of town. There's also three less cop cars in Atlanta than there usually is,

so that might have something to do with it. It was from this zone, too. The second one where the cop cars are, it was like a mile and a half away. Yeah, it's very close. Yeah, very different than what we saw on last Saturday. Yes. Where I like, even on my way in, I saw APD here every, you know, 20 feet. Yeah. And to not see a single APD vehicle is notable. The youth rally that closed the last week of action in March kind of felt like the end of an era.

This one on July 1st felt very different, much more like a beginning of a new era. After a very scattered week, the movement finally started to feel like it had multiple directions to grow. This week definitely started on, I would say, a muted note. And it's ended with a bit more directionality for the future and a bit more positivity, I think. I think people were able to think of ways that the movement can evolve and grow from here and recognize the necessity for that.

For change. Yeah, recognize the necessity for change and people are ready to continue and evolve as the situation on the ground is also changing. Justice for Oscar Cade! I mean, adaptability was a part of the movement ready to continue and evolve as the situation on the ground is also changing. I mean, adaptability was a part of the movement from the get-go. It's just, I think we got, the movement got very tied to

certain modes of operation that are not available anymore. Yep. For the past, like, few months, it felt like people have been playing on the police's board. They've been following that. And both of the action last night and the sort of talks that are happening throughout the city,

I think that is probably going to change. All right, we are about a block away from Brownwood Park on Portland Avenue and Gresham Avenue. Where there is pizza and water waiting. I'm excited for water. I don't think I can have hot pizza right now. I think I would just faint. But cold water is certainly enticing. Certainly the ideal.

Yep. And there's music back here in Brownwood. Tables set up, giving out literature, giving out food, water, lots of bubbles. Earlier at the rally before the march, there was a water balloon fight, which was very dangerous. Yeah, I left.

I don't know why you stayed around the water balloon fight. I took my laptop and left. There was a few very close moments there. But yeah, no, there's food. There's lots of signs, banners. A lot of Little Caesars pizza. There was much more energy here compared to the kickoff rally, which happened in the very same park exactly a week beforehand,

which felt sort of reversed from the previous week of action this past March. Which is interesting because last week of action the kickoff rally was the biggest energy point and the youth rally was kind of the more muted close. And this has kind of been inversed. Which, honestly,

when you're looking at what has happened over the last few months, maybe leading out with a high note is the ideal. We're also ending with the bouncy castle, which is very important. You know what? Yeah. For the full flip, we have to end with the bouncy castle. Yes.

Although we should move the bouncy castle to 890 Memorial Drive Southeast. Oh my God, stop. Stop. 890 Memorial Drive Southeast. Oh my god, stop. After the youth rally, Matt and I got some coffee in East Atlanta Village and talked about the broad strokes of the week and the general state of the movement. Like I said, I think this week started with a lot of questions being had and it's ended with some of those questions being answered

and people figuring out that to answer some of those other questions, the answer will take the form of actions that happen in these next few months. And I feel like it's ended with a bit more directionality than when it began, which is interesting for a week of action. Yeah. It was needed, though. It was absolutely needed like at 100% Like the the first rally just felt so weird that the first day off rally that the first day that the first few days

Felt just very Very like very scattered It was unclear how what was happening was related to stopping cop city and in some ways this week of action feels like The reverse of the last week of action We're like the last week of action where like the last week of action it started with a point of directionality like we are going to retake wilani and they did and then they were like we are going to do an action to physically stop the construction of cop city and they did like it was doing all these things and i think that week ended with more questions than

what it started with um because because the police did the raid of the forest. There was more uncertainty by the end of the week because there was so much over-policing. There was a lot of changes throughout that week. And I think this week started in an inverse. People started this week with a directionless sense, and they had a lot of questions going into this week. And I feel like some people have started

to kind of figure out how the movement will evolve in these next few months and it feels like people have a better idea of where of like how they are going to move forward um in these next three months six months and like the the month and a half when construction is slated to begin in august slated to begin and you know this referendum is looking like it's doing pretty well so hopefully that does delay. But, of course,

we also ended with the Bouncy Castle. We can't do an episode without acknowledging the importance of Bouncy Castles to this movement or at least

to Garrison and I. Yes. I think the other thing that makes it interesting in terms of this week being an inverse of the last week is that, you know, on the last week, day two, there was this very fiery action with vehicles being smashed.

