It Could Happen Here - Week of Action to Stop Cop City: Full Compilation

Episode Date: May 13, 2023

Parts 1-4, and the bonus Retrospective episode, combined into one large file.  This complication contains all our coverage of the March 2023 Week of Action in Atlanta.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. It's a warm spring afternoon in Atlanta, Georgia. You and some of your friends are dancing in the sunlight at a music festival in South Atlanta. It's day two of the South River Music Festival. Last night, you stayed up till 3 a.m., alternating between moshing in the pit and laying down on a blanket, looking up at the night sky, trying to see stars through the light pollution. After you had your fill of EDM, you called it a night

and hastily set up a tent in the forest near the edge of the festival. You tried to sleep as long as you could, but soon enough, the hustle and bustle around the forest beckoned you out of your tent. As you moseyed on over back to the music festival, immediately something new caught your eye. A large, multicolored, inflatable bouncy castle sitting right in the middle of the field

with a big Stop Cop City banner hung along the side. After you fully woke up, you grabbed a free breakfast burrito and took a nice walk through the winding forest. Now that you've finished your breakfast, you're back at the far end of the open field, in front of the stage where there's been live music playing for the past few hours. You and some friends briefly try a stint in the bouncy castle, but quickly return to the festival stage as you tire out much faster than you expected. As the sun is barely starting to set around 6pm, suddenly you notice the faint scream of police sirens piercing through the music being blasted from on stage. You stand up as the sirens get louder and closer,

until a burst of police cars zoom past the music festival at high speed. A short sigh of relief is followed by confusion. Where else would a whole bunch of police cars be going? But as nothing seems to come of it, everyone starts to relax and begin enjoying music once again, with the apparent absence of police. There's a few brief moments of peace at the festival as things continue as scheduled, except you can't help but notice the police helicopter is flying across the forest toward the festival. As you take note of the chopper, you receive a signal message from a friend. Quote, cops have entered the parking lot with AR-15s, unquote. You lift up your mask and start running across the field to the parking lot at Wolani People's Park. But before you even make

it halfway across, you notice up ahead a few dozen police officers sprinting into the open field from the festival side entrance. As the sun is setting, a group of cops run past the bouncy house and start chasing down seemingly random concert goers and lone stragglers. One officer points his rifle at the bouncy house as another turns off the generator. You group up with other people from the festival in hopes of working together to incentivize police to leave the area. As you get closer, the cops start getting more aggressive. Just up ahead, a bit further into the woods close to where you set up your tent, you hear some loud bangs and see a flash of bright light. First, you assume it's just fireworks being used to hold off the cops, until you start coughing and see the faint plume of tear gas seeping in

from the forest. You're forced to fall back to the festival and regroup with people by the stage, where music is still being played. As you're running back, you can see dozens of people in zip-tie cuffs, many still pinned to the ground. Still coughing from the gas, you make your way back to where you were moshing the previous night. The crowd of festival-goers tightens up as riot vans and a bearcat pull into the field next to the deflated bouncy castle. Police SWAT teams surround the South River Music Festival and creep towards the stage, threatening to charge hundreds of people with domestic terrorism. Hanging on the backdrop of the stage is a massive banner that reads, quote, in the eyes of the state, all who resist white supremacy, colonialism, environmental racism, gentrification, and police militarization

are domestic terrorists. Unquote. That was the evening of Sunday, March 5th, 2023. This is It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. I arrived in Atlanta a few days prior in preparation for the March Week of Action to defend the Atlanta forest and stop Cop City. This is part one of a four-part series covering this week of action, featuring interviews, report backs, and analysis from both participants and observers like myself. This four-part series will be a follow-up of sorts to the four Stop Cop City episodes we put together last January following the death of forest defender

Tortuguita at the hands of the Georgia State Patrol, as well as building off my previous year of work covering the movement to defend the Atlanta forest. But in case you're new or need a refresher, for over two years now, activists and community members have been in a fight to save the Walani Forest from being turned into a massive $90 million police training facility stretching across 170 acres with plans to include a mock city for urban combat training to quell civil dissent. The Cop City Project is being led by the Atlanta Police Foundation, one of the most powerful police lobbying groups in the country. Following 17 hours of public comment, 70% of which was against the facility, the Atlanta City Council voted to approve the project's lease in September of 2021,

despite months of protests and community organizing. Later that fall, people started occupying and camping out in the Wolani Forest to maintain a physical presence in the woods in hopes of preventing or delaying construction. Infrastructure to support long-term encampments grew over the next year, with forest defenders erecting treehouses, road blockades, and making the forest a place that people could actually live in, with outdoor kitchens, community gardens, and places to sleep, whether that be up in a tree or in a tent. For a while, it seemed to be working. Throughout 2022, construction continued to stall. Almost every time cops and workers came in to start cutting trees, they were met with resistance. Construction equipment left around the forest was routinely sabotaged, and last year, a tertiary

targeting campaign resulted in the general contractor for Cop City, Reeves Young Construction, to drop out of the project. Police enacted multiple raids on the forest in 2022, trying to flush out any forest defenders camping out in the woods and tear down encampment infrastructure. But the occupation was generally able to bounce back pretty quick. As the movement to stop Cop City was seemingly winning, police intensified their repression. As a series of raids in December of last year decimated much of the infrastructure that was built up over the course of that year, and left six people with domestic terrorism charges. But things got worse.

Just a month later, in January of 2023, multiple police agencies engaged in a mass raid of the Walani Forest, destroying all remaining campsites. About an hour into the January 18th raid, the Georgia State Patrol SWAT team killed a 26-year-old forest defender, Manuel Teran, also known by their forest name, Tortuguita. DeKalb County's autopsy found at least 57 gunshot wounds from multiple officers. We'll talk more about the results from various autopsies in a later episode, but just a few weeks ago, Tort would have turned 27. The other side of the Defend the Forest movement is focused on a smaller section of the Wolani Forest, just east of Entrenchment Creek. Initially in hopes of expanding his movie studios, the now-former owner of Blackhall Studios,

Ryan Millsap, has been trying to gain control of 40 acres of public parkland through a shady land swap deal with DeKalb County that's currently subject to legal disputes. The slate of land in question contains the popular meeting spot in the forest known as the Living Room, which acts as a sort of central hub, as well as what's referred to as Wolani People's Park, where the park gazebo used to be before Ryan Millsap demolished it, later ripping out all of the grass and sidewalks in a, once again, legally questionable move. In January, Wolani People's Park also became home to the vigil site for Tortuguita. I'll let Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective

explain the other happenings in the woods since January. They got their land disturbance permit in late January. And the first phase of the land disturbance permit only allows for soil erosion control work. So to this point, essentially what they've done is they've clear cut some paths into the forest, into the proposed site. And then around the exterior of the site, they've clear cut a line in order to install silt fencing. So there isn't a large amount of infrastructure. They're not allowed to do a large amount of disturbance right now. They're in like the pre-construction phase right now.

So they started in February and they did a lot of work very quickly. They installed a privacy fence so you can't really see what's going on. So our general understanding of it comes from drone footage. It actually slowed down a couple weeks later. And from what I understand, they began to pull some construction equipment out, probably not wanting to leave a target for, shall we say, any sort of spicy activities. But not all of their construction equipment was removed, as everyone would soon find out. The deadly January raid left the community in mourning and unsure of how the fight to stop

Cop City would evolve with the use of lethal force and the loss of a friend. The forest defenders' semi-permanent occupation of the Wolani Forest ended after that raid, but the fight was far from over. About a month after the January raid, local Atlantans put out a call for supporters across the country to converge in Atlanta in early March for a mass gathering known as a Week of Action. known as a week of action. There have been four previous weeks of action, but this one, more than any other, would be crucial in reifying what the next stage of the movement would be. I started off this episode with the Sunday night police raid on the South River Music Festival, because for better or worse, what happened on that evening set the proverbial stage for what the majority of this week of action would look like, and how its effects would ripple out in the coming months. But before we get to the rest of the week, we first have to go back to the official start of this week of action to explain how we got here in

the first place. To kick off the week of action, a rally was planned for the morning of Saturday, March 4th at Gresham Park in Southeast Atlanta. By the time I arrived, around 11am, hundreds of people were already in the park. Music was blaring from loudspeakers. Some kids and a few brave adults were running around throwing multicolored powdered paint at each other. It was a pretty festive time. Soon enough, it was time for things to begin. Matthew Johnson, the interim executive director of Beloved Commune, formally kicked off the week. Let's get started.

All right, I just want to make sure that everybody is in the right place. I came here to stop Cop City. What did you all come here to do? Stop Cop City! What did we come to do? Stop Cop City! What did we come to do? Stop Cop City!

What did we come here to do? Stop Cop City! What did we come here to do? Stockbrook City! Alright, I'm glad that everybody found the right address. Thank you everybody for joining us. It's about two years ago in what was formerly known as Entrenchment Creek Park, now known as Walani People's Park. known as Entrenchment Creek Park, now known as Walani People's Park, where a ragtag bunch of individuals gathered under a gazebo. That gazebo was illegally destroyed by Ryan Millsap and his henchmen in an attempt to break this movement, in an attempt to bury

this movement. Yet every single time that they have tried to bury us, they have forgotten that we were seeds. Every time they thought that they backed us into a corner with their repression, we had more of you show up and support this movement and we thank you so much for that. They have set every hurdle in the way of everyday Atlantans to intimidate them and stop them from supporting this movement and we still show up. We appreciate every single person that has come here to support us in spite of the terror that the state has tried to instill in us. We must be very careful and understand the gravity of the situation that we are in, especially after we've lost a friend.

Thank you for standing with us. And now there are many things that we do not agree on. But what did we all come here to do? Stop the trade! So let's remember what got us this far was a diversity of tactics. And now it's time for us to double down. The crowd gathered was a pretty diverse mix of people from a variety of backgrounds, beliefs, and preferred tactics. On this Saturday morning, everyone felt pretty united, whether you were a kid running around with paint all over your body,

or an anarchist dressed head to toe in camo. Next up, somebody read a statement from the Muscogee elder, Miko Chabon Colonel. I'm here to read a statement from my Miko, Miko Chabon. Yeah, my name is Marty. I'm Muscogee. On my father's side, on my mother's side, I'm Otham, both Akmel and Tana, and my dad's also Filipino. I would like to express my gratitude to all who have converged onto these ancestral territories of Muscogeean ancestors and modern spiritual inhabitants of the earth that we now stand on. Today, we represent a vast society of peoples whose presence in the colonized named states of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida have existed for over 13,000 years. We represent a way of life that

strove to minimize the harm that humans can do to the earth, to other species and to each other. Today we continue this movement that begun many years ago and we honor those who have taken footsteps to protect this forest and our relative who gave the greatest of sacrifices. Just as ancestors existed on these very grounds and carried a faith and confidence in what our ancient ones passed on to us, may the hope of peaceful existence for all be achieved for many more centuries to come. This existence can only occur when we realize the sacredness

of the Wallani forest, all that is natural on this earth mother. This type of existence can only occur when we realize that we all belong to this earth, and she does not belong to us. This type of holy existence can only occur when we realize that no cop city can ever exist because more weapons only create more violence. of holy existence can only occur when we realize that no cop city can ever exist

because more weapons only create more violence. With these efforts that begin today, perhaps reason will prevail and we can create a future where all people have the right to exist. Today may our dreams for this forest and the surrounding community come true. For those who can hear, let them hear. The next speaker was from Community Movement Builders, a local Black collective that focuses on combating gentrification and police violence. I may be a little bit selfish in my reason for being here. I want to be free. selfish in my reason for being here. I want to be free.

I want my children to be free. I want my mother to be free. I want my father, my brothers and sisters to be free. And I don't want to have to live a life in 10 years where my babies, my nieces and my nephews come to me and ask, Kamasi, where were you? What were you? What were you doing when they destroyed our clean water? Destroyed our clean air? What happened?

Why were you not around? What were you doing? When my babies tell me 10 years and they say, Kamasi, what were you doing when this country turned into a fascist dystopia? What were you doing? Where were you when you were around? I can't sit here and sit back and say,

I just sat home and watched this whole world burn to hell. I don't believe in the power. I don't believe in the power of the imperialists. I believe in the power of the people. So I say to everyone today that during this week of action, I don't know where you will be, I don't know what you will be doing, but we stand behind you and we stand with you and we want to show the city of Atlanta, we want to show Mayor Dickens that he is not fit to rule and he does not rule this city. That's right! We want to show them that the $90 million that they took to build this urban warfare training facility will not crush our communities. Woo!

Yeah! Woo-hoo! And we also want to show the city of Atlanta that again, we are ready to stop merely surviving and start living. Finally, our last person, Reverend Leo Shea, is a Baptist minister, part of the Stop Cop City Clergy Coalition, which we'll talk a bit more about in the next episode. And I believe my faith compels me and convicts me that in this moment, the work that has been done and the work that is to come to defend this, our beloved family, this, our siblings, the earth, is a holy and righteous work. work. It is a holy and righteous work that is grounded in a faithful rage. A rage which has been boiling in the human family's blood for centuries. And meets us here at this moment and asks us, what will you do to defend those who have no defense? What will you do to protect those who have no shelter? What will you do when

the time comes to decide on whose side you are on? will you stand for oppression or will you stand for the liberation of all people? My friends, I come with some good news, if that's okay. And the good news is that God stands on the side of the oppressed. God stands on the side of the forest defenders. God stands on the side of the most marginalized. And let us make no mistake that in our protest and in our rage we also have to cry out and lament. We cannot be silent as Tortuguita's blood cries out from the ground. We must honor a life that did not have to be lost. It did not have to be this way. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that there is not a better way. There is always a better way. So I come with my faith and the

conviction that in this work, in this moment, a prophetic imagination, a creative vision is needed for the world that we want to see. I'm not here to wait for the kingdom of God. I want the kingdom of God right now. Right now. After the speeches were finished, it was announced that the crowd, now nearing a thousand strong, would gather up together and march to Wolani People's Park to retake the forest. As everyone was getting ready to leave, you could see the care and solidarity people had for each other on full display. Bike scouts were checking to see if the path was clear.

Volunteer street medics ready to help anyone in need. Water bottles were being handed out to keep everyone hydrated, while others autonomously coordinated rides for people unable to make the walk. Looks like approximately 1,000 people marching from Gresham Park to Walani People's Park on the bike path. I can't even see the end of where the people stop. It's a long, long stretch of people marching. Hundreds and hundreds of feet. There's some banners in front of the march. One of them reads, Disarm, Defund, Dismantle, No Cop City. There's one of the sun shining over a pink sky with a little blue

turtle and their shell is the earth. Massive like 10 person banner that reads defend the forest. The energy of the march remained high as people chanted to the beat of drums. I sat down with Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective towards the end of the week to talk about what we saw throughout this week of action. At one point, the entire crowd, seemingly the entire crowd, was chanting, if you build it, we will burn it, which seems... Yeah, almost like a thousand people. If you build it, we will burn it!

If you build it, we will burn it like, you know, looking around the crowd, you saw everyone, for the most part, partaking in that. So that was a very interesting moment where it felt like there was that sort of solidarity amongst the varied groups that make up the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement. As the march went on, the path was getting increasingly forested. About two-thirds of the way to Welani People's Park, after turning a bend, the crowd noticed three deer frolicking alongside the march from further within the tree line. Deer are cute! Deer are cute! Deer are cute! Deer are cute! Deer are cute! further within the tree line. To quote the Atlanta Community Press Collective's write-up of the march, quote, the joyous mood shifted slightly as the protest closed in on the People's Park,

passing over the remains of the bike path destroyed in December by film executive Ryan Millsap. Activists were uncertain what they were walking into or whether the police would offer any resistance. Activists thought there was going to be an issue. They were concerned about the police being in Willan and People's Park. So about halfway, we saw that stack of makeshift shields made out of plastic rain barrels. of makeshift shields made out of plastic rain barrels. About two dozen of those five-gallon drum shields just mysteriously showed up along the bike path. We are arriving at Walani People's Park.

No cops. But then when we got there, there was no police whatsoever. From what the scanner people told us, there were police around. They were just kind of monitoring from afar. But no police ever entered the park. And it was, I would say it was a really nice high point return to the forest. Banners and shields moving around Walani People's Park. As hundreds and hundreds of more people still pour in from the bike path.

As the back of the march finally arrived, the crowd gathered up one more time to all chant out a promise in unison. I will defend this land! I will defend this land! I will defend this land! I will defend this land! We will defend this land! We will defend this land! We will defend this land. We will defend this land. We will defend this land.

We will defend this land. We will defend this land. One of the activists I interviewed during the week of action was Matthew Johnson, the person who kicked off the rally at Gresham Park. We talked about the methodology of starting off this week of action with this big inclusive march and how that may have helped achieve the goal of retaking the forest that first day. We wanted to be sure that we would be able to reoccupy the park and what that would entail is having a wide swath of the larger public involved with any efforts to enter into the park. And so we had the rally at Gresham Park, and there was a march planned from that park to Wolani People's Park. Wolani People's Park.

There is violence that people have become accustomed to when it is people on the political fringes. That's just where we're at in the political situation in Atlanta. However, when you have several people that you would consider more normal, liberal, progressive, etc., like representatives from NGOs, non-profit organizations, just normal people that also wanted to see the project shut down, Cop City.

That's when you have the ability to move towards people that want to reoccupy having the space to do that without seeing tons of police repression, as we have seen in the movement recently. After reaching Wolani People's Park, many of those who arrived from out of town for this week of action, myself included, stopped by the shrine for Tortuguita just off of the tree line. People added new wildflowers and packs of fruit snacks. I'm going to walk over to the Tortuguita vigil site. Looks about the same as last time I was here. Many candles, little turtles, still a few fruit snacks. Although the vigil shrine was the same as last time I saw it, almost everything else about being in this place was different.

When I was here last time in January, it was a dark place of grief. The forest was barren, with all of the trees in their bare winter state. But looking around the forest this first sunny day, you could see new life growing all around you. To quote the Community Press Collective again, see new life growing all around you. To quote the Community Press Collective again, quote, small campsites begin to crop up across the landscape, some nestled in sunnier spaces, others tucked into thickets, providing shelter and cooler climate for the new residents. The trees themselves reflected this next phase. Sprigs of new growth leaves appeared on the ends of barren branches. Small white flowers bloomed along the forest because it is so hot.

And get back in the forest I did. and get back in the forest I did. One of the events that happened almost daily throughout the week was tours of the eastern side of the Wolani Forest. The walks through the woods were led by Joe Perry, a member of the South River Forest Coalition. I was able to attend the first tour during the week of action and got consent to record some of the forest walk. All right.

Hey, y'all, welcome to the living room. So named because it's a very inviting and comfortable place to relax. This is where a lot of the meetings happen during the previous week of action. People gather and have different events here. Oftentimes, there will be food available here. Campfires, silverware. So it's also just a very very comfortable place to relax because it's in this in this pine forest and so not really any undergrowth and just super comfortable. It's a really good place to have meetings

and just kind of get to know each other and establish some calm. We made our way from the living room to the grandmother tree, a large oak that is estimated to be a few hundred years old. On our way to Ryan Millsap's proposed site for so-called Michelle Obama Park, which is currently a 40-acre mound of dirt about 30 feet high, we walked past some old tents that were slashed apart during the January raid. Among the destroyed remains were little pink flowers growing out of the ground. Next, we headed to Entrenchment Creek.

Joe Perry explained some of the background regarding the environmental state of the watershed and how protecting the forest is a crucial step in the process of helping the land heal itself. I got involved with a group called the South River Forest Coalition. We are trying to help further the vision of the South River Forest that Ryan Gravel and the Nature Conservancy came up with to try to interweave about 3,500 acres of forest with the other businesses and homes and lands around this area that are in the watershed of the South River Forest. And Entrenchment Creek, which we will see on this tour, is the main tributary to the South River.

The South River is the fourth most endangered river in this country. Entrenchment Creek is one of the most polluted creeks in this county. And so that is what we're trying to protect. And in order to protect a river and a creek and a watershed, you have to protect the forest that's around it. I've been exploring these woods for the last decade and leading tours and talking to people about it, trying to explain what's going on with the lawsuit, trying to explain what's going on, the difference between Entrenchment Creek Park and, you know, the prison farm and the acreage and all these other things and all that stuff, it's just like, it's just gears turning in your head.

Because when you come out here and enjoy this, I mean, this is really what it's all about. This is all we have to do to convince people that this is worth saving. It's just bringing you out here and let you appreciate it. As masses of people converged at Walani People's Park Saturday afternoon, almost immediately a whole bunch of pop-up infrastructure was set up to facilitate an encampment in the woods once again. Really, for the first time in any kind of large capacity since January and even December. The December raids decimated much of the camp infrastructure, which still had not been rebuilt since then. But upon arriving from Gresham Park on Saturday, both first-time visitors to the Wolani Forest and seasoned forest defenders worked together to rebuild a lot of that infrastructure to support camp life for the next week.

One of the things that we saw on the march in was like eight cinder blocks right at the entrance to the living room. And then you and I went into the living room. We saw these huge water tanks. So later they moved those water tanks to those, those cinder blocks. And they, that has become, or a watering point for everyone. So like twice a day, a truck comes with a water tank on the back, and then they go through the arduous process of filling that water so that everybody uh in camp can have water and they they had this system that was seemingly self-organized and then that first day uh we were sitting in the parking lot and it seemed like every time you turn around there was like a different train of people carrying supplies into the living room. The second day, there was a woman who was shoveling gravel

from the torn up concrete on the side. And she was filling all of the random holes in the ground so that carts could go up them. And I was like, you know, did somebody assign this to you? She's like, no, I saw this. It just needed to be done, and I did it. And that was very much the entire vibe of those first, I would say, 24 hours was, okay, what do we need to do to get this thing running? As encampments were being established,aneously, infrastructure for the South River Music Festival was being erected in the adjacent radio control field. Within a short amount of time, a full stage was constructed, complete with lights and speakers. Lining the sides of the

field were various tables and booths. One side featured a large variety of refreshments, as well as a medic tent, and the other side was home to free hot food and freshly grilled burgers and hot dogs. Next to the food were a few tables distributing an array of radical literature, posters, and stickers. What was your favorite stuff at the Music Fest that you saw? Well, there was an arepa table, and I'm very food motivated, so the arepas were delicious, and we had walked a bunch that day, so I needed sust food motivated. So the arepas were delicious. And we had walked a bunch that day. So I needed sustenance. And then there was the burger table as well.

But I don't know if you got a burger, but I did not get a burger that day. I got one burger, but they were out of buns when I got a burger. So I had a lettuce burger. And then soon after, they got the buns back. And I was kind of bummed. Yeah. I did not. At least you bummed. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I did not,

at least you got something. Uh, but I had the arepa. So I mean, still to be fair, hundreds of people were being fed burgers. 500 people, you know?

And, and at one point they, they made an announcement that like they needed to do another food run just to go get more, more food. And like a bunch of people volunteered and, you know, only I think two or three went down to Walmart to get a bunch more burgers and hot dogs. And it was just a really cool moment. And so I think by the end of the night, when I was there, there were about 500

people just enjoying the music and looking at the sky. It was just an immaculate vibe. There was a little fire pick off to the side and yeah, you talked about the setting up the stage, you know, off to the side and yeah you talked about the setting up the stage you know i didn't know what to expect walking in there as not expecting quite that much of a production i wasn't expecting a full-fledged stage with lights all around uh sort of in this really like the lighting worked really well for it's it backdropped the the surrounding forest nice like nice like green and purple lighting yeah it was it was it it was, it was, it was great. And then they had that green room tent back there. And then they had a separate tent for equipment.

Like it was a very well thought out festival in the middle of nowhere. The South River Music Festival began early Saturday evening at 530, kicking off two days of local musical artists playing shows free of charge. Before the lineup of live music began, someone on stage read out a small flyer that was being passed around, detailing the reasoning for the festival and its place within the fight to defend the forest. And I got permission to share that reading. In the limitless possibilities of the cosmos, in the mad flux of events, reactions, and anomalies of the past 12 billion years since the birth of our universe,

it's a statistical impossibility that we would be here now. But here we are, alive together. Such incredible circumstances have brought us here. Among them the incredible and innovative resistance to defend this place from becoming a police training compound. This resistance which brings us together the most cunning and resilient techniques of the radical environmentalist movement. With the incredible courage and ferocity of the George Floyd uprising, it's not just about

a small piece of land. It's not about being fought between police and their goons on one hand and some activists and their friends on the other. We are witnessing a collision of two competing ideas of happiness, of life, of the future. In this competition, experiments with new types of free culture play a decisive role. This movement cannot be reduced to what is happening in City Hall, on social media, or in meetings. For two years, we have descended on these woods, finding refuge from the high rents and predatory booking fees of the corporate venues and bars. We have not come here to redecorate the actions of some activists as allies lending our service to the drab and loveless militancy of something we do not otherwise care about.

As the gentrification of Atlanta intensifies, more and more DIY venues and clubs are shut down and free spaces to play shows and dance are pushed further and further from the city center. Our free time is pinched as rents increase and traffic keeps us waiting longer and longer. That is going to change! Music is not like other forms of human culture. It is different from painting, drawing, poetry, literature or film, art, politics and symbolic culture in general represent the passions conjuring strong feelings from the shadows of reality, pulling them from the depths of the soul or the back of consciousness.

Music, on the other hand, is perhaps the only form of human creativity that contacts those feelings without any mediations. Music is physics. Music is reality. The system we live in is at war with reality. This system is destroying forests, rivers, mountaintops, and oceans. It's destroying our imaginations, our bodies, and our world. To defend ourselves from certain annihilation, it will not be sufficient to strike the right notes at the right time. We will have to make recourse to other means,

to more direct means, and that is why we're all here. The Defend the Atlanta Forest revolution will be economic, political, as well as cultural. We're building a new era of human history where music will be at the steering wheel. What is needed cannot be taught without first being discovered. We are those adventurers, plunging the depths of the cosmos for the contours and textures of a free existence, of a life without dead time. When it is necessary, we will defend ourselves by the means appropriate to the task,

not with words, not with denunciations, but with actions, real and concrete actions, as real as the sound, as real as reality. I was so lucky to be here with y'all. Thank you. Across the middle of the field, hundreds of people laid out blankets on the grass and dirt. Concertgoers alternated between dancing in front of the stage and relaxing and eating food on picnic blankets. As the night approached, over a thousand people were spread out across the RC field. A mosh pit had formed directly in front of the stage. Musicians led stop cop city chants. the RC field. A mosh pit had formed directly in front of the stage, musicians led Stop Cop City

chants, and between sets, people spoke on mic about the movement. Saturday night was headlined by local Atlanta rapper Zach Fox. Zach told stories about how he and his friends used to hang out in this very forest as teenagers. All right, y'all, man. Hey, I'm going to say this. Fuck the mayor. I'm going to say this. Fuck the mayor and fuck all this shit. And I love everybody for coming out to support this shit.

You're really fucking... When I tell you me, RG, everybody used to walk back in these woods and drink Red Stripes and... And walk our dogs and shoot guns and shit, so... I really don't want to see this shit happen. And I really appreciate all of y'all for coming out to do this shit. Fuck Cop City chants erupted pretty regularly throughout the night. And this is all I'm going to tell the police. This is all I'm going to tell the police.

Okay, hold on. Let me make sure I push the right button. Sing that shit. Let's go. Buckle riding. Buckle riding. Buckle riding. Buckle riding.

Buckle riding. Buckle riding. Buckle riding. Atlanta, I love y'all so much, man. Hell yeah. Hey, man. Let me say something real quick. Let me say something real quick before I get the fuck off stage.

Let my homies rock this shit. I love y'all so much for supporting this shit. I have, let me tell you, let me tell you something. I'm 32. A lot of niggas start getting old and they lose faith in the youth. I got so much faith in everybody in this motherfucking bitch. Wherever y'all going, I'm going. I truly believe that y'all going to save this motherfucking world.

So I'm with y'all. Fuck Cop City. Fuck cops in general. Fuck 12. Fuck authoritarianism. Fuck capitalism. Fuck all that bullshit. I'm with y'all to the end. I'm motherfucking dying.

So let me hear y'all say this one more time. Say fuck 12! Say fuck 12! Say fuck 12! Say fuck 12! Besides the domestic terrorism banner I mentioned in the opening of this episode, Say Bob 12! Say Bob 12! Besides the domestic terrorism banner I mentioned in the opening of this episode, another banner was hung up beside the stage featuring turtles and butterflies,

along with the Assata Shakur quote, Love is our sword, truth is our compass. This kind of music is about connecting to nature. Feeling the trees, feeling the ground, feeling each other. Look right up there. Look at the fucking moon. To quote a communique from the Sonic Defense Committee, quote,

At this point, it was impossible to imagine a meaningful police intervention. The crowd was made up of elderly people, university students, rappers, indigenous activists, toddlers and newborns, skaters, people of all imaginable Atlanta demographics. The night ended around 3.30 a.m. to sounds of house, techno, and drum and bass without any notable incident, unquote. Tents were set up all over the eastern side of the forest, with many people choosing to sleep under the tree canopy between the living room and the music festival for that first night. As the night went on, people carefully tended small campfires, both in the festival field and in the middle of the living room.

To quote the Press Collective, both in the festival field and in the middle of the living room. To quote the Press Collective, the movement was once again living in joyous harmony with the forest it had promised to protect. Tomorrow's episode will cover day two of the music festival, the frankly unprecedented direct action that took place Sunday afternoon, and a more detailed look at the police raid that happened later that evening. See you on the other side.

Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. This is part two of my miniseries detailing the March Week of Action to defend the Atlanta Forest and stop Cop City. Last episode, we covered the Week of Action kickoff rally at Gresham Park, and day one of the South River Music Festival. We'll be picking up basically right where we left off, starting with my conversation with Matt from the Atlanta Community Press Collective. Saturday night, there was music going on till like 4 a.m. It was a long night, but like a really good night.

What was your Sunday like? Sunday, you know, Sunday started off really great. Like walking in the first thing you see when you walked back onto the festival grounds was this amazing bouncy house that they had written some guidelines up there that it did seem like everyone followed. You could fit six adults, which like for a bouncy house, that's pretty large. It was a big bouncy house. It was like six adults or 12 kids or something like that. So, yeah, you see this bouncy house.

And, like, when you see that, the first thing, I think that visually sets the entire expectation. Like, that is a statement in and of itself of, like, what they were going for that first day. Day two of the music festival started around noon. Right in the middle of the RC field was this large rainbow-colored bouncy castle adorned with a Stop Cop City banner. People slowly trickled in all over the course of the afternoon, culminating in about a thousand people scattered across the field by 4 p.m. Just like the night before, people enjoyed free food,

defend the forest-related literature, and a bustling refreshment booth. While listening to live music, people played soccer and frisbee in the open field, while others were continuing to build camp infrastructure in the forest. So I think the Balancing Castle set the tone and everything was really lighthearted for the first few hours. I spent most of that day walking around, watching this autonomous infrastructure in the forest kind of pop up on its own. It's like everywhere I went to the parking lot, you saw trains of people carrying water and supplies deep into the forest. Everyone seemed to just be trying to find a place to fit in and to work and to really participate in the week of action. As the day went on, rumors started to circulate about inaction happening later that afternoon. Word quickly spread that people would meet up in the RC field at 5 p.m. Eventually, a flyer was posted to social media, and sure enough, come 5 o'clock, a group of a few hundred people,

made up of individuals and affinity groups, gathered behind the bouncy castle, most of whom were masked up and donning some form of black block or camo block. A communique posted later on the website scenes.noblogs.org described the feeling on the ground. Quote, the air was tense, no visible rage, just a steeled determination. No one knew what was coming next, but we knew it was something big. That was quite the visual, like this crowd of camo and black block and some people wearing normal clothes who I don't think quite knew what they were about to do next to this massive bouncy castle. And I think that the visual of it kind of represents two aspects of the movement, right? Like the militant aspect and the joyful aspect. And I think they are both very central to what, you know, the movement is. Yeah, it's a pretty good encapsulation of the diversity present

around the Defend the Forest and Stop Copsity movement. There is a few hundred people in camo block walking down, I believe, is Constitution. A lot of people dressed in black block, down, I believe, is Constitution. A lot of people dressed in black block. Mix of legal observers here. Police choppers overhead. Currently people are

marching west in the direction of the old Atlanta prison farm, the slate of the forest that Cobb City is planned to be built on. There has not really been a mass convergence of people like this in the forest in a long, long time. I cannot remember the last time there was anything quite like this. a long, long time. I cannot remember the last time there was anything quite like this. This is definitely the biggest group of people who's ever converged on marching on the old Atlanta prison farm area.

Last year, people were occupying and living in the forest on that side. Since the repression has intensified, more people have moved over across on the other side of Entrenchment Creek Park on the slate of land closer to Wolani People's Park and the section that Ryan Millsap is wanting to develop. Definitely never seen this many people marching like this near the forest in a much more militant-seeming group of the crowd as opposed to Saturday's first march, which was like a thousand people of various types. Everyone here looks much more willing to throw down. As the group, around 300 strong, left the RC field, they calmly marched west down Constitution

Road toward the power line cut, accompanied overhead by a police chopper equipped with a thermal camera. Copter still overhead. I'm sure you can hear it. To get a clear picture of what actually happened that day, it's useful to understand the geography of the Wilani Forest, especially since the police have tried to make it sound like the individuals who were arrested later that night were apprehended at the scene of the crime, which is not actually the case. The entire area that the defenders are trying to defend, the entire Wilani Forest, the contiguous part of it, is surrounded in sort of a triangle by three different roads, Constitution Key and Boulder Crest. All the way to the east is Wilani People's Park. And just to the west of that is the RC Field where the music festival was happening,

where the Bouncy Castle is and where our group that we're following here starts to gather. And then all the way to the west is the proposed site of cop city along key road so to get there through the forest takes a good 30 45 minutes uh to get there you know if you're you're on the road is still like a 25 30 minute walk it is it is not like anywhere close on foot uh no from point A to point B. If you're crossing through the woods, you also have to jump over Entrenchment Creek, which is not the easiest creek to cross over. It's not the easiest and it's not the cleanest.

It's not something you want to step in. I'm at the back of the march now. Everyone's kind of tightened up into one larger group. They've paused briefly and are retrieving some tires that have been found near the ditch on the road here. Dozens and dozens of tires are blocking the road. They're getting moved out pretty quick and the march is moving on. Oh, and looks like people arrived at the power

line cut. This massive clearing for power lines to run north-south. People are now marching on the green grass underneath the power lines. The thin clear cut for power lines has been there for years, and directly leads to where Cop City pre-construction work is taking place near the North Gate. The open area makes it easy to traverse, but on the flip side, that also makes it easy to surveil. There were only a little over a dozen cops stationed at the North Gate, as well as the police chopper circling overhead. The group of block is slowly, slowly moving north along the power line cut. I'm keeping my

distance for now so that I can continue doing stuff without being extremely jeopardized. The block approached the North Gate in broad daylight with shields in hand and people behind throwing projectiles in the direction of police. A barrage of fireworks, rocks, and just the sheer size of the crowd overwhelmed police, causing officers to retreat as a swarm of hundreds of people overtook the proposed Cop City construction site and current police security outpost within the Wolani Forest. All right, the group has marched a decent ways up. There's now fireworks in the distance. Police helicopters still overhead. Looks like most of the crowd is still in the area of the

power line cut. A pretty condensed large group of people up there. Lots of fireworks, like I said. Some individuals chose to focus their efforts on repelling the nearby police, giving the opportunity for others to set their sights on various targets. The large number of people in the block together allowed for individuals to feel more safe and capable of taking action. The APDs put a call out to get any available units down here by the old Atlanta Prison Farm property, and a quote from the scanner audio is,

get here now, assholes. Forest defenders smashed up and set ablaze an office trailer, two UTVs, a surveillance tower, and a front-end loader as the police ran for cover behind a fenced-off secondary smaller outpost across from Key Road. Despite the police helicopter circling overhead the gathering spot for a good 30 minutes, it seems APD was not fully prepared in their response or just did not know what was going on, because they made a decent way without any visible resistance so far. A communique posted online reads, quote,

When we approached the gate finally, it was not chaos, but it was something like it. Our crowd unleashed a wild burst of energy. It was incredible, and I will never forget it. It was rhythmic almost. We devastated all of their work, their vehicles, the trailer, everything. But it looks like Atlanta police is now trying to converge. Lots of fireworks still. I see smoke. Oh, a lot of smoke. Whoa. A lot of smoke very fast is filling up, filling up the area around the little, it looks like it's by the little control

tower in the middle of the power line cut. Wow. That smoke is thick. That's a fire. That is a decent fire. I can see the orange flame now. As the few police officers stationed at the North Gate were forced to fall back under pressure, force defenders leveled months of their work within a few minutes. To quote the Scenes.noBlogs communique, quote, this act of mass collective sabotage was done methodically and without anxiety. The crowd destroyed all of their equipment with ease and confidence. So the excavator, there was a utility train vehicle, which is what the police have been using to sort of move in and around the woods and sort of motorized move in and around the woods.

And then the office space and the storage space were all torched. I think that comprised everything that was over there. And the police surveillance tower, which has been taken down a few times. Yeah, police surveillance towers in that area, they have this tendency to fall over. The fire has gotten a lot, lot times. Yeah, police surveillance towers in that area, they have this tendency to fall over. The fire has gotten a lot, lot bigger.

Police scanner audio is saying, officer needs help, calling for all available units to converge on the spot. Wow, the fire is getting so much brighter. Smoke is incredibly thick. It looks like some people are starting to move out of the area, back into the woods. But wow, that is a huge fire. There was at least two separate things lit on fire. There were in fact more than two things on fire. Looks like the crowd

is going to be starting to move because a lot of police is about to show up. I'm not sure what the response will be for people at the music festival or at Wolani People's Park who are camping out for the week of action. But this is a pretty big action for Week of Action Day 2. Wow, this smoke plume is massive. While the action itself was a success, the notion of an overall one-sided victory was about to come crashing down. A whole bunch of sirens just flew by, about a dozen cop cars, lots of cop cars by the music festival entrance as well, by the RC field.

Looks like the cop cars are converging at the festival, not at the fire. Okay, back at the music festival. As you can hear, it is still ongoing. There's still hundreds of people, probably like 500 people gathered here at the music festival. You can see smoke in the air from this vantage point, from the spot by the power line cut where those two fires took place. One indication that this night was far from over was that the police helicopter seemed to be moving toward the festival. The chopper has moved from being the Paraline Cut to the Music Festival and Wolani People's Park. The vibe seems to be pretty chill on the ground

here. I'm not sure how many people that are present know what's going on, but the chopper is still stationed above the entrance to the festival. So I think they're looking to see if the group that marched is going to march back the same direction, which I don't think they will. But that is what's currently going on. People still seem to be coming to and from the festival. Sure enough, within minutes, an increasingly large number of police started to stage by the entrance to the RC field. Dozens of police cars are now stationed outside the entrance to the RC field where the music festival is taking place. There's a lot of police here, some with rifles.

They're getting their zip tie cuffs ready. They've not entered the festival area yet, but I got word from somebody that they have entered the Wolani People's Park parking lot. yet, but I got word from somebody that they have entered the Wolani People's Park parking lot. And it looks like movement is to be expected very soon. At around 6.30 p.m., police began to raid the South River Music Festival and started what I think is accurately described as the police's own counter-protest to the events that transpired the past past hour. So when, when the police came running up, uh, onto the tarmac at RC field where the bouncy castle was, of course they had to point a rifle at the bouncy castle. And if that doesn't show that police are not here to have fun and have joy, I don't know what, what is, I don't know if anyone was in it at the time. I don't think so.

I think they were literally just pointing a gun at an empty, bouncy castle, which they destroyed. And I think we have to take a moment to mourn that. Lots of police running into the music festival. They're running someone down, chasing down a few people. Cops approaching from multiple sides. Instead of immediately trying to confront the hundreds of music festival attendees head-on, the still extremely outnumbered cops ran to the opposite side of the music festival and started to indiscriminately go after isolated stragglers.

People running into the woods, chased by police. Someone's tackled. No one really around to be arrested. Someone else being arrested. One, two, three, four, five, six people currently arrested that I can see. Or at least being detained. Looks like an NLG person's on the ground. Eventually, the concert goers realized what was happening, and a little over

100 people mobilized to pressure the cops out of the field. People from the music festival are now running behind the police that have rushed into the RC field. Cops being flanked by hundreds of people. So the first thing that happened was a few officers entered the RC field, which is where the music festival was happening, and made a few quick arrests. Yeah, like five or six, I would say. And I would assume seeing like the crowd and realizing that a small force of officers is easily overwhelmed, kind of pulled back with their

arrestees. And then just after that, over in Wheelani People's Park, that's when DeKalb came in with their SWAT teams. There was a group that was meeting in the gazebo and they report like dozens of police officers running by. One of them stood up to record and an officer with an AR-15 yelled at them and told them to sit the fuck back down. And they did. They were allowed to finish their meeting, but they, you know, report this very surreal experience of just officers like flying by and also making arrests of individuals who were running. And then the third wave, I would say, came in on the back of a armored police vehicle with an LRAD.

Good old DJ LRAD. It brings back all the memories. And so from there, they sort of launched into the forest, launching tear gas. Again, also brings back all of the memories. And so from there, they sort of launched into the forest, launching tear gas. Again, also brings back all of the memories. Police are starting to come back into the music festival. Fireworks are happening

in the woods near the living room, it looks like. The police that entered via the RC field advanced up to join another group of cops who came in from Wolani People's Park and were already in the woods. What I first assumed were just fireworks were actually an exchange of munitions, with cops firing explosive tear gas canisters into the forest, and people trying to hold the cops off with fireworks. Tear gas is in the woods.

Fuck. It's hard, I can't get any I didn't bring my gas mask because this was a music festival it's just, the woods are completely caked in gas, everyone who's inside I don't know how they're going to get out cops have the place surrounded it's so gassed up in there

police raided, they tear gassed a section of the woods close to the RC field, kind of blocking off the RC field from the Walani People's Park parking lot and the campsites nearby. So you couldn't like really get away or run through that area because your breathing would stop, as mine temporarily did as I tried to run through there. I tried to run through there. And then police just took over this entire section of Southeast Atlanta, just this entire section of the woods, all the intersections in this area. Except for the very small space that the music festival was still going on during this entire time.

The section right in front of the stage where people continued to have the music festival for the next few hours as police were, as like, I kid you not, like over 500 police officers were in this surrounding area. There was the most amount of police I've ever seen respond to anything ever. It was wild. I am currently heading out. I will try to loop back around to Walani People's Park. There's just no way through it right now with all the tear gas. But a cop van has pulled into the RC field. Music Festival people, some of them are standing by the stage, others are kind of dispersing. The night's getting pretty hectic.

Cops fully surrounding Waulani People's Park and the Music Festival on all sides. Willani People's Park and the music festival on all sides. There was at least one individual of note who was witnessed to be at the music festival the entire time during the direct action, and they were one of the very first arrests. Police chased this person down, tased, and violently tackled them. Were you around the festival at that time? I was around the festival at that time. I even saw the police tackle someone at the festival and tackling Taze, an indigenous person at the festival. And initially the police officer, Georgia State Patrol, and these are the folks that were responsible for killing Tortuguita and making up a lie about it.

They started running and there were three people in front of them. All three of those people started running. And then there were two white folks that veered off to the left, and one indigenous person that veered off to the right. Go figure, the Georgia State Patrol veered to the right and then tased and tackled the indigenous person. And then, and there's footage of this that may not be released, where I was trying to de-escalate the situation,

because this police officer, with no grounds to attack this person, is choking them on the ground, and really just asking, like, literally, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing like why are you doing and then the person said I didn't do anything and then the Georgia State Patrol officer responded well you ran right as if running when somebody with a gun chasing you is an admission of guilt of something uh so the response was nonsensical and stupid uh so they they're tear gassing the forest and and again you know uh grabbing from reports anyone who who's who's running anyone who who you know rightfully runs from a police officer

running at them with an AR-15, which, you know, we've been around police all week. And, like, the instinct to run, you know, even now is still pretty high. No, absolutely. And if you've never been chased by police before, your first instinct isn't to, like, let them get you. Like, I've had police just charge at me for filming police brutality before. And yeah, you generally want to move away.

It is your immediate reaction. Yeah. Anyone running at you with a gun is cause for fear and a police officer even more so. Okay. I am out of the area. Police have surrounded on basically every side of Alani People's Park. The section of the forest people are camping out of. The music festival.

