May 5, 2023 • 38 mins
A few hundred people march to the Cop City construction site and sabotage equipment, then police SWAT raid the nearby music festival and arrest 23 concert goers.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome back to it could happen here. This is part
two of my mini series detailing the March Week of
Action to defend the Atlanta Forest and stop Coop City.
Last episode, we covered the Week of Action kickoff rally
at Gresham Park and Day one of the South River
Music Festival. Will be picking up basically right where we
(00:25):
left off, starting with my conversation with Matt from the
Atlanta Community Press Collective. Saturday night, there was music going
on to like four am. It was a long night,
but like a really good night. What was your Sunday?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Like Sunday?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
You know, Sunday started off really great, Like walking in
the first thing you see when you walked back onto
the festival grounds was this amazing bouncy house that they
had written some guidelines up there that it did seem
like everyone followed. You could fit six adults, which is
like for a bouncy house, that's pretty large.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
It was a big bouncy house.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
It was like six of dollars through twelve kids or
something like that. So, yeah, you see this bouncy house,
and like when you see that, the first thing, but
I think that visually sets the entire expectation, like that
is a statement in and of itself of like what
they were going for that first day.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Day two of the music festival started around noon. Right
in the middle of the rc field was this large
rainbow colored bouncy castle adorned with a stop cop City banner.
People slowly trickled in all over the course of the afternoon,
culminating in about a thousand people scattered across the field
by four pm. Just like the night before, people enjoyed
(01:40):
free food, Defend the Forest related literature, and a bustling
refreshment booth while listening to live music. People played a
soccer and frisbee in the open field, while others were
continuing to build camp infrastructure in the forest.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So I think the bouncy castle set the tone and
everything was really lighthearted for the first few hours. I
spent most of that day walking around watching this like
autonomous infrastructure in the forest kind of pop up on
its own. It's like everywhere I went, you know, to
the parking lot, you saw trains of people carrying like
(02:18):
water and supplies deep into the forest. Everyone seemed to
just be trying to find a place to fit in
and to work and to really participate in the week
of action.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
As the day went on, rumors started to circulate about
inaction happening later that afternoon. Word quickly spread that people
would meet up in the RC field at five pm.
Eventually a flyer was posted to social media, and sure enough,
come five o'clock, a group of a few hundred people
made up of individuals and affinity groups, gathered behind the
(02:51):
bouncy castle, most of whom were masked up and a
donning some form of black block or camo block. A
communicating post later on the website scenes dot no blogs
dot org described the feeling on the ground quote the
air was tense, no visible rage, just a stealed determination.
No one knew what was coming next, but we knew
(03:13):
it was something big.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
That was that was quite the visual like this this
crowd of camo and black block, and like some people
wearing normal clothes who I don't think quite knew what
they were about to do next to this massive bouncy castle.
And I think that that the visual of it kind
of represents like two aspects of the movement, right like
(03:38):
the militant aspect and the joyful aspect, and I think
they're both very central to what you know, the movement is.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, it's a pretty good encapsulation of the diversity present
around the Defend the Forest and stop cup City movement.
There's a few hundred people in Camo Block walking down
I believe is a constitution, a lot of people addressed
in black block, mix of legal observers here, police shoppers
(04:11):
overhead are Currently people are marching west in the direction
of the old Atlanta Prison Farm, the slate of the
forest that copp City is planned to be built on.
There has not really been a mass convergence of people
(04:33):
like this in the forest in a long long time.
I cannot remember the last time there was anything quite
like this. This is definitely the biggest group of people
who's ever like converged on marching on the old Atlanta
Prison Farm area. Last year, people were occupying and living
in the forest in that side. Since the repression has intensified,
(04:55):
more people have moved over across on the other side
of the Churchman Creek Park, on a slate of land
closer to Willane People's Park and the section that ran
MILSAP is wanting to develop. Definitely never seen this many
people marching like this near the forest in a much
(05:15):
more militant seeming group of the crowd. As opposed to
Saturday's first march, which was like a thousand people of
various types, everyone here looks much more willing to throw down.
As the group, around three hundred strong, left the RC Field,
they calmly marched west down Constitution Road toward the power
(05:37):
line cut, accompanied overhead by a police chopper equipped with
a thermal camera. Poppter are still overhead. I'm sure you
can hear it. To get a clear picture of what
actually happened that day, It's useful to understand the geography
of the Wilauni Forest, especially since the police have tried
to make it sound like the individuals who were arrested
(05:58):
later that night were apprehended at the scene of the crime,
which is not actually the case.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The entire area that the defenders are trying to defend,
the entire Weilani Forest, the contiguous part of it is
surrounded in sort of a triangle by three different roads,
Constitution Key and Bouldercrest. All the way to the east
is Wilani People's Park, and like just to the west
(06:24):
of that is the RC Field where the music festival
was happening, where the Bouncy Castle is and where our
group that we're following here starts to gather and then
all the way to the west is the proposed site
of copp City along Key Road. So to get there
(06:45):
through the forest takes a good thirty forty five minutes
to get there, you know, if you're on the road,
is still like a twenty five thirty minute walk. It
is not like anywhere close on foot. Uh No, it's
from point A to point B.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
If you're crossing through those you also have to like
jump over Entrenchment Creek, which is not the easiest creek
to cross over.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
It's not the easiest and it's not the cleanest. It's
something you want to step in.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I'm at the back of the march now. Everyone's kind
of tightened up into one larger, larger group. They've paused
briefly and are retrieving some tires that have been found
nearer the ditch on the road here, dozens and dozens
of tires are blocking are blocking the road. They're getting
(07:33):
moved out pretty quick and the march is moving on.
Oh and looks like people arrived at the power line cut.
This massive clearing for power lines to run north south
people are now marching on the green grass underneath the
power lines. The thin clear cut for power lines has
been there for years and directly leads to where cop
(07:55):
City pre construction work is taking place near the North Gate.
The open area makes it easy to traverse, but on
the flip side that also makes it easy to surveil.
There were only a little over a dozen cops stationed
at the north gate, as well as the police chopper
circling overhead. The group of block is slowly slowly moving
north along the power line cut. I'm keeping my distance
(08:18):
for now so that I can continue doing stuff without
being extremely jeopardized. The block approached the North gate in
broad daylight, with shields in hand and people behind throwing
projectiles in the direction of police. A barrage of fireworks, rocks,
and just the sheer size of the crowd overwhelmed police,
causing officers to retreat as a swarm of hundreds of
(08:40):
people overtook the proposed cop City construction site and current
police security uppost within the Wolani forest. All right, the
group has marched a decent ways up. There's now fireworks
in the distance. Police helicopter is still overhead. Looks like.
Most of the crowd is still in the area of
the power line cut. Pretty condensed, large of people up there,
(09:01):
lots of fireworks. Like I said, some individuals chose to
focus their efforts on repelling the nearby police, giving the
opportunity for others to set their sights on various targets.
