[News] Cop City Kills Before It Opens

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*Cop City Kills Before It Opens* 
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/cop-city-kills-it-opens>

Margaret Kimberley <https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/Margaret 
Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist> - 25 Jan 2023
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Cop City Kills Before It Opens 
<https://www.blackagendareport.com/sites/default/files/2023-01/Paez%20Teran.jpg> 

Manuel Esteban Paez Terán was killed by police at the site of the 
planned Cop City. (Photo: Gabe Eisen)

/What could possibly go wrong with a $90 million, 85-acre police 
training ground that the community doesn't want? Someone could be 
killed, and that happened before Atlanta's awful Cop City project has 
even been built./

The city of Atlanta, Georgia is often presented as a “Mecca” for Black 
people. Every mayor of that city who has held office since 1974 has been 
Black, and celebrities have made it their home. Major Historically Black 
Colleges and Universities are located there. Atlanta is thought of as a 
place where Black people thrive.

Except it is like every other major American city, where Black people 
are more likely to be low wage workers or among the unhoused. The Black 
people in leadership positions are allowed to occupy them precisely 
because they have taken a pledge not to upset the established political 
order.

These caveats must be kept in mind when discussing the construction of 
the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, known popularly as Cop City. 
The purported Black Mecca municipality is spending $30 million to 
construct an 85-acre militarized police training camp in the Weelaunee 
Forest. Cop City will feature a mock 
town<https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/new-documentary-on-late-sixties-civil-unrest-is-a-rosetta-stone-for-decoding-the-modern-day-police-state/> 
with a gas station, bank, bar, nightclub, school, residential homes, 
apartments, park, and splash pad. There will also be a warehouse on site 
for training in “crowd control.”  A survey of area residents indicates 
that 98% of them are 
opposed<https://site-2670551-5163-2537.mystrikingly.com/> to the 
facility which will be constructed by the Atlanta Police Foundation. The 
Foundation has pledged to raise an additional $60 
million<https://truthout.org/articles/major-corporations-and-institutions-are-helping-to-build-cop-city-in-atlanta/> 
for the project from corporate donors.

The impetus for this theft of public land and training ground for 
brutality began in 2020. In that year millions of people across the 
country rose up in protest after the murder of George Floyd by 
Minneapolis police. But Atlanta then experienced its own rebellion when 
police there killed Rayshard Brooks. Brooks was killed by police after 
an altercation which began when he fell asleep in his car in the parking 
lot of a fast food restaurant. Such circumstances are common in police 
killings which usually happen during traffic stops, mental health 
crises, and even calls for help. Only 
one-third<https://mappingpoliceviolence.us/> of police killings occur 
during the commission of violent crimes.

Brooks' death created another rebellion, this time in Atlanta itself, 
which years before was falsely dubbed, the “city too busy to hate.” The 
response was classic, as the city’s white fathers ordered their Black 
puppets to crack down and thus the idea for Cop City was born. Its 
funders are a who’s who of corporate giants including Wells Fargo, JP 
Morgan Chase, Chick-Fil-A, Home Depot, United Parcel Service, Delta 
airlines, Amazon and Waffle House. All of these entities claim to have 
some sort of racial equity program and pledge workplace diversity. Some 
of their CEOs made grand gestures like “taking a knee” in 2020, but when 
not creating feel good photo opportunities they use police foundations 
to help fund police departments across the country. These efforts are 
little more than slush funds which help police departments spend more 
money without any accountability to the public.

The protests against Cop City also attracted forest 
defenders<https://defendtheatlantaforest.org/>, who camped out to save 
the old growth trees from destruction. But their peaceful protest of 
civil disobedience was met with brute force. Some of them have been 
arrested and charged with “domestic terrorism.” But the worst was yet to 
come. On January 18, 2023 a forest defender named Manuel Esteban Paez 
Terán was killed by the police.They claim that Paez Terán shot one of 
them first. But there has been no independent investigation and 
conveniently none of the police or members of the Georgia Bureau of 
Investigation who raided the protectors’ encampment were wearing body 
cameras. Cop City is killing people before it even exists.

Of course protests ensued after Paez Terán was killed and there were 
arrests. Mayor Andre Dickens 
<https://www.gpb.org/news/2023/01/23/atlanta-mayor-andre-dickens-says-arrested-rioters-traveled-our-city-wreak-havoc>channeled 
the segregationists of old when he said, "It should be noted that these 
individuals were not Atlanta or Georgia residents. Most of them traveled 
into our city to wreak havoc." The representatives of the Black Mecca 
have resurrected the old “outside agitator” trope.

Police surveillance in Georgia didn’t start with Cop City. In 2007 the 
plans for what is now Operation 
Shield<https://www.mainlinezine.com/report-with-10000-cameras-and-counting-how-many-does-the-apd-need-to-protect-and-serve-atlanta/> 
were put in place. More than 10,000 video cameras and license plate 
readers make Atlanta the most surveilled city in the country and one of 
the most surveilled in the world. Corporate funders to the Atlanta 
Police Foundation paid for this hyper policing too.

Cop City shows the nexus between oligarchic control, the police state, 
and their errand girls and boys in the Black political class. The end 
result of their dirty dealing is the Cop City monstrosity. Police don’t 
need a training center. They are already trained. They know quite well 
that their job is to keep Black people under physical control and lock 
them up as often as possible. A mock town teaching riot control is the 
last thing Black people need. Haphazard brutality would be transformed 
into an efficient and well oiled machine.

Obviously Cop City should be opposed, but so should corporate control 
over our lives, and treacherous Black faces in high places. There will 
surely be more killings if Cop City becomes a reality.

*/Margaret Kimberley is the author of Prejudential: Black America and 
the Presidents <https://www.blackagendareport.com/bit.ly/3fnaWYU>/**/. 
You can support her work on Patreon 
<https://www.patreon.com/margaretkimberley>and also find it on the 
Twitter <https://twitter.com/freedomrideblog>and Telegram 
<https://t.me/MargaretKimberley>platforms. She can be reached via email 
at margaret.kimberley(at)blackagendareport.com./*
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