All entrances and exits are staged. A whole bunch of intersections. There's police staged. They're letting some people go. Obviously, they're arresting a whole bunch of other people. No clear indication on who they're arresting or why. It's pretty chaotic right now. They put out this officer needs help call

that expanded beyond just APD. But the first thing they did was, was call in every available APD officer. Fulton County Sheriff's Office joined, DeKalb County started to mount up. And then of course, the Georgia State Patrol definitely had to get in on this action. So jurisdictionally wide,

or this multi-jurisdiction wide force of police amassed on Key Road with DeKalb kind of coming in on the other side. I passed through at least 500 individual police officers. Yeah, that would check out. Because I walked a decent ways. I passed by many an intersection with at least 50 to 100 cops was stationed at like each intersection oh and we can't forget the sandy springs police department also and it's way down from outside the perimeter multiple SWAT teams there was like i think three different bear cats after i evacuated the area i was still in shock about how many police officers

mobilized to raid the festival. This is the biggest police response I've seen to anything in Atlanta in the time that I've been here. This is bigger than the police responses to most of like Portland actions compared to like 2020. Massive, massive amount of cops from multiple agencies taking over a huge area of South Atlanta and DeKalb County. As the second wave of police charged in and detained several music festival attendees, panic spread throughout the crowd. Hundreds of people rushed to the exits in an attempt to evacuate. Police blocked exits and arrested, detained, or harassed

and threatened those trying to leave. One concertgoer reported that they received death threats from an intruding officer. Quote, you're going to get shot. I don't know how else to put it, but you're going to get shot with a don't know how else to put it, but you're going to get shot with a bullet, unquote. That same person who recorded that interaction also reported that she heard an officer with his sidearm drawn in the living room say, quote, I swear to God, I will fucking kill you, unquote. Some people opted for safety in numbers and decided they'd rather stay together as a group as opposed to the risk of trying to escape through the woods alone that night. About 150 people congregated in front of

the festival stage and musicians that stuck around continued to play music. So the music festival continues unhindered until dusk. And about then is when DJ dj elrad uh comes up and uh officers get out and call over like five people from the crowd and so at this point i think there's like somewhere between 100 75 to 100 people uh still at the music fest watching the music and uh people are calling out from the stage like we have a legal right to be here this is uh public property we had we had dueling dueling loudspeakers trying to two people having a regular conversation across the field via opposing loudspeakers very scott pilgrim versus the world right like you, as the police are trying to shut down a concert, and there's like punks screaming into the mic,

and police officers using the LRAD to scream back. It's just amazing. I mean, the visuals of this whole day, I think are kind of really easy to imagine, even if you're not there. Yeah. Roughly after two hours of hunting down and detaining stragglers from the festival,

dozens of SWAT in riot gear with high-end rifles and armored vehicles slowly moved in towards the stage. Police told festival goers that they had three minutes to leave the festival under threat of arrest for domestic terrorism, to which festival goers responded by shouting no. In front of the stage, the crowd linked arms and chanted, let us go home and we have children. Apparently unable to mass arrest 150 people for whatever reason, police called for five individuals from the festival to engage in a brief discussion. After this odd negotiation with a handful of random concertgoers,

festival attendees were told they had 10 minutes to walk to their cars and go home or else be charged with domestic terrorism. About half the crowd has cars parked in the RC field. And the police allow them to go to their cars and leave. Leaving like somewhere between, you know, three dozen, somewhere around three dozen people

without cars still remaining at the festival. And this whole time, they're also chanting, we have kids, let us go. And like, it's this very big moment of solidarity that I've been told from like people who were there that you could tell that everybody was like really interested in keeping each other safe.

Yeah, it was weird because police were definitely, they were letting some people walk away and leave, letting some people drive away, arresting others, not really with no clear indication for why they're letting some go and not letting others go. But then this crowd of people around the stage were eventually allowed to leave the music festival in big rent-a-vans. The police then ID'd the people who rented the vans and were driving the vans. But everyone was able to exit who stayed by the music festival. Around midnight, the Atlanta Police Department posted a press release saying that 35 people have been detained, which was kind of weird language because everyone assumed that those

who had been taken by police were all going to be arrested and charged. But then less than an hour later, 12 individuals were suddenly released from police custody back to Gresham Park. Since then, witnesses and lawyers have claimed that police separated out people with Atlanta addresses on their IDs and released those individuals. And then the remaining 23 people, mostly with out-of-state IDs or a non-Atlanta address, were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism to continue the outside agitator narrative, bringing the total number of people charged with domestic terrorism to 42. Ever since Sunday night, there's been this effort from police and their media allies to frame these arrests as if they happened at the scene of the crime, alleging that the 23

people arrested were themselves torching equipment or actively engaged in domestic terrorism. Yet all of the arrests took place almost a mile away at the music festival, and even further away in some cases, like in the parking lot, which is on the other side of the forest from the North Gate. To quote an article in Truthout by Candace Byrne, quote, law enforcement failing to apprehend specific individuals at the site itself indiscriminately targeted the music festival, pouring into the field, campgrounds, and parking lot with weapons drawn. They issued commands, chased people down, and threatened to shoot and arrest festival attendees, unquote. Still, major news outlets

all but ignored the fact that all arrests occurred seemingly at random during a police raid of the nearby South River Music Festival, where people gathered to see Zach Fox live to jump in a bouncy castle and enjoy the outdoors. Many attendees had little to no idea of what had occurred at the Cop City construction site. Those who got lucky were forced to walk through tear gas to get to their cars, while others were assaulted by police and charged with domestic terrorism, risking 35 years in prison. Here's a clip from NBC's Today Show. We've got breaking news out of Atlanta overnight. Dozens arrested after what's being described as

a coordinated criminal attack. It happened at the future site of a police training center. NBC's Blaine Alexander is on the story for us. Blaine, good morning. Officials say protesters burned construction vehicles and a trailer and set off fireworks toward officers stationed nearby. This wasn't about a public safety training center. This was about anarchy and this was about the attempt to destabilize. Police point to a group of what they call outside agitators, saying they left an event nearby, changed into black clothing and mounted a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers. To quote a statement from the Sonic Defense Committee, quote, the indiscriminate brutalization and arrest of festival goers suggests that law enforcement

agencies will go to great lengths to paint the movement to stop cop city and defend the Atlanta Forest as a criminal organization. It is, in fact, a broad, decentralized movement with no ideological or organizational unity, only a shared goal. They believe that the movement is made up of bad actors who betray otherwise peaceful protesters, but the movement is made up of bad actors who betray otherwise peaceful protesters, but the movement is not committed to any particular tactic, instead accepting the diversity of approaches to stop the project. The police claim that the movement is not made up of any Atlantans, while Atlanta University Center students, local clergy, faith leaders, small businesses, and dozens of locally famous artists and musicians organized themselves within the movement. The police's false narrative and heavy-handed

approach to dealing with the opposition to the Cop City Project is slowly starting to enclose them in. As the movement grows and city and state officials refuse to see the reality of what they are dealing with, their own authority is being brought into question. If they are not careful, the stakes of the movement will soon exceed the bounds of the forest and Cop City. In fact, that process may already have begun. I think to talk about what happened, we kind of do have to go back to put it in context. And going back to January, that was the end of the occupation or the continuous encampments in Wilani. And then fast forward to late January, they get the LDP. And so all of these people who have been protecting the forest for so long are now watching

construction equipment roll in and they're watching clear cutting and they can't do anything about it. And you had that action just after Tortuguita's death in January, which was a very targeted, you know, only to funders and other supporters of cop city and, you know, maybe a random police vehicle. But it wasn't really like this, this letting of energy, it was a very like specific sort of purpose. And so you have this like buildup of energy that I think is really important to keep in mind with what is about to happen in this story. And so they can't do anything. And then you have Saturday where you see this mass of people return to the forest.

And I think it's almost unavoidable in retrospect to look at that and for them not to have said, what can we do now that we couldn't do before? So they gather and they do what they couldn't do before. They head over to the construction site. There had not been an action like this in the woods for a long time. Bulldozers and equipment had not been damaged in quite a while, but on Sunday, people were able to use the safety in numbers that comes with a week of action to feel more empowered to take direct action against the actual machinery that is destroying the forest and building Cop City. Sunday's action can be seen as a demonstration of the pent-up righteous anger from watching the slow destruction of the forest.

Participants view what happened as a justified strike against the active destruction of the forest. A strike back made in anger after watching the Atlanta Police Foundation make steady progress over the course of the past few months. The day before, there was this chant that was taken up by the entire crowd, And I think we talked about this earlier. If you build it, we will burn it. And that was something that if you looked all throughout the crowd, they were chanting. Everybody.

Everybody. Not just people wearing camo or black block. A thousand people. Everybody. Yeah, a thousand people marching from Gresham Park. And I think that this is that promise come true. Sunday's action was itself a pretty unique moment in the recent history of environmental and anti-police struggles.

Watching hundreds of people go on the offensive to participate in a mass-coordinated sabotage in defense of both the forest and targets of police violence felt like an unprecedented moment in our modern paradigm of resistance in the United States. But the raid on the music festival on March 5th was also just the start of an unparalleled wave of police repression during this week of action, which we will cover in the next episode. But throughout the whole week, the assurance that Cop City will never be built never faltered, as demonstrated by common chants such as, I believe that we will win.

So I'm going to end this episode with the final chant from the Saturday Gresham Park rally, right before a thousand people marched to the Wolani Forest. In Atlanta, we always end with the Asala chant. We end with the words of our mother, Asala Shakur. Because we have a duty.

There's been so much blood spilled here. Repeat after me. It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and protect each other. We must love each other and protect each other.

We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have nothing to lose but our chains. We have nothing to lose but our change! Hush change! Hush change! Hush change! Music Festival Audio, courtesy of Unicorn Riot. Come Monday morning, basically no one was in the forest. The police raid the night prior pushed out most of the people gathered for the music festival and week of action. And it was still unclear how the rest of the week would now proceed.

This Monday happened to be the Jewish holiday Purim. Initially, there were plans to have a Purim celebration in the forest that evening, but it was unknown if people would feel comfortable returning to the woods. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here, I'm Garrison Davis. This is episode three of my miniseries covering the March 2023 Week of Action to Defend the Atlanta Forest. Monday, March 6th also happened to be the day of an Atlanta City Council meeting, and the Stop Cop City Clergy Coalition held a well-attended press conference at noon outside City Hall. Reverend Kiana Jones opened up the press conference by making the clergy's position clear. We are the Faith Coalition Against Cop City, and we are here to again raise our voices

so that Mayor Andre Dickens and the members of the City Council of Atlanta know that we will not stand for the atrocities that have been occurring. We will not stand for Cop City to go forward. The community came out and made public comment for over 17 hours when given an opportunity and said emphatically, no, we don't want your cop city. We don't want more repression of Black people. We don't want more polluted air. We don't want less green space in our community.

We don't want more policing and terrorizing of Black, brown, indigenous bodies in our community. Reverend Jones gave her own perspective as a local Atlantan with deep ties to the city. So we are here as faith leaders today, and we are here to say, Mayor Dickens, if you didn't hear us the first time, we are here once again to let you know that we don't want Cop City. This is our community. This is our land. I am a daughter of East Atlanta. I still live in East Atlanta.

I don't want Cop City. My granny owns a home that she's been in for almost 50 years in the heart of East Atlanta Village. She does not want Cop City. My neighbor across the street does not want Cop City. My neighbor across the street does not want Cop City. The teachers at my daughter's school do not want Cop City. She also addressed the outside agitators narrative that police and media have continued to craft against force defenders, including by only arresting and charging people thought to be from out of town at the music festival that previous night.

So we're here today to make sure that we ring the alarm and dispel the false narrative that it's outside agitators who don't want this. We know that this is the rhetoric that's been going on ever since abolition began, that it's outside agitators. They said slaves didn't want to be free, but it was white people from the North who wanted it. That's a lie. They said that black people in the South didn't want civil rights, but it was white people from the North. That's a lie. Today they are claiming that the black people love Cop City. It's outside agitators from elsewhere. And that again is a lie. Simply because the police have chosen to systematically arrest people from out of state doesn't mean that what they're saying is the truth.

Reverend Leo Shea addressed other faith leaders and asked them to join in their calls to stop the Cop City Project. We, local Atlanta clergy and religious leaders representing diverse communities, call on clergy, religious leaders, and people of faith and moral conscience across this nation and in solidarity with local Atlanta leaders to stop Cop City, stop the swap, and defend the Atlanta forests, Welani People's Park. Today we're gathered for this press conference and we will be delivering a letter to Atlanta City Council, but we invite you to continue in this faithful work that we are doing and contribute wherever you find your space in this growing movement. We call on clergy, religious leaders, who are a moral authority in our society

to use your power in support of the forest protectors. We are deeply concerned for the greater Atlanta community and the implications for the future of public safety in the United States if Kapsudi moves forward. At the press conference, the coalition presented a letter to the city council signed by over 200 clergy members. Reverend Leo Shea also read it aloud. Despite a record-breaking amount of public comment opposing the facility, Atlanta City Council still passed legislation to build Cop City.

We are troubled by leadership that stops acting on the will of the people and aligns itself instead with corporate money and the dominant power structure. Urged on by the message of peace and compassion in all our faiths, we deplore escalating militarization by city and state government. Most recently since the police killing of Rayshard Brooks here in 2020 by the Atlanta Police Department and Tortuguita January 18th of this year by Georgia Patrol. We applaud the rising consciousness and the need to protect humans and the more than human

by resisting police violence everywhere. And may I add that in the face of the violent raid that took place last night, as city residents gathered in solidarity to defend this forest, that is an example of the militarization that we are calling out. Through violence and greed, these lands have been subjected to centuries of abuse, from the forced removal of indigenous communities, to serving as a plantation for enslaved African labor, to the site of the old Atlanta prison, Honor Farm, in the 20th century that produced immense profits for the prison system. Today, the sounds of Berg's song from the forest canopy live alongside the sound of gunfire and the adjacent APD firing range.

We are troubled by the commodification of community land, water, and air on which all of us depend. We are profoundly troubled by the use of military tactics and escalated legal charges on members of our community, legal charges on members of our community, suppressing legitimate resistance while at the same time clear-cutting the forest trees despite not having the appropriate permits. The lands and the people of Atlanta have suffered violence for too long. We say no more. We declare with faith, commitment, and hope that this land will be a part of healing and repair. We Atlanta clergy, religious leaders, and all of those across the nation and world who are in agreement join our voices with calling for the following. A complete stop of the Cop City Project. And cancellation of the Atlanta Police Foundation's lease.

Yes. Dropping all charges against forest defenders and protesters. We demand an independent investigation into the uses of domestic terrorism charges. We demand an independent investigation into the killing of Manuel Teran Tortuguita. We speak their name. For which recently released video footage of the event suggests there was lying and deceit surrounding the incident on part of law enforcement and their initial reporting of the incident. The Muscogee elder Miko Chabon Colonel spoke at the press conference and called for land back, and for the Muscogee people to return

and rematriate the Wilani Forest in community with the black and brown residents of the area. Our ancestors lived here for over 13,000 years. And if you're to do the math correctly, this country that we now call the United States is somewhere in the neighborhood of 240. is somewhere in the neighborhood of 240. Just over, oh, nearly two years ago, I came here to the Willaunee Forest. I came here with my own family, my own children, with some of my elders, to just share a little bit about how this territory and this land feels to us

as Muscogee people, because let it be known today, it was not our choice to leave here. We did go to war to protect these areas. We did go through much burden to protect these areas, only to be forced to leave here under military occupation, but also to be forced to leave here after treachery, after illegally lands were taken from us. This is our homeland.

My ancestors for generation upon generation for millennia are buried on the very ground that you walk on every day. And I think we have a say in how we should live as a society in this day and time. And so in this moment, our hope is to be able to come back, to rematriate, to take our lives back into the intimacy that we once had with everything that grows here in what you now call the state of Georgia. Because no matter who we are and where we come from, we have to have air. We have to have water. We have to have the elements of this earth to take care of us,

regardless of what we think. We're dependent on this earth mother, and she has been faithful in taking care of us. It's us that has not been faithful in respecting her. Our hope is that this earth is not destroyed before we even have a chance to come back. That lives aren't destroyed before we have a chance to come back. So today, in whatever way I come here to join the choruses of voices that you hear all around you saying, what is going on now is a violence against all of creation. What is going on now bringing death and harm and hurt is a violence against all of creation and we stand in solidarity

as Muscogee people. I stand in solidarity with the voices that we hear of those tenants, those persons who live in the land now. But my hope is now at this moment in time that somehow we can change the trajectory of our species and go into a direction where we can value each other and we can stop the criminalizing of dissent. We should be able to say no. The increasing of the militarized forces out there does not ever create peace. It only creates harm. And it only harms those that are most vulnerable. That's the prayer that I carry today.

Reverend Darcy Jarrett joined in the call for stewardship of the Walani Forest to be returned to the Muscogee people. City Schools of Decatur has a statement of solidarity and acknowledgement of harms. DeKalb County and the City of Atlanta, we call on you to make good on these words, to give the land back to our indigenous siblings so that they, as they have stated and will do and always have done, work in collaboration with the black and brown community right there near where the site is, outside of the Wheelani Forest. The city of Atlanta is ready to lease this land at just $10 an acre. Instead, give this land to the native inhabitants. Repatriate this land to the people to whom is their sacred call to defend

and work in community with the black and brown communities that are there. We call on you, Atlanta City Council, to be the moral compass and to not just halt the building of this structure, but to repatriate the land to the sovereign Muscogee Nation, the sacred keepers of this land. May it be so. Amen. So, amen. Finally, Matthew Johnson spoke about the worrying amount of police repression and violence the movement has already seen. We're projecting by the end of the day, there will be 40 people that have domestic terrorism charges, many of which just for being in a parking lot. I don't know how anybody can accept this when you have a projected 40 people that are committed of domestic terrorism, not one dead body. Meanwhile we

can't even show the bruise on the police officer that was allegedly shot at, but our friends ashes. We have the ashes of a friend that we will spread. We can no longer accept this as a people, as Atlantans. If we can't figure out a way to fix public safety without locking tons of black kids up in the blackest city in America, every person in that building needs to step down. If we can't do it here, we can't do it anywhere. Both myself and Matt from the Atlanta Community Press Collective were at the press conference, and we met up after to discuss the events of the day. During the press conference, some of the media's line of questioning was very much aligned with the types of narratives being put out by police in relation to the events that

previous night, the Sunday direct action and music festival. I think it's also worth noting that the people at the clergy event did not openly demonize the actions that people chose to take on Sunday. And it was very much like the media definitely gave them opportunities to try to throw people under the bus. And that did not happen. Yeah. and we've seen that all throughout the week. Every chance that the media is trying to throw somebody to cause dissension or a divide amongst the movement has been really handily deflected by anyone who's come across it. And the clergy did not just a good job of like not falling into that trap, but of actually pointing out how that line of thinking was like missing the point and where the true violence was coming from.

This is happening in Atlanta. And so why are the majority of people engaging in violence coming from other states? target people engaging in violence coming from other states? The reality of it is that the ones who are engaging in violence are the police, and they're from right here in Atlanta, Georgia. You got APD, you got Georgia State Police, you got GBI, you got Georgia State Troopers, you got everybody except the MARTA police who are engaging in violence and terrorism against the people who are standing against this illegal land swap. So I would suggest that the next time you decide that you are going to bring up your police rhetoric that you get from whichever police source, you go ahead and discuss that with them

because we don't know what they're doing. But what we do know is what we're doing and what we see from them that we know. I know when I get hit by an officer. I know when I see a mother with a child begging to be let up off the ground because her children are with her. I know when I see officers pointing a rifle inside a bouncy house. If I could just say, I'd like to just bring up a story. Initially, the colonizers that came onto this land attempted to use the indigenous folks as their slaves. However, the indigenous folks knew the land so they could get away. Now when you ask me about why is it that you keep catching people that aren't from here that might not reflect the people that are actually involved in the resistance. God bless you.

Thank you. After the press conference, people from the clergy coalition marched to the front door and entered City Hall before making it upstairs to sign up for public comment during the city council meeting. Fighting for freedom, we shall not be moved. Fighting for freedom, we shall not be moved. Just like the stream, lifted by the water, we shall not be moved. The large group of the clergy and the people gathered for the Interfaith Coalition are now moving through City Hall. There's a whole bunch of cops here that look relatively nervous about the decently sized group of people. The scary Christians are now invading City Hall.

Look out. So usually in City Hall, there are several APD officers who just kind of hang out. But while the clergy are walking up to City Hall, you can look out, and there is APD on every corner. And then you enter into City Hall, and there are clusters of APD. There are, I think, four floors to City Hall. There

are clusters of APD on three sides of every floor of City Hall. After an unexpectedly long awards and proclamations ceremony, the public comment section of the City Council meeting finally began. I'm standing here today with the Faith coalition. We are clergy and faith leaders. We are citizens and we are protectors of the land that doesn't belong to us, but belongs to God. We are deeply concerned for our community members, for ourselves and the implications for the future of public safety in the United States if this Cop City development goes forward. We are asking for all people of faith,

those of you who sit on council regardless of your tradition or background, and those who stand with moral conscience to stop the Cop City project. My faith convicts me and tells all of us that there is a better way. We have a prophetic moral imagination and opportunity here. To do something different in Atlanta. To do something different for the South. Finally, we're asking for a community process. A community process.

Let us come together with moral imagination to envision how the Willanee River Forest can be the heart and lungs of community wellness and healing, not more militarization of police. We want a process that centers the voice and needs of Muscogee leaders and community members, our indigenous siblings, incarcerated folks, and surrounding prisons, families and neighbors who live in close proximity to the firing range and under police surveillance. We want holistic community safety, clean water, tree canopies, a future for every single one of our children. May it be so. Someone from the Muscogee Creek Reservation in Oklahoma spoke about the desire to return to their homeland. The Miko of our Halabi ceremonial grounds back home in Oklahoma has come here, where our original fire was started, and then it was taken all the way to Oklahoma.

And now we want to bring it back to our land, and we want to start those fires again. Well, when we come back, we need a land to come back to. This is my first time coming back to visit my homelands. I wanted to visit here where my ancestors are as a spiritual and personal journey. I didn't want to come here to try to fight the violence that I'm hearing. What I'm hearing is from the residents is they need investment in housing and public spaces and not investment in further militarized policing. They want investment in the well-being of incarcerated and not further violent incarceration, but the well-being

of the community members. Thank you, Mato. Chicharis. I turned 70 last week, and I've lived in Atlanta my whole life. I'm not an outsider, and I am here to say to you that I find Cop City to be an abomination. My husband is a pastor of a church a couple of miles from here, and he could not be here today. He's out of town, but he stands with me with these comments. The people who have spoken before me have said the things I would say, but I would like to say that I pretty much agree with every single thing they have said about this insanity that you all are calling a police safety training facility. are calling a police safety training facility. So I think you need to just cancel it, start having some real conversations with the people of this city to solve the real problems in a way that will actually be effective and this

facility is not going to be it. And the mayor's proposed task force is just one more way to try to propagandize us to believe that this is good for us when we're not stupid and we know it's just lipstick on a pig. And if you harden your heart, be reminded of the story of another Pharaoh who had a very hard heart, who would not free the people of God, who would not lead them to their land. You know what happened in that story. Don't think that you will not suffer the same fate. Don't think that the infrastructure of this so-called black Mecca will not come toppling over because it will.

