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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">The Rubik’s Cube of Cop City</h1><div>
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By <a href="https://inquest.org/people/joy-james/" class="gmail-c-contributor gmail-a-clear"><span class="gmail-c-contributor__content"><span class="gmail-c-contributor__title gmail-multiline-hover-target">Joy James </span>
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<span class="gmail-c-contributor__separate-last"> & </span>
<a href="https://inquest.org/people/kalonji-jama-changa/" class="gmail-c-contributor gmail-a-clear">
<span class="gmail-c-contributor__content">
<span class="gmail-c-contributor__title gmail-multiline-hover-target">
Kalonji Jama Changa </span>
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July 18, 2023
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<pre>I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta. . . . Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. . . . You deplore the demonstrations that are presently taking place. . . . But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations.
—Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” April 1963</pre>
<hr>
<p>When foundations and corporations attempt to run the world by buying
politicians and police forces, what’s the role of ethical citizenry and
captives? How do citizens and captives comprehend the scope and
strategies to resist the massive engineering of predatory policing—a
rising urban phenomenon that reveals that the term “military occupation”
is more than a metaphor, and reaches way beyond any particular city?
And when such violence is deployed against citizens by the police, who
are protected by the government, who then protects the citizen and
captive from this state criminality, which is approved and funded by
corporations and the wealthy?</p>
<p>These are questions we invite readers to consider in a set of paired
essays about ongoing attempts in Atlanta to fund and build a massive new
police training center where law enforcement will practice
counterinsurgency techniques to use against the city’s own citizens. In
this first part, we review the militaristic and legal violence that
police have been unleashing against people who dare to oppose the new
facility, and examine how the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) draws on
vast private wealth to set public policy against the public’s wishes. In
<a href="https://inquest.org/urban-warfare-and-corporate-funded-armies/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the second essay</a>, we examine how these strategies practice a form of domestic colonialism with techniques rooted in imperial counterinsurgency.</p>
<p>The Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) is a private foundation with
strong corporate ties that supports the Atlanta Police Department. As a
private nonprofit, it steers Atlanta policing policy with zero public
accountability. APF’s promotional tag—“21st Century Community
Policing”—suggests concern for non-elite communities. But the language
APF uses to describe the aim of the Atlanta Public Safety Training
Center—commonly known as “Cop City”—actually presents a lethal Trojan
Horse as a humanitarian gift “to make Atlanta the safest large city in
the nation.” Without specifying the beneficiaries, APF boasts that it
will bring “resources to underserved neighborhoods” that are already
underfunded and overpoliced—or overpoliced because they are underfunded.
APF also claims that it will “cultivate a mindset of true servanthood”
within the Atlanta Police Department (APD). What does APF’s twisted
vision of “true servanthood” look like in practice?</p>
<p>In January 2023 Atlanta state troopers shot and killed Manuel
“Tortuguita” Estaban Paez Terán, a twenty-six-year-old environmental
activist who was protesting the destruction of ancestral forests to
build Cop City. Police claimed that Tortuguita had fired a gun at them,
but <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/03/11/1162843992/cop-city-atlanta-activist-autopsy" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a private autopsy</a>
informed the public that Tortuguita had been sitting cross-legged on
the ground with their hands raised when Georgia troopers shot them <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/20/us/cop-city-activist-killed-dekalb-county-medical-examiner/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">fifty-seven times</a>. While riddling Tortuguita’s body with bullets, a Georgia state trooper was shot and injured, almost certainly by “<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxnvgx/atlanta-police-release-body-camera-footage-of-activist-killing-at-cop-city" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">friendly fire</a>”
from another officer. After the killing, organizers obtained public
information about the police involved in the shooting and distributed
flyers in the neighborhood where one of the officer’s lived. Police
jailed them on <a href="https://theintercept.com/2023/05/02/cop-city-activists-arrest-flyers/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stalking and felony intimidation</a> for sharing this public information with the community.</p>
