It Could Happen Here Weekly 71

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
you know. This is a compilation episode. So every episode
of the week that just happened is here in one
convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
there's gonna be nothing new here for you, but you
can make your own decisions. Around eight am Wednesday, janu

(00:46):
a forest defender who went by Torte Guita sent out
a text message that read morning raid. Please help. Just
minutes prior, a multi agency coalition of heavily armed law
enforcement officers led by the Georgia State Patrol began a
raid on the Wollanee Forest in southeast Atlanta. Encampments have

(01:07):
sprung up throughout the forest since November one in protest
and militant opposition to a proposed militarized police training facility
with a mock city to practice combating civil unrest in
the wake of the corporate funded Atlanta Police Foundation seeks
to control over three hundred acres of the Willannee or

(01:29):
South River Forest to construct this sprawling state of the
art police compound with a starting budget of ninety million
dollars for its first phase of construction. The police raid
on January eighth started off pretty similar to previous raids
that had taken place in the prior months, but for

(01:50):
the Georgia State Patrol, seemingly it was their first time
leading such a raid in the woods. Police shut down
the parking lot at Entrenchment Creek Park and near by
streets before entering the tree line with guns drawn. Within
the first hour, swat teams arrested two people in the
woods and destroyed multiple tents, and then, shortly after nine am,

(02:12):
forest defenders in the woods reported hearing a rapid sequence
of about a dozen gun shots. Quickly, news spread that
Georgia State Patrol officers shot and killed a protester in
the woods who was defending the forest, and that a
state trooper was being sent to Grady Hospital with a
bullet wound. After the gunshots rang in the air, police

(02:35):
were quick to publicize a palatable sequence of events depicting
an exchange of gunfire. Rather predictably, the police claimed that
the deceased force defender had surprised the armored swat team
and fired First, this is Peter, a force defender I
talked with a few days after the shooting, so luckily

(02:55):
I was in the woods on that day. Um, just
in a whim, I decided to stand mum. The day
of the shooting was really jarring. Trying to figure out
who was safe and who was unaccounted for was like
the main thing on my mind for most of the day,
and by the afternoon I realized that it was probably
tour The last message that they sent was at eight
am saying morning raid, please help um, and the shooting

(03:18):
was at nine am. It was a weird space to
be in of knowing that it was likely toward a
GIDA that had died, but not being able to grieve
yet because not really having confirmation. The only eyewitnesses were
the police, and then all the other witnesses just like
heard noises. In contradiction to the exchange of gunfire narrative,
activists on the ground reported hearing a single burst of

(03:40):
gunfire and suspected that the injured trooper was hit by
friendly fire and cautioned against taking police narrative as fact.
Due to cops track record of lying about police killings
and covering for fellow officers. Here's Sam from the Atlanta
Community Press Collective for more information about the sequence of

(04:01):
events that day. We know from speaking to people who
were in the area on that day that p D
m HM. The various police agencies that were involved in
the raid began the operation around maybe seven thirty or eight.
Records show that two people were arrested maybe thirty to

(04:27):
forty minutes before tour It was shot. Tour It was
shot around nine am. Um. Some of our are sources
that were in the woods at the time say they
only heard like one I guess you could call it
a volley of gunfire followed by a large boom. You

(04:51):
can speculate a lot about those statements, but they were
pretty independent. They were almost all identical, independent of each other.
We know that. Sorry, it's it's hard to talk about. Um. Yeah.
It wasn't until late into the night that people in
the movement were able to confirm that the person killed

(05:15):
by the Georgia State Patrol was Manual Tehran, also known
by their forest name Tortu Ghita, which means little turtle.
Torto Guita, was a young Queer afro Venezuelan twenty year
old forest defender, described by friends and loved ones as
your friendly neighborhood anarchist as a kind, earnest, fierce, welcoming, funny,

(05:41):
exceedingly helpful and brave person. They were an artist in
urban farmer, a trained street medic, and heavily involved in
mutual aid all across the South. This is it could
happen here. I'm Garrison Davis or just Gare And after
checking in with friends and various people I know in

(06:02):
the movement, I made my way down to Atlanta late
Wednesday night. I've been reporting on and writing about the
Defend the Forest and Stop Cop City movement since summer
last year. In two I put it around six hours
of audio related to the forest encampments, protests, organizing weeks
of action, and the forgotten history of the prison farm

(06:25):
that operated on the land. Cops City is slated to
be built on, but these new episodes serve as a
follow up to the two part series from last May
titled on the Ground at Defend the Atlanta Forest, but
the various updates put out since then will certainly help
fill in the gaps. This four part series will feature

(06:47):
interviews with forest defenders, audio clips from on the ground
in Atlanta and accounts on what's changed the past few months.
Episode one, what You're listening to right now will largely
cover the events around the shooting itself. Episode two we'll
get into who Tortuguita was as a person and the

(07:07):
stories about them from friends and comrades. Episode three and
four will cover protests in the wake of the police killing,
state repression, and how the movement might evolve going forward
due to increasing state repression. We will be using a
mix of voice distortion and re dubbed voice replacement for

(07:28):
some of the interviews and discussions I had with forest
defenders on the ground in Atlanta. Speaking of the next
forest defender you're going to hear from is Cricket talking
about their experiences the day of the shooting. God, I mean,
I can only obviously only speak for myself. Um, for me,
it was terrifying. We we had obviously already lived through

(07:50):
the raid in December, but when we heard someone had
been shot and killed, it was it was terrifying, and
in part because of the complete lack of information. Uh,
we had so few details for so long, and it
wasn't at least for me, it wasn't until the following
day that I found out that it was towards um
and it. It was just devastating. I mean, there's not
really words for it. It was like it felt like

(08:11):
the world stopped and then kept going. But it shouldn't
have like it felt like it should have stayed stopped
like it. It shouldn't have kept turning. After the deadly
shooting in the morning, the police continued their multi agency
rate of the Wolani forest in a pretty regular fashion,
with cops reportedly firing pepperballs at people up in tree

(08:33):
houses and making arrests throughout the day, into the night,
and even the next morning. I think a total of
seven folks were arrested in the forest that day. It
might have been six. Six arrested on the day toward died,
and then one person remained the last tree center. The

(08:55):
last person arrested in the deadly police raid was up
in the trees or night and surrounded by police for
about twenty hours straight. All seven people arrested in the
forest were charged with criminal trespassing and domestic terrorism. There
was one person who remained in a tresa because we
had some communication with them throughout the night. They were

(09:19):
just like perched in their climbing reg in a tree
um for about twelve hours until a little after sunrise
when de cab County SWAT moved in and took them
into custody. I guess you could say, as they were
trying to repel back up the tree. They had been

(09:42):
and the tree pretty much the whole day and then
all night. Um they ran out of food and water,
I think sometime after nightfall, and then after dark they
were turning their phone on and off to conserve battery,
so it was a little sporadic. They were able to
send us some picture yors of two cops standing in

(10:02):
the platform of like a a tru acuity used to
work on a telephone pole and uh they both had
like the SWAT operator helmets on, and one of them
had a long gun. And then later on in the evening,
four or five police cars just like backed up to
the tree and just like surrounded the tree and showing
their spotlights up in the tree. And they didn't the

(10:25):
cops didn't that were there over night. They didn't say anything.
They were just waiting. They were just waiting for the
sun to come up so so SWAT could move in
the night of the shooting. Before we even knew who
was killed, there was a small vigil turned to march
in the Little Five Points neighborhood of Atlanta. The first

(10:46):
twenty four hours after the shooting were extremely hectic, as
many people were not even sure who the police had killed. Obviously,
the first thing on everyone's mind was who who was killed,
and by late Wednesday night, some folks that help us

(11:06):
source our reporting UM came to us saying that they
believed it was this person UM that they believed it
was toward a lot of people's friend was just murdered
by the police, and folks wanted to get ahead of
the police narrative, and as a community press collective, of course,
we wanted to support the community in that UM, so

(11:30):
we just immediately offered like two post whatever UM towards
family and I believe their their partner consented to UM
that that was the primary thing. Once the community had
kind of definitive, definitively identified that it was tour, it
was obtaining consent from from those closest to tourt to

(11:54):
publish their name, any pictures, details, and we wanted to
give people a way to help tell everyone who was
about to be paying a lot of attention to the
story who Tour actually was and not who the police
would like people to think toward was. State agencies were

(12:17):
swift in their attempts to control the narrative surrounding the
deadly raid. Hours after the killing, the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation set up a press conference as the raid was
very much still ongoing. First, a gb I spokesperson explained
the purpose of the raid. The operations goal is to

(12:38):
secure the site of the future City of Atlanta Public
Safety Training Center. Next, gb I Director Mike Register gave
his account of the day's events so far as you
are aware. A few weeks ago, several individuals were arrested
for domestic terrorism in the area around the future site
of the public scifety training facility. This morning, the g

(13:01):
b I, with other local state law enforcement agencies such
as the CABPD, Atlanta p D, the Georgia State Patrol,
and Georgia d n R, conducted a planned clearing operation
to remove them individuals who were illegally occupying the area.
At approximately nine o'clock this morning, as law enforcement was

(13:22):
moving through various sectors of the property, an individual, without warning,
shot a Georgia State Patrol trooper. Other law enforcement personnel
returned fire and self defense and evacuated the trooper to
a safe area. The individual who fired upon law enforcement
and shot the trooper was killed in the exchange of gunfire.

(13:43):
The gb I is working the officer involved shooting and
the investigation is still active and fluid. The circumstances was
an individual confronted law enforcement, uh, and I don't think
that he was seen until he fired. I'm not sure right.
Later that day, a gb I statement claimed that officers

(14:04):
located tour to inside a tent in the woods and
that they did not comply with verbal commands from law
enforcement officers. The day after the shooting, the Georgia Bureau
of Investigation also announced that there is no body cam
footage of the incident. They also claimed that twenty five
campsites were located and removed Wednesday and that quote mortar

(14:26):
style fireworks, edged weapons, pelleant rifles, gas masks, and a
blowtorch were recovered unquote, after people pointed out that the
list of recovered items was absent any firearms. The next day,
the gb I released a photo of a nine millimeter
handgun allegedly found at the scene of the shooting. It

(14:48):
was the only firearm police claim they found in their
extensive sweep of the forest. The g b I has
been as the independent agency investigating all of this has
changed their story a little bit, which it was a
breaking news story. I think they first went before the
cameras at noon when it happened at nine am, not

(15:11):
to grant the police segative leafy at all because buck
hum But it was a rapidly evolving situation, as they say.
That said, the story changed kind of dramatically over the
first few days. They released an initial list of items
that had recovered, but it didn't mention a gun. And

(15:33):
then when the community kind of said, hey, he said
torch shot this this trooper, where's the gun? Then a
gun was produced. Then when people still didn't believe it,
the g b I said that they had a bill
of sale for the gun. The g b I and
Georgia State Patrol have also come out and said that

(15:55):
they won't release the identity of the trooper for concerns
about their safety. Results from an independent autopsy were released
on February third. It found thirteen gun shot wounds. Attached
to the report was a statement from Tortuguita's family, of
which I will read quote. The g b I has
claimed that Many shot an officer and that the bullet

(16:18):
matches the gun possessed by Many, but even if that
is true, there are still many unanswered questions. The g
b I has selectively released information about Manny's death, says
civil rights attorney Jeff Philipovits. They claim many failed to
follow orders. What orders. The g b I has not
talked about the fact that Many faced a firing squad

(16:40):
when those shots were fired, or who fired them. While
the g b I has publicly stated there's no body
camera footage of the shooting, it has not stated whether
there is any audio or other video from other sources,
such as aerial drones or helicopters that were used during
the time of the incident. The family has contacted the
gb I and specifically requested that released whatever audio and

(17:01):
video exists of the incident, or any other information that
would shed light on what happened. Any evidence, even if
it's only an audio recording, will help the family piece
together what happened on the morning of January. This information
is critical and it is being withheld, said Brian Spears,
a civil rights attorney with nearly five decades of experience

(17:21):
litigating police shootings. Unquote. Whatever you believe about the exact
series of events that led to towards death personally, I
doubt that will ever know what happened for sure, But regardless,
the killing of a force defender at the hands of police,
coupled with the domestic terrorism charges marks a significant escalation

(17:42):
in the fight against cops city and even environmental activism
in this country at large, as this seems to be
the first killing of an environmental protester by US law enforcement.
As horrific as this escalation is, it's not out of
the blue as one might think. All the way back

(18:02):
in May of two, police were already talking on scanners
about using deadly force against stop coops city protesters. Right,
how old you four encounter? So last time I was
like in the woods for a decent amount of time
was like last last spring, last summer. What how is

(18:25):
and in what ways has like living in the woods
changed since then? Like? What? What? What sort of developments?
I guess has has there been? Well? One thing that's
changed m the day to day life in the woods
and the past several months is that the raids by
the police have been more thorough and so it's required
a lot of more vigilance to live in the woods
and a lot more being aware of places to run

(18:48):
and hide and escape routes. The past few months, police
raids have been increasingly violent and destructive, from the demolition
of the gazebo in Willani People's Park to the flattening
of Commune the gardens and the trashing of makeshift cafes
and kitchens within the forest. Using consistently escalated violent tactics,

(19:09):
police have routinely attacked protesters with chemical weapons and rubber bullets,
have cut tree limbs and safety lines from under them,
and reportedly threatened lethal force, often targeting just peaceful people
who were sitting in trees or walking through the public park.
In an article for The Bitter Southerner, an unnamed tree

(19:31):
sitter spoke about a police raid in September where they
described their interactions with law enforcement as such quote they
threatened to shoot me. They didn't draw their guns, but
they talked about it. Several showed their side arms while
locking eyes with me. They very easily could have killed

(19:51):
my friend in the other tree sit. It was fucking
nuts unquote, and here's a bit from Peter again. Ever
since the beginning, it's it's been on my mind that,
you know, there's a possibility of people dying in the woods,
ever since I started living in the woods, beginning of
the encampments. It was just something that kept coming up
into my mind as a possibility. I think before this happened, though,

(20:13):
people were generally under the impression that the police wouldn't
murder forest offenders because it would look bad for them.
Just a month prior to the deadly January raid, another
police rate took place a couple of weeks before Christmas,
which resulted in the first domestic terrorism charges being levied
against people arrested near the forest. In the aftermath of

(20:35):
this raid, a spokesperson for the Atlanta Solidarity Fund talked
about the developing pattern of police escalation against the protest
movement and warned that steadily increasing police repression would lead
to protesters being killed. And it's clear that if the
public doesn't respond, if the public doesn't do something about this,

(20:56):
that escalation is going to continue. Are we going to
end up in a situation where the police are murdering
protesters in order to advance not public safety, but their
particular political agenda in building Cops City. The use of
infleted charges like domestic terrorism not only make life for
the people charged a living hell, it also lays the

(21:19):
narrative groundwork to justify extreme physical escalations of force and
increasingly brutal crackdowns. Take it from the gb I director himself,
as director of Mild said, I'm Director Mike Register of
the g b I, and over the last several months,
law enforcement and portions of our community have experienced growing

(21:40):
criminal behavior and terroristic acts committed by individuals and groups
concerning the building of Atlanta's new public safety training center.
These individuals and groups have attempted to disguise their activities
as being protests against the building of this facility. I'm
going to read a short quote from an article for
the Habit Territories newsletter that sums this up nicely. Quote.

(22:04):
The violent escalation which led to this murder comes during
increased and coordinated repression against the movement to defend the
Atlanta Forest, where the movement has built a diverse and
welcoming community through years of organizing. The police have used
every tactic to bad mouth, harass, threaten, surveill, criminalize, and
attack participants. Unquote. One of the forced defenders I spoke with,

(22:29):
who goes by Noah, talked about coming to terms with
something that everyone kind of knew was the possibility, but
still had this element of shock and disbelief. I think
it was really shocking. I think any time you introduce
polish into a situation, you have the possibility of somebody dying.

(22:54):
Like anybody who's in the forest, anybody who spent time
and around activision against the police knows that this is
like a thing that can happen to um two people
fighting against various types of state power. But it was
it was really really shocked, and I think everyone was
just kind of a loss I personally. I mean, it's

(23:15):
just kind of like I saw with it for a
really long time. It was just kind of like there
was an era of disbelief to just kind of knowing
that like these were the people we were, that we are,
we were fighting against him, like this is the type
of thing that they're capable of. Being very shocked and
really scared that this is where we were, that like

(23:37):
the police were now killing activists and you know, you know,
likelihood going to get away with it. It was a
really terrifying implication for the future of them, for the
future of all social start list in the US. Following
news of the shooting, the Atlantas Solidarity Fund, which provides
bail and legal assistance to political prisoners, protesters and activists,

(24:02):
put out a statement saying, quote, Georgia State Patrols story
is suspect. They have released few details. We are concerned
a police cover up could be underway. We are preparing
a legal team to investigate and pursue a wrongful death suit. Unquote.
Here's Cricket again talking about the trustworthiness of the official

(24:23):
information being released about the shooting. And I mean, we
still have so little information, and though the information that
we do have is so tainted, it's so untrustworthy that
it doesn't actually feel like information at all. It doesn't
feel like we can it doesn't feel like information we
can trust. That's that's sort of the long and short
of it. Last month, over undred climate justice and racial

(24:47):
justice groups from across the United States joined Atlanta residents
and community organizations in calling for an independent investigation into
the killing of tortu Quita and any police shooting you'd
like to see an independent investigation, because how can you
let the person who shot the gun investigate the crime? Right,
So it was it was a pretty easy thing to

(25:08):
call for, but especially given the inconsistencies in everyone's story.
You know, the g b I has said has changed
a couple of times, like the sequence of events and
that first like towards surprise to them, then they're surprised Towart,
Then Towart was in a tent. You know, the narrative
has has changed a couple of times. GSP georg to

(25:31):
Stay Patrol also does not wear body cams, and that
was that's not that's just a day to day thing
for them. That's hate to say it, but that's not
a something that did specifically for this right just to
screw the movement over that's it's it's actually the pretty
well known issue in the state. There were two little
wear body camps. Gets cidering how many people they kill

(25:53):
every year. There has come with that. A p D
says that the bodycams after the incident. Yes, um, we know.
The raid was kind of a joint operation between Georgia
Bureau of Investigation, Georgia State Patrol Atlanta Police Department to
cab County Police Department, UM and some other state agencies.

(26:13):
Georgia State Patrol seems to have been the ones in
the immediate area when it seems to have been a
trooper that the shot toward. UM. Atlanta Police first came
out and said that there was no body camp footage,
that they weren't there, and it seems to be true
that they weren't in the immediate area when the shot

(26:33):
was fired, but they kind of later had to correct
themselves and say, well, we have body cam of the incident,
but we're not going to release it like on the
incident itself or like like during the time of yes,
of what their officers were doing in the part of
the rate they were doing, they were enacting UM when
toward a shot. I have seen claims from both local

(26:57):
media and law enforcement that the GBI investigation does qualify
as independent, framing the GBIS investigation into the actions of
the Georgia State Patrol as this separate, non biased operation,
despite the g b I being fellow participants in the
deadly raid. As an interesting little side note, the Georgia

(27:18):
State Patrol and the Bureau of Investigation began in late
nineteen thirties as two branches of the same agency, the
Georgia Department of Public Safety. So the standard in the state.
I'm sure a lot of places when a person is
shot by the police, you get it's supposedly independent agency
to review it. In Georgia, it's usually the Georgia Bureau

(27:42):
of Investigation. But the gb I was a participant in
the raid. The GBI has been involved in. The GBI
has been present for several forest raids. Um open records
requests show that they've been involved in emails and conversations
about the forest for quite some time. Now. We know

(28:05):
their agents were on scene. We're probably in the woods
when tour It was shot. In addition to that, they're
both state agencies. In addition to that, there's still police.
Police are going to cover for each other. We know
this by now. A day after the shooting, the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation stated that there was no body cam

(28:27):
footage of the incident, but open records requests were filed
asking for bodycam footage from the forest around the time
of the incident, not only from the State Patrol, but
also from the Atlanta and De Cabb County police departments.
Two days after the police killing in Atlanta, p D
spokesperson said that a p D officers were not in
the area of the shooting and that no footage from

(28:50):
Wednesday's operation would be released, citing the ongoing investigation. And
then a whole three weeks after the shooting, on feb
weary eight, the Atlanta Police Department released bodycam footage from
four officers who were in the woods at the time
of the shooting. An officer in the group estimated that
they were just one hundred feet away. I'm not gonna

(29:14):
play audio of the gun shots or any use of
police weapons, but I'll be including a few brief snippets
of police chatter that I and others found relevant. Most
of the clips will only be a few seconds long,
so you can skip ahead if you want. I'll give
you a heads up at time of recording. There are
four videos released, and they show a self described quote

(29:37):
unquote clearing operation being done by a single group of
ap D officers. Shortly after tearing apart and slicing up
two tents with a pocket knife, suddenly four gun shots
are heard nearby, followed a second and a half later
by a large volume of gunfire. I estimate over thirty
gun shots fired by multiple weapons. No verbal commands were

(30:01):
picked up by the microphone. Two chest mounted cameras were
rolling before the shooting. Forty seconds after the gunfire, ap
D officers were told to turn on their body cams
and two more cameras began rolling. At that point, Officer
down started getting repeated over the radio, but initially there
were questions among officers about how much of the sounds

(30:24):
heard were fireworks versus gunshots. Multiple officers identified hearing suppressed gunfire,
meaning the use of a quote unquote silencer. Here's two
clips totaling around fifteen seconds for that sounded like suppressed gunfire. Here.