And then on the second to last day, which is like late last night, either like late Friday night, early Saturday morning at like 1 a.m., 2 a.m., there was three Atlanta police cars smashed by Reynolds Town I believe. Yeah, just right, like a mile and a half away from Brownwood Park. Yep. And closer to the airport at the old police training academy

there was a it looks like a good fleet of Atlanta police motorcycles. Yeah, that's where the motorcycle that's where the moto headquarters is. Is 180 Southside. And those motorcycles are going to be no longer functioning because they are all charred to a crisp.

With like incendiary devices found there. Yeah. One of the most noticeable differences about this week of action compared to the previous one was the turnout. Out-of-state support did not show up in similar numbers as to the last week of action in March. There's a lot of potential reasons for this. This week may have simply

happened too soon. It coincided with other events across the country. Its messaging may not have reflected an adequate level of planning. There was probably some demoralization from the 90 acres of trees cut down. And with Entrenchment Creek Park closed and under police occupation, lodging options in Atlanta was more of a mystery for those coming from outside the city. More time away from the death of Tortuguita is probably also a factor. People in Atlanta may have to reconcile that the movement may not have as much widespread national support and on-the-ground numbers as it did last March. This is the smallest week of action we've had in over a year.

In recent memory, this is the smallest one I've reported on. I think it might have even been comparable to the first week of action. It was around there. But it also felt more local. It did feel way more local. Once you go from something so big as the last week of action to something more constrained, that sets a vibe shift

that I think you've got to kind of come to terms with. And it's one of those moments where you're like, okay, we are in a different paradigm. Yeah. Fewer numbers is not necessarily a bad thing. A group of five to 10 people can sometimes be much more effective at doing certain things than a crowd of 200 or even a thousand. You just have to specifically prepare for the numbers that you know that you'll have. For such a long time, I felt like this was, this movement was extremely effective in delaying construction.

Extremely effective a year and a half. Deadlines kept getting pushed back every single thing. The occupation was very good at doing what it attempted to do. And at a certain point, that became no longer viable and things are now changing gears. And you have to allow yourself that evolution like you that has to the same way people started occupying the forest in october after the city council uh stuff in september of 2021 like as the things change you have to you have to change your tactics with it and as i mean as revolutionary strategy goes that's just that

should be a baseline yeah adapting to what the situation is and not what the situation, what you want it to be. Yeah. And I think more people are talking about that this week and realizing that like, maybe even another week of action does not make sense for this new paradigm that we're existing in, in Atlanta. I've talked about the possibility of changing the week of action structure before in previous episodes. And I really only brought that up because that's what people were conveying to me at the time. And this has continued to be a topic of debate both during and since June. What do you do with the week of action format?

And I know that we kind of talked about this during the last recap episode where you brought up that that might have been the last week of action but it wasn't. It wasn't because as I was making these episodes, this week of action was announced. I've heard more people say that they don't think the week of action format is applicable anymore. I've heard more people say that than I did last week. What if Atlanta has

kind of outgrown this format? This format's proved to be very useful in these past few years. There's been very positive parts, there's been very negative parts. And what if it's time for something completely new? Something that the police don't know how to respond to. Something that matches the new paradigm.

Yeah, because that's the other thing. People have been doing this for two years now. Not only have people gotten used to a pattern, but like police have gotten used to a pattern. Like police have gotten very good at repressing the week of action. Like they have, they have had two years to practice. They know how to do this now. So why, why keep playing on their battlefield?

Like why, why keep doing what APD is expecting you to do? So that's part of what's, you know, interesting about this resurgence of these nocturnal hit and run sabotages that are unannounced, that we saw the ones earlier in this week with the Brent Scarborough's machines. Then we saw the APD vehicles get hit last night. So perhaps there will be more of that. Perhaps there'll be just new things that we can't even predict.

