April 11, 2023 • 47 mins
The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, also known as “Cop City,” has sparked controversy among Atlanta natives. Although it’s meant to improve the training conditions of police officers and firefighters, the social and environmental effects of this center can be damaging to communities surrounding it. Atlanta-based journalists George Chidi and King Williams join Roy Wood Jr. to dive deeper into “Cop City” and how it's affecting folks in Atlanta.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the podcast that goes a
little deeper into topics and segments that originally aired on
The Daily Show. This is what you gotta think of?
This podcast has right okay, Like you know you got
prom right, you go to your senior prom, you have
a good time at the dance. This podcast is everything
that happens after the prom. We're the party bus. Where
(00:27):
to take us to the club. We're the fight at
waffle house. Don't worry, We're still gonna get your home
by midnight. And you daddy ain't gonna know that you
two up to tuxedo and your ruined his deposit. This week,
we're delving a little deeper into a topic that we
just recently discussed on the show. I went down to
Atlanta to learn about a place called Cops City. Cops
City is a training facility that's being presented as the
(00:49):
new way to train Atlanta's police and fire departments. But
Cop Cities brought a lot of controversy. Give it a clip.
Atlanta is busy downtown, just send it into chaos. Over
the weekend, hundreds of protesters marched in the streets in
the wake of the death of a twenty six year
old environmental activist. The activist was killed on Wednesday as
(01:12):
officers cleared protesters from the site of a planned police
training center. Police training center, but these guys are training, right,
This isn't an armed militia of interns. Back before things
got this bad, I went to Atlanta and met with
local activists Jasmine Burnett. The Atlanta Police Foundation is building
a massive urban warfare training facility with bombs, testings, tear
(01:34):
gas explosions, a shooting range, getting people marched to defund
the police. They looked like a refunded Activists have dubbed
this development cops City, an eighty five acre, ninety million
dollar complex including a shooting range, burned buildings, and a
mock city that includes apartments, a school, even a bar.
So this is basically six flags for the police. Yes,
(01:55):
it's a playground. You can't call it a playground or
which you read, there's literally a playground. But I had
a dream about how they could make this project more
appealing to activists. We name it after Monty Luther. Camp
doesn't matter. Tyler Perry presents the training facility. The name
doesn't change the impact. To help us get deeper into
the weeds of this conversation. I'm joined by two wonderful
(02:16):
Atlanta based journalists, George Cheaty and King Williams. George, King,
how you doing today? We're awesome. I'm awesome. You're awesome, George.
Thank you for that. Now, King, you got to top that.
Make me feel more than awesome. Please. Oh, you're the
greatest of all time. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
I'll take that. It was better than yours, George. George,
you gotta work on your greetings to me. I will
(02:37):
suck less later. Before we get into the back and
forth controversy that is cop City, let's just define what
cop City is, George. I'll start with you break down
what it is exactly. So cop City, by the way,
there are people who hate calling at cops City because
it's They think it's pejorative, and I think it's short.
The Atlanta Police Training Center is a replacement for the
(03:01):
Atlanta Police departments police training facilities, which are garbage. I'm
I'll be honest, like that's that's just the truth of it.
Problem is it's a ninety million dollar like park, like
a fun amusement park for cop training, So like a
real world, like like in the military where they recreate
(03:22):
urban warfare in the Middle East, doors and rooms and
all of that. Was the fire department training aspect of
Cops City always part of it or was that rolled
into it as part of a pr Oh No, it's
not all about the police. No, it's definitely was always
part of it. And again, like the current facilities are
are inadequate, Like that's the truth, Like they're falling apart,
(03:44):
there's mold all over everything. It's awful. Um. However, what
they're trying to build is expensive and people are not
happy about it. Okay, So then King, give me some
examples of some of the stuff that's in Coop City.
I imagine for a fire department, you need to build
an I can catch on fire, so you could work
on putting out fires. But for the police aspects of it.
(04:04):
At a time where we're talking about defunding the police
and taking less resources, taking some resources away from police
departments and reallocating them to education and infrastructure and other
things that could also help reduce crime, what are some
of the things within cop City that has people so
riled up? King, Yeah, so in addition to the price,
it's really about the terms of the deal. So the
(04:25):
site that Georgia is talking about is three hundred and
fifty acres for a prospective, all of six flags over Georgia,
including the parking lots is two hundred and ninety acres.
So this lets you know initially what that was. And
the thing that was more egregious was that three hundred
and fifty acres was going to be given to the
Atlanta Police at a rate of ten dollars a year.
And so you know, that's a part of Atlanta and
south southwestern cal County East per acre per year or
(04:47):
ten dollars a whole lot, ten dollars a number three
at McDonald's. That's how much it was going to be
per year. And so we're talking about have six flags
for one of the hantsmen, yes, And so then people
got upset, and so then they used to acreage down
to to still ten dollars a year. But now at
eighty five acres, and so eighty five acres is still
a pretty large amount of space for this particular facility.
(05:09):
Shopping it is. It is a very large suburban shopping mall.
And so then the other part of the cost that
you asked was. There's a couple of things that they're
doing that in many ways, this is there they're owed
to the Atlanta Police, and so you have everything from
a horse training facility which they're already currently trained nearby
a grand park which costs them effectively nothing because they're
given a lease through the zoo to also have their
(05:31):
training facility for their horses there. They're bringing the burn
building in, which is going to be at a cost,
which they used to do off of Metropolitan Avenue University Avenue,
which coincidentally enough, was not too far from the place
where Rayshard Brooks was murdered at They're also bringing in
every particular unit that they've had before and one unified
facility in that facility. Right now, they're estimated their construction
costs will be about ninety million. There's a high probability
(05:53):
to due to the insurance that's going to be on it,
as what happened yesterday when some processors set fire to
some equipment. That insurance it's probably gonna bump this whole
project up twel over one hundred million dollars when it's
all said and done. How long have the two of
you been both covering this development and you know, like,
when did this become a huh that's pecure because it
(06:13):
was seeing off the top George. If you say that
the training facilities are inadequate, and I would imagine after
the race Shard Brooks fiasco and everything that happened with
George Floyd in twenty twenty, and then you all had
the blue flu thing with the Atlanta PD where droves
of officers were calling in sick as a form of
silent protests to the officers being charged and everything that
(06:34):
happened there. So I would imagine something like Cops City
if the police department has inadequate training and then there's
a new facility that's gonna be multimillion in bells and
whistles that would help morale in theory. So when did
this become a thing of huh, why is this bad?
Beyond the fact that why y'all spending all that money
on that and not stuff over here. So one, you're
(06:57):
really well informed. I'm impressed. And that's the staff that
ain't me. I'm tell you right now. We've got a
great team behind the thing that made me found intelligence.
Keep going the open thing. The both of us have
been watching this since the beginning, and part of it
is that people were in the street in twenty twenty
saying we want better cops, we want fewer cops, we
want more social workers and fewer people in jail. And
(07:22):
then the city turned around and said, we're going to
spend thirty million in public money in sixty million in
private money to build this sort of playground for cops.
And that's not the thing. If that was just it,
people would be irritated there. It's not this city who's
going to own this thing. It's this Atlanta Police Foundation.
(07:43):
The second largest police foundation in the United States is
at the Atlanta Police Foundation. It's not the Chicago Cops Foundation.
It's not in LA it's not Baltimore, it's not DC.
It's Atlanta, like, which is crazy to begin with, and
it looks like this thing where they're going to be.
(08:05):
It's not just the Atlanta police who are going to
train there. Anybody who's got a police force in the
whole South southern United States is going to be able
to go there too. And so even if the Atlanta
cops are training like we want them to train some
podunk yokel town from North Tennessee who wants to learn
(08:28):
how to kick the crap out of people more effectively,
can come down there and train anyway they like, and
there's nothing that the city can do to change that
because they don't run the facility, and so this thing can.
Instead of propagating the best possible police training you could get,
(08:48):
you end up with this thing that could propagate the
very worst kind of police training that you could get.
All over the Southeast. People are comparing this to the
School of an Americas where out in at for betting
in Columbus. For years, South American dictators would send their
troops to learn how to put down riots. Yeah, you
(09:12):
know there, that's the comparison that's being made. Gentlemen, talk
to me a little bit about how the construction of
this facility is going to affect the surrounding counties and
areas like that. Part of it was something within our
daily show piece that we did. We weren't able to
get into that at the depth that I wanted to
(09:33):
in the actual segment, even though I was outside with
Jackie Echoes on that damn river for about four hours
and a kayak and I don't know if y'all ever
been in a river and a kayak, and you ain't
had breakfast, and the water the water is low, so
you keep hitting sandbars, so you got to scoot your
booty across the ruined the good bad. Jordan's talk to
us about why I was on a damn river miles
(09:57):
away from the actual construction site of Cops City, and
why that part of the story it's as equally important
as it is about the over policing aspects of it.
All right, So for people at home who don't know
what this is, Atlanta is very unique in the sense
that it sits in between two counties, Fulton County and
Decab County. And the TLDR version of this is that
the site that cop City is in a part known
(10:18):
as Colloqui Atlanta Decap, so it's the City of Atlanta property,
but within Decab County. And how this plays out is
all of the wastewater that comes through both the City
of Atlanta and Decap County go along the South River,
which is what Roy was paddling. On. That river in particular, though,
has a lot of people who dump things illegally and
a lot of dumps who legally dump into that space.
(10:40):
Cop City is now going to be contributing to the
South River's pollution as well. And because of the terms
of the deal, there is no oversight for what happens
on the site, especially the burn building, and also with
everything that's in the sediment that's already on the site,
So that sediment is going to just be impacted more
with the construction and then with the activities on there,
and that's going to also be getting back into the river,
and that river in particular. It's a piece that I'm
(11:01):
working on for something else, is that we think that
that may actually be a cancer alley. And what that
means is for a lot of the black people who
live in southwest to Cab County and people who live
on that side of the City of Atlanta, they're getting
inundated with a lot of air pollution and a lot
of water pollution, and a lot of ground pollution as
well from all the people who are dumping into that.