(30:51):
Just minutes after police opened fire and killed Tortuguita, an
ap D officer on the ground said this in response
to the Georgia State Patrol trooper that was shot. You
fucked your own officer up, possibly said in response to
other officers noting that the gunshots sounded suppressed. Confirmation spread

(31:16):
on the ground that estate trooper was shot, but never
once mentioning anything about a protester firing. Police continued advancing
toward a nearby tent with guns drawn and officers yelling
back and forth to check their crossfire. As teams were

(31:38):
organizing the evac of the injured trooper and warning about crossfire,
police stated that they did not want to cause another incident.
You know, I'll just we just need a hole until
we can get them out, get the whole steal first.
We don't want to cause another incident. At this point,
there was a great deal of intentional coordination of officer

(32:00):
movement and a lot of effort being put into preventing
police officers from being in each other's line of fire.
This next batch of adio will be a little bit longer,
about a minute. Hey, wat's cause fire order? What's call fire?
We're on on the side. Let's say let's say let's

(32:25):
say what I'm saying. Everyone is back here because we
need to shift. There's everyone is back here, so y'all
shoot from that side. There's more officers over here, so
we need to shift back on this side. Public. Ta hey, sorry,
s the hill potter, come this way. We watched this
dis lay part of call. All right, go around, Okay, cool,

(32:51):
We're going on the other side. There, I got you,
I got you right right there is the face of
our art semi circle. Everyone he could pick back this way. Hey,

(33:14):
keep coming this way, keeps coming back this way? On anybody,
do a contact? What they want from? Who are you
wring about? They need who? Police started firing off flashbangs
and prepping chemical weapons as they moved further into the

(33:35):
woods near where the deadly police shooting just took place
moments prior. Holy hey nine or you will be bit
fuck around and you're gonna find out. From another angle,
you can hear a cop laugh in response to his
fellow officer threatening funk around and find out, just minutes

(33:55):
after police killed a protester. Yeah, if you listen carefully,
you can hear an officer muttering about how large the
police presence is, saying, we've got so many resources. We
don't need to rush this ship sandwich on a second,
I've got so many resources rushes shop. Cops shot off

(34:19):
quote unquote les lethal pepperballs at an unoccupied green tent
and only ended up gassing themselves as they had to
walk through the peppered up trees on their way to
the tent. Literally, there was over a minute and a
half of just straight coughing. When they arrived at the tent,
officers got into a brief conversation about the deadly shooting

(34:41):
that just took place and the injured trooper step shoot
it on there. Huh when will we get shot? That
first arts worked, the first one that's right now for
threw round the Twitter. Remember that just two hours after

(35:07):
the shooting, even before the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's first
press conference that defend the force twitter account said quote,
we have reason to believe the officer shot today was
hit by friendly fire and not by the protester who
was killed unquote in an extremely un characteristic move. The
g b I put out a statement commenting on the

(35:28):
evidence during their ongoing investigation, cautioning against quote unquote speculation
and that quote memory and perception are fragile and the
myriad of factors can influence perception and memory unquote. The
morning after the body cam footage went public, a statement
was released by Tortoquita's family, saying, quote, the videos show

(35:50):
the clearing of the forest was a paramilitary operation that
set the stage for the excessive use of force and
also call into question previous reporting regarding the events leading
up to the police shooting unquote towards own mother, who
recently arrived in the United States on an emergency visa,

(36:11):
said weeks ago in an interview for The Guardian, quote,
I will go to the US to defend Manual's memory.
I'm convinced that they were assassinated in cold blood, and
I'm gonna clear Manual's name. They killed them like they
tear down the trees in the forest, a forest Manual
loved with a passion unquote. There is an official go

(36:34):
fund me for Tortuguita, managed by and for their family,
with funds going to funeral expenses, plus travel, legal costs,
and to support the family in general during this time
of events grief. The fundraiser will be linked in the
show notes. This first episode has been a lot tackling

(36:55):
many of the most gruesome aspects of the struggle thus far.
Cricket talked about one way of responding to this influx
of anger and grief that everyone's been experiencing since the shooting. Yeah,
I mean there's just been there's been so much grief
and so much anger, and so many people coming together
and so many people trying to support one another. There's

(37:16):
been a at least among the folks I know, um,
a lot of trying to think through like what would
tort do w W t D and like loving one
another and supporting one another keeps being one of the
first things on that list. We will hear more about
Torteguita in the next episode memories and stories from friends, partners,

(37:38):
and comrades based on conversations and moments from the vigil.
But today I'll leave us with the words of Torteguita
quote the abolitionist mission isn't done until every prison is empty,
when there are no more cops, when the land has
been given back. That's when it's over. I don't expect
to live to see that day necessarily. I mean, I

(37:59):
hope so. But I smoke unquote music for this episode
by the narcissists cookbook and to propaganda. See you on
the other side. Yeah, the rain on leaves tickling, the
earliest of instruments the melody were mimicing is the sound
of wind whistling long before the safety its channing under

(38:19):
the stars, on the camp under or canopy. She sang
on song and she was far from silent. No virus
or violets, but the fragrance of her flowers. It continue
to invite us of medicine materials of vitamins are minerals
and all that is essential which just grew right beside
us and Tyson started fighting over the gifts that she
provided us, scorching the very soil that all of us

(38:41):
arrived from. And when empires learning can't withstand Bia, we
returned to the land where our ancestors rain dance. We
are all her creatures. We still bear her features, the
one and only reason all living things is breathing. The
city's deceive and lead. Go see the dirt, young gon,
be among the lungs of Mother Earth. Cud, I have
found your voice. Yea fare you take your fromm Yeah,

(39:11):
fire flashing bone Yeah. Before the shop him down, Before
that shop him down, there was the forest. A lot

(39:54):
of things have changed in the woods since I visited
last year. The even Trenchman Creek Park trailhead at Wilani
People's Park is now basically a massive mud pit, the
trees cut down and all the grass gone. Sidewalks and
bike paths have all been turned into rubble. As we

(40:15):
talked about in the last episode, the police have been
increasingly destructive during their more and more frequent raids on
the forest in the past year. The cops have demolished
dozens of treehouses and targeted protesters with escalatory tactics. The
last thirteen people who have been arrested near the forest
have all been charged with domestic terrorism for their mere

(40:38):
association with the Stop Cops City movement. As hard as
the cops are making it to continue being in the woods,
there is still something undeniably special about being in community
in the forest, or else people wouldn't be risking life
and legal consequences. Living in the woods for me was
like a dream. I came to the woods because I

(41:00):
was homeless and unemployed and was actually living in different
woods by myself, and tour actually came to the woods
for similar reasons. Toward lost their housing in Tallahassee and
decided to give this place a try as a place
to live in the forest, there was always over time
just developed like you know, um people built coffee shops

(41:22):
and like a kitchen people used and places for people
just like hang out and that and that continued. I
never stopped, you will never stop, and they never stopped
making life out better. It's comfortable, it's comfortable, and it's welcoming,
and there's a community as possible That's really the best
thing I feel like I could I can speak to

(41:44):
one It is that no matter what was going on,
people were always working to make the forests as welcome
out of spitch towards many people as possible. As the
night of the December thirte police raid, Tortuguita went back
to the camp in Wilani People's part to start rebuilding
after police tore down the encampments and protest infrastructure just

(42:06):
hours prior. I've never experienced such emotional and material security
as I have living in the Wolawnie Forest because there
are a community of people that are dedicated to taking
care of each other and making sure that we all
have our needs met. And that was something that tort
and I did for each other, often making sure that
we had enough water and food and rides to places.

(42:28):
It's really a wonderful place to live, and I've also
deep in my relationship to the earth being there, Like
living with the same trees for over a year is
a really profound experience. And also it's a really stressful
place and people are always butting heads in really interesting ways,
but we're committed to remaining in relationship with each other
as part of the magic too, is that if you

(42:50):
get into a fight with someone at camp, you don't
just you know, like move to a different apartment and
stop talking to them, like they're still around and there's
still a comrade. So we're committed to each other in
a way that's it's rare to find the society. Here
is Cricket talking about the type of support everyone has
for each other in the movement and how Towart really

(43:10):
embodied that. I think one of the things I've seen
in my experience of the movement is just the tremendous
amount of care that everyone has for one another. You
don't have to know one another, we don't have to
be on a legal name basis, and we still fight
for one another, we still protect one another, we still
try to save one another, and that is something I
saw tort embody regularly and I'm um, I'm grateful to

(43:33):
everyone who has helped keep me safe, and I always, yeah,
I'm always trying to keep everyone else safe in any
capacity that I can. So we've done a lot of
safety trainings. Something that tort was a really big part
of was medic medic trainings, making sure that people have
access to life saving techniques and skills that are often
kept away from really vulnerable folks. So that is something

(43:56):
we've been trying to contribute and and that we're trying
to continue now toward us no longer with us we were.
We were supposed to meet yesterday to put together a
curriculum marginalized vulnerable people who face gun violence both from
the state and from right wing Newo Nazi fascists. You
name it um and we'll be continuing that work in

(44:18):
their in their name. When spending time in the Wulani forest,
and even for the many peripheral aspects of the movement,
people will choose a forest name. It's like a nickname
that helps hide your legal identity and Norman de plume.
Many chose Tortu Guita, which is Spanish for little turtle.

(44:40):
But it wasn't just chosen for its cute animal association.
I'll read from bitter Southerner quote. It was a nod
to the colonial era indigenous military commander of the same name,
who led Native American forces to one of their most
decisive victories against the then nascent U s Army in
seven Teene. Now Toward was allegedly apprehensive to share the

(45:06):
meaning behind their chosen name with a journalist who was
interviewing them, because quote that does not make us look
like peaceful protesters. We are very peaceful people, I promise. Unquote.
There are's a few other quotes attributed to Toward across
various articles that seemed to espouse a belief in non

(45:26):
violence as a tactical strategy. Quote, it's incredibly important to
continue having popular support. Cops. City is incredibly unpopular already.
We're very popular. We're cool. We get a lot of
support from people who live here, and that's important because
we win through non violence. We're not going to beat
them at violence, but we can beat them in public

(45:49):
opinion in the courts, even unquote. Based on frequent phone
calls with Toward about forced defense, Tortuguita's own mother has
shared similar sentence about towards politics, saying they quote carried
no malice unquote. I'm going to read one more quote
from Tortuguita about this topic. The right kind of resistance

(46:12):
is peaceful, because that's where we win. We're not going
to beat them at violence. They're very very good at violence.
We're not. We win through non violence. That's really the
only way we can win. We don't want more people
to die. We don't want Atlanta to turn into a
war zone. During my time in Atlanta, I wanted to

(46:36):
learn as much as possible about Torto Guita, about who
they were as a person, what kind of stuff they
enjoyed doing, what they were to the movement, but mostly
just listened to people's stories and memories of tort Peter
met Towards just shortly after they moved to Atlanta. So
I met Towards in Mayo, around the time when they

(46:57):
first got to the forest from Tallahassee. I met them
during that week of action, and they were like insanely
enthusiastic about being there. We met around a fire and
talked about how our enthusiasm for life sometimes offended people.
That was something that we had in common. They talked
about their mom a lot. I won't say I was

(47:19):
a close friend of Torts, but I was a dear
comrade to them, and being in relationship with them really
sharpened my conflict skills. I was in a few different
conflict with Towart and also on the sidelines for some
conflicts that they had with other people, and I learned
a lot about how to be more gentle with my
comrades and how to give people more grace in times

(47:42):
of high stress. This is a snippet from my conversation
with Cricket on what Tortu Guita brought to the movement
and how they really lived their politics to it was hilarious.
They were someone who always brought fund to whatever they
were doing. And I'm sure through the folks that you're seeing,
the folks that people can see on social media with
like the outpour and support for TOURT, that they were

(48:04):
involved in so many different groups, like so many different causes. Um.
And they were. They were an incredibly dedicated activists, but
someone who really felt that resistance could be fun, could
be joyful, could be celebratory. It was always an opportunity
to meet new people, to hug new people. Um. They
were a big hugger. They were someone who was always
checking in on other people. They were someone who was
always there to lend a hand, either literally or or

(48:28):
or metaphorically. And they really inspired I think a lot
of people, and I think that that was something huge
that they contributed to the movement, not just as a person,
but also bringing that joyfulness bringing that that energy, that
passion and excitement really inspired me and inspired a lot
of people. It's it's funny a lot of the people
I've I've talked to you were like have have like
mentioned just because of the different like you know, affinity

(48:50):
groups they've been in and stuff. There's like all people
I've talked to you talked have mentioned a lot like that.
They would not like regularly, but like everyone's in a while,
like get into conflicts with tort Like there was there
was someone who you would you would sometimes um who
there would be just happened to be disagreements with. But
despite disagreements, they were like one of the kindest people

(49:11):
that they met. Even when they're you know, arguing about
about something. It's like they would go so far to
make sure that other people knew that they were like
cared for and would would go and I just be
be very open towards like everybody they meet. Yeah, I
think they really tried to live into and walk the
walk of abolition and noncarcetol conflict of it's okay to disagree,

(49:34):
and disagreement doesn't mean that you've got to get kicked out.
It does not mean that you're a bad person. They
allowed for complexity and a law for processes of working
through things, of talking through things, and that's a a
huge gift. I I mean, I think anyone, regardless of
their level of activism, can relate to the idea that
it's hard to disagree. It's it's hard to be in

(49:56):
conflict sometimes. But I do think that they were really
committed to the relationships of trust where you could disagree,
where you could have different opinions, but that there was
still so much love and still so much care, and
that those things were not themselves in conflict. Those things
were actually very very much related. And yeah, no, it
was there. They're special and yeah, I'm just I'm just sorry.

(50:20):
I'm just heartbroken. Tortuguita's partner and a close friend of theirs,
recorded a video shortly after the shooting, just talking about
who Tortuguita was and how they lived in community. I
got permission from their partner to use clips from that
video in this episode tour. It was always a very

(50:40):
welcoming presence there, always one of the greatest organizers we
had out there. They took care of everyone who came through.
They always want to make sure everyone was taken care of.
They were the ones who would welcome you into the
forest and they would make sure you have a sleeping bag,
a sleeping pad at tent, whatever you could possibly you

(51:00):
always making sure people are getting fed and just like
I'm transparent, you've never had One of the people I
spoke with, Noah also talked about how Tortuguito was quick
to welcome people into the movement. I need to work
through various actions and around the forest and doing medical

(51:23):
work with them. Um. I think I think a lot
of people have recurred this, but I remember them as
being one of the kind of stuff not welcoming people
that I ever not working on the forest. Kind of
people come in was very like, very often kind of
like one of the first people agree with them, and
was always very like open to letting people come and

(51:44):
see and be a part of the community that had
been established on the woods. It was a very um
there was a strongly welcome in person. They were a
very welcome in person. I was always willing to do
to help somebody out and do the work I took
to make sure that's the commit that it could continue.
So much of the stuff around the forest, it's all

(52:05):
about like the militants in the woods and towards kind
of fell into that category, you know, people who are
wearing bala lava's camping out in the forest. Most of
the people I've interviewed are also more on that side
of things, but not everyone feels like they have the
ability to put on a ski mask and live in
the woods. One of the people I spoke with was

(52:27):
a mother named Karen, who started doing local neighborhood organizing
after connecting with Tortuguita last summer. So I met tourt
Less summer and there was like lots of things happening
in the park and you know, I'm a neighbor and
so I was a who really fought for you know,
tried to get the city council to vote against it.

(52:48):
And so I was interested, you know, curious and interested
about all of these events happening at the park. They
were all like mostly at nighttime. And I have a toddler,
and so I'm like boring and have a strict bedtime,
so I don't, you know, go out at nighttime. Um.
So I was like trying to find a place for

(53:08):
me and like people like me and they're boring, you know, parents,
and so I got connected them with Tort and we
start and we started, I guess going during the daytime,
and I'm I'm taking my toddler over there to the
park to explore, and you know, we Tort and I
talked a lot about well, at first, they were really
excited about all the the idea, like children being at

(53:32):
the park. They really wanted it the park to be
for everyone, and very much like a neighborhood mom. Like
I was new to activism and I didn't even know.
I was like, um, you know, I thought we were
just like visiting a park, but you know, there's like
a whole lot of different things about being in it
that really kind of helped me navigate and showed me around.

(53:53):
In my experience, it takes a special kind of person
to onboard somebody new to this sort of thing. Some
anarchists can come off as a bit pompous sometimes or
at least hesitant to welcome new people in. Karen spoke
on how Tortuguita kind of showed them the ropes and
helped educate on everything from local organizing to security culture. Well,

(54:17):
I didn't have signal before. I was like, okay, I
want to reach out to try and make my neighborhood aware.
I made flyers and just like put like the environmental effects,
you know, and I send it to tort and they
were like, okay, yeah, this looks good. And then I
was like, should it just be like anonymous or should
I you know, like make like Instagram or should I

(54:41):
put my name on it and you know all those things?
Should I put my number on it? And they were like, okay, well,
get a Google Voice number and you can set up
like an email for it, maybe use Proton. Then I
was like, should I just like I don't have to
put any information on it? But like what if you
know there's people like me and the neighborhood. I guess,

(55:01):
like how do you balance that? And they said no,
I think if you've got to like organize a neighborhood group,
it would be sick. So yeah, you know, they were
conscious of all those things, but also like knew where
when and where it was like appropriate, and we just
like bounced ideas back and forth. They really helped me
like navigate that. I really think it just shows how

(55:21):
inclusive they were that they like how they were engaged
with me and like, you know, an older neighborhood mom.
But they were really supportive and you know, I guess
made me feel valued, never made me feel embarrassed at anything.
I think it was just like if it wasn't about
like the party or I don't know, like being cool
or anything. They just really wanted the forest to be

(55:42):
for everyone and just how they were like willing to
engage with the community. My conversations with Karen and others
in Atlanta really showed toward as a person who was
always thinking about others and how to support the people
around them, not even just focusing on themselves while live
in the forest, but working to expand that care outwards.

(56:04):
So yeah, I made this flyer and called a bunch
of other I don't even know if they were people
that were living in the forest or just people and
you know, friends or whatever, but and was like, hey,
we're all going to go canvas and and I think
they slept in that day we met at the park,
but me and a couple of neighbors met like you know,

(56:26):
and I was like I had zero expectations and in
they texted me later and I was like, I'm so sorry,
but we'll do it again. But yeah, just that you know,
like they were willing to come put flyers door to
door and yeah, just like support me in that way.
Karen has continued to do neighborhood organizing since meeting towards

(56:47):
last summer, and it's a great example of the variety
of people involved in the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement.
Based on the many local people she's spoken with, Karen
says the stop cops any proposal is pretty unpopular in
the area. So yeah, we've just been like dropping flyers
off and just letting them know the environmental effects. And

(57:09):
everyone we've talked to like, you know, no one wants it,
and I think lots of people, lots of them called in,
you know, to city council. But yeah, I guess Tort
and I and our kind of idea was like if
we can make a space. It's like, you know, they
may not want to go to the forest, but if
we can kind of create a space for them in
the movement. Cricket talked about the many projects that Tort

(57:33):
had a hand in and it's willingness to just go
out there and do things, not just sit around and
wait for the world to get better. They lived anarchism
in a very active way. I don't know if anyone
mentioned the Transanctuary that tort built and helped built and
and helped organize. I just want to uplift that as
just another sort of amazing project that they were involved with.

(57:56):
I remember hearing about it to talked about it and
they were like, oh, yeah, you know, we're gonna have
a volunteer day. And then two weeks later we had
like another little check in and they were like, oh, yeah, no,
we we like did it. And I was like, excuse me,
Like I just just I don't know, they were just
like this this Tasmanian devil of social justice. Like I
felt like they were just constantly on the move getting

(58:18):
stuff done, supporting people. It's just it was I don't know,
like that's just another memory that I keep revisiting of
just being like, oh my god, they are not paralyzed
like they are living. They were living day to day right,
like they knew that tomorrow could bring another raid, like
they Yeah, they weren't stupid. They were really actually brilliant
and they could just they just lived every day so

(58:39):
fully and brought everything they had. A friend of Tortuguitas
that goes by the name levitate the Pentagon, which is
definitely in the top three force names that I've heard.
But they gave a statement to Rolling Stone where they said,
quote Tortuguita was a proud and figures anarchist. The struggle
for a total liberation came as their first commit and

(59:00):
in life we must honor that commitment. From a lot
of the like many of the trains that we did
together and times out there, they were just, um, I
don't have really funny they like to make people have
be like a very common presence during stressful times. Um.
And they could make like a joke really out of

(59:22):
manning in a situation. But a lot of remember like
a lot of conversations just about what we were doing
in the forest, and there are like reasons for being
out there, um and there you know, just kind of
a going these ideas of combating there you know, the state,
and then then the state's pushed for you know, destroying

(59:44):
the forest, for the effects that the would have on
the climates, for the increasing ability of the placed militarize
and to suppress not just people have la but law
enforced agencies across the country. Coming to training at the
facility to better clamp down on the presence. Yeah, just
they're really time to come back to pression. Towards capacity

(01:00:11):
for wit under high stress situations is something I heard
from a lot of different people, including towards friends and
their partner just really really like always like had a joke,
had like a really like good sharp commentary, or would
like give you like a cigarette professional ship poster. Yeah yeah,

(01:00:35):
I mean their meme game on point um Yeah, and
just always like doing a lot of things. And so
they were running around a lot, like getting things for
people and then handing it off to them, and so like, yeah,
I think a lot of the times when we would

(01:00:57):
run into like for like often times we run into
each other be like oh hey, hi, hi, okay, we're
doing a thing and then like okay, I gotta go by,
you know, and there's always like yeah, they were super
into that, oh that smile. Yeah. They love fruit snacks,

(01:01:18):
loved them, couldn't get enough of them. And they always
helped do the dishes. Can I just say like that's
a big deal. Yeah, Like no one likes doing the dishes.
It's like they were always there doing the dishes. They
were like oh my god, running water, hot water, like
I mean like like they're like like oh my god,
and just like yeah, that's that's what I want people
to know. Fruit snacks and dishes. Fruit snacks have come

(01:01:39):
up a lot throughout my conversations with people. Tortoquita's partner
and friend also talked about how Tort tried to balance
helping other people with their own self care. They were
always so passionate because they want to help people so
bad that they would put their all into it. And

(01:02:00):
it took a toll on on them in a lot
of ways. But they always were so fucking strong and
took on so much more than I ever could. They
they are an inspiration to us all. They also need
to like disappear for like hours or days at a time,

(01:02:20):
and just like rechart, they read a lot. Oh yeah,
I were one of the like one of the things
to be sitting in their hammock near their tent and
just just we were eating and whatever it was they
were doing, shipping post and whatever they could to distress.
They were good about taking care of themselves, but they

(01:02:41):
did get into some conundrums where they'd get stressed out
and then you just see them like go off on
their own and then coming back in a few days
and then they're all good again. I'm gonnappy, go lucky.
I've heard them described as kind, and they definitely were.
I think the word that comes to mind the most
is earnest. They were just like incredibly earnest. I think

(01:03:05):
like the earnestness I'm talking about is like they truly
lived their politics like anyone can talk about like conclusivity
and love and fighting for the future, but they actually,
you know, just in how they carried themselves and interacted
with me. They really did that. And lots of people
might be like cynical about it or maybe calum like
optimistic or naive, but they actually lived. I feel like

(01:03:28):
love sounds corny, but yeah, just like a love for
people in nature in the forest. What was that pace
we were talking about? Revolutionary death? Yes, yeah, they read
that this last summer and it really had a strong
impact upon them and they I think you were sharing

(01:03:49):
as well that they had spoken about how they knew
it was very possible that they were going to have
this revolutionary a death and that back to them kind
of giving their all. They were prepared and they unfortunately

(01:04:10):
paid the ultimate prices. As said, as we all are
sure Torto, wherever they are now, is happy to know
that they gave their all all the way until the end.
They were always they were a true revolutionary and gave

(01:04:32):
their all to this movement. And I think now it's
our job to take up that banner and carry on
his name their name in multiple ways. Escalatory actions of
police last December lad to the current fatal scenario, not
just with the domestic terror framing as a pretext for

(01:04:53):
using increased force, but also the physical destruction of treehouses
resulting in people being out more vulnerable positions. They were
very calculated in in their risks and they would never
have had to be put in this situation if their
home in the trees hadn't been destroyed. They lived in

(01:05:14):
a treehouse, and the treehouse that they were really holding
down and staying in was bulldozed in the mid December raids.
On November twenty one, two thousand six, undercover Atlanta Police
Department officers executed a no knock warrant on the home
of ninety two year old Katherine Johnston in the Bankhead

(01:05:36):
neighborhood of Atlanta. Police claimed to have evidence that crack
cocaine was being sold out of the house. Officers in
plain clothes cut off the burglar bars to Johnston's home
of seventeen years and broke down her door. According to
the police, the nine two year old woman shot several officers.
Multiple cops were treated for a gunshot wounds. Katherine Johnston

(01:05:59):
was shot and killed by the police in her own home,
where police then claimed to have found marijuana thanks to
an informant who said that they bought drugs at the house,
except every single thing the police claimed was a lie.
Earlier that day, an officer had found bags of marijuana
in the woods. The drugs were planted on a suspected

(01:06:20):
dealer who didn't have any drugs on him. The officer
threatened to arrest the suspected dealer if he didn't give
up information, leading to an arrest. The man gave the
police an address on a Neil Street and a fake
name to buy cocaine with. The ap D claimed the
police were raiding the house because an informant had bought
crack at Johnston's home. It turns out all of the

(01:06:43):
injuries to officers came from friendly fire. They fucked up
their own guys. The cops fired a total of thirty
nine shots, five or six of which hit Johnston. As
a ninety two year old woman living alone, she owned
a rusty revolver for self defense. As these unannounced strangers

(01:07:05):
in plain clothes kicked down her door, Johnston did fire
once and missed. Three police officers in Atlanta executed Katherine
Johnston as they shot each other with friendly fire. To
cover this up, they lied and planted evidence. They ran
a smear campaign against Johnston, further victimizing the old woman
that they killed and who the cops knew was innocent.

