Police presence in southeast Atlanta as activists say protest encampment against ‘Cop City’ being raided

ATLANTA — A number of police companies could possibly be seen working in southeast Atlanta on Tuesday, as activists stated a longstanding protest encampment towards a future police and hearth coaching complicated was being raided.

11Alive SkyTracker video confirmed Atlanta Police, DeKalb Police and Georgia State Patrol had been a minimum of among the many regulation enforcement companies on web site.  

Activists constructing treehouses, dwelling in tents to dam APD coaching web site building

“The drastic response of police militarizing towards folks making an attempt to guard our forest and our local people may be very regarding,” a neighborhood activist stated in a press release despatched to 11Alive. “Militarized police shouldn’t be how we maintain neighborhood secure.”

Activists stated various arrests had been made. Atlanta Police didn’t instantly affirm any arrests.

The Metropolis Council voted 10-4 final 12 months to approve the ability, derisively referred to by neighborhood organizers as “Cop Metropolis,” to be constructed on the previous Jail Farm web site in southeast Atlanta.

The proposed $90 million facility was a precedence of the regulation enforcement neighborhood, which argued it might assist the town recruit and retain officers after the drive noticed departures and low morale following protest actions calling for policing reforms. 

It has confronted sturdy opposition from a coalition of Atlanta neighborhood activists, environmentalists and urbanists, who wished to protect the previous Jail Farm web site as a public greenspace and objected to utilizing public land for the ability in a predominantly Black part of southeast Atlanta slightly than in wealthier, whiter sections of the town, akin to Buckhead.

11Alive’s Tracey Amick Peer visited the protest encampments – which had been first established round December – in February.

A protester, often called Coyote, confirmed us the treehouses and tents that they had been dwelling in to bodily block Atlanta from constructing their new coaching facility.

“Folks have constructed barricades, so there are barricades on sure paths to maintain bulldozers from coming in,” he stated.  

Coyote stated the group feels the ability is unhealthy for the ecology, and so they need the land to return to the Muscogee tribe as an alternative. On the whole, they do not help any police coaching facility, wherever.

The protest teams aligned towards the ability additionally staged a big march this weekend.

The plan authorized by the Metropolis Council concerned a floor lease settlement between the town and the Atlanta Police Basis, which says it can construct on 85 acres of the location and protect the remaining 180 acres as greenspace. 

Former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms promised on the time of the venture’s approval that planners would defend the material of the city forest on the parts of the location that won’t be constructed on for the ability.

Present Mayor Andre Dickens was among the many 10 votes in favor of the venture as a councilman final 12 months.