There are a couple things to note about how city council public comment works. City council doesn't tend to pay attention to them. Ostensibly, the only one who pays attention is city council president Doug Shipman because it is his job to call time and to call up the next person. But, you know, city councilors will like step in and out of the room, get something to eat. During the 17 hours of public comment for Cop City, like one of them held a press conference. There are two council members notoriously bad at paying attention to public comment. Dustin Hillis, who is the committee chair for the Public Safety Legal Administration Committee. Basically, he's in charge of police. And the other is Mary Norwood, who represents Buckhead and has what I would describe as ontologically evil vibes. Buckhead

is the northern, primarily white neighborhood in Atlanta that has wanted to secede from the city, which in Atlanta has very uncomfortable segregation and redlining parallels. But despite not paying attention during public comment, these two in particular both paid extra attention after public comment when police chief Darren Sheerbaum gave testimony on what happened the night previous. Were there any firefighter or police, city employee injuries at yesterday's event? Council Member Hillis, there was not. We're very fortunate that that was the outcome. We're fortunate that there was no injuries. If this continues, do we have the ability to deploy even greater force to quill this, you know, the millions of damage, millions of dollars of damage to public and private properties? We will make

adjustments as those that use various tactics. Yesterday was an escalation. We had not seen this large number of individuals engaged in this activity. And the aggressive manner in which the officers were attacked was a significant change from what we had seen before. When it generally had been setting property on fire, we'd seen police cars set on fire, windows busted. But this was started as an attack against individuals, men and women who are employees of this city. So that was an escalation, Council Member Hillis, that we have already made adjustments for, both within our capability as well as with our partners. Throughout Schierbaum's testimony, it was interesting the degree to which the chief framed Sunday's direct action as primarily being targeted against officers, and not the destruction

of equipment and machinery at the North Gate. From the videos that APD themselves released of the incident, it's clear that engagement with the police was limited to keeping officers at bay as construction equipment was targeted. And despite the continued referring of fireworks as quote-unquote mortars or explosives, as the chief himself admitted, no officers were harmed during the direct action. In a later episode, we'll hear more of Chief Schierbaum's explanation of Sunday night's events, as it gives insight into the police's own surveillance capabilities and their ability to respond quickly to direct actions. But until then, back to the events of Monday, March 6th.

After the city council meeting, I dressed up in the gayest little outfit that I had with me and went back to the woods for the first time since Sunday night for Purim. Initially, people were very cautious when entering the woods again, but as the night went on, more and more people started to pour into the forest, with some choosing to return to their camp. Later that night, I enjoyed an experimental noise show in the living room, probably to the detriment of people trying to sleep in the area. I went to the Purim in the woods. I got to share my memory of the Veggie Tales Esther story, starring the tickle monsters.

I got to bond with a few ex-evangelicals about that. So that was fine. Then there was an experimental noise show in the forest. And really, I think it actually is worth talking about because this was the first time people... Returned to the forest. Yeah, this was the first time that people returned to the forest in mass since Sunday. And you started to kind of feel people's energy get

reinvigorated. The woods became a place again that people were able to like be in and feel like they were able to be in community in the woods again. And that is in keeping with sort of how this movement has always responded to what we, I guess, could call a loss, right? Like 23 people getting arrested and charged is a, is a great loss. Yeah. And the bounce back period is, is, is pretty quick. Like the, the resiliency is, is continual and always strengthening every time that, you know, the repression grows, like it does seem like the resiliency grows with it. People were not scared away from the woods. People still, still were like, no,

this is something I care about. I am still going to be in the woods i'm still going to defend these woods and you kind of have like there's always this essence of of like fear kind of kind of underlying whenever you're like in the walani forest because you know people have been arrested and charged for laying in a hammock like that that with another defender with another defendant um and like so you you know that it is it is fundamentally a risky place to be but people think the the potential cost is worth it like they they will they continue to be here because they know this is a winnable fight and they know that it that it is worth it to defend these woods early tuesday morning a few stop cop city banner drops happened throughout the city.

Two people were detained by police during one of these banner drops, but were later released with a traffic citation after being interrogated separately and extensively photographed by law enforcement officials only identified as, quote, Georgia Police and Homeland Security, unquote. Tuesday was the start of a series of nonviolent direct actions that were being launched around downtown and midtown. Tuesday morning, I followed a small group that went to the headquarters of Norfolk Southern, one of the Atlanta Police Foundation's financial contributors and noted enemy of Ohio. They entered the lobby and it's a very small group, but I think half of it was... It was like five people

and another five press people. Yeah, so they enter and they read aloud a letter to Alan Shaw, the CEO of Norfolk Southern, calling for divestment of Norfolk Southern from Cop City. And immediately they are met with a security

guard screaming, like you're get out of the lobby leave you're you're being criminally trespassed or you're being trespassed you have to leave uh one of the other security guards runs around with a cell phone camera and like shoves it in everybody's faces reaching rather rudely over you to get my face yes Yes. And they got very close to me. Entering the Norfolk Southern building. is playing a harmful role in the city right now. You're a continued support for the Atlanta Police Foundation. Can you please leave the building? You're a prime property. Can you leave the building? And so the whole thing lasts like less than five minutes, maybe right about five minutes.

When they finished reading the letter, like all they asked was that the letter go to the CEO. Yep. While people were inside the headquarters, security called NS Police, which is the Norfolk Southern Police, who are legally allowed to arrest people. Can you please leave the building? Can you please leave the building? Can you please leave the building? Over a million dollars to the city.

Anyone can see this. Can you please leave the building? But nobody was arrested at that nonviolent direct action. The whole thing was over pretty quickly. And, you know, as we were walking out, we saw like the force of Norfolk Southern Police like swarm kind of the exterior of the campus and like keep an eye out on things. And then we moved over to Woodruff Park, which was the meeting place for these nonviolent direct actions that happened

about every day at noon, starting on Tuesday. It's Tuesday, March 7th, around noon. There's about 50 or so people gathered in Woodruff Park who are heading out and marching to go stop by two of the Atlanta Police Foundation corporate funders. We roll up and I think at that point there were like 20-ish protesters. It started off very small. There was no real visible police presence. There were like maybe a cruiser or two

like kind of around. And activists start to gather and kind of talk about like what their plan is for the day, which was just to march around to three different sites. They wanted the AT&T building, the Georgia Pacific building, and GSU.

Georgia State University. Cop, cop city! Shut it down! Shut it down! They're now leaving Woodruff Park. They got to Georgia Pacific, one of the cop city financial backers, without much incident and without much in terms of visible police presence. People called on Mayor Dickens, who is the chair of the board of directors for Georgia Pacific,

to cancel the Atlanta Police Foundation lease of the land that Cop City is slated to be built on. Mayor Dickens, we want you to cancel this lease. We know that you have the authority to do so. They finished up at Georgia Pacific. They set up a little vigil for Tortuguita. And from Georgia Pacific, they began their trek to the AT&T building. They left a little vigil for Tortuguita in front of the Georgia Pacific Center. And the group of like more than 50 people are continuing to march north. Eight to ten police officers are directly behind them,

and a whole bunch of police cars are blocking Peachtree. Along the path to AT&T was the APF's headquarters just across the street. And as the crowd approached this intersection, the amount of police ballooned massively. In the block around the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters, there's got to be about 30 to 40 officers stationed, blocking off the entrance to the APF, and also just like following the crowd around as they're marching through the sidewalks. There's definitely over, God, there's I think around 75 officers deployed in this area right now.

The number keeps growing. As we start walking down different sidewalks and different streets, you just see more officers that are already stationed. There are 50 activists and what, certainly over 100, somewhere probably between 100 and 120 police officers started marching, not like behind, not in front, but directly beside the march, sort of pinning the march to the wall and like essentially kettling the march. There was police stationed in front, there was police stationed behind, and police stationed on the side, surrounding these 50 people who were simply walking on the sidewalk. Assembling upon a new group of officers.

There ought to be about 100 officers in this area right now. At one point, a police vehicle was just parked on the sidewalk, completely blocking it. During this entire time, police were blocking all of the traffic in these intersections and roads. Driving wrong way, up a one-, like just, you know, doing, doing police things. Yeah. A Georgia State University canine unit is blocking off the entire sidewalk next to a Fulton County sheriff's vehicle. They're trying to make it impossible for people to actually move on the sidewalk. But for the most part, people have been able to move around the police and keep,

keep their movement going instead of just stalling in one spot or trying to physically confront what is now hundreds of law enforcement officers from Fulton County sheriffs and Atlanta Police Department and even Georgia State University police. So the group is split up in between two streets right now because people are trying to follow the crossing signals because otherwise police are going to tackle and violently assault people. No one was arrested. People marched to their prospective locations. People very pointedly kept to laws. There was a couple of times when, like, the crosswalk changed and the group kind of had to split.

They would stay and wait until the crosswalk went back to walk and then cross over and join. It's so funny that the cops are so insistent. If you step on the streets, you're going to get arrested and making sure people stay on the sidewalks. But the result of that is that all the cops are standing in the street and they're blocking off, like, miles of traffic downtown right now. People just arrived at the 51 Peachtree Center Avenue AT&T building in downtown Atlanta. Police were already stationed in front of the AT&T building, so there wasn't much to do.

After a brief speech talking about AT&T's contributions to the Police Foundation and Cop City, the crowd moved on. Now people are turning west in the opposite direction from the AT&T headquarters, heading back into the Woodruff Park area where this march began. Police with long guns here. Finally, the crowd stopped at Georgia State University and talked about GSU's connections to the Atlanta Police Foundation. What is of note for this action and really all of the actions that happened the next few days is not what the protesters did. It's the police's disproportionate response to just 50 people walking on the sidewalk, chanting and giving

short speeches outside of businesses tied to APF. With a small line of officers in front of GSU, they gave their last round of speeches and sort of dispersed for the day. Before we wrap today and give these clouds something else to go do, we will be out here. We will be out here for the rest of the week, for the rest of the month, for the rest of the year. And we will fight until we win. South Park City! South Park City! Some of the police are now grouping up and opening up the sidewalk so people can actually leave.

It seems officers were in fact instructed to make arrests during this action, but for some reason did not follow through on those orders, according to scanner audio from Atlanta Police Department's SWAT team. That's about 50 of them. The problem is they've been telling them to make arrests, but the officer's not making the arrest. I guess they weren't supposed to. I don't know, but I'm letting you deal with that. We'll just hold what we got and respond as needed. Extensive police activity continued later that night.

At around 5.30 to 6 p.m., police activity continued later that night. At around 5.30 to 6 p.m., police started staging a round of the forest, in a way that usually indicates that a raid is forthcoming. Word spread around the recovering encampment that police could be preparing for a raid. So the initial reports were like that there were 50 police officers staged at Key Road and ready to go. And then the DeKalb County SWAT starts to roll up at the fire station. And I would say a fair amount of like panic starts to set in at camp. Multiple police copters are getting flown overhead. Multiple different SWAT teams are being brought in.

At least like three or four different agencies are stationing officers around the woods. I believe it's estimated that at least 120 police officers were being staged in the area directly surrounding the forest and in the area by the power line cut on Key Road. And it should be said that up until this point, the police have never brought in that many resources to any protest action that I'm aware of and not come in and engaged. So I was with a group off-site who immediately began to fear they wouldn't be able to get back to their camp sites, they wouldn't be able to get their gear, they wouldn't be able to get their medication. And that't be able to get their medication. And that, from what I understand, was the general vibe around. But nothing happened.

Nothing seemed to happen. And then at around 7, police started to almost, like, express confusion on what was going on. And then everyone else expressed confusion for why the police were confused. And we think we've kind of put together what may have happened. So Clark, what is suspected of going down here? So the one thing that police don't understand and probably will never understand is humor. Now they become the butt of the joke often, but they don't understand comedy. So at seven o'clock that evening was scheduled comedy in the forest.

And from what we've gathered, the police thought that the comedy in the forest event was going to be a cover for another Sunday night like action. So this event was scheduled on the public Defend the Atlanta Forest calendar that anyone can look at online. It was this comedy in the woods event for people to tell jokes around a campfire. And I guess they thought it was like this event that was like a red herring so that people could then go do violent militancy around the woods. So when 7 o'clock came and went like police were expecting people to like arrive at the woods or something and that just didn't happen because turns out a few minutes before seven o'clock uh this comedy event was canceled for like unrelated

reasons the organizer had had things come up so this event just didn't happen but there still was comedy in the woods it just was that the police wasted probably over a hundred thousand dollars mobilizing over a hundred officers i mean obviously i think some people in the woods were you know had some frustration that that uh that you know they experienced this fear of this possibly incoming raid that then resulted in there being nothing um i think it's always important to when people are relaying information they relay this fear of this possibly incoming raid that then resulted in there being nothing. I think it's always important to, when people are relaying information, they relay information that is known without, like, unadduced speculation.

So, like, it is a fact to say that there's over 100 cops stationing by the woods, and they've never had that many cops there before without doing some sort of raid or some sort of activity in the forest. And part of what I've heard go on since then was, you know, some very generative conversations about how they're going to take into account this new paradigm that developed that night. And I think that, again, speaks to sort of just how the movement continues to develop and grow and, like, you know, handle new challenges and shifts. So with the forest camp still intact, the week of action continued on as planned with another

downtown nonviolent direct action that next morning. So Wednesday at noon is a lot smaller of direct action than the day before. It starts with like a dozen people. It slowly grows to like a few dozen. But yeah, it started extremely, extremely small. So this was one difference from Tuesday is that when we arrived, police already had a visible presence in downtown stationed around Woodruff Park. So a group of people just launched from Woodruff Park. They kind of split off in different little subgroups. Lots of people are just stationed outside of MARTA stops, handing out flyers, and that is what people are doing right now. Police seem relatively confused and are trying to mobilize to different areas where they

feel like something might happen. But it's just people handing out flyers. And they decided to split into groups and engage in like just some typical outreach activity that you would see you know from any group like just passing out flyers and pamphlets and attempting um from what i saw to have like one-on-one conversations with anyone who wanted to so this this group that it broke off into these smaller subgroups the group that we kind of accompanied stationed themselves around some MARTA stops around, I believe it was like the, it was the Peachtree MARTA station.

Peachtree Center MARTA station, yep. Yeah. So they stationed at the, like the three different exits or entrances for that, just handing out flyers, handing out leaflets, trying to, you know, talk to anybody who walks by. Another group of people standing outside of a public transit spot, handing out flyers, probably like, I don't know, four or five other small groups doing similar things throughout downtown, which means police have a lot more places to be as opposed to just following one big group. The group that we followed had its own police presence follow it.

And then when they split into three more groups, each group had its own police presence follow it. And police stuck to the protesters the entire time. And of course, like there's white transport vans that are full of cops kind of driving by. Big white van full of police officers just showed up across the street. Army green tan SWAT vehicle just parked a block away from the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters. There was an Atlanta SWAT vehicle parked outside of the Hooters. Totally normal response. Totally normal response.

And so the leafleting goes on for, you know, like 45 minutes. And then all of the groups start to gather together conveniently with the group that like we had embedded with. All right. There's actually a pretty decent number of people gathered here for the flyering event today you know normal police response to people handing out flyers just 50 officers and a SWAT team um but yeah there's probably at this point like you know two or three dozen people that have kind of all converged together it started off very small people were very very spread out they splintered off into little smaller groups.

But now they've all kind of coalesced together back again. So all the little subgroups kind of meet up on Andrew Young and Peachtree, right next to the Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe. This area is like the business district. So in the middle of the day, it's like really busy. It's a fairly good spot to pass out leaflets. So they are passing out these leaflets. Pedestrians are still able to walk through the sidewalks.

It's pretty chill. And then APD approaches the crowd. APD has already been around this area. There's the SWAT vehicle across the street watching people hand out flyers. across the street watching people hand out flyers. But then Lieutenant Neil Welch approaches the crowd and gives them a dispersal order. Okay, can I read the dispersal order? No, we're not black.

All right, so I'm Lieutenant Neil Welch, a police officer of the city of Atlanta. I hereby declare that being on this sidewalk, you are obstructing or impeding the normal and reasonable movement of pedestrian traffic in violation of Atlanta City Ordinance. Okay? In the name of the people of the state of Georgia, I hereby command that all present in the sidewalk, all present here in the sidewalk, immediately exit the street or the roadway or sidewalk. If you do not do so, you may be detained or arrested. Should you fail to exit the sidewalk in accordance with this lawful command, you shall be in violation of section

150266, obstructing pedestrian traffic, which prohibits standing or being on any street, roadway, or sidewalk in a manner to obstruct or impede the normal or reasonable pedestrian traffic. Cops threatened arrest and detainment. They claimed that people were blocking the sidewalk, which they absolutely were not. I was walking freely, as was all of like downtown pedestrian traffic. They were not blocking anything. This is pretty silly. Utterly, utterly ridiculous response to people handing out flyers. So they were told they cannot be on the sidewalk. Obviously, they can't be on the street.

Where are you allowed to protest if not the sidewalk or the street? Seemed like very flimsy legal footing, but obviously, police can arrest anyone they want at any time for any reason. So people decide to move. They cross over the street. They walk a block north. They cross the street again, and they move on to this part of the sidewalk that is really large,

like a massive, massive open section. Yeah, right in front of the mall. So it's meant to have a bunch of people pass by it. So people continue to hand out flyers. While this is happening, there's another group who comes in to the side of Peachtree Center Mall and enters the mall to find Mayor Andre Dickens. There are a couple boards in Atlanta that stipulate the mayor is the head of the board. And this is one of them. And it meets in Petrie Center Mall.

As one does. So the mayor is having a meeting in the mall. His office space is sort of above the mall. And this group of people from the Muscogee Nation enter and try to meet up with the mayor to hand off a letter. Objection. Objection! Objection! We have a letter being delivered from the Muscogee Creek Nation on behalf of Muscogee Creek spiritual leadership in opposition to Cox City. I came all the way on the Trail of Tears to deliver this letter to you folks. contemporary Muscogee people are now making their journey back to our homelands and hereby give notice to Mayor Andrew Dickens, the Atlanta City Council, the Atlanta Police Department, the Atlanta Police Foundation, the DeKalb

County Sheriff's Office, and so-called Cop City that you must immediately vacate Muscogee homelands and cease violence and policing of indigenous and black people in Muskogee lands. We lived as stewards and in relationship to this land for more than 13,000 years until the illegitimate state of Georgia negotiated with the tyrant Andrew Jackson for the militarized for the militarized force removal of Muskogee and Cherokee relatives to Indian territories. Mayor Dickens, can I give this letter to you? He got one. Mayor, we want to talk to you about our homeland.

The Muskogee Creek people. Mayor, we want to talk to you about our homeland. Mayor Dickens, why won't you be with the Muscogee Creek people? Three indigenous activists, along with Kamau Franklin, arrive and they find the mayor. They enter the board meeting and they begin to read this letter from the Muscogee Nation out loud. And in the letter, it essentially says that Atlanta is being evicted out of the Wailani Forest and the Muscogee people are going to return and reclaim their ancestral land. Mayor Dickens, in true mayor fashion, bolts away from this, running through an exit door, which is then blocked by a guard,

which I think that has its own set of legal issues. Essentially just ignoring them. Over his shoulder, he calls out, I've got a copy of the letter, and hides, just completely trying to escape what is not a good look for him. The Atlanta Police Department Apex SWAT team was called to the mall, and right as the activists were able to exit, the special police units rushed into the building, finding no one. By now, the police repression during this week of action far exceeded police activity during any of

the prior weeks of action, and this trend would continue as the week entered its last few days. The next episode will wrap up our coverage for the week, as well as contain a bit more analysis of the police repression and the fallout of Sunday's direct action. But then, there will be a fifth bonus episode that gives an overview of what's happened in the Wolani Forest in the intervening two months. See you on the other side. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. This is episode four of my miniseries detailing the March 2023 Week of Action to Stop Cop City in Atlanta, Georgia. This episode, we'll be hearing from a lot of new people as we close out the day-to-day coverage of this Week of Action. as we close out the day-to-day coverage of this week of action.

One of the last big organized rallies was on Thursday night, and it was put on by community movement builders and other Black-led groups from Atlanta. The big event Thursday night was a six o'clock rally that met at the Martin Luther King National Historic Site. There was police stationed at King Center before anyone got there. We saw like dozens and dozens of police cars going by. All around the site are various, you know, quick response forces and riot cops just ready to move in. Large police response in the area already, as has been expected for the past few days. Multiple Sandy Springs police buses were driving by. There was multiple unmarked white vans full of officers. The area is crawling with police cars.

And now there's a small detail of officers across the street from people gathering here in the park. We are currently surrounded on every side by groups of police officers in riot gear. The crowd started off like actually fairly decently sized, maybe like 50 people, and then continued as well as the speeches progressed to, I would say, like 200, 250, maybe even a little bit more. They were passing out signs. So like anyone who came, like they had a sign ready for you. Andre Dickens is a sellout, of course, is a very popular one.

There were Stop Cop City banners that people could hold. ATL verse 12, just a bunch of really clever protest slogans and things that people could get behind. The makeup of the crowd definitely leaned far less white anarchist than certainly the accusations of this movement. I think more representative of the movement as a whole. It was a mix of a bunch of different people. I would say it probably accurately reflected Atlanta demographics.

Defend the forest signs and banners are being handed out throughout the crowd. Other people are passing around the jail support number and jail support contact information. People are starting to get ready. So it meets at 6 o'clock and for about an hour and a half, we listen to a series of speeches as the crowd begins to swell. So we are here in solidarity together today to make it clear to the mayor that he's not going to keep lying on our name. They'll literally be building a mob city of Atlanta to practice how to repress, brutalize and kill people. And so we find it ridiculous. We find it disgusting.

We find it embarrassing that our mayor, Andre Dickens, would fix his mouth to say that black people want to be killed by the police, that black people want cop cities. The mayor must have forgotten that our ancestors were literally fighting abolition since they were brutally brought to this country. They were fighting for freedom, fighting the original police, right, the slave patrols that captured black bodies to take them back to their white masters. trolls that captured black bodies to take them back to their white masters. He's talking to the same black people whose elders were fighting here in these same streets in the 60s and the 70s to stop police occupation of our communities.