And the police and cop city are also going to
be contributed to that as well. And as a result
(11:22):
of that, we have this issue where the place that
you're paddling eventually goes back into the South River fully
and that thing goes all the way through to Cab County,
which has seen an influx of teachers in particular who
are teaching along this river path, get cancer, die of cancer,
and get other related diseases. Now because of all of
the environmental things that are happening just from that river
in particular. Then also, George, what Jackie was trying to
(11:45):
explain to me, and this is a part of the
piece that we ended up cutting out because environmental issues
and then environmental racism. It is very hard to make
quick and concise, to fit into a thirty minute television
show and also make it money. But she was trying
to explain to me, Basically, the bill site for cop
(12:06):
City is a lot of dirt, dirt absorbed water. You
put concrete over dirt. The water got to go somewhere.
When it rained the water it would now go downstream
and tear up more shit. Explain to me she didn't
see it like that, Jackie echos. No, she is filled
with unimpeachable truth. But the flooding, the flooding aspects of
it as well, anyways to measure that or has that
(12:29):
been taken into accounts? So yeah, let me talk about
that a little bit. Like Atlanta, everybody wants to move
to Atlanta. Everybody wants to move to Atlanta. Seventy five
thousand people end up in Metro Atlanta every year, and
we're not building anything for them except that we are
like the you look around Atlanta, they're construction cranes everywhere
(12:53):
and they're paving everything. And whenever you pave enough stuff,
the water that would normally go one way goes another.
And so like, you get a really good rain in
Atlanta and the highway will flood, Like that's how bad
it is, Like a really solid couple of days of
rain and you can't drive on two eighty five without
(13:16):
going through ten inches of water. The worst flooding is
happening into camp because we're our sewer systems are garbage
because we didn't overbuild for all the people that have
been coming here, and all this runoff is being created,
and it's going into black neighborhoods. Let's going to neighborhoods
like mine. I live on a creek and we had
(13:40):
to do a million dollars worth of remediation on that
creek because you know, when we had a good a
good rain, it would flood houses. So let's drop a
mall in the middle of this river essentially, and see
how many houses of black people we're going to flood
down Street. And the worst part of this is that
(14:03):
area is getrifying, but it's also filled with black homeowners.
Black homeowners are rare, Like, we don't have enough black homeowners.
And so you're gonna tell me that people who are
actually starting to get equity in their houses are those
are the folks you're gonna float out by building this. Yeah,
(14:24):
people are kind of pissed off about that, but they're
only kind of pissed off. They're not super pissed off
because it hasn't happened yet. Okay, so we've covered what
cop City is. We've covered all of the different ways
that it could be bad for the community, be it fiscally,
be it environmentally. Now we need to talk about the
people and what they're doing to try and stop it.
(14:46):
After the break, I want to talk about this group
of people I met called the Forest Defenders, who are
actually living on the cop City construction site. And who
the hell is full cop City? If everything that y'all
to just laid out, it's talking about this bad fit
is bad, that is bad for that. Who is the
person that wrote a check, and it's like, here's forty million,
good luck, can go build it. It's beyond the scenes.
(15:07):
We'll be right back. Beyond the scenes. We are back.
We are discussing Cops City, or excuse me, George, the
Atlanta City of Police Training and Fire Medical Facility Readiness
Activity Zone. That's not like, don't ever make me put
(15:28):
that in the headline. Nobody will read the story we've
covered so far, the cons of Cops City and the
fact that it could become a place to mistrain a
lot of officers in a lot of different places, their
environmental issues that have come from Cops City. It is
a fiscal boone doggle as well. Part of the reason
Cops City it started to cost a lot of money
(15:50):
is because there are a group of people that have
encamped themselves in the in the construction area, like literally
living in this area. They call themselves the Forest Defenders.
And I was able to meet some of these people
for my story, and they were extremely secretive because you know,
we're getting into like real secret enemy of the State
type stuff where they believe their cell phones are being tapped,
(16:12):
they're being monitored by drones. They believe the police are
trying to come in undercover and and bent themselves with them.
Like it is a lot of different things that are
being accused from the Forest Defenders towards the city of Atlanta,
and u all's coverage of this from the inception of
Cops City, when did you start seeing the Forest Defenders
start to become a thing and how did that whole
(16:34):
movement emerge and when did it start becoming deadly? So
to that point, Atlanta's overall activists ecosystem for the last
couple of years have been relatively decimated, and so the
few activists who really knew about it almost from the
beginning had already started stage in protests either just online
or throughout the city and especially around that place, So
(16:55):
people were already there almost from day one about the
site decimated in what sense like arrest stand just kind
of torn apart during George Floyd movement, or well even
before George Floyd. So that's a good point. So a
lot of our activists, there's no infrastructure, So activists can't
necessarily go into a heritage foundation, they don't get into law,
they don't get into the universities. Even so, after a
(17:15):
series of crackdowns on various protests, with the last being
the thing called Tent City over at the old Turner
Field which is now Georgia State Stadium. A lot of
them after getting arrested, a lot of them after being
fired from their jobs, they just left, They left the city,
or they left the movements all together, and then there
was no other people to kind of come in and
take over, like that next wave of leadership, which is
(17:36):
something you see in most political movements. And so the
people who started coming around and started encamping themselves, a
lot of them weren't necessarily from Atlanta, but a lot
of them were getting news about Atlanta from people on
the ground or former activists, that people sharing things in
their social fees. So they felt emboldened to come here
because there was nobody to literally defend the force that
was there. Because the activists who normally would have been
here in most cities just aren't here anymore. We just
(17:58):
don't have that ecosystem, not because they are weak or
anything like that, just because there's nothing to support them.
There was no way to level up. So that's kind
of how we get to that point of the forest
defenders and also the forest defenders, I want to add
into that is that a lot of them also interact
with other groups like general historic preservationists, arborist, local decav
residents who didn't like the projects. So it was a
(18:18):
lot easier for them to start getting familiar with the city,
get familiar with the players really fast, because there was
a lot of people who just didn't like this project
for various reasons. What was interesting when I was out
there king was that locals were like bringing them food
and little debbies like legit care packages, you know, George,
if we want to get into the military. You know,
they was dropping off the mri kits who robbed. He
(18:41):
was dropping off the supplyt but like they were like
straight up supply drops, like from just strangers being sent
money a number of different ways. I won't say how,
but they had infrastructure setup where they could get that
level of support from outsiders. So they get in, they
started camping, and they start doing things to kind of
(19:02):
be you know, a pain to the construction companies. You know,
like they may tear up some of the equipment, or
they'll set up a blockade so you can't get that
particular tree cutting saw down this path or whatever. And
the police always come in and try to tear down
their barricades, and people have started butting heads more and
more as the price of this project increases. George, it
(19:26):
seems that tension has also seemed to increase because there's
a level of urgency to just get it done that
starts coming from people. When do you think that tensions
start when things start to turn for the worst with
this Oh, I want to say maybe fall last year
you started to see like a truck get overturned here
(19:47):
there you had a fewer arrests, and the cops have
made a big deal about the fact that the folks
who are getting arrested are generally from out of town,
that they're white people with money from play, just like
kid of Bunkport, Maine. And that's important, I think because
it shows that there's a national interest in what's going
(20:08):
on here. Things really like the But when Tortuguita, he's
an activist who was killed by the by the police,
and there's still some controversy over the circumstances of that
they found a gun. The gun was registered to him,
(20:28):
but there's a question about how the shooting actually started,
who shot first, who shot first? There is some non
zero chance you met this guy I met twenty to thirty.
They wouldn't all agree to be on camera. The ones
that you saw on camera firepiece. That was a small
fraction other forest defenders I met that day. Yeah, so
(20:48):
that's sort of that energized things. That there were vigils
in fifty other cities around the country in the days
that fall Tortuguita's death. And I think that's what led
to what happened last night, where they've started a week
of protest. You know, they had a concert out in
(21:10):
the forest, like sort of a festival, and then a
bunch of guys dressed up in black and set construction
equipment on fire and started throwing fireworks at the cops
that came to put it out. They arrested. Usually it's
five or six people, maybe ten. They arrested thirty five
last night. I think we're going to steam more escalation. Yeah,
(21:32):
this was at the beginning of March in twenty twenty
three when that happened. To that point, and I want
to be fair to the forest defenders, but I want
to I want to kind of pose a question to
the two of you. Does protest because they love to
get into you know, respectability politics. When it's time to protest, right,
they go, well, you're protesting, but you have to leave
(21:52):
at eight pm. The proper protest window is this time
and stand here, and this this the protest way. Whereas
the forest defenders have done what they've done with Cops City,
and they have effectively delayed construction, they have effectively increased
awareness of the issue. They have effectively drawn more attention
to the issue. But does the way that they are
(22:16):
drawing attention to the issue then give the police and
the supporters of this issue justification to go see they
are terrorists, they are that guy was shooting fire where
I'm a sworn law enforcement officer. Does that approach to
protesting only embolden the people who want Cops City to happen, Yes, directly. Yes.
(22:41):
And in the case of Atlanta, it's a city built
on respectability politics, and especially with black respectability politics. And
I think it's interesting, especially in the real world, like
the average person in Atlanta still vaguely understands what cop
City is. But what they do understand is that, oh no,
these weird leftists from Portland are burning police things again, right,
And so that's kind of been used as like some
of the compaganda and getting this promoter. And so now
(23:03):
you have general other police departments from around the metro
area who were starting to show up. Like last night,
it was a bunch of them who showed up as
a show of force to the site for no reason.
