![]() The highly scrutinized vote occurred in the wake of the arrests Wednesday of three organizers who lead the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has provided bail money and helped to find attorneys for arrested protesters. The rest of the $90 million project would come from private donations to the Atlanta Police Foundation, though city officials had, until recently, repeatedly said the public obligation would only be $31 million. Though more than 220 people spoke publicly against the training center, a small handful voiced support, saying they trusted Dickens’ judgment.Ĭouncil members agreed to approve $31 million in public funds for the site’s construction, as well as a provision that requires the city to pay $36 million - $1.2 million a year over 30 years - for using the facility. Protesters had been camping at the site since at least last year, and police said they had caused damage and attacked law enforcement officers and others. City officials say the new 85-acre (34-hectare) campus would replace inadequate training facilities and would help address difficulties in hiring and retaining police officers that worsened after nationwide protests against police brutality and racial injustice three years ago.īut opponents, who have been joined by activists from around the country, say they fear it will lead to greater militarization of the police and that its construction will exacerbate environmental damage. The training center was approved by the City Council in September 2021 but required an additional vote for more funding. We need to go back to meeting the basic needs rather than using police as the sole solution to all of our social problems.” “We’re here to stop environmental racism and the militarization of the police. “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,” said Matthew Johnson, the executive director of Beloved Community Ministries, a local social justice nonprofit. ![]() ![]() The decentralized “Stop Cop City” movement has galvanized protesters from across the country, especially in the wake of the January fatal police shooting of Manuel Paez Terán, a 26-year-old environmental activist known as “Tortuguita” who had been camping in the woods near the site of the proposed project in DeKalb County.įor about 14 hours, residents again and again took to the podium to slam the project, saying it would be a gross misuse of public funds to build the huge facility in a large urban forest in a poor, majority-Black area. ![]()
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