<p>Organizing food support for families and communities in Atlanta for
months, Tortuguita and their collectives provided what the city
withheld. Their murder and the subsequent arrests are part of an
organized campaign to terrify and jail all who oppose the building of
Cop City. In March prosecutors also <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cop-city-protest-domestic-terrorism-atlanta-6d114e109d489d316f588f51c7cab0cc" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">charged twenty-three people</a>
with domestic terrorism after clashes between police and protesters at
the proposed site of Cop City. At the end of May, a police SWAT team, in
full gear and weapons, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/01/1179427542/atlanta-copy-city-arrests" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">raided the Atlanta Solidarity Fund</a>
(a community bail fund), arresting three of its leaders, Marlon Scott
Kautz, Adele MacLean, and Savannah D. Patterson. The three have been
charged with <a href="https://apnews.com/article/police-training-center-arrests-cop-city-1468a138ed4b17ed394e4b1e4fe202fe" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">money laundering and charity fraud</a>,
accused of “misleading contributors” to channel funds to the Defend the
Atlanta Forest, which was, according to the warrant, “classified by the
United States Department of Homeland Security as Domestic Violent
Extremists.” In fact, the Department of Homeland Security never
designated Defend the Atlanta Forest or other community caretakers as
“Domestic Violent Extremists.” Yet that did not stop DeKalb County
Superior Court judge <a href="https://atlpresscollective.com/2023/05/31/apd-gbi-raid-bail-fund-arrest-three-organizers/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Shondeana Morris</a>,
a Black woman appointed by Republican governor Brian Kemp, from signing
the warrant. The warrants claim that the “illegal” reimbursements <a href="https://atlpresscollective.com/2023/05/31/apd-gbi-raid-bail-fund-arrest-three-organizers/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">included expenses for</a> “forest clean-up, totes, covid rapid tests, media, yard signs.” The Atlanta Solidarity Fund issued <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23833003-atlanta-solidarity-fund-investigation-response-statement-1-docx-1" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a statement</a>
saying that its sole function is to provide resources to protesters
facing repression. Following the arrests, the National Lawyers Guild
(NLG) <a href="https://www.nlg.org/nlg-condemns-state-repression-against-atlanta-solidarity-fund-activists/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">released a statement</a>
asserting that bail funds protect the right to dissent and to have
access to counsel. On June 2 Judge James Altman granted bail.</p>
<p>In June 2020 an Atlanta police officer shot and killed Rayshard
Brooks, less than a month after George Floyd was killed. Brooks’s
funeral was held at Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Ebenezer Baptist
Church. King’s daughter Bernice King and Reverend Raphael Warnock, then a
Senate candidate, addressed the funeral gathering and the public.
Warnock spoke eloquently in the historic church: “Rayshard Brooks is the
latest high-profile casualty in the struggle for justice and a battle
for the soul of America. This is about him but it is so much bigger than
him.”</p>
<p>Neither of Georgia’s democratic senators—Warnock and Jon Ossoff—spoke
of a “battle for the soul of America” when three years later Georgia
troopers assassinated Tortuguita in the forest. When the twenty-three
environmental activists were arrested, Senator Ossoff <a href="https://twitter.com/ossoff/status/1665436838956347392" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">deplored</a>
the “violence” of an “extremist minority”; he did not address the
lethal anti-human violence of the Georgia state troopers under the
control of Governor Kemp, who rages about terrorism without
acknowledging to the public the functions of his Georgia troops. Both
senators <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lawmakers-cop-city-arrests-atlanta_n_647cf7a3e4b02325c5e1608e" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">expressed concerns</a>
about the arrests of the organizers of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund; yet
they never articulated or advocated for a constitutional right not to
be assassinated by police forces. If no one is policing the police for
the safety of the community, then security as community care becomes
high priority. As public referenda (or even recalls) are waged,
electoral politics and legalism appear insufficient in demilitarizing a
war zone built and protected by the state with the backing of
corporations.</p>
<hr>
<p>At the June 5–6, 2023, Atlanta City Hall hearing, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cop-city-vote-atlanta-city-council-d782604c15874e441570654ea362e0ef" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">hundreds of residents</a>—varying
in age, race, gender, and income—denounced Cop City for fifteen hours.