(01:07:29):
The police in Atlanta have a track record of shooting
each other, killing civilians, and lying about it. With that
history in mind, this next part might get a little complicated,
but I think it's important. A lot of the people
who knew Tort have talked about how they often advocated
for non violence in direct action. Many have said the

(01:07:51):
sequence of events put forth by police just doesn't sound
like something Tort would do, and I very much understand
this reaction. Police lie all the time, especially when it
comes to people the cops have killed. It is very
likely that Towart really was just murdered by the cops,
But I also think there's part of this reaction that's

(01:08:11):
almost like a self preservation mechanism, stemming from a worry
that if a certain Pandora's box gets opened, what that
would mean for the movement and for the struggle against
militarized police and ecological collapse. More broadly, there's also many
scenarios that can lead to a brief exchange of gunfire,

(01:08:32):
especially with the Georgia State patrols relative inexperience conducting raids
in the forest. You can spend days just thinking of
various possibilities for what could have happened, as I'm sure
many people in Atlanta have. The recently released body cam
makes some things more clear, but also opened up many

(01:08:54):
possibilities to endlessly ruminate about, especially with on the ground
chatter indicating cops shot each other. This next person is
one of the original Force defenders I interviewed for my
previous Defend the Atlanta Forest series from last May. As
their partners stated, as it's from stated, what's from about

(01:09:21):
being moved by a piece called reflationary. They did not
show from the idea that they could buy for the
things that I believe in. They'd not show from the
idea that they could be murdered for the ideas that

(01:09:41):
I believe in. If I want to live, we should
not dismiss the possibility and reality. People can and maybe
even should, look at this world, look at the police
murdering three or four people a day, of a climate
catastrophe in them, and live him, of the rising tide

(01:10:04):
of fascism, of the absolute fucking hell that we fucking
live him and bent. This can't go on. And I'm
willing to do any of them and pay any of
them to make it stop. We can't dismiss if that

(01:10:24):
is a very feel possible grievance, that is a very
real impossible instead of mind and that if that was
to rus face toward to wait us, if those came is,
if that was its position, that is not learn that

(01:10:49):
and I, undoubtable are not will that in our willingness
to die for what we believe him. Tortuguita both privately
and publicly talked about an appreciation for non violence as
a long term strategy, and the flip side of that

(01:11:10):
is toward has also been described to me as somebody
who acts with intention, acts with great thought, and if
they did decide to do something, they would have had
a good reason to, and they would not have chosen
to do something if it had the potential to put
fellow forced defenders in unnecessary danger. Based on some of

(01:11:32):
my conversations. While Toward advocated for the potential of non
violence as a political strategy, they itself were not solely nonviolent.
The Atlanta Police Foundation have lied about every single aspect
of this project's development since the start. The g b
I said that there was no bodycam footage, and the
police have spent the last year fine tuning their propaganda

(01:11:55):
to frame the Defend the Force movement as a criminal
enterprise and anyone protesting against cops City as a dangerous
terrorists and threat to public safety. But there is a
difference between mindlessly believing the police narrative and trying to
not retroactively take away somebody's agency, especially if they did

(01:12:16):
make a decision that they thought was the right choice
given the circumstance around the idea. I think a lot
of people have I've been talking a lot about trying
to you know, there there's a there's there's narrative flaws
and the police of story about what happened on that
right There's inconsistencies. We just now got photos of the

(01:12:38):
gun that their legend e legend was used, just like
a couple of days ago, and it was days after
the GPS and the show evidence final report. It does
all look suspicious that I think. The thing that's bothered
me is that I would never want to take away
agency from someone who cannot speak for themselves that they
may have committed if torque that cop that as a

(01:13:00):
shot fired in liberation against the state that murders thousands
of people and destroys millions more for the car solar system,
the same state that seeks to help the South River
flood and to make the soil tony degrees honor and
to make Atlanta's air quality go down. I would never
want to take agency away from my comrade to have

(01:13:20):
done that when they cannot speak for themselves. And I
don't think anybody should try and make it seem like
make it seem like it would have been an unjustified
at a shot fired at the police and defense of
the forest as a shot fired in self defense. Cop
shoot each other all the time, and actually they're terrible
with arms. They're just not good at their jobs. GSP.

(01:13:41):
I think as a as a specific agency is UM
sometimes be focused time. I'm more here. I've seen a
lot of people kind of wrap up GESP and a
p D and like the CAMPD as they like very
like just as one agency um g SP as A
as Georgia State Patrol is under the direct command of
our vern and do not where a body comes as

(01:14:02):
as an agency policy, UM they were the governor's star trippers.
When he wants something done violently and without accountability, that
is who he sends. And you know my reaction all
of this, whether or not what the events transpired, is
that our comrade is that our comrade was murdered by

(01:14:22):
the state, whether or not they allegedly fired on an officer.
I think the solarity and rage that people should show
should be the same either if there were to come
out that there was in fact shot, I would be
so disheartened if people turned their back on our comrade,
who was slamed by the police for when I see

(01:14:43):
is an act of self defense. With all of the
unknown around what happened the day of the shooting, what
we do know for sure, I've heard boiled down to
two simple points. Tort was killed defending the forest and
they die doing what it loved. The first event type

(01:15:05):
thing I went to in Atlanta was a noised demo
outside the Cab County Jail Thursday night for the seven
people arrested as a part of the deadly raid, all
seven of whom are now facing domestic terrorism charges for
being in the forest. The next day, Friday, there was
a large public vigil in Wolani People's Park. Last time

(01:15:30):
I was there, it was for the Muskogee Creek Summit
near the end of last spring. It was sunny. I
was hanging out in the gazebo listening to ecological presentations.
There was a large tent kitchen in the grass, and
I got to sit around a table and eat food
with people. When I arrived Friday evening for the vigil,

(01:15:51):
the first thing I saw was the destroyed remains of
the gazebo, almost on display by the entrance of the
torn up parking lot. It was is such a clear
visual indicator for how things have changed since the start
of last summer. Near the tree line, a few hundred
people were gathered around a sort of outdoor shrine, a

(01:16:13):
few large stone slabs, overturned candles, flowers, forest plants, little turtles, pictures, art, cigarettes,
and yes fruit snacks forming an orange glowing mound. People
gathered and shared memories of Tortuguita. Many spoke of its
kindness and solidarity with struggles across the South, from the

(01:16:37):
defense of drag shows in Tennessee to mutual aid work
in Florida, where they helped build housing in low income
communities hit hardest by hurricanes. I feel like Tortuguita's compassion
was something that really shifted the culture in the forest
and touched all of the lives of the people that

(01:16:58):
they met. Um. They lived what they believed, which is
something that I hope we can all be inspired by. UM.
There are so many stories of people who were just
mentioning to Tort like, oh, I'm in this situation, or
this happened to my friend, and they would just immediately
be thinking of ways that community could help them or

(01:17:19):
that they could help them. And someone just shared a
story with me that the last time that they saw TOWRT,
they were telling them about how uh the on housed
folks in their community. We're getting their tents and sleeping
bags like swept and then tort gave them two hundred
dollars to UM like replace the sleeping bags and tents.

(01:17:40):
And I feel like they were just they had such
a sense of kinship with people, even people that they
didn't know, they were so connected to like the ways
that we are all a part of this web of life, UM,
and so committed to living in a way that can
bring us all into a better community with each other,

(01:18:03):
whether it be us and our fellow human beings or
us in our forests, UM. And they loved these woods,
and I feel like the fact that these woods were
where they departed from this realm into the next just
makes it that much more important that we protect them
and that we make sure that this forest remains intact UM.
I know that that's what Tort would have wanted, That's

(01:18:24):
what they died doing. And I think that in all
of the chaos and desperation and devastation that this loss
is bringing our community, I think that one of the
things that has been keeping me going is remembering the
love that Tort had for people and for all living
beings and just feeling really connected to their compassion UM.

(01:18:46):
And I hope that that's something I know that that's
something that is touching has touched all of us, and
the ripples of it are continuing. The love that Tort
brought to this world is still here and it is
continuing to grow. So I think that they're I think
that they're here with us, and I think that they
always will be because they brought so much joy and
goodness and love into this world, and that's something that

(01:19:10):
never goes away, it only grows. I've gotten permission from
a few of the people that spoke that night to
share some of their stories of Tortuguita. One of the
small things that stuck with me was how someone described
Tort as possessing a playful, rebellious energy. Good Tort and
I watched this UH yugoslav film together called My Father

(01:19:34):
is the Socialist Lock, which was this joyful Yugoslavian film
from the eighties about the transition after World War Two
and Yugoslavia to autonomous self rule and breaking apart with
the Soviet sphere. And in it UH, early on in

(01:19:56):
the film, they're they're changing their social customs, adopted a
new way of greeting each other in Yugoslavia where they
they say good morning, death to fascism. And from that time,
when I would see towards always they would that's the fascism, comrade,

(01:20:20):
that's the fascism, and um toward towards. When I first
met them, invited me to teach Aikido in the forest,
which is called it's a martial art, that's called the
art of peace. And so while we train as warriors,

(01:20:43):
we train as peaceful warriors. But as many people have said,
we for instance, did defenses of drag shows in Tennessee
from assemblies of Nazis and proud boys who showed up
in body armor with sualt rifles and tour. It was militant,
but joyful tour. It took all of the always it was.

(01:21:10):
It was with the utmost gravity and yet with the
utmost lightness. And you know, uh we we we as
well arranged a weekend of conflict resolution training here where
toward rallied and and was the one that brought you know,

(01:21:34):
a half a dozen people. Was was always rallying people,
brought people to the drag defense, brought people to the trainings,
brought people to my i Kedo class, maybe brought two
dozen different people through over the course of several dozen classes.
They were a peaceful warrior and they were in my

(01:21:55):
flaudney and they got shot dead. And I'd like to
I'd like to lead a chance in that spirit too,
honor some of torts Warrior spirit tonight. And I know
one that they liked is ah Auntie Antique Capitalista. And

(01:22:20):
we could start together, slow and quiet and build together
a powerful voice and pierce the night Auntie Antique, Happy
Talista antiph thank you. Throughout the night, many songs were

(01:23:32):
sung alongside screams of rage. Tortuguita actually left a tag
with a little red sharpie on the guitar being played
at the vigil. It's a little doodle of a cat
face next to the words all cats are beautiful. Somebody
at the vigil read out a few of the messages

(01:23:53):
sent in to the remember tort at ProtonMail dot com
email address, many of which you can now find collected
at stop cop dot city. That's stop cop period city.
One of the things about tour it that was really
inspirational is that they weren't just against capitalism, they weren't

(01:24:13):
just against the police. They made abolition about what they
were fighting for, and on the we Remember tort Uh
proton mail. A lot of people have been sending in
stories about how they contributed so much to each community
that they were in, And I want to read this
one that came in from someone in Tallahassee. Everyone in

(01:24:33):
Tallahassee knew Manny. I'm not even exaggerating. They were a
part of almost every single organization they could get their
hands on in town. Food Not Bombs, the Plant, Live Oak,
Radical Ecology, International Workers of the World, Tallahassee Community Action Committee,
Free Dan Baker, Stopping HB one, etc. With every person
who was lucky enough to be graced with their presence,

(01:24:55):
they felt safe and free to do whatever they could
for the community. They ran cold night shelter for the
homeless practically on their own when the Kearney Center couldn't
do it. They helped do grocery deliveries for those in
the south side of town for free. They showed up
to almost every single meal share the F and B hosted.
And this is only a fraction of the work that
they did for the Bond community here in Tallahassee and beyond. Manny,

(01:25:18):
I always watched you from the periphery with awe. I
always wanted to be your close friend. I wish you
could have seen the vigil that we had, you would
have been proud. The large overturned stone by the flowers,
candles and fruit snacks at the Wolani vigil had a
message written on it that I read when I returned
to the park a few days later. The big boulder

(01:25:41):
reads erected in memory of all whose lives were lived
and unjustly lost in Wolani Forest. You live on in
the trees, and I remembered by the land. You will
never be forgotten until every prison is empty, until every
slave is free, until all of without fear, until earth

(01:26:02):
has healed. Our work is not done. If it's okay,
I'll share another of the message that was sent. Manny
was a close friend, comrade, and above all constant fighter
for working people. I knew them in Tallahassee through the
IWW food not bombs and live oak radical ecology, and
I will never cease to be amazed by their tireless activism,

(01:26:23):
their extreme empathy, and their ability to make everyone feel
welcomed in radical spaces. They died as they lived, fighting
for a better world and defending the forest from destruction
in the name of a fascist, militarized police force. I
hope their name will not be forgotten, and that their
killer is brought to justice. But more than anything, I
hope the cause that they fought for is victorious. Now

(01:26:45):
we mourn this great loss to the Tallahassee in Atlantic communities,
but tomorrow we will fight back twice as hard against
capitalism in the state, so that Tortuguita did not die
in vain. This is another one. They were kind and
fear They were sweet, extraordinarily funny, conscientious, tender, silly, loving

(01:27:06):
and one of the most generous people I have met.
And that contagious smile and laugh three exclamation points. I
went to bed last night hearing their laughter in my head,
loud and beautiful. They somehow were still there to add
levity and joy as I screamed, cried, and choked on
my own spit all night, and they killed you. You're gone, comrade.

(01:27:27):
I missed you. I miss you. They had a deep
understanding of solidarity and struggle. When the cops swept an
encampment in my neighborhood without hesitation, they shared their forest
funds to get more tents and sleeping bags, because they
knew that these are not individual battles, but that these
struggles are inherently tied to one another, that they are
part of the same struggle. This is a lesson for

(01:27:48):
the movement that must be carried forward, for them, for
all of us, for the strength of the fight to
stop cops City. I will miss how we greeted one
another and our meager attempts to make it a thing.
Death to fascism, liberation to people. One of the people
playing the tortuguita tag guitar at the vigil played a
version of Bella Chow and I'm just gonna read out

(01:28:12):
the way that they described the song. Bella Chow means
goodbye beautiful in Italian. The song was originally about an
Italian partisan who goes out to fight the fascists in
the mountains during World War Two. And I like to
dedicate this version to somebody who laid their life down

(01:28:32):
to fight against fascism, militarism, and against the expansion of
the police, and against the destruction of nature. Somebody who
lifted up all of the people they were around, knew
so many people, was involved in so many communities, and
was just so funny, so loving, so friendly, and they

(01:28:52):
laid their life down for their community and to stop
cops city and to stop militarism and the destruction of nature.
They really believed in what they were doing, and the
way we can honor them is by continuing their fight.
Death to fascism. See you on the other side. The
world is wicking outside my window. Bella chow bella chow

(01:29:20):
bella chow chow chow drags my senses into the sunlight.
For there are things that I must do. Wish me.
Look now I have to leave you. Bella chow bella
chow bella chow chow chow with my friends. Now in

(01:29:43):
the forest, We're gonna shake the gates off how and
we will tell them you. We will tell them your
bellow chow bella chow bella chow chow chow, that we
Lonnie's not for the franchise in which the bastards drop

(01:30:05):
down dead. Next time you see me, I may be smiling.
Obell a child, bella chow bella chowd chow shall I'll
be in prison or on the TV. I'll say, the
forest called me. The world is wickham I sign my window,

(01:30:35):
bella child, bela child, bella chow chow child, try my
senses into the sunlight for their things that I must do.
Wish me now I have to leave you. Obella child,
bella child, bella chow chow chowd my French that in
the forest we're gonna shake the gate of Hell and

(01:30:59):
we will tell her, Yeah, we will tell him a
bella chow, bella chow, bella chow chow chow, that we
loes not for the franchise, which the bastard's drop done dead.
Next time you see me, I may be smiling, Belichi belichower,
bella chow chow chow. I'll be in prison or on

(01:31:20):
the TV. I'll say, the forest called me here, the

(01:31:50):
world is waken. I'll sign my window a Belichi bella chower,
bella chow chow chow. Dry my senses into the sunlight.
For their things I must do. I gotta leave you,
oh bella chow bella chow, bella chow chow chow with
my friends. Now in the forest we're gonna shake the

(01:32:12):
gates off Hell, and we will tell him. We will
tell them bella chow, bella chow, bella chow chow chow,
that we Lonnie's not for the franchise, and wish the
bastards dropped dune down. Next time you see me, I

(01:32:34):
might be smiling. Bella chow bella chow bella chow chow chow.
I'll be in prison or on the TV. I'll say,
the forest called me here. Next time you see me,
I may be smiling, bella chow bella chow bella chow

(01:32:57):
chow chow. I'll be in prison, or on the TV,
I'll say the fest called me here. The few days

(01:33:34):
leading up to Saturday, January one felt like the calm
before the storm. Nobody knew exactly what was going to
happen at the weekend of protest in downtown Atlanta, but
there was a sense that something would. Shortly after the
Wednesday shooting, a flyer went out calling for a gathering
at Underground Atlanta on Saturday, January one, and to wear

(01:33:57):
black clothes in morning. This is it could happen here.
I'm Garrison Davis, and I arrived at Underground Atlanta just
a bit before five pm. The crowd was still slowly growing,
and a bunch of big news cameras were filling up
the central area. As more people filtered in, some who

(01:34:17):
knew toward went up in front of everyone to share
memories of Torte Guita and talk about the continuing fight
to defend the forest. Obviously, we're all here because Toward
was an amazing person and their life meant a lot.
But Towards also shared something in common with all of us,
and that was the values and things that they were
fighting for. And all of us are fighting for a

(01:34:39):
great cause and we all have it in common. But
it makes us all targets. They will always target us
because there they don't believe in the things that we
believe in, and they will always be after us. And
we all have to stand here and stay together and
stay resilient, to fight for what we believe it, and
never let Towards memory and go with our honors. If

(01:35:03):
they would kill an innocent person like Tork, someone who
loved their community, they won't stop to kill us. They
will stop to kill everyone in that forest. They won't
stop to kill anyone who defies them. And that's pretty
much all I had to say. A few people from

(01:35:28):
the Atlanta Resistance Medics of Local Street medic group dedicated
to the liberation of medicine and providing medical resources for
underprivileged and marginalized people, spoke about Tortuguita who was a
member of their collective. If there's one thing that we
want people to remember Tord for is that they were
somebody who protected the people around them, who went through

(01:35:49):
the training along with the rest of us to be
able to provide medical resources to the people that were
around them. They may not have access to those. No
matter what else the new who says about Tort, they
were a protector. Everything they did was out of love.
Everything they did was out of hope for a better world.

(01:36:12):
And I don't care what the police say, I don't
care what the media says. I don't care what anybody says.
Tort was out here working for a better world. They
may want to smear them as an extremist. They were not.
They were out here protecting their fellow people. And that's
what we want everybody to remember about them, is that
they were out here trying to build a better world.

(01:36:33):
No matter what anybody else says. All right, I'd love
y'all to gripete after me. Start do God be there,
la lu Josse there, start do God there, la lu Josse.

(01:36:58):
THERETO is a medic in our collective. They were a
forest defender, They were a friend. They were funny, they
were Kinda was constantly thinking of others. They were constantly
trying to protect other people, trying to protect the forest,

(01:37:22):
trying to protect everyone who was marginalized. They centered voices
on the who are on the margins and brought them
into the center. They recognized that our struggles are interconnected.
They recognized that Cops City will never be built. They
died just sending that forest. The memory of Tortuga that

(01:37:44):
I keep returning to is after the police destroyed the
gazebo and Wilani People's park in the parking lot, they
were at a meeting and they said, yeah, so the
cops think they can just drawing our morale um, they can't. Yeah.

(01:38:07):
Fuita was one of the most resilient, strongest people I know.
They hugged everyone. They were so kind and so giving,
and even as the state tries to assassinate their character
in addition to their body, they were a freedom fighter.

(01:38:27):
They were a person that I was I am honored
to have known that I am honored to have called
a friend. About four hundred people eventually gathered around Underground Atlanta.
It seemed like slightly more people than were at the
vigil the previous night. Everything in modern life serves to
atomize you, to make you feel like you were an individual,

(01:38:50):
divorce from any sense of collective identity, divorced from any
sense that you have a purpose and that there is
good in the world. The fact that you're here means
that you're fighting at in stat So let go of that.
That is powerful. And that's why Cops City isn't going
to be built. It is because we have law for
ourselves than for the people around us. All right, so

(01:39:12):
I'm sure all of you are fairly upset about this.
I am Tort was a friend of mine. They were
a friend of the community. Their death, their death will
not be in vain. God City suck at all. By

(01:39:32):
five thirty, about half the crowd gathered at Underground Atlanta
were in Black Block, and the rest were a variety
of activists, organizers, and random people who decided that it
was important to be at this event. After some speeches, chants,
and stories of Tort, the gathering of people turned into
a march and took to the streets. March is starting

(01:39:56):
just less Underground Atlanta. Around three hundred people maybe maybe more,
are marching down the street. There's mix of people in
block because medics here. People just kind of in regular
clothes well, doing signs. There's a banner in the front
that reads they can't kill us all firework crap. Banner

(01:40:29):
at the front that says trees give life, police take it.
After just a minute of marching down one street, the
crowd suddenly stopped. Looks like the marches turning around going
to the other side. Stop drop drop jarges. Some more

(01:40:50):
small fireworks being launching. This guy, banners getting moved to
the front. It looks like the mark is now heading
north into downtown. Organizers from the Party for Socialism and
Liberation attempted to take control of the march and lead

(01:41:12):
the group south in the direction of the State Capitol
building or possibly looping around to the CNN Center, but
autonomous activists in the crowd turned to the march around
and the group four hundred strong headed north. It sounds
like the PSL people who were gathered at the underground
tried to tried to leave the march in one direction,

(01:41:34):
and everyone was like, no, we don't want to go
that way. Uh the if you have some people are
wannn to leave. Everyone into like the Federal Building section
of downtown going south, and very quickly they turned around.
Well other other people turned around, was like, no, we're
not going that way. They're taking it right down Peach

(01:42:06):
Tree heading heading north into downtown, right beside the Coca
Cola sign on Marietta. The march entered the Commercial District,
a section of the city completely gutted out by years
of the Atlanta Way neoliberal policies that we talked about

(01:42:27):
in the Defend the Forest episodes from last May. The
area is populated almost exclusively by business people, university students,
and unhoused citizens, and was a common site for Atlanta
BLM protests. Now that the march is moving, it's easier
to see everyone in black, all of all, all the
people of block. It's looking more just like a large, large,

(01:42:55):
massive people in block. Now. I have not seen much
police presence downtown yet because there's just a few few
patrol cars. It's really unclear how Atlanta Police is gonna
respond to this. Got some flares, a lot more of
those smoke fireworks or smoke grenade things. It's not a grain,

(01:43:20):
it's like a cardboard tube shooting smoke out the block.
Continued to travel north. Road. Flares and fireworks lit the
path in the darkening evening. Graffiti quickly sprung up on
walls with phrases like R I P. Little Turtle and
stop cops City the march. The march is now approaching
an Atlanta Police vehicle who's trying to back up the

(01:43:46):
cough just not one of the cop cop cars right
in the middle of where the march is going to go.
They're like less than a hundred feet away, just one
single cop car that happens to be in the path
they are. They are trying to back out of the street.
The march has the tree Trees Give Life Police take
it banner. It's a big cardboard cutout of a tree

(01:44:08):
right behind it. Police have their lights turned on. Now
looks like the cop cars turning turning around. Yeah, and
the cop car is leaving rather quickly. The sun was

(01:44:37):
just starting to set as the block arrived at the
main goal of the night, the Atlanta Police Foundation Headquarters
at one nine Peach Tree Street. They have stopped in
front of Atlanta Police Foundation Headquarters. People are thrown throwing

(01:44:58):
stuff at the windows doors MHM broken windows that the
Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters, the people, the people funding cops
City firework thrown umbrellas moved in to block local news

(01:45:23):
cameras as windows shattered. Rocks emerged from backpacks and smashed
into the front of the building. Hammers met the glass
entrance as fireworks lit up the scene. Not the other fire,
another firework at the Atlanta Police Foundation. The march is
tightening up a decent bit. March is definitely tightening up.

