The Daily - The Fight Over ‘Cop City’

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

This episode contains descriptions of violenceIn a patch of woods southwest of Atlanta, protesters have been clashing with the police over a huge police training facility that the city wants to build there. This month, that fight came to a head when hundreds of activists breached the site, burning police and construction vehicles.Sean Keenan, an Atlanta-based reporter, explains how what opponents call “Cop City,” and the woods surrounding it, have become an unlikely battleground in the nation’s debate over policing.Guest: Sean Keenan, a freelance reporter for The New York Times.Background reading: This month, protesters damaged property at the site of a planned police center in Atlanta in a disturbance that grew out of a demonstration among activists in a forest being developed into a training center.How a forest near Atlanta became a new front line in the debate over policing.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. We are opening our mouths and crying with a loud voice to say that we don't want Cop City. In a patch of wood southwest of Atlanta, protesters and the police have been clashing over a massive police training facility that the city wants to build there. This is a historic investment in public safety that will pay dividends in every community that we have. Earlier this month, that fight came to a head. Demonstrators were armed with rocks and Molotov cocktails. Today, Atlanta-based reporter Sean Keenan on how the facility and the woods surrounding it have become an unlikely battleground in the nation's debate over policing.

It's Tuesday, March 28th. So, Sean, tell me about this planned police training facility just outside Atlanta that's become so controversial. What's planned is 85 acres of training ground for police and firefighters. And it's going to sprawl across forested land southeast of Atlanta and unincorporated DeKalb County. Now, the plan is expected to include a gun range, helipad, pasture land for police horses, classrooms for police and fire training, an amphitheater, and a racetrack for police to practice high-speed chases and firefighters to learn how to drive fire trucks. But what is probably the most contentious element of the whole plan is this mock city, which is planned so the police can prepare

for real-life scenarios like, you know, a mass shooting or a robbery. It'll have apartments, a gas station, a nightclub, a grocery store, you know, simulation zone. How many other facilities are out there like this? Relatively speaking, this is going to be one of the largest facilities of its kind in the U.S. All said, we're talking about a $90 million investment. Could even go over that. $30 million of that is coming from the city, meaning taxpayers, and the other $60 million is being covered by the Atlanta Police Foundation, which is really spearheading the development. And it's seen as this culmination of years of concern about how to address this surge in violent crime in Atlanta, which really spiked during the brunt of the pandemic, just like it did in many other major cities.

This is being hailed by public officials as one of the primary answers to our crime troubles. So this is a case from the city's perspective where the response is in proportion to the scale of the problem, it sounds like. Huge, massive project, big surge in crime. Yeah, sure. I mean, like any major city, Atlanta watched crime jump during the pandemic. I mean, each year for the past three years, the murder rate's gone up. We had 170 homicides in Atlanta just last year. So how specifically did the city see this facility as a way to reverse that problem.

If you have ever had an opportunity to visit either the police academy or the Atlanta Fire Rescue Training Facility, they are simply deplorable. You know, she acknowledged that the facilities were really old and crummy. The roof is leaking. It has mold. The list goes on and on. But they also, you know, they needed some kind of carrot to dangle in front of current officers, potential officers, anything to strengthen the police force at a time when tensions were high? We want our officers and the men and women who serve us at Atlanta Fire Rescue

to have a good attitude and disposition when they encounter us in our communities. It's important that we live up to that end of the bargain as well. We've talked about 21st century training, 21st century policing. You can't do that in subpar facilities. So at a time when citizen-police relationships are incredibly strained, this was seen as a bridge for that gap. as a bridge for that gap. And the city and the police foundation are also billing it as a potentially big moneymaker because they plan to not just use it to train Atlanta police officers, but they will be renting out the space to other jurisdictions outside the city, outside the state. So there could be officers from around the country who come to train here. Okay, so the mayor sees this facility as a way to fix a few pressing issues simultaneously.

So what do Atlanta residents think of this plan? Well, no two people are going to give you the same answer, but just about everybody agrees we need to do something about crime and we need to do something about policing. The plan started to materialize in September 2021, pretty shortly after it was made known to the general public. So the lease agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation is headed to a city council vote, but not before residents weighed in. Like with any ordinance, they had to solicit public comment, and in the throes of the pandemic, they had people calling in. In the throes of the pandemic, they had people calling in. More than 1,100 people phoned the city to let their voice be heard about the public safety training facility. That ended up tallying over 17 hours of public comment.