That's right. Resistance to police, resistance to state violence is literally in our blood as black people. It is in our DNA. They're lying on our name because they want money from the same white corporations that are funding Cop City. Home Depot, Chick-fil-A, Coca-Cola, Norfolk Southern, AT&T, Cox Enterprises, who owns AJC. And this is a fight that we will win, that we are committed to winning. And so when we talk about winning, it's important to say, what do we mean when we say that we'll

win? We mean no cop city anywhere. Not in South Atlanta, not in DeKalb, not in North Atlanta, nowhere. When we say that we will win, we are meaning that this fight does not stop with Cop City. This is a fight for the liberation of all oppressed people here and abroad. And that's why it's disgusting that the mayor and that these corporations will talk about outside agitators. The reason that there are people coming from all over the world to support this fight is because this is a fight that affects all of us. That's right. The Atlanta Police Foundation admitted that 43% of the cops being trained at that facility will not be in Georgia. Okay. So when people come from Tennessee, from New York, from California, it's because they know that their local police

might learn how to kill them better here. And when people come from abroad, they know that currently the Atlanta Police Department trains with the Israeli police. So the same techniques being used to brutalize black people are being used to practice genocide on the Palestinian people. And the same tactics being used to practice genocide on the Palestinian people, and the same tactics being used to practice genocide on the Palestinian people are being used to brutalize black people right here.

So when people come from all over the world to say stop Cop City, they're not outside agitators, they're standing in solidarity with us because this is a fight that affects us all. As the rain picked up, Tortillita's mother, Belkis Teran, spoke next. All the forest defenders, I call them. I call them to come here to support us. All the people from different religions come here and help us. This is a matter of the earth.

come here and help us. This is a matter of the earth. We're talking about the earth that is dying. The earth needs our love. The earth needs our attention. And we are, we have conscience. We know that this is not right. Don't go by yourself. When we go to activities, stay together.

Don't go outside by yourself. We need to make understand that this is the right thing to do. We are the correct people. We are right. Because we are driving by love, by caring, by concern. And we love all of you. I love you. And I know that you love me. A speaker from Black Votes Matter addressed the crowd next,

starting off by talking about the importance of mass action. I just want to explain something, because sometimes people get confused, they get it twisted. They say, oh, y'all look like voters matter. All y'all do is talk about voting. Be clear, we understand that the way that we get to liberation is not going to come just through a vote. That's never been how it's worked for our people in this country. Sister Harriet didn't get a chance to vote for liberation. She didn't get a chance to vote to take our people off the plantation, right? So we are very clear that what we have got to be, in fact, we just celebrated, commemorated the anniversary of Selma and the March of Montgomery,

but be clear, the people of Selma didn't vote for a voting rights act. They had to fight for it. They had to march for it. In some cases, they bled for it. They had to resist for it. They had to take to the streets for it. It's in their tradition that we are out here today. So yes, I believe in the power of the vote, but I also believe in the power of mass action. He then talked about the intersection of cop city, but I also believe in the power of mass action. He then talked about the intersection of Cop City and efforts to further restrict the democratic process in Georgia. The same corporations that are funding Cop City are the same ones that are funding the voter suppression. The same ones, we did a whole campaign a couple years ago when Georgia did that voter suppression bill, and we called out Home Depot and Coca-Cola and Delta and many of the other corporations that give money to the people that are taking away our rights to vote.

And then if you don't have a government that reflects the people, then what do you need? You need a police force to enforce the fact that you don't have a government that reflects the people. And so our message for Mayor Dickens, our message for the city council, is that if you don't respond to the people, you're about to lose your job. You're about to lose your job. Because we've got that power. We've got the power to make that happen. We've got that power. We've got the power to make that happen. Students from the Atlanta University Center, a consortium of four black colleges in Atlanta, were some of the last people to give speeches before the march.

We have attempted to reform our police force, add de-escalation training, add civil rights history training, and give more money to our police. But we continue to see black bodies across social media platforms, television and other media platforms being displayed, being murdered. The victims have received no justice. And when we say no justice, what do we say? No justice, no peace! The building of the Atlanta Public Training Center is an insult and an act of the utmost disrespect from our city leaders.

We have a duty to fight for the change that we seek. As an active member of this community, I refuse to sit by and be idle and just let things happen. This city has been my home ever since I was born. I have been to various events here. I have seen the sights. And I have lived through some of the most important events right here in this city. This is my home.

This is your home. This is our home. This is the home of Black Excellence. This is the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is the home of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This is the home of John Lewis. This is the home of Joseph Evelyn and Joseph E. Lowey. This is the home of civil rights. This is the home of C.T. Vivian.

This is the home of great blackness itself. This is the home of every single black person here in America. of every single black person here in America. This city, this house, this place of black excellence says no to cop city. My Afro-pessimist friends and revolutionaries both agree we are at war. The police in the city have said as much loudly with their words and their actions. It feels obvious to me that we need warriors, weapons. And I know that that fact may give some of us trepidation. But I want to assure you that we need so much more than soldiers to win this fight.

Whatever it is that you do, whatever skill you bring, I just ask that you make it a weapon. Whatever it is that you do, whatever skill you bring, I just ask that you make it a weapon. If we are ever going to experience democracy, we need your tools to be repurposed in this fight against Cop City. If you're a writer like me, child, that pen better look like a threat to Cop City. If you do mutual aid, caring for community ain't gonna get any easier. Please show us the way. If you're an artist, where my artist at? You got a lot of them out here.

Let every painting reveal the truth, including the joy and freedom that abolition calls us to. Let us make songs that inspire revolution. If you're a healer, get ready. We need you. Much will be lost in this struggle. Let us not forget. If you're a teacher, well, we got a lot to learn about this war we're fighting and how police practice urban warfare.

If you're a lawyer, guide us when they say that any fighter is a criminal. If you're a digital organizer, keep your finger on the pulse and tell our stories far and wide. And if you're a community organizer, we need to tend to our relationships, not just use them. We need real solidarity, which goes beyond unity. We need pluralism, making space for many strategies to coexist, and ultimately, we need to practice democracy if we plan to build one. Cop City is the police in the establishment preparing for domestic war right here in the city of Atlanta.

Any further training of the police is training against our existence. That's right. That shit cannot be built. Our city will never be built. It will never be built. We all must fight for the democracy we've never seen before.

What are you willing to do? Thank you, y'all. So after about an hour of speeches, people are now finally getting ready to move. They announced on the loudspeaker where we are going. We are marching to the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters on Peachtree, the same location that had the front windows broken on the protest following the killing of Tortuguita that Saturday. So people leave, they stick onto the sidewalk because there's cops staring at them and cops

definitely had indicated that if people step onto the street, they would be arrested. they would be arrested. The length of the march is stretching for about two or three city blocks, just because, you know, trying to cram 300 people onto a sidewalk makes that stretch out really long. But the cops have been pretty adamant that if anyone steps onto the street, they're going to get arrested. There's a banner being carried across that says, What You Water Grows.

Fund Our Future. Stop Cop City. Defend the Forest. People with the Stop Cop City signs in the Coca-Cola font, signs that read Atlanta versus Cop City. No Cop City on Stolen Land. Santa versus Cop City. No Cop City on stolen land. The Thursday march definitely had the most amount of signs out of all of the individual marches or actions that I went to.

Both small handheld signs and also signs with really tall handles to hold up above the crowd. Pull streets! Pull streets! Pull streets! Pull streets! All right, people are being led into the street now after walking on the sidewalk for a decent while. People have now taken to the streets. Along the path of the march, a projector was set up projecting Stop Cop City slogans onto the side of a building, all with really good graphic design. Visuals is definitely a strength of the movement. There's this police riot helmet that has a tree growing underneath it, breaking apart the helmet. It says, trees give life, police take it.

We got a police riot line set up a few blocks ahead of the people marching on the street, right next to the building with these Stop Cop City stuff projected onto the side. Rather than let the police do an escalatory show of violence, people opted to move back onto the sidewalk to continue the march uninhibited. People seem to be moving closer back onto the sidewalk as they're staring down this riot line. And police are now heading back inside their white rent-a-bus little vans that they've been staging their riot cops out of.

And they're driving off. People are now in downtown Atlanta outside of the Georgia Pacific Center. We have, like, 12 regular police cars, the two white vans full of riot cops and lots of other cops staged in places I cannot currently see

alright we're marching north along Peachtree Street heading to the Atlanta Police Foundation got the two bus max rent-a-buses full of riot cops right beside

the march. Cops really adamant about not letting anybody march in the street. It's funny because a few days ago, they wouldn't let people stand on the sidewalk either. Most of the cops that are surrounding the march right now are still in their vehicles, at least from this current vantage point. As opposed to the non nonviolent direct action marches

and actions that have happened launching out of Woodruff Park the past week, in which the police just tailed and surrounded the march on foot. I think this march is just slightly too big to use that tactic, so they're surrounding them with vehicles instead. As the march arrived at the Atlanta Police Foundation, the hundreds of protesters crammed onto the sidewalk were greeted by armed APD officers. Riot police are standing in front of the boarded-up Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters at 191 Peachtree. There is a large, large crowd in front of these relatively small amount of officers standing in front of the boarded-up doors. A few dozen cops, some armed with AR-15s.

A lot of cops stationed outside the APF headquarters, and even more stationed inside APF headquarters. Police blocked off traffic on this section of Peachtree Street basically sandwiching everybody in. They could have mass arrested, as I'm sure they wanted to. Yeah, the police were ready to mass arrest

the entire time. This is kind of a wild sight. We have hundreds of people staring down. About three dozen officers from the Atlanta Police Department armed with AR-15s. Obviously all of their handguns. But hundreds and hundreds of people holding signs, staring down the police. You can feel the temperature rising a little bit here.

The cops look very nervous as hundreds of people who are chanting at them and are not very happy are facing them down. They're so close together. They're just sandwiched in. This is such a tense situation right now. No one in the crowd has any visible weapons of any kind, of course. They're holding big signs. Cops have some zip cuffs ready. Cops have all of their guns ready. I was able to see inside the building via a small slit in the

plywood. There were tons of riot cops inside with shields, and all the cops on the inside of the building had gas masks strapped to their leg. At least one riot cop on the other side of the door was wearing a unique armored suit. Not like the regular police suits with riot armor, like on the outside. This armored padding was built into the clothing. He had these massive bulky leg pants with armor on the insides of them

and like a massive riot helmet. He was one of those cops who doesn't need a riot shield because his body is the riot shield. It was very weird. But for those first few minutes, it was a very high stress situation in front of the APF building. It felt like neither the crowd nor the police knew exactly what was about to go down as a few hundred angry protesters were pushed up against a line of armed police. But as time went on, you got the impression that this crowd was probably not going to initiate conflict with the police. I feel like some of the mood has maybe kind of died down.

Cops are starting to kind of move around the crowd a bit. There's cops being stationed to the north, to the south, to behind the crowd on the other side of the street. This could go so many ways right now. This could end in so many different scenarios. But people have not initiated anything other than standing on the sidewalk and chanting and giving speeches. If you look, there's a small section of the APF building where there's still a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of glass by one of the doors.

And you can see lots of cops stationed inside with riot shields. But I do not believe this crowd's going to be busting down any doors. Camu Franklin, the founder of Community Movement Builders, was the last person to speak in front of the Atlanta Police Foundation. the movements against police violence and terrorism in our community. It is in 2021 that they introduced this idea to put Cop City out here to stop our movements. When people were talking about defunding the police, abolish the police, find alternatives to public safety, they said, hell no, we want more police. And they put that idea out there.

And the movement was born to stop Cop City. This movement is two years old, and it doesn't look like it's going to stop to me. By the end, you got this sense that this march did exactly what it wanted to. There were 300 people standing like a foot away from two dozen cops, staring them down, giving speeches, chanting. If people wanted to, other things could have happened. This rally could have resulted in many ways, many of them probably very ugly, and carrying a very high cost. The reason we did a march like this today was to say to all the naysayers, black folks don't want cop city.

Indigenous people don't want cop city. White folks don't want cop city. Atlantans don't want cop city. Folks from outside Atlanta don't want cop city. Nobody in the United States wants cop city. The Palestinians don't want cop city. The people in Latin America don't wants cop city. The Palestinians don't want cop city. The people in Latin America don't want cop city. No here in this world do we want cop city. We wanted to make sure that we came in safety and we leave in safety.

We wanted to make sure that we don't have any more political prisoners today. That we wanted this to be a march about our unity and our safety in numbers. And as we wrap up today, that's what we want. It's not like we got to give them an excuse. When you're around a cop, the same way when you're around a wild animal, what do you got to do? You got to be cautious. You got to be careful. You got're around a wild animal. What do you got to do? You got to be cautious. You got to be careful. You got to move a certain way.

You got to know which way to go. Because you're looking to protect your safety. And right now, I'm looking to protect our safety. So as we depart here today, we are departing in unity. We are departing in unity. We are departing together. We are going to walk back in close quarters together where our cars were. If you're going to martyr,

you're going to walk close together with other people as you go to martyr. If you need a van to pick you up, if you can't take martyr, two blocks this way by the plaza. So we want you to be safe, secure, because we want to be out here again to fight cop city. There was this sense that the people there wanted to show that if they wanted to do things they could have, but they knew that this was not the right time nor the right place.

Restraint and understanding of what like praxis, I would say, in that situation is. And I mean, in the speeches that happened beforehand, there was people from community movement builders, from Black Votes Matter, a whole bunch of other like black-led groups in the city. And similarly, like what happened at the clergy event, there was not a single whiff of condemnation of militant tactics, of property destruction, of actions that people take. People there who gave speeches recognized that such tactics were a staple of the civil rights movement. Early Saturday morning, I woke up to news that police had begun another raid. But instead of raiding the Wolani Forest,

the police were searching the 10-acre property of the Lakewood Environmental Arts Foundation, or LEAF, a local non-profit that was offering safe haven for people during the week of action. Alright, so the Atlanta police have executed a warrant on the Leaf meetup spot in Southeast Atlanta that people have been using as a welcome center, as like a medic station, and just another spot to hang out. It was set up after the raid on Sunday night,

and it is now Saturday morning. The police have executed this warrant, search appearances, ID, everyone who's there. We got a group of people that's being able to leave right now. There has been a prison transport vehicle called in and cops have blocked off intersections around the area. No one's allowed to get close. People are not allowed to return to their cars. People are not allowed to return to their private property. Since Sunday night, the land was being used as a medic hub and provided a secondary place to camp for those who didn't feel safe staying in the forest. During their raid Saturday

morning, police detained at least 22 people and refused to show anyone the search warrant. And yeah, the group that got released is just walking up now. Maybe like two dozen people have been able to walk up. We just got through their police lines and we're gonna, yeah, huddle up and get to a safe place. We were woken up by helicopters. There had been helicopters doing rounds all evening. And I don't even know what time, seven something. We heard loudspeakers saying that they had a warrant to search the property, private property. And that was very disorienting, obviously.

I was in the middle of sleeping. We came out with our hands open, our hands up. We had more than 20 guns pointed at us. Some people have their fingers on triggers, certainly. They were screaming at me as I was waking up. We came through the line. They said that they had a warrant to search the property. We know that Homeland Security was one of the departments that was part of the arrest crew or extraction crew or whatever.

It's very traumatic, obviously. It's freezing. This is the coldest day of this week. And so we are, you know, worried about people's health because people are cold. They detained us. They took identification. It was, yeah, extremely violent situation. But everyone here was really taking care of each other and remaining calm. To address the raid, activists scheduled a press conference for later that day after a youth rally to defend the forest was to take place in East Village. And I think you can hear said youths in the background, so excuse their joyous young screams.

We thought that it was important for us to not only amplify the wonderful children's march that happened here today, the community in East Atlanta, this community where they are proposing to build Cop City, came out this morning overwhelmingly to say that they don't want Cop City. So we had parents, we had children, we had other neighbors and community stakeholders who gathered right here in Brownwood Park today in East Atlanta to say that we are East Atlanta and Cop City is not a part of what we imagine and envision for this community. Also this morning, unfortunately, there is a place that was held as a commune for campers who wanted to stand in solidarity during this week of action. The place is called LEAF, L-E-A-F. That is the Lakewood Environmental Arts Foundation,

a nonprofit organization that's dedicated to combating food insecurity here within the city of Atlanta, offered up their space to be used for people who did not feel safe camping in the forest because of the over-aggression of police there, and they wanted to stand in solidarity with this week of action. So LEAF offered up their space for those people to camp safely. Unfortunately, this morning, a gang of police officers descended upon that sacred space. During the raid, up to 40 officers swarmed the property, ransacking the infrastructure set up at the Leaf encampment site. Cops slashed apart two medical supply tents,

disrupting medic operations, broke windows of a camper van parked on the site, and ripped apart a greenhouse. Police took pictures of the people detained at Leaf and collected their IDs, but after being held for several hours, the police let all but one person go free. To quote an article by Candace Bernd in Truthout, quote, one person was arrested for an outstanding parking ticket, demonstrating the state's desperation to snatch up anyone associated with the Stop Cop City movement. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Marlon Kautz.

I'm an organizer with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. We're a civil liberties and anti-repression organization that exists to make sure that people who participate in social movements have the right to protest and don't suffer from repression. So the reason I'm here is because, as we've all heard previously, there was an incident of political repression early this morning. Police executed a search warrant and performed a raid against the Lakewood Environmental Arts Foundation, which is a community space in Lakewood, Atlanta, that exists primarily to serve artists and musicians. It's clear that it was part of a political strategy to repress and intimidate protesters

who are associated with the Stop Cop City movement, a movement to defend the forest. This is very concerning, especially when taken in context. Of course, it's very likely that police are going to report that this was part of a routine investigation, a law enforcement matter that they had every right to conduct. The other thing that police are likely to claim is that they made an arrest on scene. And our understanding is that they did make an arrest

due to somebody who was there having an old traffic ticket from a long time ago. So it's important to clarify that the arrest was because of a traffic ticket, not because of any alleged crimes related to the movement or any other serious criminal activity. serious criminal activity. So it's important that we understand this raid as part of a series of ongoing abuses of the legal process to harass and intimidate political protesters. They were unable to demonstrate any criminal activity during their raid on the Lakewood Environmental Arts Foundation, but they're continuing to abuse every justification that they can to raid spaces, to make arrests, and to hold people in jail. So, before the police come out and say, we raided this place where all of these outside aggressors were, and we picked up some violent offenders, we want you to know that our brothers and sisters who are standing with us in solidarity just saying hey we want to camp here since we

don't feel safe camping in the people's park that's been overrun with police repression and aggression they raided that place they snatched people up some people were sleeping. They took pictures of people. They took their IDs and they searched and searched, found nothing else, never produced a warrant. And only one person was arrested because of an outstanding parking ticket. About a week after the raid, the Guardian obtained evidence of the search warrant. The warrant stated that there was probable cause for believing that evidence of, quote, conspiracy to commit domestic terrorism, unquote, could be found at the Lakewood location. Listed in the warrant were objects officers sought, which included, quote, cameras, radios, boxes of nails, lighters, tents, camping equipment, spray paint, black clothing,

and literature related to defend the forest. These were the materials tied to domestic terrorism. As the week progressed, there were an increasing number of reports of police tailing people coming and going from marches, and especially the actions downtown. Basically, officers would follow people suspected of participating in the movement, pull them over, try to ID anyone within the vehicles, and then issue some nonsense traffic citation. This continued on Thursday after the Community Movement Builders March. As people were heading home from the public park, police stalked a few individuals and pulled over multiple vehicles. A van carrying one of the

speakers was targeted, as well as two other cars that were pulled over as they were leaving the protest. Marlon from the Atlanta Solidarity Fund talked about the various ways police have been using their power to intimidate activists and suppress protest. Our organization has gotten many reports of pretext stops of political protesters or people who are suspected of being political protesters because of bumper stickers on their car or the state that their license plate is from. We've gotten reports of people being stop-and-frisked simply because they're profiled as looking like political activists. And of course, we've seen dozens of protesters, or suspected protesters,

arrested and charged with domestic terrorism simply because they were found at a music festival that's associated with the stop cop city movement and so we can see that every step of the way police and prosecutors are abusing the legal process to intimidate and discourage this movement throughout this time police have been watching or monitoring one of the off-site locations in the forest um they've parked in front of this site and kept up surveillance on it. And then leading all the way up into Friday,

there was a journalist pulled over, leaving the final nonviolent direct action from Woodruff Park. They were pulled over with two other people in the car and detained briefly, ostensibly to continue to identify and connect people. A big part of the story for this week of action is the excess of the police response to quite typical acts of quote-unquote non-violent protest, the sort that the government and even the police love to claim that they actually protect. With every single action downtown this week,

virtually no laws were being broken, not even any civil disobedience. People were handing out flyers, marching on sidewalks, giving out letters. And the police's response was to deploy SWAT, to mobilize hundreds of officers to shut down multiple city blocks, to carry AR-15s as they tail crowds of a few dozen people just walking on the sidewalk and yelling at people if they accidentally misstep off the curb and threaten violent arrest. This was the sort of extremely aggressive response to people doing protests, quote-unquote, the right way. We should highlight that that is the apparent goal of these protests was to show that even when they are doing things the right way, this is how the state reacts to dissent. demonstrating why people are campaigning to stop Cop City. Because the sheer amount of resources that the police already have in the city

to be deploying hundreds and hundreds of officers every single day to respond to people handing out flyers, to respond to people who are walking on the sidewalks. They have this massive amount of resources. They're using tear gas in the woods. They're using pepper balls. They're using tear gas in the woods. They're using pepper balls. They're using flashbangs. They're having multiple different SWAT teams follow around people handing out

pamphlets. The level of police militarization in Atlanta is already at this extremely high point, and Cop City is only going to intensify that. And that is the reason they want to build Cop City. going to intensify that. And that is the reason they want to build Cop City. It's for this type of urban counterinsurgency training to quell civil unrest and to quell protest. On Thursday night, we held a very peaceful and successful march in downtown Atlanta, starting at the King Center. We had someone who was stopped by the police and asked if he was picking up protesters, taken out of the vehicle, handcuffed for no reason. They couldn't find a reason to detain him any longer, so they had to let him go. But Atlanta, this is why we're standing against Cop City.

Because if Cop City is built, you can guarantee that you won't even be able to go to the grocery store without being harassed by the police for no reason at all. When I spoke with Matthew Johnson, he brought up a similar point. With the resources that the police had to respond in the way that they did, the assertion that they need more training in a militarized facility or they need more resources is crazy because you have them literally outnumbering protesters and kettling them and we have credible sources that say that there were swat forces who had instructed the officers to arrest non-violent protesters and there were actually police officers

that refused to take that order, which I think is another fascinating dynamic that is worth exploring and understanding more. But just with the resources that they had to try to shut down protesters, harass folks, constantly ticket and pull over people that they saw, you know, creating like a logistical framework for the week of action is nuts. And they're making our point for us. that Tortugita had bullet holes through both of their palms, and that they were more than likely sitting cross-legged with their hands up when they were shot by police.