(01:45:47):
A lot of people just in block now. Shouts of
b water kept the mass moving forward as bank windows
received a similar pelting of rocks and hammers. People chanting
to move like water. Fuel line of police cars right

(01:46:07):
beside the march. I'm guessing they're gonna pull in in
from pulling behind the march to Atlanta police cars right there.
People hitting a Chase Bank another stuff being dragged into
the street for like a pop to barricade. Chase Bank's

(01:46:28):
head of Regional Investment Banking, John Richard, serves on the
board of the Atlanta Police Foundation. Police officers exited the
two cop cars that were trailing the march and quickly
ran away from the crowd, leaving their vehicles abandoned. Corkers
trying to keep track of where the police are in
relation to the march, because I got some cars pulling

(01:46:49):
up behind. Nope, the police car pulled up behind the
march just got their windows broken. Fireworks under another firework.
Another Atlanta Police police vehicle had the windows smashed. So

(01:47:13):
there's two. The two that was behind the march, the
two Atlanta Plice officer cars ever behind the march just
got hit. Wells Fargo, one of the main cops city funders,
received special love and attention from the block. The Atlanta
area president for Wells Fargo, Mitch Grawl, is also on
the board of trustees for the Atlanta Police Foundation. A

(01:47:36):
few other banks hit around this area. Wells Fargo one
of the one of the contributors to the Atlanta Police Foundations,
one of their big funders and backers. A lot of
the media here very very thirsty to get to get
stuff of, you know, when put into people breaking windows
and ship It was kind of surprising that the crowd

(01:47:59):
made it this far without any real police response. Time
almost stretches during these brief moments of uprising. About seven
minutes after the first window shattered, Atlanta police finally arrived
and made their move police are in front of in
front of the march. Now please are in front of

(01:48:23):
the rug march. People might be turning around. They want
to do a flow like water type thing. Yeah. Multiple
cop cars are approaching the march from the front. Unclear
what the crowd is gonna do. Atlanta PD is now
now approaching the march. They're getting closer. They're going after

(01:48:53):
one of the banners, dragging somebody down, pulling something to
the ground. They're chasing people. One person is being arrested.
Marches splitting in two different directions. Officers started randomly tackling

(01:49:16):
and arresting anyone they could get their hands on. More
police arrived from the south and chased it down a
small section of the march that branched off. Atlanta police
coming from behind as well. So I got Atlanta police
on both sides. Not many officers though, just just a
few officers. It looks like the majority of march withingt

(01:49:46):
JA movie dispersed, dispet dips, get please, get me more aggressive,
pushing a lot of people. Footage and audio of these
violent arrests were shared by the Defend the Forest account,
Unicorn Riot, and myself your here. I hear screams coming

(01:50:39):
from multiple directions. Large. Looks like the march kind of
split in two. I've seen a lot of arrests. The
individuals targeted likely committed no crime other than being in
the wrong place at the wrong time. The majority of

(01:50:59):
the march split away and in a different direction from
the cops. So I stated where the cops were. Most
of the march I was able to get away. It's
by going through two different directions we have. It looks
like and Atlanta p D vehicle is on fire, Atlanta

(01:51:24):
p D vehicle burning in the street, burning cop car.
Police with a style a r style rifles. So I
feel like most of the march had to hit it
on that way. It seems one of the cop cars

(01:51:44):
that got smashed also spontaneously lit on fire. When the
police first confronted the march, most of the block was
able to peel off and disappear into the night. Affinity
groups reconnected. Block was shed and protesters evacuated out of
downtown as the police flooded the mile long stretch of
Peachtree Street that the crowd marched on. After a firetruck

(01:52:06):
put out the burning cop car, police taped off the
area and as they were pushing people out. I recorded
an officer saying this amazing line. Bombs or discount New
Year's Eve fireworks, you choose. All In all, the actions
that night only took about an hour, and crews made

(01:52:29):
at home in time for dinner. Six people were arrested
at the protest Saturday night. Five were tackled and pinned
down as the crowd initially scattered, and one other person
was chased by a cop car. Sam from the Atlantic
Community Press Collective has more on that. A protester who
was subsequently arrested was Witnesses state they were basically followed

(01:52:54):
through the streets by an Atlanta police vehicle. Before this
is say that they were hit by the same vehicle
and they were the untaken to jail. So, you know,
corn Ry released that video and we were able to
speak with a few witnesses because, as I'm sure everyone
saw on social media this weekend, the arrests were a

(01:53:17):
familiar brutal familiar brutal site. Before we continue, I do
want to play two short clips that were circulating the
night of the protest. First is police scanner audio of
the cop whose car spontaneously combusted. You want to call. Yeah,
well the car I ain't able to go getting an

(01:53:38):
eat longer. You know. This next one is from live
news coverage of the march, and this clip became an
instant meme, so they're now saying gb I suck my
dick gb I is a Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Mayor
Andre Dickens and the Chief of Police give a press

(01:54:00):
conference hours later which gave us a look at how
the state was going to try and frame the protests
and acts of targeted vandalism. My message is simple to
those who seek to continue this type of criminal behavior,
we will find you, and we will arrest you, and
you will be held accountable. We have arrested several of
them this evening and Chief Sure Bob will give you

(01:54:21):
the details on that. And some of them were found
with explosives on them. Uh you heard that correctly, explosives
and that has led to a police officers car being
set on fire. During the press conference, the Chief of
Police clarified that no law enforcement officers were injured as
a result of the protest and neither were any bodystanders,

(01:54:43):
which means the only violence against people was done by
the cops who randomly tackled any protester that they could
chase down. And so it doesn't take a rocket scientist
or an attorney to tell you that breaking windows and
setting fires not protests that just tears him and that
they will be charged warningly and they will find that
this police department in the partnership is equally committed to

(01:55:04):
stop that activity. We already have prosecutors in the room
as we speak, and we're reviewing everything. We have a
lot of evidence to still go through. So even charges
you see tonight, those can easily be upgraded, and they
will be upgraded and appropriate. I brought up the police
chief's comments to a few of the forest offenders that
I spoke with after the protest on Saturday in downtown. Um,

(01:55:26):
police chief Schneier bomb it's hard, I've i've i've I've
read it before. On anyway, they let police chiefs said
that breaking windows and setting fires as terrorism. Um, I'm
curious to get everyone's thoughts on that. Sure, I think

(01:55:49):
the police and doing what a lot of city governments,
especially which was like things like property destruction terrorism, which
like it's not and you can call whatever you want,
you can call it, like property struction terrorism is a
very like specific political strategy that exists. I think the

(01:56:10):
right one does it a lot it and it would
be worth calling that, like, you know, because defend the
Forest doesn't have a body count. The police have only
murdered uh an activist for Defend the Forest Rush to
Find the Forest has not struck in our violently against
anybody except in defense against the police. Um, you cannot
do violence to property. You cannot be violent towards the police.

(01:56:33):
Carra It's in the same way that Andrea Dickens is
now getting on TV and claiming that, like calling fireworks explosives.
It's like, yes, there are objects that explode, but this
is very clearly being done in bad fifth because it is.
It is it justifies. This is the same way like
the d D and the FBI. There's a lot of

(01:56:54):
the ship. You call something terrorism, the money just pours on,
you get funding, you get justification. Do things like that,
and you can arrest people in charge them with domestic terrorism.
That makes continuing to move and incredibly hard. That's really
dangerous implication that any act and dissidents to the state
could be called domestic terrorism should really ship of everybody.

(01:57:21):
It should not be allowed to stand and should be
comparative against every from I talked with Peter about how
if the police are viewing vandalism or destruction of inanimate
objects as domestic terrorism, if breaking a window is terrorism,
that makes the question what exactly is destroying a forest?
That juxtaposition of what the police consider violence and like

(01:57:44):
what sort of like destruction of objects is violence? To me,
this demonstrates what they see like as valuable. And also
this demonstrates the police state and the corporation's inability to
to understand that alle nous of all things and how
sacred the earth is. It shows that what they consider sacred,

(01:58:05):
what they hold a sacred is property, and specifically their property.
I think they fear the woods in part because it
moves in ways that they can't comprehend. It moves in
nonlinear ways. Cricket also had something to say on this topic, well,
and and what is destroying a forest? What is destroying

(01:58:26):
a person? They're more upset about the destruction of property
than the destruction of a person, a whole human being
who is twenty six years old. They were young, they
just started and that does not seem to measure up
against some glass panes that doesn't seem to register. And
what about the terror they inspire in the forest, what
about the I mean, obviously that these rhetorical questions when
I'm preaching to the choir, but I mean, god, no,

(01:58:47):
it's just it's just infuriating. There's no I long for
the day when the line is not drawn at well,
you can do anything except touch private property. Noah mentioned
the juctaposition of broken windows being terrorism, but violent actions
that actually hurt people seemingly not mattering nearly as much
at least compared to a cracked window. Right, So it's

(01:59:10):
a clear double standard. And in the same way that
like you know, during people setting far too police precincts,
was insurrection and an anarchy and all these things. But
when the National Guard would shoot people it was a
tragic air I justified to And when roving vigilantes would

(01:59:31):
drive cars in the crowds and and play them pipe
bombs protests, it does not get treated with the same
levity because the powers that be can never, will, never
will obviously never hold themselves the same standards that they
will call us as their enemies, that the meaning of
words does not matter to them. What matters as being

(01:59:52):
able to get good sound bites to put on like
anti for Action ship and make themselves because the city
has designed that they can't back down from the prop
people that they're not willing to like back down state.
From the start of the movement, the police have aggressively

(02:00:14):
arrested and persecuted protesters associated with the struggle to stop
Cops City, starting all the way back with the first
arrest of eleven peaceful protesters snatched off the sidewalk during
the city council's vote to approve Cops City as corporations
and the state moved to push cup Cities development forward
despite all public opposition. Repression has increased dramatically over the

(02:00:37):
last few months. Since December, everyone arrested in connection with
the movement against Cops City has been charged with domestic terrorism.
It's not a huge surprise in terms like terrorism and
eco terrorism have been coming up, I mean in private
conversations probably since the beginning um, but we can trace

(02:00:57):
it back to at least last summer when and and
some emailed emails we've obtained throughout open records requests where
a city council member and the police Foundation, we're just
kind of pejoratively throwing around the term terrorists in response
to I think it was graffiti or something like I
hope they catch these terrorists soon. The terrorists who graffiti

(02:01:20):
to building. It has also shown up in a couple
of different public meetings that are about the training center.
You know. Committee members who are pro Public Safety Training
Center anti anyone being opposed to it have also used
the term eco terrorism. The dangerous escalation of protest to
suppression is not limited to people engaging in pathsive resistance

(02:01:44):
or direct action. Some of our our open records requests
have even shown that since since last fall, for for
several months now, anyone who participates in like a write
in or a call in campaign, sometimes those very simple
emails of hey, I don't think your company should be
participating in this project will get forwarded up to the

(02:02:06):
chief of police. You know, people's names, emails, just very
very simple call in campaign type stuff. Um, the most
monoculous stuff gets forwarded as part of you know, security alert.
This is the anti democratic chilling effect in action. Politicians
and police are trying to create a political climate where

(02:02:28):
people are too scared to exercise their rights to protest, organize,
and take action. Georgia's Republican governor, Brian Kemp has bolstered
this alarming escalation of violence and repression against political speech
by blaming out of state rioters and a quote network
of militant activists who have committed similar acts of domestic
terrorism across the country unquote, rhetoric that has been mirrored

(02:02:52):
by liberal politicians in the city of Atlanta. The broad
labeling of environmental and racial justice movements as quote unquote
terrorism and those who get associated with such movements as
domestic terrorists is an extremely dangerous precedent designed to stifle
public opposition and scare anyone concerned about police militarization and
climate change away from protesting. It's a crude attempt to

(02:03:14):
use as powerful tools as possible to crush opposition and
remove the protests from public spotlight while creating cover for
intensive suppression of protest movements. Police are making an example
out of people by trying to pin the actions of
autonomous individuals in a decentralized movement on anyone that was
unlucky enough to cross paths with the police by threatening

(02:03:37):
thirty five years in prison. Let's talk a bit about
the role of the domestic terrorism charges and how they
are being applied, because they're not even being applied to
people that are like tied to specific acts like you
specifically we have evidence that you burned down and escaped
like like a like a construction equipment. That's that's that's
not that, that's not they're being used, not even being

(02:03:58):
used for like we saw we we saw you break
this window. That's not even how they're being used. Like
the people restaurant Saturday, all six of them got the
same exact charges. How how can all six people have
done all the exact same thing, So they're obviously not
being used for in the type of like factual evidence
based way. It's all about like trying to turn the
movement itself into a criminal association. Yeah. Yeah, a p

(02:04:21):
D has even said that themselves in a public meeting
that's supposed to kind of like a provide advice on
like how the public wants this project built. You know.
They in the December meeting, which I think took place
a day after after those raids, they they bragged about
pulling someone over illegally for phil for filming the police.
They said they were very proud of themselves for taking

(02:04:42):
that person to jail, and then they just blatantly said
that anyone arrested for this in connection with this movement
will get a domestic terrorism charge. That which creates an
equivalency that being opposed to this project is a domestic
terrorism You know, the the chief of police, Stare and
sheer Bomb went before cameras on Saturday, and I think

(02:05:05):
pretty much verbatim said, breaking a glass window that is terrorism.
A lot of people have opinions about how to protest, right,
but what people have conveyed to us is that even
those who are, you know, kind of horrified by property damage,
it's just not domestic terrorism. It's just not being opposed

(02:05:26):
to the police, wanting the police to do something differently
is not terrorism. The Atlanta Solidarity Fund said of the
six people charged after Saturday's protest, quote, protest, even disobedient protest,
is not terrorism. It's tragic that we're at a point
where this even needs to be said, but that makes

(02:05:49):
it all the more important that the public speak out
against this divisive and dangerous rhetoric. We have reason to
believe these activists were arrested at random during the march.
All six faced the same blanket charges, They are being
held responsible for committing the same crime by virtue of
simply being present at a protest where property damage occurred unquote.

(02:06:12):
Twenty people have been charged with felonies under Georgia's domestic
terrorism laws since last December. Police affidavits have detailed the
alleged acts of so called terror which include quote criminally
trespassing on posted land, sleeping in a forest, sleeping in
a hammock with another defendant being known members of a

(02:06:34):
prison abolitionist movement unquote, and aligning themselves with defend the
Atlanta forest by quote occupying a treehouse while wearing a
gas mask and camouflage clothing unquote. A review of the
twenty arrests showed that none of those arrested and slapped
with terrorism charges are accused of seriously injuring anyone. Nine

(02:06:55):
are alleged to have committed no specific illegal acts beyond Mr.
Meaner trespassing. Instead, mere association with a group committed to
defending the forest appears to be the foundation for declaring
them terrorists. The seven people arrested during the police raid
where the Georgia State Patrol shot and killed Tortuguita were

(02:07:15):
given a bond amount totaling one hundred and seventeen thousand dollars.
Escalating repression is taking form as egregious bail amounts for protesters,
inflated charges, and as last month saw the killing of
an activist. The environmental Justice attorney Stephen Donzinger said, for

(02:07:35):
weeks these people were called terrorists, which is a complete
misuse of the word. The police have been conditioned to
believe these people are terrorists, and what do you do
with terrorists in the United States? You kill them. It
becomes a self fulfilling prophecy unquote. A whole bunch of
bail information has got released for the six people arrested

(02:07:57):
at the protest in downtown Atlanta Saturday, January twenty one,
and it's pretty high. It's the highest bail for a
protest that I've ever seen. Two people that are slightly
more local to the area, we're granted three hundred and

(02:08:18):
fifty five dollars each for their bonds set over seven
thousand dollars um with ankle monitoring and a twenty four
hour curfew. So that's a lot of four. Other people
who are arrested were determined to be from too far
out of town and deemed flight risks by the judge,

(02:08:38):
and they were completely denied bond. So they're going to
be held in jail and perpetuity until both further legal
challenges like this is going to get you know, pushed
up to a higher level judge, but who knows how
long they're going to be in pre trial detention now,
um for pretty pretty ridiculous charges and like this arson

(02:09:00):
um riot, like felony jay walking, essentially like Protestant domestic
terrorism across the board. When they're going over the bill hearing,
there was there was they were talking about how like

(02:09:20):
this hearing is not for going over evidence, this is
this is this isn't for Actually, yeah, they're they're they're not.
They're not interested in dealing with what the facts actually
were because there's no evidence that any of any of
the people arrested did anything wrong besides the march in
the street, which has been a staple of the history
of Atlanta for almost like almost a century. Um, there's

(02:09:45):
no absolutely no evidence, but that that doesn't matter, and
that's not really the point either. The point is that
this is a brutal form of punishment and a deterrent
for for other people to say that if you're going
to go to a protest, if you're gonna go to
a march, you don't need to do anything at all,
and we'll give you bond that's that's worth almost four
hundred thousand dollars per person um. Or we'll just hold

(02:10:08):
you until until this case gets litigated. If you want
to come from out of town to you could do nothing,
and then they decided that because you're from and just
happened to be. This could be eighteen months before before try.

(02:10:37):
If people are wanted a right, they obviously they want
people to just plead guilty and not not have go
to trial, um, which is nonsense because there's no evidence.
But if they does get carried all the way to trial,
that could take over a year. That could be just
being being held four things you clearly didn't do. But
because the police and prosecutors have decided to use these
intense charges as a deterrent, it's just extremely blatant, like

(02:11:00):
abuse of abuse of the legal system, abuse of power. Um.
But I mean it's you know, I say abuse, but
like this is the way it's also designed, Like this
is this is the purpose of professors, This is the
purpose of police. They're doing their job as it's supposed
to be. They're just like make it unfeasible for people
to participate in dissidents, and to make it so any

(02:11:24):
like any chance getting for people impossible, even for most people,
like looking at an amount, like an impossible amount of
money to come up with. It's so out of the
realm of what is possible for so many, like normal
everyday people who are participating in acts of profast then

(02:11:46):
it's just it's just design people for as long as possible.
It's not it's not even people who like this. This
would be in many ways just as terrific. This is
if if these charges were from people who are like
in the forest UM so people like in a downtown
marching like this is like dant marching. Like the most

(02:12:06):
serious thing that happened was that a car spontaneously like
that is it wasn't it was there's no anage that
any of these people. It was even noted inside um
during during these hearings that many of these people were
arrested before the car he even caught fire. Like the

(02:12:27):
just decided that again they were not ready to bats
a kind that this was not and making sure obvious
that the point of this is not too in any
way treat this with any real reality or what happened,
but just to make sure that we are the people
are as punished as possible for any actions taken by

(02:12:48):
a group that they were like intertionally, just even in
the vicinity aftertown Affidavid's for the seven people arrested at
the deadly police raid on January eighth, in which Tortuguita
was killed, big In by alleging that the defendants were
quote participating in actions as a part of the Defend
the Atlanta Forest group, a group classified by the United

(02:13:08):
States Department of Homeland Security as domestic violent extremists unquote,
but a DHS spokesperson has responded to media inquiries by saying, quote,
the Department of Homeland Security does not classify or designate
any groups as domestic violent extremists unquote. The Atlanta Solidarity
Fund responded to this news by saying, quote, when police

(02:13:31):
brought terrorism charges against Stop Cops City protesters, they justified
it by claiming that Defend the Atlanta Forest had been
designated a domestic violent extremist organization. This was a lie.
DHS has never designated any movement aligned organization in this way.
What does this mean? It suggests that police and prosecutors

(02:13:52):
have been lying, not just the public, but to judges
in an effort to justify outrageous, sensational charges against activists.
This cannot be tolerated in a free society. The public
has a long process ahead of unraveling the tangle of lies, distortions,
and cover ups that the police, prosecutors, and their private
backers have woven to suppress the right to protest. We

(02:14:16):
are determined to follow that threat to its end. Injustice
cannot go unchallenged unquote. To date, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund
has supported over sixty people arrested for protesting the proposed
Cops City development, just a few days before the killing
of Tortoguita. It could Happen Here released an interview with
people from the Solidarity Fund and Anti Repression Committee if

(02:14:37):
you want to learn more about those organizations. The Solidarity
Fund is dedicated to continue supporting protesters in Atlanta, but
with the unprecedented seven hundred thousand dollars bail for just
two people, they need help to continue supporting activists with
bail and legal counsel while they are also supporting civil
litigation against unjust arrests and police violence, in including an

(02:15:00):
independent investigation into the death of Tortuguita. In a statement
released after the bail hearing, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund said, quote,
the arrested protesters and all other future protesters targeted for
political activity in Atlanta need your help. Please host fundraisers,
reach out to your networks, and donate to the Atlanta

(02:15:20):
Solidarity Fund. We especially encourage you to consider becoming a
recurring donor. Solidarity means all of us supporting each other
for the long haul, until we are all free. Unquote.
If the state is successful in creating this precedent of
domestic terrorism, protesters across the country could be facing similar

(02:15:41):
speech chilling charges. Activists and civil rights lawyers have called
for everyone to strongly reject this extreme level of repression
here and now before it becomes the norm for activists
in every movement. What happens here will have legal implications
for the whole nation. It creates and it create it's fear,
It creates a chilling effect. It was after after the

(02:16:04):
December raids, a lot of folks in the community. We're really,
we're really questioning what was next, And it is scary
to think about, but it's been really heartening how people
have seen through the bullshit. Right, Atlanta has an incredible resilience,
and so does this movement, even with domestic terrorism in mind.

(02:16:29):
Peter also mentioned how the increased charges have inadvertently shown
just how strong the community is. After domestic terrorism charges first,
uh first got laid out in December. What was people's
reaction to that, Because that's a pretty substantial, like legal
state repression effort. You know, you're in the woods. You

(02:16:52):
hear that your friends are now getting these ridiculous charges, Like,
how does that change what's on the ground. Yeah, I
think the terrorism charges. Well, I'll say I was out
of town when the terrorism charges happened, and hearing about
those was actually what motivated me to come back to
Atlanta and move back into the woods because I knew
that the terrorism charges were a scare tactic to try

(02:17:13):
and discourage people from participating in the Woods and the
movement at large. As the repression has intensified, and especially
since the terrorism charges started coming in, the resolve and
the strength of this community has intensified even more, and
the increased repression has shown me the strength of this
community and also how deeply committed people are to being
a part of this fight no matter what. You can

(02:17:35):
go to at jail Underscore support on Twitter for information
on how to write to incarcerated protesters in Atlanta. The
terrorism charges being brought against Stop Cop City protesters stem
from a seventeen law passed in Georgia in the wake
of the Dylan Roof massacre. This law, allegedly created in

(02:17:56):
response to a white supremacist mass shooting targeting black people,
is being used for the first time as a bludgeon
against anti racist protesters who are fighting against the expansion
and further militarization of police facilities. And then the state
is just as as a concept as a whole is
is pretty much incapable of doing things for altruistic means.

