Atlanta approves controversial ‘cop city’ development despite months of protests and shooting death of activist

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The Atlanta City Council has approved plans to construct a $90m police training centre dubbed “cop city” amid public outcry.

Funding for the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center was passed with an 11-4 vote on Tuesday 6 June. The controversial law enforcement centre has been a major part of Mayor Andre Dickens’ first term in office, despite significant local and national pushback.

Protesters across the country joined the “Stop Cop City” movement after a multi-agency team of Georgia police fatally shot environmental activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Esteban Paez Terán, 26, in January.

The activist, who uses they/them pronouns, was part of a group of demonstrators who had been camping in the woods near the site of the proposed project in DeKalb County.

On Monday 5 June, city officials prepared to vote on allocating at least $31m in public funds for the construction of the training facility, which will feature a firing range and a mock city for training exercises.

Several local residents and community groups rallied against the project on Monday, taking the podium at City Council again and again over a 14-hour period, arguing that it would perpetuate military-style violence against people of colour.

“Today’s vote is about perpetuating militarized policing that will endanger the lives of our residents, our visitors, and put the Black people and Brown people in Atlanta at a heightened risk of police violence,” Gary Spencer of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund testified before the council.

Campaigners also claimed it would be a misuse of public funds to build the facility in a large urban forest, in a poor, majority-Black area – insinuating “environmental racism”.

According to the Associated Press, the executive director of a local social justice non-profit Beloved Community Ministries Matthew Johnson said: “We’re here pleading our case to a government that has been unresponsive, if not hostile, to an unprecedented movement in our City Council’s history.

“We’re here to stop environmental racism and the militarization of the police. ... We need to go back to meeting the basic needs rather than using police as the sole solution to all of our social problems,” Johnson continued.

The training center is backed by the private Atlanta Police Foundation and several high-profile donors. It was approved by the City Council in September 2021 but required an additional vote for more funding.

According to city officials, the 85-acre (34-hectare) training facility would help address difficulties in hiring and retaining police officers that worsened after nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice three years ago.

Additional reporting by Associated Press