What was supposed to be a regular city council meeting ended up stretching over two days. Incredible. So what were people in Atlanta who cared about this enough to call in saying? Well, obviously some people are in support of the plan. If you don't have police and fire protection for your citizens, I'm sorry, what are you thinking? This is long overdue. They say we need a drastic response to what is a drastic crime surge. But there are a lot of people opposed. Investing more resources into policing is not going to make our communities safer.

These resources can be used by so many different communities. There's folks who are worried about police militarization. They think that they're already watching police forces become bigger and badder. And they see this plan, especially for the mini-city, as sort of a blueprint for this police playground where they can dress up as soldiers. It seems inappropriate to disturb this land

in order to support a military training facility in a residential area in the middle of a planned green space. There are also environmentalists who are adamantly opposed to this facility. You know, Atlanta has been nicknamed the city in the forest because it has more tree canopy than any major city across the country.

A lot of environmentalists have even nicknamed the South River Forest, which is where the training facility is planned, one of the lungs of Atlanta because of its benefits to the air and water quality across the city and even further. We've got this gorgeous forested land with lakes, and we can do so much more with that land. The city says most of the forest is still going to be preserved, but it's also more than that. It's not just about policing. It's not just about the environment. There's a lot of middle ground in

this Venn diagram where people are seeing this as what's been called environmental racism, meaning this project is clear-cutting right beside a predominantly Black neighborhood called Gresham Park, southeast of the city. The police already have a gun range down the street from where the facility's planned, and the neighbors are already frustrated by hearing gunshots in their backyard regularly. Now they're thinking things could be getting louder, and in theory, there are going to be even more police, and a lot of the neighbors that I've spoken to don't want to think about police lurking around every corner. And the thinking among activists and opponents is that, you know, why is the city not going to a wealthy white part of town to have their way with the ecosystem there?

So it sounds like two lines of opposition here. One, you know, it's bad for the environment. And then the other is that it dumps even more money into what looks like a more kind of militaristic style of policing. That's really been the focus of so much of the protests in the past years. And, you know, as you said, Sean, like those two things also come together in why is it being put exactly here next to this majority black neighborhood? So how did the vote go? The plan passed with flying colors. The council approved it by a 10 to 4 margin. And so all of a sudden, everybody who had been complaining about the deal felt like they had just been shouting into the void. And that's where things get really interesting.

Activists are attempting to block a new police training facility from being built by camping out in the nearby woods and hiding out in tree houses. And I think these reserves of rage, everybody needed an outlet. They say the goal is to get enough people out there to make it impossible for the city of Atlanta to move forward with its plans. So some of them are, you know, organizing on social media. Some of them are, you know, organizing on social media. Some of them are meeting privately. And some people just start camping out in the woods, protesting what they're derisively calling Cop City.

Atlanta police say that it is considered trespassing for the protesters and those living on that property to remain there. So first there were a few of them moving out there, camped out in tents and these makeshift tree houses. And then there are dozens of them. And they create these little villages with houses and they're cooking and cleaning. They're picking up litter off the forest floor. They're organizing food drives. Little communes. I talked to countless activists throughout my reporting on this story.

And they seem really committed to staying there. Yes, there is community in the forest. You have to take care of yourself in a way that you haven't when you live in a home with running water and a toilet and easy access to food. So there is something... There's pretty much been some sort of encampment out there for the last 18 months and change. How long are you willing to stay here? I'm here for the campaign.

Until this is dead and buried and that facility does not get built. It really is, at this point, it might sound like, oh, that's just the rowdy activists trying to pump themselves up. It's a matter of life and death for a lot of bodies that won't have a choice in the matter. 18 months is a long time for a protest of this sort. I've been covering racial justice activism in Atlanta for years, and I've followed roving protests around town for weeks at a time. But almost always, they fizzle out. But at the end of 2022, it seemed like most of the Stop Cop City protesters had sustained a level of commitment and relative calm that was pretty striking.

And then in January of this year, everything started to change. We'll be right back. Okay, Sean, tell us what happened in January. So this forest occupation that started quietly really starts to increase in volume once protesters start encountering construction crews and police who are there to get the land ready for development. And the law enforcement say that the protesters were attacking them with rocks and bottles and Molotov cocktails. The protesters would contend that their movement has been by and large peaceful. But it's not until January that things really come to a head during what police are calling a forest clearing operation.

