You're listening to Comedy Central. Tonight, we take a look at Atlanta, which is getting crazy. I'm talking waffle house crazy. Atlanta's busy downtown descended into chaos over the weekend. Hundreds of protesters marched in the streets in the wake of the death of a twenty six year old environmental activists. The activist was killed on Wednesday as officers clear protesters from the site of a planned police training center. Police training center, But these guys are trained, right, This isn't
an arm militia of interns. Back before things got this bad, I went to Atlanta and met with local activists Jasmine Burnett. Atlanta Police Foundation is building a massive urban warfare training facility with bombs, testings, tear gas explosions, are shooting range,
getting people marched to defund the police. They looked like a refunded Activists have dubbed this development cops City and acre ninety million dollar complex including a shooting ring, burned buildings, and a mock city that includes apartments at school, even a bar. So this is basically six flags for the police. Yes, it's a playground. You can't call it a playground or which you read there's literally a playground. But I had a dream about how they could make this project more
appealing to activists. We name it after Montin Luther Camp doesn't matter. Tyler Perry presents the training facility. The name doesn't change the impact until you don't watching on Tyler Perry. Not only is Cops City increasing police militarization, it's also threatening the environment for more. I spoke with Jackie Echoes, an activists who unfortunately didn't want to meet at a sofie place. Why can't we just talk on the dirt stop?
You know how many interviews occur on dry land. Jackie took me out in the South River, part of a designated acre preserve, which also includes the land where they want to build Cops City. So why was the public park suddenly getting turned into cop Chilla? Honestly, I don't think it would happen anywhere else. Why is that the history of this watershed, the color of this watershed, makes it possible here? What color is that? That color is black.
The folks that are affected are black and powerless. And that's the definition of environmental racism. That's what the trees called you. The inverg right Because I kept pretending I knew how to kayak. Jackie explained how the black neighborhoods around Coops City already flood every time it rains, and this development will only make that worse. Southeast Atlanta has had flooding problems. However, you paid acres, you're gonna get a whole lot more funding. Do you know what they say?
Pay paradise and build a ten million dollar parking line. Activists like Jackie and Jasmine have been campaigning against Cops City using legal avenues, but others have been like screw it, I'm going full mad mass protesters through at least one molotov cocktail. Protesters set fire to a construction workers truck. Activists calling themselves forest Defenders have been occupying the woods around the Cops City building site for over a year. So,
against my better judgment, I headed to one of their encampments. Yeah, Barry Kage burnt out truck in a pretty pretty normal place. I met with Tsabo and green Grass, two forest defenders who were going to give me a tour of the Wait wait, wait, who the hell is this all right? I think that's the police rolling up. Yeah, because we're trying to obstruct their projects to green Grass just took off green Grass on the police. I understand it's a
black thing. Yeah, let's go this way. I'd rather take my chance with the Georgia e Walks than the cops. So I followed green Grass and Sambo into the woods. So I just got here and the police just ran us into the forest. Is that normal? Yes, they come Monday through Friday just to terrorize us like police do. Some of the forest defenders have a twenty five thousand dollar bounty on their head, so they mask up to discuss their identity, and some are even taking a cue
from old school t pain. This is a plantation, shun historically and ex prison farm. To be honest, I wish I had an auto tune I could speak in because you've just made prison farm industrial complex sounds so melody. They led me to the living room one of their encampments with kind of horror film find rest in the living room. Yeah, don't don't just say press, you got to say Roy Wood Jr. You know him from deaf comedy jam HBO's one of the best comedy comedians to
do it. Oh no, no, um. This living room is used as our community function Bingo. Yeah, that beingo night. Where's the multiv cocktail station, Where's the gun training station? The majority of us just want to live in peace with each other. We work here on ourselves, and we do yoga and we meditate, get massages here, but you'll get massagest you do yoga, meditate, stretch and deal with your inner like therapy. Has that had any type of
effect on stopping cops city from coming. Yeah, their construction only gotten like two days in the past year, and one of the primary construction firms dropped out. According to leak documents, the top city building plan, it's months behind schedule. This scrunched granilla ship seems to be working, but forest defenders say law enforcement has stepped up raids on their camps, so they built barricades and they avoid police by living
in tree houses like some sort of Antifa Swiss family. Robinson, Okay, so that's about fifty ft in the air. Yeah, tree sitters may drop things, body grab bees. He just said that they dropped paper bags to ship. Well, if the cops are in here and you can't come down from the tree, it's a lot of different ways to protest. Why is your way live? In the treehouse eight feet up and drop ship in paper bag. We have to stop cop city because they're practicing to murder us. They're
practicing obamas. They're practicing how to um come into our homes more effectively while we're sleep. The alternative is staying here, shipping in a bag sometimes or way down and watch the world burn. Anyone up there, please don't drop ship on us. This is my only suit. Sends my visit to the Atlanta Force. Police raids and arrests have only been more frequent, culminating in last week's shooting. Police don't usually target protesters like this in America, but if they
go after celebrity journalists. Next, good thing. I got rid of my phone in the wood so the police can't track me. Oh ship, How am I supposed to get a up out of here? Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcast. Watch The Daily Show week days to the eleven ten Central, own Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Fairmount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast