Welcome back to it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. This is part two of my mini series about what's been happening this summer in Atlanta to stop cop City. Last episode we left off with the attempted march from Gresham Park to Entrenchman Creek Park, which some might say was a disappointment, but it also gave everyone more clarity about the current state of these types of direct action
marches in Atlanta and the necessity for evolution. The main event on Thursday, June twenty ninth was a protest outside the Home Depot in the upscale retail district off of Ponce de Leon Avenue. Home Depot is one of the Atlanta Police Foundation's financial backers.
There had been a rumor that Home Depot was going to be close earlier in the day. I got there four thirty. It wasn't closed, so I didn't see any signage. So I went and parked my car and came back and like, I think I got out there for fifty and people were starting to line up along the road, like, uh, there's a Starbucks. And they were lining up along ponts next to the Starbucks. And you know, I'm I'm talking
to them watching this. They're chanting, they're they're pulling out banners, and we get a call that they are arresting Lorraine Fontana. So Lorraine Fontana is a seventy six year old activist in Atlanta, and she's great like she she pops up everywhere. She's beloved by everyone. And so we get this call that Lorraine Fontana is being arrested, and I bolts as far as my little legs will take me, and then I have to stop and catch my breath, like right
before I get there. But Lorrain and one other person were arrested in the parking lot right outside the Home Depot's store.
Called for brays here and why anybody protests in the.
Store when they start reading now the layer I asked, the boy handed the practices and the time I also.
Learning telling them how people cannot want their faces or side.
After protesters left the store, they stood by a corner in the parking lot to holding signs, where they were then approached by APD officers, who then arrested two people without warning.
It does kind of just show APD like basically doing exactly what they would with anyone, except in this case it's a seventy six year old woman who's like five or four eleven or something like.
That, Like, yeah, no, I mean it was a lot of people were like surprised that this happened, Like how could the police do this? I think others were like not as surprised, be like no, it's the APD. They like it was a good demonstration for people being like showing that they do not care. They don't really care if you're a seventy seven year old woman or if you're a nineteen year old eco terrorist, they're gonna treat.
You roughly the same. Yeah.
After Lorraine's arrest, more and more people began showing up across the street from Home Depot calling for their divestment from the Atlanta Police Foundation.
It got up to like thirty maybe forty people mostly just like chanting on the sidewalks sidewatch, but then they started to like walk back and forth when when the crosswalk was like there, yeah, and they were they were pushing the limit, like seeing seeing what they could get. But there was also my favorite part was the APD officer who was sitting.
In his.
I'm sorry. My favorite part was, fuck, I gotta do this about breaking down in the middle. I did hear a little bit about this? All right? Take three? Take three?
Uh.
There was the APD officer that was sitting in his ford explore on Ponts and at one point he calls out on his you know, loud speaker, I'm not an idiot. I swear I'm not an idiot. While he's backing up on Ponts with his lights on, just like what are you doing? People are asking a lot of questions.
They are already answered, I'm on an idiots shirt.
Oh it was great. So I caught like the briefest snippet of that audio, thankfully. That's funny.
On Thursday night, after the Home Depot rally, there was a jail vigil around ten pm for Lorraine at the Rice Street Fulton County Jail.
So there there are two jails. There's Atlanta City Detention Center and then there's Fulton County Jail, which we just call Rice Street because it's off off Rice Street. So when you get charged with criminal trespassed, it's like a misdemeanor charge, and typically you would go to Atlanta City Detention Center, which still a jail is still terrible, but relatively like better. Okay, Fulton County Jail is you know
atrocious it is, you know Leshawan Thompson. Of course that the guy who was eating a lot in his cell by bugs because of neglect, that is Rice Street Jail. That's the Fulton County Jail. That's the Fulton County Jail. So we get worried that Lorraine is at Fulton County Jail and not ACDC, which is pretty striking. So everybody goes down to do a jail vigil and noise demo for context.