But now it's becoming like a slight culture war in
that respect as well. And Atlanta really doesn't historically doesn't
really budge against authority for the most part. This Atlanta
way of doing things, of having respectability politics, protests before dark,
(23:26):
make sure you're in the house, have you apply for
a permit to protest. All those things have played into
like the ecosystem of Atlanta. And I do want to
add just one other thing, which is it is now
becoming more and more difficult to protests. You have to
not only apply for permits to protesting. But we have
this thing that happened in the summer of twenty twenty
then doubled down again in this upcoming legislative session about
(23:47):
cracking down on protests, and this thing called the Police
Officers Bill of Rights, which makes it really hard now
for a protest. It's not only protest police directly, but
if an officer you know, let's say he pushes a
person and that person falls on another officer. That person
could be charged with a saw or if somebody wants
to fund the Forest Defenders, that person can be charged
with aiding a terrorist organization or aiding an organization against
(24:07):
law enforcement. So that's slowly and systematically reducing the parameters
of protests to make it seem as if no protests
exists in Atlanta. The other side of this, in a
matter of speaking, is that there is a protest that
they may actually have a practical veto here. So this
project is looks like ninety million, looks like it's actually
(24:27):
going to be more than ninety million. But here's the thing.
The Atlanta Police Foundation says that they've got sixty million
dollars and pledges, but they're also trying to borrow money
in order to get this thing built. And the logger
this takes with interest rates doing what interest rates are doing,
and what construction costs are doing. Like at some point,
(24:51):
it's entirely possible that this gets away from the Atlanta
Police Foundation financially simply because this gets delayed. If they
if the Forest Defenders can delay this thing for a
year or eighteen months, it may no longer be financially viable.
And what they're they may be counting on is that
(25:12):
the Atlanta Police Foundation will try to go hat in
hand to the City of Atlanta and say, I know
that we said that you only need to to spend
thirty million, but we really need sixty million. And at
that point, the city will have to put this up
in a bond referendum and there will be a vote
on whether or not cop City should go forward. And
(25:33):
if you're one of the forest defenders, you think you
could win that vote. And that's so strategically, it's not, Yeah,
you're gonna piss off a lot of people, but that's
not stupid in that regard. So then to that point, George,
all the people that are in support of building cop City,
if we know cop City is bad for the environment,
(25:55):
if we know that they could create a culture of
potential over policing, over rests of policing, if we're not
focusing on all the on all the other aspects of
police training that helped to de escalate, because it sounds
like cop City is one big a When when when
should escalate this? When you come here to learn how
to handles it when s escalate. How who are the
(26:15):
people that are bankrolling this and why are they still
okay with it? There's gotta be something is big. There's
got to be some corporate money behind it. It's got
to be some government money behind it. How are these
people still How are those organizations still okay with cop
City moving forward? So there's a lot of there's a
lot of corporate bundy here. The Atlanta Police Foundation has
(26:35):
got a bunch of banks included Walls, Fargo, Um, there's
Chick fil A, Truest, I think um Cox enterprises like
Cox Cable, which it includes the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which
makes for fun reading about this, like the paper swears
(26:55):
on the stack of bibles. No, no, no, no, we're
not biased, even though the corporate owners are reading. They're
the guys who are reading the fundraising effort for this.
There's a lot of corporate money involved, and it's suspicious
in my opinion. But and I think here's the thing though,
(27:17):
those corporations that are contributing to this, all they're doing
is buying influence. I don't think they actually give one
damn about Cops City as a thing, but they know
that the Atlanta Police Foundation can jerk the city council
around and potentially cost some city council seats, And as
long as that's true, they can influence the city council
(27:40):
by funding the Atlanta Police Foundation. Yeah. I won't get
into the weeds of the things I learned in the
state of Alabama when I was trying to shoot my
sitcom for Comedy Central in twenty eighteen, but I did
learn that if you want to get a politician to
do something, you don't talk to the politician. You talk
to the politicians bank roll. And so if the Atlanta
(28:03):
Police are the people that have the leverage over the politicians,
and you do something in their favor, then they are
more likely to So yeah, I could. I could see that.
So it's less of a ya police versus sooner or later,
we need you to pass the law that's gonna help
our company, we chick Filate. We need the chicken to
be cheaper. So if I give you a little money
for cop City, make sure the chicken is cheap so
(28:24):
I can make a little extra problem increasing the cost
of Cops City. Is that the only effective way to
get corporations to go Wait a minute, we got to
pull out of this because it sounds like it sounds
like money is the only thing that's really getting anything
done so far or affecting the cost of it. It
(28:45):
doesn't seem like morals have entered the conversation at all. Yeah,
at this point, right now, it's definitely money. And you
said something earlier I do want to add into that,
which is that the average person in Lancer again still
really doesn't know what cop city is. Like they get
their new some either social fees of the five o'clock
for the most part, and when they hear about this
and they're kind of ambivalent. The difference is once you
(29:05):
start getting into a lot of the details of the deal,
it goes from like ambivalent to a we should really
reconsider a lot of parameters on this really fast. And
the reason why I think there's a lot of money
trying to push this ahead of time is because once
the average person in Lancer starts to learn a little
bit more about it, and especially now with the communities
in South Dacab who are also now becoming including this
(29:26):
conversation about the environmental racism, there's a lot more people
now who are really starting to question the nature of
this project. Yeah, they may not necessarily like the out
of town is pushing over cars and you know, throwing firecrackers,
but they do want to know there's some other things
cop cities representing that they're either not getting directly and
directed a or that's going to affect them really fast.
So it's kind of become an issue of time and
(29:48):
money is like proceeding faster than the time is allowing
for people to really think about it. Would it have
mattered if if the protester was from Decatur or whether
or not they from Maine. If they're there to fight
against something, why is that even a talking point to
try and get people to disregard with these people who
are willing to die for It's an old native strategy.
But I promise you I'm from Decator. If that person
(30:09):
would do from Decator, there wouldn't have been no cop said,
there wouldn't been no force. Like people indicator that they
operate very differently. And so I do think that people
when they bring up this outer town or thing, it
makes the narrative that you know what, people in Atlanta
support this. These are people. It's like the good old
boy system of like, oh, these outside agitators coming in
and really like stirring up the pot. But if it
(30:29):
was again somebody from Indicator, if it was a nineteen
year old from Decatur, I guarantee you not only would
cop City not be there. Andre Dickins is probably not
the mayor at this point, right, Like, people in Atlanta
move very differently if they feel like one of their
own have been disrespected, And I think that's something that
they've been leaning on with regards to cops cities, like, hey,
one of us didn't do this. This was one of
them from outside of our state. And that's kind of
what we're seeing play out right now. There's the environmental
(30:51):
racism part of this when we talk about, you know,
creating cancer alleys from a lot of the burnoff. You
know you got to burn building, I mean you got smoke.
That means you got chemicals going in the water, because
they take chemicals to make fake fire, you know, to
make control fires. So what about the surrounding cities. Because
the river don't stop in the Atlanta metro it keeps
(31:14):
running on down the state. Have any of the other
states even came in and just has Laurence to Belle
checked in, has making Georgia checked in, Hey, could y'all
not send the cancer downstream please? We would appreciate. Like
how much is the rest of where does the rest
of surrounding Georgia? You know, I can't God, I can't
(31:35):
remember the Communitian that made the joke. Atlanta is Atlanta,
but it's surrounded by Georgia. Has Georgia checked in on
what Atlanta is doing? So for the most part, I
don't think Georgia cares. I think part of it is
because like the rest of Georgia hates Atlanta, Like like
once you get out of Metro Atlanta, like they if
they could shoot Atlanta, they would, like there's literally they
(31:57):
like they were ready to blow up Atlanta, split off
buckhead from the rest of the city. Now we don't
even have a time to talk about it. They're trying
trying to seceed from the city everybody else. Every Like
if you're a politician from the rest of the state,
like you run against those horrible liberals in Atlanta and
(32:21):
they could do nothing right and to heck with them,
Like that's that is the attitude outside of Metro Atlanta.
But how's it going to affect them? Don't they know?
That first off lay out some of the ways this
could affect those surrounding areas, and are they gonna just
you know, just not gonna say deathing. So it depends
on exactly who you're talking to, like because if you
(32:42):
are in suburban Columbus, you know, and it's a like
red state Georgia, uh like you're like, yeah, maybe there's
run off, but we don't care because it's not gonna
hurt us, Like that would be the attitude. But hey,
maybe we can drive our police department up there and
go do some fancy training for a lot cheaper than
(33:04):
we could do it before, and it'll be better for
the most part. I think the rest of the state,
maybe even surrounding states like this, the police narrative controls
how they're going to view this. If they're pro cop
they're pro cop city, if they want police accountability that
they've heard about why cop city is wrong. But I
(33:25):
don't think that they're going to have as much. Like
here's the thing Atlanta does not want, Like the city
of Atlanta and decapp County really don't want the rest
of the country and the rest of the state weighing
in on this. They want to be in control of
what's happening in their own backyard, because generally speaking, when
other people come in like that's that's when you get
(33:46):
like our red state Republican governor like taking a dump
on the city, and they're afraid of that. And I
understand that, Like, that's why they're pushing this outside agitators
even though it is this horribly racist callback. I gotta
tell you too, like nineteen sixties, those northern agitators are
(34:08):
coming in here like that's what it found sounds like
to me because I know these things, but they think
that it'll buy them some space. Well, after the break,
we're gonna bring it home and talk about some of
the other initiatives that have been going on in and
around the city of Atlanta to help rectify a lot
of issues that have been happening in Atlanta. Also, after
(34:30):
the break, I need to get your recommendations for the
best limon pepper wings. That's why seventy five thousand people
a year moving to Atlanta. Them damn wings stop having
good wings, and then maybe people wouldn't move there. This
is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back beyond the scenes.
We round in third and headed for home. We are
talking about cops city and the different pros and cons
(34:54):
of it. Now, George, before we got to the break,
we were laughing but still being a serious about some
of the different initiatives and referendums that have been put
in place in Atlanta in the last couple of years.
We talk about the city of Buckhead trying to sit
like essentially the way Beverly Hills eight part of Los Angeles,
no more like it's still LA but with Beverly Hills,
(35:17):
we have our own city hall, we have our own
police department. King have there been other initiatives and referendums
that have been passed in the last couple of years
in Atlanta in terms of secession, no, not like the
Buckhet city hood thing, But in terms of city hood, yes.
