Three years on from the explosive Black Lives Matter protests across the US, police brutality has continued, with US police killing 1,097 people in 2022, the highest number in the last three years. Black people still make up a disproportionate number of the victims. Atlanta, Georgia, is no exception to the trend of racist violence by US police. In Atlanta, black people made up 88% of people killed by the police between 2013 and 2021 despite being about half of the population. As the ruling class in Atlanta attempts to further militarise their police force, Atlanta becomes a new epicenter of a war between anti-racist protesters and environmental protesters and the police. The latest attacks on protesters builds on a long history of US state attacks on anti-racist and environmental protest: from the Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968) to the George Floyd protests (2020), from Standing Rock Sioux protests (2016) to Keystone XL Pipeline protests (2008-2017).
Tensions between protesters and police came to a boiling point in Atlanta after the murder of a 27-year-old black man, Rayshard Brooks, on 12 June 2020. Furious, demonstrators gathered at the sight of the shooting to demand justice but very quickly, police officers arrived to violently disperse the protesters. Protesters burned down the Wendy’s restaurant where Brooks was murdered and looted several businesses and stores. Riot police and the Georgia National Guard were deployed to put down the spontaneous uprising. This marked just the beginning of a massive conflict between the police and Atlanta’s population.
Cop City – preparations for class war
After the uprisings in 2020, the Atlanta City Council led by Mayor Andre Dickens decided to build a new police training facility in Atlanta’s South River Forest. It would involve razing 85 acres of forest and has been dubbed ‘Cop City’ by activists.
A project fronted by the Atlanta Police Foundation, Cop City will cost at least $90m, $60m of which is coming from corporate sponsors that include AT&T, Bank of America, Chic-fil-a, Meryl Lynch, Nationwide, and Target. Over $30m will come from the Atlanta tax-payers.
The training facility will further militarise the APD. It will include a shooting range, canine training facilities, driving courses, and a ‘mock village’ for the police to be trained in urban warfare and crowd control.
The focus on urban warfare and crowd control is telling. Capitalism is in crisis, working class people are being pushed further into poverty, and black people are becoming increasingly militant in the fight against state racism. The ruling class needs to ensure that the police are prepared to crush the inevitable working class uprisings that will come as a result.
‘Democratic’ dissent
On 8 September 2021, the Atlanta City Council held a town hall meeting to approve the destruction of 85 acres of Atlanta’s South River Forest to build the training centre. Over 1,100 Atlanta residents sent pre-recorded messages to the town hall, 70% of which were strongly against the facility. The council still voted to approve the project. At another meeting on 5 June 2023, despite massive community opposition, the council voted to approve giving the project $30m in extra funding. Enraged town hall attendees chanted ‘Cop City will never be built’ after the vote.
Grassroots resistance and repression
Recognising ‘democratic’ methods of resistance to the project were never going to work, from the end of 2021 environmental activists from Defend Atlanta Forest and other groups began to camp in the Atlanta South River Forest in order to prevent its destruction. On 13 December 2022, a joint task force of police departments raided some of the camps. Five people were arrested and charged with ‘domestic terrorism’, a serious state charge that could result in over 30 years in prison on conviction.
On 18 January 2023, the police stepped up their repression. Armed police officers and state troopers stormed the camps in a surprise raid to disperse the protesters so that construction could begin. During the raid, police officers murdered 26-year-old, non-binary, Venezuelan activist Manuel Paez Terán.
An autopsy showed they were shot 57 times, the first environmental activist shot dead by police in modern US history.
In the six months since Terán’s murder, APD has continued to ramp up its aggression and has arrested over 40 people in connection to the demonstrations, many of whom have been charged with domestic terrorism.
On 31 May, armed Georgia Bureau of Investigation officers raided the homes of three individuals allegedly connected to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, an organisation that had been raising funds to bail Stop Cop City activists out of jail. The organisers were charged with money laundering and charity fraud. When they were finally brought to court, the evidence was so unconvincing that they were granted bail – rare for any arrested Stop Cop City activist.
In the face of state violence, the Stop Cop City movement marches on. In April 2022, Reeves Young Construction – the original contractor for Cop City – backed out amidst mounting pressure. They were replaced by Brasfield & Gorrie. In February 2023, Quality Glass Company announced that they were cutting professional ties with Brasfield & Gorrie. Despite these achievements, the ruling class has made it clear that they will use terror to crush any resistance to Cop City.
Kotsai Sigauke
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 295 August/September 2023