Last September, Lashawan Thompson, a thirty five year old man, was found dead after spending three months in an infested Fulton County Jail psychiatric cell. His body was covered in a thousand bug bites and insects were found in his mouth, ears, nose, and all across his body. Such inhumane incidents are not in irregularity in Fulton County Jail. Just earlier this month, a thirty five year old named Christopher Smith died in
Fulton County Jail. He had been held in custody since October sixth, twenty nineteen, without bond on several unspecified felony and misdemeanor charges according to the County Sheriff's Office. Last month, a nineteen year old girl died in Fulton County custody after being arrested on a minor misdemeanor charge. This past year alone, six people have died in the Fulton County jail system. People in Atlanta have been doing jail vigils and noise demos for years and it's never really been
a problem. Cops might tell people to move off to the side if the crowd gets to a certain size,
but they have typically gone on without issue. But this time Fulton County deputies came out and declared that people are not allowed to protest outside the jail and ordered everyone to completely leave the parking lot and go all the way to the other side of this big hill off of Rice Street to jail property in order to continue protesting, which no one was really keen on doing, so this kind of game of chicken began.
They eventually they pull on a bunch more sheriff's deputies and threatened arrest, So people started making their way up the hill, linking arms and get to the top of the hill and they're they're met with another group of protesters who had tried to come down, but they were stopped by police at the top of the hill. So now the crowd size like essentially doubled. Yeah, and the energy just goes through the roof. You know, both sides
are just going back and forth. This This deputy is like completely overmatched, doesn't really They didn't seem like Fulton County had a plan. You know, usually APD or the cab they have some sort of protest planned. Fulton was flying by the seat of their pants, and so all of our cars were down at the bottom of the hill.
They were back in the right street parking lot. And this this becomes like an issue because some of the protesters cars are there, all of the media cars are there, like down at the bottom of this hill, and they're not letting anyone go down there. And this woman shows up to like put I think money on her son's commissary car and they don't let her. Now she is like they're just shutting down j oracial loud, Yeah exactly.
So they finally first they're like we're gonna let you go down one by one, and everyone's like hell no, like we are not trusting you.
Yeah, sure, sure, sure, buddy, let's go, let's isolate isolated move through this police fortress in an isolated venor.
Here. Uh So then they're like, okay, you can go as a group. Yeah, okay, as long as you have your vehicles down there, you can go as a group. So they slowly start to make their way down.
They do not see in the next five minutes we want to start.
We have to do. They get all the way to the bottom hill. They're in the parking lot and just like on the edge of where the cars are, and they kind of stop moving, and the shriff's deputy is like, yeah, I gotta keep moving, and so they start moving again and then stop again, and then the shriff's deputy says, all right, get them. And so then the deputy start moving in to make a rest. And quickly, you know this, this march kind of becomes this backward moving thing. Yeah
I can't see that. I'm moving my hands to showcasson, but it becomes this backward moving thing up up the hill. That's the bottom line.
I couplot to be you in the street, who will be taking ample cush get out the street, Get.
Out the street, will be taking in the crowd was able to leave before anyone was detained, but it was a quite tense situation. The sort of dynamic we saw at the jail vigil and home depot protest led it directly into the next event on Friday morning, a previously announced second protest outside of Cadence Bank in Midtown calling on Cadence Bank to cancel the Atlanta Polace Foundation's twenty
million dollar construction loan. All Right, people had a protest on Friday morning at Cadence Bank in Midtown Atlanta.
There's maybe like.
Around a dozen people here, uh, chanting outside of the building. Also about a dozen ap the officers walking walking down from up the street, preparing to meet the crowd. They're moving in closer that they're walking in again people still. I don't think anyone's even touched touched the class door. Most of the people are just standing here on the sidewalk.
You know that game you play with your cats where they come at you but they stop when you're watching them. Yeah, that's the game we're playing.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we turn away the cops advanced We like. This is also like half of like the Loony Tunes gags. Is this they're doing a Michelin frog all right, and they're they're now on the King's Bank property.
They're start starting to advance.
Police were yelling at people that they couldn't touch any of the steps leading up to the bank entrance, and that you weren't allowed to lean against any hand rails because the metal pole was bank property. So once again we got this little game of back and forth, except one side has guns and the power to rescue.
Property.
This cup said in the crowds trying to incite a riot, it feels very much like what you saw I guess in Portland.
Obviously I wasn't there. Where there's an object that becomes this sacred goal and.
Then you're you're battling over the thing because the thing has now been given.
Given something like me actual physical like presence, and that is the thing that you are now fighting for. It becomes it becomes a symbolic in front of a building. It don't matter, but the police gave it significant.
Because the police turn it into this like symbolic thing, it now means more than a just just being stabbed.
So there was this camera guy who like kept kind of stepping up and like pushing the envelope.