And now we are supposed to be convinced that these people that lied about this killed somebody that was absolutely no threat to them on the same grounds that they're trying to build this police training facility. We're supposed to believe that this is going to make them less violent towards people. Like as you're building a militarized police training facility and like people that try to convince themselves that these is going to be a place where people are also being taught de-escalation tactics. where people are also being taught de-escalation tactics, while everything around it is militarized. It's like if you had somebody build a water park,

and you're like, oh yeah, I'm just trying to stay dry, I don't want to get splashed, anything like that. And it's like, oh no, no, no, don't worry. We have a food court right in the middle of it, and it's great. You really just come in there for the food court, so don't worry about it. And then, like, you go there, and then you get splashed. What were you expecting? Like, that's obviously not what that facility's for,

because all the infrastructure around it is made to be a water park or a militarized police training facility. So don't be surprised when maybe they might have one de-escalation program and like, you know, where the food court would be. And then somebody gets killed, right? Because they're actually building the infrastructure for killing. So that's where we're at. This week of action has shown a lot about how the police are operating

post the 2020 uprising, how they will respond to people exercising their First Amendment right, and the indiscriminate way that police will respond to any act of protest. One of the main takeaways from this week is that their response to protest is deployed against people without target or focus. They care very little if you are breaking a window or if you're marching on the sidewalk. They're still going to send the SWAT team. Police are acting as if they are entirely incapable of differentiating between acts of dissent.

Toward the end of the week, I sat down and talked with an unnamed forest defender to get their thoughts on the week of action. For security reasons, we did a vocal replacement. The police presence has been pretty unprecedented. I haven't seen shit like that here since 2020, not downtown at least. I mean, shit, I don't think we had seen gas in Atlanta in a minute, and then they gassed the forest. It'd been a while, but yeah, I mean, they're punching out, especially like Tuesday. They were putting out 150, 200 cops through the entirety of downtown. I mean, multi-jurisdictional task forces deployed, multiple different Atlanta APD SWAT teams between like regular APD SWAT

and APEX, which is like the drug and gang interdiction unit. I mean, a fucking whole drone unit, GSP, some weird unmarked cars that I won't speculate on, helicopters, all that shit. You know, the type of police response you would expect to see in like a dystopian fucking police state for some people handing out flyers that just say, this is bad for the environment. It doesn't matter how milquetoast or not. And like, I shouldn't say milquetoast. Like that's not a bad thing. We need people to go hand out flyers. We need to inform people as far as what this is to get people involved, but like as nonviolent as you can get, and still they're going to treat you like you're fucking Al Qaeda, you know? And it puts you in a weird position because then it's like, okay, cool and still they're going to treat you like you're fucking al-qaeda you know and it puts you in a weird position because then it's like okay cool if you're going to treat us

the exact same for being non-violent why not do crime if the police response to an assault on an outpost that drove the police out and burned five things down the police response to 15 people handing out flyers downtown are going to be about the same then why not take more militant radical action? The 23 people arrested on Sunday, March 5th, were not arrested as anyone was torching equipment. They were not arrested at the power line cut. It was people who were attending a music festival. Arrests were not widely targeted against people who police knew were engaged in property destruction. They were targeted against anyone the cops could grab. Same was the case at the January 21st action, where people were marching downtown the Saturday after Tortuguita was killed. The only people arrested and subsequently charged with domestic

terrorism was anyone the police could get their hands on. Officers went after people who were carrying banners the entire duration of the march. It was not targeted against people who were engaged in militant action. Among all this talk of police repression and multiple raids, it's easy to overlook that throughout the week, people still sought opportunities for finding joy in resistance, because most people wouldn't dedicate years of their life to this if it was just miserable battles with police the whole time. I think one thing that's been lost in all of this too is all of the lighthearted events that have continued to go on through the week and the joy

of the movement that was represented in the bouncy castle rip. But that joy is continuing in the woods. People still continue to camp in the woods. People are still having dinner in the woods. People are still having campfires. People are still talking in the woods. It is still a place that people are gathering at and are enjoying each other's company in. They are enjoying the woods in.

It is a place that the morale has never been fully crushed. The morale has never been fully crushed. And like the participatory acts of the week of action are continuing. Like none of that has been quashed. An example of the joyful, continuous resistance during the week of action can be found at the youth rally that happened on Saturday the 11th. All right, so I'm at the youth rally Saturday after the warrant was served on the meetup spot in Southeast Atlanta. There's around 200 people marching through East Village in Atlanta. Pretty, pretty joyous group here, actually. And they're actually like on the streets. This is the first time we've had a large march like this take to the streets,

because every action that was in downtown or midtown Atlanta was just so heavily surveilled by police, who were not letting anyone get near the street at all. But there's no police here. They were busy doing the search warrant. So this group is actually able to take to the streets. doing the search warrant. So this group is actually able to take to the streets. It's like everyone kind of in this area of Atlanta is pretty pro this little protest here.

There's like workers from the little shops and stores nodding along. Fulton County Sheriff's just walked by the march like on their just, you know, off shift workout routine wearing Fulton County gear. That's pretty funny. People dancing in the streets. Families walking with their kids through the streets. All right, I'm walking around the park that the youth rally started at and the press conference about the raid this morning just ended at. There's, as you can probably hear, kids playing in the park.

People are handing out food, massive, massive amount of food just in the middle of the park with all these tables set up. Overall, this is kind of one of the more joyous events that we've had since the initial Saturday rally at Gresham Park. Just with the amount of food, the amount of kids just running around and playing, all of the information tables that are handing out literature, making connections with people. When I was down here in January, the mood was very somber. The mood was very grim, like coming to the vigil when there was the destroyed remains of the gazebo, the torn up parking lot, all of the trees in there still within their like winter state with all of the leaves gone. Everything was very kind of barren. And the first thing I noticed on Saturday as we were marching is like there's new life springing in the woods. There's this invigorated

sense of the almost assurance of victory that people are carrying with them as they take action. And I think that really does change what the action you take is. And that does change the types of results that people will see is if they go at this with the idea that we are going to win this. And I think that that is kind of why the nonviolent direct actions have become like have moved to the fore, right? When you think that you're going to lose and you have nothing to lose, When you think that you're going to lose and you have nothing to lose, you engage in these incredibly radical actions because what else are you going to do? And then when you have this belief that, no, we can win, we just have to find that pathway. And that is a part with a diversity of tactics.

With people doing nonviolent action at noon, which will pull a massive militarized police response as people are doing regular ass shit. And then a part of diversity of tactics is also people leaving a music festival to go torch a bulldozer. And both of those things are a diversity of tactics. Now, I stand by most of that statement. However, issues can arise when there is a ticking clock. And during the time spent looking for this pathway, the enemy, meanwhile, is making steady progress. Issues may also arise when a large diversity of tactics is shoved under just one roof. I had a lot of conversations with movement participants regarding the direct action that happened on Sunday night, and how it cast a shadow of repression over the whole week of action. To synthesize the many conversations, in general, most people thought

that what physically happened was good. The actual actions at the North Gate were successful and justified. But there are other things on the periphery of that action that make it slightly more complicated. And now we can have lots of questions about tactics and cost-benefit analysis about that action, which I did not think it would be wise, especially being so visible for me to have to be anywhere near on that day. We can have questions about that, but what was for certain was that the way in which the police responded was absurd. Impredictably so. Now, with the destruction that I saw, et cetera,

it cost them less than a million dollars and maybe like two weeks, actually, of construction that they were pushed back. Max. These are like max numbers. Was that worth 23 people being arrested and quelching what could have been a larger occupation and wider participation and wider buy-in in the movement. Instead, by the time we got to Monday, the clergy was having to do cleanup rather than like cast a vision of what the world could be. And so these are trade-offs, right? Where even though we have to be very clear about what a diversity of tactics means and also a separation of time and space.

So, I mean, we can't just look at a diversity of tactics and everybody does what they want as if they're operating in a silo. But rather, we give space for one another to do different things that may work, respectful of the fact that some of our actions may affect one another. In the lead up to the week of action, nighttime sabotage actions decreased around Atlanta in favor of these big public demos during daylight that seemed to result in more people getting arrested. that seemed to result in more people getting arrested. And one of the results of Sunday's action happening in such close proximity to the festival and the encampments is that the people at the festival and in the woods who did not consent to participating in a high-profile direct action got disproportionately hit with the immediate repression from police. A lot of the people who were arrested were

completely unaware of the actions that took place at the North Gate. Even if those actions were 100% justified in the end, it still creates a dynamic with an unequal distribution of police violence. Now, obviously, the woods are an inherently dangerous place to be, and people are not responsible for actions that police choose to take. But there are still considerations to be had regarding the proximity of space and time when engaging in more risky actions, and how the consequences of those actions may affect people who did not consent to participating in actions at other locations. may affect people who did not consent to participating in actions at other locations. Especially when people are lulled into a false sense of safety by claiming that police have never cracked down hard in the forest during previous weeks of action.

Yeah, in terms of the actions done Sunday in reference to a group of people assaulting a, like, police position, driving them out with force and then burning their shit, that was all good and we should not denounce that or step away from it. It only harms the movement to back away from radical action and act like there are definitions of good and or bad protesters, because eventually the logical conclusion of that is snitching, and that only furthers, like, the GBI's motivations to tear the movement apart. What went wrong Sunday is as a result of two things. It's one that the police use indiscriminate violence when people beat them. They were beaten. They got angry and they were beaten because they got their shit rocked by like

fireworks. And then they use indiscriminate violence against people who they knew were on the side of like where the events were that weren't where all the militants were coming back from. They didn't want to go up against those people because they're cowards. And second, because of how big the movement's gotten over the past two years, the strategy of the weeks of action has stagnated. It's made it so compact in a singular week that when you have all the diversity of tactics that exist within Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop Cop City, those tactics, with how big everything is now, they start to step on each other's toes. They can hurt each other sometimes because yeah,

not everyone who was at the RC field was like ready for the consequences of like a militant radical action like that. And that doesn't mean that the action wasn't good or justified because the action was wildly successful. There were no arrests made at that action. There were arrests made when the police got angry and used indiscriminate violence because they were pissed off and they wanted to riot. So they retaliated at a music festival that was happening nearby. Yes. And that's the fault of nobody but the police. That's not the fault of the people who went and assaulted that outpost. That's only the fault of the police and really the fault of a bad long term strategy of two heavily compacting factors of, you know, being just like a weak and

where. Making it so this movement where people can take radical action, it feels so limited to just inside the forest because, yeah, that puts people in harm's way and that put people in harm's way, including the people who, you know, went and did the thing on Sunday. But no, it would be wrong as the movement to like balk at a radical action like that. Radical action like that is such a big part of why this movement has been as successful as it has been. It's a huge part of why the police didn't do like a full sweep or a larger sweep or a series of raids in the following days. Because they were afraid that those 300 to 400 people who hit that outpost were lying and waiting in the forest ready to attack them because they were afraid of militant radical action. forest ready to attack them because they're afraid of militant radical action. On Thursday, when I was in front of the APF building, I could like hear some of the supervisors and coordinators talking about being scared of ambushes or like being scared of splinter groups, like being staged

to attack officers. It's bizarre how fearful they are of the types of people who are opposing the Cop City Project. They're the most afraid of the people who are opposing the Cop City Project. They're the most afraid of the people who are willing to go do physical violence to them. And not even physical violence, but people who are just willing to like throw a rock at them or like a firework. Once they realize that they haven't paralyzed somebody with fear, once they realize that they've not made you so afraid of taking action, they become such cowards. In the aftermath of the police killing forest defender Tortuguita, law enforcement agencies tried to claim that Tortuguita shot at them first, leaving one

officer injured. But recently released findings from multiple autopsies have cast more doubt on the state's version of events. On the afternoon of Friday, March 10th, towards the end of the week of action, the family of Tortuguita released the findings of an independent autopsy done by former GBI chief medical examiner Dr. Chris Sperry. The results suggested that Tortuguita was sitting cross-legged with their hands in front of their face when shot, and bullet exit wounds through the palms of both of their hands. The family-ordered autopsy also did not find any evidence of gunshot residue from a GSR test kit. And then a month later, DeKalb County released the results of their official autopsy, which found at least 57 bullet wounds across Tortiquita's body, and according to this autopsy,

Tort did not have any gunpowder residue on its hands. Then, a few days later, via a public records request, the Atlanta Community Press Collective received the gunshot residue test kit from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's crime lab. The document contained the names of six Georgia State Patrol SWAT members who shot and killed Tortugita. Bryland L. Myers, Jerry A. Parrish, Jonathan Salceda, Jonathan Mark Lamb, Ronaldo Cagle, and Royce Zaw, with Zaw being the subject of a lawsuit after he shot a protester in the face with a less lethal round during the George Floyd protests in May of 2020. The document also included the results of the GBI's crime lab report, claiming that they found, quote, the presence of more than five particles

characteristic of gunshot primer residue, unquote, from a test kit, with the report also stating, quote, it should be noted that it is possible for a victim of gunshot wounds to have GSR present on their hands, unquote. Considering that among the more than 57 gunshot wounds were entrance and exit wounds on Tortuguita's hands, which could be cause for gunshot residue if the crime lab findings are genuine. The findings do not point to any specific interpretation of events, as it's not unusual to find primer residue on the hands of a victim following the path of a bullet. Plus, coupled with the ever-changing story from the GBI, on-the-ground chatter from APD officers claiming that Georgia State Patrol fucked their own officer up, as well as reports from forced offenders from the day of the shooting,

there is indication that Georgia State Patrol most likely suffered from so-called friendly fire, with many people believing that the killing of Tortuguita was essentially an execution. Incident reports obtained via public records requests also revealed that GSP fired a less-lethal pepperball gun at Tortuguita's tent as SWAT initially approached, once again contradicting the claims made by GBI officials in the months since the killing. As the week came to a close, on Sunday, March 11th, a memorial service for Tortuguita was held in the Walani Forest, where Tort's family spread their ashes in the forest it died to protect. and poured down rain in South Atlanta throughout the whole morning. Hundreds of people gathered in Wolani People's Park to light candles under a canopy and hear from Tort's family.

Then, led by Tortuguita's mother, we walked through the forest to the site of the shooting, where a banner hung that read, quote, On this ground, GSP assassinated forest defender, comrade, friend, lover, Tortuguita. Family and friends spread Tortuguita's ashes throughout the woods along the path. To quote Candice Byrne in Truthout, In contrast to its tumultuous start, Sunday's vigil and ceremony provided a somber and heartfelt close to the fifth week of action. I met up with Matthew Johnson after the memorial to discuss the week of

action, and we briefly touched on the memorial in the forest. I think that we have to hold space for very real grief. We lost a friend and at the same time, just two days ago on a Friday, what we always knew to be true was found to clearly be true. Tortugita was murdered and we have to bear the brunt of that pain. And all the people in power lied and even gave their condolences to a state trooper that seemed as if he he was

shot by a state trooper and did not say a mumbling word to even acknowledge our friend's existence and the value of their life and this morning was was beautiful. I had been able to meet Bilkis, Protagita's mother, previously. And she really does have a beautiful spirit. I've really grown appreciation for that family. And just to see just how large these gatherings were, like, throughout the week, even in spite of the hoopla on the opening weekend, it was very encouraging. But in a lot of ways, Tortuguita has become the face of this movement because they really did light up wherever they were. Uh, one thing that's gotten me through, I'm just thinking about when you would just see them sometime and they would just give you the biggest, like cheesiest smile, like out of nowhere. I just, and like, uh, that like got me through the first week after their passing.

Yeah, but I've grown a great appreciation for that family because in so many ways, Tortugita is their hero. And just to learn how consistent they were as like such a welcoming and loving and caring person just meant so much. I mean, to know that this wasn't something new that they had stumbled upon. They had lived this whole life of caring and making space for others. Some of Tort's friends have raised concerns that a side effect of Tort unwittingly becoming the face of the movement is that the details around their death have eclipsed

some of what they died fighting for. In doing so, stripping toward of their individuality and removing their own agency to turn them into this perfect liberal friendly avatar of the movement to simply be used as a political tool and add to a list of demands. There's a thing that's been happening more and more recently that I've been bothered by, which is when organizations, specifically more liberal organizations, are invoking torts and aim at actions. They're misgendering the hell out of them, and it's alienating a lot of people. And I understand that Sunday's action alienated a lot of liberal orgs.

This is a problem with the week of action type strategy, with the diversity of tactics all being forced under one roof, but we cannot stand to alienate each other. And it's really frustrating and really angering to see this really beautiful soul be flattened into just a martyr that these liberals want them to be stripping them of so much of their life and what was a revolutionary life and a revolutionary death into just martyrdom by taking away their identity and who they were and making them nothing more than someone who was murdered when they were someone who was living such a full and beautiful life until the day they died and this movement will tear itself apart if we do not accept the fullness of tort's life

what it stood for and what they live for this movement has always been built on a lot of trans people in the woods fucking the cops up. And if we alienate those people, we're fucked. There's no winning. And we can't lose. We don't have a choice about this anymore. We have to win by any means necessary. That will wrap up our day-to-day coverage of the entire week of action.

But much has happened in the intervening two months. So in the next episode, we'll cover where the movement is now, discuss the future of the fight to stop Cop City, and offer a more critical retrospective on the fifth week of action. See you on the other side. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. This is a bonus fifth episode following my coverage of the StopCopCity Week of Action in March of 2023. This will be a more critical retrospective on the week as a whole, and offer a glimpse into what the movement might look like in the next few months as we are rapidly approaching summer.

summer. In the last episode, we talked about the police repression of protests and demonstrations as they happen, but we have yet to mention the various methods of state repression the movement is facing day to day. Repression for the Week of Action started well before the kickoff rally in Gresham Park. Emails from early February obtained via public records requests found that the Atlanta Police Foundation and its contractors were waiting for, quote, indictments to the leaders, unquote, of the Stop Cop City and Defend the Atlanta Forest movement. To quote the Atlanta Community Press Collective, in a February 3rd email to APF board members, the director of public affairs, Rob Baskin, calls the Defend the Atlanta Forest and Stop Cop City movement a, quote, conspiracy of

protesters against the Public Safety Training Center investigated by a consortium of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, unquote. Baskin promised the APF board in an email, quote, that the recent arrests, our receipt of the land disturbance permit, the mayor's announcement that the project will be moving forward, and the continued investigation by law enforcement will dampen activists' efforts. We will likely see more indictments in the coming weeks, unquote. Back in February, Brasfield and Gorey, the general contractor for the project, planned to mobilize for land clearing around April, but told the Atlanta Police Foundation that subcontractor bidding wouldn't happen, quote, until indictments have happened, unquote.

And then, of course, a few weeks later, 23 people were charged with domestic terrorism at a music festival. Matt from the Atlanta Community Press Collective talked about the history of domestic terrorism charges in the movement and how they affected bail proceedings. The domestic terrorism charges go back to the middle of December. That's when the first of them happened. And up until the week of action, there have been a total of 19 arrests or individuals who have been charged with domestic terrorism. And then of those people, anyone who did not have either a Georgia license or could not prove like Georgia residency, they were all initially denied bond.

But everyone who lives here, they were able to get bond. Before the bond hearing, we're kind of there. There are discussions that there's no way that they're going to hold 23 people without Bond on such flimsy evidence. That's the most people that have been arrested and held in one day in relation to the movement so far. Yeah, it's the largest mass arrest of the movement. So it's kind of inconceivable for 23 people to be held uh without bond so we get to the bail hearing the first person has their mother come on their lawyer uh brings their mother on who swears essentially on like every religious text ever

written uh that her child will immediately go home with her and she will personally bring her child back to every court hearing. And her child will have no further contact with the movement and all of these things. And the judge denies the bond. So at that point, it's like, OK, I guess we're going to go back to the old thing. If you can't prove residency, you're not getting out. It was like person number five is from Athens, Georgia, which is about an hour outside of Atlanta. And the judge denies her bond, not because the judge thinks she's a flight risk, but because she is a threat to the community.

And that was the moment where the understanding changed. It was like, oh, no, like nobody's getting out of this. Yeah, this isn't a real bond hearing. At the press conference after the Leaf raid, Kamau Franklin from the community movement builders spoke about the years of state repression against people fighting to stop Cop City. This movement has been repressed by the state, by the city since its very beginnings. When we first started organizing in 2021, when we had rallies and demonstrations, we would have police break them up, throw people to the ground, pepper spray them, and arrest them. We had over 20 arrests in our first years of rallying and demonstrating against Cop City.

At the time, those folks were charged with resisting arrest, obstruction of governmental administration. And then the police decided to step up their tactics. And they started to form a task force, a task force that included the Atlanta police, the DeKalb County police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Georgia State Troopers, the Federal Bureau of Investigation,

and Homeland Security, where they began to talk about bringing charges of domestic terrorism against organizers and activists. And so now we're coming to a point where they're raiding houses, where they're telling organizers and activists that they can't stand on corners and legally give out leaflets. And then the judge kept saying, like, I'm not here to hear anything on evidentiary claims and I'm not here to engage with the domestic terrorism statute. Like both of those were, I think, very valid things that defense attorneys kept bringing up because they're problematic. mentioned that the way people are being charged with domestic terrorism right now doesn't really have any legal basis in the state of Georgia because the terrorism law works as like an enhancement for other felonious charges. And these people aren't being charged with anything besides

domestic terrorism. There's no evidence these people committed any actual crimes. So they're just being charged with terrorism. This is like a nebulous concept. The judge said that the legal basis of these claims will have to be decided on another day. Similarly, they said that in regards to like actual evidence that these people charged did any crimes, she said that she had none of this evidence in front of her and that evidence is for another day. One of the main reasons the judge said that defendants were denied bond was due to, quote, a lack of ties to community in Atlanta. But regarding this ties to the community aspect, the judge had this weird double standard. There

was this one person arrested and charged who lives with their partner in Atlanta, who also had ties to another state where they had previously lived. So despite them having ties to the community in Atlanta, which was one of the main things the judge considered, for this one individual, they were still denied bond on the basis that this individual also has ties to a different community, thus deeming them a flight risk, even though they currently live in Atlanta. One of the reasons that the judge mentioned, based on the arrest warrants that she was given, for why these people were a threat to the community, is that the

state claims that they were in possession of metal shields as they were being arrested. You know, shields, the offensive weapon that shows that you're a threat, you holding a shield. And so, first of all, that's funny on that level. When you and I were coming in on Saturday, us on that level. When you and I were coming in on Saturday, along with the march, we passed by a bunch of shields, right? And they were kind of placed near the end of the path, like in anticipation that there might be police presence. And I took pictures of the shields. And they are evidently plastic shields. There's no way of mistaking them for anything other than plastic. The plastic five-gallon shields that you see at almost every protest in every city across the country.

