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The plan to build an enormous police training site in Atlanta has ignited a diverse movement of people hoping to protect their communities.
Atlanta officials are pushing ahead with a sprawling, $90 million public safety training center, colloquially known as “Cop City,” that opponents say will damage the environment, militarize the police and put civilians in harm’s way. Amid the ongoing struggle, law enforcement officers have killed at least one protester and charged dozens of people with domestic terrorism.
The sheer size of the training center has drawn critics, who see it as a threat to the community. Opponents of the project have organized protests and experienced numerous confrontations with police, dating back to 2021. Some activists have even moved into the forest where the center is planned to be built, living in encampments as part of their protest. Others are hosting learning seminars, going door to door to raise awareness of the issue or sharing information online, many using hashtags like #StopCopCity or #DefendWeelauneeForest.
Multiple organizers described the movement to HuffPost as autonomous and decentralized, meaning no one person or organization is calling the shots. Instead, a variety of communities — including Black people, Indigenous people, environmentalists and abolitionists against the prison-industrial complex — are joining together with the same goal: to stop Cop City from being built.
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