It Could Happen Here - Update from the Week of Action to Stop Cop City

Episode Date: March 10, 2023

Robert talks with Garrison and Clark from the Atlanta Community Press Collective about what’s happened so far during the Week of Action to defend the forest. https://atlsolidarity.org/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's the podcast that you're listening to. It's a news podcast about shit falling apart. That's the only intro you're going to get because Garrison is right now in the city of Atlanta, Georgia, reporting on the continuing stop cop city protests. done a number of scripted episodes covering these in detail over the last year and change uh they're in the thick of it right now so i'm just going to bring them and a friend on to talk about what has been happening this week yes uh that's your cue this this week this week is a special week because this is the fifth week of action that has happened here in atlanta as a part of the stop cop city and defend the Atlanta Forest Movement. This episode is going to be like a midweek update because this week of action is still very much ongoing. There's still many, many days that things can happen.

But a lot has already happened in these first few days anyway. So we're going to kind of do a quick little update and then a more comprehensive piece will be later down the line. But with me here to help talk about what's gone down so far is someone from the Atlantic Community Press Collective, Clark. Hello, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me on. Thanks for being on. Yeah.

We've been kind of teamed've been we've been kind of uh teamed up the past few days here as as many many many things both silly and serious have have taken place across atlanta yeah um safety in numbers safety yeah it's always nice to have friends when you're watching jackbooted thugs go fucking ape shit with all of their new toys. And I mean, I think that is part of the week of action idea is getting as many people here as possible. And hopefully some of that makes makes some people more safe. That's something that we'll probably talk more more in detail later when we have kind of hindsight. But I guess today, let's let's just start on what's kind of happened so far chronologically,

I guess, starting on Saturday. I met you Saturday for a rally at Gresham Park. I think it's where we first met up this week. Yes, we met at the rally at Gresham Park, which had about, I would say, an hour's worth of speeches before they kicked off a march down the bike path from Gresham Park to what the activists call Wilani People's Park, which is the site of the protests beforehand. So the forest around it had been unoccupied since the raid in January that saw the killing of Tortuguita.

So this was the first sort of permanent return to the forest. So we took a, I don't know, 40-minute march down the path and then landed in Wilani People's Park. They had one more little round of chance uh with a promise to defend the forest and then they they broke off and uh everything was a it was a nice really relaxing day yeah it was it was a pretty positive start to the week of action um people essentially retook wilani people's park uh and started to go into the forest once again. Camp got set up in the forest. Lots of people from both in town and folks from out of town started to camp in the woods again.

And then in the hours after this small march, people started to prepare for the music festival, which was planned like a few hundred feet away from a lot of people spark i guess inside inside like a more like open field area and music festival went off without a hitch the first day it was pretty pretty rad yeah i think there was about 500 people for 500 people that first night of the music festival. Yeah. Uh, the, the vibes were great. Everyone was having a fun time. I think it went on until about 1am and I don't think the first day could have gone better. I,

I think it went on till about 4am. Okay. Well, I went to bed at 1am. I did not go to bed at 1am. I was, I was at the music festival quite, quite a bit longer.

I'm quite a bit older, and I think that was the reason I had to leave. Garrison doesn't understand things like needing sleep yet. Give them another year or two before they hit that sweet, sweet wall. So true. Then I'll have to find another teenager to go do journalism. Every four or five years, you just find a new one. Yeah, just keep re-upping like Leo DiCaprio. Perfect.

So the first day was pretty good. There was no substantial police response that I saw. Police kind of left people alone in the forest. The march from Gresham Park was fine. And people got to spend a night in the woods again, which, you know, we hadn't had that many people in the woods in, like, months. And this is, it should be said, like camping in a music festival, but it's like relatively high risk because people have gotten significant charges just for camping in the woods in the past. Yes.