Despite considerable opposition from the public and community
organizers, on June 6, in an 11–4 decision, the Atlanta City Council
approved $67 million in funding for the Cop City project. The total cost
is anticipated to be <a href="https://www.gpb.org/news/2023/06/06/live-coverage-atlanta-city-council-approves-cop-city-funding-after-hundreds-speak" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">$90 million</a>. On June 7 opponents of Cop City <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/atlanta-clerk-sued-denying-stop-cop-city-petition-100287575" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">filed a petition</a> to create a ballot measure that would ask voters to halt the building of the complex. On June 20 they <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/atlanta-police-training-center-opponents-sue-delays-approving-referend-rcna90252" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">filed a lawsuit</a>
against acting city clerk Vanessa Waldron for delaying certification of
the petition. Shortly thereafter, Waldron certified the petition. The
petition must now receive signatures from 70,000 Atlanta voters—some
argue that the number is closer to 100,000, given likely challenges—by
August 15 to be certified and added to the ballot. The referendum
petition <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/atlanta-organizers-unveil-plan-to-take-cop-city-fight-to-the-ballot-box" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">seeks to repeal the ordinance</a> which authorized the city to lease the eighty-five-acre Intrenchment Creek Park—<a href="https://peoplestribune.org/2023/03/forest-defenders-reoccupy-weelaunee-to-stop-cop-city/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">renamed Weelaunee People’s Park by organizers</a>—for the building of Cop City. Cop City is slated to be built on part of what <a href="https://streetsofatlanta.blog/2022/05/02/native-americans-share-concerns-over-fate-of-forest/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the Muscogee Creek called the Weelaunee forest</a> before state-sponsored terrorism <a href="https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/removal-muscogee/during.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">forced them from the lands</a>
in the 1820s and ’30s. Before it was a park, now reclaimed by
organizers as a forest for food and gardens, it was used by the state of
Georgia as a prison farm, on which convict laborers were enslaved
growing food for other inmates. Before that it was a plantation. Through
duplicitous and antidemocratic politics, federal, state, and local
politicians—along with the APF, ADP, and corporate sponsors—plan to
dismember the Weelaunee forest into a training ground for war.</p>
<p>APF promises the enhancement of civilian safety through private funding. Yet, the “<a href="https://atlantapolicefoundation.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">public-private partnership model</a>”
that APF celebrates is more accurately described as a raid on public
coffers that will deprive working-class Black Atlantans while building
equity for white billionaires and corporations. Atlanta’s city council
has pledged millions of dollars to bankroll the endeavor. Black citizens
are being priced out of a city that they can no longer afford to live
within in part because public monies are going to fund a military
playground where police will be taught counterinsurgency tactics that
could be used to kill Black Atlantans.</p>
<p>Pushed by the APF, under the guise of a public project, Cop City is
heavily backed by corporate interests. APF has notable financial and
leadership ties to <a href="https://theflaw.org/articles/corporations-are-keeping-cop-city-alive/#:~:text=Backed%20in%20turn%20by%20a,the%20media%20narrative%20around%20protest" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a long list of companies</a>,
including Waffle House, Equifax, UPS, Wells Fargo, Home Depot,
AT&T, Delta Airlines, Chick-fil-A, and Koch Industries. Cox
Enterprises, Inc., a multi-billion-dollar privately held communications
corporation that shapes public perceptions, is <a href="https://theflaw.org/articles/corporations-are-keeping-cop-city-alive/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">recognized as a lead funder of Cop City</a>. (In <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Fe4g5Iu54&ab_channel=BlackPowerMedia" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">a July 2023 Black Power Media/Renegade Siafu TV [BPM/RSTV] interview</a>, a member of the Cox family and a member of Atlanta <a href="https://logosjournal.com/2023/a-letter-of-concern-to-black-clergy-regarding-cop-city/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Black clergy</a>
critique their respective institutions.) Atlanta’s elected
officials—its mayor, chief of police, and city councilors—are attentive
to the directives of the APF, the brain trust building, banking, and
redefining Atlanta through Cop City. APF’s website boasts that President
Obama’s 2015 Task Force on 21st Century Policing promoted Atlanta as a
