May 26, 2023 • 44 mins
Garrison presents a brand new comedy special, compiled out of all the jokes, bits, goofs, and gaffs from the Week of Action this past March.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello, Welcome to It could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Recently,
I just wrapped up a whole five episodes about the
previous week of action to stop cop City in Atlanta, Georgia.
In a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to shorten the running time
of those episodes, I had to cut out many of
(00:31):
the funny bits, jokes, gaffs, goofs, bloopers, and related tomfoolery.
But as demonstrated by the police's massive mobilization to shut
down a canceled comedy event in the woods on March seventh,
the Willani Forest and surrounding area of Atlanta are often
home to manifestations of absurdist humor. There's been a lot
(00:53):
of not great news recently. Well, there's kind of always
a lot of not great news now that we live
in an ever expanding hyperreality oversaturated with information. But I digress.
I think it's just as important to not overlook the comedic,
lighthearted side of things as it is to keep up
with all of the doom and gloom that we usually
(01:14):
platform on our show. So, without further ado, I present
to you jokes from the Atlanta Forest. Side note, I
am now invoking Jester's privilege. Legally, everything we say in
this episode is a joke as a little heads up. Okay,
(01:36):
this episode will probably make more sense if you listened
to the four part Week of Action series or the
retrospective episode. But also I will do my best to
pop in via this narration to help fill in any
gaps so that listeners will not be completely lost if
you've not listened to those other episodes. Anyway, we shall
start by tuning back into my conversation with Matt from
(01:59):
the Atlanta Community the Press Collective as we discuss the
March fifth police raid of the South River Music Festival. Welcome,
it could happen here. Cast I'm Garrison Davis.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
In World of Warcraft. You can shield bash.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So that there's been this effort from police and media
to frame these arrests as like these were arrests that
happened at a crime scene, like these these arrests were
people who were who were torching equipment, who were involved
in all these actions, who are doing domestic terrorism. But
all the rest that happened were at a music festival,
like they were in a completely different section of the forest, like.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
At a music festival at the parking lot even away
from the music festival. And you know, police surveillance may
be good and they may have been able to pick
out an individual or two, but for the most part,
like you had something like two hundred people partake in
this direct action and then disappear into the woods, there's
(02:59):
really no way too And of course most of them
were wearing block of some form that there's really no way.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Much of that block, which has now been burnt and
it's no longer existing in the physical material realm, so
there's no way to like really tell who was there,
and other than allegedly having mud on your clothes, you
want to talk about what the warrants were in the
oddity of how the warrants were formatted.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Once you started to listen to them, you noticed this
very repetitive nature of them. And so about halfway through
we get to a lawyer who straight up calls out
the fact that these warrants seem like they were just copy.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Pasted, like every single person all the way downline. And
one of the such claims the mud mud.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
So I don't know, I don't know how many festivals
you've attended in your life, but I've been to a few,
and they are never clean affairs.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So it it rained like one day before the night
before the festival started, there was a tornado warning in Atlanta.
I've forgotten about that, and there was rain, which makes
I don't know if the prosecutors know this, but when
rain mixes with dirt, it creates something called that we
(04:23):
that we refer to as mud. My dock martins are
still caked in mud. Future me cutting back in here
for a sec So for the record, I have since
cleaned my dock Martins, but the mud was still on
there for well over a month until I was forced
to wash my shoes after I stepped in much much
(04:43):
more mud while in the Telemac forest as I was
failing to shoot a Keltech, which yeah, that is that
was That was probably my bad. These charges don't make
any sense. There's no evidence these people committed any actual crimes,
so they're just being charged with terrorism. This is like
a nebul this concept. The judge said that the legal
basis of these claims will have to be decided on
(05:05):
another day. Similarly, they said that in regards to like
actual evidence that these people charged did any crimes, she
said that she had none of this none of the
She said that she had none of this evidence in
front of her, and that evidence is for another day.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So it's absolutely I think bonkers it is an appropriate word.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
One of those one of those kangaroo court moments.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It really my faith in the legal system was really
solidified this day. There was also the threat of arrest
for the New York Times reporter that happened. I forgot
to mention that. So yeah, we'll leave that commentary by itself.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
They should have they should have charged Sean Keenan with
domestic terrorism. Sorry for making fun of noted trans ally
the New York Times. I promise it won't happen again. Wait. Wait, no,
that's that's a lie. There's at least two more New
York Times jokes in this script. Fuck, I guess let's
talk about Monday. Monday Monday, So, uh, don't.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It is the editor? No, Daniel, Daniel, I'm sorry, I'm
so sorry.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
He's not going to hear any of this shit. Oh
im because the way these work, as I transcribe them
and then I copy and paste sections, so they only
move the section over.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So when I say ask Garrison about okay, So it
turns out that was a lie.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Daniel did need to hear that, So sorry, Daniel, full transparency.
Most of those bleeps were me making horrible, horrible, slurping
noises into the microphone, as Daniel can probably attest. So
really all of you should be thanking Daniel for suffering
through those to bleep them out. Daniel died for your sins.
I mean content truly, truly braver than the troops insert joke. Anyway,
(06:59):
back to me from the past. So let's talk about
Let's talk about Monday. I want to talk about the
clergy event that happened in from a city hall, so
City council meeting. You work for the Atlantic Community Press Collective.
You've you've covered a lot of city council meetings in
Atlanta before. This was my first time covering an Atlanta
City Council meeting. Due to your you know, wisdom in
(07:23):
this in this field, I would like for you to
to to discuss what happened at the city council meeting
and in relation to your to your to your years
of experience in covering these these uh these meetings.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So I City Council meets every other week on Mondays.
I cover several other committees but uh, you know, the
big one is always the City Council meeting, and over
over the course of time, there there's like a cast
of characters that that you just begin to understand are
going to appear either every week or or from time
(07:57):
to time. And you you had the pleasure of actually
getting to see a few of these and I was like,
there were were there were a few of us media
folks there, and I was actually really happy that like
people got to experience this with me, because I usually
have to do it by myself. So you got to
meet three of the characters. You got to meet Brother Hakim,
you got to meet Rachel, and you got to be
(08:19):
your favorite chef doctor.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So this is just somebody who everyone refers to as
chef doctor. He is dressed up as what you can
only describe as a chef doctor. I wondering half of
a chef's outfit, half of a doctor's outfit. He had
a Freemason pin on his shirt, because of course he did.
And I just like watched him for a while because
(08:41):
like initially in the City Council meeting, they were just
like handing out awards to like the proclamation ceremony, the
proclamations and awards to like various people, including like former
city council members like whatever. And then eventually public comments
started and I guess, let's let's talk about doctor so well, no,
(09:03):
so for the entirety of the city council meeting during
the proclamations in the back in the back of the
back of City Council, there was this large red like
like heart just sitting sitting in the back.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
But it looked like Bob the tomato from Vegetatis.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Look it looked that was exactly what I thought. I
like this heart, Like, why is there this Bob the
tomato ass heart mascot just sitting in the back of
city Council. No one was inside the costume. It was
just like the heart sitting there next to like another
massive heart made up of like flowers. I saw. I
was kind of confused for why that was there. There
(09:43):
was like a pediatric surgeon that got like one of
the awards, and like, oh, maybe the heart's there because
of like because of like heart surgery or something. I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
No, no, that would make sense. And you have to
you have to get out of that mindset for public comment.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
For the most part, so then chef doctor gets ten
minutes of public comments.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
So we should explain that mechanism. Everyone who signs up
for public comment gets two minutes. You can award your
time or give over your time to somebody else. So
there were four other people who gave their time over
to Chef Doctor to give him ten minutes, and he
used all ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So what was chef doctor trying to get out of
the city? Why was he giving public heart? So a
shout out to chef doctor.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Okay, like is Chef Doctor wants to create a soul
food museum in the West side of Atlanta, and she's
shown up a few times to kind of ask city
council for money, and as far as I know, that
has gone nowhere. But that was what he is ostensibly
there for today. However, beyond just the heart, the dancing,
(10:52):
we haven't got there yet. However, beyond just the big
red heart, and like the paper mache flower heart, he
he brought a floutest.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
A floutest. So a floutest is someone who plays the flute.
If you are like an uncultured person, who's who's who's
listening to this? And he walked up to the microphone,
and then for five minutes, he got a floutist to
play a flute cover of Amazing Grace.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yes, but but he had backing music from a laptop
that just kind of appeared up of nowhere, and so
he played into the microphone.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
They played this funeral song as as this now Heart
that's been brought to life. It starts dancing, starts dancing.
So this person wearing like heart pajama pants changed into
this hard question at some point. I didn't see them
change into this. I don't know how this happened. I
(11:48):
must have missed it.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
It's City Council magic.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Nice will be Chef, doctor Kenneth Wolhoyt.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You'll have ten minutes due to yielded time.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Chef, let's go ahead and get started.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
My name is.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
A chef, doctor Kenneth Wildhord. I'm the president of the
Soul Food Museum and the Soul Food University. We are
celebrating our twentieth anniversary and we are asking for the
City Council and an honorable Mayor to get behind us
(12:26):
and support us with donating a museum space, building and
land with parking in the city of Atlanta for our
tourists that come here to have a place to come
and experience our hospitality, agriculture service of Atlanta. I'm gonna
(12:51):
sell quick prayer because I'm spirit lead.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I do things by spirit.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
I'm at that age you know it's not about me,
it's about the spirit. Now we'll have a song that
was selected by the spirit of the ancestors, not by me,
but by the spirit of dancers. I asked God to say, Hey, God,
what song should we introduce today? This is the one
that was.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
But this, this guy in the hard costume walks up
and he starts like kind of dancing to this float
music for five minutes. Talk about the dancing.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I don't think it was so much dancing as a
swaying with a little bit of hand motion along with
the swang. But like I, I wasn't expecting it.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I thought someone like dosed me with hallucinogens.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I did. Actually, there were some stress ballad I put
them in your water bottle when you were looking.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
This explained so much about what happened on Monday.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
No, it would make much more sense if that's what happened. Unfortunately,
Atlanta is a cartoon town and that's not what happened.
This was real life.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So this, this this flood cover of amazing Grace played
for five minutes along with the dancing Heart, and then
we finally got to public comment for the reason for
the reason we were for the reason for why we
were there. Not only were we blessed with that stunning
rendition of amazing grace, the floutist himself was was briefly
(14:37):
able to address the city Council before President Dave Shipman rudely,
very very rudely called time amazing grace. It's such a
sort that made so much to the world.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
So that's it.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Thank you, okay, and we are back. And just as
(15:15):
a note, I have forgot to put this in the script,
so I'm gonna say it now. It turns out that
that heart costume that was quote unquote dancing to the music,
that's actually rentable. You can rent that in Atlanta. So
I have some really good ideas for the next for
the next week of action, since we can rent more
(15:35):
bouncy castles and also that heart costume, I think there's
a lot of potential, extremely funny things that could happen. Anyway,
back to my conversation with Matt from the Atlantic Community
Press Collective.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
There are a couple like things to note about how
city council public comment works. City council doesn't tend to
pay attention to them. Osensibly the only one who pays
attention is City Council President Doug Shipman, because it is
his job to call time and to call up the
next person. But you know, city councilors will like step
in and out of the room, get something to eat
(16:08):
during the seventeen hours of public comment for cop city
like one of them held a press conference like it is.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
It is weird, Heathery like legally allowed to not pay
attention like that is that is bizarre?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
You would you would you would think that if you
allegedly work for the people, like you.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Would, you have to actually listen to them.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So amongst the city Council, there are two in particular
that I'm glad you got to see there. There's Mary Norwood,
who represents Buckhead, and then there's Dustin Hillis, who is
the the committee chair for the Public Safety Legal Administration Committee,
So he's basically in charge of police here.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
Throwing molotov cocktails at officers and damaging millions of dollars
of equipment.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And he gives off that vibe, and neither one of
them will pay attention. They were they were on their
phone from almost the entire time I was there. The
the the Buckhead woman gave off ontologically evil vibe. Like
I I did not know like who she was when
I went to the city council, but once I saw her,
(17:13):
I was like, oh, okay, this person is like obviously evil, right,
And I asked people about it afterwards, like oh, yes,
that is a person that represents Bucket. I'm like, okay, yes,
of course, of course.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Bucket of course being the like primarily white neighborhood in
North Atlanta, that part of it wants to secede from
the city. And that's that's a whole. Yes, that is
a whole another issue. But to kind of give context
of what Buckhead is redlining.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
That's not a question, that's just a observation.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And so sitting directly next to her is Dustin Hillis,
who is known for not paying attention ever.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Except except they did both pay attention after public comment
when police gave their testimony on what happened to the night,
and then these two people were very engaged. We will
hear more from Mary Norwood ontologically evil in a bit,
but first I have to saw Jesus Christ fucking fuck Jesus.
(18:19):
My cats are just running amuck. All right, We will
hear more from Mary Norwood ontologically evil in a bit,
but first I have to include some of councilmen Antonio
Lewis's response after Police Chief Darren Cherbaum gave his little
presentation at City Council. Because I don't think I've ever
(18:39):
heard January sixth, the Atlanta Way, and six Flags all
get mentioned in the same sentence before it.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
Looked like January sixth. I ain't never seen police run
from a group of people, and so the only thing
I could think about when I saw that video. I
saw it on Ato Scoop, the videos all out there.
I've been seeing it all over And when I saw
the police officers run, I mean I was a little nervous.
When I saw the heat map, I saw one hundred
(19:06):
people I saw, I saw it. I mean, like that
ain't the Atlanta Wait. I mean, I ain't never seen
I'm just thinking about the At the same time, at
six Flags, we had some young men that were fighting,
some of our teenagers fighting at six Flags. They didn't
run up on the police. They didn't run up on
the police with molotail malory tail cocktails throwing to burn
(19:26):
up stuff. What I will say, I thank you so
much for last night for working. I want to really
commend the officers because y'all were under some immense pressure
and to not see a gun fire back because when
I see the firecrackers, I'm from Cleveland Avenue. If they
throw firecrackers at me, I don't know those firecrackers. I've
(19:48):
never seen that. So I appreciate APD for doing that.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Truly, truly a stunning admission, just perfect. So I had
to listen to Atlanta Police Chief Darren Sheerbaum's testimony a
few times for the five episodes that were released earlier
this month, so I didn't really feel like fully listening
through again to find any funny bits to put in
this episode, so I just kind of like skimmed through
(20:14):
while multitasking, and weirdly enough, I noticed that the chief
said some pretty shocking things that I somehow just must
have missed in my previous viewings. So I will play
those for you now, and I will warn you it is.
It is pretty disturbing, Like all the subjects we put
on air. Their statements do not reflect our opinions or
(20:34):
the official position held by whatever current company owns this podcast.
So yeah, like I said, warning, these are shocking, but
I will let the chief speak for himself.
Speaker 7 (20:44):
Take aggressive action against these officers. Move to the front gate,
more accelerant, inflict vitily harm upon them, launch illegal and
criminal attacks to attack members of law enforcement, bring harm
to our officers.
Speaker 8 (20:58):
These attacks are.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Going to you pretty pretty shocking stuff coming from a
police chief to Jesus, but that is only the tip
of the iceberg. Because to my surprise, after public COVID
was over and all the news cameras that left after
I left, and you know, everyone everyone left the building.
It turns out Darren Sheerbaum gave a second testimony at
(21:22):
the very end of the city council meeting that I
just completely missed until now. So I will warn you
it is kind of leude in nature. So if you
want to skip past lewd police conduct, just fast forward
like a minute or two. But anyway, without without further ado,
here is the secret recently unearthed second testimony presented by
(21:44):
Atlanta Police Chief Darren Sheerbamb.
Speaker 7 (21:47):
Person ship, the members of the Council would like to
brief you on evincent transpired yesterday. I'm going to let
the video play here. Why I walked through each of
the situations. What you see here is of our partners
at the Decap County Police Department, the Share for Fulton
County as well as the Georgia State Patrol. We're seeing
changing out of the clothes that they were wearing. They're
going to position themselves when it appears to be an
(22:08):
attempt to keep pursuing the officers. As the officers see
these we had a rapid response from our partners as
well as to change their clothing. Different groups were performing
acts within the manner of their training and their discipline.
At this time. Our officers repositioning themselves inside of our partners.
These officers had been stationary to ensure that they are
(22:30):
being restrained. The officers are on city property and are
positioning themselves and reposition themselves to be prepared to go
back in. Our officers are showing great restraint. They remained
in a position. It's what you see here is a
lieutenant that is discharging. We're very fortunate that that was
the outcome, and I want to commend every man and
(22:52):
woman on duty yesterday as they stood in the gap
to do their job, those officers entered our partners, and
what you see here, ladies and gentlemen, is as some
of the individuals that had just previously had entered into
those officers, they start changing back into the clothes that
they were just wearing moments before. Just last night, officers
(23:13):
of this department, as well as the Cab County to
the Georgia State Patrol and the Sheriff's Department moved in.
And I want to think of the men and women
again of the Atlanta Police Department, the Georgia State Patrol,
the Sheriff's Department, as well as the Cap County Police
Department for the professionalism that they demonstrated throughout the night
and to the early hours of this morning while many
of us were asleep, they continue to work through the night.
Speaker 6 (23:36):
I've never seen that, so I appreciate APD for doing that.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
I would have loved for every one of those very
hysterical people that we've been sitting listening to for two
or three hours to have seen an actual video of
what really did happen. And there may be great reasons
if the administration chose to do it this way, but
our media is gone and all the people that needed
to see this are gone. I'm glad that nobody was
(24:02):
hurt and none of our none of our employees were hurt.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Oh boy whoa oh well that was That was certainly
something I did not did not want to know that
much about what the the APD and their partners get
up to after hours. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled comedic,
James I Know a sheer bomb was was addressed with
some questions by Unicorn Riot when he was trying to exit,
(24:30):
which he then did not He hea have a very
frustrated face and then denied answering and promptly left the
building well.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
In the company of the New York Times journalist.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Oh with with with a friend of the show, Sean Keenan.
So that was that was? Uh? That was most of Monday. Yeah,
that is everything that happened on Monday.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
So what uh Monday evening I went home to start
working on article.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
What did you do?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Guys?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I went to the perm in the Woods. I got
to share my my memory of the Veggietail's esther story
starring the Tickle monsters. I got to bond with a
few expangelicals about that, so that was fine. Then there
was an experimental noise show in the forest.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then you had a tragic neck injury on Monday night.
So Tuesday, the group that we followed left out of
the church and went to Norfolk Southern, which is one
of the funders of APF and Friend of the Environment
in Ohio. When they finished reading the letter, like, all
(25:31):
they asked was that the letter go to the CEO. Yep,
And they denied that and all they had to do
was accept it and and move on.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
But they, while people were inside the security called ns Police.
And if you're wondering, you're like, you know, ns Plice,
a city that isn't the city in Atlanta, What could
that be? That is the Norfolk Southern Police who are
legally allowed to arrest people.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
And we we thankfully we avoided going to Norfolk Southern Police.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Jail, going to Norfolk Southern Court.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Which certainly would have been a very legitimate court.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
So I mean, it would have been almost as legitimate
as the real court that that the bail hearings happened
at that same day. After successfully evading Norfolk Southern jail.
Matt and I headed downtown for a march that was
accompanied by a cadre of over one hundred officers. Pinning
this crowd onto the sidewalk, got a whole police court
(26:32):
blocking the sidewalk like a Doorida State University canine unit.
This blocking off the entire sidewalk next to a Fulton
County Sheriff's vehicle. I like the copturist, also commanding the
corporate media on where they can stand and the whatever
like boomer journalist is with whatever like mainstream news. Helle
and was very peeered off at this cop for telling
(26:53):
you to get on the sidewalk. The next day, a
smaller crowd met up at the same spot and broke
off into little subgroups to walk around downtown Atlanta and
hand out defend the forest to leaflets. So all the
little subgroups kind of meet up on Andrew Jung and Peachtree,
(27:14):
right next to the Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
To classic examples of Atlanted food.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
There was an Atlanta swat vehicle parked outside of the Hooters,
fucking the fucking outside of fucking Hard Rock Cafe. So
I can't I keep picking up this copyrighted music. But
there's a big Atlanta Police swat vehicle parked on the
block by the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters. All right, there's
actually a pretty decent number of people gathered here for
(27:44):
the flowering event today. They're at the Peachtree and Young
International Boulevard intersection, right across from the Hooters and the
Hard Rock Cafe. There's a swat vehicle parked right behind us.
There is about, I don't know, twenty to thirty officersation
a little bit to our north, you know, normal police
responds to people handing out flyers, just fifty officers in
(28:06):
a swat team. Lieutenant Neil Welch approaches the crowd and
gives them a dispersal order. They cross the street walk
like a black north, past some of the cops that
are guarding the Wells Fargo building. At this point, people
chanted the cops to quit your jobs, quit your job,
and one of the cops guarding the Wells Fargo says,
(28:29):
that's actually a good idea, you can always quit your job.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
That's actually a sound of box.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I already tried, And he's like, I tried to and
they wouldn't let me. But like I don't like laughing,
but that one got me. That one got me.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
The cop responded like, not in like a glib tone
like he was it was actually actually he wanted serious,
like yeah, that's actually yeah, that's actually a good idea,
extremely funny moment.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
While this is happening, there's another group who comes in
to the side of Peatree Center Mall and enters the
mall to find Mayor Andre Dickens.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Andre Dickens is like the head of some kind of
like board or something.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, there are a couple of boards in Atlanta that
stipulate the mayor is like the head of the board,
and this is one of them. And it meets in
Peatree Center Mall as one does. So the mayor is
having a meeting in the mall. It his office space is,
you know, sort of above the mall. And so three
Indigenous An activists along with Kamal Franklin arrive and they
(29:39):
find the mayor. They enter the board meeting and they
begin to read this letter from the Muscogie Nation aloud.
Mayor Dickens, in true mayor fashion, bolts away from this,
running through an exit door which is then like blocked
by a guard which I think that has its own
like set of legal issues, essentially just ignoring them over
(30:02):
his shoulder. He calls out, I've got a copy of
the letter and hides just completely trying to escape what
is not a good look for him.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
This is what we call a Ted Wheeler moment. So
as this happens, I think like Apex Swat is deployed.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So Apex and Swat had had been elsewhere and they
were called back to their vehicles like right before this,
and then the activist exit and almost like in this
very comical moment, after they get out and away, squads
of these special units start rushing into the building, of course,
(30:42):
finding no one.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Charlie Chapman asks shit, truly okay, even a more future
version of Garrison here. Apparently I've been told by Daniel
that his name is Charlie Chaplin. I don't know he's
a pedophile, so whatever, Charlie not Dan, oh boy, And
(31:05):
I do want to say I did try multiple times
to take Matt to the hard Rock Cafe or the Hooters,
either one, and he refused my offer multiple times, very
very rudely. So at some point when I'm back in Atlanta,
I will have to gather a troop of fanboys and
head over to the Hooters anyway. Next was the Community
(31:28):
Movement Builder's rally on the evening of Thursday, March ninth,
which had fewer jokes that night. But there are a
few embarrassing recording bloopers at the expense of my own ego.
So I will play those for your amusement, you absolute
seck Fox. Yeah, we'll start thirteen years. It is kind
(31:51):
of raining. We'll see how many people show up and
how large the police response will be in comparison. So
what what what could happen here?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Well, it could happen here? A podcast by Robert Evans.
We are at the site of the Martin Luther King Memorial.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Did you see the two Sandy Springs police buses?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I did see the Sandy I lived in Sandy Springs
for a year and that brought back some memories. But yes,
to Sandy Springs police buses. Sandy Springs, of course, being
mostly outside of the perimeter. A good A good drive
from here. That was good, That was good? All right,
Hauger's absolutely Paugers.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
The police police has has been stating, well, I'll never mind,
I cut that. What am I saying? Big puddle on
the street, demonstrating the city's commitment to infrastructure. That was
that was a joke because the dragon was plumped. I
accidentally turned off my recording. But tripping on flo stairs.
(33:04):
They're so they're so close together, we're they're just sandwiched in.
Got a New York Times reporter standing in the middle
of the street. Of course, the only person allowed to
stand in the street the one, the one New York
Times reporter. I would estimate almost about a kilometer, but
I'm Canadian, so that's not very helpful to you.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
To you us listeners, the real outside agitators is Sandy Springs. Please. Yeah,
the police were ready to mass arrest the entire time.
I don't know if you mentioned this. So in between
the police line in front of the APF building and
the protesters was essentially like a mixture of cop Watch
(33:46):
and National Lawyers Guild and a CLU, because of course
you had to have like both both legal observer factions
just to make sure everybody's watching each other.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
A still you can watch energy get the West rested?
Who can watch a still you get arrested.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
It's turtles all the way down in Bigel Observers all
the way down.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Hello, and we are back. That's great, all right. One
of the stops on the tour of the Blonnie Forest
that Joe Perry was doing throughout the week was the
area of the landswap between the former owner of Black
Hall Studios, Ryan Millsap, and the Cabot County's Entrenchment Creek Park.
So on one side there's this beautiful forested park that
(34:39):
Ryan Millsap wants to trade for. Then on the other
side is this massive mound of dirt that he currently owns,
which is right next to Bouldercrest Road.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That's a huge, huge dirt field that you see. And
what happened is while that swap was being orchestrated, Blackhall
was bringing thousands and thousands and thousands of dump truckloads
of dirt and just filling it up, filling it up,
filling it up. And somebody else is gonna have to
do the math. But I don't know if you say,
(35:10):
like fifteen acres of dirt that is twenty feet plus high,
how much dirt that is.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
It's not natural. It's not something that's helping this flood
prone area. All that's gonna run into here, no matter
how many silk fences you put up. So that's what
they're calling Michelle Obama Park. That's exactly exactly right. If
somebody needs to talk to Michelle and say, nah, you
(35:39):
need to take your name off of that one. I
don't know who who got away with that, but that's
not it.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
By the way, you're seeing the most picturesque side of that.
Speaker 6 (35:48):
Piece of land.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, you get to get to the top, it's worse.
Speaker 7 (35:51):
It's just it's just it's garbage.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Well the thing, and it is literally garbage because a
lot of this stuff, this dirt keep you know, Ryan
millsp has he is. He's not a movie mogul. He's
he's a land baron. He's he's in real estate, and
he's made billions of dollars in real estate. And so
that dirt comes from other properties. He's he's digging up
(36:15):
a place on you know, on Boulevard to put some
apartments in. He's pulling dirt out of there. That's what's
coming in here. That's dirt coming from all these other
construction sites you have that is not top soil. You
can and I believe me, I'm not saying I'm not
making that up. I've been over there and I've walked
and I've seen what's in there. I've seen water heaters
in there. I've seen gutters in there, I've seen pipes,
I've seen all kinds of crap.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
It's trash.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
It's a big trash mountain. That's what they want to
have be Michelle Obama Park and hanging a hathen So, yeah,
that's I just wanted you to kind of lay your
eyes on what the county thought was a good idea,
in what black Haw thought. Of course, you know, Ryan
mill is a great idea for Ryan Millsepp because the
(36:58):
land that he acquired is were way more millions more.
It's now worth millions more than when he made the swap.
So he has made a lot of money on this swap,
and that's why he's angry that he can't get his
hands on it. Yet nobody knows what he's gonna do
with it, because the original agreement between him and the
county was he was gonna build movie studios on that land.
(37:19):
Well he can't now because he sold his rights to
the movie studios to accompany. It's now called Shadowbox. They're
the ones that owns his previous studios, so he can't
have a rival company right across the street from them.
So he hasn't said and nobody knows exactly what he's
going to do with the property. If he wins this
court case and gets those forty acres, who knows. It's
(37:44):
a mystery. So that's that's where that stands right now.
Hopefully we win the lawsuit. If we do, he will
be he will have to put the bill for repaving
the path and redoing the parking lot and putting a
new gazebo in. That's what the judge decree. That's why
they said we don't need a restraining order. All that
is replaceable. So except for the trees that he tore down,
(38:07):
you know those are going to take another seventy five years,
but who's counting.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
The fate of Michelle Obama Park is still up in
the air as of time of recording. So yeah, excited
to visit that. If the landswap gets passed, almost done,
we're gonna we're gonna briefly, briefly tap back into my
conversation with Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective, and
then unfortunately, our jokes must come to an end.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I think one thing that's been lost in all of
this too is all of the lighthearted events that have
continued to go on through the week. And you know,
we have this this, this youth rally or there's the
youth rally that's happening on Saturday, of course recording this beforehand,
and like the joy of the movement that was represented
in the bouncy castle rip which was first pointed at
(38:59):
a Ford was pointing it.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
And we haven't talked about the gun, talking about the
guns and the bouncy castle.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
So so one thing I think that that.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
We didn't mention.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
How can you forget about the guns and the bouncy castle.
So when when the police came running up onto the
tarmac at RCA Field where the bouncy castle was, of
course they had to point a rifle at the bouncy castle.
And if that doesn't show that police are not here
to have fun and have joy, I don't know what
what is I I don't know if anyone was in
(39:35):
it at the time, I don't think so. I think
they were literally just pointing a gun at an empty
bouncy castle which they have they destroyed, and and I
think we have to take a moment to mourn that.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Did they destroyed or like defleate it?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I think they destroyed It.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Wasn't like a rental or something.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yes, so r I P. Bouncy house. You will be
missed and all the joy that you represented. My girlfriend's
texting me cringe.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Let me let me check my my note, my notes.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
In case Garrison doesn't cut this. Ask about Garrison's neck?
Speaker 1 (40:20):
What hmm? What what did you say?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Ask about what Garrison did Friday.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Fire, burn tower Saturday, Gresham Park Sunday, Monday noon Tuesday.
All right, all right, okay, I'm gonna just gonna look
through my other notes app because I keep my notes
in three different notes apps because I'm normal.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
So one thing that's been notable, especially in how the
police talk about the forest, is they've begun using like
these these militarized terms, like the denial of operating area
that we saw when Ryan mill SAP was important to
Cab County. He said the GBI told him to clear
(41:07):
the area to deny operating space, and you know, the
use of terrorism, like there's there's some eerie parallels between
the language that was used to describe insurgencies in countries
that America is invading or the United States is invading,
and a lot of that language, like the military equipment
(41:29):
that was used there has come home and is now
being used against Americans engaged in like these liberation struggles.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
I wonder where we've talked about that before. I don't
know it could happen where speaking of it is still happening.
The last week, approximately five hundred people came out to
City Hall as the city Council is now in the
process of voting to approve public funds for the Cop
City project. Nearly three hundred people signed up for public comment,
(41:58):
with hundreds more waiting in line. A public comment lasted
seven hours, and during so not a single person voiced
support of using taxpayer money to fund the police training facility.
The Atlanta Community Press Collective have recently reported that the
proposed city funds toward the Cop City project have ballooned
(42:21):
to a minimum of fifty one million dollars, with the
thirty million dollar package awaiting final vote in City Council,
plus another at least twenty million dollar chunk to be
given to the Atlanta Police Foundation via a quote unquote loan,
which indicates that the Atlanta Police Foundation's private fundraising has
not gone as well as they initially had hoped. For
(42:43):
more on that, I'd recommend checking out The Press Collective's
recent article from May twenty fourth, and you can also
donate to them to support their continued reporting of the
happenings in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
You can find us on Twitter at Atlanta Underscore Press.
Our website is atl Press Collective dot com, and you
can find our Instagram at at l Press Collective. We
have partnered with Open Collective. We are fiscally sponsored now
by Open the Open Collective Foundation in a way to
transparently fundraise in order to sustain our reporting everything up
(43:19):
until actually the Week of Action, we have everything that
we have done up until the Week of Action was
all unpaid. And it is our desire to to continue
to grow with the movement. And uh so we were
excited to find a partner in the Open Collective Foundation
that can uh continue that sort of horizontal open organizing
(43:43):
that that we have done internally.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Okay, yeah, I think, I think, I think we're good.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
I think we have a good job team.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Oh shit, I wasn't required.
Speaker 8 (44:00):
It could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
find sources for It could happen here, Updated monthly at
coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
Hello, Welcome to It could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. Recently,
I just wrapped up a whole five episodes about the
previous week of action to stop cop City in Atlanta, Georgia.