Everyone right now Metrolanta is trying to create their own fiefdoms.
And Sanday Springs really kicked that off there in North
Fulton County, just outside the city limits of Buckhead, actually,
(35:40):
and in two thousand and five they became the first
to really kick off this modern cityhood movement, and since
then every municipality has tried to do their own version
of Hey, we're not going to allocate our tax dollars
to help those people. You can infer what that means
when every time that comes up. The thing that makes
it different now is that we've had since two thousand
and five, we've only at two black ones. One is
(36:01):
the city of Stone Crest, and then we also have
South Fulton, And so those are two majority black cityhood efforts,
and they have had a varying degree of success compared
to the white ones. But everyone right now is trying
to be their own version of a city, and Buckhead
being its own version of the city led by people
outside of the state, I mean, outside of the metro
Atlanta area is the latest in a long chapter or that.
(36:24):
But if these predominantly white areas, which I would assume
are probably red red part of town, a little okay, wealthy,
but not necessarily red purplish, if you will, okay a
little bit. George's like kind of sort of why leave Atlanta? Like?
(36:49):
Is it decisions like the cop city thing? Is it
decisions like you know, the way that the Rayshard Brooks
trial of those officers was handled. What are the pros
and cons of leaving the city. Why can't Atlanta just
say get the hell on, and we don't need your
little fucking little tax adalyst. Good. I got Chick fil
A in my backpacket. I'm gonna go off for a
(37:12):
second because the whole buckhead thing was a lot. How
much profanity can I use? Do what you want? So
the whole it's just bullshit that was created by one
guy who was a fundraiser for Trump, like this one
racist felt straw piece of shit, like it decides I can. Like,
(37:36):
there's this untapped group of rich white conservative Tucker Carlson
watching people who've got more money than sense who the
Republican Party has never figured out how to fundraise off
of effectively. And so incomes this guy from New York
(37:56):
who moves in a buckhead and says we should split
bucket it off because Atlanta sucks, and he's just it's
just an excuse to send out newsletters raising money. It
was never going to pass. It was never ever ever
going aroused to fundraise. And then when you lose, you
go see they don't want us to be great. Join
(38:18):
me in the fight with the five donar donation, more
like a five thousand dollars donation. Oh hang on that, yeah, man,
it's buckheat I mean you gotta know it, like, that's it.
That's all that was, And a lot of this other
stuff is like in the same vein. It's this idea
that black communities can't figure out how to govern themselves.
(38:39):
At least that's the that's the lie, and so like,
if you don't like, if you don't like the idea
of having a black mayor as a white person, here's
a way for you to get up and around that.
Even to that point, though, like what you said about
the Buckheat cityhood thing was interesting because for a host
of reason that was never going to work, which is
why Brian Kemp had to come in and kind of
(39:01):
put the foot down on that one. But the other
issue is cop City was brought to the Buckhead business
leaders as we wad to keep away succession from Atlanta.
It was like, hey, you know, you want police around
the ray Sharbrooks Around June of twenty twenty, I mean,
we have it. Even by August of twenty twenty, they're
already in cahoots with a couple of day I'm not
going to say certain city council members are already talking
to Buckhead leaders about what can they do to support
(39:22):
the police, and by December of twenty twenty, we already
have like the plan that would eventually become cop City.
So it was always always going to be a part
of it, and Buckhead was always going to be leading
that effort to have cop City. So the fact that
this person in particular wanted to lead a fundraising effort
to seceed from Atlanta based on the notional police was
just one of the best scams in Atlanta history. I mean,
it's maybe a top five moment. How much do the
(39:45):
police respect the data of how crime is lowered versus
simply passing things that will get them the support of
their community, Like if we're talking local politician and you
know X y Z reading initiative will help. We know
(40:07):
that the connection between literacy and crime rates. The more
area can read, the lower the crime rate is in
that area. We also know that you can take some
of the money for the police tank and create a
non weaponized response like they have in Portland. Portland has
a division that is just responding to mental health and
(40:28):
minor domestic stuff that the cops normally would be the
ones going to, which is less work on your police,
which is less stress on your police which equals a
higher morale and a better, better work environment. Those things
could all contribute to lowering crime. So why be so
dedicatedly invested into the one thing that makes it seem
(40:49):
like the only way to be tough on crime is
in a punitive way. Because let's be as three Southern
on this podcast right now, we all came up in
the ass whooping phase of a solve so tough, heavy
hand billy club. Do cops and politicians do they really
believe that all this and all these other initiatives will
(41:10):
really help to lower crime? And all got a lot
to say about this because if that'sn't just selling to
the cab and Sandy Springs and fucking Villa Rica. But
if that's what you're trying to get them to be
a part of, aren't you still lying? Like the shoot
is gonna shoot, Drama still gonna be drama. So it's
(41:32):
funny like the city's got like a Portland style thing.
They started it a few years ago. I was actually
on the design team for the pre arrest Diversion initiative
in Atlanta. Add the thing is, it gets like three
or four million dollars a year. It's got like a dozen,
maybe two dozen people who are working on it, and
it's hamstrung by all of the other things that are broken.
(41:55):
The jail is broken, the courts are broken, the cops
are kind of broken, and the District Attorney's office doesn't
have enough staff to really do all the things they
need to do. There aren't enough public defenders to go around.
Like it's like there's this gigantic mess in the system. Meanwhile,
like they're going to spend thirty million dollars on cops
(42:17):
city and their idea here is okay, so we're spending
They're in their head, they're going, well, we're already spending
all this money on all of these other things like
bail reform and all the rest, so we should probably
spend more money on the cops too. Like in their head,
this is a balance, Like this is the balancing point
to all of the other stuff that they're doing. Even
though all the other stuff that they're doing is really
(42:39):
not nearly enough, it is a lot less than that
they're spending on police. The problem is, as soon as
you say that, somebody comes in and says you want
to defend the police, and then everybody turns into a muppet. Yeah.
But that's also because be fun wasn't the best word
because people thought they may take all the money. Was like, nah, man,
(43:00):
you don't need a tank. Here's a here's a suv instead.
Here's a fortified suv instead of a tank. And we're
gonna take the tank money, and we're gonna put some
Doctor Seuss books in the hood, and we're gonna lower
a crime. That's all we were trying to do. I'll
end with with this question for the two of you.
(43:20):
How do you all feel the city of Atlanta is
being perceived nationally? How the perception of the city of
Atlanta has it evolved or devolved over the last few
years with Cops City being a big part of this,
and you know Governor Kemp threatening to send in the
National Guard, you know, the National Guard gonna coming in.
(43:45):
Let's just say the National Guard. If does anybody need
to go to the cop City for some trainer, it's
probably the National Guard because they ain't training as often
as the cops about how to do cops stuff. How
do you all feel the city of Atlanta is has
been perceived like this? Does this set up a precedent
for the city, you know, in terms of the reputation
(44:05):
of it. Does it encourage other cities to build their
own pop city? Is Memphis gonna be inspired? Is Miami
gonna be inspired? Oh? My god? All right, I swear
to God, I hope everyone does not try to make
their own cop City for a host of reason. It's
bad for money, back for Atlanta, is bad for the environment.
That's personally what I do think. The overtime, Atlanta, It's
gonna win. Atlanta always wins out. That's the beauty of
(44:27):
being in Atlanta's no matter what, you always win. Over
the last couple of years ago an in combination with
cop City, in the last few years of the previous mayor,
and just in general, there has been a push of
like Atlanta's it's black, but it's not the Mecca anymore.
And I do think that if Atlanta is not working
on brand control right now, you could have a scenario
in which people really just leave Atlanta right Atlanta doesn't
have the infrastructure that Atlanta doesn't have necessarily the connective
(44:50):
tissue like a New York City does, or a Miami
that you mentioned, or even in La to keep attracting
black people. So I do think the current mayor. After
this cop city phase goes over, he's going to try
to figure out how to make Atlanta the Black Mecca
again or make the Mecca great again, because you can't
lose that representation that we have otherwise and we're no
different from any other city across the country. Yeah, the
(45:12):
thing I turned my mind is you're asking this question
is the twenty twenty four National Democratic National Convention. So
the mayors try Michael to get the convention in Atlanta,
and I think he might actually be successful. It's either
going to be here or Chicago. Like, the thing is,
if Atlanta is perceived as a place where we've got
a bunch of protests over stuff like this, that's the
(45:36):
image that Atlanta, like this whole cop city has the
potential to change the perception of Atlanta across the country
depending on what's going on. You know what, year, three
or four months from now, I'm with King on the
Black Mecca thing, Like there's a group of us who
are trying to strangle that in a bathtub somewhere. Like
(45:59):
this is a great city, it's a great city to
be black. But if you're born black and poor in Atlanta,
like you are, screwed in a lot of ways, like
it does not. It is not a happy place for you.
We've got less mobility for eat, less economic mobility than
almost anywhere else in the United States. It's hard to
get out, it's hard to climb out of poverty in Atlanta,
(46:21):
and we don't see that. We see love and hip hop,
we see you know, the Atlanta TV show, we see
the Marvel movies. You know, we've got rappers Eight Ways
to Sunday talking about Atlanta. Like if they don't see
the hard parts, they don't see why. We've got like
a crime problem that people think we need to build
(46:41):
a cop city to deal with. And I think that's
gonna change. And if it doesn't, you can always sell
the city to Tyler Perry and he'll fix it immediately. Gentlemen,
I cannot thank you all enough for this wonderful, wonderful conversation.
When I get down to Atlanta, UM, I'll let you
(47:03):
all take me out to your wing spot of choice.
We don't have to name no places right now. They
didn't pay us for no endorsements, but just please don't
take me to the Varsity. I've had everything on the menu,
d the varsity forty eight different times. So I just don't.