And eventually or activists put one foot on the steps, being like, Okay, if you're gonna come after us for putting a foot on the bank steps.
Fine, come at us, like call the bluff. Yeah.
So there was like people yelling at the CoP's face for like forty five minutes, maybe maybe longer. Time always stretches during these sorts of things. It's hard to start to keep it's hard to keep a sense of like temporal stability, even just during during weeks of action. In general, it's always hard to keep a sense of temporal stability. That's the sense of time warps around. Days blend into each other. A day feels like a week, a week feels like a day. It's it's very it gets very fuzzy.
It gets incredibly trippy, and you're like yeah, and the exhaustion right like just compounds. There's a lot of things that that feed into it.
Despite about a dozen people putting their foot on the sacred steps, the police did not decide to arrest anyone at this protest, and after about an hour of disruption, the crowd departed.
The week of action.
Ended much like the last one, with the final rally being the Youth March back at Brownwood Park. Lorraine just got out on bail and spoke about the jail conditions to the crowd of one hundred or so people gathered in the park on the morning of July first.
And I don't want people to forget that our movement is connected with lots of other stone, one of.
Which is prison abolition.
And the idea that our so quote criminal justice system is such that people get just shoved behind bars.
We don't want to see them. We don't care what happens to them.
And even if they're not hadn't gone to trial yet.
And they're in a jail awaiting hearing or awaiting a.
Trial, they're treated like they already want the.
People that they're criminals, we don't.
Have to care as much about them.
They're kind of the people.
Lorraine said that she was in a crowded holding cell with twenty two other women and just a few metal benches, nothing else. This is where nearly two dozen people had to sleep, had to eat, use the bathroom, all in one place for days on end. Women were trying to sit or sleep on either of the hard benches or the floor. Some were attempting to use menstrul pads in place of a mattress. If they were lucky enough to
be asleep. They were woken up at two am for breakfast and then again at four am for head counting.
They were so full, I didn't have bloom for the people that were being arrested, so they were in this holding sale.
Some of them been there three days.
It was something like eighteen feet by six feet across.
The last six feet were behind a divider that had a toy as toy, so it was even less. The prison system is every day doing these kind of being u and treatment to people that get arrested or not yet guilty of anything.
Student organizers and parents also briefly spoke on why people are fighting against cop City.
I don't want to live in a city.
I don't want to live in a country in a world that prioritizes the protection of private property through murder in state violence over the fundamental building blocks of life. Okay, I think we need to be focusing on giving people places to live, giving people food to eat, water to drink, not on giving the police playgrounds where they can blow.
Up bombs and shoot their guns.
And that's why all of us together here need to come together be as one here in beautiful community, with children, with elders, everything in between, doing this amazing community. I love being out here with y'all. It's so much fun to just like be working the popcorn machines and all that. And that's why we're all here together, because we know that community is the key for us to stop cop City, Stop cop City.
And so as we fight to.
Stop top City, we are fighting for investment in the things that make families thrive in this city. Were telling all dreat chickens, were telling the little police foundations, and we command that money be reinvested, and they're housing for the people, child care for the people, education for the people, health care for the people. But those are the things that make our communities truly safe. And if they won't give it to us, we're gonna build those networks of
care in our communities ourselves. That is what makes days like today so beautiful, the fact that the people have the capacity to feel and feed the people. The people have the capacity to make sure that people say hi, drating. People have the capacity to give each other medical care. And as we build out those networks of care, we make the government irrelevance.
You try to tell us what they do all day long.
But if we continue to build people's power, well they have to say don't even matter.
So are you ready to build that.
Kind of world?
As people got ready to depart, the energy was noticeably higher than most other events that week. All right, it is Saturday morning on July first. This is the last day of the sixth Week of Action. The Youth Rally just left Brownwood Park and is now marching through East
Atlanta Village. Shortly before the Youth Rally, news started to circulate that early early that morning, just after midnight, several Atlanta police motorcycles and cop cars suffered mysterious damages, which possibly could have contributed to the more bolsterous energy among some of the radical attendees.
People are driving by and honking in support.
As about seventy five people, maybe one hundred or marked as about seventy five or one hundred people are our marching next to Metropolitan Avenue.
Take a fire truck would pull their air horn. The fire trucks were kind of busy last night.