(02:18:16):
This is the same government that just so often uses
like that completely simplifies like our issues, for example, with
like foreign students in this country into just a problem
to take away the abilities for the paratize people to
defend themselves by oversimplifying it into a non ideological issue.
And it's so like there's such a clear pattern of

(02:18:39):
who is perpetrating these things it's all like the state.
At any moment it can grab at power, it will
do so. And that looks better sometimes because it might
be like going after somebody like jelling Roof, But it
gets turned around later and used by them too, you know,

(02:19:00):
as must trying to defer the forest and make sure
that people cannot make for doing it, for doing nothing
more than asking the city to not do something that
a vast majority of do not want to happen. Laws
that are put into effect to stop far right violence
will inevitably be used to repress left wing movements. Any

(02:19:23):
expansion of state power will always come down the hardest
on people who are actually pushing back on the power
structures of the state, like the police. And now this
domestic terrorism law is being used against force defenders for
mere affiliation with stop Coops City. The way the state
is using these domestic terrorism charges is relatively unprecedented within

(02:19:45):
the United States, but this stuff is not completely unheard of.
It's new for white Americans who are protesting. It's new
in a very specific context, but it's not new for
many other people who experienced state repression and have experienced
state repression in other countries around the world. You know,

(02:20:06):
it's it's very similar to the way that like the
US would you know, we had a lot of a
lot of people who are over the years from the
global War on Terror, locking up thousands of people who
you know, so many of them were just the U. S.
Army rolls into a country and it's like all of
these people are terrorists. They do not have time to
litigate the facts. They are looking at people as flight

(02:20:27):
rests with their evidence with unsubstantially that claims about affiliations
to whatever the hell it is, and then they you know,
and the most extreme examples end up detained them going
Tanama for the next twenty years. Olor And you know,
we're about to the connection to all of this to
the idea if it's the similar ways that the idea
of persecutes their poor as the Pastinian people as waging

(02:20:49):
a war in the population and then taking as much
like like using as much force against the people who
choose to fight that state hour and then just arresting
huge numbers of people for claiming that they're like affiliated
with the mass or something for limtage living in the
same neighborhood and just throwing the key. This is very

(02:21:12):
similar to tactics that we've seen used across the rest,
specifically during the globe were on terror just to lock
up huge numbers of people with impunity, without the ability
for people to get proper legal representation or for their
ever to be a moment to litigate the facts of
what happened. And it's a really troubling development to have

(02:21:33):
happening here. This has been so destructive and other countries
all across the world, and we should all be extremely
concerned that this is happening anywhere. Um, not just that
it's touched the US now, but this type of legal
system should not find company anywhere on the world. One
of the topics of the original It could Happen Here

(02:21:53):
series was through Co's boomerang. The idea was also brought
up during multiple conversations I had in Atlanta. It's about
how the types of imperialist and colonialist violence that are
done in other countries don't just go away, They get
transported back to the homeland. This boomerang effect resulted in

(02:22:13):
a whole series of colonial models being brought back to
the quote unquote West so that it could endlessly practice
something resembling colonialism or an internal colonialism on itself. The
forces of extreme gentrification can be seen as one of
these front lines. In that way, it only makes sense
that this is happening in Atlanta to such an extreme degree,

(02:22:37):
Like the idea of like when it comes to from
post boomerang, any strategies, tactics, equipment that are used overseas
in a country's colonial moorish returned to the core to

(02:23:00):
subjugate their own dissidents and their own people. The best
example of this in the U S was meltorized policing.
COMPS City is a huge example of this. We've seen
a return of weapons and equipment from the do O
D to US police, just as abe we saw a
murdering and his trailer by swat team using night vision
goggles and equipment that looks like it came off of

(02:23:22):
like army rangers. Like it is. It is a return
like the tactics and the equipment and the strategy and
the mindset of an occupying army come back to the
center of the empire and are used to subjugate its people.
And in this case, COMPS City is a huge expansion
of this because of what it's designed to train people
to do, which is urban combat, and even more so,

(02:23:44):
the legal system that the US has used overseas to
prosecute thousands of people with their evidences as a well
being returned to prosecute. This is defending the forest. The
man shot by Swat in a trailer last month did
end up surviving. But what no is talking about is
that there is no true other. There is no true awareness.

(02:24:06):
This new military urbanism that seems to be necessary to
sustain hyper capitalistic gentrification is providing zones of experimentation through
which the state is able to try out and hone
their techniques of oppression. In my conversation with Cricket, they
talked about this phenomenon it comes back or it starts
here and where the training ground and then the export it.

(02:24:28):
I mean there, it's it's and I think you're absolutely
right that there is no true other. Right like that
is a construct to keep us out of solidarity with
one another. That is a strategy to keep us out
of alliance at the same table and demanding more. I mean,
it's something that I remember, I think it was. I
think it was maybe something Buddha, judge or I don't know,
some other some other politician. Uh, talked about in the

(02:24:49):
wake of you know, saying like military weapons should not
be used against like like should not be used in
our streets or something like that. It's like, okay, but
the logical extension of that is that they should be
in other people's streets, like those are also civilians, Like
those are also people's towns and cities and homes. Like

(02:25:10):
why are we deciding that it's okay for them to
be there and not not here? And obviously we're not
actually deciding that they're not okay to be here. Um,
But I feel like even the sort of attempts to
try and address the insane militarization of the police don't
rely on that other as if this is not a
global issue, as if this is not something that affects everyone.

(02:25:30):
The Solidarity Fund has said, quote invoking terrorism is a
dog whistle calling for more police violence. Ever since nine eleven,
American policy has been to hunt and kill terrorists by
any means. Applying this same terrorism label to activists in
our communities is prompting police to approach protests as war zones,

(02:25:52):
prepared to kill at any time. This can be seen
in the way GSP stormed the Atlanta forest with militarized
equipment and killed Tortuguita and God. I think there's also
this tendency to think of the assassination of environmental activists
is something that happens elsewhere, Like this is something that
happens in Central America, this is something that happens in
the Amazon, Like this is not something that happens in

(02:26:14):
the US. And it absolutely is something that happens in
the US. And I think just sort of too to
the name of your podcast, right, like it happens here,
it's not and it it could be any of us.
I think that that's another sort of possible strategy or
idea behind this, like oh, they're outside agitators, thing of
trying to create this scary stranger danger and trying to

(02:26:34):
make people think that the person who has murdered couldn't
be them because they're from here, like oh, like I'm local,
Like I wouldn't have been murdered. No, Like like no,
absolutely not, Like they will murder with impunity. And it's
really scary and it's really enraging. Like I I think
it is both to me inspiring and because if they're

(02:26:55):
going to kill no matter what, then why not cause
as much good trouble as we can. On Thursday January,
Governor Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency in response
to protests Saturday night sparked by Torteguita's death. Under that order,
one thousand National Guard troops were mobilized to quell protests

(02:27:16):
and police the streets of Atlanta. Once again, I'll end
with the words of Tortuguita quote, Dear comrades, we are
in the trenches of the class war. The capitalists would
rather see us dead or enslaved, so we must fight
like hell. Billionaires are causing a mass extinction and can
only be stopped by collective action. Cops city can and

(02:27:39):
must be stopped, but we need more help. We need
people on the front lines and robust supply networks. We
need to love and support each other unquote. Now that
the war is here, how are we going to fight it?
In the rain on leaves, tickle lift earl is the
veget to midst The melody we mimicing is the sound

(02:28:01):
of wind whistling long before the safety. It's channing under
the stars, camped under vorgenopy, she sang o song, and
she was far silent. No virus of violets, but the
fragrance of her flowers, and continued to invite us the
medicine materials of vitamins and minerals and all that is essential,
which just grew right beside us. And Tyson started fighting

(02:28:21):
over the gifts that she provided us, scorching the very
soil that all of us derived from. And when empires
learning came withstand Bia, we returned to the land where
our ancestors rain dance. We are all her creatures, We
still bear her features, the one and only reason all
living things is breathing. The city's deceive and leave. Go
see the dirt. Young gonna be among the lungs of

(02:28:43):
Mother Earth. Cud yeah, yeah, yeah down. Before that shop

(02:29:09):
him down, there was a forest. In the early morning

(02:29:39):
of January thirty one, news started to proliferate that to
the City of Atlanta, the Atlanta Police Foundation and Decapp
County reached a quote unquote compromise regarding the future of
Cops City. Words spread that city officials in Atlanta were
about to announce a major scaling back of the Cops
City project. At the project size would be dramatically reduced

(02:30:02):
and focused more on fire Department and First respond to resources,
as opposed to the original plans for the militarized police campus.
Many were skeptical about this news and saw this simply
as an empty promise masquerading as a compromise in a
savvy pr move, but even some who were pessimistic at

(02:30:24):
least saw this as a sign that the movement is
having a substantial impact. Activists rallied outside city Hall, holding
stop Coops city signs and Defend the Forest banners. Some
reporters were denied entry into the press conference, and protesters
stood outside Mayor Andre Dickens office and chanted. At the

(02:30:54):
press conference that afternoon, the Mayor of Atlanta and representatives
of Decapped County announced an agreement to allow the previously
announced eight five acre Copsy project to proceed as planned,
with land disturbance permits to be issued. The rest of
the land parcel of forest least to the police foundation,
will be allegedly set for preservation, a claim that was

(02:31:17):
already previously promised by officials involved with the project. De
Cab County and the City of Atlanta released a memorandum
of understanding for the building of the site, containing a
quote statement of principles, commitments, and intentions unquote. Mayor Dickens
framed the facility as an answer to demands for police

(02:31:39):
training reform duringies George Floyd uprising, saying, quote, this training
needs space, and that's exactly what this training center is
going to offer unquote. The mayor also responded to environmental
concerns by claiming the area of forest slated for destruction
contains only quote invasive species, softwood, and weeds unquote. Officials

(02:32:03):
said the so called compromise agreement would contain provisions for
preserving parts of the South River Forest. When asked how
the environment would be protected, Mary Dickens mentioned that it's
a three D eighty five acre set of land. Cops
City is eighty five acres. The rest is green space,
and that quote the environment will be protected in that

(02:32:25):
way unquote, with no indication given on how it would
be protected or by whom. Among the few environmental promises
are quote replacing any removed or impacted specimen trees with
one hundred new hardwood plantings on the site or elsewhere,
as well as one specimen tree for any invasive species

(02:32:47):
tree that was removed unquote. It's unknown if they have
even counted how many trees have been felled so far.
Activists called this employ to hastily pushed through a seque
of land disturbance permits. The most up to date site
plans has the Public Safety Training Center spread out over

(02:33:08):
a parcel of one and seventy one acres, with about
eighty seven of those acres slated for disturbance. There is
nothing in the least agreement that restricts the Police Foundation
from building outside of those one hundred and seventy one acres,
though they promise it will be protected green space. This
compromise pr stunt is not even a new tactic. In

(02:33:31):
August one, after initial protests against the project delayed the
city Council voute, the Atlanta Police Foundation claimed a similar
quote unquote compromise. Instead of clearing the three hundred and
eighty so acres that they are leased by the City
of Atlanta, they would reduce the footprint of buildings and
disturbed surfaces to only ninety acres, while more of the

(02:33:53):
land would be cleared and turned into turf fields, shooting ranges,
and horses stables labeled vote unquote green space. And wouldn't
you know that sounds almost exactly identical to this new
plan for compromise unveiled at the end of last month.
Upon such rhetoric and empty promises, the movement didn't falter,

(02:34:15):
but continued to demand and fight for the full cancelation
of the project, whether in the Wilani Forest or elsewhere.
After the January thirty Feet press conference, organizers in Atlanta
called for a week of solidarity actions starting February nineteen,
through quote calling on all people wherever you are to

(02:34:36):
take action in solidarity with the movement to Stop Cops City,
protest sit in, call and email the contractors building Cops City.
Every action has an impact unquote. At Stop Cops City
solidarity dot org, there are guides for various actions people
can take, from calling Cops City contractors or investors, to

(02:34:58):
posting flyers around to own or planning direct action using
the interactive target map. If you do go on any
movement related website, it's strongly recommended to use a VPN
and a tour compatible browser like Brave. The national spotlight
on the movement has certainly increased a great deal in
the past month, both with an influx of scrutiny and

(02:35:22):
support from across the country. And even the world. The
press collective has always had kind of a hybrid hybrid
role both of reporting on the movement and researching the movement,
researching the prison farm. But a lot of media outlets
don't quite understand the autonomous nature of the struggle. So
we have kind of found ourselves in a role of

(02:35:46):
kind of liaison ng between media and the rest of
the movement. But thankfully it's not just us doing it,
because boys, everyone interested. All of a sudden, no one
was talking about the move have been at the beginning,
so we're like, all right, we'll talk about it ourselves.
We've been able to use our platform to publicize a

(02:36:07):
lot of solidarity events. Okay, not just share memorials and
what people want others to know about torts, but you know,
publicize these things across the nation and across the world.
Statements and solidarity have come in from radicals in Italy, Germany, France,
and Rojava. After the killing of Tortuguita, vigils happened in

(02:36:31):
cities all across the United States. A wave of targeted
vandalism and direct action against cops, city investors, and contractors
happened across the country. In response, to towards death in Atlanta.
There's a concerted effort to not seed perception of the
movement to the state. People have an intentional, collaborative way

(02:36:53):
to affect how the movement is seen externally. This media
strategy is simply one pronged of the fight, along with
the encampments, sabotage, vandalism, pressure campaigns, and canvassing. I think
it's really representative of the type of people that are
dedicated to the struggle in general, the way that anyone

(02:37:14):
and everyone has come together to handle the influx of
media requests to make smart decisions about it, to make
sure that decisions are made with the consent of those involved,
be it sharing the stories of people who are arrested
that day, sharing the stories of towards family and towards partners,

(02:37:34):
and making sure to respect their boundaries in space. Despite
the diverse nature of requests, there always seems to be
somebody in the movement who is able to speak on
whatever aspect of the struggle is needed. You need someone
who's cut a masters and environmental engineering. There's someone in
the movement that can talk to you for forty five
minutes about the good environmental reasons to stop Cops City.

(02:37:57):
You need someone to talk for three hours about the
history of the play. There's someone for that too. Um,
you need someone to talk about how the project is
a pretty good example of why the Black Mecca is
a myth. The movement has people who can speak to
that too. There's been a tremendous amount of attention paid
to the movement all of a sudden, and again, the

(02:38:20):
way folks have just stepped up and come together to
handle it, I think speaks to the communal nature of
the movement. It is dedicated to building. It's not just
about saving the forest, it's about saving the forest for
the community. When I spoke with Karen, the neighborhood mom
who started canvassing and organizing in her community, she mentioned

(02:38:43):
how even her older family, who are a long time
Georgia residents, haven't totally bought the state's talking points. I
can say, you know, my mom and my mother in law,
and like, you know, family, they know that I care
about this, and you know, their boomers. But I've been
surprised how there's a lot of there's a lot of

(02:39:03):
skepticism in the police narrative, which I found really interesting.
You know, normally when something like this happens, it's just
a hundred percent police narrative. Mayor Dickens, the day Torte
died put out a pretty infamous tweet that just expressed
their condolences to the family of the trooper that was injured,
and not one single word about the person that died.

(02:39:27):
And in most fatal incidents with police, you at least
get some kind of boilerplate language about, oh, we're sorry
that someone died, and a lot of the initial statements
from government and large organizations just just said nothing. But
the media, even local news, and pretty much every single report,

(02:39:51):
there's at least a line or two, if not a
pretty decent chunk of you know, whatever five PM news
story it is. Let's say, protesters have questions, people have
questions about towards death. And given the pretty universally negative
way that local and Atlanta media in particular has covered

(02:40:11):
the Defend the Force movement, the fact that even those
outlets have to respond to the overwhelming amount of folks
speaking out about how what happened doesn't make sense, about
what kind of person toward was, about how none of
this had to happen in the first place. I'd love

(02:40:32):
to say that someone who pays attention to the meet,
how the media covers this that I could have predicted
that would happen. Three members of Congress, Rashida Talib, Corey Bush,
and Senator Ed Markeys have joined in calling for an
independent investigation into Tortuguita's death. Like I saw a screenshot
from NBC News this morning NBC News, and like the

(02:40:55):
Chiron was, protesters still have questions about towards death, like
that's from this more even after after the riot, quote unquote,
after the arson and property destruction, and almost like a
week after the incident. I mean it was It's hard
to remember now, but I think it was like almost
a month after George Floyd died before folks really yeah,

(02:41:18):
before it really got national attention. With when Ray Shard
was killed here in Atlanta, it was a little more
immediate because of because of a lot of things. During
the rally at Underground Atlanta, while people were speaking in
front of a dozen or so news cameras, someone talked
about how there are still people in town that are
just learning about Cops City and the fight to prevent

(02:41:40):
it from being built. They work. I had four different
conversations about the Lannie Forest in regards to everything that's
going on, UM with four different people who were unaware
of what was happening. UM. As big as this seems
right now, a lot of people are still unaware. And
as long as we keep being loud, as long as
we make sure that cops they will never be fucking built.

(02:42:04):
We just got to keep talking about it. UM. Maybe
Dickens Ryan Mills said, you have blood on your hands, uh. City.
I think we're about to really see how how the
national media is going to pick up on the domestic terrorism.
And frankly, the fact that they're talking to us at all,

(02:42:25):
or the fact that they're talking to the movement at all,
I think speaks to the strength of the movement and
the simple truth of it, which is that it didn't
have to die. Um. And this is a very wide
ranging movement with a lot of people who have some
very good reasons for being opposed to the project. And
I think those reasons are so compelling that I don't

(02:42:46):
want to say it's easy to see past the noise,
but it's not that hard. I remember one conversation with
Tort where I was like, this might just be like
egotistical or something that I really think this is a
lot bigger than you, you know, just a little neighborhood struggle.
And yeah, we talked about We're like, yeah, no, people

(02:43:09):
don't know it yet, but it's the intersection of so
many things, and you know, if more people realize that,
it would be huge. Um. And it's you know, really
heartbreaking that I think they were they were right, Um,
you know, they didn't get to see it. One of
the main talking points the state has been trying to

(02:43:29):
push through to the media is condemning cops, city protesters,
and force defenders as outside agitators. There's a Good Crime
Thing zine titled The Making of Outside Agitators that focuses
on the use of the term as related to Ferguson
uprising that gave birth to the modern Black Lives Matter movement.

(02:43:51):
For this next section, i'll paraphrase a little bit from
that zine. The state and media's invocation of the term
in Atlanta has been celebrating rapidly since the raids last December,
using it alongside notions of terrorism to justify the police's
violent escalation of protest suppression. For example, this clip from

(02:44:13):
the Cops City Community Stakeholders Advisory Committee meeting held days
after the December raid that introduced the domestic terrorism charges
speaking is the assistant chief for the Atlanta Police Department,
and so one of the things we charged him with,
to include criminal trustpath was domestic terrorism charge that we
put on them. So going forward that that is one

(02:44:35):
of the charges will be using because that's exactly what
they are. None of those people live here. They do
not have a vest interest in this property, and we
show that time and time again. Um was an individual
from Los Angeles, California, concerned about a training facility being
built in the state of Georgia, and that is why
we consider that domestic terrorism. There's a darkly prophetic sentence

(02:44:59):
from that crime thing. Gazine I mentioned quote when we
hear them say outside agitators, we know the authorities are
getting ready to spill blood. A pretty consistent talking point
by the police foundation police the state in general has
been that a lot of the people they've arrested for

(02:45:21):
incidents related to defend the forest have had out of
state licenses, out of state addresses, and what they describe
as no connection to Georgia. They have been sent here
to too. Stirrup trouble. Right, Um, they aren't from here,
they're just they're just here too because they don't like

(02:45:44):
the cops, right, They have no they have no stake
in the struggle. So there's some pretty obvious problems with that.
And there's some pretty lengthy historic racism tied to the
term outside agitators. Um that makes it, you know, especially
hain us to to use. In the South, the term
outside agitators was used to describe the Freedom Writers. So

(02:46:09):
it's got a little bit, got a little bit of
history there. Governor Brian Kemp declaring a state of emergency
so that the National Guard can be on standby to
occupy Atlanta sure seems like outside agitation. But even the
Atlanta Police Department's use of the term carries with it
a great deal of hypocrisy. Ap D has since really

(02:46:31):
made a big deal out of stepping up its recruitment efforts,
and if you go back and look at those presentations
to the media to city council, they consistently talk about, oh,
we went to New York for three days, we went
to Miami for a week. I believe it was would
have been September um, just after Darren Sheer bomb was
officially installed as chief of Police, he went before the

(02:46:54):
city Council and talked about how he was so proud
to have personally recruited someone from Detroit per basically a
part of their loan application, because they're applying for a
loan to finance part of cops City. By their own
numbers of recruits that will be trained at this facility

(02:47:16):
will come from out of state. They are forty percent
from outside the state of Georgia. Again in ap D
s on statements about the facility, this facility is built
to bring in people from out of state, from out
of the country, even because Atlanta participates in the Georgia
International Law Enforcement Exchange, which is basically an exchange program

(02:47:39):
with the idea with with the Israeli military. Where we
go there, they come here, we teach each other. News
articles claiming that a majority of those arrested are residents
from other states might sound like convinced the evidence to
middle class readers, But anyone who has been poor and
precarious knows that the permanent addres us you give when

(02:48:00):
you're arrested may not be the same as the place
you actually live. You might give a different address because
you aren't sure your current housing will last because your
landlord doesn't know your place has more people in it
than are named on the lease, or simply because you
don't want local vigilantes to know where you live. Instead,
you might give a more reliable, long term address, perhaps

(02:48:23):
from another state. I mean not a human level, like
how many times have you moved somewhere and not changed
your address? How many times have you going to the
DMV sucks? Yes, going to the t m V sucks.
So a lot of people don't have the privilege to
be able to go to the d n B or
don't have a permanent home address. A lot of people

(02:48:44):
are dealing with housing instability, like there's there's so many
aspects of this that makes it pretty egregious. And not
only of course, is this a struggle that is deeply
compelling regardless of where you call home. It just doesn't
match up to like the facts of life, Like it's
it's a little bit bizarre their insistence that the local

(02:49:06):
populace couldn't possibly be that opposed to it, when grab
any one person in the movement who's from who's from Georgia,
and they know tend people who's opposed to it. That
person knows ten people. And also you you have statistics
like during the what's seventeen hours of public comment, seventy

(02:49:29):
people who called in were opposed to it. Basically the
only people who weren't were people who self identified as
police officers, firefighters, and those who lived in Buckhead. And
it's it's not that simple, but it's pretty clear that
maybe you'd be okay with building the facility somewhere else.
Maybe you're an abolitionist, maybe this, that and the other.

(02:49:51):
But Atlanta doesn't want this. Atlanta doesn't want this here.
Let's imagine that some of these arrestees who gave out
of town addresses are in Atlanta for the very first time.
Would that make them outside agitators? Maybe if the issue
was specific to Atlanta alone and they had no stake
in the cause, Cops City would be a place that

(02:50:14):
police agencies from all around the country and world come
to to train and practice urban militarism. Climate collapse and
the destruction of forests is similarly a worldwide issue and
one of apocalyptic magnitude. It's a false narrative in one sense,
because climate change effects everybody cutting down a forest would

(02:50:37):
make climate change worse like that's a very, very very
obvious talking point. If if environment of protecting the environment
is important to you, it is obvious that this is
a very key struggle right now, especially in the context
of Atlanta being and growing and also gentrifying city, and

(02:51:00):
this being in a largely black and brown, middle to
low income neighborhood, and this being such a vast green
space in those communities that don't have the manicured Piedmont
Park in their backyards. When people are suffering the same
forms of oppression everywhere, it makes sense for us to

(02:51:23):
come to each other's assistance. This is not outside agitation.
This is solidarity. Solidarity has always been the most important
tool of the oppressed. This is why authorities go to
such lengths to demonize anybody who has the courage to
take risks to support others. Crickets spoke at length about

(02:51:45):
the outside agitator narrative that the state has been employing.
I think one thing that comes to mind is something
that I've heard a lot, is that the people in
this movement are not from here, quote unquote, that they're
outside agitators, that they're not from this community, they're you know,
and and it's it seems to be very clear to
be an attempt to sort of discredit what is a

(02:52:05):
very clear majority of the community that does not want
this forest destroyed, does not want cops city built, you know. Um.
And that argument infuriates me because I mean, first of all,
the U. S. Military is the biggest like outside agitator
in the world. Um. And I just I find that
irony sort of unbearable. And then I think there's this
question we can get into questions of what does it

(02:52:27):
mean to be from somewhere? And what I think is
a more helpful question is how are you somewhere? How
are you in relation to a place? And I I
think Tort with someone who was always trying to be
in the right relation with the land and in right
relation with their neighbors, in right relation with the communities here.
One story that I keep revisiting of them is when
we were checking in uh And and people are asking them,

(02:52:48):
you know, what, what do folks in the forest need?
What can we get them? Do they need food? What?
You know what do they need? And Toward was like,
oh no, actually, you know, we have everything we need.
But it would be great if people could start we
could make sure they're giving food to the poor folks
in their own communities, Like make sure you're giving the
food to the people in your neighborhoods. Are you checking
in with the un housed communities in your neighborhood like

(02:53:10):
they were? Just I think, constantly seeking to be in
right relation. And I think regardless of where all of
us are from, if we if we can can claim
to be from somewhere, I mean, arguably, if we're not
Muscogee Creek, none of us is from here. Um. But
I think it's a more helpful direction to think about
what are we doing once we're here? How are we
trying to be here? And yeah, I mean that that
specific argument. Really, it really frustrates me because I think

(02:53:35):
it really obvious skates how much this is a local movement,
and also having solidarity from across state lines, from across
national lines, speaks to the intersection of our the intersections
of our oppressions, the intersections of our movements. It doesn't
speak to the fact that this is co opted or
it doesn't indicate anything other than that none of us
is free, into all of us are free. The ultimate

(02:53:57):
goal of the police is not so much to brew
utalize and pacify specific individuals, as it is to extract
rebelliousness itself from the social fabric. They seek to externalize agitation,
so anyone who stands up for themselves will be seen
as an outsider, as deviant and anti social. Noah mentioned

(02:54:20):
how the outside agitated or narrative is rooted in stripping
people of their own autonomy. It's it's completely denying, like
the freedom of movement and the freedom to decide that
you would like to go and support other issues, and
so with like the empathy of solidarity with other people.

(02:54:43):
Just deciding that if you are living here a bit
from out of town, that somehow makes you, that makes
ms more and more dangerous, and if you are an
official resident in some way it's all I mean. And
even some of the people who are like out of
town there like not even two hours away from where

(02:55:05):
from where the prosecutors are claiming where they're from. The
outside agitator's narrative only works if we have this sense
of other nests that we talked about in the last episode,
This disconnect and separation from neighboring struggles, as if lines
on a map change the morality of actions, keeping people

(02:55:26):
in pre trial jail for an unknown amount of time
could could be literally over a year because they are
deemed non local, so the judge thought they were quote
unquote flight risk beyond the charges themselves, which are innately
kind of absurd. And the brutality is is the point

(02:55:48):
she audacity of keeping people with no evidence in cages
for years um for going to a protest is just
it's not surprising, but it still is incredibly upsetting. Like
it's like, it's no and it would be completely decried
if we're happening at any other country, right and a
massive human rights violation. If it's happening in China because

(02:56:08):
of the U. S. China relations, like absolutely not there,
there'd be an entire like I don't know, national outcry.
But because it's people who are resisting this government in
this state, then yeah, it doesn't get the same kind
of empathy, it doesn't get the same outcry. When I
talked with Karen, she spoke about how thankful she is
that there are people from across the country, people like

(02:56:29):
tort who care about the South River Forest enough to
travel to Atlanta to defend it. In terms of the
narrative of like outside agitators. You know, I'm I'm really
grateful that people are coming to like protect the forest
in my backyard, Like I am, I have like so
much gratitude. It is so it is so meaningful. Um. Yeah,

(02:56:54):
and I yeah, I think I I think after the
first raid I told towards that I'm glad I did.
But yeah, it really is like just so much gratitude.
The framing of outside agitators is meant to keep people
away and stifle solidarity, just like the domestic terrorism charges

(02:57:15):
are meant to the state is trying out every tactic
to scare people away from participating in the movement. So
it feels like just the past month there's been such
a intense increase in the level of state repression and
state violence. How do you see things evolving in the

(02:57:35):
next few weeks and months and or like even days
at this point, like just with how both like physical
violence definitely increasing with the raids and now like you know,
killing somebody, um, and then the types of like you know,
judicial abuse of power of giving people seven thousand dollar bail,
keeping you know, many others just in jail and perpetuity

(02:57:59):
for who knows how long. Yeah, I mean, I think
it's clear looking at this movement that the state, the
cops police have always been the first to escalate, have
and have now murdered someone, have now assassinated someone, and
are the ones who are constantly sort of making putting
other people's lives in danger. They're really the people who
are making folks unsafe. And and to it was a

(02:58:22):
street medic. To it was someone who went through street
medic training with someone who was passionate about protecting their community.
And a street medic training one of the things that
is taught, there's a whole section on police weapons and
state weapons and ensure we cover tear gas, we cover
on bullets, we cover all anything that you can sort
of commonly see protests or in raids. And one of

(02:58:42):
the biggest weapons that we always cover his fear. And
that is really what I see happening with this escalation
is that yes, there's a sort of increase of literal weapons,
of of of arms, of just everything that we've heard
about in in the forest um. But I think when
you take add in combination with the ludicrous charges, what
they're really trying to weaponize as our own fear, as

(02:59:04):
our our our own emotions, making us think that it's
too dangerous to be in the forest, that it's not
worth it, that it's too risky, making us think that
the forest itself is somehow an unsafe place, making us
think that the people who protected are unsafe. And I
think that's the that's the sort of trend that I'm seeing.
I think in terms of what's coming next, I think
they're going to keep leaning into the weapon of fear.

(02:59:27):
I think it's um I think it's you know, it's
it's it's not not ha ha funny that they accuse
protesters and the people who have been charged with domestic
terrorism of intimidation, when clearly they're using those charges to
intimidate people, both the people who are charged with it
and anyone who might consider themselves an ally or a
friend of the forest and a friend of the forest defenders.

(02:59:48):
So what I see moving forward in terms of carrying
towards legacy forward, in terms of carrying this movement forward,
is not buying into that bullshit, like very much being
fear walking and not trying to say people shouldn't be
scared or not have those feelings. But one of the
memories of tor that I have is them very clearly
refusing intimidation. Whether it was cops, whether it was you

(03:00:09):
know whoever the sort of representative of the state was,
they never gave into that. And I think that's what
I'm trying to carry forward with a lot of us
are trying to carry forward. Noah spoke similarly about fear
being a powerful weapon of the state and a very
insidious one because it doesn't punish people for actions they
may or may not have done, but instead works to

(03:00:31):
prevent people from taking action in the first place. Fear
the number one that the state ranch to bear all
of their their toys and their guns and ship do
not have the reach and do not have the capacity
to stop liberation. Fear making people afraid of the idea

(03:00:57):
of sidence is extremely powerful, and it's something that we
all have to combat our own ways. It's something we
will have to resist in our own ways because that
obviously the state is capable of murdering and of putting
people in prison for a very long time, and that
is scary, and that is a valid thing to be

(03:01:18):
afraid of. But we stand to lose so much if
we do not combat that fear, to face off with them,
that it's just something that I've found I have to manage.
It's something that because we I'm so much more afraid
of what we all lose if we don't stop them

(03:01:39):
here than I am of myself being harmed or going
to prison. We all stand to lose ten tens of
millions of people stand to lose everything if we allow
climate backalypse to bear, if we allow the powers that
be to get significantly more effective at combating dissidents in
the streets from you in gosh, not not just in

(03:02:01):
the United States, but for national struggling in the same
police department that cross training. Do you think the idea
wouldn't becoming the facility to try and better heart, you know,
past and dissidence. This will mean something to every foreign military,

(03:02:23):
to every foreign police, for every police forshon There's a
quote from Tortuguita talking about how to deal with fear.
What I'm about to read also demonstrates, as their partner
said that tort was very aware of the risks inherent
to resisting the state, especially as a non white forest defender.

(03:02:44):
But with an understanding of that risk and the fear
associated with said risk, they chose it was worth it
to keep on fighting. Quote, Am I scared of the state?
Pretty silly not to be. I'm a brown person. I'm
might be killed by the police for existing in certain spaces.

(03:03:04):
Fear is the mind killer. That's a quote I think
about often. I must not fear, and fear's the mind
the killer. And here's a little death that brings total
of liliteration. Face my fear. I'm permitted to pass over
me and to me to continue. What tort said, quote

(03:03:25):
I am scared, but you can't let the fear stop
you from doing things, from living, from existing, from resisting unquote.
In the early nineteen sixties, Atlanta was dubbed the City
Too Busy to Hate. The phrase can be traced back
to a Civil Rights era marketing slogan attributed to Mayor

(03:03:48):
Ivan Allen, who spent millions of dollars in the nineteen
sixties to promote Atlanta as a business oriented city, a
city moving forward from its racial past and into a
hopeful new future. This was the beginning of the Atlanta Way.
Still today, you can find this city Too Busy to
Hate everywhere on on murals, posters, and t shirts. It's

(03:04:12):
become part of Atlanta's identity, or at least Atlanta tries
to tell itself that within the slogan lies this admission
of the belief that racism and oppression can be beaten
by hyper capitalism, meaning the first and foremost goal of
the city is economic progress. Equality and racial justice must

(03:04:36):
take a back seat because the city is just too busy.
There's a few better examples of this in action than
the black neighborhoods that were demolished to build infrastructure for
the Olympics and later the Mercedes Benz Stadium. Since then,
the belt Line's original vision of public transit to green
space and affordable housing has been abandoned in favor of

(03:04:59):
developing luxury apartments and gentrified retail joints. As Fouko's Boomerang
brings the internal colonization of the gentrification and increasing police
and militarization to Atlanta, it only makes sense that cops
city and the battle to stop it is happening here.
Towart died two days right after Martin Luther Catteck Junior
Memorial Day. We're in Atlanta. There's this whole section of

(03:05:23):
the Delta Airport in Atlanta dedicated to John Lewis you
can hear his voice on a loop saying good trouble,
And yet as soon as the festivities are over, as
soon as the fundraising is over, when someone is shot
resisting the state and a peaceful, non violent direct action,
they're labeled a terrorist. I don't understand how someone can
possibly reconcile those two things. They seem to me to
be grotesque. I mean, it's it's disgusting, but I don't

(03:05:46):
see that reflected in any mainstream narrative. Noah talked with
me about how he first got involved in the Stop
Cops City movement. In my introduction to Cops is starting
where much people shou and it landed when it got
first leaked that this was a thing that the city
was planning. Um, I remember having just a very like,

(03:06:06):
oh my god, what the fuck like reaction to realizing, like,
they want to destroy the largest urban canopy in the
country to build a big fake city for them to
practice doing urban combat, and that's like parity dysturbian. And
very quickly people were organizing in various different ways to

(03:06:29):
to stop them, to to make their voices heard that
this was not something that it ran on was okay with,
This is not something we were okay with having in
our communities. It is not something that anybody wanted. That
took a lot of different fronts. For me. I mean
that went from working, whether that be on the streets too,
just doing food destroys and medical trainings too, you know,

(03:06:51):
scampering around the woods with my friends like that took
many different forms, just as forms of resistance to UM
and over time that has changed and evolved. But I
still think of something that working on a different French
to be person as possible. The sheer resiliency we've seen

(03:07:15):
in Atlanta post has been incredibly impressive and inspiring after
the radical communities in a lot of cities dealt with
pretty extreme burnout to due to such a grueling summer,
and ever since then, people seem to be recovering and
anticipating the next cycle of mass uprising. As news spread

(03:07:38):
of Memphis police's brutal beating of Tyree Nichols, which resulted
in his death, there was renewed discussion if it was
going to spark the quote unquote next. But Atlanta is
one of the few cities where things really haven't halted.
Since Defend the Four, stuff has been going pretty hard

(03:08:00):
ever since, like UM and it's been a very compressive
amount of resiliency. Can you kind of talk on that
aspect of how people have been able to do that? Yeah,
I think it comes down to having a really good
support network of people, of people who are willing to

(03:08:20):
um be, support activists who are jail, support activists medically
and financially, like we're able to make this possible. And
it also comes down to that to defend the forest
movement is so it is so important to anybody, It
should be so important to anybody who looked at as

(03:08:42):
a strike back against police violence what cops it image
for all of us is a world in which has
much harder to resist police, especially in cities. And for
a lot of activists who come out defend the forest
became an extension of that fight. It became its own
it's on fright to prohect the forest and an extension

(03:09:02):
of the battle against the violence of the state and
against the ability of the place to further militarize. And
I think that kept a lot of a lot of
people going UM but I certainly happens. I mean it is.
It can be really exhausting work, It can be really
defeating at times, and it's been really important I think
for people everywhere and and here to have you know,

(03:09:24):
friends and and things that they can do too decompress
and take time off when needed, to stay to keep
the ability to keep doing this UM and to not
burn out completely, and to be able to keep going
against what feels like all adds and terms UM. Also
just activists here a pretty faking resilient just I'm continuous

(03:09:48):
or impressed by the people I see just continuing to
go out day after day and working behind the scenes
doing everything possible to make sure that we can keep going.
The solidarity friend has a couple of things today, people's
commissaries and the past has done later writing campaigns for
a political prisoners across the country, which is certainly like

(03:10:09):
a thing that you know, we're looking at the potential
people being held very long term. That's absolutely going to
be something in the current weeks that I help people
UM spread to the like. Obviously, these people who are
incrostrated are supporting every way we can possibly possibly do that.
If the people currently incarcerated are granted bond during the

(03:10:29):
appeal process and it's set to the same amount as
the last two individuals. That would be three hundred and
fifty five thousand dollars per person for at least five
more people. That included with like the previous bonding mats
that were set for previous rage. I mean, we're approaching
three million dollars and potential bonds, which is just designed

(03:10:50):
to drain people are such much as possible and make
the idea of protests seem impossible. And again this is
just under there attractive perpetuate power fear and making it
same as impossible to protestants and making it seem like
if you were to be arrested that you would never

(03:11:12):
That's terrifying. That's that's the number one. There have been
a few semi distinct stages in the struggle against Cops City.
In summer, the initial stage was trying to get the
city council to vote no on the project. There was
a lot of canvassing, calling representatives, involvement from large above

(03:11:34):
ground organizations like the d s A and Sunrise, you know,
people trying to quote unquote campaign the right way to
get the project shut down before even started. And then
even despite seventy of the local people who called in
not wanting this, the city council voted for it anyway,

(03:11:54):
and then starting two months after the vote, and for
over a year now, we've had this forest occupation or
encampment stage. People going into the woods and having their
continuous physical presence there itself be a deterrent for construction. Concurrently,
there have been random acts of sabotage, with construction equipment

(03:12:16):
spontaneously bursting into flames, alongside pressure campaigns targeting subcontractors and
cops city investors. With the past few police raids having
been increasingly violent and the last one resulting in the
death of a force defender, I asked the people I
spoke with if they saw any forthcoming new stage of

(03:12:36):
the movement, considering the cops are trying really hard to
make it very dangerous to camp in the woods right now.
What's your sense from on the ground, how stuff might
you know with these increasing charges increasing, with bail phones,
increasing use of forth what's some kind of ways that
you field stuff might start changing on the ground, Like

(03:12:57):
do you like, do you think the encampment that I
were content will continue or will it kind of evolve
in a new kind of unexpected direction. It remains to
be seen how um the approach to living in the
woods will adapt to these changes. Um. The decap County
Police Department has claimed that they're going to increase their

(03:13:18):
surveillance and patrol of the neighborhood that the Woods is in.
It remains to be seen what that will mean for
the encampment and how active they're going to be in,
you know, repressing people in a day to day sort
of thing. And also I think one change is reconsidering
what on the ground means and what the bounds of

(03:13:39):
the forest are. There's more woods that black Hall plans
to develop on nearby, so reconsidering what on the ground
is you know, brass field and gory construction sites could
be considered and on the ground site you know, for actions,
and you know, I think there's a lot of room
to grow in that direction as well. Like do you

(03:14:01):
see this moment as like a substantial turning point? I
think so. I mean, I don't think it couldn't be
a turning point. Um. I think that every every escalation
of violence that this happened has been perpetrated by law enforcement.
There's never been a moment in which the people combating
law enforcement have been the ones to escalate the violence,
and I think that this marks a willingness of the

(03:14:25):
government here in the city government, that this is the
hill that they're willing to die on. This is where
they're willing to stand their ground and where they are
proven to us that they are are committed and so
committed to the idea of building cops city that they
are willing to kill people. And I think that that
is a turning point and how we as a movement

(03:14:46):
have to be willing to respond to the state, and
how we have to be willing to look at them
not just as this entity that we are facing down
like in like the courts and doing fun blacks, because
that clearly doesn't work. They are just going to to
murder us, but as a force that is a you know,
like offensive militarised force coming after us. I think that

(03:15:07):
is a that it marks a really big to shift
in overallly looking at what the city government here is
willing to do to get this done. And I think
that a variety of tactics will always being play. People
are always going to have different ways that they feel
comfortable and and safe and responding. But I do think
that I think what we saw on Saturday was a

(03:15:32):
with a response to that that that people showed up
and they made it very clear that we were not
going to take this lying down, that people aren't going
to be willing to let the state going answered, and
that they don't gonna let the police going answered for
this acts. And I think from from now on and
going forward, I think we will. I think I hope

(03:15:53):
at least that we see more and more people taking
up acts of physical resistance to law enforcement, to the
state to prevent them from building city and prevent them
from preventing further action violence. So far, the forced occupation
has proved effective in delaying the construction of Cops City.
In the past, barricades have inhibited the movement of construction equipment,

(03:16:16):
Machinery left in the woods has been sabotaged, and during
attempts to fell trees, force defenders have put their own
bodies on the line by climbing into the tree tops
to prevent them from being cut down. Other prongs of
the movement have similarly produced successes. Pressure campaigns focused on
getting contractors and businesses to divest or pull out of

(03:16:37):
the project resulted last April in a Reeves Young Construction,
The initial contractor for Cops City, severing ties with the
project after months of pressure, and just this month, Quality
Glass Company announced that they would not be working on
Cops City, as well as no longer doing business with
brass Field and Gory, the current contractor for the facility.

(03:17:00):
These pussure campaigns can include protests at company offices, phone
calls imploring them to drop the contract, or actions more
along the lines of vandalism at job sites, or visits
to the neighborhoods of company executives, even to simply drop
off flyers or banners. I don't think this was ever
a fright that we're gonna win. On one front um

(03:17:22):
the amount of people that we were able to put
in the in Cameron, the forest was really beautiful to see,
but the state was always going to be able to
put out enough manpower to shut that down. This is
a battle that we ran on multiple friends, and that
includes you know, that includes having conclude having physical presence
in the forest and preventing machinery from permanent but that

(03:17:44):
also includes acts of sabotage, making sure that contractors who
are signed on the Cops that they do not feel
comfortable and do not feel safe signing on against project
and making this economically impossible for the city to continue doing.
As far as being like a new strategy, I don't

(03:18:04):
know if it would be spously combushed and judge things,
but I do think this marks are a point and
potentially like the frequency of things happening and necessary, I
think evaluating of where we are now and thinking realistically

(03:18:24):
about what our next step shout to make this an
untenable situation for this idy to continue past well. One
evolution that I see happening is a consensus amongst long
term organizers in Atlanta that we want as many people
coming here to participate as possible, and also that I
think one change is being less picky in who we

(03:18:46):
invite to participate and encouraging like liberals and moderates to
be a part of this. They've always been a part
of it, but really um emphasizing that side of the
movement more. Back in the Defend the Atlanta Forest episodes
from last May, I talked about the Shack model, the

(03:19:06):
aim of which is to make construction economically untenable by
maintaining a presence in the forest, sabotaging work, and targeting
specific subcontractors locally and elsewhere. In addition to contractors, corporate
funders affiliated with the APF can also be targeted to
distincentivize affiliation with the project. Solidarity actions targeting Atlantic Police

(03:19:29):
Foundation contributors have been happening nationwide. As mentioned at the
top of the episode, A Week of Solidarity is coming
up on February and Stop Cop City Solidarity dot org
has many resources. In the past, actions have included everything
from office protests, divestment campaigns, vandalism, and actions by workers

(03:19:51):
within these companies to pressure them into cutting ties. No
action is too small or too ambitious. In an palysis
on tactics published recently on its going down, said this
regarding the targeting of Cops City investors. Quote In other campaigns,
banks like Wells Fargo have been forced to divest from

(03:20:14):
police and prison expansion, but these efforts often take years
and lots of resources. Atlanta Police Foundation supporters like public universities,
Georgia State University, Georgia Tech, or Emery University could be
lower hanging fruit. Comrades should identify which Cops City funders
are most vulnerable to pressure, where potential allies like student

(03:20:37):
groups and unions are positioned and share this info and
synchronize actions. Unquote. Bureaucratic red tape can also be effective
in delaying progress. Ongoing zoning appeals could result in an
official stock work order, but it remains unseen if such
an order will even be followed, as currently laws around

(03:20:57):
zoning appeals are being ignored by the contractors and the
Atlanta Police Foundation. Tortu Guita had spoken of a theory
of THEIRS concerning the potential for intense police repression and
how the aftermath of that might play out. Quote. They
could come in and completely destroy the place, raise it,

(03:21:20):
arrest everybody they could find, kill anybody who resists arrest.
They could do that, and then days later there would
be a shipload of people back here. For every head
they cut off, there would be more who would come
back to avenge the arrested, to avenge the tort did
not finish that sentence, but resuming, what I'm saying is

(03:21:45):
if they do a huge crackdown and completely try to
crush the movement, they'll succeed at hurting some people, they'll
succeed at destroying some infrastructure, but they're not going to
succeed at stopping the movement. That's just going to strengthen
the movement. It will draw a of attention to the movement.
If enough people decide to do this with non violent action,

(03:22:05):
you can overwhelm the infrastructure of the state. That's something
they fear more than violence in the streets, because violence
in the streets they'll win. They have the guns for it.
We don't unquote. No matter how the movement continues, the
weight of torts absence will be felt as long as

(03:22:25):
this fight carries on. It's such a huge loss. Um.
But as we as we keep thinking about you know,
w W t D, what would TORT do. It's continue
to support those projects. It's continue to uplift the spaces
and groups that are supporting the most vulnerable amongst us
and uplifting their voices, uplifting their safety. And they're going
to continue to be trainings offered, training specifically for folks

(03:22:47):
who are marginalized and afraid of gun violence and want
to know how to be able to protect themselves and
protect their friends. This came about specifically in the wake
of the shooting at the gay bar Um I guess
a few months ago now, Jesus, and that was something
that Toward was helping to organize. So yeah, we're gonna
we're gonna keep doing that work. How do you think

(03:23:09):
like a continue on without without towards there? Now? Um,
you know, I think they set me up the hardest
thing to navigate, Like, Okay, what can I do? Where
can I fit in? Like I'm shorter, you know, living
in the forest, And I think with just like the canvassing,

(03:23:30):
I feel like I've really figured out the ways I
can you know, my place in it enough to keep
me busy. It was towards kind of very instrumental to
having you help figure out like your role in this.
I mean honestly, I would just like spitball, you know,
an idea, and they'd be like, yeah, you should do that.