Don't take me to the varsity. George King, thank you
so much for going beyond the scenes with me. Thank you,
(47:26):
thank you. Listen to The Daily Show Beyond the Scenes
on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get
your podcasts. We don't give a damn, just listen.
Welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the podcast that goes a
little deeper into topics and segments that originally aired on
The Daily Show. This is what you gotta think of?
This podcast has right okay, Like you know you got
prom right, you go to your senior prom, you have
a good time at the dance. This podcast is everything
that happens after the prom. We're the party bus. Where
(00:27):
to take us to the club. We're the fight at
waffle house. Don't worry, We're still gonna get your home
by midnight. And you daddy ain't gonna know that you
two up to tuxedo and your ruined his deposit. This week,
we're delving a little deeper into a topic that we
just recently discussed on the show. I went down to
Atlanta to learn about a place called Cops City. Cops
City is a training facility that's being presented as the
(00:49):
new way to train Atlanta's police and fire departments. But
Cop Cities brought a lot of controversy. Give it a clip.
Atlanta is busy downtown, just send it into chaos. Over
the weekend, hundreds of protesters marched in the streets in
the wake of the death of a twenty six year
old environmental activist. The activist was killed on Wednesday as
(01:12):
officers cleared protesters from the site of a planned police
training center. Police training center, but these guys are training, right,
This isn't an armed militia of interns. Back before things
got this bad, I went to Atlanta and met with
local activists Jasmine Burnett. The Atlanta Police Foundation is building
a massive urban warfare training facility with bombs, testings, tear
(01:34):
gas explosions, a shooting range, getting people marched to defund
the police. They looked like a refunded Activists have dubbed
this development cops City, an eighty five acre, ninety million
dollar complex including a shooting range, burned buildings, and a
mock city that includes apartments, a school, even a bar.
So this is basically six flags for the police. Yes,
(01:55):
it's a playground. You can't call it a playground or
which you read, there's literally a playground. But I had
a dream about how they could make this project more
appealing to activists. We name it after Monty Luther. Camp
doesn't matter. Tyler Perry presents the training facility. The name
doesn't change the impact. To help us get deeper into
the weeds of this conversation. I'm joined by two wonderful
(02:16):
Atlanta based journalists, George Cheaty and King Williams. George, King,
how you doing today? We're awesome. I'm awesome. You're awesome, George.
Thank you for that. Now, King, you got to top that.
Make me feel more than awesome. Please. Oh, you're the
greatest of all time. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
I'll take that. It was better than yours, George. George,
you gotta work on your greetings to me. I will
(02:37):
suck less later. Before we get into the back and
forth controversy that is cop City, let's just define what
cop City is, George. I'll start with you break down
what it is exactly. So cop City, by the way,
there are people who hate calling at cops City because
it's They think it's pejorative, and I think it's short.
The Atlanta Police Training Center is a replacement for the
(03:01):
Atlanta Police departments police training facilities, which are garbage. I'm
I'll be honest, like that's that's just the truth of it.
Problem is it's a ninety million dollar like park, like
a fun amusement park for cop training, So like a
real world, like like in the military where they recreate
(03:22):
urban warfare in the Middle East, doors and rooms and
all of that. Was the fire department training aspect of
Cops City always part of it or was that rolled
into it as part of a pr Oh No, it's
not all about the police. No, it's definitely was always
part of it. And again, like the current facilities are
are inadequate, Like that's the truth, Like they're falling apart,
(03:44):
there's mold all over everything. It's awful. Um. However, what
they're trying to build is expensive and people are not
happy about it. Okay, So then King, give me some
examples of some of the stuff that's in Coop City.
I imagine for a fire department, you need to build
an I can catch on fire, so you could work
on putting out fires. But for the police aspects of it.
(04:04):
At a time where we're talking about defunding the police
and taking less resources, taking some resources away from police
departments and reallocating them to education and infrastructure and other
things that could also help reduce crime, what are some
of the things within cop City that has people so
riled up? King, Yeah, so in addition to the price,
it's really about the terms of the deal. So the
(04:25):
site that Georgia is talking about is three hundred and
fifty acres for a prospective, all of six flags over Georgia,
including the parking lots is two hundred and ninety acres.
So this lets you know initially what that was. And
the thing that was more egregious was that three hundred
and fifty acres was going to be given to the
Atlanta Police at a rate of ten dollars a year.
And so you know, that's a part of Atlanta and
south southwestern cal County East per acre per year or
(04:47):
ten dollars a whole lot, ten dollars a number three
at McDonald's. That's how much it was going to be
per year. And so we're talking about have six flags
for one of the hantsmen, yes, And so then people
got upset, and so then they used to acreage down
to to still ten dollars a year. But now at
eighty five acres, and so eighty five acres is still
a pretty large amount of space for this particular facility.
(05:09):
Shopping it is. It is a very large suburban shopping mall.
And so then the other part of the cost that
you asked was. There's a couple of things that they're
doing that in many ways, this is there they're owed
to the Atlanta Police, and so you have everything from
a horse training facility which they're already currently trained nearby
a grand park which costs them effectively nothing because they're
given a lease through the zoo to also have their
(05:31):
training facility for their horses there. They're bringing the burn
building in, which is going to be at a cost,
which they used to do off of Metropolitan Avenue University Avenue,
which coincidentally enough, was not too far from the place
where Rayshard Brooks was murdered at They're also bringing in
every particular unit that they've had before and one unified
facility in that facility. Right now, they're estimated their construction
costs will be about ninety million. There's a high probability
(05:53):
to due to the insurance that's going to be on it,
as what happened yesterday when some processors set fire to
some equipment. That insurance it's probably gonna bump this whole
project up twel over one hundred million dollars when it's
all said and done. How long have the two of
you been both covering this development and you know, like,
when did this become a huh that's pecure because it
(06:13):
was seeing off the top George. If you say that
the training facilities are inadequate, and I would imagine after
the race Shard Brooks fiasco and everything that happened with
George Floyd in twenty twenty, and then you all had
the blue flu thing with the Atlanta PD where droves
of officers were calling in sick as a form of
silent protests to the officers being charged and everything that
(06:34):
happened there. So I would imagine something like Cops City
if the police department has inadequate training and then there's
a new facility that's gonna be multimillion in bells and
whistles that would help morale in theory. So when did
this become a thing of huh, why is this bad?
Beyond the fact that why y'all spending all that money
on that and not stuff over here. So one, you're
(06:57):
really well informed. I'm impressed. And that's the staff that
ain't me. I'm tell you right now. We've got a
great team behind the thing that made me found intelligence.
Keep going the open thing. The both of us have
been watching this since the beginning, and part of it
is that people were in the street in twenty twenty
saying we want better cops, we want fewer cops, we
want more social workers and fewer people in jail. And
(07:22):
then the city turned around and said, we're going to
spend thirty million in public money in sixty million in
private money to build this sort of playground for cops.
And that's not the thing. If that was just it,
people would be irritated there. It's not this city who's
going to own this thing. It's this Atlanta Police Foundation.
(07:43):
The second largest police foundation in the United States is
at the Atlanta Police Foundation. It's not the Chicago Cops Foundation.
It's not in LA it's not Baltimore, it's not DC.
It's Atlanta, like, which is crazy to begin with, and
it looks like this thing where they're going to be.
(08:05):
It's not just the Atlanta police who are going to
train there. Anybody who's got a police force in the
whole South southern United States is going to be able
to go there too. And so even if the Atlanta
cops are training like we want them to train some
podunk yokel town from North Tennessee who wants to learn
(08:28):
how to kick the crap out of people more effectively,
can come down there and train anyway they like, and
there's nothing that the city can do to change that
because they don't run the facility, and so this thing can.
Instead of propagating the best possible police training you could get,
(08:48):
you end up with this thing that could propagate the
very worst kind of police training that you could get.
All over the Southeast. People are comparing this to the
School of an Americas where out in at for betting
in Columbus. For years, South American dictators would send their
troops to learn how to put down riots. Yeah, you
(09:12):
know there, that's the comparison that's being made. Gentlemen, talk
to me a little bit about how the construction of
this facility is going to affect the surrounding counties and
areas like that. Part of it was something within our
daily show piece that we did. We weren't able to
get into that at the depth that I wanted to
(09:33):
in the actual segment, even though I was outside with
Jackie Echoes on that damn river for about four hours
and a kayak and I don't know if y'all ever
been in a river and a kayak, and you ain't
had breakfast, and the water the water is low, so
you keep hitting sandbars, so you got to scoot your
booty across the ruined the good bad. Jordan's talk to
us about why I was on a damn river miles
(09:57):
away from the actual construction site of Cops City, and
why that part of the story it's as equally important
as it is about the over policing aspects of it.
All right, So for people at home who don't know
what this is, Atlanta is very unique in the sense
that it sits in between two counties, Fulton County and
Decab County. And the TLDR version of this is that
the site that cop City is in a part known
(10:18):
as Colloqui Atlanta Decap, so it's the City of Atlanta property,
but within Decab County. And how this plays out is
all of the wastewater that comes through both the City
of Atlanta and Decap County go along the South River,
which is what Roy was paddling. On. That river in particular, though,
has a lot of people who dump things illegally and
a lot of dumps who legally dump into that space.
(10:40):
Cop City is now going to be contributing to the
South River's pollution as well. And because of the terms
of the deal, there is no oversight for what happens
on the site, especially the burn building, and also with
everything that's in the sediment that's already on the site,
So that sediment is going to just be impacted more
with the construction and then with the activities on there,
and that's going to also be getting back into the river,
and that river in particular. It's a piece that I'm
(11:01):
working on for something else, is that we think that
that may actually be a cancer alley. And what that
means is for a lot of the black people who
live in southwest to Cab County and people who live
on that side of the City of Atlanta, they're getting
inundated with a lot of air pollution and a lot
of water pollution, and a lot of ground pollution as
well from all the people who are dumping into that.