Actually, I'm not sure the fire trucks were busy doing what There's well, it seems like a lot of police motorcycles were found to be set on fire at the sight of the old Police Trading Academy.
Sounded like some police suck cruisers were wrecked somewhere else in the city too.
On Memorial Drive Southeast, it sounded like three cop cars were also smashed up.
Is you think there's something going around? Is it contagious? So, yeah, the fire crews were a little bit busy last night. Spontaneous vehicle vandalism.
Yeah, that's certainly one way to end this week of action. This definitely feels like the most positive part of the Week of action so far. Yeah, people have been marching for about twenty minutes now. The march is now turned down Glenwood and is heading back towards Brownwood Park. No police presence at all so far. There was just complete I've not seen a single cop car in this in this section of town. There's also three less cop cars in Atlanta than there usually is.
So that might have something to do with it. It was from this zone too, that the second one where the cop cars are it was like a mile and a half away. Yeah, it's very very close, but yeah, very different than what we saw on last Saturday. Yes, where I like even on my way in I saw APD here every you know twenty feet yeah, and do not see a single Nope. APD vehicle is notable.
The youth rally that closed the last week of action in March kind of felt like the end of an era. This one on July first felt very different, much more like the beginning of a new era. After a very scattered week, the movement finally started to feel like it had multiple directions to grow. This week definitely started on I would say, a muted note, and it's ended with a bit more directionality for the future and a bit more positivity.
I think.
I think people were able to think of ways that the movement can evolve and grow from here and recognize the necessity for that and now change and yet recognized the necessity for change, and people are ready to continue and evolve as the situation on the ground is also changing.
And I mean adaptability was was a part of the movement from the get go. Yes, just I think we got the movement got very tied to certain modes of operation that are not available anymore.
Yep.
You know, for the past like a few months, people have been it felt like people have been playing on the police's like board, like they've been they've been following that, and both both of the actual last night and the sort of talks that are happening throughout the city.
I think that is probably going to change. All right.
We are about a block away from Brownwood Park on Portland Avenue and Gresham Avenue, where there is pizza and water waiting. That is, that is I'm excited for water. I don't think I can have hot pizza right now. I think I would just faint, but cold water is certainly, certainly, enticely certainly. Yeah, and there's music back here in Brownwood. Tables set up, giving out literature, giving out food, water,
lots of bubbles. Earlier, earlier, at the earlier, at the rally before the march, there was a water balloon fight which was very dangerous.
Yeah, I left it. I don't know why you've stayed around the water move. I took my laptop and left. There was there was there was a few very close moments there. But yeah, no, there's food.
There's lots of signs, banners, lots of a lot of
Little Caesar's pizza. There was much more energy here compared to the kickoff rally, which happened in the very same park exactly a week beforehand, which felt sort of reversed from the previous week of action this past March, which is interesting because like last week of action, you know, the kickoff rally was like the biggest thing, was the biggest energy point, and the youth rally was kind of the more like muted clothes and this has kind of been inversed.
Which honestly for when you're looking at like what has happened over the last few months, maybe reading leaning out with a high note is yeah, is the ideal.
I like that We're also ending with the bouncy castle, which is very very important.
Yeah, for the full flip, we have to end with the bouncy castle.
Yes, although we should move the bouncy castle to eight ninety Memorial Drive Southeast, oh my god.
Stop.
After the youth rally, Matt and I got some coffee in Eastern It's a village and talked about the broad strokes of the week and the general state of the movement. Like I said, I think this week started with a lot of questions being had and it's ended with some of those questions being being answered and people figuring out that to answer some of some of those other questions. The answer will will will take the form of actions
that happened in these next few months. And I feel like there's it's it's it's ended with a bit more directionality than when it began, which is interesting for a.
Week of action. Yeah, it was needed, though it was absolutely needed.
Like at like the first rally just felt so weird that for the first tick offf rally that the first day, that the first few days felt just very very like very scattered. It was unclear how what was happening was related to stop in Coff City. And in some ways this week of action feels like the reverse of the last week of action, where like the last week of action, it started with a point of directionality, like we are going to retake Wallani and they did.
And then they're like, we are going.