“model city,” claiming that it is 1 of only 15 jurisdictions out of
18,000 police forces that received such an honor. Celebrating this
endorsement from the first Black president veils the fact that the
Atlanta democratic political figures rooting for Cop City are Black but
the funders are white corporations. According to the APF, the police
training received at Cop City will “<a href="https://atlantapolicefoundation.org/programs/public-safety-training-center/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">improve morale . . . for APD</a>.” How so? Training in domination, violence, and abuse of power increases civilian distrust of policing.</p>
<p>Despite the massive protests in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 death
at the hands (or knee) of a Minneapolis police officer, police killings
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/06/us-police-killings-record-number-2022" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reached an all-time high</a> in 2022. Simultaneously, APD <a href="https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/atlanta-police-numbers-2020/85-a54ace87-bed2-4d41-87b1-150a9b877672" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">lost police</a>
after the 2020 protests; it plans to hire 750 officers over three years
with retention bonuses and relocation stipends. Mayor Andre Dickens
maligned environmental and community protectors protesting Cop City by
calling them “outsiders”—but APD’s growth requires recruiting “outsider”
police to accelerate gentrification.</p>
<p>APF sells its product: policing. Meanwhile Atlanta citizens go
without bus shelters, well-funded schools, free lunches for children and
elders, adequate housing and health care, clear air, and parks. APF
sees the forest (and the city budget) as the property not of the public
but of affluent sectors and corporate wealth, whose interests are served
by the comprador class. People sleep in substandard public housing, or
on cardboard in streets and alleys, with insufficient food and care,
while investors build a political economy based on predatory policing.
Once built, Cop City would train APD, state, regional, and international
law enforcement agencies “in 21<sup>st</sup> Century Policing best practices” while also providing a cushy “<a href="https://atlantapolicefoundation.org/about-the-atlanta-police-foundation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">gathering spot for community events and conversations</a>”
amid the destruction of Black communities through terrorizing those
communities and the environmentalists and caretakers protecting them.</p>
<p>Despite its stated mission to care for (Black) youth, the APF still
projects them as primary targets of the combined forces of the APD,
Fulton County District Attorney, judges, and Atlanta Criminal Justice
Commission which will “<a href="https://atlantapolicefoundation.org/about-the-atlanta-police-foundation/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">address Atlanta’s repeat offender issue</a>.”
APF promises “Youth Engagement” to “expand its At-Promise youth
initiative” to “divert Atlanta youth from crime to brighter pathways.”
When nonprofits partner with police (or carceral foster care) to help
youth in communities neglected from the city government and abused by
predatory policing, they actually worsen the health outcomes of these
communities. Artist Hausson Byrd’s spoken-word meditation “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLptzN_zvB0&ab_channel=YouthJusticeProject" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Projection</a>”
poetically addresses the violence of predatory policing. Police
networks, as Byrd notes, project their violence upon civilians,
citizens, and captives. The disproportionately targeted are poor,
working class, and people of color. Rather than ask communities what
forms of assistance are useful, governance dictates to under-resourced
communities, and continues to destabilize them through financial neglect
and punitive policing. If militarized policing is a colonizing project
for cities writ large, it is imperative to think beyond the plans and
protests of individual cities, and political betrayals, in order to map
trajectories that inform war resistance strategies.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Editor’s Note:</em> <em>This essay and <a href="https://inquest.org/urban-warfare-and-corporate-funded-armies/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">its second part</a> are the third and fourth installments in the authors’ four-part series </em>Abolition Alchemy. <em>Changa and James continue this discussion on YouTube with a new video, </em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31Fe4g5Iu54&ab_channel=BlackPowerMedia">Resisting Cop City Corporate and Clergy Colonizers</a>,<em> which they recorded for Black Power Media</em> <em>to accompany their </em>Inquest<em> article</em>.</p>
<p><em><sub>Image: <a href="https://unsplash.com/@erbephoto" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jarrod Erbe</a>/Unsplash</sub></em></p>
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