Like there's so many other avenues that things could go. Even during the youth march, Matt and I were wondering if this new spike in sabotage actions would break the spell and we'd see a return of this type of action happening more frequently. You know, it's the sort of direct action that has really been missing over the last several months. Yeah, and no, we've been talking about, a lot this past week, we've been talking about how there's been a lack of these sorts of nocturnal hit-and-run direct actions, and late last night it seems like there was a resurgence. We'll see how that continues after the week of of action if it continues uh or if it was a week of action inspired element but i have a feeling we'll see some of those continue to crop up

absolutely and this did indeed turn out to be the case welcome i'm danny thrill won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, 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. 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 don'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. It's the one with the green guy on it. All right, I will do my best to go over a short list of the claimed attacks against contractors building Cop City and corporations that fund the Atlanta Police Foundation from after this week of action.

On July 1st, over half a dozen Bank of America buildings in the Bay Area were vandalized and a dozen or so ATMs were smashed. In late June to early July, a group of friends visited the home of cop city architect Anthony Kenney in Norcross, Georgia, while another group paid a visit to Ambrish Basilwala, a member of the Board of Trustees for the Atlanta Police Foundation. People painted messages around their homes and tires were slashed. On the night of July 2nd, Keith Johnson, the eastern regional president for Brassfield and Gorey, the contracting firm who broadly oversaw the destruction of the forest

and who has decided to physically build Cop City, also received a mysterious visit. Late in the night, an unknown number of people evaded security guards and spread blood red paint around his pool and left a message reading, Cop City will never be built, drop the contract, and you can't hide. According to an online communique, rotten fish and dirty motor oil were left hidden somewhere on the property. Part of the communique addressed to Keith reads, quote, We know things haven't been feeling great in the office. You're losing money. Subcontractors are upset. There are fractures everywhere in the Cop City project, and all of that weight and

precarity is on your fragile shoulders. Each time you think of us or see the reminders we left you, remember this is your own doing. You can make all of this stop by dropping the Cop City contract. Unquote. On July 4th, in lieu of fireworks, people claimed to have set two Brent Scarborough machines on fire in broad daylight due to the lack of security during daytime. Scarborough is the subcontractor who physically leveled the 90-some acres of forest

in the Wallonie. The same day in Michigan, Chase Bank ATMs were sabotaged with glue and the bank was vandalized with messages of resistance. Chase Bank's head of regional investment banking serves on the board of the Atlanta Police Foundation. And on July 8th, a Bank of America in Berkeley was vandalized with Stop Cop City slogans and three ATMs were smashed. During the start of this little wave of actions, the mayor's office and APD were none too happy. So on July 5th, Mayor Andre Dickens and Atlanta Police Chief Darren Sheerbaum put on a press conference with the ATS, Georgia Bureau of Investigation, and FBI

to discuss the recent surge of direct actions. Our public safety facilities and property were the target of an extremely violent and dangerous attack on Saturday, July 1st. And there were several other destructive acts of extreme vandalism on public and private property that occurred that we have reason to believe are related to the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in DeKalb County. The current Atlanta Police Training Center at 180 Southside Industrial Parkway was set ablaze in the early morning hours of Saturday, July 1st. The targeted attack utilized extremely dangerous homemade incendiary devices to set a fire to the building and completely destroyed eight police

motorcycles. As shocking as this is, this was not an isolated incident of violence. This group actually took credit for these incidents and they stated, as I quote, we are vengeful wingnuts with nothing left to lose. Prior to that, about one hour prior to the event at Wendy's Southside Industrial, we had another precinct that was targeted in the city. This is our Path Force Precinct, Memorial Drive, in the 800 block of Memorial. These officers patrol the Beltline, which many of you all visit frequently. At that location, we had multiple windows broken on police vehicles. We believe the intent was to set those vehicles on fire as well.