The cops know what these things are. The fact that they claimed that people were arrested carrying metal shields is so ludicrous because there was not a single metal shield at this music festival. And there's a lot of footage of these arrests. I've not seen evidence that any person was arrested that was carrying a shield, let alone a metal one. There's this weird thing where, so typically when you do these bail hearings, the defense attorneys waive the reading of the warrant, typically because they have

already gone over that with their client and everybody's aware and it just kind of speeds up the process. And it was really notable that these attorneys weren't doing it. And once you started to listen to them, you notice this very repetitive nature of them. And so about halfway through, we get to a lawyer who straight up calls out the fact that these warrants seem like they were just copy pasted. Like every single person. All the way down the line. During the first hearing, only one person was let out on bail, and they were an NLG legal observer and lawyer at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

After the week of action on March 23rd, there were a second set of bail hearings for 10 of the people arrested on March 5th at the South River Music Festival. In a rare move, the second in command of the state of Georgia's Attorney General's office, John Fowler, was deployed to argue against granting bond. Fowler, along with several top county prosecutors, weaved a complex narrative of a grand conspiracy of protesters dating back to 2019, saying that the quote-unquote organization behind Defend the Forest is responsible for quote, 100 incidents nationwide, unquote. Fowler claimed that the Forest Defenders are a well-funded group with millions of dollars hiding behind 501c3 non-profit organizations, and that the so-called Autonomous Zone at the

Wendy's, where Rayshard Brooks was murdered in 2020, is a part of the same organization. Fowler also attempted to tie the use of laser pointers in the forest to racial justice protests in 2020, as well as a sophisticated communication network of prepaid phones, telegram channels, proton mails, and rise-up accounts. Prosecutor Lance Cross stated that the quote-unquote leader of the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement never actually goes into the forest. Okay, so to paraphrase a friend of mine, as potentially dangerous as claims like these are, it will never stop being funny that the state just simply cannot conceive of horizontal organizing as like a real thing that exists and not just a smokescreen for this shadowy cabal of

protesters. Prosecutor Lance Cross claimed that anyone at the music festival is a party to the crime of the direct action that took place around one and a half kilometers away at the construction site, and that after the direct action, individuals left to return to the other side of the woods, crossing over the creek and changing out of their black block. For the first defendant at this hearing, Prosecutor Cross said that there's police helicopter video of this first person changing out of their black block. But when asked by the judge if the state has any evidence that this defendant did anything illegal, not just change clothing in a forest, the prosecutor was unable to provide any such evidence. This defendant

received a $25,000 bond with a stay-away-from-Georgia order and a no-contact order with any co-defendants or anyone associated with the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement. Only one other defendant was granted bond during this hearing, a second-year law student who was arrested as they were eating food at a food truck. At the hearing, they presented letters of support from Tibetan monks, a former mayor, numerous academics, and Charlotte's mayor pro tem was on the call. Bond was also set at 25k, along with having to surrender their passport, wear an ankle monitor, and maintain no contact with co-defendants, nor join any future protests. To paraphrase my friend again, these are old green scare tactics back in action

and kicked into high gear. Courts are being used as a meat cleaver to hack off and isolate people from their communities regardless of evidence. This is the type of repression that courts were born to do. Much of the repression we're seeing in Atlanta is a revamped version of the green scare with additional tactics and knowledge the state gained from the 2020 protests, including the targeting of jail support and bail fund organizations. Another thread in this grand cabal of forest defenders narrative that the state was trying to weave was that prosecutors claimed that having an Atlanta Solidarity Fund jail support number on your person is evidence of criminal intent and that the Solidarity Fund is, quote, being investigated as a part of this whole thing, unquote. and none of the eight individuals had any evidence against them showing they committed any crime at that location, but were still deemed a risk to the community and denied bond.

Being held against them is the fact that they had a jail support number on their person. As former communications director at the Southern Center for Human Rights, Hannah Riley said, it is a gross irony that a jail support number is being framed as evidence of intent to commit crimes, where in fact, it's evidence that we live in a horrifying police state. A defense attorney pointed out that all of the warrants had the same bits of evidence copy-pasted, like this alleged possession of a metal shield, to which the prosecution claimed this was simply a typo, meaning that people were being held in jail based on typos. And also the prosecutor responded by saying, quote, there were 30, 40, 50 shields out there.

I can't attest that he was carrying one when referring to a specific defendant. For one individual denied bond, prosecutors claimed that they were an anarchist based on information provided by Customs and Border Protection, and yet no evidence of criminal acts were presented. Extra scrutiny was put on two defendants who were foreign nationals, with prosecutors wondering how someone from out of country could possibly know the Solidarity Fund jail support number. A defense attorney tried to point out that jail support numbers are often passed out to everyone present at protests by volunteers, and in the case of the circumstances regarding the raid of the music festival, panicked concertgoers were instructed to write down the jail support number as it became clear that police were indiscriminately grabbing people. Deputy Attorney General Fowler argued that wearing black clothes at a protest

is akin to wearing a football uniform, indicating a player was part of the team who took to the field during the game. And even if we may not know they carried the football, we do know that they were on the field. Which I don't even want to get into. But it is still a fact that the majority of people were denied bond because some had black clothing, mud on their shoes, and ran from police. This is what made them a quote-unquote threat to our community. And this is the evidence being used against people who were allegedly engaged in domestic terrorism. Near the end of the hearing, the judge claimed that everyone is presumed innocent and that the state does have to bear the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt at some point, but not now during this bail hearing.

One of the claims was that the reason why people were arrested is because they had mud on their clothes. The night before the festival started, there was a tornado warning in Atlanta. I forgot about that. And there was rain, which makes, I don't know if the prosecutors know this, but when rain mixes with dirt, it creates something called, that we refer to as mud. So when people are at this music festival in a field full of dirt, they might get mud on their clothes. And yeah, so when you, if you've ever been to a music festival,

standing around for a very long period of time, really annoying. People like to sit down. So like my feet were caked in mud and I sat down a few times. I'm, I'm... My Doc Martens are still caked in mud. Not to mention the parking lot completely torn up, covered in mud. And as I mentioned earlier, the person having to fill in mud all along the trails with gravel. So there's mud everywhere. And it is an inescapable fact of just being in both the forest and the festival. At the time of the bail hearings, they very clearly had no evidence linking individuals to crimes. So the best they could come up with was metal shields and mud.

Two things that are completely nonsense. There was no metal shields and oh wow, you have mud on your clothing. This is why you're a terrorist. During the hearing, a defense lawyer alleged that the 12 people who were detained at the music festival, but not arrested and were later released at Gresham Park, were all from Atlanta. And by releasing these 12 locals, police can claim that the people arrested were from 14 different states, which is obviously part of an attempt to continue accelerating the outside agitator narrative that they've been pushing out since last December. Of the 23 who were charged, only two had the Georgia licenses, the person from Athens and the legal observer. The rest were out of state and two were out of country.

So at one point during the proceedings, the bail proceedings, one of the lawyers says that from what they understand, the 12 individuals who were let go Sunday night all had in-state licenses. So it does appear that APD released people to continue this outside agitator narrative that they have been using for months now, since May, since early summer. Prosecutor Cross responded to claims that detained local Atlantans were let go by saying that the people released were interviewed, did not have the jail support number on their arm, and quote-unquote knew little about the movement. At a press conference, Marlon from the Solidarity Fund talked about how repression has taken form and concerns of what other tactics the state may try

to employ. No evidence has been presented to support any of these claims of domestic terrorism, including on the other 18 people who've been given this charge previously in this movement. Police and prosecutors are not involved in a law enforcement effort. They're involved in a political campaign to suppress a political movement which they find objectionable because as the police, they have a vested interest in the construction of Cop City. From a civil liberties perspective, we find this very concerning. We find it to be an abuse of power.

And we're committed to ensuring that all of the activists who are targeted have access to the legal resources that they need, not only to defend themselves from these bogus charges, but also to pursue civil litigation against police who have abused their power and violated people's rights. We are concerned about the possibility that prosecutors may try to use RICO charges against organizers. Because RICO is understood as a way of suppressing organizations. And the narrative that we've seen coming from police and prosecutors is their belief that the broad and diverse Stop Cop City movement is in fact a criminal conspiracy whose members conspire to commit acts of terrorism. This could not be

further from the truth. This is like a clear misrepresentation of a broad movement that encompasses all of society. But this is the narrative that prosecutors are trying to promulgate to make it easier to target activists. In the intervening month and a half, five more people were let out on bond. Then on May 3rd, a series of preliminary hearings took place for the last three people being held in DeKalb County Jail from amongst the 23 individuals arrested at the music festival and charged with domestic terrorism. Before the changes to the law in 2017, the state of Georgia required 10 or more people to be killed for domestic terrorism charges to even be filed. During a wave of anti-protest bills, while citing racially motivated mass shootings to get the bill

passed, the state of Georgia removed any death threshold and essentially replaced it with references to property damage. To quote a write-up by the Atlantic Community Press Collective, quote, DeKalb County Magistrate Judge James Altman explained that he decided whether to uphold the charges based on two criteria. The first was whether prosecutors provided enough evidence to satisfy the conditions set forth in the Georgia domestic terrorism statute, namely the threat to critical infrastructure. The second criteria prosecutors needed to meet was identification or their ability to show that the defendants were each a party to the alleged crimes committed on March 5th, unquote. And it's worth noting that the threshold for probable cause is much lower than the threshold

needed to convict someone of a crime. In opening arguments, Assistant DA Lance Cross claimed that Defend the Forest activists are well-funded and, quote, have a pretty good propaganda arm on social media, unquote, and that doing direct action while chanting Stop Cop City qualifies activists to be charged under the Georgia domestic terrorism statute because it's using violence to advocate change of government policy. Judge Altman found that the first criteria of the domestic terrorism charges were met for all three defendants on the basis that setting fires at the construction site in such close proximity to a power line tower was an attack on critical

infrastructure, even if the defendants did not themselves start any fires. Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Ryan Long testified that the entire music festival was cover for the direct action against the construction site. Even without evidence of defendants in black block or proof that they engaged in any destructive acts, Assistant DA Cross said that everyone at the site was enabling the destruction of the property and as such is party to the crime due to the assertion that the alleged crimes were only possible due to the large size of the crowd. One of the state's witnesses, a sergeant of the APD, said that he wouldn't be able to recognize

anyone who was at the site and that he could not tell if the defendant was even in the crowd of people at the North Gate, let alone through rocks or set fires. Defense argued that mere presence at a location should not be automatic aiding and abetting, but Judge Altman said there was sufficient evidence presented showing the acts of the crowd and that the defendant's presence is at least sufficient for being party to the crime, even by simply participating at the music festival. One of the hearings was for the indigenous person who was tased at the music festival, who was specifically witnessed to be there during the duration of the direct action. Under questioning from the defense,

Special Agent Long said that the defendant was not visible on the helicopter footage of the incident. After initially suggesting that the defendant was identified by a helicopter pilot, Long ruled that back by saying he was unsure if the chopper was able to track the defendant, and then had to leave to go make a few calls to get a more definitive answer, which he failed to provide. But the judge still found that the second criteria of identification was sufficient to find two of the defendants at least party to the actions at the construction site. Special Agent Long testified that there is a quote-unquote command structure in the Stop Cop City movement and described the movement as a pyramid scheme created by activists

with different names like Stop Cop City and Defend the Forest to act as little different subgroups to attract new subordinate members to operate under leadership. Long asserted that activists pretend to be ecologists one day and then anarchists the next to further their cause, which, once again, we have to point out, is, on one hand, a dangerous thing to claim, on the other hand, extremely funny. Social media posts were brought up by prosecutors as evidence linking defendants to criminal acts and a conspiracy of terrorism. During the first hearing, Special Agent Long claimed that they knew that the defendant was at the construction site due to street pull camera footage and social media posts allegedly made by the defendant's friend. In another hearing,

Agent Long claimed that on the defendant's social media, there were posts of StopCopCity banners and flyers demonstrating an awareness of the nature of the StopCopCity movement. The state also cited alleged social media posts of the defendant self-describing as anti-capitalist and anti-colonial as proof of criminal intent. Near the end of the last hearing, Judge Altman said that social media posts do not count towards probable cause. However, the framing of social media posts by prosecutors as an indication of guilt is still cause for alarm, and what gets admitted as evidence during trial is still yet to be determined. When the prosecution asked if a defendant had a jail support number on their arm, the judge noted that, quote,

the existence or non-existence of an organization doesn't really seem to me as an element of the crime, unquote. Similar to the March 23rd hearings, Prosecutor Johnson tried to argue that the Solidarity Fund and jail support is an arm of the Stop Cop City movement, to which the judge reiterated that participation in an alleged organization is not part of the crime of domestic terrorism. For one defendant, the judge granted bond on the conditions of $25,000 bail, with the defendant having to turn over her passport, a no-contact order with other co-defendants, and no participation in discussion of stop-cop-city on social media. Bond for the other two defendants was denied. Ultimately, Judge Altman upheld the domestic terrorism charges against all three defendants. On the low barrier of evidence sufficient for ruling probable cause, Judge Altman said that, quote, whether it gets any further than that is not my problem, unquote, and that if the DA wanted further charges brought against defendants, he must use a grand jury as the judge did not find a probable cause for arson or assault on an officer. Judge

Altman mentioned that he was concerned about alleged witness intimidation by members of the Defend the Forest movement. Meanwhile, in the adjacent Fulton County, there was also a preliminary hearing for one of the six people arrested at the protest in downtown Atlanta on January 21st, the Saturday following the killing of Tortugita. Judge Ashley Drake upheld a total of eight charges, including one of domestic terrorism, and the next day the defendant was released on bail. One thing of note from this hearing is that Deputy Attorney General John Fowler compared the Defend the Forest movement to 9-11 by saying, quote, protesters were trying to knock out the windows of 191 Peachtree Street. That is a dangerous situation. That's a Twin Towers, unquote.

When talking about the various hearings, I mentioned helicopter and street poll camera footage of the direct action on Sunday that both prosecutors and the defense were using to support their claims. And I think it's worth diving a bit deeper into specifically the police helicopter footage, since I like keeping up with the methods that police are using to surveil and suppress protest. I'm going to start by letting Atlanta Police Chief Darren Shearbaum walk us through what was able to be observed via helicopter-mounted cameras based on his testimony during the city council meeting that took place less than 24 hours after the incident. Individuals were seen changing out of the clothes that they were wearing at the concert and were now dressing themselves in all black with backpacks with items offensive in nature

approaching. What we saw is this group moved rather quickly to the site for the proposed public safety training center. They moved quickly on the group of officers that were assembled there. These officers had been stationary at the site protecting the location. In the first line there are individuals with shields that are forming. The officers attempted first to de-escalate by repositioning themselves inside of the fenced-in area. The officers again start to reposition because they can tell this is not a peaceful demonstration. You can start to see smoke occurring as fires are set, Molotov cocktails are thrown, and fireworks are discharged

from our air unit that is deployed in the area. You will see individuals that have started to move against the officers. They will have started throwing rocks, fireworks, as they are pushing the officers in the area. Where we see individuals, as another group is engaging the officers with rocks, Molotov cocktails and bottles, are moving to set fire to the various equipment set in the area. What you see in the left hand of the gentleman with the mask over his face is a Molotov cocktail. It is being, there will be accelerants in his hands that will be used also to attack

some of the construction equipment that is in the area. These individuals are masked to hide their identity. This is playing out across the area that had previously been fenced in. There will be generators that will be destroyed, other pieces of equipment that's being destroyed. There you see more accelerant being thrown onto the vehicle that is being set on fire. And what you see here, ladies and gentlemen, is as some of the individuals that had just previously attacked the work site return back into the woods, they start changing back into the clothes that they were just wearing moments before as they were portraying themselves to be attendees

of the event that was occurring in the music. So it's clear today that we saw a repeat of what we've seen in the past, where events that are shown to be peaceful and to be being publicized as be peaceful are being used by individuals as cover to launch illegal and criminal attacks. We had a rapid response from our partners at the DeKalb County Police Department, the sheriff of Fulton County, as well as the Georgia State Patrol. Those officers entered into the woods as individuals were attempting to flee, hide the weapons they had just used, as well as to change their clothing, and we began to make a number of arrests. I spoke with the unnamed forest defender about the surveillance capabilities of the state on full display during the week of action. I find that thermal helicopter video fascinating for a variety of reasons. One, it's interesting to look at the surveillance capacity of the state.

It's, to my memory, the first time the APD has ever posted their own thermal chopper footage. It's a very similar camera to the type you would see on a biractor or on some kind of armed unmanned aerial vehicle. What I found most interesting about the thermals is exactly how they were using that type of targeting software to track people. And I think it's worth people knowing what they were doing with it so we have an idea how to counter it. When you're using a software to track targets on an optical lens, at least during a daytime event, thermals are easier because it breaks the image up into just two colors, white and then like black and gray, so they can track the body heat shapes of people in white and then just click the thermals off, get a snapshot of the outfit they're wearing, click the thermals back on, and track them easier

than it is to track them with just a normal camera. This gives them a clear image of what they're wearing before they de-blocked and then they can go back to tracking that person, follow them to where they're de-blocking, wait for them to de-block, get another picture with the regular camera, and then arrest them. So that meant that when people were leaving, it was advantageous to be de-blocking under overhead cover,

under thick brush, under thick canopy, out of direct line of sight with the chopper, you know, not in the open air. It's definitely a really hard thing to counter. The surveillance state's one of the things that I find the most fearful about the police state. Not like individual beat cops, their guns and shit are cooler or whatever, but man, those cameras, they're really something, you know? I think the Portland Police Bureau just got a new spy plane, a new Cessna

loaded up with surveillance equipment and shit like that. All that stuff does so much more to fuck you up than just like a riot team does. You can throw mortars at a riot team. Sorry, I shouldn't say mortars. Fireworks that are called mortars. My bad. Don't want to lean into the explosives narratives. Honestly, they're fucking weird about fireworks. But yeah, you know, the surveillance capacities

are one of the hardest things to counter. One term that's already come up during our coverage of StopCopCity is Foucault's boomerang. And while that still applies here, we're now also kind of getting into some Panopticon territory, as shown by this type of surveillance capacity, specifically at actions. And one of the biggest reasons why the Panopticon works is that people are scared of it.

It scares you away from even taking action in the first place. And like as soon as you overcome that paralyzing fear, the cops become really afraid of you. that paralyzing fear, the cops become really afraid of you. That's why we say that like the biggest weapon that the state has is fear because like the cops go from these big fucking tough guys to like whining cowards the second you just become not afraid. You don't even have to beat them. You don't have to overcome the actual physical weapons. But once you get out of that headspace, that paralyzing fear, once you let it pass over you and through you, they're fucking terrified. And if we're going to win, we need to be their worst nightmare. As state repression against the Stop Cop City movement continues,

the coalition against the police training facility only continues to grow. Last month, Angela Davis returned an award proclamation given to her by the Atlanta City Council in protest of Cop City. the Atlanta City Council in protest of Cop City. If the attempts by the Atlanta police to build the largest police training grounds in the country are successful, this will represent a major setback for the movement for radical democratic futures, not only throughout the U.S., but globally as well. As a person who has participated in campaigns against prisons and police for far longer than a half century, I want to salute all those who are involved in the Stop Cop City movement. And I want to urge people everywhere to find ways to generate support for them. Angela Davis made it clear that she stood in solidarity with force defenders

facing repression from the police and the city of Atlanta, and joined in calls to halt the construction of this facility, which will only serve as a tool to advance what she called militarized police racism and repression. Atlanta activists are on the front lines of the abolitionist movement at its crucial intersection with movements to save our forests, indeed to save our planet. The attempt to build a massive militarized police training facility is a dangerous and ominous development that we have to oppose with all our might. And so I want to join those who are standing strong in defense of the forest against the construction of this police training ground.

I urge people everywhere to join the campaign to stop Cop City. After Angela Davis's announcement, the Walter Rodney Foundation released a statement supporting Davis's decision and against the construction of Cop City. It's interesting to see their more mainline sort of center or center left, like organizations that have begun to come on board,

even with what happened sunday and especially the the thursday march um and rally had it necessitated a response from the city so friday morning there was actually uh an organization uh concerned black clergy who had a press conference like calling out cop city protesters. And so you had this like very state run one of the city council members, Antonio Lewis was there like live streaming the entire time. And so you can tell the efficacy of a lot of things that have happened this week, by how the city is reacting and how like, it is necessitating them going to to greater and greater lengths to like try to show that the movement is wrong.

One way that the city has been working to advocate for the further development of the Cop City Project is by launching a website of their own for the Public Safety Training Center, full of videos of the mayor and police chief walking through South Atlanta trying to convince neighbors that the project is a good idea. In the past few months, the city has also been turning the official City of Atlanta Twitter account into a hilarious cop city propaganda outlet. About two weeks after the end of the week of action, on March 24th, DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond announced an executive order to indefinitely close Entrenchment Creek Park, also known as Walani People's Park, claiming that the park was a danger to the public due to booby traps allegedly found in the forest. At a press conference, Thurmond displayed photos of wooden boards with nails sticking out of them, allegedly found in

the park. The executive order reads that the park will, quote, remain closed until further notice to protect the safety of the families, residents, and visitors, and their pets in the area, and to county personnel, unquote. A few days after the announcement, DeKalb police led a joint task force in a raid of the Walani Forest and Entrenchment Creek Park. The land was effectively cleared of all forest defenders, with one person being arrested. During the raid, the memorial for Tortuguita was destroyed by the police, and cement barricades were set up around the entrances and exits to the park. Days later, police and contractors began cutting trees in the Wolani Forest, with no one around to resist the destruction.

The Solidarity Fund put out a statement saying, quote, closing down a public park in order to prevent protests from happening in that space is unconstitutional. DeKalb CEO Michael Thurmond is trying to do an end run around the First Amendment, unquote. DeKalb County Commissioner Ted Terry is pushing to reopen the park through a resolution expected to be introduced in early May. But it wasn't just the park's closure that made forest defense more challenging. After the mass action at the North Gate in early March, security was greatly increased at the construction sites in the Wolani Forest, with massive spotlights illuminating the area to daylight levels 24 hours

a day, which made returning to the sort of nighttime sabotage actions in the forest that pioneered some of the movement's militancy in its early days to be much more complicated. During my conversations with forest defenders, there was still a desire to see more of those small sabotage actions, as the large daytime mass actions seemed to result in more people getting arrested near the site of militant activity. People are angry. You know, like their friend, our friend, was murdered. You can just feel however you want about this, but like a lot of people, and I guess myself included, are just really angry. There's this like kind of blinding rage that comes with it of just like eye for an eye, blood for blood, you know, that the police killed our friend and that they need to hurt for that one. And they need to hurt for all the people that they've murdered and all the things they're trying to do.