And the police and cop city are also going to
be contributed to that as well. And as a result
(11:22):
of that, we have this issue where the place that
you're paddling eventually goes back into the South River fully
and that thing goes all the way through to Cab County,
which has seen an influx of teachers in particular who
are teaching along this river path, get cancer, die of cancer,
and get other related diseases. Now because of all of
the environmental things that are happening just from that river
in particular. Then also, George, what Jackie was trying to
(11:45):
explain to me, and this is a part of the
piece that we ended up cutting out because environmental issues
and then environmental racism. It is very hard to make
quick and concise, to fit into a thirty minute television
show and also make it money. But she was trying
to explain to me, Basically, the bill site for cop
(12:06):
City is a lot of dirt, dirt absorbed water. You
put concrete over dirt. The water got to go somewhere.
When it rained the water it would now go downstream
and tear up more shit. Explain to me she didn't
see it like that, Jackie echos. No, she is filled
with unimpeachable truth. But the flooding, the flooding aspects of
it as well, anyways to measure that or has that
(12:29):
been taken into accounts? So yeah, let me talk about
that a little bit. Like Atlanta, everybody wants to move
to Atlanta. Everybody wants to move to Atlanta. Seventy five
thousand people end up in Metro Atlanta every year, and
we're not building anything for them except that we are
like the you look around Atlanta, they're construction cranes everywhere
(12:53):
and they're paving everything. And whenever you pave enough stuff,
the water that would normally go one way goes another.
And so like, you get a really good rain in
Atlanta and the highway will flood, Like that's how bad
it is, Like a really solid couple of days of
rain and you can't drive on two eighty five without
(13:16):
going through ten inches of water. The worst flooding is
happening into camp because we're our sewer systems are garbage
because we didn't overbuild for all the people that have
been coming here, and all this runoff is being created,
and it's going into black neighborhoods. Let's going to neighborhoods
like mine. I live on a creek and we had
(13:40):
to do a million dollars worth of remediation on that
creek because you know, when we had a good a
good rain, it would flood houses. So let's drop a
mall in the middle of this river essentially, and see
how many houses of black people we're going to flood
down Street. And the worst part of this is that
(14:03):
area is getrifying, but it's also filled with black homeowners.
Black homeowners are rare, Like, we don't have enough black homeowners.
And so you're gonna tell me that people who are
actually starting to get equity in their houses are those
are the folks you're gonna float out by building this. Yeah,
(14:24):
people are kind of pissed off about that, but they're
only kind of pissed off. They're not super pissed off
because it hasn't happened yet. Okay, so we've covered what
cop City is. We've covered all of the different ways
that it could be bad for the community, be it fiscally,
be it environmentally. Now we need to talk about the
people and what they're doing to try and stop it.
(14:46):
After the break, I want to talk about this group
of people I met called the Forest Defenders, who are
actually living on the cop City construction site. And who
the hell is full cop City? If everything that y'all
to just laid out, it's talking about this bad fit
is bad, that is bad for that. Who is the
person that wrote a check, and it's like, here's forty million,
good luck, can go build it. It's beyond the scenes.
(15:07):
We'll be right back. Beyond the scenes. We are back.
We are discussing Cops City, or excuse me, George, the
Atlanta City of Police Training and Fire Medical Facility Readiness
Activity Zone. That's not like, don't ever make me put
(15:28):
that in the headline. Nobody will read the story we've
covered so far, the cons of Cops City and the
fact that it could become a place to mistrain a
lot of officers in a lot of different places, their
environmental issues that have come from Cops City. It is
a fiscal boone doggle as well. Part of the reason
Cops City it started to cost a lot of money
(15:50):
is because there are a group of people that have
encamped themselves in the in the construction area, like literally
living in this area. They call themselves the Forest Defenders.
And I was able to meet some of these people
for my story, and they were extremely secretive because you know,
we're getting into like real secret enemy of the State
type stuff where they believe their cell phones are being tapped,
(16:12):
they're being monitored by drones. They believe the police are
trying to come in undercover and and bent themselves with them.
Like it is a lot of different things that are
being accused from the Forest Defenders towards the city of Atlanta,
and u all's coverage of this from the inception of
Cops City, when did you start seeing the Forest Defenders
start to become a thing and how did that whole
(16:34):
movement emerge and when did it start becoming deadly? So
to that point, Atlanta's overall activists ecosystem for the last
couple of years have been relatively decimated, and so the
few activists who really knew about it almost from the
beginning had already started stage in protests either just online
or throughout the city and especially around that place, So
(16:55):
people were already there almost from day one about the
site decimated in what sense like arrest stand just kind
of torn apart during George Floyd movement, or well even
before George Floyd. So that's a good point. So a
lot of our activists, there's no infrastructure, So activists can't
necessarily go into a heritage foundation, they don't get into law,
they don't get into the universities. Even so, after a
(17:15):
series of crackdowns on various protests, with the last being
the thing called Tent City over at the old Turner
Field which is now Georgia State Stadium. A lot of
them after getting arrested, a lot of them after being
fired from their jobs, they just left, They left the city,
or they left the movements all together, and then there
was no other people to kind of come in and
take over, like that next wave of leadership, which is
(17:36):
something you see in most political movements. And so the
people who started coming around and started encamping themselves, a
lot of them weren't necessarily from Atlanta, but a lot
of them were getting news about Atlanta from people on
the ground or former activists, that people sharing things in
their social fees. So they felt emboldened to come here
because there was nobody to literally defend the force that
was there. Because the activists who normally would have been
here in most cities just aren't here anymore. We just
(17:58):
don't have that ecosystem, not because they are weak or
anything like that, just because there's nothing to support them.
There was no way to level up. So that's kind
of how we get to that point of the forest
defenders and also the forest defenders, I want to add
into that is that a lot of them also interact
with other groups like general historic preservationists, arborist, local decav
residents who didn't like the projects. So it was a
(18:18):
lot easier for them to start getting familiar with the city,
get familiar with the players really fast, because there was
a lot of people who just didn't like this project
for various reasons. What was interesting when I was out
there king was that locals were like bringing them food
and little debbies like legit care packages, you know, George,
if we want to get into the military. You know,
they was dropping off the mri kits who robbed. He
(18:41):
was dropping off the supplyt but like they were like
straight up supply drops, like from just strangers being sent
money a number of different ways. I won't say how,
but they had infrastructure setup where they could get that
level of support from outsiders. So they get in, they
started camping, and they start doing things to kind of
(19:02):
be you know, a pain to the construction companies. You know,
like they may tear up some of the equipment, or
they'll set up a blockade so you can't get that
particular tree cutting saw down this path or whatever. And
the police always come in and try to tear down
their barricades, and people have started butting heads more and
more as the price of this project increases. George, it
(19:26):
seems that tension has also seemed to increase because there's
a level of urgency to just get it done that
starts coming from people. When do you think that tensions
start when things start to turn for the worst with
this Oh, I want to say maybe fall last year
you started to see like a truck get overturned here
(19:47):
there you had a fewer arrests, and the cops have
made a big deal about the fact that the folks
who are getting arrested are generally from out of town,
that they're white people with money from play, just like
kid of Bunkport, Maine. And that's important, I think because
it shows that there's a national interest in what's going
(20:08):
on here. Things really like the But when Tortuguita, he's
an activist who was killed by the by the police,
and there's still some controversy over the circumstances of that
they found a gun. The gun was registered to him,
(20:28):
but there's a question about how the shooting actually started,
who shot first, who shot first? There is some non
zero chance you met this guy I met twenty to thirty.
They wouldn't all agree to be on camera. The ones
that you saw on camera firepiece. That was a small
fraction other forest defenders I met that day. Yeah, so
(20:48):
that's sort of that energized things. That there were vigils
in fifty other cities around the country in the days
that fall Tortuguita's death. And I think that's what led
to what happened last night, where they've started a week
of protest. You know, they had a concert out in
(21:10):
the forest, like sort of a festival, and then a
bunch of guys dressed up in black and set construction
equipment on fire and started throwing fireworks at the cops
that came to put it out. They arrested. Usually it's
five or six people, maybe ten. They arrested thirty five
last night. I think we're going to steam more escalation. Yeah,
(21:32):
this was at the beginning of March in twenty twenty
three when that happened. To that point, and I want
to be fair to the forest defenders, but I want
to I want to kind of pose a question to
the two of you. Does protest because they love to
get into you know, respectability politics. When it's time to protest, right,
they go, well, you're protesting, but you have to leave
(21:52):
at eight pm. The proper protest window is this time
and stand here, and this this the protest way. Whereas
the forest defenders have done what they've done with Cops City,
and they have effectively delayed construction, they have effectively increased
awareness of the issue. They have effectively drawn more attention
to the issue. But does the way that they are
(22:16):
drawing attention to the issue then give the police and
the supporters of this issue justification to go see they
are terrorists, they are that guy was shooting fire where
I'm a sworn law enforcement officer. Does that approach to
protesting only embolden the people who want Cops City to happen, Yes, directly. Yes.
(22:41):
And in the case of Atlanta, it's a city built
on respectability politics, and especially with black respectability politics. And
I think it's interesting, especially in the real world, like
the average person in Atlanta still vaguely understands what cop
City is. But what they do understand is that, oh no,
these weird leftists from Portland are burning police things again, right,
And so that's kind of been used as like some
of the compaganda and getting this promoter. And so now
(23:03):
you have general other police departments from around the metro
area who were starting to show up. Like last night,
it was a bunch of them who showed up as
a show of force to the site for no reason.
