Atlanta's Controversial 'Cop City' Approved By City Council
The Atlanta City Council approved funding to construct the city’s Public Safety Training Center that activists have nicknamed “Cop City,” CBS News reports.
In an 11-4 vote on Tuesday (June 6), the $90 million, 85-acre project is a major political victory for Mayor Andre Dickens who made the center one of his campaign promises despite opposition to the idea. Additionally, the City Council passed a resolution requesting two seats on the Atlanta Police Foundation’s board.
In a statement, Dickens said that passage of the measure “marks a major milestone for better preparing our fire, police, and emergency responders to protect and serve our communities.”
“Atlanta will be a national model for police reform with the most progressive training and curriculum in the country,” Dickens said.
Before the vote took place, residents addressed the council for 14 hours to voice their displeasure about the proposal saying the city should not build a facility where Blacks make up the majority with public funds.
"We're here pleading our case to a government that has been unresponsive, if not hostile, to an unprecedented movement in our City Council's history," said Matthew Johnson, the executive director of Beloved Community Ministries, a local social justice nonprofit. "We're here to stop environmental racism and the militarization of the police. We need to go back to meeting the basic needs rather than using police as the sole solution to all of our social problems."
First approved by the City Council in September 2021, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center required more public funds to complete. The facility will be used for specialized training for fire department workers and law enforcement. City officials claim that the facility could improve policing relations in the city while critics of the facility said that it militarizes the police and endangers local forests.
In total, the City Council approved $31 million in public funds for the construction of the site and the city will be required to pay $36 million, $1.2 million a year over 30 years. The Atlanta Police Foundation will provide the rest of the funds although the organization said it would only give $31 million towards the project.
LaChandra Burks, Atlanta's Deputy Chief Operating Officer said the city already pays $1.4 million a year in operational fees for other facilities across the city.
But the new center is not without its detractors.
The controversial vote follows a string of arrests last week of three organizers who lead the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, who raised bail money and other support funds for protesters of the center last week.
U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock took to social media to express the importance of bail funds to the Civil Rights Movement and how the visuals of armed law enforcement raiding the home of activists was disturbing.
“While we still don’t have all the details, as a pastor who has long been engaged in justice work, I am concerned by what we know about last Wednesday’s show of force against the organizers of an Atlanta bail fund, & the questions it raises,” Warnock tweeted.
“These tactics, coupled with the limited public information provided so far, can have a chilling effect on nonviolent, constitutionally-protected free speech activities those of us in the fight for justice have been engaged in for years,” he continued.
Southern Center For Human Rights lawyer Devin Franklin, also spoke about the nature of the arrests as he spoke to the City Council.
"This is what we fear - the image of militarized forces being used to effectuate arrests for bookkeeping errors," Franklin said.
Sara McClintock, a religion professor at Emory University urged the councilmembers to rethink their decision.
"We don't want it," McClintock said. "We don't want it because it doesn't contribute to life. It's not an institution of peace. It's not a way forward for our city that we love."