And that leads people to take actions that may not be well thought out, but that are very well intentioned and have tangible results that hurt the police state. But that are actions that do bring harm to themselves or others, because there are not, you know, these like middle of the night slash and run sabotage attacks that don't have arrests happen that are safer. And I think we should see a return of that tactic, because the level of police presence that we saw at all the actions this week post-Sunday, like doing shit at downtown protests, fuck that. Like, that's not like, we're not pulling shit off there without a mass arrest or like everyone's getting gassed. Like, it's not a tactically advantageous or viable way of doing things, but I think people wanted to prove to the cops that like, no, no, no,

we could open field fuck them up. And yeah, there were consequences to that, but people fucked them up in the open field. And that's worth applauding. The bounds of the forest is not the only location actions take place. Just about a week after the park closure, and when some of the clear-cutting began, a report back was posted online that read,

on the night of Wednesday, April 5th, we set fire to three excavators owned by Brent Scarborough Company on a site across from the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta. Brent Scarborough is the company and individual responsible for clear-cutting the Wolani Forest. Cop City will never be built. Unquote. The March 2023 week of action was always going to be a kind of turning point in showcasing what will be seen in the struggle to defend the forest this spring, and how that will then lead into the summer, and what forms of resistance people will choose to take. Whether that be another singular week

of action, or take notes from the old Earth First playbook and try to do a whole summer of action. How do you kind of see the movement the movement to stop cap city like changing or evolving than in the next few months i mean because all this is kind of felt like it's been kind of very much on the heels of what happened in in january people have tried to like you know just tried to find new paths of resistance in the wake of the police killing um how do you how do you see like the fight continuing at this stage where they have some land disturbance permits, there's early construction?

What are the avenues of resistance that people are trying to go down? I think that we have to be very clear in assessing what has worked installing the project and what will work to stop the project because those aren't necessarily the same things. I think that there are nuances in particular strategies. There is a difference between,

especially in our particular context, that's similar between the difference between guerrilla warfare and urban guerrilla warfare. And I say that guerrilla warfare is more so when people have been destroying equipment, you know, at contractors, you know, offices or wherever or like near the forest etc. And you could just hide off into the woods or just like disappear back into nothingness. Nobody gets touched. What we have to look at with the actions at the music festival were it exposed a lot of people because, and this is once again, because the police acted so heavy handedly, but we also know that the police act heavy handedly, which is why we're here.

acted so heavy-handedly, but we also know that the police act heavy-handedly, which is why we're here. So that gets kind of dicey, because that's kind of like urban guerrilla warfare, where you have the guerrillas just shooting, pow, pow, pow, and then running into somebody's grandma's house. People do not fuck with the people. They're just running grandma's house for cover, right? And that's where things get a little bit dicey, because in many many ways a lot of us were looking at means to open up the movement with this week of action and that was what was widely understood for a lot of people and nevertheless when you just come in with the boomstick from the beginning that dictates the tone of the rest of the week and then where you could you know instance, operate from a space of like, moral authority, it becomes much easier for people on the fence to justify to themselves, well,

what are the police supposed to think, right? I mean, we have to realize that there are several, like mental resistances that have been taught to people for them to try to discredit us. And I just, I think there's some important context, right? When Martin Luther King Jr. was doing like the nonviolent direct action, at a certain point, they had to make a calculated decision to include women and children in the marches, because they had assessed that America had become too desensitized to seeing black men beaten in the streets, right? So that was a tactical decision to bring in more people, right? So there are like calculations that people have to make and assessments that they have to make based on the information that we're

dealing with. Through talking with forced offenders, I've heard a variety of internal critiques of the week of action format. Because it is such a concentrated time period, the week of action can give police a very concentrated time to over-police and over-surveil. And for activists, it can open up an expenditure of energy during the week, which then can lead to a lack of energy, leading up to what's been called the week of repression. In the past, every time following a week of action, after people from out of town leave, it then leads into a week of repression, where police will then do a raid of the forest and have their sort of retaliation the week after.

There's been talk of potential changes to some of the week of action format, perhaps doing something more akin to a summer of resistance. So the week of repression is always the week that comes after the week of action where the cops are like, okay, the bulk of your reserves, your out-of-state support is gone. We're going to come fuck you up now. There are less of you. Now you're less ready to deal with us. And that is like a major strategic flaw in the weeks of action because it kind of creates

a activist tourism for people coming out of state. And not that Atlanta doesn't appreciate their support and their solidarity, and that so many of those out of state people do stay long term. But it does create a situation where like, yeah, we're having an influx of people for a week building infrastructure for a week. And then the bulk of those people, a good percentage are going to go home because yeah, like traveling long term is hard. People have jobs, kids, whatever. You have commitments wherever you are. And they have to go home because yeah, like traveling long term is hard. People have jobs, kids, whatever. You have commitments wherever you are. And they have to go home. And then the cops just wreck our shit and do raids. And like, unless people want to get on board with doing some pretty crazy shit, those raids are hard to counter. It would behoove us to take a realistic audit of what the weeks of

action have meant and what they are actually useful for, which the strategic gains of the weeks of action are always now going to be more metaphysical than physical. They bring people to this space. They give them a closeness to the forest that they would not achieve without actually coming here. But as far as tangibly, like materially stopping Cop City, those kind of middle of the night slash and run attacks, tertiary targeting of contractors, all that stuff. That's how you pressure the money and the money is where you win. money, and the money's where you win. Ultimately, it's up to the autonomous actors that make up this so-called movement, and how their choices will determine how the fight to stop Cop City will grow and evolve. As I'm writing this just 30 minutes ago, we found out that the clear-cutting

at the Cop City construction site has essentially been completed. The overhead photos are devastating. Where there were young growing trees just weeks ago is now a flattened mound of red clay and dirt as if the ground itself was bleeding. I counted over 100 trees uprooted from the earth. Hundreds of people have dedicated years of their life to defending this forest, and the sight of sizable destruction has brought out a variety of grieving reactions. If Cop City doesn't get built in the Wolani, the land could be carefully reforested and healed via regenerative permaculture. With intentional stewardship, the forest could grow to be ecologically healthier than it was before. In some ways, the forest could grow to be ecologically healthier than it

was before. In some ways, the destruction that has already taken place makes it even more vital to try and stop the construction of Cop City. No one is advocating a defeatist approach where forest defenders essentially give up and let the police foundation build it, because there are still numerous ways to fight against the construction of this facility. But now is not the time to sugarcoat the dire situation people are in. And there should be time allowed to grieve this loss, as well as strike back against the destruction.

It would be a mistake to gaslight each other and act as if we're closer than ever to halting the Cop City project. The fact that it's gotten this far itself is devastating. From the beginning, people have said that even if they do believe that Cop City will never be built, the Atlanta Police Foundation and police will absolutely attempt to do as much damage as they can possibly get away with anyway, both to forest defenders and to the forest itself. The past few months, I've been increasingly hearing the vice versa of that sentiment.

If Cop City does end up getting built, people have pledged that the Atlanta Police Foundation will have to pay for every inch they take. Even if there is no longer hope to save the entire Walani forest, then we must do so without hope. At least there is always vengeance. It is a long road ahead and there is still much to do. To quote my favorite anarcho-monarchist, Tolkien. At this moment, the movement will hone its focus to prevent or at the very least disincentivize the physical construction of Cop City. I think it'd be worth thinking of this movement as an almost two-year-old movement that's outgrown the week of action, you know? Why limit ourselves to seven days? Fuck it, do a summer, you know? Do three months of like, we're doing three months of action in Atlanta,

come to Atlanta whenever you want and then go home and do shit at home. There are Wells Fargos where you live, there are Chase Banks where you live, there are Atlas construction offices where you live. And yeah, you should come to Atlanta and you should come see the space and you should be in the forest and you should feel like the love and community that's there. We win by fighting on enough fronts that they can't fight us back on all of them. The state dies by a thousand cuts, not by all of us being in one place where they can kettle our asses. Like that's just not how we're going to win. So yeah, if we had three months of like, we're occupying the forest for three months,

come to the space whenever you feel like it. But you know, hopefully when people go home, they feel inspired to like understand that they can do just as much hitting those companies where they live as they can here. Cause the money's all going to the same place. The CEO at the top doesn't care if you hit their businesses in Georgia or in fucking Illinois or in Oregon or Washington or whatever, the money's all the same place. The CEO at the top doesn't care if you hit their businesses in Georgia or in fucking Illinois or in Oregon or Washington or whatever. The money's all the same. A phrase I've

been hearing a lot lately is cop city is everywhere. To quote a communique posted on scenes.noblogs.org quote, we will keep winning not just here in so-called Atlanta, but we must attack all across these so-called states. The money and power that seek to kill us and destroy Wolani are nationwide, and so our movement must be nationwide. A net of resistance, too vast to comprehend and too resilient to suppress. Reality is the battlefield, but so-called America, all of it is the backdrop, unquote. When Chief Schierbaum gave testimony at city council, even he mentioned the far-reaching manifestations of the fight to stop Cop City.

We have been seeing over the last number of months, crimes that have been occurring in other cities focused toward the public safety training center. So we have seen arsons in cities outside of Atlanta. We've seen the destruction of property outside of Atlanta. And we've seen the harassment of private sector employees outside of Atlanta. So that is the nexus where the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been assisting in this investigation. Like I said in the second episode,

the stakes of the movement may soon exceed the balance of the forest and Cop City. And in fact, that process may have already begun. We are seeing Stop Cop City turn into a new mode of insurgency and resistance to modern policing in general, not simply limited to the construction of this one training center. As the police are trying to build a training center to practice quelling future civil unrest, the site of the Wolani Forest and beyond has been a training ground for anarchists and those who fight the ever-growing police state. The past two years, it's been a dangerous playground for experimentation and liberation. Applications

for the lessons learned in the Wolani Forest extend far past the barriers of the woods. As far-right attacks on abortion and trans people are accelerating across this country, but especially the South, perhaps some of the organizing infrastructure that's been developed can take new focus on these battlegrounds. And even just the mere existence of the struggle against Cop City in Atlanta has been a deterrent for other cities and states seeking to push forward similar proposals. But as the movement possibly expands past its original scope, in these next few months people will need to be careful that the idyllic notion of the struggle doesn't eclipse the

original and still active goal, which is to stop Cop City. Cop City is indeed everywhere, but the current manifestation in Atlanta is unique to Atlanta, and the corresponding struggle to stop the physical construction of this training facility cannot be overlooked in favor of fantasies of utopian anarchy. To steal an idea from Matt of the Community Press Collective, one interpretation of the phrase cop city is everywhere is the realization that Atlanta is cop city, and it already has been for years without us knowing it. And if we don't turn back the tide here, cop City will be exported everywhere. Atlanta, once again, because of the Atlanta Police Foundation, is the most surveilled city in the country because of 2017's Operation Shield program, where they put tons of cameras all throughout the city and essentially made it a surveillance state. Once again, crime has continued to go up during this time, and that would have significantly

more to do with the disparity of wealth and opportunities of black Atlantans that are born under the poverty line. Only 5% of them are projected to ever cross that line. At the same time, the average median income of black households is one third that of the average median income of white households in Atlanta. So that's about $35,000 to $104,000. And so the wealth is just so disproportionately spread. disproportionately spread and so much of the labor intensive economy is predicated on it that black people are pigeonholed into service economy jobs and they have very few opportunities here now that type of inequality breeds discontent and people looking for other opportunities. And the police are ready to catch them at every turn.

For arresting a juvenile in the point system that they have for Atlanta Police Department, it's five points. However, you only receive a quarter of a point as a police officer if you answer a service call. So police officers often ignore service calls because that doesn't give them the credit they want so just to put that in context you get 20 times the credit in atlanta's point quota system for arresting a juvenile then going where people actually wanted police to show up and we're supposed to be convinced that this system is made to keep us safe, right? The city of Atlanta and the police foundation wants Cop City to be a national training center for police to come and practice militaristic counterinsurgency for export across the country. They murdered someone to further this goal.

All eyes must be on Atlanta. Cop City is a symbol of police repression. Cop City is a symbol of the oppression of the people of Atlanta. I want you to look around and see the families here. In this park today, these are people who came because they're concerned for their children. These are people who are concerned because they don't want their city overrun by militarization. The level of repression the movement is facing is a sign that the state feels like this movement is a threat and the state feels like this movement has the possibility of actually succeeding. So in response, they're increasing repression.

And on the flip side of that, during this past week of action, I saw a lot of affirmation that this is going to be successful and that people believe that they will stop Cop City. A common refrain during the past week of action is that Cop City will never be built, and I believe that we will win. There's been such a unique emphasis on the fact that people believe that this fight is 100% winnable and that people do have the ability

to stop Cop City and the people who are participating truly believe that. And I think that is an important part of why it's gotten as far as it has. So we can get everything we want for this city. We can stop Cop City. We've got the power,

but we just got to believe, y'all. We got to believe in our power. Because the last thing I'm going to say is this. There's going to be a lot of people telling us about what we can't do, about what these organizers out here can't do. They always want to tell us about what we can't do, but I'm going to tell you, all of us out here, we're organizers. We are in the business of taking that which other people say is impossible, and we make it possible. That's what we do. We've got that power. As long as we believe.

So I just need you to say it real loud. Say I. I. Say I believe. I believe. Say I believe that we will win. I believe that we will win. This is interesting to me because in my experience, a lot of leftists and anarchists approach much of their praxis with the concept of them expecting to not succeed,

but they're going to do it anyway, which there is a kind of fated beauty to that in a certain way. And part of that is taking action, even if you don't think it will lead to a decisive victory. But also, I feel that being in that mindset might set you up for that outcome. If you're preparing to fail, that means you're probably going to fail, or at the very least, limit the ways that you do action. And throughout this movement thus far, it's been interesting the degree to

which people are convinced that they are going to win. If you're being prepared to fail, you won't take the radical action that it takes to win. Winning is hard and winning means doing things that are scary and uncomfortable and doing things that put you in danger and doing things that are new and unknown and different and taking new strategies and doing new things. And we in the US and a lot of other places, but this is US based movement. So there's so much learned helplessness on the left here from so many years of like, we lost at Occupy, and then we lost in Ferguson, and Standing Rock, and in 2020. All of these movements that put big body blows to the state put some hits in, but were just followed by these waves and waves of repression. We've learned so much helplessness, and for the first time in my life, I'm looking at a movement that I'm like, no, no, we can fucking beat them.

And people are stagnating. We're blinking because of what happened on Sunday. And like, no, no, no, what happened on Sunday proved that we can win. It proved that we can, one, fight them in the open field and beat them, that they are afraid of us, that they will cede territory if we hit them. And it proved that they are so afraid of us that they need to mobilize fucking 10 different police departments to come deal. And then they won't even step like into the actual brush of the forest because they think we're the fucking Viet Cong. That proves we can win more than anything that proves we can win. And if we do not accept that, what is proved that we can win is like property destruction and to a degree doing violence, we won't win. Those fireworks helped a

lot. They pushed the cops out and like we shouldn't balk at that. And I guess I don't classify that as violence. The police classify that as violence, what they consider taking hits, I guess. But yeah, we are so on the cusp of a make or break kind of deal here. And the only way that we win is not this internal debate we're having about the efficacy of tactics. It's doubling down on what we are already doing because it's working and expanding on it. Do you believe that cop city will be actually stopped? Do you believe that cop city will be actually stopped? We got to. And here's what I mean by that. This is the line, right? We have environmental racism, police militarization, and brutality in police and racism. And it's all coming to a head right here in this particular

movement we have to win because what they're doing now is to build capacity to make sure that we can't win right and so why people are pushing so hard is that as we've seen over the past couple of weeks, the police have plenty of like tanks and shit and all sorts of militarized and tactical gear. And now they're trying to build another base in the blackest part of the city and to build up more capacity to put down any sense of rebellion or pushback against empire. We cannot allow it to happen. And I mean, there is so much money going to kill people and end life.

And if we win right here and make this stand right here, that changes the potentiality for how we view how to keep one another safe and how to reinvest in ourselves and our people throughout this country in a huge way. I think that we are at the precipice of not only winning Cup City, but pushing back the tide of the cult of death that this country has become. The clear cuts in the Wolani Forest at this stage serve a threefold purpose. One, it obviously gets them closer to construction and the mass land grading that is scheduled to start on May 23rd. Two, it's a ploy by the APF to secure additional needed funds from cop city investors. And finally,

it's to demoralize the people who spent years of their life working to stop this project. Everything that police have done is essentially always a reprisal, right? The movement does something, and the police clamp down in a reprisal to try to repress the movement. Police always escalate, but they have always been in response to something. to try to repress the movement. Police always escalate,

but they have always been like in response to something. And their goal of course is, is to quiet and chill free speech and, and, and end the movement. But every time this happens, the opposite effect, uh, is,

is what comes out of it. And, and from the domestic terrorism arrest in, in December, like really that's when this even larger groundswell of national support happened and people started to take notice because this was an extreme measure. And then with the killing of Tortuguita in January, that changed so much about the movement, including people's personal connection to this struggle, where no longer are people doing this simply because they believe it

is what's right. They are doing this because they have to, because the state cannot get away with this. This death cannot be in vain. And now people believe that they have to succeed or at the very least make the state pay for every inch. And that may mean looking beyond the binary of victory and defeat. beyond the binary of victory and defeat. According to a construction timeline from this past April, the Atlanta Police Foundation plans to start construction on August 29th, 2023 in order for a quote-unquote soft opening of the facility in December of 2024. One hiccup that the APF has run into is that it seems they have yet to secure enough money to finish the project and have been forced to ask their investors and the city for more

additional money, despite scaling back their plans for the project. As a short clip put together by the Atlanta Community Press Collective explains. The city council will, in fact, have to vote on whether or not to allocate 33 million taxpayer dollars to the construction of Cop City in the very near future. Additionally, the Atlanta Police Foundation budget documents show that current construction plans have been scaled back from what was originally promised. This indicates a failure by the foundation to raise the promised $60 million in private funds. Should the city vote down this funding package of $33 million, the city vote down this funding package of $33 million, it is difficult to see a path forward for the Atlanta Police Foundation's effort to begin construction on Cop City anytime in the

near future. The city council has actually not yet voted to approve the allocation of millions of dollars in city funds to the Cop City project. Through an open records request, we were able to get our hands on emails between the Atlanta Police Foundation and Atlanta's Deputy Chief Operating Officer, LaShondra Burks. In this email exchange, the Police Foundation expressed a need for the city to provide $33.5 million in funding for the project. Burks responded by mentioning the need for legislative action to secure the funds. The emails state that the police foundation wants to pass this legislation before June 30th because they need the city of Atlanta's money to secure their construction loan. It's expected that as soon as May 15th, a member of the city council will introduce legislation to allocate public funds to the Atlanta Police Foundation to build Cop City. And a final vote could happen as soon as June 5th. One thing that the movement to stop

Cop City has shown us is that no matter what police do, people continue to show up despite what happens, and the movement keeps expanding. As the unnamed forest defender told me. Infrastructure-wise, this week of action was the biggest infrastructure I've seen doing a week of action. I thought that the infrastructure we put together for week one was pretty big, but I mean, it doesn't even compare. It's not the same ballpark as what happened for week five. Just from how the medics were set up and how food was handled, there was a shuttle bus program. There was a welcome table at a church at one point. There was like 24-7 clinic spaces. There was 24-7 ride programs and medics on standby and like all

these things that were ready to support everybody. Like there was all 7 ride programs and medics on standby and like all these things that were ready to support everybody like there was all this infrastructure set up to make sure that people were as supported as possible and to make it as easy as possible and lower the barrier of entry to the movement as much as possible more than there has been in any other week of action so far i feel like the way that we continue that is to take lessons learned from what's happened this week from the problems with the infrastructure the the issues that it had, expand on it, and then fucking do it for way longer. Like we could do this for an entire summer. I am fully of the belief that the infrastructure I saw on display during the fifth week of action, we could do that

for a summer. I believe in the kind of people who put it together, and I believe in the people who did it to do that. We just have to kind of look at what went wrong, what went right and fix it. All the things that existed in this week of action, as far as there being food, rides, medics, and like group supplies, all these things existed during weeks of action one through four. It's just grown. It's gotten more logistically intense. There are more and more people filling those roles.

There's more and more stuff coming in. The amount of supplies that we just got sent in or people brought with them from out of state has just so vastly expanded since the first week of action. It's just gotten more, I don't know, like not professional, but more polished. It's become a much more polished setup system as time went on from the first camp that we had during the first week of action to now, you know, almost two years later. And that's a huge part of why I think we've outgrown the week of action. We have these types of thought processes and logistics to do this for a summer or for a month.

We just need people and resources. We need more people to be willing because I don't want people to get tired. Just last month, another week of action was called for June 24th to July 1st, directly leading into what's being called the Wolani Summer, with locals in Atlanta calling on supporters and forest defenders everywhere to come to Atlanta for the week and stay for the summer. With Entrenchment Creek Park still closed, and there being ongoing efforts to have it be reopened, what the week and following summer will look like is still very unknown. We always are going to need more people. People are our most important resource always. The way that we limit burnout is by having more and more people so that the burden falls less and less

heavy on small groups of people and so that people can take breaks. And that's another problem I have with like the week of action as a strategy is you're just going non-fucking-stop for a week. If you had three months, you're like, I'm going to chill for a couple of weeks. I'll be back, you know, because I have all this time. And it frees up people from out of state to come in, have times to work it out in their schedule more. There will be more information put out in the coming weeks. You can keep up to date by following StopCop on Instagram, Defend ATL Forest on Twitter, or by checking out stopcopsitysolidarity.org, ideally with a VPN and Tor slash Brave browser.

If you were at the music festival and you're just a normal person, you weren't involved with the movement before this, and you were at the music festival and you kind of saw why we're fighting for this. You saw that space and then you saw the type of violence that the police were willing to output to do it. Let that move you to get involved further. You don't have to join an organization. You know, I don't want to speak for other people. I'm a hard anarchist. Fuck organizations to a large degree, but like have an affinity group, get your friends together. If you guys want to be helping out with the food people, help out with the food people. You want

to be medics, go join a medic collective, like find whatever thing calls to you and just go and do it because we need people and there's no barrier of entry to join the movement. There's no test you have to take. You just have to show up. I will end this week of action retrospective with a promise from the forest defenders. See you on the other side. If you build it, we will burn it! Music, festival, audio, courtesy of Unicorn Riot. 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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