In a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to shorten the running time
of those episodes, I had to cut out many of
(00:31):
the funny bits, jokes, gaffs, goofs, bloopers, and related tomfoolery.
But as demonstrated by the police's massive mobilization to shut
down a canceled comedy event in the woods on March seventh,
the Willani Forest and surrounding area of Atlanta are often
home to manifestations of absurdist humor. There's been a lot
(00:53):
of not great news recently. Well, there's kind of always
a lot of not great news now that we live
in an ever expanding hyperreality oversaturated with information. But I digress.
I think it's just as important to not overlook the comedic,
lighthearted side of things as it is to keep up
with all of the doom and gloom that we usually
(01:14):
platform on our show. So, without further ado, I present
to you jokes from the Atlanta Forest. Side note, I
am now invoking Jester's privilege. Legally, everything we say in
this episode is a joke as a little heads up. Okay,
(01:36):
this episode will probably make more sense if you listened
to the four part Week of Action series or the
retrospective episode. But also I will do my best to
pop in via this narration to help fill in any
gaps so that listeners will not be completely lost if
you've not listened to those other episodes. Anyway, we shall
start by tuning back into my conversation with Matt from
(01:59):
the Atlanta Community the Press Collective as we discuss the
March fifth police raid of the South River Music Festival. Welcome,
it could happen here. Cast I'm Garrison Davis.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
In World of Warcraft. You can shield bash.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So that there's been this effort from police and media
to frame these arrests as like these were arrests that
happened at a crime scene, like these these arrests were
people who were who were torching equipment, who were involved
in all these actions, who are doing domestic terrorism. But
all the rest that happened were at a music festival,
like they were in a completely different section of the forest, like.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
At a music festival at the parking lot even away
from the music festival. And you know, police surveillance may
be good and they may have been able to pick
out an individual or two, but for the most part,
like you had something like two hundred people partake in
this direct action and then disappear into the woods, there's
(02:59):
really no way too And of course most of them
were wearing block of some form that there's really no way.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Much of that block, which has now been burnt and
it's no longer existing in the physical material realm, so
there's no way to like really tell who was there,
and other than allegedly having mud on your clothes, you
want to talk about what the warrants were in the
oddity of how the warrants were formatted.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Once you started to listen to them, you noticed this
very repetitive nature of them. And so about halfway through
we get to a lawyer who straight up calls out
the fact that these warrants seem like they were just copy.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Pasted, like every single person all the way downline. And
one of the such claims the mud mud.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
So I don't know, I don't know how many festivals
you've attended in your life, but I've been to a few,
and they are never clean affairs.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So it it rained like one day before the night
before the festival started, there was a tornado warning in Atlanta.
I've forgotten about that, and there was rain, which makes
I don't know if the prosecutors know this, but when
rain mixes with dirt, it creates something called that we
(04:23):
that we refer to as mud. My dock martins are
still caked in mud. Future me cutting back in here
for a sec So for the record, I have since
cleaned my dock Martins, but the mud was still on
there for well over a month until I was forced
to wash my shoes after I stepped in much much
(04:43):
more mud while in the Telemac forest as I was
failing to shoot a Keltech, which yeah, that is that
was That was probably my bad. These charges don't make
any sense. There's no evidence these people committed any actual crimes,
so they're just being charged with terrorism. This is like
a nebul this concept. The judge said that the legal
basis of these claims will have to be decided on
(05:05):
another day. Similarly, they said that in regards to like
actual evidence that these people charged did any crimes, she
said that she had none of this none of the
She said that she had none of this evidence in
front of her, and that evidence is for another day.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
So it's absolutely I think bonkers it is an appropriate word.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
One of those one of those kangaroo court moments.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It really my faith in the legal system was really
solidified this day. There was also the threat of arrest
for the New York Times reporter that happened. I forgot
to mention that. So yeah, we'll leave that commentary by itself.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
They should have they should have charged Sean Keenan with
domestic terrorism. Sorry for making fun of noted trans ally
the New York Times. I promise it won't happen again. Wait. Wait, no,
that's that's a lie. There's at least two more New
York Times jokes in this script. Fuck, I guess let's
talk about Monday. Monday Monday, So, uh, don't.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It is the editor? No, Daniel, Daniel, I'm sorry, I'm
so sorry.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
He's not going to hear any of this shit. Oh
im because the way these work, as I transcribe them
and then I copy and paste sections, so they only
move the section over.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
So when I say ask Garrison about okay, So it
turns out that was a lie.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Daniel did need to hear that, So sorry, Daniel, full transparency.
Most of those bleeps were me making horrible, horrible, slurping
noises into the microphone, as Daniel can probably attest. So
really all of you should be thanking Daniel for suffering
through those to bleep them out. Daniel died for your sins.
I mean content truly, truly braver than the troops insert joke. Anyway,
(06:59):
back to me from the past. So let's talk about
Let's talk about Monday. I want to talk about the
clergy event that happened in from a city hall, so
City council meeting. You work for the Atlantic Community Press Collective.
You've you've covered a lot of city council meetings in
Atlanta before. This was my first time covering an Atlanta
City Council meeting. Due to your you know, wisdom in
(07:23):
this in this field, I would like for you to
to to discuss what happened at the city council meeting
and in relation to your to your to your years
of experience in covering these these uh these meetings.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
So I City Council meets every other week on Mondays.
I cover several other committees but uh, you know, the
big one is always the City Council meeting, and over
over the course of time, there there's like a cast
of characters that that you just begin to understand are
going to appear either every week or or from time
(07:57):
to time. And you you had the pleasure of actually
getting to see a few of these and I was like,
there were were there were a few of us media
folks there, and I was actually really happy that like
people got to experience this with me, because I usually
have to do it by myself. So you got to
meet three of the characters. You got to meet Brother Hakim,
you got to meet Rachel, and you got to be
(08:19):
your favorite chef doctor.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
So this is just somebody who everyone refers to as
chef doctor. He is dressed up as what you can
only describe as a chef doctor. I wondering half of
a chef's outfit, half of a doctor's outfit. He had
a Freemason pin on his shirt, because of course he did.
And I just like watched him for a while because
(08:41):
like initially in the City Council meeting, they were just
like handing out awards to like the proclamation ceremony, the
proclamations and awards to like various people, including like former
city council members like whatever. And then eventually public comments
started and I guess, let's let's talk about doctor so well, no,
(09:03):
so for the entirety of the city council meeting during
the proclamations in the back in the back of the
back of City Council, there was this large red like
like heart just sitting sitting in the back.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
But it looked like Bob the tomato from Vegetatis.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Look it looked that was exactly what I thought. I
like this heart, Like, why is there this Bob the
tomato ass heart mascot just sitting in the back of
city Council. No one was inside the costume. It was
just like the heart sitting there next to like another
massive heart made up of like flowers. I saw. I
was kind of confused for why that was there. There
(09:43):
was like a pediatric surgeon that got like one of
the awards, and like, oh, maybe the heart's there because
of like because of like heart surgery or something. I
don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
No, no, that would make sense. And you have to
you have to get out of that mindset for public comment.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
For the most part, so then chef doctor gets ten
minutes of public comments.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
So we should explain that mechanism. Everyone who signs up
for public comment gets two minutes. You can award your
time or give over your time to somebody else. So
there were four other people who gave their time over
to Chef Doctor to give him ten minutes, and he
used all ten minutes.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
So what was chef doctor trying to get out of
the city? Why was he giving public heart? So a
shout out to chef doctor.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Okay, like is Chef Doctor wants to create a soul
food museum in the West side of Atlanta, and she's
shown up a few times to kind of ask city
council for money, and as far as I know, that
has gone nowhere. But that was what he is ostensibly
there for today. However, beyond just the heart, the dancing,
(10:52):
we haven't got there yet. However, beyond just the big
red heart, and like the paper mache flower heart, he
he brought a floutest.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
A floutest. So a floutest is someone who plays the flute.
If you are like an uncultured person, who's who's who's
listening to this? And he walked up to the microphone,
and then for five minutes, he got a floutist to
play a flute cover of Amazing Grace.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Yes, but but he had backing music from a laptop
that just kind of appeared up of nowhere, and so
he played into the microphone.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
They played this funeral song as as this now Heart
that's been brought to life. It starts dancing, starts dancing.