The large number of people in the block together allowed
for individuals to feel more safe and capable of taking action.
The APDs put a call out to get any available
(09:22):
units down here by the older line of prison farm
property and a quote from the scanner audios get here
now assholes. Forest defenders smashed up and set ablaze and
office trailer, two UTVs, a surveillance tower and a front
end loader as the police ran for cover behind a
fenced off secondary, smaller outpost across from Key Road. Despite
(09:44):
the police helicopter circling overhead the gathering spot for a
good thirty minutes, it seems APD was not fully prepared
in their response or just did not know what was
going on, because they made a decent way without any
visible resistance so far. A communic posted online reads quote
when we approached the gate. Finally it was not chaos
(10:05):
but it was something like it. Our crowd unleashed a
wild burst of energy. It was incredible and I will
never forget it. It was rhythmic almost We devastated all
of their work, their vehicles, the trailer, everything. But it
looks like Atlanta Place is now trying to converge. Lots
of fireworks are still. I see smoke. Oh, a lot
(10:26):
of smoke. WHOA a lot of smoke very fast is
filling up, filling up the area around the little It
looks like it's by the little control tower in the
middle of the power line.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Cut.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Wow, that smoke is thick. That's a fire. That is
a decent fire. You can I can see the orange
flame now. As the few police officers stationed at the
North Gate were forced to fall back under pressure, force
defenders leveled months of their work within a few minutes.
To quote the scenes dot No blogs communicate quote. This
act of mass collective sabotage was done methodically and without anxiety.
(11:02):
The crowd destroyed all of their equipment with ease and confidence.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
So the excavator there was a utility train vehicle, which
is what the police have been using to sort of
move in and around the woods and sort of motorized
move in and around the woods, and then the office
space and the storage space. We're all torched. I think
(11:30):
that that comprised like everything.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
That was over there, and then the police surveillance tower
which has been taken down a few times.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Surveillance towers in that area, they have this tendency to
fall over.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
The fire has gotten a lot lot bigger. Police scanner
audio is saying officer needs help, calling for all available
units to converge on the spot. Wow O, the fire
is getting so much brighter. Smoke is incredibly thick. It
looks like some people are starting to move out of
the area back into the woods. But wow, that is
a huge fire. There was at least two separate things
(12:04):
lit on fire. There were, in fact more than two
things on fire. Looks like crowd is going to be
starting to move because a lot of police is about
to show up. Unsure what the response will be for
people at the music festival or at a Woollane People's
park who are camping out for the Week of Action.
But this is a pretty pretty big action for Week
of Action Day two. Wow, this smoke plume is massive.
(12:39):
While the action itself was a success, the notion of
an overall one sided victory was about to come crashing down.
A whole bunch of sirens just flew by about a
dozen cop cars, Lots of cop cars by the music
festival entrances as well by the RC field. Looks like
the cop cars are converging at the festival, not at
(13:01):
the fire. Okay, back at the music festival. As you
can hear, it is still ongoing. There's still hundreds of people,
probably like five hundred people gathered here at the music Festival.
You can see smoke in the air from this vantage point,
from the spot by the power line cut where those
(13:22):
two fires took place. One indication that this night was
far from over was that the police helicopter seemed to
be moving toward the festival. The chopper has moved from
being the power line cut to the Music Festival and
Wilani People's Park. Vibe seems to be pretty chill on
the ground here. I'm not sure how many people that
are present know what's going on, but the chopper is
(13:44):
still stationed above the entrance to the festival, so I
think they're looking to see if the group that march
is going to march back the same direction, which I
don't think they will, but that is what's currently going on.
People still still seem to become like to and from
the festival. Sure Enough, within minutes, an increasingly large number
(14:06):
of police started to stage by the entrance to the
RC Field. Doesn't the police cars are now stationed outside
the entrance to the RC Field where the music festival
is taking place. There's a lot of police here, some
with rifles. They're getting their zip ti cuffs ready. They've
not entered the festival area yet, but I got word
from somebody that they have entered the Wollani People's Park
(14:27):
parking lot and it looks like movement is to be
expected very soon. At around six thirty pm, police began
to raid the South River Music Festival and started what
I think is accurately described as the police's own counter
protest to the events that transpired the past hour.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
So when the police came running up onto the tarmac
at RC 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 is.
I don't know if anyone was in it at the time,
I don't think so. I think they were literally just
(15:07):
pointing a gun at an empty bouncy castle, which they destroyed,
And I think we have to take a moment to
mourn that.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Lots of police running into the music festival. They're running
someone down, chasing down a few people, Cops approaching for
multiple sides. Instead of immediately trying to confront the hundreds
of music festival attendees head on, the still extremely outnumbered
cops ran to the opposite side of the music festival
(15:39):
and started to indiscriminately go after isolated stragglers. People running
into the woods, chase by police. Someone's tackled, no one
early around it to arrest someone else being arrested. One, two, three,
(16:02):
four or five six people currently arrested that I can see,
or at least being detained. Looks like an NLG person's
on the ground. Eventually, the concert goers realized what was happening,
and a little over one hundred people mobilized to pressure
the cops out of the field. People from the music
festival are now running behind the police that have rushed
(16:27):
into the rc field. Cops being flanked by hundreds of people.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So the first thing that happened was a few officers
entered the RC field, which is where the music festival
was happening, and made a few quick arrests.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, like five or six, I would say.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
And I would assume, seeing like the crowd and realizing
that a small force of officers is easily overwhelmed, kind
of pulled back with their arrestees. And then just after
that over in wheel On People's Park, that's when DECAB
came in with their SWAT teams. There was a group
that was meeting in the gazebo and they report like
(17:06):
dozens of police officers running by. One of them stood
up to record, and an officer with an ar fifteen
yelled at them and told them to sit the fuck
back down, and they did. They were allowed to finish
their meeting, but they report this very surreal experience of
just officers like flying by and also making arrest of
(17:28):
individuals who were running. And then the third wave, I
would say, came in on the back of a armored
police vehicle with an L RAD.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Good old dj L rad.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
It brings it brings back all the memories.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And so from there they sort of launched into the
forest launching tear.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Gas again also brings back all of the memories. Police
are starting to come back into the music festival. Fireworks
are happening in the woods there the living room. It
looks like the police that entered via the RCA field
advanced up to join another group of cops who came
(18:08):
in from Wallani People's Park and were already in the woods.
What I first assumed were just fireworks were actually in
exchange of munitions, with cops firing explosive tear gas canisters
into the forest and people trying to hold the cops
off with fireworks. Tear gas is in the woods. Fuck,
(18:28):
it's hard. I can't get any clue. I didn't I
didn't bring my gas masks because this was a music festival.
It's just the woods are completely caked and gas everyone
who's inside. I don't know how they're gonna get out.
Cops have the place surrounded. It's so gassed up in there.