And the very recent past. Some of the warrants that have been issued that justify the charges like domestic terrorism have included things such as sleeping in a hammock with someone else in the forest and that's the reason why they're getting charged as a domestic terrorist so yeah it is a music festival people are camping it's kind of chill but also there's absolutely this kind of this just like this like uh ever present kind of fear that despite what is being done being pretty kind of like normal and not in and of itself militant or radical, still the consequences from this state are kind of always looming. Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill.

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Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. 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.

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Which kind of leads us to sunday yeah which picks up exactly where we left off yes so i i got there around noon on sunday uh i think and the first thing we see is a bouncy castle large large bouncy castle in front of the music festival it has has a big Stop Cop City banner, massive multicolored bouncy castle. People are having a pretty good time. Yeah, as soon as they finished setting up the bouncy castle, it was filled and everyone,

I think there were about 75, 100 people just set up on blankets around the stage. Initially, I think in the next few hours, that definitely grew to there being hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people returning to the music festival for the second day. I mean, I think the march on Saturday was anywhere between like,

I saw estimates of anywhere between 500 to 1,000 people. Music festival seems to be like over 500 people. And then on the second day of the music festival, it slowly grew in size to again, being hundreds and hundreds of people. Music festival seems to be like over 500 people. And then on the second day of the music festival, it slowly grew in size to again, being hundreds and hundreds of people. And it's, yeah, it's, it started off just kind of continuing on with the music, continuing on with people, people having, having nice times in the woods. I, I walked around the campsites and got, had conversations with people talking about all sorts of anarchy related things. And then they're slowly throughout the day. Um, I think that this was posted on

social media as well. There was a plan for a rally at 5 PM to meet on part of a part of the field that the music festival was also happening on. By the time that happened people people met up uh the group that that kind of uh converged was in a mix of black block camo block so like people like covered head to toe in various various camo print um and they set off from from the rc field where the music festival was at so they left they they went down Boulder Crest Road to the section of the woods called the Powerline Cut. So to understand what is going on here, you kind of have to understand some of the geography

of the Wolani Forest. So we have like the Wolani People's Park parking lot and that immediate kind of campsite. This is like the eastern eastern most part and then there's the rc field which is just like right right next to that to the west and then even west of that is entrenchment creek and entrenchment creek kind of divides up this this uh this dissection of the forest and then everything everything west of Entrenchment Creek is generally referred to as the old Atlanta prison farm area. And the power line cut is pretty close to the creek, and have been more rigorous about policing, more rigorous about surveilling, more rigorous about having kind of constant surveillance and people on the ground.

It's estimated that they're spending over $40,000 a day running security on this part of the woods. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. See, and for that amount of money, they could hire, like, more people than are on the police force if they just used Fiverr. That's really that's really the tactic they ought to be embracing. And I think if they had used Fiverr, they might have had enough people to counter the protesters. But the overbloated police salaries, they only had like 20 people.

Yeah, they did not have many. So this group set down Boulder Crest. They marched up the power line cut. They laid out like tire barricades in the street. And then upon them marching on the power line cut, after they arrived near the police surveillance setup that we just mentioned, some of the equipment somehow burst into flames. People have blamed shoddy construction.

People have said that sometimes equipment just does that. But yes, no. So people set a whole bunch of police infrastructure on fire, set some construction equipment on fire that is being used to destroy sections of the forest where they wanted to build Cop City. Police were repelled with stuff like rocks and fireworks. The cops that were stationed there very quickly retreated. I think lots of stuff was set on fire. There was the surveillance tower was set on fire. A bulldozer was set on fire. There was the surveillance tower was set on fire. A bulldozer was set on fire.

Well, I mean, it's winter. People need fires to camp comfortably. I understand that. A UTV was some kind of like a big trailer, like storage unit thing was set on fire. Yes, and the cops were very worried about that. They didn't know if there was flammable material inside that. You wouldn't store flammable material inside that you you

wouldn't store flammable materials in an easily accessible area oh we shut down an entire interstate because we did that a few years ago so we wouldn't in atlanta atlanta would all of atlanta collectively um so so so this happened uh a thermal chopper from a thermal police helicopter was watching all of this. And honestly, the footage is pretty interesting. It is worth discussing how this type of surveillance works. Almost the same thermal cameras that are on the Bayraktar drones that Turkey makes, by the way. Or a little bit of Foucault's boomerang. It's almost the same thermal cameras that are on the Bayraktar drones that Turkey makes, by the way.

