You turn to us for voices you won't hear anywhere else.

Sign up for Democracy Now!'s Daily Digest to get our latest headlines and stories delivered to your inbox every day.

Atlanta Moves Ahead with “Cop City” in Face of Growing Protests

HeadlineFeb 01, 2023

Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced Tuesday the highly contested $90 million police training facility known as “Cop City” is moving forward, despite growing opposition and the police killing of a forest defender last month. Activists have been camping out in Weelaunee Forest for months to prevent its destruction. Demonstrators at Atlanta’s City Hall yesterday chanted, “Cop City will never be built!” while members of the press were locked out of Mayor Dickens’s news conference. This is community organizer Micah Herskind responding to the city’s plans.

Micah Herskind: “How dare they stand in front of people and say, 'Oh, this plan, where we're tearing down trees, is actually good for people, and it’s good for the economy, and it’s — you know, it’s actually going to protect people’? It’s obviously false, and I hope that it’s reported as such, because it’s such classic, blatant spin, that they’re taking us for fools if they think anyone would believe that tearing down trees and putting cement over it is protecting the environment. That’s outrageous.”

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top