Police raided. They tear gased a section of the woods
close to the RCA field, kind of blocking off the
(18:50):
RCA field from from the Wallani People's Park parking lot
and the Campsit's nearby, so you couldn't like, really get
away or run through that area, because you're thing would stop,
as mine temporarily did as I tried, as I tried
to run through there. And then policers took over this
entire section of southeast Atlanta, just this entire section of
(19:13):
the woods, all the intersections in this area.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Except for the very small space that the music festival
was still going on during this entire time.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The section like right in front of the stage where
people continued to have the music festival for the next
few hours as police were as like, I can't do not,
Like over five hundred police officers were in this surrounding area.
There was the most amount of police I've ever seen
respond to anything ever. It was wild. I am currently
(19:45):
heading out. I will try to loop back around to
bland of People's Park because there's just no way through
it right now with all the tear gas. But a
cop van has pulled into the rc Field Music customal
of people, some of them are studyed by the stage,
others are kind of dispersing. Night's getting pretty hectic. Cops
fully surrounding a lot of People's Park and the music
(20:06):
festival on all sides. There was at least one individual
of note who was witnessed to be at the music
festival the entire time during the direct action, and they
were one of the very first arrests. Police chased this
person down, tased and violently tackled them. Were you on
the festival at that time?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I was around the festival at that time. I even
saw the police tackle someone at the festival and tackle
and tase an Indigenous person at the festival. And initially
the police officer Georgia State Patrol, and these are the
folks that were responsible for killing Tortigita and making up
(20:45):
a lie about it. They started running and there were
three people in front of them. All three of those
people started running, and then there were two white folks
that veered off to the left and one Indigenous person
that veered off to the right. Go figure, the Georgia
State Patrol veered to the right and then tased and
(21:05):
tackled the indigenous person. And then and there's the footage
of this that may may not be released, where I
was trying to de escalate the situation because this police officer,
with no grounds to attack this person, is choking them
on the ground and then really just asking you, like literally,
(21:26):
what are you doing, like why are you doing it?
And then the persons that I didn't do anything, and
then the Jeordgia State patrol officer responded, well, you ran right,
as if running when somebody with a gun chasing you
is an admission of guilt of something. So the response
(21:50):
was nonsensical and stupid.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
So they're tear gassing the forest and again, you know, uh,
grabbing from reports anyone who's who's running, anyone who who
you know rightfully runs from a police officer running at
them with an A or fifteen, which you know, we've
been around police all week, and like the instinct to run,
(22:14):
you know, even even now is still pretty high.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
No.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Absolutely, And if you've never been chased by police before,
your first instinct isn't to like let them get you,
like I've had police just charge at me for filming
police brutality before. And yeah, you generally want to move away.
It is your immediate reaction.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, anyone running at you with a gun is caused
for fear, and a police officer even more so.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Okay, I am out of the area. Police have surrounded
on basically every side of the line. People's park the
section of the force. People are camping out of the
music festival. All entrances and exits are stage, a whole
bunch of intersections, this police stage. They're letting some people go,
obviously they're arresting a whole bunch of other people. No
clear indication on who they're arresting or why. It's pretty
(23:05):
chaotic right now.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They put out this officer needs help call that expanded
beyond just APD. But the first thing they did was
was call in every available APD officer. Fulton County Sheriff's
Office joint to Cab County started to mount up, and
then of course the Georgia State Patrol definitely had to
get in on this action. So jurisdictionally wide or this
(23:27):
multi jurisdiction wide force of police amassed on Key Road
with the Cab kind of coming in on the other side.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I passed through at least five hundred individual police officers. Yeah,
that like that would check out, because I walked a
decent a decent, decent ways. I passed by many an
intersection with at least fifty to one hundred cops was
stationed at like each intersection.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Oh and we can't forget the Sandy Springs police Department
also and its way down from outside the premier.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Multiple swat teams was like, I think three different bear cats.
After I evacuated the area, I was still in shock
about how many police officers mobilized to raid the festival.
This is the biggest police response I've seen to anything
in Atlanta in the time that I've been here. This
is bigger than the police responses to most of like
Portland actions compared to Like twenty twenty, massive, massive amount
(24:22):
of cops from multiple agencies taking over a huge area
of South Atlanta and Dekeab County. As the second wave
of police charged in and detained several music festival attendees,
(24:46):
panic spread throughout the crowd. Hundreds of people rushed to
the exits in an attempt to evacuate. Police blocked exits
and arrested, detained, or harassed and threatened those trying to leave.
One concertgoer reported that they received death threats from an
intruding officer quote you're going to get shot. I don't
(25:12):
know how to put it, but you're gonna get shot
with a bullet unquote. That same person who recorded that
interaction also reported that she heard an officer with his
side arm drawn in the living room say quote, I
swear to God, I will fucking kill you unquote. Some
people opted for safety in numbers and decided they'd rather
stay together as a group as opposed to the risk
(25:34):
of trying to escape through the woods alone. That night,
about one hundred and fifty people congregated in front of
the festival stage, and musicians that stuck around continued to
play music.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
So the music festival continues unhindered until dusk, and about
then is when DJ l Rad comes up and officers
get out and call over like five people from the crowd.
And so at this point I think there's like somewhere
between one hundred seventy five to one hundred people still
(26:09):
at the music past watching the music, and people are
calling out from the stage like we have a legal right.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
To be here, this is public property.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
We had We had dueling, dueling loud speakers trying to
two people having a regular conversation across a field via
opposing loud speakers.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Very Scott Pilgrim versus the world right, like.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
You know, as the police are trying to shut down
a concert and there's like folks screaming into the bike
and police officers using the all read to scream back,
it's just amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I mean, the visuals of this whole day, I think
are kind of really easy to imagine, even if you're
not there.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah. Roughly after two hours of hunting down and detaining
stragglers from the festival, dozens of swat in riot gear
with high end rifles and armored vehicles slowly moved in
towards the stage. Police told festivalgoers that they had three
minutes to leave the festival under threat of arrest for
domestic terrorism, to which festivalgoers responded by shouting no. In
(27:16):
front of the stage. The crowd linked arms and enchanted,
let us go home, and we have children. Apparently unable
to mass arrest one hundred and fifty people for whatever reason,
police called for five individuals from the festival to engage
(27:37):
in a brief discussion. After this odd negotiation with a
handful of random concertgoers, festival attendees were told they had
ten minutes to walk to their cars and go home
or else be charged with domestic terrorism.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
About half the crowd has cars parked in the rc field,
and the police allow them to go to their cars
and leave, leaving like somewhere between you know, three dozen
somewhere around three dozen people without cars, still remaining at
the festival, and this whole time they're also chanting, we
(28:12):
have kids, let us go, and like, it's this very
big moment of solidarity that I've been told from like
people who were there that you could tell that everybody
was like really interested in keeping each other safe.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, it was. It was. It was weird because police
were definitely they were letting some people walk away and
leave a place, some people drive away, arresting others not
really with no clear indication for why they're letting some
go and not not letting others go. But then this
this crowd of people around the stage were eventually allowed
to leave the music festival in big rent of vans.