There's a graph of the red Fusee on the ground. That has been used by this group in the past to set police vehicles on fire. That was dropped when a citizen observed the criminal acts in progress and actually interrupted the crimes that were occurring there. So we believe that the fire attack that was planned on Memorial Drive was thwarted by an observant citizen. A short time later, about an hour, we had the fire at our facility on Southside Industrial. Our training center is housed there most recently, and then our special operations precinct is there. The intent was for all 40 to be destroyed. And had all those 40 vehicles caught on fire, that police facility would have been gravely damaged if not destroyed in the fire. And we are thankful for our police

officers that saw this unfolding and likely interrupted that plan from being able to play out and unfold this. There's indications that this was likely committed by the exact same individuals. We will let and see where the facts take us. According to Chief Shearbaum and Mayor Dickens, the actions against Atlanta police on July 1st, over the course of just a few hours, equaled over $300,000 in damages. It's way around $35,000, and they want you to outfit us a little bit more,

so do that times eight. That's going to put you in the ballpark. Yeah, and that's not even including the rest of the smoke and damage and other things. And the broken windows on the police car, etc. So the group that struck this weekend is a dedicated group of professional anarchists. And I know that may seem a contradiction in terms. So this is a group of individuals who don't play by any rules and will go to any lengths they need to to carry out.

And this is their words. We will wage a campaign of violence and destruction. And so what we saw this weekend was part of that campaign. It's always funny when police make anarchists sound very cool and scary. But Chief Schierbaum also pretty clearly explained the reasoned methodology behind the pressure campaigns targeting contractors and APF financial sponsors. We know from the postings of this group, their intent to stop the Public Safety Training Center has left the democratic process of the city council and is now moving to intimidate and force out contractors that are committed to building the Public Safety Training Center. This weekend during the week of action, three different locations, private residences were targeted.

Tires were flattened on a contractor's home. A home of an executive for Brassville-Gorey was significantly vandalized in another jurisdiction. And then we had another location where graffiti was used to intimidate. And then yesterday morning, slightly after 7 o'clock in the morning, a location at 418 McDonough Boulevard, belonging to Brent Scarborough's company, which is a key provider of work in this training center, was also targeted and attacked, and equipment was set on fire at that location. These acts are of a small, determined group. These are small individuals from across the country that are using violence and fear and intimidation to stop a public safety training center. And this group cannot hide behind the dark of night or the home address and feel that they are not going to be held accountable. I have standing at this podium

with me today, representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the ATF, and we are also partnered with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. These agencies are working together to determine where federal laws violated this weekend and ensure that the full expertise of American law enforcement is present right here in Atlanta to stop this group, stop this group across the region, stop their ability to impact the public safety network of Atlanta, and hold them accountable. Despite continued threats from law enforcement, the only arrests that have happened so far in relation to this movement are from daytime protests, forest raids, and bail fund organizers. We've yet to see anyone arrested in Atlanta

for doing a specific one of these nocturnal night sabotage actions. That has not happened. I mean, the scariest indictments everyone's expecting are going to come in these next few years after you give the FBI two, three, four years to investigate, after you interview more people who've been arrested, see if anyone snitches, see if anyone turns state's witness.

But so far, it's been safer to do nocturnal sabotage actions than it has been to attend a public protest. And that is an interesting paradigm as well, is that no one's actually got arrested for lighting cop cars on fire in the middle of the night.

No one's been arrested for sabotaging equipment in the middle of the night. All of the arrests that are being tied to violent crime are from daytime protests, which is an interesting factor about this movement. Direct action in the most surveilled city in America can be tricky, and even just managing cell phones and internet search data is a huge factor. But as much real security there is out in the world,

the amount of security theater is arguably a stronger aspect in getting people to not go out and do direct action. The implicit threat of the panopticon is often enough to stifle people's potential action. But these things are beatable. Guides for how to do it exist either at your local anarchist book fair or online, as long as the computer is running Tor browser and a reputable VPN. The internet's a fun place. That's...

There is a lot of no-blog sites and zines that tell you how to do that. I don't know. People always make mistakes. People get caught sometimes. People do make mistakes. It's risky. And there are cameras everywhere in the city.

