Atlanta shuts down strategic park in 'Cop City' protest movement
Source: The Guardian
Atlanta shuts down strategic park in ‘Cop City’ protest movement
Opponents say move is yet another example of crackdown by officials seeking to disrupt protests against $90m training center
Timothy Pratt in Atlanta
Wed 26 Apr 2023 11.00 BST
Last modified on Wed 26 Apr 2023 11.57 BST
Children and parents from a couple of Atlanta private schools recently showed up at City Hall during a school day to urge city council members not to go ahead with “Cop City,” a $90m police and fire department training base planned in a forest that has become a center of controversy in the US and overseas.
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But while the protests against Cop City go on, the project is making headway and a key stretch of public land nearby is no longer accessible to people seeking to defend the forest. For the first time in nearly two years of opposition to Cop City, the public park part of South River Forest south-east of Atlanta has been shut down, allegedly for the public’s safety.
Opponents say the move is yet another example of the heavy-handed crackdown by law enforcement and local officials, who have sought to portray the protesters as “domestic terrorists” and have used a variety of methods to disrupt opposition groups. Dekalb county officials have no timeline for reopening the park.
The park’s secondary-growth forest is where police shot and killed activist Manuel Paez Terán, or Tortuguita, on 18 January, catapulting the fight over Cop City into global headlines. It is also where dozens of people were arrested on 5 March during a music festival and charged with domestic terrorism and where almost all the movement’s “tree sitters” have camped.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/26/copy-city-protests-atlanta-shuts-down-key-park
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