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<a id="gmail-label" href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/state-repression-targets-stop-cop-city-movement" rel="bookmark"><span><font size="4"><b>State Repression Targets the Stop Cop City Movement</b></font></span></a></div><div class="gmail-taxonomy"><a id="gmail-label" href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/state-repression-targets-stop-cop-city-movement" rel="bookmark"><span><font size="4"><b><br></b></font></span>
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<span><a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/author/Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist">Margaret Kimberley</a> - </span>07 Jun 2023
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<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-field-image-caption gmail-field--type-string gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item">Kamau
Franklin of Community Movement Builders and other organizers announce a
ballot referendum effort at a June 7 press conference in Atlanta.
(Photo: Twitter @Micahinatl)</div>
<div class="gmail-field gmail-field--name-body gmail-field--type-text-with-summary gmail-field--label-hidden gmail-field--item"><p><em>Cop
City is an effort to ensure that state violence will bring the most
draconian methods to bear against Black people. State violence is also
being used proactively, in an effort to end opposition to this creation
of Atlanta's white ruling class and their errand boys and girls who
ostensibly control a fake mecca for Black people.</em></p>
<p>“The politicians don’t care about the people. They don’t work for the
people. They work for corporations, the developers, and the police. The
Atlanta City Council ignored the largest mass mobilization ever because
the corporate-funded Atlanta Police Foundation controls them.”<br>
<a href="https://twitter.com/kamaufranklin/status/1666078056484687872?s=20" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Kamau Franklin, Community Movement Builders<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a></p>
<p>Atlanta, Georgia is no mecca. The idea that it is a “good for Black
people” city is a lie. Atlanta is little more than a glorified
plantation where powerful white people give directions to the Black
people they choose to be overseers. The power of the latter group is
severely limited of course. They can always be counted on to act on
behalf of the white power structure they serve.</p>
<p>No one should be shocked that members of the Atlanta City Council
listened to hours of impassioned testimony from their constituents
opposing what they call a Public Safety Training Center yet still voted
to approve an initial $31 million expenditure by a vote of 11 to 4. The
center is commonly and more accurately known as Cop City and thousands
of people have mobilized to keep it from being built.</p>
<p>In the days before the vote the degree of official perfidy was
revealed when the public were informed that the estimated cost for the
center was more than double what they had been told. The cost to the
city is <a href="https://atlanta.capitalbnews.org/cop-city-budget-hearing/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">$67 million<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>, and not the $30 million figure that has been stated ever since the project was announced.</p>
<p>The state of Georgia and their Atlanta lackeys swung into action
after the budgetary fraud was exposed and arrested three organizers of
the <a href="https://atlpresscollective.com/2023/05/31/apd-gbi-raid-bail-fund-arrest-three-organizers/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Atlanta Solidarity Fund<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>,
a bail fund used to support protesters who have been arrested. The city
and state had already mobilized brute force, killing one protester,
Manuel Paez Teran, with 57 bullet wounds and charging others with
terrorism. Before the bail fund arrests, three other organizers were
charged with <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/05/02/cop-city-activists-arrest-flyers/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">felony intimidation of an officer<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a> when they shared already public information which identified the killer police.</p>
<p>Atlanta Solidarity Fund organizers were arrested by a SWAT team and
charged with charity fraud and money laundering because they reimbursed
themselves for expenses. <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/06/06/cop-city-atlanta-funding-vote/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Judge James Altman<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>
released the three on $15,000 bond each. “Paying for camping supplies
and the like? I don’t find it very impressive. There’s not a lot of meat
on the bones of the allegations that thousands of dollars are going to
fund illegal activities.”</p>
<p>But the city of Atlanta and the state of Georgia are not alone in their acts of repression. The federal <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/06/05/dhs-cop-city-andy-ngo/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Department of Homeland Security<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>
has also weighed in calling protesters “militants” who they say
comprise a “violent far-left occupation.” When the DHS report was made
public, online access was suddenly removed.</p>
<p>Cop City would be more than a police training center. The 85-acre
site would be a mock city, used to train police in “crowd control,”
methods. It would be a militarized policing center training law
enforcement from around the country. Cop City is a response to the 2020
protests which sprang up across the country after the police killing of
George Floyd and the protests in Atlanta which took place after the
killing of Rayshard Brooks. The reaction against the new movement was
swift and Atlanta’s local oligarchs demanded that their Black
figureheads do something to ensure that any further protests be met with
the harshest measures possible.</p>
<p>Yet the people of Atlanta weren’t fooled, and they lined up for hours
to give testimony before their so-called representatives who don’t
really want to hear from them. Atlanta resident <a href="https://twitter.com/jduffyrice/status/1666097516553854979?s=20" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Robell Awake<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>
spoke for many when he said, “I cannot believe I am standing here,
pleading with you not to spend the tax dollars of a Black city, to tear
down a forest in a Black neighborhood, to increase the policing and
caging of more Black people. All this in a city with Black leadership.
It breaks my heart.”</p>
<p>As we have said many times at Black Agenda Report, we don’t have
Black political leadership in this country. We have misleadership, a
corrupt buffer class who do the bidding of Black people’s enemies while
pretending to be our representatives.</p>
<p>The next step in stopping the Cop City scam is to put a <a href="https://www.copcityvote.com/" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">referendum<span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>
on the ballot. Organizers must secure 75,000 signatures from registered
voters within the next two months in order to give voters a voice in
the process. Direct democracy is the tool, but the same people who use
SWAT teams to arrest organizers won’t stop either.</p>
<p>Cities, states, and the federal government will all work together at
the behest of the ruling class whenever the people choose to act in
favor of their own interests. They will bring terrorism charges, kill
protesters, and buy off politicians in order to get what they want. As
always, the question is how the masses will respond. Atlantans are ready
and they are showing the way.</p>
<p><strong><em>Margaret Kimberley is the author of <a href="https://www.blackagendareport.com/bit.ly/3fnaWYU" rel="nofollow">Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents</a></em></strong><strong><em>. You can support her work on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/margaretkimberley" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Patreon <span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>and also find it on the <a href="https://twitter.com/freedomrideblog" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Twitter <span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>and <a href="https://t.me/MargaretKimberley" rel="nofollow" class="gmail-0" target="_blank">Telegram <span class="gmail-0"><span class="element-invisible"> </span></span></a>platforms. She can be reached via email at margaret.kimberley(at)<a href="http://blackagendareport.com">blackagendareport.com</a>.</em></strong></p>
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