(28:45):
The police then id'd the people who rented the vans
and we were driving the vans, but everyone was able
to exit who stayed by the music festival. Around midnight,
the Atlanta Police Department posted a press release saying that
thirty five people have been detained, which was kind of
weird language because everyone assumed that those who had been
(29:07):
taken by police were all going to be arrested and charged.
But then less than an hour later, twelve individuals were
suddenly released from police custody back to Gresham Park. Since then,
witnesses and lawyers have claimed that police separated out people
with Atlanta addresses on their IDs and released those individuals,
(29:28):
and then the remaining twenty three people, mostly with out
of state IDs or a non Atlanta address, were arrested
and charged with domestic terrorism to continue the outside agitator narrative,
bringing the total number of people charged with domestic terrorism
to forty two. Ever, since Sunday night, there's been this
effort from a police and their media allies to frame
(29:51):
these arrests as if they happened at the scene of
the crime, alleging that the twenty three people arrested were
themselves torching equipment or actively engaged in domestic terrorism. Yet
all of the arrests took place almost a mile away
at the music festival, and even further away in some cases,
like in the parking lot which is on the other
side of the forest from the north gate. To quote
(30:13):
an article in Truth Out by Candice Burned, quote, law
enforcement failing to apprehend specific individuals at the site itself
indiscriminately targeted the music festival, pouring into the field, campgrounds
and parking lot with weapons drawn. They issued commands, chased
people down, and threatened to shoot and arrest festival attendees. Unquote. Still,
(30:34):
major news outlets all but ignored the fact that all
arrests occurred seemingly at random during a police raid of
the nearby South River Music Festival, where people gathered to
see Zack Fox Live, to jump in a bouncy castle
and enjoy the outdoors. Many attendees had little to no
idea of what had occurred at the cop City construction site.
(30:55):
Those who got lucky were forced to walk through tear
gas to get to their cars, while others were assaulted
by police and charged with domestic terrorism, risking thirty five
years in prison. Here's a clip from NBC's Today show.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
Who got Breaking News out of Atlanta. Over night, dozens
arrested after what's being described as a coordinated criminal attack.
It happened at the future site of a police training center,
and missus Blaine Alexander's on the story for US Blaine
Good Morning.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
Officials say protesters burned construction vehicles and a trailer and
set off fireworks toward officers. Stationed nearby.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
This wasn't about a public safety training center.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
This was about anarchy, and this was about the attempt
to destabilize.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
Police point to a group of what they call outside agitators,
saying they left an event nearby, changed into black clothing,
and mounted a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
To quote a statement from the Sonic Defense Committee. Quote.
The indiscriminate brutalization and arrest of festivalgoers suggests that law
enforcement agencies will go to great lengths to paint the
movement to stop Coop City and defend the Atlanta Forest
as a criminal organization. It is in fact a broad,
decentralized movement with no ideological or organizational unity, only of
(32:08):
shared goal. They believe that the movement is made up
of bad actors who betray otherwise peaceful protesters, but the
movement is not committed to any particular tactic, instead accepting
the diversity of approaches to stop the project. The police
claim that the movement is not made up of any Atlantis,
while Atlanta University Center, students, local clergy, faith leaders, small businesses,
(32:31):
and dozens of locally famous artists and musicians organize themselves
within the movement. The police's false narrative and heavy handed
approach to dealing with the opposition to the Copacity project
is slowly starting to enclose them in. As the movement
grows and city and state officials refuse to see the
reality of what they are dealing with, their own authority
(32:53):
is being brought into question. If they are not careful,
the stakes of the movement will soon exceed the bounds
of the forest and cop City. In fact, that process
may already have begun.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I think to talk about what happened, we we kind
of do have to go back to put it in context,
and going back to January, that was the end of
the occupation or the you know, continuous encampments in Wilani
and then flash, uh fast forward to to late January.
(33:29):
They get the LDP and so all of these people
who have been protecting the forest for so long are
now watching construction equipment roll in and they're watching clear
cutting and they can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And you had that action, uh.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Just after Tortigita's death in January, which was a very
targeted you know, only two funders and other supporters of
cop City, and you know, maybe a random police vehicle.
But it wasn't really like this letting of energy. It
was a very like specific sort of purpose. And so
you have this like build up of energy that I
(34:09):
think is really important to keep in mind with what
is about to happen in this story. And they so
they can't do anything, and then you have Saturday where
you see this massive people return to the forest, and
I think it's almost unavoidable in retrospect to look at
(34:32):
that and for them not to have said, what can
we do now that we couldn't do before? So they
gather and they do what they couldn't do before they
head over to the construction site.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
There had not been an action like this in the
woods for a long time. Bulldozers and equipment had not
been damaged in quite a while. But on Sunday people
were able to use the safety in numbers that comes
with a week of action to feel more empowered to
take direct action against the actual machinery that is destroying
the forest and building cop City. Sunday's action can be
(35:09):
seen as a demonstration of the pent up righteous anger
from watching the slow destruction of the forest. Participants view
what happened as a justified strike against the active destruction
of the forest, a strike back made an anger after
watching the Atlanta Police Foundation make steady progress over the
course of the past few months.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
The day before, there was this chant that was taken
up by the entire crowd, and I think we talked
about this and.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Earlier. If you build it, we will burn it.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
And that was something that if you looked all throughout
the crowd, like they were chanting everybody, everybody, like not
just people wearing camera or black block, like a thousand people, everybody. Yeah,
a thousand people watching from Gresham Park.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And I think that this is that promise come true.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Sunday's action was itself a pretty unique moment in the
recent history of environmental and anti police struggles. Watching hundreds
of people go on the offensive to participate in a
mass coordinated sabotage in defense of both the forest and
targets of police of isolence felt like an unprecedented moment
in our modern paradigm of resistance in the United States.
(36:21):
But the raid on the music festival on March fifth
was also just the start of an unparalleled wave of
police repression during this week of action, which we will
cover in the next episode. But throughout the whole week,
the assurance that copcity will never be built never faltered,
as demonstrated by common chance such as I believe that
(36:42):
we will win. So I'm going to end this episode
with the final chant from the Saturday Gresham Park rally,
right before a thousand people marched to the Wallani Forest
in Atlanta.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
We always in with the asologiant we are with the
words of the spur because we have a duty.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
There's been so much blood spilled here.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
Repeat that to meet. It is our duty to flight
for our Freedom's not.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Judy to wed, not each other, project each other. I'm
not gonna lose but a change nothing.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I'm not gonna lose but a chaine. I'm nothing to
knowse but our chainey.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
H S Music Festival audio courtesy of Unicorn Riot. 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,
(38:07):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
monthly at Coolzonmedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,
Welcome back to it could happen here. This is part
two of my mini series detailing the March Week of
Action to defend the Atlanta Forest and stop Coop City.