So this person wearing like heart pajama pants changed into
this hard question at some point. I didn't see them
change into this. I don't know how this happened. I
(11:48):
must have missed it.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
It's City Council magic.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Nice will be Chef, doctor Kenneth Wolhoyt.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
You'll have ten minutes due to yielded time.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Chef, let's go ahead and get started.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
My name is.
Speaker 5 (12:02):
A chef, doctor Kenneth Wildhord. I'm the president of the
Soul Food Museum and the Soul Food University. We are
celebrating our twentieth anniversary and we are asking for the
City Council and an honorable Mayor to get behind us
(12:26):
and support us with donating a museum space, building and
land with parking in the city of Atlanta for our
tourists that come here to have a place to come
and experience our hospitality, agriculture service of Atlanta. I'm gonna
(12:51):
sell quick prayer because I'm spirit lead.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I do things by spirit.
Speaker 5 (12:56):
I'm at that age you know it's not about me,
it's about the spirit. Now we'll have a song that
was selected by the spirit of the ancestors, not by me,
but by the spirit of dancers. I asked God to say, Hey, God,
what song should we introduce today? This is the one
that was.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
But this, this guy in the hard costume walks up
and he starts like kind of dancing to this float
music for five minutes. Talk about the dancing.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
I don't think it was so much dancing as a
swaying with a little bit of hand motion along with
the swang. But like I, I wasn't expecting it.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
I thought someone like dosed me with hallucinogens.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I did. Actually, there were some stress ballad I put
them in your water bottle when you were looking.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
This explained so much about what happened on Monday.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
No, it would make much more sense if that's what happened. Unfortunately,
Atlanta is a cartoon town and that's not what happened.
This was real life.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
So this, this this flood cover of amazing Grace played
for five minutes along with the dancing Heart, and then
we finally got to public comment for the reason for
the reason we were for the reason for why we
were there. Not only were we blessed with that stunning
rendition of amazing grace, the floutist himself was was briefly
(14:37):
able to address the city Council before President Dave Shipman rudely,
very very rudely called time amazing grace. It's such a
sort that made so much to the world.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
So that's it.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Thank you, okay, and we are back. And just as
(15:15):
a note, I have forgot to put this in the script,
so I'm gonna say it now. It turns out that
that heart costume that was quote unquote dancing to the music,
that's actually rentable. You can rent that in Atlanta. So
I have some really good ideas for the next for
the next week of action, since we can rent more
(15:35):
bouncy castles and also that heart costume, I think there's
a lot of potential, extremely funny things that could happen. Anyway,
back to my conversation with Matt from the Atlantic Community
Press Collective.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
There are a couple like things to note about how
city council public comment works. City council doesn't tend to
pay attention to them. Osensibly the only one who pays
attention is City Council President Doug Shipman, because it is
his job to call time and to call up the
next person. But you know, city councilors will like step
in and out of the room, get something to eat
(16:08):
during the seventeen hours of public comment for cop city
like one of them held a press conference like it is.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
It is weird, Heathery like legally allowed to not pay
attention like that is that is bizarre?
Speaker 2 (16:18):
You would you would you would think that if you
allegedly work for the people, like you.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Would, you have to actually listen to them.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
So amongst the city Council, there are two in particular
that I'm glad you got to see there. There's Mary Norwood,
who represents Buckhead, and then there's Dustin Hillis, who is
the the committee chair for the Public Safety Legal Administration Committee,
So he's basically in charge of police here.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
Throwing molotov cocktails at officers and damaging millions of dollars
of equipment.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And he gives off that vibe, and neither one of
them will pay attention. They were they were on their
phone from almost the entire time I was there. The
the the Buckhead woman gave off ontologically evil vibe. Like
I I did not know like who she was when
I went to the city council, but once I saw her,
(17:13):
I was like, oh, okay, this person is like obviously evil, right,
And I asked people about it afterwards, like oh, yes,
that is a person that represents Bucket. I'm like, okay, yes,
of course, of course.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Bucket of course being the like primarily white neighborhood in
North Atlanta, that part of it wants to secede from
the city. And that's that's a whole. Yes, that is
a whole another issue. But to kind of give context
of what Buckhead is redlining.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
That's not a question, that's just a observation.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
And so sitting directly next to her is Dustin Hillis,
who is known for not paying attention ever.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Except except they did both pay attention after public comment
when police gave their testimony on what happened to the night,
and then these two people were very engaged. We will
hear more from Mary Norwood ontologically evil in a bit,
but first I have to saw Jesus Christ fucking fuck Jesus.
(18:19):
My cats are just running amuck. All right, We will
hear more from Mary Norwood ontologically evil in a bit,
but first I have to include some of councilmen Antonio
Lewis's response after Police Chief Darren Cherbaum gave his little
presentation at City Council. Because I don't think I've ever
(18:39):
heard January sixth, the Atlanta Way, and six Flags all
get mentioned in the same sentence before it.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
Looked like January sixth. I ain't never seen police run
from a group of people, and so the only thing
I could think about when I saw that video. I
saw it on Ato Scoop, the videos all out there.
I've been seeing it all over And when I saw
the police officers run, I mean I was a little nervous.
When I saw the heat map, I saw one hundred
(19:06):
people I saw, I saw it. I mean, like that
ain't the Atlanta Wait. I mean, I ain't never seen
I'm just thinking about the At the same time, at
six Flags, we had some young men that were fighting,
some of our teenagers fighting at six Flags. They didn't
run up on the police. They didn't run up on
the police with molotail malory tail cocktails throwing to burn
(19:26):
up stuff. What I will say, I thank you so
much for last night for working. I want to really
commend the officers because y'all were under some immense pressure
and to not see a gun fire back because when
I see the firecrackers, I'm from Cleveland Avenue. If they
throw firecrackers at me, I don't know those firecrackers. I've
(19:48):
never seen that. So I appreciate APD for doing that.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Truly, truly a stunning admission, just perfect. So I had
to listen to Atlanta Police Chief Darren Sheerbaum's testimony a
few times for the five episodes that were released earlier
this month, so I didn't really feel like fully listening
through again to find any funny bits to put in
this episode, so I just kind of like skimmed through
(20:14):
while multitasking, and weirdly enough, I noticed that the chief
said some pretty shocking things that I somehow just must
have missed in my previous viewings. So I will play
those for you now, and I will warn you it is.
It is pretty disturbing, Like all the subjects we put
on air. Their statements do not reflect our opinions or
(20:34):
the official position held by whatever current company owns this podcast.
So yeah, like I said, warning, these are shocking, but
I will let the chief speak for himself.
Speaker 7 (20:44):
Take aggressive action against these officers. Move to the front gate,
more accelerant, inflict vitily harm upon them, launch illegal and
criminal attacks to attack members of law enforcement, bring harm
to our officers.
Speaker 8 (20:58):
These attacks are.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Going to you pretty pretty shocking stuff coming from a
police chief to Jesus, but that is only the tip
of the iceberg. Because to my surprise, after public COVID
was over and all the news cameras that left after
I left, and you know, everyone everyone left the building.
It turns out Darren Sheerbaum gave a second testimony at
(21:22):
the very end of the city council meeting that I
just completely missed until now. So I will warn you
it is kind of leude in nature. So if you
want to skip past lewd police conduct, just fast forward
like a minute or two. But anyway, without without further ado,
here is the secret recently unearthed second testimony presented by
(21:44):
Atlanta Police Chief Darren Sheerbamb.
Speaker 7 (21:47):
Person ship, the members of the Council would like to
brief you on evincent transpired yesterday. I'm going to let
the video play here. Why I walked through each of
the situations. What you see here is of our partners
at the Decap County Police Department, the Share for Fulton
County as well as the Georgia State Patrol. We're seeing
changing out of the clothes that they were wearing. They're
going to position themselves when it appears to be an
(22:08):
attempt to keep pursuing the officers. As the officers see
these we had a rapid response from our partners as
well as to change their clothing. Different groups were performing
acts within the manner of their training and their discipline.
At this time. Our officers repositioning themselves inside of our partners.