It's pretty... A little bit of Foucault's boomerang. Oh, absolutely. No, it's pretty frightening with their ability to track individual people. I also think it's worth, because there's video of the cops being pelted with stuff, including fireworks. I think it's worth noting that while it is unpleasant to be pelted with the kind of stuff the cops were pelted with stuff, including fireworks. I think it's worth noting that like, while it is unpleasant to be pelted with the kind of stuff the cops were pelted with, you and I have both been pelted with numerous fireworks of similar size and it is not a serious threat to life and limb.

No, no. We survived, but it's modestly unpleasant. But the cops that were there, uh, we're not very happy about it. They put out calls for officer in need of support and for all available units in the greater Atlanta area to converge on the forest. People who

marched to this section of the power line cut started to disperse throughout the woods. I was back by the road watching this from hundreds and hundreds of feet away because i i did not need to go up there that would not have been helpful in any way um but as this as this was happening a whole bunch of police cars zoomed by so i started following those cars

i went back to the music festival um i i i met up up with, with some, with some, uh, other, uh, other media people that I was, that I was, uh, communicating with. And then I got a text message saying that a cop showed up in the parking lot of the Wallani People's Park with an AR-15. I started making my way over. And then as, as I'm running across the music festival, I see a whole bunch of police at the parking lot for the music festival itself at the, at, at the RC field. So I don't, I don't make my way over to the Wolani People's Park

parking lot where there's the AR-15 because instead I see way, way more police closer, closer to where I am. So I, I staged there, uh, minutes later, police start running into, into the music festival. They start tackling seemingly anyone who's by themselves and that they can get their hands on. It didn't seem incredibly targeted. This is something that I'll probably discuss in more detail once we have slightly more hindsight. But a lot of the arrests did not seem specifically targeted.

In the bail hearings from just yesterday, as of time of recording, they said they were going after people who had mud on their clothing. And like it, it rained a day before the music festival. Incredible detective work. Only only a true terrorist would have mud. I think a month and a half ago, Ryan Millsap tore up the parking lot. So it rained the day before. And anyone who walked through that parking lot or the trail system had to walk through mud. You're walking through mud.

Also, people are just sitting on the dirt at the music festival. Like, so, yes. I mean, this might also include, like, useful advice for people in the future. Because if the movie predator was telling me the truth and it's never lied to me yet coding yourself entirely in mud makes thermal vision no longer function uh-huh uh-huh yeah um so police police started tackling people it was definitely they were going after people who were like by themselves um and yeah people with mud. The police alleged in their warrants that were read out at the bail hearing that they were going after people who had metal shields. And they said that almost

everyone they arrested was arrested carrying a metal shield. Now, here's a few funny notes about that. There was not a single metal shield present at all. There were a few small plastic shields not a single metal one and in in looking through all of the footage of arrests the footage that i have that's been sent to nlg footage other people have had no one was arrested carrying a shield let alone a metal one um so a whole bunch of the the reasoning for these arrests is incredibly suspect uh police so raided once tackled arrested like five people carried them out they raided again and this is where they started launching tear gas into the forest um i got gassed decently bad uh it was not was not very fun first time i've gotten tear gassed in years. Uh, old, old, old memories.

Um, and during this time, a kiss from a dear friend. That was exactly what I was thinking. And I did not, I, I brought gas masks to Atlanta, but I didn't bring them on the Sunday because usually you don't bring gas

masks to a music festival. Yeah. I mean, the thing about gas, the thing about tear gas and gas masks is that like when you're used to getting tear gassed, it's really easy to have them handy and get them on when like you're not used to being tear gassed.