Last episode, we covered the Week of Action kickoff rally
at Gresham Park and Day one of the South River
Music Festival. Will be picking up basically right where we
(00:25):
left off, starting with my conversation with Matt from the
Atlanta Community Press Collective. Saturday night, there was music going
on to like four am. It was a long night,
but like a really good night. What was your Sunday?
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Like Sunday?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
You know, Sunday started off really great, Like walking in
the first thing you see when you walked back onto
the festival grounds was this amazing bouncy house that they
had written some guidelines up there that it did seem
like everyone followed. You could fit six adults, which is
like for a bouncy house, that's pretty large.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
It was a big bouncy house.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
It was like six of dollars through twelve kids or
something like that. So, yeah, you see this bouncy house,
and like when you see that, the first thing, but
I think that visually sets the entire expectation, like that
is a statement in and of itself of like what
they were going for that first day.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Day two of the music festival started around noon. Right
in the middle of the rc field was this large
rainbow colored bouncy castle adorned with a stop cop City banner.
People slowly trickled in all over the course of the afternoon,
culminating in about a thousand people scattered across the field
by four pm. Just like the night before, people enjoyed
(01:40):
free food, Defend the Forest related literature, and a bustling
refreshment booth while listening to live music. People played a
soccer and frisbee in the open field, while others were
continuing to build camp infrastructure in the forest.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
So I think the bouncy castle set the tone and
everything was really lighthearted for the first few hours. I
spent most of that day walking around watching this like
autonomous infrastructure in the forest kind of pop up on
its own. It's like everywhere I went, you know, to
the parking lot, you saw trains of people carrying like
(02:18):
water and supplies deep into the forest. Everyone seemed to
just be trying to find a place to fit in
and to work and to really participate in the week
of action.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
As the day went on, rumors started to circulate about
inaction happening later that afternoon. Word quickly spread that people
would meet up in the RC field at five pm.
Eventually a flyer was posted to social media, and sure enough,
come five o'clock, a group of a few hundred people
made up of individuals and affinity groups, gathered behind the
(02:51):
bouncy castle, most of whom were masked up and a
donning some form of black block or camo block. A
communicating post later on the website scenes dot no blogs
dot org described the feeling on the ground quote the
air was tense, no visible rage, just a stealed determination.
No one knew what was coming next, but we knew
(03:13):
it was something big.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
That was that was quite the visual like this this
crowd of camo and black block, and like some people
wearing normal clothes who I don't think quite knew what
they were about to do next to this massive bouncy castle.
And I think that that the visual of it kind
of represents like two aspects of the movement, right like
(03:38):
the militant aspect and the joyful aspect, and I think
they're both very central to what you know, the movement is.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, it's a pretty good encapsulation of the diversity present
around the Defend the Forest and stop cup City movement.
There's a few hundred people in Camo Block walking down
I believe is a constitution, a lot of people addressed
in black block, mix of legal observers here, police shoppers
(04:11):
overhead are Currently people are marching west in the direction
of the old Atlanta Prison Farm, the slate of the
forest that copp City is planned to be built on.
There has not really been a mass convergence of people
(04:33):
like this in the forest in a long long time.
I cannot remember the last time there was anything quite
like this. This is definitely the biggest group of people
who's ever like converged on marching on the old Atlanta
Prison Farm area. Last year, people were occupying and living
in the forest in that side. Since the repression has intensified,
(04:55):
more people have moved over across on the other side
of the Churchman Creek Park, on a slate of land
closer to Willane People's Park and the section that ran
MILSAP is wanting to develop. Definitely never seen this many
people marching like this near the forest in a much
(05:15):
more militant seeming group of the crowd. As opposed to
Saturday's first march, which was like a thousand people of
various types, everyone here looks much more willing to throw down.
As the group, around three hundred strong, left the RC Field,
they calmly marched west down Constitution Road toward the power
(05:37):
line cut, accompanied overhead by a police chopper equipped with
a thermal camera. Poppter are still overhead. I'm sure you
can hear it. To get a clear picture of what
actually happened that day, It's useful to understand the geography
of the Wilauni Forest, especially since the police have tried
to make it sound like the individuals who were arrested
(05:58):
later that night were apprehended at the scene of the crime,
which is not actually the case.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
The entire area that the defenders are trying to defend,
the entire Weilani Forest, the contiguous part of it is
surrounded in sort of a triangle by three different roads,
Constitution Key and Bouldercrest. All the way to the east
is Wilani People's Park, and like just to the west
(06:24):
of that is the RC Field where the music festival
was happening, where the Bouncy Castle is and where our
group that we're following here starts to gather and then
all the way to the west is the proposed site
of copp City along Key Road. So to get there
(06:45):
through the forest takes a good thirty forty five minutes
to get there, you know, if you're on the road,
is still like a twenty five thirty minute walk. It
is not like anywhere close on foot. Uh No, it's
from point A to point B.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
If you're crossing through those you also have to like
jump over Entrenchment Creek, which is not the easiest creek
to cross over.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
It's not the easiest and it's not the cleanest. It's
something you want to step in.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
I'm at the back of the march now. Everyone's kind
of tightened up into one larger, larger group. They've paused
briefly and are retrieving some tires that have been found
nearer the ditch on the road here, dozens and dozens
of tires are blocking are blocking the road. They're getting
(07:33):
moved out pretty quick and the march is moving on.
Oh and looks like people arrived at the power line cut.
This massive clearing for power lines to run north south
people are now marching on the green grass underneath the
power lines. The thin clear cut for power lines has
been there for years and directly leads to where cop
(07:55):
City pre construction work is taking place near the North Gate.
The open area makes it easy to traverse, but on
the flip side that also makes it easy to surveil.
There were only a little over a dozen cops stationed
at the north gate, as well as the police chopper
circling overhead. The group of block is slowly slowly moving
north along the power line cut. I'm keeping my distance
(08:18):
for now so that I can continue doing stuff without
being extremely jeopardized. The block approached the North gate in
broad daylight, with shields in hand and people behind throwing
projectiles in the direction of police. A barrage of fireworks, rocks,
and just the sheer size of the crowd overwhelmed police,
causing officers to retreat as a swarm of hundreds of
(08:40):
people overtook the proposed cop City construction site and current
police security uppost within the Wolani forest. All right, the
group has marched a decent ways up. There's now fireworks
in the distance. Police helicopter is still overhead. Looks like.
Most of the crowd is still in the area of
the power line cut. Pretty condensed, large of people up there,
(09:01):
lots of fireworks. Like I said, some individuals chose to
focus their efforts on repelling the nearby police, giving the
opportunity for others to set their sights on various targets.
The large number of people in the block together allowed
for individuals to feel more safe and capable of taking action.