These officers had been stationary to ensure that they are
(22:30):
being restrained. The officers are on city property and are
positioning themselves and reposition themselves to be prepared to go
back in. Our officers are showing great restraint. They remained
in a position. It's what you see here is a
lieutenant that is discharging. We're very fortunate that that was
the outcome, and I want to commend every man and
(22:52):
woman on duty yesterday as they stood in the gap
to do their job, those officers entered our partners, and
what you see here, ladies and gentlemen, is as some
of the individuals that had just previously had entered into
those officers, they start changing back into the clothes that
they were just wearing moments before. Just last night, officers
(23:13):
of this department, as well as the Cab County to
the Georgia State Patrol and the Sheriff's Department moved in.
And I want to think of the men and women
again of the Atlanta Police Department, the Georgia State Patrol,
the Sheriff's Department, as well as the Cap County Police
Department for the professionalism that they demonstrated throughout the night
and to the early hours of this morning while many
of us were asleep, they continue to work through the night.
Speaker 6 (23:36):
I've never seen that, so I appreciate APD for doing that.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
I would have loved for every one of those very
hysterical people that we've been sitting listening to for two
or three hours to have seen an actual video of
what really did happen. And there may be great reasons
if the administration chose to do it this way, but
our media is gone and all the people that needed
to see this are gone. I'm glad that nobody was
(24:02):
hurt and none of our none of our employees were hurt.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Yesterday.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Oh boy whoa oh well that was That was certainly
something I did not did not want to know that
much about what the the APD and their partners get
up to after hours. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled comedic,
James I Know a sheer bomb was was addressed with
some questions by Unicorn Riot when he was trying to exit,
(24:30):
which he then did not He hea have a very
frustrated face and then denied answering and promptly left the
building well.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
In the company of the New York Times journalist.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Oh with with with a friend of the show, Sean Keenan.
So that was that was? Uh? That was most of Monday. Yeah,
that is everything that happened on Monday.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
So what uh Monday evening I went home to start
working on article.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
What did you do?
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Guys?
Speaker 1 (24:54):
I went to the perm in the Woods. I got
to share my my memory of the Veggietail's esther story
starring the Tickle monsters. I got to bond with a
few expangelicals about that, so that was fine. Then there
was an experimental noise show in the forest.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
And then you had a tragic neck injury on Monday night.
So Tuesday, the group that we followed left out of
the church and went to Norfolk Southern, which is one
of the funders of APF and Friend of the Environment
in Ohio. When they finished reading the letter, like, all
(25:31):
they asked was that the letter go to the CEO. Yep,
And they denied that and all they had to do
was accept it and and move on.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
But they, while people were inside the security called ns Police.
And if you're wondering, you're like, you know, ns Plice,
a city that isn't the city in Atlanta, What could
that be? That is the Norfolk Southern Police who are
legally allowed to arrest people.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
And we we thankfully we avoided going to Norfolk Southern Police.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Jail, going to Norfolk Southern Court.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Which certainly would have been a very legitimate court.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
So I mean, it would have been almost as legitimate
as the real court that that the bail hearings happened
at that same day. After successfully evading Norfolk Southern jail.
Matt and I headed downtown for a march that was
accompanied by a cadre of over one hundred officers. Pinning
this crowd onto the sidewalk, got a whole police court
(26:32):
blocking the sidewalk like a Doorida State University canine unit.
This blocking off the entire sidewalk next to a Fulton
County Sheriff's vehicle. I like the copturist, also commanding the
corporate media on where they can stand and the whatever
like boomer journalist is with whatever like mainstream news. Helle
and was very peeered off at this cop for telling
(26:53):
you to get on the sidewalk. The next day, a
smaller crowd met up at the same spot and broke
off into little subgroups to walk around downtown Atlanta and
hand out defend the forest to leaflets. So all the
little subgroups kind of meet up on Andrew Jung and Peachtree,
(27:14):
right next to the Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
To classic examples of Atlanted food.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
There was an Atlanta swat vehicle parked outside of the Hooters,
fucking the fucking outside of fucking Hard Rock Cafe. So
I can't I keep picking up this copyrighted music. But
there's a big Atlanta Police swat vehicle parked on the
block by the Atlanta Police Foundation headquarters. All right, there's
actually a pretty decent number of people gathered here for
(27:44):
the flowering event today. They're at the Peachtree and Young
International Boulevard intersection, right across from the Hooters and the
Hard Rock Cafe. There's a swat vehicle parked right behind us.
There is about, I don't know, twenty to thirty officersation
a little bit to our north, you know, normal police
responds to people handing out flyers, just fifty officers in
(28:06):
a swat team. Lieutenant Neil Welch approaches the crowd and
gives them a dispersal order. They cross the street walk
like a black north, past some of the cops that
are guarding the Wells Fargo building. At this point, people
chanted the cops to quit your jobs, quit your job,
and one of the cops guarding the Wells Fargo says,
(28:29):
that's actually a good idea, you can always quit your job.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
That's actually a sound of box.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
I already tried, And he's like, I tried to and
they wouldn't let me. But like I don't like laughing,
but that one got me. That one got me.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
The cop responded like, not in like a glib tone
like he was it was actually actually he wanted serious,
like yeah, that's actually yeah, that's actually a good idea,
extremely funny moment.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
While this is happening, there's another group who comes in
to the side of Peatree Center Mall and enters the
mall to find Mayor Andre Dickens.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
Andre Dickens is like the head of some kind of
like board or something.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, there are a couple of boards in Atlanta that
stipulate the mayor is like the head of the board,
and this is one of them. And it meets in
Peatree Center Mall as one does. So the mayor is
having a meeting in the mall. It his office space is,
you know, sort of above the mall. And so three
Indigenous An activists along with Kamal Franklin arrive and they
(29:39):
find the mayor. They enter the board meeting and they
begin to read this letter from the Muscogie Nation aloud.
Mayor Dickens, in true mayor fashion, bolts away from this,
running through an exit door which is then like blocked
by a guard which I think that has its own
like set of legal issues, essentially just ignoring them over
(30:02):
his shoulder. He calls out, I've got a copy of
the letter and hides just completely trying to escape what
is not a good look for him.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
This is what we call a Ted Wheeler moment. So
as this happens, I think like Apex Swat is deployed.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So Apex and Swat had had been elsewhere and they
were called back to their vehicles like right before this,
and then the activist exit and almost like in this
very comical moment, after they get out and away, squads
of these special units start rushing into the building, of course,
(30:42):
finding no one.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
Charlie Chapman asks shit, truly okay, even a more future
version of Garrison here. Apparently I've been told by Daniel
that his name is Charlie Chaplin. I don't know he's
a pedophile, so whatever, Charlie not Dan, oh boy, And
(31:05):
I do want to say I did try multiple times
to take Matt to the hard Rock Cafe or the Hooters,
either one, and he refused my offer multiple times, very
very rudely. So at some point when I'm back in Atlanta,
I will have to gather a troop of fanboys and
head over to the Hooters anyway. Next was the Community
(31:28):
Movement Builder's rally on the evening of Thursday, March ninth,
which had fewer jokes that night. But there are a
few embarrassing recording bloopers at the expense of my own ego.
So I will play those for your amusement, you absolute
seck Fox. Yeah, we'll start thirteen years. It is kind
(31:51):
of raining. We'll see how many people show up and
how large the police response will be in comparison. So
what what what could happen here?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Well, it could happen here? A podcast by Robert Evans.
We are at the site of the Martin Luther King Memorial.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Did you see the two Sandy Springs police buses?
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I did see the Sandy I lived in Sandy Springs
for a year and that brought back some memories. But yes,
to Sandy Springs police buses. Sandy Springs, of course, being
mostly outside of the perimeter. A good A good drive
from here. That was good, That was good? All right,
Hauger's absolutely Paugers.
Speaker 1 (32:40):
The police police has has been stating, well, I'll never mind,
I cut that. What am I saying? Big puddle on
the street, demonstrating the city's commitment to infrastructure. That was
that was a joke because the dragon was plumped. I
accidentally turned off my recording. But tripping on flo stairs.
(33:04):
They're so they're so close together, we're they're just sandwiched in.
Got a New York Times reporter standing in the middle
of the street. Of course, the only person allowed to
stand in the street the one, the one New York
Times reporter. I would estimate almost about a kilometer, but
I'm Canadian, so that's not very helpful to you.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
To you us listeners, the real outside agitators is Sandy Springs. Please. Yeah,
the police were ready to mass arrest the entire time.