You're probably not going to bring it with you. Yeah. So, uh, people got people, some people in the forest got gassed pretty bad. I mean, the whole point was to sow confusion, make it so that people could not hide out in the woods it was it was to make people

scatter run away so that they can be tackled and arrested um one person that was a national lawyers guild legal observer was arrested um they're also a lawyer at the southern poverty law center uh this oh boy this person was the only person arrested that I'm aware of that was released on bail. Everybody else is being held. Yeah, I'll fucking bet. Everyone else is being held indefinitely. That actually includes there was a second legal observer who was not wearing the hat. So during the bail hearings yesterday, their lawyer said that they were a legal observer.

But because they weren't wearing the hat and because they were not local they were not given bail it was reported there was like around like 35 arrests the night of yes initially uh apd released a press release that said there were 35 detainees which at the time they released it was a very interesting term because we thought 35 people had just been arrested and were on their way to jail. Yeah. But just about 45 minutes after that, 12 of those 35 were released. So this was very curious. There is a lot of theories going on for what has happened. I'm going to I'm just going to relay what I heard when I was listening to the bail hearings yesterday. So a defense lawyer for some of the people arrested said yesterday during the bail hearing that, to his understanding, the 12 people that were detained but not arrested were people from Atlanta.

And the 23 people who got arrested and charged were not from Atlanta. and charged or were not from Atlanta. And part of, so what police could be doing here is basically, if you're from Atlanta, we will ID you, but we're not going to actually arrest and charge you, but we will arrest and charge you if you're from out of state so they can continue this outside agitator narrative so they can say every single person arrested after this protest was from out of state. Every single person arrested after this protest was from out of state. The cops and the media have done a lot of weird collusion regarding the events of Sunday night.

They've conflated the location of the arrests a lot. Police want to make this seem like they arrested people at a crime scene. They arrested people as they were torching construction equipment, which just isn't true. They arrested people almost seemingly at random at a music festival that was like hundreds and hundreds of feet away. Like it is not an easy walk from the power line cut to the music festival. Because not only do you have to go through some like pretty pretty uh harsh brush some woods um and like jump over a pretty large creek of the alternatively you have to like walk down a road which nobody did so the police have done a police and and and like local media like large like large corporate local media have have tried to make it seem like that this that this music festival thing is just like

a red herring that it'sring, that it's not important, but a lot of the people that were arrested seemed to be people that were just enjoying this music festival. So 23 of them have been charged with domestic terrorism. Most of those people are being held indefinitely for now. The bail hearing is going to get appealed to the superior court. We'll see if that changes anything. The judge said that they were not presented with any evidence that these people did anything wrong, but they still decided to not give them bail.

The reasoning for that was that the judge thought that people who did not have any local ties to the community could be a flight risk. And some people who have any local ties to the community could be a flight risk and some people who did have local ties to the community they said still were a threat to the community somehow despite many of them not having any prior convictions not not having any prior arrests it's it it seemed it seemed pretty suspect during during during the during the bail hearing but that was that was most of sunday night um eventually police kind of surrounded and kettled the group of people that that was still still at the music festival hours after these arrests happened they gave like a five minute dispersal warning and then they gave a 10 minute dispersal warning eventually cops let

most of the people who like gather who were gathered right in front of the stage leave there was probably like 50 people at that point because people throughout the night were trying to leave um as as police were you know like raiding the forest some people were able to some people were just like let go and like were able to leave others were detained almost arbitrarily it's it's it's it's hard to say so So that was the first two days of the week of action, and it felt like a week. 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. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Duda 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 Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires.