The APDs put a call out to get any available
(09:22):
units down here by the older line of prison farm
property and a quote from the scanner audios get here
now assholes. Forest defenders smashed up and set ablaze and
office trailer, two UTVs, a surveillance tower and a front
end loader as the police ran for cover behind a
fenced off secondary, smaller outpost across from Key Road. Despite
(09:44):
the police helicopter circling overhead the gathering spot for a
good thirty minutes, it seems APD was not fully prepared
in their response or just did not know what was
going on, because they made a decent way without any
visible resistance so far. A communic posted online reads quote
when we approached the gate. Finally it was not chaos
(10:05):
but it was something like it. Our crowd unleashed a
wild burst of energy. It was incredible and I will
never forget it. It was rhythmic almost We devastated all
of their work, their vehicles, the trailer, everything. But it
looks like Atlanta Place is now trying to converge. Lots
of fireworks are still. I see smoke. Oh, a lot
(10:26):
of smoke. WHOA a lot of smoke very fast is
filling up, filling up the area around the little It
looks like it's by the little control tower in the
middle of the power line.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Cut.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Wow, that smoke is thick. That's a fire. That is
a decent fire. You can I can see the orange
flame now. As the few police officers stationed at the
North Gate were forced to fall back under pressure, force
defenders leveled months of their work within a few minutes.
To quote the scenes dot No blogs communicate quote. This
act of mass collective sabotage was done methodically and without anxiety.
(11:02):
The crowd destroyed all of their equipment with ease and confidence.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
So the excavator there was a utility train vehicle, which
is what the police have been using to sort of
move in and around the woods and sort of motorized
move in and around the woods, and then the office
space and the storage space. We're all torched. I think
(11:30):
that that comprised like everything.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
That was over there, and then the police surveillance tower
which has been taken down a few times.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
Surveillance towers in that area, they have this tendency to
fall over.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
The fire has gotten a lot lot bigger. Police scanner
audio is saying officer needs help, calling for all available
units to converge on the spot. Wow O, the fire
is getting so much brighter. Smoke is incredibly thick. It
looks like some people are starting to move out of
the area back into the woods. But wow, that is
a huge fire. There was at least two separate things
(12:04):
lit on fire. There were, in fact more than two
things on fire. Looks like crowd is going to be
starting to move because a lot of police is about
to show up. Unsure what the response will be for
people at the music festival or at a Woollane People's
park who are camping out for the Week of Action.
But this is a pretty pretty big action for Week
of Action Day two. Wow, this smoke plume is massive.
(12:39):
While the action itself was a success, the notion of
an overall one sided victory was about to come crashing down.
A whole bunch of sirens just flew by about a
dozen cop cars, Lots of cop cars by the music
festival entrances as well by the RC field. Looks like
the cop cars are converging at the festival, not at
(13:01):
the fire. Okay, back at the music festival. As you
can hear, it is still ongoing. There's still hundreds of people,
probably like five hundred people gathered here at the music Festival.
You can see smoke in the air from this vantage point,
from the spot by the power line cut where those
(13:22):
two fires took place. One indication that this night was
far from over was that the police helicopter seemed to
be moving toward the festival. The chopper has moved from
being the power line cut to the Music Festival and
Wilani People's Park. Vibe seems to be pretty chill on
the ground here. I'm not sure how many people that
are present know what's going on, but the chopper is
(13:44):
still stationed above the entrance to the festival, so I
think they're looking to see if the group that march
is going to march back the same direction, which I
don't think they will, but that is what's currently going on.
People still still seem to become like to and from
the festival. Sure Enough, within minutes, an increasingly large number
(14:06):
of police started to stage by the entrance to the
RC Field. Doesn't the police cars are now stationed outside
the entrance to the RC Field where the music festival
is taking place. There's a lot of police here, some
with rifles. They're getting their zip ti cuffs ready. They've
not entered the festival area yet, but I got word
from somebody that they have entered the Wollani People's Park
(14:27):
parking lot and it looks like movement is to be
expected very soon. At around six thirty pm, police began
to raid the South River Music Festival and started what
I think is accurately described as the police's own counter
protest to the events that transpired the past hour.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
So when the police came running up onto the tarmac
at RC 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 is.
I don't know if anyone was in it at the time,
I don't think so. I think they were literally just
(15:07):
pointing a gun at an empty bouncy castle, which they destroyed,
And I think we have to take a moment to
mourn that.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Lots of police running into the music festival. They're running
someone down, chasing down a few people, Cops approaching for
multiple sides. Instead of immediately trying to confront the hundreds
of music festival attendees head on, the still extremely outnumbered
cops ran to the opposite side of the music festival
(15:39):
and started to indiscriminately go after isolated stragglers. People running
into the woods, chase by police. Someone's tackled, no one
early around it to arrest someone else being arrested. One, two, three,
(16:02):
four or five six people currently arrested that I can see,
or at least being detained. Looks like an NLG person's
on the ground. Eventually, the concert goers realized what was happening,
and a little over one hundred people mobilized to pressure
the cops out of the field. People from the music
festival are now running behind the police that have rushed
(16:27):
into the rc field. Cops being flanked by hundreds of people.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
So the first thing that happened was a few officers
entered the RC field, which is where the music festival
was happening, and made a few quick arrests.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
Yeah, like five or six, I would say.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
And I would assume, seeing like the crowd and realizing
that a small force of officers is easily overwhelmed, kind
of pulled back with their arrestees. And then just after
that over in wheel On People's Park, that's when DECAB
came in with their SWAT teams. There was a group
that was meeting in the gazebo and they report like
(17:06):
dozens of police officers running by. One of them stood
up to record, and an officer with an ar fifteen
yelled at them and told them to sit the fuck
back down, and they did. They were allowed to finish
their meeting, but they report this very surreal experience of
just officers like flying by and also making arrest of
(17:28):
individuals who were running. And then the third wave, I
would say, came in on the back of a armored
police vehicle with an L RAD.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Good old dj L rad.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
It brings it brings back all the memories.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
And so from there they sort of launched into the
forest launching tear.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
Gas again also brings back all of the memories. Police
are starting to come back into the music festival. Fireworks
are happening in the woods there the living room. It
looks like the police that entered via the RCA field
advanced up to join another group of cops who came
(18:08):
in from Wallani People's Park and were already in the woods.
What I first assumed were just fireworks were actually in
exchange of munitions, with cops firing explosive tear gas canisters
into the forest and people trying to hold the cops
off with fireworks. Tear gas is in the woods. Fuck,
(18:28):
it's hard. I can't get any clue. I didn't I
didn't bring my gas masks because this was a music festival.
It's just the woods are completely caked and gas everyone
who's inside. I don't know how they're gonna get out.
Cops have the place surrounded. It's so gassed up in there.