To do an action to physically stop the construction of cop City, and they did, like they was doing all these things. And I think that week ended with more questions than what it started with because the police did the rate of the forest, there was a lot of there was more uncertainty by the end of the week
because there was so much over policing. There was a lot of a lot of changes through throughout that week, and I think this week started in like an inverse is people started this week with a directionless sense, and they had a lot of questions going into this week, and I feel like some people have started to kind of figure out how the movement will evolve in these next few months, and it feels like people have a better idea of where of like how they're going to
move forward in these next three months six months, and like the month and a half when construction is slated to begin in August.
Later to begain and you know, this referendum is looking like it's doing pretty well, so hopefully that that does delay. But yeah, of course we also ended with the bouncy casts. We can't do it so acknowledging the importance of bouncy castles to this movement, or at least to Garrison, And.
I yes, I think the other thing that makes it interesting in terms of this week being an inverse of the last week is that you know, on the last week, day two, there was this very.
Fiery action with vehicles being smashed.
And then on the second to last day, which is like late last night, either like late Friday, night or early Saturday morning at like one am, two am, there was three Atlanta police cars smashed by Reynoldstown I believe. Yeah, just right like a mile and a half away from from Brownwood Park, YEP and close to the airport at the old Police training Academy. There was a it looks like a good fleet of Atlanta Police motorcycles.
Yeah, that's where the motorcycle Like, that's where the motors. The credit quarters is outside and those motorcycles are going to be no longer functioning.
Yes, they are all charged to a crisp with like incendiary devices found there.
Yeah.
One of the most noticeable differences about this week of action compared to the previous one was the turnout out of state support did not show up in similar numbers as to the last week of action in March. There's a lot of potential reasons for this. This week may have simply happened too soon, It coincided with other events across the country. Its messaging may not have reflected an
adequate level of planning. There was probably some demoralization from the ninety acres of trees cut down and with entrenchment. Creek Park closed and under police occupation. Launching options in Atlanta was more of a mystery for those coming from outside the city. More time away from the death of Tortigita is probably also a factor. People in Atlanta may have to reconcile that the movement may not have as much widespread national support and all the ground numbers as it did last March.
This is the smallest week of action we've had in over a year in Duisa memory. This is the smallest one I've I've reported on. Right, Yeah, you know, I think it might have even been comparable to the first week of Action, like it was around there, but it also felt more local. It did feel way more local. Once you go from like something so big as the last week of action to something more constrained, that is that sets a like a vibe shift. Yeah, that I think you've got to kind of come to terms with.
And it's one of those moments where you're like, Okay, we are in a different paradigm.
Yeah, fewer numbers is not necessarily a bad thing. A group of five to ten people can sometimes be much more effective at doing certain things than a crowd of two hundred or even a thousand. You just have to specifically prepare for the numbers that you know that you'll have for such a long time, I felt like this was this movement was extremely effective in delaying construction like that was like extremely effective deadline year and a half
deadlines kept getting pushed back every single thing. Like the occupation was very good at doing what it attempted to do, and at a certain point that became no longer viable.
And things are now changing gears. Yeah, and you have to allow yourself that evolution like that.
It has to the same way people started occupying the forest in October after the city council stuff in September twenty twenty one, Like as the things change, you have to change your tactics with it.
And as I mean, as revolutionary strategy goes, that's just that should be a baseline and adapting to what the situation is and not what the situation what you want it to be.
Yeah, And I think more people are talking about that this week and realizing that like maybe even another week of Action does not make sense for this new paradigm that we're existing in Atlanta. I've talked about the possibility of changing the week of Action structure before in previous episodes. And I really only brought that up because that's what people were conveying to me at the time. And this has continued to be a topic of debate both during and since June.
What do you do with the week of Action format? And I know that we kind of talked about this during the last YEP recap episode where you brought up that that might have been the last Week of Action, but it wasn't.
It wasn't because as I was making as episodes this Week of Action what was announced, I've heard more people say that they don't think the Week of Action format is applicable anymore more. I've heard more people say that than I did last week. What if Atlanta has kind of outgrown this format? This format's proved to be very useful in these past few years. There's been very positive parts,
it's been very negative parts. And what if there's time for What if it's time for something like completely new, something that the police don't know how to respond.
To, because something that matches the new paradigm. Yeah, because that's the other thing.
It's like people have been doing this for like two years now, Like not only have people gotten used to a pattern, but like police have gotten used to a pattern, like police have gotten very good at resting the week of action, like they have, they have had two years to practice, they have they know how to do this now, So why why keep playing on their battlefield?
Like?
