Police in the City protests have domestic terrorism charges against them

On the case for domestic terrorism at the Atlanta airport, the site of a daylong mass mobilization against a large police facility on the 28th day of August 26

In recent months, several people have been charged with domestic terrorism, after being accused of using violent tactics at the training facility.

Some 35 people were detained Sunday, and two of those arrested are from Georgia, while the rest hail from states from Maine to Arizona and one each is from Canada and France, according to a list provided Monday by the Atlanta Police Department, which said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is the prosecutor.

Orange flames rose from a construction tractor and at least four other fires burned in and around the fenced site as people in black swarmed on both sides of the barricade before squad cars and armed officers arrived, surveillance videos released by the Atlanta Police Department show.

The scrap came at the start of what protesters are calling a weeklong “mass mobilization” – with Thursday labeled a “National Day of Action Against Police Terror” – at the forested site slated to host the $90 million, 85-acre law enforcement facility. Officers weeks ago fatally shot a protester at the construction zone, and activists there previously have been charged with domestic terrorism.

The group went into the construction area and threw rocks, bricks and Molotov cocktails at police officers, causing a lot of damage, according to the police department. The illegal actions of the protesters could have resulted in bodily harm.

“Appropriate charges” are being coordinated with DeKalb County prosecutors and the Georgia Attorney General’s office, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said Sunday in a news conference, adding no officers were hurt and some detained are not from Atlanta.

Kamau Franklin, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, and a Critique of Atlanta Protesters, Charged with Domestic Terrorism

The law enforcement response has shown policies of police aggression and the tactical response of over-policing, according to activist Kamau Franklin. Opponents of the training site have said they fear police will be taught there how to quash social justice movements.

“The language being used by police, calling those arrested ‘outside agitators,’ is meant to separate protesters and meant to criminalize and detach a movement from its homegrown origins,” said Franklin, director of Community Movement Builders, part of a coalition of activists protesting at the site.

Police launched at least two clearing operations this year at the police facility site, one of which ended in the killing of a protester by officers. Some arrested last year at the site were charged with domestic terrorism.

The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center is going to be built on land that used to be a prison farm. Though it’s just outside city limits, that plot of land is owned by the city, meaning residents who live around the site don’t have voting power for the leaders who approved it.

Activists also point out the project’s environmental impact in a world already facing the deadly impacts of the climate crisis. The city leaders appeared to have agreed to preserve the land, but the center would carve it out.

“Our training includes vital areas like de-escalation training techniques, mental health, community-oriented policing, crisis intervention training, as well as civil rights history education,” he said in January. “This training needs space, and that’s exactly what this training center is going to offer.”

In Atlanta, the clash over plans to build a police training center on a large tract of land has brought at least one death, a state of emergency, and domestic terrorism charges — and protests are only expected to grow more intense.

“When you throw commercial-grade fireworks, when you throw Molotov cocktails, large rocks, a number of items at officers, your only intent is to harm, and the charges are going to show that,” Schierbaum said.

Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp condemned “violent activists” in a statement Monday morning, saying they “chose destruction and vandalism over legitimate protest, yet again demonstrating the radical intent behind their actions.”

Kemp said that they would also continue to make sure the safety of our communities. “We will not rest until those who use violence and intimidation for an extremist end are brought to full justice.”

“There will continue to be protests meant to express the outrage of the community,” he said. They are big-tent protests. We don’t expect incidents beyond standard civil disobedience.”

The Defend the Atlanta Forest: Insights from a Protester at the Site of the Decay of Belkis Terán

Among those returning to the site this week is Belkis Terán, the mother of the protester killed earlier this year, who was known to fellow activists as “Tortuguita,” or “Little Turtle.”

She plans to visit Atlanta from her home in Panama to spread her child’s ashes in the forest at the scene of the fatal shooting, she told CNN, adding, “Every day I pray to God for justice.”

Dozens of people swarmed a construction site and set things on fire on Sunday, leading to police arresting at least 35 people. Authorities say that they threw bombs, fireworks and rocks in order to stop the construction of the $90 million public safety training campus in the South River Forest.