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 better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

Check out betteroffline.com. What happened the next day? So, yeah. The nonviolent direct actions and then the… Monday. The events. Oh, no, Monday. Yeah, because the Monday, the events. Oh no. Monday. Yeah. Cause that was only,

that was only the second. No. Monday is the city council meeting that we were in for eight hours. Yes. Yes. So Monday there was, uh, there was an interfaith coalition of clergy that,

uh, that had held a press conference outside of city hall. Um, basically like endorsing the stop cop city movement or like clark how how would you describe what what happened so there were a couple of elements to the clergy um we'll just call it in action uh the first thing was they presented a letter with over 200 uh other clergy members who had signed that uh denouncing cop city, calling for an independent investigation into the killing of Tortuguita and calling for an independent investigation into the

use of domestic terrorism charges to chill free speech. And then during that press conference, Miko Chabon called for land back and called for land back of in the wilani forest uh to the muskogee people to stored in um coordination with the legacy black residents of the area yeah so they they were both like uh talking about the need to stop cop city but also providing a plan on how this land could be used. This land that is leased by the city, it is on DeKalb County. After this press conference, some of these people from the coalition gave public comment during the city council. And that was most of the events on Monday that I can recall. Oh, there was the Purim in the forest that night. And that was,

that was very enjoyable. That was kind of the first time people like tried to go back into the forest since, since the Sunday night raid. Um, and I think that started to slowly boost morale again. Yeah. And I think we should talk about also after the raid, there were a few, um, really unique things that happened. There were a lot of people who didn't have housing and they were housed by local activists. There was the bus network was set up to transport people from the site where everyone was getting arrested to somewhere safe. They moved breakfast off site to a different location. a different location so there was a lot of work done in in continuing the week of action and providing some sort of infrastructure for all these people who had come into town and didn't have anywhere else to go yeah once again the resiliency on display was impressive and people's

ability to adapt to the ever-evolving situation was was tested and people adapted pretty well um tuesday there was there was starting to be like typical non-violent direct actions happening throughout to downtown a whole bunch of banner drops happened around highways and interstates around atlanta people were uh detained for yes us uh three people were briefly detained at the site of of of a banner drop um but throughout throughout the day there was people handing out letters to people to folks like the uh the ceo of norfolk southern norfolk southern uh alan shaw and then similar similar types of like non-violent direct action were happening uh a small a small march was led from woodruff park to at&t and georgia pacific um there was like maybe maybe 50 i think 50 is an accurate number 50 people gathered to

march well there were 50 marchers gathered and then like 120 police officers in the in the uh in the surrounding area massive massive police presence police caused a huge a huge disruption to to downtown um that's something we've seen kind of ever since the sunday raid the police have been incredibly heavy-handed in their response to every single thing, whether that be people handing out flyers or whether that be, you know, uh, you know, people at people at, at, at a music festival, um, a whole, a whole bunch of police were mobilized Tuesday night near the forest, like a hundred, again, like 120 cops, at least three or four different agencies, uh, bear cats, uh, helicopters.

Uh, I think there it's, it's, it's unclear what they were doing. Um, this is something that we might, we might speculate further on once we have hindsight, when I, when I put together my, my kind of, my kind of, uh, more, more intense deep dive. And then, uh, then today the, the thing that me and Clark just just got back from uh how do you want to explain today's today's events so today was a lot of leaflet handing out and marching for it was a smaller group than the uh march yesterday i would say there was like 20 25 people yeah like it started off being like only only about like a dozen um and it slowly grew to like maybe like two or three dozen but yeah small small small group of people yeah small

group of people and when they met at noon they they met and they broke into three different groups yeah and so the group that we followed was just uh they walked a little northward and started passing out flyers at the petrie center marta station they went to all three entrances and each uh group warranted its own police uh surveillance unit massive police surveillance unit was following everybody around there was there was a SWAT vehicle parked right right outside uh where these people were handing out flyers um it was there was there was like 50 to 100 cops flanking people on like from from like from like different sides uh eventually all the all of the smaller groups that kind of branched off converged again and police then gave

a dispersal warning to people who were standing on the sidewalk on a sidewalk outside of a hard rock cafe who were handing out flyers okay well i mean look in that case they may have been protecting people because you want you want to get folks as far away from the hard rock cafe as possible garrison someone might eat there and that's a real dangerous I was I was campaigning for all of the press gathered to meet afterwards at the Hard Rock Cafe it was between the hard rockers on that one so so

I watched you at the Rainforest Cafe you barely made it through that dessert that was different that was different I did I did get food poisoning from that Rainforest Cafe. I will continue to claim. And I woke up with a headache for an inexplicable reason.