(03:23:51):
Um we were like yeah, that'd be sick. And that
gave me the confidence to be like okay. And also
like I think this movement is into sting because it's
totally different from any other organization or anything I've done
in that like if you want to volunteer in any
other thing, like you know, you make a graphic and
you check it and you send it to someone and

(03:24:13):
get it approved, you know, And just like the kind
of deconstructing that thinking was like I mean to. It
was really instrumental in that and it can be like
difficult to navigate, but really just walking all that back
and being like if you want to, like you know,
canvass your neighbors like you just do it. The Stop

(03:24:33):
Cops City movement has called for a fifth Week of
Action to be held on March fourth through March eleventh
in Atlanta, Georgia. They are asking all those opposed to
Cops City to come participate in a variety of events
and actions both in and out of the forest. And
if you're able to bring a tent, if you're unable

(03:24:55):
to travel, there's still calls to support people in your
own community who might be able to do so. This
Week of Action will be a key moment in the
next phase of the fight to defend the forest. I
want people to know that being in the woods, even
if just for a few days, will transform you and
unexpected and delightful ways. And that's something that we witnessed

(03:25:17):
with Towart Toart lived in the woods for less than
a year, and they transformed and blossomed into their purpose
in unexpected and beautiful ways. And so if you have
the opportunity to come and spend any amount of time
in these woods. I encourage you to do so because
I think that you'll find that it will nourish you

(03:25:38):
and aid in your growth as a human. The police
have not succeeded in scaring everybody out of the forest. Well, Lonnie.
People's Park is still legally required to operate as a
public park. Last month I saw regular people jogging the trails.
People still come every day. The movement has only grown

(03:25:59):
despite the rep Russian and now forced Defenders in Atlanta
are urging people everywhere to organize for the upcoming mass convergence.
A large list of resources and movement websites I'll be
putting in the description for people to learn more and
stay up to date with information regarding the Week of action.
I'll end this series by reading from a defend the

(03:26:22):
Forest poster that I saw around Atlanta. Quote, it is
your mission to stop cops city by all of the
means at your disposal, without hesitation. Defend the forest from destruction,
the city from commercialization, the future from ruin, the imagination
from conquest, and the heart from resignation. Do not wait

(03:26:46):
for further instruction. Reality is the battlefield. The rain on
leaves signle lift earliest, the vegetum midst the melody we
mimic in is the sound wind whistling long before to
say his channing under the stars. On camped under organic pie,
she sang a song, and she was far silent. No
virus and violets, but the fragrance of her flowers, and

(03:27:09):
continued to invite us the medicine materials of vitamins and
minerals and all that is essential, which just grew right
beside us. And Tyson started fighting with the gifts that
she provided us, scorching the very soil that all of
us derived from. And when empires learning came withstand by you,
we returned to the land where our ancestors rain dance.
We are all her creatures, we still bear her features. Then,

(03:27:32):
one and only reason all living things is breathing the
city's deceive and lead. Go see the dirt, young gonna
be among the lungs of mother Earth. Cuse, yeah, yeah, down,

(03:28:05):
Let's shop him down. There was a forest. God, fucking
damn it, I just got another fucking message about the
gold ads. Leave me alone, all right? And could happen here?

(03:28:25):
Welcome to it? Could happen here? A podcast about the
incredible investment vehicle that is gold. Now, look, people, if
you aren't currently putting all of your money into gold,
and I mean all of your money, then you're just
leaving cash on the table. Gold is such a good
investment vehicle that if you had bought ten tho dollars

(03:28:48):
worth of gold twenty years ago, you would have roughly
the same amount of money. Can can you beat Can
you beat gold? I bet you can't. I've replayed most
of my teeth with gold, and I have run in
the same amount of teeth. It's a win win. Wow, wow, incredible.
Gold is Gold is perfect for a number of reasons. Look,
if you're worried about instability, obviously if society collapses, gold

(03:29:14):
is the thing that you want to have, because, of
course you'll still be able to trade what is fundamentally
a useless rock for goods and services in the event
that there's no civilization. That that just makes complete sense.
Don't stock up on ammunition, stock up on gold. What
about gold immunition? Oh? Now, see, that's what If you

(03:29:34):
want to kill super vampires, that's what you want is
gold bullets. You know, there is something like maybe it's
like survival of the fittest. I'm allergic to gold, so
if I touch it it gives me a rash. So
I can't survive in a world of gold. I love
you well if you need so, if you need to
take out Sharine and the apocalypse, make sure make a

(03:29:55):
gold spear or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just give jewelry. Look,
it's it's a good idea. According to one of my friends,
who has read much more marks than idea marks, particular
that we would go back to the gold standard. So yeah,
you're it's gonna be great. The immortal science wins again. Um,

(03:30:17):
this is actually today we are talking about um collapse,
but not the collapse of the economy, because the economy
is kind of always collapsing. That's part of what makes
it the economy. Instead, we're talking about the fact that
the market for eggs has gotten insane. People are paying
crazy prices for huevos these days. Um, and there's there's

(03:30:42):
no no good reason for it, obviously, Like it's the
you know, egg production in some places was like impacted
by the bird flu, but that is not why eggs
have gotten more expensive. It's pure corporate greed. But regardless
of that, people are finding themselves thinking about like, wow,
eggs are expensive as hell. Should I maybe get some chickens? Um?

(03:31:03):
And today we have several chicken owners on the podcast,
myself and James Stout, and several people who don't have chickens,
but our chicken curious. So we're gonna talk about having chickens. James, Yeah, yeah,
I do. I've been training for this my whole life.
So yeah, this, this was your idea. So yeah, Vince
is very much my baby. So if you guys just

(03:31:25):
want to sit back and learn about chickens, your baby
James or your egg, well that's the thing. If nar
robert one could be the other. I've given enough time.
People have talked about this. I've heard. Yeah, it's been
a discussion for some time in the chicken community. All right,
talking about chickens. Uh. So I want to start out
with like, if you're thinking about getting chickens, and I

(03:31:47):
have written a script for this, thank you. Yeah, I'm
ready to roll. So the most important thing, obviously when
you're getting animals, you're getting any animals, is like that
you're responsible for a living thing and you have to
take care of it and you have to be kind
to it. And you have to treat it well and
make sure that if you're not able to look after it,
like if you travel a lot for work and someone
else can write. I think chickens are particularly useless, or

(03:32:09):
they're useful, and they're very nice, but they're not like
the most practical animals, like if you if you leave
them alone, they will die. If it gets too hot,
they will die, if it gets too cold, they will die. Um, Like,
you do have to look after them. They're not like
a wild animal that comes in sometimes in lace eggs,
like they are an extremely domesticated animal that's been domesticated
for probably thousands of years. So it's a responsibility. I guess. Um,

(03:32:36):
I'm just gonna I'm gonna go through some of the stuff.
If you guys have any questions as we move along,
please feel free to ask him. I want to start
out with the breeds of chickens, which I think are
a good idea. And so when you're looking at chickens,
the first thing you're gonna want to look at if
your space right, Like how much space do I have?
And there are websites where you can calculate like working
with your acreage or or how many yards you have.
How many chickens are appropriate? Was the level of prepper

(03:32:58):
and the stuff. I'm like, I'm like so happy because
I will I will note be be careful about getting
too many. When I got the place that I got,
I inherited fourteen chickens. And that is a tremendous quantity
of chickens. And and there was especially chickens make you know,

(03:33:19):
kind of in their prime. Egg laying can make one.
Sometimes some chickens will do to a day. So there
were weeks where I was getting like close to a
hundred eggs, which is far more, far more eggs than
a human being can possibly consume. You can consume, I
can consume a hundred eggs. Well, they will, they will

(03:33:42):
consume you. I will mail you eggs always be more eggs.
Eggs are like eight. I walked into a grocery store. Okay,
I'm I'm I'm I'm now doing the bit. I walked
through the grocery store in the eggs where eight fifty,
and I was like, what the fund is going on here? Man,
I'm gonna I'm gonna make a fucking bank. I have
like literally sick see eggs sitting in my kitchen. Right now,

(03:34:02):
Robert's going to sell eggs in the dark web. You
goddamn right. This is how I fucking leave this this
damn podcasting bullshit behind. I'm gonna become the egg man
and bitches. Finally, I used for cryptocurrency egg coin. It's
actually it's tied to the value of eggs. As you

(03:34:24):
completely collapsed. Um. Yeah, don't don't over chicken yourself like
starting out, but also don't get too few. You do
want at least three. They'll be sad, they won't get along.
And if you if you're like a normal household, three
is probably a great number of chickens. Like you, you
will probably be quite happy with three to four chickens. Yeah,

(03:34:47):
you'll get like if you estimate like six eggs per
chicken per week, it's like a fair kind of estimate.
They'll take some time off during the year or with seasons,
change the molten stuff. So eighteen eggs, like, yeah, you're
going pretty hard in a my household, you've eating that many.
So I think if you start, people like to think
that they should get bantams to off with, do we
know what bantams are? Non chicken understanding. I have a

(03:35:10):
lot of chickens, but I don't know anything about the
kind chickens. So we've had a few bantams. They're not great,
to be honest, Like bantams are mostly showing birds. So
it's a smaller chicken I think of, it's like a
half sized chicken, right, um, And if you've seen like
a really fancy and you can go ahead and google
some bantams like, yeah, they're really little. Yeah, they're really pretty.

(03:35:36):
I like to I like large chickens. Now, look, I
don't engage in cock fighting. I think it's immoral, but
I like to know theoretically if they had to, my
chickens could handle themselves in a fight. Did anybody ever
think Robert would be like you, I'm a big chicken Guyable,

(03:35:59):
it's a yeah, you want big chickens. Some breeds to
look for Orpington's like buff Orpington's and you can remember
that big buff and great ass chickens. Yeah, I could
get a yoke to orpingtons. Get to get a hench
Rhode Island red. People in America don't say hench, but
azing oh yeah, we used to have a couple of those.

(03:36:22):
So so one of the things about bantams is you
can't get them. Point of lace. The point of flay
is when they've been sexed. Right, so you know that
they're girls and they they come to you just to
when they're about to lay, right, and you don't. Generally
you get bantams younger and you don't get them sexed.
So in our case, we had one. She she crowed

(03:36:42):
a lot, so we thought she's a rooster. She wasn't.
Any other one was a rooster. Um, So that's going
my question, do you need to get a rooster? Also,
no chicken regardless. I can't. I don't understand how that works. Okay,
So the chickens are gonna lay regardless, right, that's just
how they can't do. That's that's the eggs on fertilized, right. Yeah,

(03:37:05):
so they won't make chickens. They will be baby Okay,
I get it. It's I get it. Yeah, like a
human doing it. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's it's kind of
like their equivalent of a menstruation effectively. Yeah. That now
everything's coming back to me as far as like being
in talking points. Go chickens, by the way, because chickens are,

(03:37:26):
as James said, these are animals and you have to
take good care of them. That is your responsibility. You
do low key realize the longer you have them. But
they're monsters, like their favorite food is their own kind.
They have each other, kidsnosaurs. Yeah, so like, don't go

(03:37:49):
outside with your chickens. Like the other day I was,
I was cutting down some some bushes and I had
was wearing shorts a little cut from the from the thorn.
When they see blood, they are just like fucking missile.
Does that affect the egg? Like? Yeah, I mean what
you made them? So? Yeah, we we butchered a deer

(03:38:11):
last year and we wound up with a lot of
like deer fat and kind of like meat that you
gave it to the chickens. Well, yeah, we had some
stuff because the deer had been hit by a car.
There was some meat we couldn't eat, so we would
up giving several pounds of meat to the chickens and
those eggs fucking ruled. Okay, it's not advised to feed them, dear,
but yeah, so you wanted stuff actually if you so,

(03:38:33):
they do be There's a stuff called purple spray. I'm
sure it's not what it's actually called, but it's purple
and it's a spray and you can we already called
it purple spray. You can spray it on them and
it just stops it looking like blood. I'm sure it's
like an antibiotic or maybe antiseptic, but yeah, you could
spray that on the chicken. So, like one of mine,
she's just got this little thing on her wing that
opens up every now and again, and I just make

(03:38:55):
sure I spray that and that stops her from the
other ones from pecking her, right, Yeah, so they have
to be. We had a last year some kind of animal,
I think it was probably a like a like a
possum or something, I don't really know. Some kind of
animal got into the coop and attacked my chickens. And
we had I had one chicken. We called it the

(03:39:16):
anarchists chicken because it could always escape. It like never
was in the cage um. And when when they got attacked,
the anarchist chicken leapt to defend the rest of the
flock and fought off whatever it was it attacked. But
she wound up with a hole in her side, and
so I like took her and I dressed the wound,
and I put her back in the cage and they
all immediately tried to have a separate Yeah, yeah, yeah,

(03:39:40):
I that was the lesson that I learned. I had
to take her out because yeah, we have a tiny
rabbit hutch that we use. It's called the Merrow Peet
Memorial Chicken Hospital, because Merri, it's not about chickens who
died and you. You just put put them in that
for a few days until they're better, and then then
they can reintegrate. It's fine. And so I did. We've we've,
we've we've real little progress on my script. Okay, so sorry,

(03:40:02):
you want to get buff or Pinkton's right down and
reads are good. Plymouth rocks, americanas are nice. Have you
guys seen those? If we don't have if we don't know,
I don't know anything about talking about what do they
teach you in school? Like so they're called Easter eggers.
Sometimes they lay different colored eggs, like pastel colored eggs,

(03:40:23):
like blue and green eggs. Have you not been exposed
to this at all? No? I get up extra cornfield.
But also I I guess, I guess I was a
round a farm. But we didn't interact with the chickens
because you don't I don't know they were like here
de old cows instead, that was like, chickens are good.
Don't go dive straight into cattle if you're getting into

(03:40:44):
animal husband. But yeah, the americanasun say ladies colored eggs.
One of my friends dad's had them when I was
a kid and he made bank selling them around Easter.
So yeah, if you're looking to get into your chicken hustle.
And then leg horns are like really good. They're like
high the chickens, but they are allowed. So if you
live near people, um, I would consider not. You should

(03:41:04):
also check your local laws, Like where I live, you
can't have a rooster, and you can have up to
five chickens within city limits. You can't have a rester.
You don't really want a rooster have chicks. And one
of the things roosters can do is like peck at
your chickens and effectively like ware holes in there, like yeah,
they wind up like parts. Yeah they're little sons of bitches.

(03:41:27):
We harvested ours as soon as I got the place,
and yeah, that's that's the term. This leads into a
question that I've been wanting to ask, which is that Okay,
it is my under is my firm belief that I
could defeed a chicken in single combat. It would send
me to the hospital. But apparently there's the thing you
need to do with your chickens. So how how practical

(03:41:48):
is it to defeed a chicken in single combat if
you have to extract another chicken or something. I've never
actually had any kind of aggression from my chickens. When
I'm bleeding, they'll pick my leg. But yeah, yeah, yeah,
how's that had a greatful while we we hadn't realized that,
Like they so a thing that you want when you
get chickens, as a rodent proof freeder, right, So you
don't want to just put the food in the bowl

(03:42:10):
if you have an issue with rodents. You want to
have a thing. So like basically she comes up, she
stands on a step and that opens up the feeder
and she can pack and eat, right, And you want
to get a rodent proof feeder, you can just buy
them attractive supply. But I was gummed up with rain
and we didn't realize, and the chickens are obviously not
getting food. They're upset with this, so they would attack
me every time I came outside, like they'd attacked me

(03:42:33):
and I'd be like, go away. So I'd give them treats, right,
I give them like worms and apples. A kitten has arrived,
I have to she was to hold or to be held.
I'm holding my cat for anyone that's like, what's happening?
Or she just wanted to be snuggled. That's okay, she's
given your gears. Um. Yeah, so you the mind would

(03:42:56):
attack me for a while and I just gave them meal,
and when they would attach me so unconsciously, I was
reinforcing the attacking behavior. And so they would attack me
for a while. But I think you could take and
just keep swinging and yeah, you know, you don't have to.
They're very like most of the time, at least mine.
I hand feed them. So like a nice treat for
them is I'll cut a melon in half and I'll

(03:43:19):
chase Sharne because she's allergic to melons a and then
you just hold it out and they'll come and eat it. Um.
And they they love scraps like that's often like what
I do with basically all of my food waste is
give it to the chickens, and they tend to be
very happy with that. Yeah, it's very it's a very
sustainable thing. Let's get onto space, and I want to

(03:43:41):
talk about before, before, before, before we get into this.
Speaking of sustainability, do you know who else is incredibly sustainable?
I don't think we can say capitalism. Yes, inherently, so
shiny stuff, it will last a thousand years, all right,
we'll back yea by some gold. Buy some gold. Want

(03:44:02):
to reinforce that, because gold, when you're starving, will be
more useful than chickens because it's shiny. That's right, that's right.
It'll make you forget that you're slowly starving. And it's
the foundation of all of this. Ship's shiny. Okay um, yeah,
so don't have shiny things. I want to talk about
chicken coopes because there's a shiny thing, secual. I love

(03:44:24):
a good coop. I do love. Have to make a coop.
I'd have to buy a cooper, have to help my
friends buy coopes. It's just it's it's a great conversation
area anyway. So they do need a coupe. They need
a place where they can go at night. And you
want it to be shut off from predators, right, So
you don't want your possum, your raccoon and your fox,
your stout, your weasel, fare whatever whatever you're dealing with snake. Um. So,

(03:44:48):
once you get above three chickens, you might have more
than one nesting box in there. But like this doesn't
necessarily mean that you need to go out and buy
Like you can buy them on Amazon now, but they're
quite expensive and they're often quite ship like the the
pre made chicken coops are very poor quality. Like if
you have a shed or a kennel or something like that,
you can pretty easily make it into a coop and

(03:45:08):
you can just put a drop down door on the
front so you can close them in at night and
let them out in the morning. And or I've seen
people use like drawers, you know, like like dresses, just
open those and use them as nesting boxes. Well, you
want to put down some straw in your nesting books,
And yeah, I have I have I think four for
the chickens that I have now, which is about I

(03:45:31):
think we've got about eleven, um, which and there they
are two of them are large enough for two at
a time, and then two of them are smaller. Although
chickens all and and sometimes one of the thems you
have to do occasionally is come in and like take
them out of some of them out of the nesting boxes.
Some of them get like stuck in a loop. Where
did they get broody? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so you

(03:45:51):
just I just like take them out and set them
down where there's like some stuff to peck at, and
they seem to it kind of resets their little chicken brains.
Silkkey bantems, which are one of the like show bantams
get broody as fun and it's like I've had friends
who have had them, and they will they will not
eat and not drink because it's just like no, I'm
sitting on this egg, like you can't stop me, and
you have to lock them out of there. There's not

(03:46:13):
even an egg there, chicken, what's wrong with you? Yeah,
well they'll take another chicken's egg. Yeah, just yeah. Or
even like silky it's cute. Look them up there, they're real,
they're fluords. They're very cute. So you want to build
them a run to write a place where they can
say if you run around and have their food, have
their water. And I would suggest using construction netting when

(03:46:36):
you build a run. Broy that people called chicken wire,
which is like maybe one inch size holes, but like
a lot of stuff can get through that. You'd be amazed,
like rats, my snakes can all get through that. And
use construction netting, which is like maybe I'm not very
good at inches, but like about one centimeter size a
lot less. He's going to get through it. And you
might want to bury it down to like a foot

(03:46:57):
or two below the run if you're building something perm
just because things can't dig underneath, right like a we
had a fox stick underneath when I was a kid,
and don't it's preferable to do that to putting on
the floor of your run because they don't like the
little wire on the little feet and yeah, no, no,
definitely not on the You want them to have access
to dirt and ideally sometimes grass too. One thing that

(03:47:21):
they because I I will let them out sometimes during
the day and I have a barn that has like
like it's kind of dust in there, like not dust
um almost like almost like sandy dry dirt. And one
of their favorite things, especially during the summer, is to
just kind of like sit down and rub, yeah that
making it all up in the like, and they kind

(03:47:42):
of need to be able to do some version of
that in order to be like healthy. Otherwise they Yeah,
it's it's good for them, it's good for their skin,
it's good for them existing. Yeah, it's good for their
mental health. I think that like people keep kicking their
terrible conditions commercially. But it doesn't mean you have an
excuse to say. When I when I got these chickens,
they had been the people who'd have them before. I

(03:48:04):
don't know what the funk was wrong with them. They
had a sizeable outside run, but whoever, the folks who
had them had covered the entire bottom in stone, so
they were just like living on stone when we know
they were. They were in a horrible shape. And when
I when we harvested the rooster, his gizzard was full
of automotive glass, Like, yeah, it was fucked up. It

(03:48:26):
was I spent because they all had they all had
huge patches of them that like we're bald um. I
mean we we we dealt with that, partially by getting
rid of the rooster and partially by making sure we
gave them. I was I still do mix in um
oyster shell bits with the calcium is good for them. Yeah,

(03:48:47):
so you'll know if they need that, like they stopped
coming and he starts to really dangerous, like an egg
can rupture inside if they're laying it, and that can
be fatal. So you want to make sure, um, if
we just we can have a few quickly, I guess.
So they do like to grub for worms and stuff
like that, right, look for insects, and they love to
have scraps. But for laying chicken, you want to make
sure it's getting a decent based diet of layers pellets,

(03:49:09):
which should be like somewhere between six protein which sorry,
what what kind of pellets? Layer pellets. Yeah, there's a
number of brands of it, but yeah, they're called layer pellets. Yeah,
some of them will already have oyster shell and grit,
and like Robert said, they do need those. If not,
you can augment them, but it's probably gonna be easier
to just get one sack and just dump it all in.