Why why keep doing what APD is expecting you to do.
That's part of what's you know, interesting about this resurgence of these nocturnal hit and run sabotages that are unannounced. That we saw the ones earlier in this week with the with the Brent Scarborough's machines. Then we saw the APD vehicles get hit last night, So perhaps there there will be more of that. Perhaps they'll be just new things that we can't even predict, Like there's so many
other avenues that things could that things could go. Even during the use March, Matt and I were wondering if this new spike in sabotage actions would break the spell and we'd see a return of this type of action happening more frequently. You know.
It's it's the sort of direct action that has really been missing over the last several months. Yeah, and no, And we've been talking about a lot this past week.
We're talking about how there's been a lot of these sorts of like nocturnal hit and run direct actions, and late last night it seems like there was a resurgence.
So we'll see how that continues, you know, after the Week of Action, if it continues, or if it was a Week of Action inspired element. But I have a feeling we'll see some of those continue to crop up.
Absolutely and this did indeed turn out to be the case, all right. I will do my best to go over a short list of the claimed attacks against contractors, building Copcity, and corporations that fund the Atlanta Police Foundation from after this week of action. On a July first, over half a dozen Bank of America buildings in the Bay Area where vandalized and a dozen or so ATMs were smashed.
In late June to early July, group of friends visited the home of copp City architect Anthony Kenny in Norcross, Georgia, while another group paid a visit to Ambrush baseil Walla, a member of the board of trustees for the Atlanta Police Foundation. People painted messages around their homes and tires
were slashed. On the night of July second, Keith Johnson, the Eastern Regional president for Brassfield and Gory, the contracting firm who broadly oversaw the destruction of the forest and who has decided to physically build cop City, also received a mysterious visit late in the night. An unknown number of people evaded security guards and spread blood red paint around his pool and left a message reading cop City will never be built. Drop the contract and you can't hide.
According to an online communicay, rotten fish and dirty motor oil were left hidden somewhere on the property. Part of the communicay, addressed to Keith reads quote, we know things haven't been feeling great in the office. You're losing money. Subcontractors are upset. There are fractures everywhere in the cop City project, and all of that weight and procarity is on your fragile shoulders. Each time you think of us, or see the reminders we left you, remember this is
your own doing. You can make all of this stop by dropping the Copcity contract. On July fourth, in lieu of fireworks, people claimed to have set two Brent Scarborough machines on fire in broad daylight due to the lack of security during daytime. Scarborough is the subcontractor who physically leveled the ninety sum acres of Forest in the Wallani The same day in Michigan, Chase Bank ATMs were sabotaged with glue and the bank was vandalized with messages of resistance.
Chase Bank's head of Regional Investment Banking serves on the board of the Atlanta Police Foundation. And on July eighth, a Bank of America in Berkeley was vandalized with stopcop
city slogans and three ATMs were smashed. During the start of this little wave of actions, the Mayor's office and APD were none too happy, so on July fifth, Mayor Andre Dickens and Atlanta Police Chief Darren Scherbaum put on a press conference with the ATS, Georgia Bureau of Investigation and FBI to discuss the recent surge of direct actions.
Our public safety facilities and property were the target of an extremely violent and dangerous attack on Saturday, July first, and there were several other destructive acts of extreme vandalism on public and private properly property that occurred that we have reason to believe are related to the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in Decab County. The current Atlanta Police Training Center at one eighty south Side Industrial Parkway was set up in the early morning hours
of Saturday, July first. The targeted attack utilized extremely dangerous homemade incendiary devices to set a fire to the building and completely destroyed eight police motorcycle motorcycles. As shocking as this is, this was not an isolated incident of violence. This group actually took credit for these incidents and they stated it as I quote, we are vengeful wing nuts with nothing left to lose.
Prior to that, about one hour prior to the event of one of the South Side industrial we had another precinct that was targeted in the city. This is our Path Force Precinct, Memorial Drive and the eight hundred block of the Memorial. These officers control the belt line which many of you all visit frequently. At that location, we had multiple windows broken on police vehicles. We believe the intent was to set those vehicles on fire as well.
