The clash over plans to build a police training center on a large tract of land near Atlanta has brought at least one death, a state of emergency, and domestic terrorism charges. Protests are expected to grow more intense, NPR reports. Police arrested at least 35 people on Sunday, after dozens of activists swarmed a construction site and set heavy equipment and other items on fire. Opponents hope to block construction of a $90 million public safety training campus in an area called the South River Forest. "This was a very violent attack," said Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum. The battle over the Public Safety Training Facility, called "Cop City" by opponents, touches on Atlanta's history. It is to be built on land where prisoners once labored on a farm. But the clash is also about the future, and the complicated balance between progress and equity.
The city of Atlanta owns more than 380 acres in the South River Forest area. The training campus will be built where Atlanta's Old Prison Farm once operated, after the city bought the land in 1918. People convicted of nonviolent crimes worked there before the farm shut down in 1995. The training facility is expected to cost $90 million and take up 85 acres — down from 150 acres in the original plan. An explosives training center in the original plan has been scrapped. A firing range, "shoot house," burn building and other aspects remain. Critics say the facility would undermine the goal of creating a peaceful and cohesive green space. Since artist renderings of the project were released in 2021, the Defend the Atlanta Forest group has used Twitter and Instagram to document protests, including camping in the forest. The group announced a "week of action" from March 4 to 11. In January, officers shot and killed activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, known as Tortuguita, during a raid in the area. The facility is supported by the Atlanta Police Foundation, a nonprofit that aims to modernize the city's police force and help it improve training and technology. The foundation is similar to others around the U.S. that sprang up in the big homeland security push after Sept. 11, 2001. It seems to be unique in its size and reach: CEO Dave Wilkinson makes more money than Atlanta's mayor or police chief.