“This was a very violent attack,” Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said, adding that his officers got backup from DeKalb County and the Georgia State Patrol. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI are also involved, he said.

The fight over the Public Safety Training Facility, called “Cop City”, touches on Atlanta’s history of being a prison town, where prisoners once worked on a farm. There is also a complicated balance between progress and equity in the clash. The main players of the conflict are outlined in this guide.

In September 2021, the Atlanta City Council – including Andre Dickens, now Atlanta’s mayor – approved a ground lease agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation for 85 acres of the land to be turned into the training center, while another 265 acres would be maintained as green space, the city said at the time.

An explosives training center that was in the original plan has been scrapped, but a firing range, “shoot house,” burn building and other aspects remain — and 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 early 2021, the Defend the Atlanta Forest group has used Twitter and Instagram to document protesters’ activities, including camping in the forest. The group announced a “week of action” from March 4 to 11.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is investigating the shooting, has said Terán shot at officers, injuring a Georgia State Patrol Trooper, and authorities returned fire, killing the protester. The activists are not in agreement with that claim.

Georgia’s Gov. Kemp declared a state of emergency in late January, and put up to 1,000 National Guard members at his disposal.

The Atlanta Public Safety Training Facility: A Case Study of a Land Exchange Deal with the DeKalb County, a former blackhall studio owner

The facility is supported by the Atlanta Police Foundation, an independent nonprofit that aims to modernize the city’s police force and help it improve training and technology.

The police foundation is like others that sprang up after Sept. 11, 2001. It seems to be unique in its size and reach because the CEO makes more money than Atlanta’s mayor or police chief, as reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The foundation has a large roster of board members and advisers which includes executives from corporations like Equifax and the big law firms, including real estate developers.

There is a new vision of the plan that has emerged, one that could include linking existing parks and connecting them to Atlanta’s Beltline, a loop used by pedestrians and cyclists.

The design plan that created the new parks network was not well-known, but we quickly became aware that some environmentalists had come to embrace it.

The city council’s resolution in favor of the green space plan wasn’t binding, as noted by the APF. The city is expected to pay the remainder of the $60 million needed for the facility, but private and philanthropic sources are expected to raise the remaining $30 million.

Ryan Millsap, the former owner of Blackhall Film Studios, has been involved in a land swap deal with DeKalb County.

The studio’s property was exchanged for 40 acres of Intrenchment Creek Park as part of a deal with the county to build a public safety training facility.

Legal challenges were caused by that land swap deal. Opponents argued that when intrenchment creek park was established in 2003 it would remain a public park in perpetuity.

Domestic Terrorism in the Atlanta Forest: Critics of an Atlanta Center for Public Safety and the Protection of the Urban Low-Local Schools

Authorities in Atlanta are preparing to begin construction of a training facility for police and fire departments after riots at a forest that has become a national focal point.

Over the last couple of years authorities have clashed with opponents to the project, as national and global discussions around policing and the protection of the environment continue.

A shooting range, a burn building and a mock city will be included in the center, according to the foundation.

More than a dozen environmental organizations previously urged city leaders to reject the training center’s development, saying in a 2021 letter the project would be “devastating for the ecological community” and surrounding “historically marginalized” neighborhoods.

“Fragmentation of the South River Forest will leave the surrounding areas susceptible to stormwater flooding, which is Atlanta’s top natural disaster, continually increasing in intensity due to climate change,” the letter said.

Ronald Carlson said that domestic terrorism is a felony in Georgia and can lead to 35 years in prison.

What about the intended intent of the authorities in charging such a serious and severe charge? Carlson believes that they are attempting to deter additional destruction of property and injury to persons.

More than two dozen organizations, including the Human Rights Watch, have called for the domestic terrorism charges against “Defend the Atlanta Forest” activists to be dropped, saying they are a “clear attempt to silence dissent.”

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp also backs the project and urged local authorities this week to keep those arrested “behind bars.” Both Kemp and Dickens say the majority of those who have been arrested in connection to the project thus far are out of state and don’t represent local sentiments.