I don't know if you mentioned this. So in between
the police line in front of the APF building and
the protesters was essentially like a mixture of cop Watch
(33:46):
and National Lawyers Guild and a CLU, because of course
you had to have like both both legal observer factions
just to make sure everybody's watching each other.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
A still you can watch energy get the West rested?
Who can watch a still you get arrested.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
It's turtles all the way down in Bigel Observers all
the way down.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Hello, and we are back. That's great, all right. One
of the stops on the tour of the Blonnie Forest
that Joe Perry was doing throughout the week was the
area of the landswap between the former owner of Black
Hall Studios, Ryan Millsap, and the Cabot County's Entrenchment Creek Park.
So on one side there's this beautiful forested park that
(34:39):
Ryan Millsap wants to trade for. Then on the other
side is this massive mound of dirt that he currently owns,
which is right next to Bouldercrest Road.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
That's a huge, huge dirt field that you see. And
what happened is while that swap was being orchestrated, Blackhall
was bringing thousands and thousands and thousands of dump truckloads
of dirt and just filling it up, filling it up,
filling it up. And somebody else is gonna have to
do the math. But I don't know if you say,
(35:10):
like fifteen acres of dirt that is twenty feet plus high,
how much dirt that is.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
That's a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:18):
It's not natural. It's not something that's helping this flood
prone area. All that's gonna run into here, no matter
how many silk fences you put up. So that's what
they're calling Michelle Obama Park. That's exactly exactly right. If
somebody needs to talk to Michelle and say, nah, you
(35:39):
need to take your name off of that one. I
don't know who who got away with that, but that's
not it.
Speaker 4 (35:45):
By the way, you're seeing the most picturesque side of that.
Speaker 6 (35:48):
Piece of land.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yeah, you get to get to the top, it's worse.
Speaker 7 (35:51):
It's just it's just it's garbage.
Speaker 3 (35:53):
Well the thing, and it is literally garbage because a
lot of this stuff, this dirt keep you know, Ryan
millsp has he is. He's not a movie mogul. He's
he's a land baron. He's he's in real estate, and
he's made billions of dollars in real estate. And so
that dirt comes from other properties. He's he's digging up
(36:15):
a place on you know, on Boulevard to put some
apartments in. He's pulling dirt out of there. That's what's
coming in here. That's dirt coming from all these other
construction sites you have that is not top soil. You
can and I believe me, I'm not saying I'm not
making that up. I've been over there and I've walked
and I've seen what's in there. I've seen water heaters
in there. I've seen gutters in there, I've seen pipes,
I've seen all kinds of crap.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
It's trash.
Speaker 3 (36:37):
It's a big trash mountain. That's what they want to
have be Michelle Obama Park and hanging a hathen So, yeah,
that's I just wanted you to kind of lay your
eyes on what the county thought was a good idea,
in what black Haw thought. Of course, you know, Ryan
mill is a great idea for Ryan Millsepp because the
(36:58):
land that he acquired is were way more millions more.
It's now worth millions more than when he made the swap.
So he has made a lot of money on this swap,
and that's why he's angry that he can't get his
hands on it. Yet nobody knows what he's gonna do
with it, because the original agreement between him and the
county was he was gonna build movie studios on that land.
(37:19):
Well he can't now because he sold his rights to
the movie studios to accompany. It's now called Shadowbox. They're
the ones that owns his previous studios, so he can't
have a rival company right across the street from them.
So he hasn't said and nobody knows exactly what he's
going to do with the property. If he wins this
court case and gets those forty acres, who knows. It's
(37:44):
a mystery. So that's that's where that stands right now.
Hopefully we win the lawsuit. If we do, he will
be he will have to put the bill for repaving
the path and redoing the parking lot and putting a
new gazebo in. That's what the judge decree. That's why
they said we don't need a restraining order. All that
is replaceable. So except for the trees that he tore down,
(38:07):
you know those are going to take another seventy five years,
but who's counting.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
The fate of Michelle Obama Park is still up in
the air as of time of recording. So yeah, excited
to visit that. If the landswap gets passed, almost done,
we're gonna we're gonna briefly, briefly tap back into my
conversation with Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective, and
then unfortunately, our jokes must come to an end.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
I think one thing that's been lost in all of
this too is all of the lighthearted events that have
continued to go on through the week. And you know,
we have this this, this youth rally or there's the
youth rally that's happening on Saturday, of course recording this beforehand,
and like the joy of the movement that was represented
in the bouncy castle rip which was first pointed at
(38:59):
a Ford was pointing it.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
And we haven't talked about the gun, talking about the
guns and the bouncy castle.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
So so one thing I think that that.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
We didn't mention.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
How can you forget about the guns and the bouncy castle.
So when when the police came running up onto the
tarmac at RCA Field where the bouncy castle was, of
course they had to point a rifle at the bouncy castle.
And if that doesn't show that police are not here
to have fun and have joy, I don't know what
what is I I don't know if anyone was in
(39:35):
it at the time, I don't think so. I think
they were literally just pointing a gun at an empty
bouncy castle which they have they destroyed, and and I
think we have to take a moment to mourn that.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
Did they destroyed or like defleate it?
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I think they destroyed It.
Speaker 1 (39:51):
Wasn't like a rental or something.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Yes, so r I P. Bouncy house. You will be
missed and all the joy that you represented. My girlfriend's
texting me cringe.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Let me let me check my my note, my notes.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
In case Garrison doesn't cut this. Ask about Garrison's neck?
Speaker 1 (40:20):
What hmm? What what did you say?
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Ask about what Garrison did Friday.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
Fire, burn tower Saturday, Gresham Park Sunday, Monday noon Tuesday.
All right, all right, okay, I'm gonna just gonna look
through my other notes app because I keep my notes
in three different notes apps because I'm normal.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
So one thing that's been notable, especially in how the
police talk about the forest, is they've begun using like
these these militarized terms, like the denial of operating area
that we saw when Ryan mill SAP was important to
Cab County. He said the GBI told him to clear
(41:07):
the area to deny operating space, and you know, the
use of terrorism, like there's there's some eerie parallels between
the language that was used to describe insurgencies in countries
that America is invading or the United States is invading,
and a lot of that language, like the military equipment
(41:29):
that was used there has come home and is now
being used against Americans engaged in like these liberation struggles.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
I wonder where we've talked about that before. I don't
know it could happen where speaking of it is still happening.
The last week, approximately five hundred people came out to
City Hall as the city Council is now in the
process of voting to approve public funds for the Cop
City project. Nearly three hundred people signed up for public comment,
(41:58):
with hundreds more waiting in line. A public comment lasted
seven hours, and during so not a single person voiced
support of using taxpayer money to fund the police training facility.
The Atlanta Community Press Collective have recently reported that the
proposed city funds toward the Cop City project have ballooned
(42:21):
to a minimum of fifty one million dollars, with the
thirty million dollar package awaiting final vote in City Council,
plus another at least twenty million dollar chunk to be
given to the Atlanta Police Foundation via a quote unquote loan,
which indicates that the Atlanta Police Foundation's private fundraising has
not gone as well as they initially had hoped. For
(42:43):
more on that, I'd recommend checking out The Press Collective's
recent article from May twenty fourth, and you can also
donate to them to support their continued reporting of the
happenings in Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (42:55):
You can find us on Twitter at Atlanta Underscore Press.
Our website is atl Press Collective dot com, and you
can find our Instagram at at l Press Collective. We
have partnered with Open Collective. We are fiscally sponsored now
by Open the Open Collective Foundation in a way to
transparently fundraise in order to sustain our reporting everything up
(43:19):
until actually the Week of Action, we have everything that
we have done up until the Week of Action was
all unpaid. And it is our desire to to continue
to grow with the movement. And uh so we were
excited to find a partner in the Open Collective Foundation
that can uh continue that sort of horizontal open organizing
(43:43):
that that we have done internally.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Okay, yeah, I think, I think, I think we're good.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
I think we have a good job team.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
Oh shit, I wasn't required.
Speaker 8 (44:00):
It could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media. Visit our website
coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, you can
find sources for It could happen here, Updated monthly at
coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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