The City of Atlanta has leased 381-acres of Weelaunee Forest to the Atlanta Police Foundation in order to build a “police military facility”. Weelaunee Forest covers 3,500 acres in south Atlanta and is also known as the South River Forest. The history of this forest land includes the removal of the Muscogee Creek people who were forced onto the Trail of Tears, a chattel slavery plantation, a prison farm and recently the distribution of 40 acres for a movie studio.
The plans for this Cop City includes multiple military-grade training facilities, a mock city to practice “urban warfare”, dozens of shooting ranges and a Black Hawk helicopter landing pad. This $90 million dollar project is being funded by corporations and in part by the taxes of the citizens of Atlanta despite the 70% who came forward in opposition. Spearheaded by a police foundation with no transparency, honesty or respect for neither the environment nor the people in the community.
A grassroot movement to prevent Cop City began upon the Atlanta City Council’s vote last September. #StopCopCity was born from this effort and to date there has been limited national attention given to this effort. This panel discussion is an attempt to call additional national attention to this movement and the efforts to #StopCopCity.
Some useful links to learn more or support the movement:
- https://stopcop.city/
- https://defendtheatlantaforest.org/
- https://communitymovementbuilders.org/stop-cop-city/
- https://atlsolidarity.org/
On December 12, I moderated a panel on Cop City. There are many other videos available on the topic, but this is the recording of that conversation: