It Could Happen Here - Week of Action to Stop Cop City, Part 2: South River Music Fest Day Two

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

A few hundred people march to the Cop City construction site and sabotage equipment, then police SWAT raid the nearby music festival and arrest 23 concert goers.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome back to It Could Happen Here. 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 uh walking in the first thing you see when you walked back onto the festival grounds was this amazing bouncy house that uh they had written some guidelines up there that it did seem like everyone followed uh 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 um so yeah you see this bouncy house and like i when you see that the first thing like 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 like 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 5pm. 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, 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? The militant aspect and the joyful aspect.

And I think they are both very central to what the movement is. Yeah, it's a pretty good encapsulation of the diversity present around the Defend the Forest and Stop Copsity movement. diversity present around the Defend the Forest and Stop Copsity movement. There's a few hundred people in camo block walking down, I believe, is Constitution. A lot of people dressed in black block, a mix of legal observers here. Police choppers overhead. Currently people are marching west in the direction

of the old Atlanta prison farm 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. 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 in 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, 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, by three different roads, Constitution Key and, and, and Boulder Crest. All the way to the east is Wilani People's Park. And like just to the west of that is the RC field where the music festival was happening, where the bouncy castle is and where our, 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.

To get there, you know, if you're on the road, is still a 25-30 minute walk. It is not anywhere close on foot to get 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 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 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 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 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 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 two. Wow, this smoke plume is massive. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill.

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

I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories.

Blacklit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 near the power line 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,

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 hour. So when the police came running up 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 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. 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 the crowd and realizing that a small force of officers is easily overwhelmed,

kind of pulled back with their SDs. And then just after that, over in Wilani 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 an 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. 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 really get away or run through that area because your breathing would stop, as mine temporarily did as 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... 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 Walani 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 uh at the festival and tackle and tase 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 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, why are you doing it?

And then the person said, I didn't do anything. And then the Georgia State Patrol officer responded, well, you ran. As if running when somebody with a gun chasing you is an admission of guilt of something. So the response was nonsensical and stupid. The response was nonsensical and stupid. So they're tear gassing the force and again, you know, grabbing from reports. Anyone who's running, anyone 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 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 i've had police just charge at me for filming police brutality before and yeah you, 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 Long 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 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 stationed at each intersection. Oh, and we can't forget the Sandy Springs Police Department also and its way down from outside the perimeter. Multiple SWAT teams. There was like, I think three different Bearcats.

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 County. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnal

Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters, to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of my Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives.

I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit,

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

or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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. unhindered until dusk and about then is when DJ Elrad comes up and officers get out and call over like five people from the crowd and so at this point I think there's like somewhere between a hundred seventy five to a hundred people 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? You know, 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. Let us go home! Let us go home! 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 somewhere around three dozen people without cars still remaining at the festival.

And this whole time, they're also chanting, we have kids, let go and like the it's this very big moment of solidarity um that i've been told from like people who were there that you you could tell that everybody was like really interested in keeping each other safe yeah it was it was 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. 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 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. 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 Asada chant. We end with the words of our mother, Asada 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 chains! 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 chains! We have nothing to lose but our chains! We have nothing to lose but our chains! Our chains! Our chains!

Our chains! Our chains! Our chains! Music, festival, audio, Fantastic! Thank you! 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 slash sources. Thanks for listening.

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