But now it's becoming like a slight culture war in
that respect as well. And Atlanta really doesn't historically doesn't
really budge against authority for the most part. This Atlanta
way of doing things, of having respectability politics, protests before dark,
(23:26):
make sure you're in the house, have you apply for
a permit to protest. All those things have played into
like the ecosystem of Atlanta. And I do want to
add just one other thing, which is it is now
becoming more and more difficult to protests. You have to
not only apply for permits to protesting. But we have
this thing that happened in the summer of twenty twenty
then doubled down again in this upcoming legislative session about
(23:47):
cracking down on protests, and this thing called the Police
Officers Bill of Rights, which makes it really hard now
for a protest. It's not only protest police directly, but
if an officer you know, let's say he pushes a
person and that person falls on another officer. That person
could be charged with a saw or if somebody wants
to fund the Forest Defenders, that person can be charged
with aiding a terrorist organization or aiding an organization against
(24:07):
law enforcement. So that's slowly and systematically reducing the parameters
of protests to make it seem as if no protests
exists in Atlanta. The other side of this, in a
matter of speaking, is that there is a protest that
they may actually have a practical veto here. So this
project is looks like ninety million, looks like it's actually
(24:27):
going to be more than ninety million. But here's the thing.
The Atlanta Police Foundation says that they've got sixty million
dollars and pledges, but they're also trying to borrow money
in order to get this thing built. And the logger
this takes with interest rates doing what interest rates are doing,
and what construction costs are doing. Like at some point,
(24:51):
it's entirely possible that this gets away from the Atlanta
Police Foundation financially simply because this gets delayed. If they
if the Forest Defenders can delay this thing for a
year or eighteen months, it may no longer be financially viable.
And what they're they may be counting on is that
(25:12):
the Atlanta Police Foundation will try to go hat in
hand to the City of Atlanta and say, I know
that we said that you only need to to spend
thirty million, but we really need sixty million. And at
that point, the city will have to put this up
in a bond referendum and there will be a vote
on whether or not cop City should go forward. And
(25:33):
if you're one of the forest defenders, you think you
could win that vote. And that's so strategically, it's not, Yeah,
you're gonna piss off a lot of people, but that's
not stupid in that regard. So then to that point, George,
all the people that are in support of building cop City,
if we know cop City is bad for the environment,
(25:55):
if we know that they could create a culture of
potential over policing, over rests of policing, if we're not
focusing on all the on all the other aspects of
police training that helped to de escalate, because it sounds
like cop City is one big a When when when
should escalate this? When you come here to learn how
to handles it when s escalate. How who are the
(26:15):
people that are bankrolling this and why are they still
okay with it? There's gotta be something is big. There's
got to be some corporate money behind it. It's got
to be some government money behind it. How are these
people still How are those organizations still okay with cop
City moving forward? So there's a lot of there's a
lot of corporate bundy here. The Atlanta Police Foundation has
(26:35):
got a bunch of banks included Walls, Fargo, Um, there's
Chick fil A, Truest, I think um Cox enterprises like
Cox Cable, which it includes the Atlanta Journal Constitution, which
makes for fun reading about this, like the paper swears
(26:55):
on the stack of bibles. No, no, no, no, we're
not biased, even though the corporate owners are reading. They're
the guys who are reading the fundraising effort for this.
There's a lot of corporate money involved, and it's suspicious
in my opinion. But and I think here's the thing though,
(27:17):
those corporations that are contributing to this, all they're doing
is buying influence. I don't think they actually give one
damn about Cops City as a thing, but they know
that the Atlanta Police Foundation can jerk the city council
around and potentially cost some city council seats, And as
long as that's true, they can influence the city council
(27:40):
by funding the Atlanta Police Foundation. Yeah. I won't get
into the weeds of the things I learned in the
state of Alabama when I was trying to shoot my
sitcom for Comedy Central in twenty eighteen, but I did
learn that if you want to get a politician to
do something, you don't talk to the politician. You talk
to the politicians bank roll. And so if the Atlanta
(28:03):
Police are the people that have the leverage over the politicians,
and you do something in their favor, then they are
more likely to So yeah, I could. I could see that.
So it's less of a ya police versus sooner or later,
we need you to pass the law that's gonna help
our company, we chick Filate. We need the chicken to
be cheaper. So if I give you a little money
for cop City, make sure the chicken is cheap so
(28:24):
I can make a little extra problem increasing the cost
of Cops City. Is that the only effective way to
get corporations to go Wait a minute, we got to
pull out of this because it sounds like it sounds
like money is the only thing that's really getting anything
done so far or affecting the cost of it. It
(28:45):
doesn't seem like morals have entered the conversation at all. Yeah,
at this point, right now, it's definitely money. And you
said something earlier I do want to add into that,
which is that the average person in Lancer again still
really doesn't know what cop city is. Like they get
their new some either social fees of the five o'clock
for the most part, and when they hear about this
and they're kind of ambivalent. The difference is once you
(29:05):
start getting into a lot of the details of the deal,
it goes from like ambivalent to a we should really
reconsider a lot of parameters on this really fast. And
the reason why I think there's a lot of money
trying to push this ahead of time is because once
the average person in Lancer starts to learn a little
bit more about it, and especially now with the communities
in South Dacab who are also now becoming including this
(29:26):
conversation about the environmental racism, there's a lot more people
now who are really starting to question the nature of
this project. Yeah, they may not necessarily like the out
of town is pushing over cars and you know, throwing firecrackers,
but they do want to know there's some other things
cop cities representing that they're either not getting directly and
directed a or that's going to affect them really fast.
So it's kind of become an issue of time and
(29:48):
money is like proceeding faster than the time is allowing
for people to really think about it. Would it have
mattered if if the protester was from Decatur or whether
or not they from Maine. If they're there to fight
against something, why is that even a talking point to
try and get people to disregard with these people who
are willing to die for It's an old native strategy.
But I promise you I'm from Decator. If that person
(30:09):
would do from Decator, there wouldn't have been no cop said,
there wouldn't been no force. Like people indicator that they
operate very differently. And so I do think that people
when they bring up this outer town or thing, it
makes the narrative that you know what, people in Atlanta
support this. These are people. It's like the good old
boy system of like, oh, these outside agitators coming in
and really like stirring up the pot. But if it
(30:29):
was again somebody from Indicator, if it was a nineteen
year old from Decatur, I guarantee you not only would
cop City not be there. Andre Dickins is probably not
the mayor at this point, right, Like, people in Atlanta
move very differently if they feel like one of their
own have been disrespected, And I think that's something that
they've been leaning on with regards to cops cities, like, hey,
one of us didn't do this. This was one of
them from outside of our state. And that's kind of
what we're seeing play out right now. There's the environmental
(30:51):
racism part of this when we talk about, you know,
creating cancer alleys from a lot of the burnoff. You
know you got to burn building, I mean you got smoke.
That means you got chemicals going in the water, because
they take chemicals to make fake fire, you know, to
make control fires. So what about the surrounding cities. Because
the river don't stop in the Atlanta metro it keeps
(31:14):
running on down the state. Have any of the other
states even came in and just has Laurence to Belle
checked in, has making Georgia checked in, Hey, could y'all
not send the cancer downstream please? We would appreciate. Like
how much is the rest of where does the rest
of surrounding Georgia? You know, I can't God, I can't
(31:35):
remember the Communitian that made the joke. Atlanta is Atlanta,
but it's surrounded by Georgia. Has Georgia checked in on
what Atlanta is doing? So for the most part, I
don't think Georgia cares. I think part of it is
because like the rest of Georgia hates Atlanta, Like like
once you get out of Metro Atlanta, like they if
they could shoot Atlanta, they would, like there's literally they
(31:57):
like they were ready to blow up Atlanta, split off
buckhead from the rest of the city. Now we don't
even have a time to talk about it. They're trying
trying to seceed from the city everybody else. Every Like
if you're a politician from the rest of the state,
like you run against those horrible liberals in Atlanta and
(32:21):
they could do nothing right and to heck with them,
Like that's that is the attitude outside of Metro Atlanta.
But how's it going to affect them? Don't they know?
That first off lay out some of the ways this
could affect those surrounding areas, and are they gonna just
you know, just not gonna say deathing. So it depends
on exactly who you're talking to, like because if you
(32:42):
are in suburban Columbus, you know, and it's a like
red state Georgia, uh like you're like, yeah, maybe there's
run off, but we don't care because it's not gonna
hurt us, Like that would be the attitude. But hey,
maybe we can drive our police department up there and
go do some fancy training for a lot cheaper than
(33:04):
we could do it before, and it'll be better for
the most part. I think the rest of the state,
maybe even surrounding states like this, the police narrative controls
how they're going to view this. If they're pro cop
they're pro cop city, if they want police accountability that
they've heard about why cop city is wrong. But I
(33:25):
don't think that they're going to have as much. Like
here's the thing Atlanta does not want, Like the city
of Atlanta and decapp County really don't want the rest
of the country and the rest of the state weighing
in on this. They want to be in control of
what's happening in their own backyard, because generally speaking, when
other people come in like that's that's when you get
(33:46):
like our red state Republican governor like taking a dump
on the city, and they're afraid of that. And I
understand that, Like, that's why they're pushing this outside agitators
even though it is this horribly racist callback. I gotta
tell you too, like nineteen sixties, those northern agitators are
(34:08):
coming in here like that's what it found sounds like
to me because I know these things, but they think
that it'll buy them some space. Well, after the break,
we're gonna bring it home and talk about some of
the other initiatives that have been going on in and
around the city of Atlanta to help rectify a lot
of issues that have been happening in Atlanta. Also, after
(34:30):
the break, I need to get your recommendations for the
best limon pepper wings. That's why seventy five thousand people
a year moving to Atlanta. Them damn wings stop having
good wings, and then maybe people wouldn't move there. This
is beyond the scenes. We'll be right back beyond the scenes.
We round in third and headed for home. We are
talking about cops city and the different pros and cons
(34:54):
of it. Now, George, before we got to the break,
we were laughing but still being a serious about some
of the different initiatives and referendums that have been put
in place in Atlanta in the last couple of years.
We talk about the city of Buckhead trying to sit
like essentially the way Beverly Hills eight part of Los Angeles,
no more like it's still LA but with Beverly Hills,
(35:17):
we have our own city hall, we have our own
police department. King have there been other initiatives and referendums
that have been passed in the last couple of years
in Atlanta in terms of secession, no, not like the
Buckhet city hood thing, But in terms of city hood, yes.