Half and fire off of the of the red fuse on the ground that has been used by this group in the past to set police vehicles on fire that was dropped when a citizen observed the criminal actions progress and actually interrupted the crimes that were occurring there. So we believe that the fire attack that was planned on Memorial Drive was thwarted by an observant citizen. A short time later, about an hour, we had the fire at
our facility on Southside Industrial. Our training center has housed there most recently, and then our special operations precinct is there. The intent was for all forty to be destroyed, and had all those forty vehicles caught on fire, that police facility would have been gravely damaged, if not destroyed in the fire. And we are thankful for a police officer that saw this unfolding and likely interrupted that plan for
being able to play out in its fullness. There's an indication that this was likely committed by the exact same intevisions. We will let and see where.
The fact tickets.
According to Chief Sheerbaum and Mayor Dickens, the actions against Atlanta Police on July first, over the course of just a few hours equaled over were three hundred thousand dollars in damages as.
We're around thirty five thousand, and they once you outfit us a little bit more so, do that times eight, that's going to put you in the ballpark.
Yeah, and that's not even including the rest of the smoke and damage. And other things, and the broken windows on the police car, etc.
So the group that struck this weekend is a dedicated group of professional anarchists, and I know that may seem a contradiction in terms. So this is a group of individuals who don't pray, play by any rules, and we'll go to any links they need to to carry out. And this is their words. We will wage a campaign of violence and destruction, and so what we saw this weekend was part of that campaign.
It's always funny when police make anarchists sound very cool and scary. But Chief Scherbaum also pretty clearly explained the reasoned methodology behind the pressure campaigns targeting contractors and APF financial sponsors.
We know from the postings of this group their intent to stop the Public Safety Trading Center has left the democratic pro sess of the city Council and is now moving to intimidate and force out contractors that are committed to building the Public Safety training Center this weekend. During the week of action, three different locations private residences were targeted. Tires were flattened on contractors home. A home of an
executive for Brassalgory was significantly vanalyzed. In another jurisdiction. And then we had another location where graffiti was used to intimidate. And then yesterday morning, slightly after seven o'clock in the morning, a location at four eighteen McDonough Boulevard belonging to Brent Scarborough's company, which is a key provider of work and this training centers was also targeted and attacked and equipment was set on fire at that location. These acts are
of a small, determined group. These are small individuals from across the country that are using violence and fear and intimidation to stop a public safety training center. And this group cannot hide behind the dark of night or the home address and feel that they are not going to be held accountable. I have standing at this podium with me today representings from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the ATF, and we are also partner with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
These agencies are working together to determine where federal laws violated this weekend and ensure that the full expertise of American law enforcement is present right here in Atlanta to stop this group, stop this group across the region, stop their ability to impact the public safety network of Atlanta and hold them accountable.
Despite continued threats from law enforcement, the only arrests that have happened so far in relation to this movement are from daytime protests, forest raids, and bail fund organizers. We've yet to see anyone arrested in Atlanta for doing like a specific one of these nocturnal like nights sabotage actions.
That has not happened.
Yeah, I mean, the scariest indictments everyone's expecting are going to come in these next few years, after you give the FBI two three, four years to investigate, after you interview or people whove been arrested, see if anyone stitches, if anyone turns state's witness. But so far, it's been safer to do nocturnal sabotage actions than it has been
to attend a public protest. And that is an interesting paradigm as well, is that no one's actually got arrested for lighting like cop cars and fire in the middle of the night. No one's been arrested for sabotaging equipment in the middle of the night. All of the arrests that are you know, are being tied to like violent crime are from like daytime protests, which is an interesting
factor about this movement. Direct action in the most surveiled city in America can be tricky, and even just managing cell phones and Internet search data is a huge factor. But as much real security there is out in the world, the amount of security theater is arguably a stronger aspect in getting people to not go out and do direct action. The implicit threat of the panopticon is often enough to
stifle people's potential action, but these things are beatable. Guides for how to do it exist either at your local anarchist book fair or online as long as the computer is running tour browser and a reputable VPN.
The Internet.
The internet's a fun place. That's there is a lot of no blogs and sites and the zines that tell you how to do that. I don't know, I mean they people always make mistakes, People get caught sometimes make mistakes.
It's risky, and there are cameras everywhere in the city. You have to Yeah, some of them, don't worry. But it's like, do you really want to play Russian Roulette?
No, that's a part of that's a part of when people like plan these nocturnal actions is like just because it's nighttime, doesn't mean you're not sick getting watched or you're not.
Like it's there's a lot of things that go into that.