Not because you were carrying around a bottle of bourbon throughout Las Vegas. Bourbon and a THC yogurt or a milkshake or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Or a milkshake or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. So,

so cops gave a dispersal warning to people who were not, not in fact blocking a sidewalk. We're simply handing out flyers. You people were still walking everywhere. So they basically moved to a different section of the, of the sidewalk and cops kind of left him alone. Nearby a group of indigenous activists from the Indian collective, I believe is what it's. It's actually Muscogee Nation.

The Muscogee Nation went went to a a meeting that the mayor of Atlanta, Andre Dickens, was having nearby. Clark, I think, you know, slightly more about what happened here than I do. Yes. So several of the indigenous activists entered. So where he was having this meeting is a mall in true Atlanta fashion. So they entered the mall and they found where he was in the building. delivered a letter essentially evicting the city of atlanta from the wilani forest so they got in without the police noticing um and then the moment they got out a large squad of police mobilized they were they were not happy how close people got to the mayor so at this point we don't know what the full reaction of that's going to be uh we do know they were not happy how close people got to the mayor. So at this point, we don't know what the full reaction of that's going to be.

We do know that the mayor ran away from accepting the letter. And then one of, I believe they handed it to one of the mayors. I do love a mayor running. There are few, few more beautiful sights than a mayor running away. No, more mayors need to spend time fleeing from their peoples so i think this this episode comes out i think like like late thursday night friday morning um thursday afternoon there so like we are we are recording this wednesday there's plans for thursday there's gonna be there's gonna be a large march at 6 p.m i believe there's gonna be a youth rally at sat, and then on Sunday morning

Manuel Teran, Torteguita's family, is holding a memorial for Tort in the Wilani Forest, where I've been told that they're going to spread Tort's ashes inside the woods. And that is kind of the last thing

that's going to happen. And so those are the things that have not yet took place. But we've explained in pretty excruciating detail some of what's happened so far. So yeah, that's kind of the current state of on the ground at the Week of Action. I guess, Robert, do you have any questions for Clark as someone who's kind of been on the ground in Atlanta for years covering Stop Copsity? Yeah. I mean, I'm curious what, over the last few weeks, like you've had some direct clashes with the police that have ended

in a variety of ways. Broadly speaking, is there anything that you're kind of leaning towards, this doesn't work, and is there anything you're kind of leaning towards, this seems to work really well? So there is something to be said for the more aggressive actions, and I think they serve their purpose, and there was definitely something to be said for the forest occupation. It continued the movement until there was a

groundswell of support. So at this point, I think the actions have sort of switched gear into more non-violent direct actions as we're seeing this week. And I think that those actions will continue. I'm sure the

anarchist contingent will continue to do some other more aggressive, shall we say, direct actions. Yeah. And all of these work. We have a large swath of different avenues

of engagement that the movement has developed and each of them has their place. And if they're used in the proper place, they are used to great effect. I think one kind of change that has happened, we've seen a bit of a decrease in the types of like nighttime sabotage,

like the sort of like attack and disappear tactics that was really popular in like the early days of the occupation, of like attack and disappear tactics that was was really popular in like the early days of the occupation uh of like of of like the forced occupation of people living and living and camping out in in the woods um and you know the because like the last two much more like militant actions were done during the daytime during like large rallies there was there was the protest on saturday after tortuguita was killed where a cop car was torched then there was large rallies there was there was the protest on saturday after tortugita was killed where a cop car was torched then there was this then there was this protest on on sunday night

um that people that people marched people marched to the to the power line cut and then the police started doing repression at the music festival um but like those things were happening like during like before the sun was setting um so i think that that that is one interesting change i feel like some people are definitely thinking about this especially because there's been 23 people arrested during this week of action and they're being held in jail uh and we have no idea when they're going to be able to have the option of getting out so i think this is think this is something that people are thinking about in terms of how they are doing direct action and how their involvement in direct action will affect people who did not

participate, like with people at the music festival who were not present at the power line cut direct action and how some of those people are undoubtedly now facing punishment from the state. So I feel like there is definitely going to be some discussion about that. I've seen discussion about this threat in the city. But I mean, the week of action is still ongoing. It is only Wednesday. It feels like it's been a month, but it's only been like three or four days.