Police raided. They tear gased a section of the woods
close to the RCA field, kind of blocking off the
(18:50):
RCA field from from the Wallani People's Park parking lot
and the Campsit's nearby, so you couldn't like, really get
away or run through that area, because you're thing would stop,
as mine temporarily did as I tried, as I tried
to run through there. And then policers took over this
entire section of southeast Atlanta, just this entire section of
(19:13):
the woods, all the intersections in this area.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Except for the very small space that the music festival
was still going on during this entire time.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
The section like right in front of the stage where
people continued to have the music festival for the next
few hours as police were as like, I can't do not,
Like over five hundred police officers were in this surrounding area.
There was the most amount of police I've ever seen
respond to anything ever. It was wild. I am currently
(19:45):
heading out. I will try to loop back around to
bland of People's Park because there's just no way through
it right now with all the tear gas. But a
cop van has pulled into the rc Field Music customal
of people, some of them are studyed by the stage,
others are kind of dispersing. Night's getting pretty hectic. Cops
fully surrounding a lot of People's Park and the music
(20:06):
festival on all sides. There was at least one individual
of note who was witnessed to be at the music
festival the entire time during the direct action, and they
were one of the very first arrests. Police chased this
person down, tased and violently tackled them. Were you on
the festival at that time?
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I was around the festival at that time. I even
saw the police tackle someone at the festival and tackle
and tase an Indigenous person at the festival. And initially
the police officer Georgia State Patrol, and these are the
folks that were responsible for killing Tortigita and making up
(20:45):
a lie about it. They started running and there were
three people in front of them. All three of those
people started running, and then there were two white folks
that veered off to the left and one Indigenous person
that veered off to the right. Go figure, the Georgia
State Patrol veered to the right and then tased and
(21:05):
tackled the indigenous person. And then and there's the footage
of this that may may not be released, where I
was trying to de escalate the situation because this police officer,
with no grounds to attack this person, is choking them
on the ground and then really just asking you, like literally,
(21:26):
what are you doing, like why are you doing it?
And then the persons that I didn't do anything, and
then the Jeordgia State patrol officer responded, well, you ran right,
as if running when somebody with a gun chasing you
is an admission of guilt of something. So the response
(21:50):
was nonsensical and stupid.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
So they're tear gassing the forest and again, you know, uh,
grabbing from reports anyone who's who's running, anyone who who
you know rightfully runs from a police officer running at
them with an A or fifteen, which you know, we've
been around police all week, and like the instinct to run,
(22:14):
you know, even even now is still pretty high.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
No.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Absolutely, And if you've never been chased by police before,
your first instinct isn't to like let them get you,
like I've had police just charge at me for filming
police brutality before. And yeah, you generally want to move away.
It is your immediate reaction.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Yeah, anyone running at you with a gun is caused
for fear, and a police officer even more so.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Okay, I am out of the area. Police have surrounded
on basically every side of the line. People's park the
section of the force. People are camping out of the
music festival. All entrances and exits are stage, a whole
bunch of intersections, this police stage. They're letting some people go,
obviously they're arresting a whole bunch of other people. No
clear indication on who they're arresting or why. It's pretty
(23:05):
chaotic right now.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They put out this officer needs help call that expanded
beyond just APD. But the first thing they did was
was call in every available APD officer. Fulton County Sheriff's
Office joint to Cab County started to mount up, and
then of course the Georgia State Patrol definitely had to
get in on this action. So jurisdictionally wide or this
(23:27):
multi jurisdiction wide force of police amassed on Key Road
with the Cab kind of coming in on the other side.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
I passed through at least five hundred individual police officers. Yeah,
that like that would check out, because I walked a
decent a decent, decent ways. I passed by many an
intersection with at least fifty to one hundred cops was
stationed at like each intersection.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
Oh and we can't forget the Sandy Springs police Department
also and its way down from outside the premier.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Multiple swat teams was like, I think three different bear cats.
After I evacuated the area, I was still in shock
about how many police officers mobilized to raid the festival.
This is the biggest police response I've seen to anything
in Atlanta in the time that I've been here. This
is bigger than the police responses to most of like
Portland actions compared to Like twenty twenty, massive, massive amount
(24:22):
of cops from multiple agencies taking over a huge area
of South Atlanta and Dekeab County. As the second wave
of police charged in and detained several music festival attendees,
(24:46):
panic spread throughout the crowd. Hundreds of people rushed to
the exits in an attempt to evacuate. Police blocked exits
and arrested, detained, or harassed and threatened those trying to leave.
One concertgoer reported that they received death threats from an
intruding officer quote you're going to get shot. I don't
(25:12):
know how to put it, but you're gonna get shot
with a bullet unquote. That same person who recorded that
interaction also reported that she heard an officer with his
side arm drawn in the living room say quote, I
swear to God, I will fucking kill you unquote. Some
people opted for safety in numbers and decided they'd rather
stay together as a group as opposed to the risk
(25:34):
of trying to escape through the woods alone. That night,
about one hundred and fifty people congregated in front of
the festival stage, and musicians that stuck around continued to
play music.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
So the music festival continues unhindered until dusk, and about
then is when DJ l Rad comes up and officers
get out and call over like five people from the crowd.
And so at this point I think there's like somewhere
between one hundred seventy five to one hundred people still
(26:09):
at the music past watching the music, and people are
calling out from the stage like we have a legal right.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
To be here, this is public property.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
We had We had dueling, dueling loud speakers trying to
two people having a regular conversation across a field via
opposing loud speakers.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Very Scott Pilgrim versus the world right, like.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
You know, as the police are trying to shut down
a concert and there's like folks screaming into the bike
and police officers using the all read to scream back,
it's just amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I mean, the visuals of this whole day, I think
are kind of really easy to imagine, even if you're
not there.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah. Roughly after two hours of hunting down and detaining
stragglers from the festival, dozens of swat in riot gear
with high end rifles and armored vehicles slowly moved in
towards the stage. Police told festivalgoers that they had three
minutes to leave the festival under threat of arrest for
domestic terrorism, to which festivalgoers responded by shouting no. In
(27:16):
front of the stage. The crowd linked arms and enchanted,
let us go home, and we have children. Apparently unable
to mass arrest one hundred and fifty people for whatever reason,
police called for five individuals from the festival to engage
(27:37):
in a brief discussion. After this odd negotiation with a
handful of random concertgoers, festival attendees were told they had
ten minutes to walk to their cars and go home
or else be charged with domestic terrorism.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
About half the crowd has cars parked in the rc field,
and the police allow them to go to their cars
and leave, leaving like somewhere between you know, three dozen
somewhere around three dozen people without cars, still remaining at
the festival, and this whole time they're also chanting, we
(28:12):
have kids, let us go, and like, it's this very
big moment of solidarity that I've been told from like
people who were there that you could tell that everybody
was like really interested in keeping each other safe.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Yeah, it was. It was. It was weird because police
were definitely they were letting some people walk away and
leave a place, some people drive away, arresting others not
really with no clear indication for why they're letting some
go and not not letting others go. But then this
this crowd of people around the stage were eventually allowed
to leave the music festival in big rent of vans.