And on January 18th, one of those operations turns deadly. And what happened exactly? The accounts of law enforcement and the activists are entirely in conflict. The Georgia Bureau of Investigations says that on January 18th, state troopers went into an encampment and came across an activist whose name is Manuel Esteban Pais Teran. Teran went by a nickname, Tortuguita, which means little turtle. Now, state troopers reportedly found Tortuguita sitting inside their tent and told the protester to come out. Tortuguita refused, and so officers deployed pepper ball rounds inside

to try to smoke them out of the tent. Then, they claim, Tortuguita responded with gunfire, shooting through the tent at officers and hitting one trooper in the belly. State police say they have records of Tortuguita legally purchasing a handgun in 2020, and they say ballistic forensics connect that gun to the bullet found in the trooper's belly.

Officers retaliated, shooting dozens of rounds within a span of just a few seconds, ultimately killing Tortuguita. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family found that Tortuguita had been shot at least 13 times. How did the protesters react after this happens? They saw it as a political assassination and they responded with drastic action.

I attended a vigil for Tortuguita and it was predominantly peaceful. And then a small group of the few hundred that had shown up to a neighborhood in Atlanta splintered off and marched down city streets, littering them with e-scooters and trash cans and essentially just trying to stop traffic to draw attention to their cause. Then there were more drastic actions where activists went out and attacked some of the businesses and organizations that are affiliated with the Public Safety Training Center plan, like showing up at the Atlanta Police Foundation's headquarters, which is in downtown Atlanta, and they broke the windows of the building

and they shot fireworks off and they torched a cop car. So in other words, what was once a fairly peaceful demonstration has turned violent. Yeah. And then in late January and early February, they start cooking up a plan for what they're calling a mass mobilization. Now that they had more national attention, they encouraged people from across the country and even across the world to converge on the South River Forest in a show of solidarity and protest against the planned training facility. And what was planned was, by all accounts, a festival.

And did people come? Yeah, hundreds. Probably more than a thousand were there at the forest when I was there that weekend. And where were they from? If you walked through the gravel parking lot, you would see license plates from everywhere. I know there were a few people there from other countries. And they had, you know, art shows and, you know, stand-up comedy. And they had, like, crafts that they did in the woods. And it was just a festival, you know, at least on Saturday.

When I showed up around 5 p.m. on Sunday, the mood was very different. How? What were you seeing at that point? So to the left, I see what I expect to see, which is everybody just hanging out, sitting by the makeshift stage, enjoying the music. But to my right, there is this large crowd assembling, wearing mostly black and camouflage, and they're masking their faces. wearing mostly black and camouflage, and they're masking their faces. All right, looks like to some extent the festival is still going on. So I pulled out my phone. I wanted to show the world what I was witnessing, as is my job.

And as I'm panning from the peaceful activities to my left and going to the right, someone lunges at me and tries to take my phone out of my hand. And so I have to wrestle it away from them for a second. I was clearly not welcome to hang out with that crowd. And I decided one way or another, I'm going with them wherever they're going. Just head in that direction. And then we start marching. And so we're trekking up this hill through the tall grass and the mud. And I could see at the top of the hill a chain-link fence and, you know, little ant-sized people. It dawned on me, okay, those are the police. This is the Cop City site. That is the main construction site at the moment for the training center project.

And as we get closer, what surprised me was the police run away. And I'm wondering what the hell is about to happen. And once we get to that chain link fence, the police have for the most part completely fled. They are closing the fence on the far side of the construction site. And the activists ripped through that fence like a hot knife through butter.

Construction vehicles are up in flames. Like a trailer for the construction crew about to be up in flames. I see a, you know, some of these big yellow earth moving machines just like reduced to a plume of smoke pretty quickly. And the whole thing lasts just a few minutes. It's just like a quick assault on this construction site. And then they slip back into the woods,

strip off their blackened camouflage, change into, you know, regular festival-goer clothes, and try to insert themselves back into the festival. But after a bit of an unnerving lull, the state police storm onto the property. All right, cops are running. And they begin making arrests.

That's to your guests, right? They're tackling people left and right. I'm doing my darndest just to keep up with them. They're looking into the tents now. They're pulling people out of tents. I was trying to follow along. All the while, the sun is going down. And then police told me I had to get out of there. So, Sean, this scene is just very intense that you're describing.