Some of them don't work, but it's like, do you really want to play Russian roulette? No, that's a part of when people like plan these nocturnal actions is like just because it's nighttime doesn't mean you're not getting watched or you're not like it's there's a lot of things that go into that um there's a lot of ways to get got whether you're like buying supplies and you keep a receipt and people please find a receipt they track back they find security camera view of you purchasing things and then they're like oh this bottle was bought at this place because you

have this receipt in your house and blah blah blah blah like there's there's lots of ways that that stuff happens so like i'm not going to give a guide on how to do it right now um but like anarchists have been doing this for a long time after you do that crime you've never done that crime like it's it's not something that you do as a person like you cease to become a person you you become like you are that action is subsumed into into the action and then and then it's not actually it's you never talk about it ever again it's gone or else you end up going to prison yeah and risking like not just your safety the of everyone's safety, just by remembering

that you did it. No, you know, like these become standards in anarchist communities. Like you never brag about something. You never allude to anything. Like it's, it's, it's not, it's, it's not a game. Like you're, it's, it's not a game. You're, you're, it is your, your life and other people's lives on the line when, when, when you're doing stuff like this.

And it's, yeah, you never do it to, like, be cool. You never do it to brag about it. Like, that's just not how this works. Which is why there's, like, kind of a much more, like, kind of insular culture around some anarchists, especially anarchists who, like, identify as, like, illegalists or, like, the types or the types of green nihilists or green anarchists that kind of pioneered the militancy of this movement, both slightly, even slightly before the first city council vote and then definitely after the first city council vote,

where we saw a massive explosion, no pun intended, in the number of types of sabotages happening in the Wolani Forest, which I think drew a lot of anarchists to come to Atlanta because it was like, oh, this is a... Oh, they're doing the thing that... They're doing a thing that... That has been missing since the end of the Green Scare. Yeah, no, this is like the thing that I believe in.

This is like, this is my politics. Now there's a spot where I can do my politics. And still no one's been caught for that. And I think that that was a big part of why Atlanta got so big last year was that people had the ability to live free in the forest and then do crazy shit at night. You live in this autonomous zone during the day.

Whether you have housing instability, whether you just want an escape from horrible police state living, wherever city you're in, you can go live in the Wallani Forest, you can live in a tent, you can have friends, you can defend this forest during the day, and then you can do crazy shit at night. And that drew a lot of people to Atlanta. And now with the forest not being there,

that changes the type of people who want to come to the city. Because that was a big draw for people. And now that that's no longer an option, you can't really sleep in the Wolani Forest as easily anymore. Yeah. That changes the types of people who want to come to Atlanta and who are going to do crazy shit. Because that's just how...

And for their own safety, they're not here. Yeah. No, absolutely. As the referendum is hoping to stop Cop City by having Atlanta residents vote on whether to cancel the land lease, others in the diverse movement have continued their efforts to pressure contractors and funders to drop out of the Cop City project. This tactic has already demonstrated its ability to succeed, with Reeves Young Construction dropping out of the project in April of 2022,

and some material suppliers have since cut ties with Cop City. This is something that APD chief Darren Sheerbaum certainly seems worried about. This effort of fear was not going to succeed, and the coalition of law enforcement, from the GBI to the FBI to the ATF to the Atlanta Police Department, and a slew of regional agencies, is going to stop that campaign so it doesn't happen and individuals do not leave the project. On July 2nd, protesters in Minnesota visited the homes of Atlas Technical Consultants employees. During daylight, people marched around the neighborhoods

with instruments and banners, knocked on doors, talked with neighbors, and left a letter of demands to drop the contract and cut ties with the Atlanta Police Foundation. The project manager for Atlas Technical Consultants engaged with protesters in the street and told them that Atlas had indeed already dropped out of the project due to mounting pressure. If that drops, then we won? Yes. Atlas is no longer involved in whatever you call... He had already dropped out of the project due to mounting pressure. We broke all our fucking windows. So thank you. Oh, yeah. I don't care what you want to say. You guys broke my fucking house and knocked on my door and do this shit. My company is not involved in this. So get the fuck away from me.

That's great. I'm glad. We'll leave you alone. Get the fuck out of here. All right. Take care. A few days later, Atlas and Long Engineering released an official statement saying that they would no longer be working on the Cop City project.

Anarchists and those on the left in general seem to have a hard time calling wins. But I'm not sure if it gets any more definitive than that audio clip in showing that this type of direct action can absolutely work in getting businesses to leave the project. In the next episode, we'll talk more about the referendum, the city's attempts to divide the movement, and the growing PR battle over the fate of Cop City. 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.

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