But I mean, people are in this for the long haul. We're starting to see more solidarity from groups that are less militant, like with the interfaith coalition right like you're not i don't think any of like the priests the priests or the clergy were there throwing molotov cocktails um at the at the surveillance tower yet the very next day they're standing outside of city hall and demanding the same things that the people throwing molotovs are are demanding and it should be noted that they didn't denounce no that it is it is solidarity across the movement absolutely they talked about how them as clergy uh you know and uh the in in the history of abrahamic

religions how many how many people associated and are the figureheads of such religions have been killed by the state and how often often these religions have been in opposition to the state during during their formative years um and they i don't know i just i just can't think of any prominent uh uh christian figures or jewish figures who were who were murdered by the state that's just not nothing's coming up right now none zero yeah Yeah, no, I grew up Christian and I can't really remember anyone. So, yeah, that is,

that is the week of action so far. Cool. There will certainly be a more, a more detailed deep dive with like analysis and like, you know, a narrative through line in the coming weeks as we're actually

able to like look back on what has happened. Interviews with more people who are who are like actually involved, interviews with like organizers, protesters, force defenders. But despite the massive amount of repression that we've seen on Sunday, the increasingly like heavy handed response police have had to both direct action that includes property destruction and nonviolent direct action. Despite all that, people are still continuing to be in the woods.

They are not letting it scare them away. The woods are still a place that the people are able to exist in. They're still able to live together together in the woods stay in the woods the the cops don't like being in the woods no there's a real fear that's why you're trying to tear them down yes the the cops are the cops are still very much scared of the woods um and and uh people have have have not have not let the the violence shown by police scare them away from wanting to stay in the forest. So that is something that continued every day.

There's been guided tours throughout the forest showing off the different types of plants, the different sections of the woods, different old campsites that people have slept at. sites that people have slept at. Yeah, it's been pretty nice to see with just the incredible level of resilience. Well, I know that I am, and I'm sure many folks are continuing to adapt and endure and take punches. It's unfortunate that the punches keep coming, but the ability of the community to take those hits and continue iterating and adapting remains tremendously impressive. I think kind of the note that makes most sense to end on is to say that this is still a winnable fight. Absolutely. And that is a sentiment that literally everyone on

the ground shares. Like we are at a point where like people keep saying like at this point, they have to win. Like there is no other option than winning. And people have the ability to win. This is a winnable fight. And that is something that people continue to talk about. And that is why people are fighting so hard. That's why people are risking getting these ridiculous charges, because they know that this fight is both worth it and they know this fight is winnable like these are these the actions and the risks that people are the actions and the risks that people are taking are not for nothing like they they know that it is impactful and there is a very good chance that this this will lead to victory and will lead to the forest being preserved to being protected and being able to continue to grow.

It does have a feeling of inevitability that they will win, that we will win. I don't know which appropriate way to say that is as a journalist. But the feeling is that Cop City will not be built. And that is something that's shared, I think think by all of the activists in in this city and i guess the the last thing i'll say is uh atlanta solidarity fund you should if you if you've been listening to any of our coverage you should already know what it is you can find the solidarity fund at atl solidarity.org you can donate there to help the forest offenders and you know anyone who's who's arrested in relation to this uh with with legal expenses lawyers that sort of thing um yeah well um that's gonna do it for this episode uh and we'll have more from you uh garrison and more

from atlanta soon uh until next time everybody uh keep an eye on shit We'll have more from you, Garrison, and more from Atlanta soon. Until next time, everybody, keep an eye on shit. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow.

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