(28:45):
The police then id'd the people who rented the vans
and we were driving the vans, but everyone was able
to exit who stayed by the music festival. Around midnight,
the Atlanta Police Department posted a press release saying that
thirty five people have been detained, which was kind of
weird language because everyone assumed that those who had been
(29:07):
taken by police were all going to be arrested and charged.
But then less than an hour later, twelve individuals were
suddenly released from police custody back to Gresham Park. Since then,
witnesses and lawyers have claimed that police separated out people
with Atlanta addresses on their IDs and released those individuals,
(29:28):
and then the remaining twenty three people, mostly with out
of state IDs or a non Atlanta address, were arrested
and charged with domestic terrorism to continue the outside agitator narrative,
bringing the total number of people charged with domestic terrorism
to forty two. Ever, since Sunday night, there's been this
effort from a police and their media allies to frame
(29:51):
these arrests as if they happened at the scene of
the crime, alleging that the twenty three people arrested were
themselves torching equipment or actively engaged in domestic terrorism. Yet
all of the arrests took place almost a mile away
at the music festival, and even further away in some cases,
like in the parking lot which is on the other
side of the forest from the north gate. To quote
(30:13):
an article in Truth Out by Candice Burned, quote, law
enforcement failing to apprehend specific individuals at the site itself
indiscriminately targeted the music festival, pouring into the field, campgrounds
and parking lot with weapons drawn. They issued commands, chased
people down, and threatened to shoot and arrest festival attendees. Unquote. Still,
(30:34):
major news outlets all but ignored the fact that all
arrests occurred seemingly at random during a police raid of
the nearby South River Music Festival, where people gathered to
see Zack Fox Live, to jump in a bouncy castle
and enjoy the outdoors. Many attendees had little to no
idea of what had occurred at the cop City construction site.
(30:55):
Those who got lucky were forced to walk through tear
gas to get to their cars, while others were assaulted
by police and charged with domestic terrorism, risking thirty five
years in prison. Here's a clip from NBC's Today show.
Speaker 6 (31:08):
Who got Breaking News out of Atlanta. Over night, dozens
arrested after what's being described as a coordinated criminal attack.
It happened at the future site of a police training center,
and missus Blaine Alexander's on the story for US Blaine
Good Morning.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
Officials say protesters burned construction vehicles and a trailer and
set off fireworks toward officers. Stationed nearby.
Speaker 1 (31:28):
This wasn't about a public safety training center.
Speaker 4 (31:30):
This was about anarchy, and this was about the attempt
to destabilize.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
Police point to a group of what they call outside agitators,
saying they left an event nearby, changed into black clothing,
and mounted a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
To quote a statement from the Sonic Defense Committee. Quote.
The indiscriminate brutalization and arrest of festivalgoers suggests that law
enforcement agencies will go to great lengths to paint the
movement to stop Coop City and defend the Atlanta Forest
as a criminal organization. It is in fact a broad,
decentralized movement with no ideological or organizational unity, only of
(32:08):
shared goal. They believe that the movement is made up
of bad actors who betray otherwise peaceful protesters, but the
movement is not committed to any particular tactic, instead accepting
the diversity of approaches to stop the project. The police
claim that the movement is not made up of any Atlantis,
while Atlanta University Center, students, local clergy, faith leaders, small businesses,
(32:31):
and dozens of locally famous artists and musicians organize themselves
within the movement. The police's false narrative and heavy handed
approach to dealing with the opposition to the Copacity project
is slowly starting to enclose them in. As the movement
grows and city and state officials refuse to see the
reality of what they are dealing with, their own authority
(32:53):
is being brought into question. If they are not careful,
the stakes of the movement will soon exceed the bounds
of the forest and cop City. In fact, that process
may already have begun.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
I think to talk about what happened, we we kind
of do have to go back to put it in context,
and going back to January, that was the end of
the occupation or the you know, continuous encampments in Wilani
and then flash, uh fast forward to to late January.
(33:29):
They get the LDP and so all of these people
who have been protecting the forest for so long are
now watching construction equipment roll in and they're watching clear
cutting and they can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
And you had that action, uh.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
Just after Tortigita's death in January, which was a very
targeted you know, only two funders and other supporters of
cop City, and you know, maybe a random police vehicle.
But it wasn't really like this letting of energy. It
was a very like specific sort of purpose. And so
you have this like build up of energy that I
(34:09):
think is really important to keep in mind with what
is about to happen in this story. And they so
they can't do anything, and then you have Saturday where
you see this massive people return to the forest, and
I think it's almost unavoidable in retrospect to look at
(34:32):
that and for them not to have said, what can
we do now that we couldn't do before? So they
gather and they do what they couldn't do before they
head over to the construction site.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
There had not been an action like this in the
woods for a long time. Bulldozers and equipment had not
been damaged in quite a while. But on Sunday people
were able to use the safety in numbers that comes
with a week of action to feel more empowered to
take direct action against the actual machinery that is destroying
the forest and building cop City. Sunday's action can be
(35:09):
seen as a demonstration of the pent up righteous anger
from watching the slow destruction of the forest. Participants view
what happened as a justified strike against the active destruction
of the forest, a strike back made an anger after
watching the Atlanta Police Foundation make steady progress over the
course of the past few months.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
The day before, there was this chant that was taken
up by the entire crowd, and I think we talked
about this and.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Earlier. If you build it, we will burn it.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
And that was something that if you looked all throughout
the crowd, like they were chanting everybody, everybody, like not
just people wearing camera or black block, like a thousand people, everybody. Yeah,
a thousand people watching from Gresham Park.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And I think that this is that promise come true.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Sunday's action was itself a pretty unique moment in the
recent history of environmental and anti police struggles. Watching hundreds
of people go on the offensive to participate in a
mass coordinated sabotage in defense of both the forest and
targets of police of isolence felt like an unprecedented moment
in our modern paradigm of resistance in the United States.
(36:21):
But the raid on the music festival on March fifth
was also just the start of an unparalleled wave of
police repression during this week of action, which we will
cover in the next episode. But throughout the whole week,
the assurance that copcity will never be built never faltered,
as demonstrated by common chance such as I believe that
(36:42):
we will win. So I'm going to end this episode
with the final chant from the Saturday Gresham Park rally,
right before a thousand people marched to the Wallani Forest
in Atlanta.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
We always in with the asologiant we are with the
words of the spur because we have a duty.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
There's been so much blood spilled here.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
Repeat that to meet. It is our duty to flight
for our Freedom's not.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Judy to wed, not each other, project each other. I'm
not gonna lose but a change nothing.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
I'm not gonna lose but a chaine. I'm nothing to
knowse but our chainey.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
H S Music Festival audio courtesy of Unicorn Riot. 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,
(38:07):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 5 (38:08):
You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
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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