Everyone right now Metrolanta is trying to create their own fiefdoms.
And Sanday Springs really kicked that off there in North
Fulton County, just outside the city limits of Buckhead, actually,
(35:40):
and in two thousand and five they became the first
to really kick off this modern cityhood movement, and since
then every municipality has tried to do their own version
of Hey, we're not going to allocate our tax dollars
to help those people. You can infer what that means
when every time that comes up. The thing that makes
it different now is that we've had since two thousand
and five, we've only at two black ones. One is
(36:01):
the city of Stone Crest, and then we also have
South Fulton, And so those are two majority black cityhood efforts,
and they have had a varying degree of success compared
to the white ones. But everyone right now is trying
to be their own version of a city, and Buckhead
being its own version of the city led by people
outside of the state, I mean, outside of the metro
Atlanta area is the latest in a long chapter or that.
(36:24):
But if these predominantly white areas, which I would assume
are probably red red part of town, a little okay, wealthy,
but not necessarily red purplish, if you will, okay a
little bit. George's like kind of sort of why leave Atlanta? Like?
(36:49):
Is it decisions like the cop city thing? Is it
decisions like you know, the way that the Rayshard Brooks
trial of those officers was handled. What are the pros
and cons of leaving the city. Why can't Atlanta just
say get the hell on, and we don't need your
little fucking little tax adalyst. Good. I got Chick fil
A in my backpacket. I'm gonna go off for a
(37:12):
second because the whole buckhead thing was a lot. How
much profanity can I use? Do what you want? So
the whole it's just bullshit that was created by one
guy who was a fundraiser for Trump, like this one
racist felt straw piece of shit, like it decides I can. Like,
(37:36):
there's this untapped group of rich white conservative Tucker Carlson
watching people who've got more money than sense who the
Republican Party has never figured out how to fundraise off
of effectively. And so incomes this guy from New York
(37:56):
who moves in a buckhead and says we should split
bucket it off because Atlanta sucks, and he's just it's
just an excuse to send out newsletters raising money. It
was never going to pass. It was never ever ever
going aroused to fundraise. And then when you lose, you
go see they don't want us to be great. Join
(38:18):
me in the fight with the five donar donation, more
like a five thousand dollars donation. Oh hang on that, yeah, man,
it's buckheat I mean you gotta know it, like, that's it.
That's all that was, And a lot of this other
stuff is like in the same vein. It's this idea
that black communities can't figure out how to govern themselves.
(38:39):
At least that's the that's the lie, and so like,
if you don't like, if you don't like the idea
of having a black mayor as a white person, here's
a way for you to get up and around that.
Even to that point, though, like what you said about
the Buckheat cityhood thing was interesting because for a host
of reason that was never going to work, which is
why Brian Kemp had to come in and kind of
(39:01):
put the foot down on that one. But the other
issue is cop City was brought to the Buckhead business
leaders as we wad to keep away succession from Atlanta.
It was like, hey, you know, you want police around
the ray Sharbrooks Around June of twenty twenty, I mean,
we have it. Even by August of twenty twenty, they're
already in cahoots with a couple of day I'm not
going to say certain city council members are already talking
to Buckhead leaders about what can they do to support
(39:22):
the police, and by December of twenty twenty, we already
have like the plan that would eventually become cop City.
So it was always always going to be a part
of it, and Buckhead was always going to be leading
that effort to have cop City. So the fact that
this person in particular wanted to lead a fundraising effort
to seceed from Atlanta based on the notional police was
just one of the best scams in Atlanta history. I mean,
it's maybe a top five moment. How much do the
(39:45):
police respect the data of how crime is lowered versus
simply passing things that will get them the support of
their community, Like if we're talking local politician and you
know X y Z reading initiative will help. We know
(40:07):
that the connection between literacy and crime rates. The more
area can read, the lower the crime rate is in
that area. We also know that you can take some
of the money for the police tank and create a
non weaponized response like they have in Portland. Portland has
a division that is just responding to mental health and
(40:28):
minor domestic stuff that the cops normally would be the
ones going to, which is less work on your police,
which is less stress on your police which equals a
higher morale and a better, better work environment. Those things
could all contribute to lowering crime. So why be so
dedicatedly invested into the one thing that makes it seem
(40:49):
like the only way to be tough on crime is
in a punitive way. Because let's be as three Southern
on this podcast right now, we all came up in
the ass whooping phase of a solve so tough, heavy
hand billy club. Do cops and politicians do they really
believe that all this and all these other initiatives will
(41:10):
really help to lower crime? And all got a lot
to say about this because if that'sn't just selling to
the cab and Sandy Springs and fucking Villa Rica. But
if that's what you're trying to get them to be
a part of, aren't you still lying? Like the shoot
is gonna shoot, Drama still gonna be drama. So it's
(41:32):
funny like the city's got like a Portland style thing.
They started it a few years ago. I was actually
on the design team for the pre arrest Diversion initiative
in Atlanta. Add the thing is, it gets like three
or four million dollars a year. It's got like a dozen,
maybe two dozen people who are working on it, and
it's hamstrung by all of the other things that are broken.
(41:55):
The jail is broken, the courts are broken, the cops
are kind of broken, and the District Attorney's office doesn't
have enough staff to really do all the things they
need to do. There aren't enough public defenders to go around.
Like it's like there's this gigantic mess in the system. Meanwhile,
like they're going to spend thirty million dollars on cops
(42:17):
city and their idea here is okay, so we're spending
They're in their head, they're going, well, we're already spending
all this money on all of these other things like
bail reform and all the rest, so we should probably
spend more money on the cops too. Like in their head,
this is a balance, Like this is the balancing point
to all of the other stuff that they're doing. Even
though all the other stuff that they're doing is really
(42:39):
not nearly enough, it is a lot less than that
they're spending on police. The problem is, as soon as
you say that, somebody comes in and says you want
to defend the police, and then everybody turns into a muppet. Yeah.
But that's also because be fun wasn't the best word
because people thought they may take all the money. Was like, nah, man,
(43:00):
you don't need a tank. Here's a here's a suv instead.
Here's a fortified suv instead of a tank. And we're
gonna take the tank money, and we're gonna put some
Doctor Seuss books in the hood, and we're gonna lower
a crime. That's all we were trying to do. I'll
end with with this question for the two of you.
(43:20):
How do you all feel the city of Atlanta is
being perceived nationally? How the perception of the city of
Atlanta has it evolved or devolved over the last few
years with Cops City being a big part of this,
and you know Governor Kemp threatening to send in the
National Guard, you know, the National Guard gonna coming in.
(43:45):
Let's just say the National Guard. If does anybody need
to go to the cop City for some trainer, it's
probably the National Guard because they ain't training as often
as the cops about how to do cops stuff. How
do you all feel the city of Atlanta is has
been perceived like this? Does this set up a precedent
for the city, you know, in terms of the reputation
(44:05):
of it. Does it encourage other cities to build their
own pop city? Is Memphis gonna be inspired? Is Miami
gonna be inspired? Oh? My god? All right, I swear
to God, I hope everyone does not try to make
their own cop City for a host of reason. It's
bad for money, back for Atlanta, is bad for the environment.
That's personally what I do think. The overtime, Atlanta, It's
gonna win. Atlanta always wins out. That's the beauty of
(44:27):
being in Atlanta's no matter what, you always win. Over
the last couple of years ago an in combination with
cop City, in the last few years of the previous mayor,
and just in general, there has been a push of
like Atlanta's it's black, but it's not the Mecca anymore.
And I do think that if Atlanta is not working
on brand control right now, you could have a scenario
in which people really just leave Atlanta right Atlanta doesn't
have the infrastructure that Atlanta doesn't have necessarily the connective
(44:50):
tissue like a New York City does, or a Miami
that you mentioned, or even in La to keep attracting
black people. So I do think the current mayor. After
this cop city phase goes over, he's going to try
to figure out how to make Atlanta the Black Mecca
again or make the Mecca great again, because you can't
lose that representation that we have otherwise and we're no
different from any other city across the country. Yeah, the
(45:12):
thing I turned my mind is you're asking this question
is the twenty twenty four National Democratic National Convention. So
the mayors try Michael to get the convention in Atlanta,
and I think he might actually be successful. It's either
going to be here or Chicago. Like, the thing is,
if Atlanta is perceived as a place where we've got
a bunch of protests over stuff like this, that's the
(45:36):
image that Atlanta, like this whole cop city has the
potential to change the perception of Atlanta across the country
depending on what's going on. You know what, year, three
or four months from now, I'm with King on the
Black Mecca thing, Like there's a group of us who
are trying to strangle that in a bathtub somewhere. Like
(45:59):
this is a great city, it's a great city to
be black. But if you're born black and poor in Atlanta,
like you are, screwed in a lot of ways, like
it does not. It is not a happy place for you.
We've got less mobility for eat, less economic mobility than
almost anywhere else in the United States. It's hard to
get out, it's hard to climb out of poverty in Atlanta,
(46:21):
and we don't see that. We see love and hip hop,
we see you know, the Atlanta TV show, we see
the Marvel movies. You know, we've got rappers Eight Ways
to Sunday talking about Atlanta. Like if they don't see
the hard parts, they don't see why. We've got like
a crime problem that people think we need to build
(46:41):
a cop city to deal with. And I think that's
gonna change. And if it doesn't, you can always sell
the city to Tyler Perry and he'll fix it immediately. Gentlemen,
I cannot thank you all enough for this wonderful, wonderful conversation.
When I get down to Atlanta, UM, I'll let you
(47:03):
all take me out to your wing spot of choice.
We don't have to name no places right now. They
didn't pay us for no endorsements, but just please don't
take me to the Varsity. I've had everything on the menu,
d the varsity forty eight different times. So I just don't.
Don't take me to the varsity. George King, thank you
so much for going beyond the scenes with me. Thank you,
(47:26):
thank you. Listen to The Daily Show Beyond the Scenes
on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get
your podcasts. We don't give a damn, just listen.
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