What was the fallout from it? Well, by the end of the night, law enforcement had detained dozens of activists. And by morning, 23 of them had been arrested and charged with domestic terrorism. Law enforcement officials here are saying, because this is a government project, building a training facility for law enforcement, and these activists are trying to stop it, they are effectively terrorists. And these 23 people, most of them were from out of town. I think only two were from Georgia. Two were actually from outside the country. We had one arrested who came here from France and another who came here from Canada. And while the out-of-towners are probably getting most of the

national spotlight for the trouble they've gotten into, this is still very much a local movement. Now, after the attack on the construction site in early March, maybe the activity at the forest quieted down a little bit. I think there was still an occupancy out there. But the grassroots efforts elsewhere in the city were still very much alive. Like I've now been on multiple marches through downtown and it was, you know, very loud and very emotionally charged, but it was completely peaceful. And so there's still plenty of people organizing and this movement is far from done. Although, whereas the forest has long been a flashpoint in the entire conversation, DeKalb County officials just last Friday announced that through an executive order, the park would be closed to the public.

Oh, wow. So shutting it down completely from any activity. Yeah. This, in theory, would take away a crucial foothold for the movement. So, Sean, has any of this changed the original plans for the police facility? Yeah, I mean, the project has changed a little bit. The city has afforded activists some concessions since the initiative's advent. It started as a plan for a 150-acre training center. It's been pared down to 85 acres.

Initially, there was supposed to be bomb detonation training. That's not going to happen anymore. But all said, the main bullet points of the project are very much the same. And if you ask city officials or the police foundation,

they'll tell you there are no breaks on this train. This development is happening. The city is going forward. Yeah. Last week, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced that violent crime in the city, homicides, rapes, aggravated assaults are all down, significantly down since this time last year, which certainly had activists saying, well, see, maybe we don't need this facility.

But, you know, while like in a lot of major cities, the pandemic related surge in crime has started to go down. The fact remains that Atlanta is grappling with a serious crime problem. So, Sean, the national conversation about policing has really taken a number of turns over the past few years. You know, we had the protests on the streets in Ferguson, Missouri, and then, of course, in Minneapolis. And then out of that came the defund movement, which went into state houses all over the country. And I think it's safe to say, you know, did not have resounding success.

So I'm thinking now about what's happened in Atlanta. And what you see on this really local scale is this protest movement that managed to take a stand for a whole year and a half, quite a long time, only to see it eventually spiral into violence and then face potentially being shut down by the authorities, being kicked out of the forest. kicked out of the forest. So do you think that one way to see this whole story is as a case study in how hard it is for protesters to sustain their efforts with police reform? Well, to be clear, the protest is not done yet. I mean, police have repeatedly come to the forest and they've swept people out and they've arrested some of them. And then soon after, activists just return and they're pitching tents again. So no doubt they have had this sustained sense of determination for a long time. But I think they're getting the sense of what they're up against. This training facility carries with it this sort of sense of inevitability that reflects a much larger reality about the politics of law and order right now.

You know, the city of Atlanta says it's determined to respond to concerns about rising crime, even now as crime numbers are dropping. And I think what the fight against Cop City shows is just how hard it is to go up against that tide sean thank you thank you we'll be right back Here's what else you should know today. On Monday, an armed attacker walked into a Christian school in Nashville called Covenant and shot and killed three nine-year-old students and three staff members.

Police identified the assailant as 28-year-old Audrey Hale, who lived in the Nashville area and was at one point a student at the school. There was initial confusion surrounding Hale's gender, but Nashville's police chief, John Drake, said Hale identified as transgender. They said Hale entered the building through a side door, armed with two assault rifles and a handgun, and started firing.

Police officers who responded to the scene shot and killed Hale. The adult victims were all in their 60s and included the head of the school. President Biden spoke about the shooting, saying that the six deaths were, quote, and calling on Congress to do more to enact gun control legislation. And federal authorities have finally found a buyer for Silicon Valley Bank, the California-based bank they seized on March 10th after a run on its deposits left it insolvent. First Citizens Bank shares, a family-run bank in North Carolina, will buy the bank and its assets at a steep discount.

After the deal was announced, shares of midsize banks rose sharply. Today's episode was produced by Alex Sternetchum and Michael Benoit. Fact-checked by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Marian Lozano, Dan Powell, Sophia Landman, and Rowan Nemisto. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you tomorrow.