(03:49:31):
They do need access to water as well that they
can get out all day. I think it's better to
use like a nipple type drinker, which is a you
can take a bucket, any bucket, right, fill it up,
and then you put these little nipples and they just
get their red and again they like to peck at
red stuff, so they'll peck at them and then they
get and that stops. Like you know, they can't put
their feet in the water and get their ship from

(03:49:52):
their feet in the water and get sick, like then
they're not clean animals. So just if you do that.
And then I like to put a little bit. It's
hot where I live in San Diego, so I put
a bit of electrolyte stuff in there for them and
they don't seem to mind. It just seems to help um.
And then yeah, like it's it's good to you can
feed them kitchen straps, but you don't want to overload them,
especially on carb stuff, like they do need enough protein

(03:50:15):
to keep up their laying and they definitely need enough calcium.
And one thing I would say if you're if you're
going to buy something, if you're going to buy a
chicken coop, there's a company called egg Glue, which is
like iglobe egg. They make some really nice pre fab
coops that are pretty good. And you can buy an
attachment which puts a little door on it that it

(03:50:37):
uses a solar panel I guess to charge itself and
then it will open at daylight and close at sunset,
and so if you're the sort of person who knows that,
you'll forget to bring your chickens in. Obviously they're you know,
they're at risk at night from predation and things, and
they become completely fucking useless at night that when they
go to sleep, you can pick them up and turn
them upside down and just like, yeah, my in here,

(03:51:00):
you're the interior of my coupe has. It's really cute.
It's basically like a ladder, like a like a very
wide ladder going up the side of the building and
they just all stand on like it's like a group
of twenty like a different levels of the ladder just
sit there as they as they sleep at night. Yeah,
they need to steep on Actually that's a good yea

(03:51:21):
good mind. You can't just on the floor. Yeah, they
don't like just being in the dirt and then like
something to entertain them. So a good thing to entertain
them is like if you have CDs. Still, young listeners
may not remember having CD collections, but if you if
you do have CDs, or you know you can find
c ds, you can just hang those and then they'll

(03:51:42):
pack at them and stuff because they're kind of shiny
and they move around. So it's the thing to do
with your lattice. Marseilles. They also really like, I mean
one of the things that so I just tore out
my what was left of my front lawn in order
to grow more stuff, and I just tossed all of
the the chunks of like so oil and and and there.
They love pecking at that ship. It's like one of

(03:52:04):
their favorite things in the world. Yeah, we put them on.
I have some planters out back and they're like fen
stuff the chickens car and then when we turn them
over and we like replant them, we'll put them in
there and they just go have and they find these
huge worms. So I have no idea how they got
in there, but yeah, they love that stuff. Yeah, and
I let him out into the yard periodically, and it's
always whenever I have to like walk them back in

(03:52:26):
because you kind of just like loop around them to
like guide the flock as they move, because they'll kind
of instinctively go away from you if you're walking towards them. Um.
One of my one of my hobbies is to like
pretend to be an old feel like we should stop
this immediately, buy some gold. Okay, sometimes I pretend it's

(03:52:55):
the Shawshank Redemption, which is where I'm giving my chickens
boat by the coast. It's kind of go and show
us why hold in this bed sheet? All of us
love having health insurance? Plea, can I can I ask
a question about space? So like how much physical room

(03:53:15):
do they need? Like how much line do you have
to have? So you can look at there are pretty
good like calculators online. We can look at how many
square yards or whatever you have. But I'm terrible at
estimating size. But you know, my, my, I dn't have
very big garden. You know, we've we've had up to
six chickens. But you do want to just look it up.
And it's not like the square yardage you have isn't

(03:53:37):
as important as the access they have to stuff? Right? Yeah?
Can they get sunlight? Can they be like out in
in like something that feels like you know where a
chicken would want to be? But this is this is
this is like not something you can run from an apartment, right,
No need to be outside. Yeah, if you live in

(03:53:58):
an apartment that like has a yard it or something
that shared, you potentially could, but no, you you do
need like some amount of dirt and grass. Essentially, if
you maybe have like a community garden, you could talk
to people about doing it. They're like them, So mine
just go all around my yard all day and like, uh,
you guys have noticed also coming to my office. Um,

(03:54:18):
and then they'll put themselves to bed at night, and
they know where their home is so that they'll just
go back to bed at night. And I want to
talk a little bit about health, because there are definitely
some chicken health things and just it's very expensive stake
chicken to the vet actually because you have to go
to an exotic and avian vet, and they're quite rare
exotic and avian vet. You could take them to a

(03:54:42):
regular vet, but most of the time, so actually, if
your chickens get sick, in most states, there's a state
run helpline you can call and it's free and they'll
put you onto a vet right away and they're very
very helpful. And then the reason because of the danger
of different avian flues like infecting arge. Numbers of of
of animals. Yeah does does something similar to pet insurance

(03:55:05):
exists for farm peep farm animals or not really it does,
but I don't think you probably wouldn't want to be
investing it out for your chickens. I give you. If
you're breeding livestock, and that's the thing you can have,
um And you know, one of the things you do
have to keep in mind is that at some point
you will have to kill them, um, you know, because
they will get old enough or sick enough, and some

(03:55:28):
form of euthanasia will wind up being kinder than continuing
to like let them be um. Like, That's just that's
true of any kind of livestock, right, at some point
you have to if you don't just want to let
it die naturally, which again in a lot of cases,
will be prolonging and suffering. You you do have to
be willing to take care of that one way or

(03:55:48):
the other. Yeah, Like you can give them the best
life you can give them and look aft for them
as you can. But often times here they will or
they'll get hurt, right like if some yes, they'll get injured.
I think that's a good reality to my people love that.
It's like it's actually like a serious thing to have
a chicken and then be responsible for its life and death.
And also like the egg comes out of their butth hole, right,

(03:56:09):
so it's covered. Well, it's it's not just like cartoon
and chicken laying, you know what I mean, Like I think, yeah,
it's not ago um, but it's not that game they
everyone playing in COVID where you're in the island and
you build stuff and yeah, I just think people usually
are really flipping with stuff like like, yeah, you know,
it's a living animal, and like you have to take

(03:56:30):
care of it, and it's your responsibility right at the storm,
Like you need to think about that. You don't want
to let the bumbholes get too poopy. We're talking about health,
so they can get worms that way, and that's really bad.
So if you see that, just just pick them up
and they'll be And that's this is why you want
to handle them when they're young, so that you can
handle them with stuff like this. So like I'll pick
them up and use a spray bottle or a little
hose with a bit of warm water and and they

(03:56:52):
they don't mind that at all, and at least they
don't give me any ship. But you want to look
up some of the common things you're going to see.
Gape worm. It's called gape one because they'll gape you
you'll see them gaping. They can be egg bound, and
then depending on where you are right, they can be
too hot too cold. You do need to make sure
they have shade. I found this thing, um, I found

(03:57:16):
it someone was moving out. It's like a it's like
a mister, but like they have at restaurants. You know
when you go to a restaurant in l A and
it's hot and seven annoying wetness. Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah,
I've ever been to like an amusement park and like
a like a line and they sometimes have them too
sometimes in the like fruit and vegetables when there. But

(03:57:38):
that's the only that's restaurants, not inside outside misters to
make it if you're in Phoenix or somewhere, yeah, yeah, yeah,
so I've got one of those. And you can find
lots of ship by the way, like if you're if
you live in a place that's gentrifying, like unfortunly has

(03:58:00):
happened in the park San Diego I live in. Like like,
for instance, all the wood for my chicken keeping pay
for their ship. Like there's rich people doing stuff to houses.
It doesn't need to be done, just like obtain wood
from their building sites. Yeah, and obtain it's it's it's
like those powles of bricks, and they didn't want you
to use them. They wouldn't leave it out there. Yeah,

(03:58:21):
and why I would live with Warren have sent the
pallets of bricks if you didn't want to use so
uh yeah obviously, Like healthwise, like I said, you want
to make sure you have that purple spray on hand.
You want to be giving them some electrolytes and their water.
You want to make sure they have shade if it's
hot and their coop is warm, like they don't like
it much below freezing. Like yeah, I keep like a

(03:58:43):
heat lamp basically all winter in there with a red
bulb so it doesn't like upset their their sleep patterns. Yeah. People,
the way battery people do it, like battery chickens is
they they they do more day night cycles using artificial
light to to make the chickens lay more if you
see what I mean, and the chickens will lay an
accelerated rate. I'll keep them laying during the winter. Be

(03:59:07):
doing that that's not particularly good for the birds. And
I let them rest this winter. Yeah, let them. You
know there their animals, they you know, they don't just
exist to provide your food. Like a question on this,
like how cold is there like a point it gets
in the winter where it's like you probably shouldn't have them.
We just want to keep the coup warm. And then

(03:59:29):
like so like when we were at Tenacious Unicorn ranch,
right and they have chickens. I don't know how cold
it was, but I went to bed every night with
analgene full of boiling water and when I woke up,
I was hugging an ice baby like it was yeah,
the heat so where I was staying and work the

(03:59:49):
first time, so it was called a f and the
chickens had a nice warm coupe with a heat lamp
and they were fine. Yeah you can. I mean people
keep chickens in every imaginable climates, so as long as
you're careful about making sure you know that you have
a warm place for them to sleep, they will be okay. Yeah,
and you can can Can you let them out in

(04:00:09):
the snow and stuff or should you? Yeah? You know,
yeah they have fun with that. There's it's snowed yesterday
and my chickens are having a great time out. Yeah,
they like you actually, like they'll run like I remember
at home this snow and yeah, and talks when you're
buying the chickens, right, like, consider that in your breed choice,
like something going to do, and they're going to do.
Some of them are gonna not like heat and honestly,

(04:00:31):
like one of the better things you can do in
that situation. If you're like if I live in some
weird ass part of the world where it's freezing half
the time, just google like keeping backyard chickens whatever the
name of your area is, and then Reddit and yeah,
you will find people talking on yeah, yeah, I've gotten
this is the this is the breed that I picked,
and this is what I do, and people love to

(04:00:53):
talk about the chicken. So yeah, brack your chickens read
it was one of my resources exactly. It's a good
place to look. And yeah, so if you have a
cute you're gonna want to clean it, right, you can
use that chicken pooper's fertilizers some of the best in
the world. So then if you're if you're into this
sort of you know, like growing your own food and
this all works well, right, you give the chicken to scraps.

(04:01:14):
Chickens make you eggs, a poop you put that into
your plants. You have nice plants. You want to balance
it out. It's a bit acidic, I think just using
the ship, so you want to be combusting with other
stuff as well, right, checking your soil chemistry before you
sort of go ham But yes, you can do that.
You do want to make sure. Yeah, I've got the
poultry helpline. We spoke about that. California's is great though, Like,

(04:01:35):
don't hesitate to call the poultry helpline if you need help,
Like there's there's people who are being paid to help you,
and that it's normally like I know, like most pet owners,
unless they're very wealthy, will have had to make horrible
decisions about their pets health versus their own income when
when they've like you know, and it's it's ship. So
that helpline is free, and like Robert said, it's because

(04:01:57):
they're very scared of infectious diseases. So taken by mounteage
of like your you know, taxpayer funded chicken fat. Yeah,
give him a call. Um, I think I don't know
he's hid every state, but I know it's a lot
of them. And yeah, go ahead, Oh um, are you
going to talk about U giving them, like the shake
and bake treatment for uh what do you call it? Um?

(04:02:21):
If they get uh mites? Oh yeah, yeah, go and
go ahead and talk about it. So you know, chickens
can get there's like a skin but it's it's it's
it's functions similarly to like a skin infection. There's like
little mites that will get on them. You'll notice bald patches.
It can be I mean, it's bad for their health obviously,
like you would not want to be covered in mites.

(04:02:42):
And so there's um. There's this kind of mite killer
called promethrin um and the way that you you can
apply it in a number of ways, but you basically
need to coat the entire chicken. It's essentially a white powder.
So what we did when we had to do it
is we just took a giant a large feedbag and
we filled it with promethrin, and we we put the
cans in it once at a time and just kind
of like give them a little shake so they got covered.

(04:03:04):
You've shaken baking all of them, and then they're just
like wandering around confused and covered in this white powder.
Like what the funk happened? It's very funny that it's
very fun. Um. I mean, it's just it's the best
way because they get covered very goodly that way. Like
there's you know, with mites and dust and stuff. You
do want to make sure that where they're living is
not too moist or not too dusty. They can get

(04:03:26):
respiratory conditions from that, so you don't, Yeah, you want
to make sure that you know they're living in a
nice environment and they also like the biggest health thing
you're going to see is so they will peck at
each other, right, especially when you first get your birds
are gonna establish what it's called a pecking order, and
which you know people have used, heard and use an advantage,
an order in which they get well, I didn't know
the meeting. I didn't understand what that meant completely until

(04:03:50):
right now this moment. It's my gift to helpful today.
It's a lot of a lot of learning. Yeah, it's
what they call a knowledge transfer. The Yeah, so that
they'll do that, they'll pick right, they'll establishing a when
you get a new bird, you don't really want to
introduce one new bird at once, right, So say this
is how you get fucking conned into having bantams because

(04:04:10):
Let's say your your garden can support four chickens, and
then one of your girls dies and you're sad and
you want to get more birds. So you're like, well,
we can't, we can't go to five full size chickens.
We'll get bantam for like two half sized chickens. And
that that is good for the social dynamic because they
weren't one won't get picked on, one won't be like
the new girl, and then they pick on her. But
then you've got bantams and then you you just I

(04:04:32):
don't know, I'm not no, it's not very pro bantam
and they're just difficult. So how do they establish the
pecking order? They pack at each other and peck at
each other. Yeah, and well basically one of the well
it's just like any other, like physical confrontation, like they
peck at each other and like, okay, well you're harder
than me, Like I can't you know, I'm not here
for that. The back down. Sometimes they will really start

(04:04:54):
picking on one and then you do have to separate
them for a while. Um, so I think that you've
got to watch out for that. And you've got be
venger and when you first get them, you're going to
be excited and you're gonna want to go outside and
they interact with him, so you know you'll be watching
that anyway. So just make sure you have treats and
stuff and separate them and don't be scared. They can't
hurt you. They do chickens, but um yeah, it's normal

(04:05:15):
oftenm to peck at each other. You've gotta keep an
eye out for if they do draw blood. I said,
they are fucking dinosaurs and they will just hone in
on that. So that's when you have to separate them
or come in with your purple spray. Um, So you
just have to make sure that you're aware of that.
And they pecked out your leg when it was bleeding,
does that hurt a little bit? Like you wouldn't do

(04:05:36):
it recreationally? Yeah? Many people would? You know? You not
yu you're young? Yeah, if you are, if you are
turned on exactly like it's not. They're not like like
full body attack that I walk in every day to
feed my chickens and I don't get pecked or anything

(04:05:56):
like they're they're fine. Um then like attack animals and
chickens by the way, or like every other creature, some
of them are assholes, right, like any kind of animal
that you have and any like just like people, some
of them are dick I remember, like on that subject.
I was a few years ago. I was writing about

(04:06:17):
rattlesnake behavior for his story and there's this run fucking
rattlesnake which literally every time I ride past it, it's
just like bam, like fucking Like. I've talked to the
snake behavior expert and he's like, yeah, man, that one's
an asshole. Some of them are just chases. Don't know
what to tell you, dude, You've just come across a
bell end like it it is what it is. Um,

(04:06:38):
So yeah, if you sometimes he's gonna have a chicken,
which is mean. I just gotta hope that doesn't. You know,
you gotta make your choice end, right if it's really
causing chaos in the flock, Like, what are you gonna
do with it? Yeah, that may be a chicken that
you eat. Um. You know, one of the things you
learned keeping chickens is how wildly we have fucked up
the chickens that we use from me because like a

(04:07:01):
normal chicken does not produce breast meat that is that size,
like that is the size of like a normal grocery
store chicken breast. Those are from monsters that we made. Well, yeah,
that's like breast meat was popular, so they made that
that like they inserted like a horbone or whatever to
make that part of the chicken grow. And I mean
I've seen videos of like the chicken toppling over because

(04:07:21):
it's so heavy's not supposed to be. It's madness, it's
so sad, and then jones are not fully developed, like
it's very cruel, Like I am, yeah, it's sucked up. Yeah,
I didn't eat meat, Like I'm not really like down
with the way the American commercially agriculture raised animals at toy.
I grew up on a farm. I raised animals my
home with you, I agree touching Yeah, cheap, cheap meating

(04:07:42):
the store. I understand. Other people do you got to
feed your families whatever, And obviously one way or the other.
If you're raising chickens, like and you at some point
you know the chicken is going to die if at
all possible, I think you do kind of have a
responsibility to find some use for that meat. Yeah, it's
just that that's sick. In which case, yeah, to see
if they get like, yeah, I had to I had
to kill two last year because they got like some

(04:08:04):
sort of avian flu and the state people will come
and take them away and do an autopsy if if
they do get sick like that, and so that that's
nice to know because then you have, you know, do
I have to worry about the rest of my flock?
You know what? What is this? Is there something in
the soil? It's something I'm feeding them? You know, you
can if you have concerns like that, it's nice to
have them that that's really really good note. But yeah,

(04:08:25):
you if you are responsible for them, like and you
have to give them the best life they can and
the kind of death, and you know you're responsible to
the suffering as little as possible in their little lives.
We used to buy chickens when I was a kid
from a guy who bread chickens for a battery farm,
and we'd go and get them as chicks and just
be like you you you you you are going to
run around our farm. Will don't have a wonderful life,
And I'm so sorry the rest of you have this

(04:08:46):
fucking horrible existence. But it's nice to save some of them.
So it's gonna be hard to get chickens right now.
So my last thing was really like, when you're buying chickens,
right where you're gonna get your chickens from, and so
hopefully you know where you live you have a farm,
shall steal them? Liberate them from a battery farm? Shoot
your way in it. It doesn't it's worth it. They

(04:09:10):
will probably. Well, I actually think people have literally gotten
to munchy terrorism charges for that. But well I think
it's pigs, wasn't it that they go? Yeah, yeah, chickens
are not charismatic enough for people to go to prison over. Yeah,
I know it's unfair, it's unfair. It's racism. Really. Yeah,
there's one thing we could tell you, as a group
of individuals legally responsible for what we say, I'm yourself

(04:09:34):
and liberate poultry. Yeah, fight your way in like like
the only not the only, but the most concrete evidence
of like dinosaurs have like now devolved into these chickens,
you know what I mean? Like that is so funny
to me that out of all the animals, that is
the closest thing we have to a dinosaur and dinosaurs

(04:09:54):
and again, their favorite food is their own kind and
also like like they will like every now and then
I will give them some of their eggs just because
it makes them so happy to eat. Well, I was
gonna ask, like what you said that it tasted different
when you gave them meat, Like what is the difference
that you caught in the taste when they do eat
their own eggs versus like just the feed. Oh no,
I mean their their own eggs, don't. I've never fed

(04:10:15):
them enough for it to be a meaningful component of
their diet. They will eat scrambled eggs and cheese. They
like to know when they're sick. Can you can you
like taste a difference if you give them herbs? So
like one thing that people do is give them little
bundles of herbs and you can taste that in the egg. Yeah,
it's just kind of richer, you know. When you it's

(04:10:36):
like you'll notice different, like if you if they are
calcium deficient, the eggs are really fragile, and if they
have a shipload of calcium in their diet, like my
eggs are, like you have to like you have to
want to crack those fuckers. If you feed the flax seeds,
then the eggs have a higher Amiga three content like you,

(04:10:56):
it makes sense. It's super interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah you can.
You can give them flax seats and like that kind
of thing. You can mess with their diet bit and
they they like that stuff. So yeah, when you're buying them,
what you want, I think is a beginner is like
a point of labored and you can say point of
lay and that that's what they'll give you. Know that
they're going to try and give you pullets sort of
going to try and say it's nice to raise chicks,

(04:11:17):
but and it is. It's really nice to raise chicks,
but some of them will die and that will be
upsetting for you, and um, it's hard because work. That's
a general note any lifetime. If you if you decide
that you want to be a person who has livestock,
you have to be okay with them dying and it
being an experience that is more direct to you than
like obviously it's it's not as emotional as like when

(04:11:40):
a catterat dog dies, but it will not involve a
vet with the kind of frequency that like a dying
pet does, like you will have to deal with, you know,
animals die because animals just die. Sometimes they wind up
with the same kind of ailments people have for like
an animals herd will give out or something, and you
didn't do anything wrong. It's just an animal was born
with a heart effect. Right, It's just like a thing

(04:12:01):
that occurs if you have enough animals. Yeah, we used
to say, if you have livestock, you have dead stock
one day. Yeah, like it's just something you have to
face up to. But like someone else is already doing
that ship and they're probably doing it with less compassion
than you think. You're buying, you know, warm out eggs.
So you let I say you you can't, You're not God,
but like you owe these animals like a decent life,

(04:12:22):
and yeah, it's a little suffering as you can. So yeah,
by the point of leg chickens, make sure that their
sex right you you don't want to restie. You might
not legally be able to have a rooster. And then
something like a dog container. It's fine. I brought them
home in a shoe box before, Like I'll just put
them next to me in my truck and they're pretty
chill that you know, give them, give them a little

(04:12:42):
bit of water in there, but generally they don't You
want to drink. You can kind of swaddle them. I've
seen people swaddle them, um, you know if they're really
panicking or whatever. And swaddling is like when you wrap
them like you would with a baby, and people do that,
I know, when they have to move them in like
a hurricane to try and calm them down. It. I've
always just put them in a dog container. Are we

(04:13:03):
going to talk about storing eggs? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
because people don't. Yeah, it's a weird American thing. Yeah,
so this doesn't happen in the rest of the world
that you guys get your eggs refrigerated, and that's because
they're washed before they come to Yeah, you don't need
to do this normally. No, you shouldn't wash your eggs,

(04:13:25):
nor should you refrigerate them. Just I have a little
helter skelter thing, and it just looks like a spiral, right,
and you put the egg on the top and it
just rolls its little way down and it gets to
the bottom, and that way I always take them from
the bottom. That way, I'm always sort of getting the
oldest eggs first, so I don't end up with like
one at the bottom of the basket. Right, So you
don't them, No, just just bring it in, not until

(04:13:47):
you're ready to eat them. Obviously, wash them before you
cook them, because some of them will have poop and
stuff on them right right before that. Just keep them
normal and then the last for months like that, like
egg there there you can there are a couple of
other ways to Obviously you could pickle them, be very
careful with that. If you are canning them, Um, I
would recommend just pickling them and putting them in the

(04:14:09):
fridge because eggs in like hard boiled eggs in particular,
are troublesome to can because there's always if you think
about hard boiled eggs, there's always like a little bit
of cracks and like the white of the egg, and
that is where botulism can live. So be extremely careful
if you're pickling eggs. Um, just I would recommend don't
like you know, can them specifically, just pickle them and

(04:14:32):
put them in the fridge and you know, the less
a pretty good amount of time. Yeah, pickled eggs are delicious. Yeah.
Is the is the thing about not refrigerating the eggs.
So do you actually still have to refrigerate like if
you use in the store. If yes, you can in
this country. Yes, you can roll them in vegetable oil
and I think ash, which replicates the way that they

(04:14:53):
have a membrane on that, but very intent if you're
buying the membrane them, yes, yeah, when they come out
like a little pole basically yeah, like it's kind of
fills to pull something outside the ag I think because
I understand it. So if you really wanted to store them,
you didn't have access to refrigerator, you could do the
actual thing. You should look it up. The other thing

(04:15:14):
you can do that is because again, if you have
any quantity of chickens, there's a good chance that they
will produce, like I have a problem with this, significantly
more eggs than you can consume. An interesting way, are
you gonna talk about water glassing? Oh? You talk about
it there? Yeah, that you can look like, look it up.
I'm not going to give you a guide over this,

(04:15:35):
because preserving stuff is something that you should take care on.
But you can google water glassing. It's basically a way
you can keep eggs for like up to a year.
That way um in like crackable friable condition. But I
think we are getting the note that James and I
should stop talking about chickens for now. Continue in another episode.

(04:15:55):
James and I will talk about chickens privately after this.
And you are you aren't pretty? James said it. People
love to talk about their chickens. They do talk about Yeah,
maybe let's start a side podcast for Patreon reasons, Chicken Cast,
Chicken Cast Anyway, poultry Pod. Until next time, take a

(04:16:16):
lesson from the chickens and eat your own young Okay,
oh my god. Hey. We'll be back Monday with more
episodes every week from now until the heat death of
the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of
cool Zone Media. We're more podcasts from cool zone Media.
Visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check

(04:16:36):
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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