There's a lot of ways to get got whether you're like buying supplies and you keep a receipt and people please find a receipt, They track back, they find security acount of you'll be purchasing things and then they're like, oh, this bottle is bought it this place because you have this receipt in your house and blah blahlah blah blah. Like there's there's lots of ways that that stuff happens.
So like I'm not going to give a guide on how to do it right now, but like anarchists have been doing this for a long time.
After you do that crime, you've never done that crime.
Like it's it's not something that you do as a person, like you cease to become a person, you've become like you are that action.
It is subsumed in the action, and then and then it's you never talked about it ever again. It's gone or else you end up going to prison. Yeah, and risking like not just your safety, the safety everyone's safety just by remembering that you did it.
No you know, like these become standards and anarchist communities, like you never brag about something, You never allude to anything like it's it's it's not it's not a game like you're it's not a game. You're it is your your life and other people's lives on the line. When when when you're doing stuff like this and it's yeah, you you never do it to like cool. You never
do it to brag about it like that. That's just not how this works, which is why there's kind of a much more like kind of insular culture around some anarchists, especially anarchists to identify as like illegalists or like the
types of like like green nihilists or green anarchists. That kind of pioneered the militancy of this movement both slightly even slightly before the first City Council vote and then definitely after the first City Council vote where we saw a massive explosion no pun intended in the number of type of sabotages happening in the Wlani Forest. Yeah, which I think that drew a lot of anarchists do come to Atlanta because it.
Was like, oh, they're doing a thing that's been the thing since the end of the green scare.
Yeah, no, this is like the thing that I believe in that this is like, this is my politics. Now there's a spot where I can do my politics. And still no one's been caught for that. And I think that that was a big part of why Atlanta got so big last year, was that people had the ability to like live free in the forest and then do crazy shit at night. Like you can you live in
this like autonomous zone during the day. You're able, whether you're you have housing instability, whether you just want like an escape from like horrible police state living. Like where in whatever, wherever the city you're in, you can go live in the Wilane Forest. You can live in a tent, you can have friends, you can defend this force during the day, and then you can do crazy, crazy shit
at night. And that drew a lot of people to Atlanta, And now with the forest not being there, that also changes that that changes the type of people who are come, who are who want to come to the city because that that was a big draw for people And now that that's no longer an option, you can't really sleep in the Wilani Forest as easily anymore.
Yeah, that changes the types.
Of people who want to come to Atlanta and who are gonna like do crazy shit because that's just how And.
Further on safety, they're not here. Yeah, no, absolutely.
As the referendum is hoping to stop cop City by having Atlanta residents vote on whether to cancel the land lease, other in the Diverse movement have continued their efforts to pressure contractors and funders to drop out of the cop City project. This tactic has already demonstrated its ability to succeed, with Reeve's Young Construction dropping out of the project in April of twenty twenty two, and some material suppliers have
since cut ties with cop City. This is something that APD Chief Darren Shecherbaum certainly seems worried about.
This effort of fear was not going to succeed, and the coalition of law enforcement from the GBI to the FBI, to the ATF, Atlanta Police Department, and a slew of regional agencies is going to stop that campaign so it doesn't happen and individuals.
Do not leave the project.
On July second, protesters in Minnesota visited the homes of Atlas Technical Consultants employees during daylight, people marched around the neighborhoods with instruments and banners, knocked on doors, talked with neighbors, and left a letter of demands to drop the contract
and cut ties with the Atlanta Police Foundation. The project manager for Atlas Technical Consultants engaged with protesters in the street and told them that Atlas had indeed already dropped out of the project due to mounting pressure than we want.
Atlas is no longer involved.
Why they decide to get out of it?
We stopped doing that. Why because you guys are fucking nightmares and you broke all our fucking windows.
So you remember, I don't care what you want to say, So you.
Know my house and knock on my door and do this ship. My company is not involved in this, So get the fuck away from me. Okay, I'm glad.
Alright.
A few days later, Atlas and Long Engineering released an official statement saying that they would no longer be working on the cop City project. Anarchists and those on the left in general seem to have a hard time calling wins, But I'm not sure if it gets any more definitive than that audio clip in showing that this type of direct action can absolutely work in getting businesses to leave
the project. In the next episode, we'll talk more about the referendum, the city's attempts to divide the movement, and the growing pr battle over the fate of Copcity.
See you on the other side.
It Could Happen Here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.