5 Ways to Help Stop Cop City, Atlanta

 

By Fola Onifade

In September 2021, the city of Atlanta approved the creation of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center that has come to be known as Cop City. Cop City is an 85-acre project that would serve as a training ground for police officers to engage in what organizers are calling “urban warfare,” or attacks on mostly Black and Brown people. Cop City is proposed to be built on what is currently the Weelaunee Forest, a sacred forest to the Native American Muscogee people. This land also cuts through majority Black and Brown communities, threatening to displace an already vulnerable population within the city’s limits.

On June 6, despite protests and calls from the community to stop the creation of Cop City, Atlanta City Council decided to forge ahead and approve $90 million for the police training facility. Organizers across the city, as well as many across the nation, are not backing down however, and are gearing up to take action to make sure the voice of Atlanta is heard.

What’s happening is important and has implications across the country. If Cop City is successfully built, it will only be a matter of time before more facilities like it are created, putting more Black and Brown people at risk. 

I spoke with my friend and organizer Kwame Olufemi, cooperative director of the Community Movement Builders, a national collective of Black people building sustainable communities, about what folks outside of Atlanta can do to support. Whether you live in Atlanta or not, here are some ways you can get involved in the fight to stop Cop City:

  1. Donate to the National Bail Fund Network 

  • On May 31, police arrested three organizers with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, a non-profit fund that provides bail and legal support to protestors who are arrested. The organizers were charged with one count each of money laundering and charity fraud. According to the Atlanta Community Press Collective, the arrests are a part of a wave of repression facing protestors who oppose Cop City. 

  • With the help and support of the community, the organizers have been released. While members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund are currently unable to run operations, Olufemi recommended supporting the National Bail Fund Network, a network of over 90 community bail/bond funds that free people from jail and immigration detention. 

2. Donate to the Atlanta Community Press Collective and support independent media

  • The Atlanta Community Press Collective is an abolitionist, not-for-profit media collective of writers and researchers in Atlanta. The group’s goal is to make the inner workings of local government accessible to the public and to “provide an independent voice in a local media landscape increasingly dominated by corporate interest.” According to Olufemi, ACPC is one of the independent news outlets doing investigative journalism and reporting on what’s going on with Cop City.

  • Scalawag Magazine, which we’ve frequently featured in our Democracy in Color newsletter, is another independent, abolitionist news organization that has been committed to lifting up the fight to stop Cop City. I highly recommend adding them to your reading list.

3. Participate in the week of action from June 24-July 1

  • Starting June 24, folks from across the country will be in Atlanta participating in a week of action to stop Cop City. Events and protests will take place across Atlanta. Participants are encouraged to host their own events at Brownwood Park and/or Weelaunee People's Park. 

4. Familiarize yourself with the Atlanta Police Foundation’s corporate donors and contractors hired to build Cop City

  • The Atlanta Police Foundation cannot build Cop City on its own. Organizers are raising awareness to disincentivize corporations from committing to building Cop City and calling on contractors working with the APF, such as Brassfield & Gorrie—one of the nation’s largest privately-held construction firms—to divest from the project. 

5. Support the referendum and/or Vote to Stop Cop City 

  • After the Atlanta City Council rejected protesters’ pleas to refuse the funding of the training facility, activists decided to take the fight to the ballot box and file a referendum petition. According to Capital B News the referendum would repeal the original ordinance that authorized the mayor’s office to enter into a lease agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation for the land in the Weelaunee Forest. As of June 21, organizers have 58 days to get 75,000 signatures from Atlanta city residents to officially put the referendum on the Nov. 7 ballot.

  • If you live in Atlanta, visit Cop City Vote and sign the petition to stop Cop City. If you don’t live in Atlanta, you can help spread the word about the petition to friends and family who do live in the city.

  • You can find more ways to get involved and support the referendum here.

 
Fola Onifade