| Stop Cop City | |||
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| Part ofBlack Lives Matter andUnited States racial unrest (2020–2023) and theclimate movement | |||
 Stop Cop City graffiti along the Proctor Creek Greenway Trail | |||
| Location | 33°41′38″N84°20′10″W / 33.69383°N 84.33606°W /33.69383; -84.33606 | ||
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non-centralized leadership | |||
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Stop Cop City (SCC), also known asDefend the Atlanta Forest (DTF), was a decentralized movement focused onAtlanta,Georgia, in opposition to theAtlanta Public Safety Training Center or "Cop City". The facility was announced in 2021 as a partnership between theAtlanta Police Foundation and theCity of Atlanta, and completed in April 2025.[1] The Stop Cop City movement has received international attention, especially afterTortuguita, a protestor occupying the disputed site, was killed by police during a raid in January 2023.[2]
Opponents of the facility are concerned about destruction of theSouth River Forest and associated environmental justice impacts exacerbating economic disparities and ecological response to climate change in a poor, majority-Black neighborhood.[3] Opponents also argue that the center will increasemilitarization of policing in the city—which had witnessed several protests against police violence following the 2020murder of George Floyd in Minnesota and thekilling of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta.[4][5][6]
Proponents of the training facility said that the project was necessary to fight crime and to improve police morale. They said there was no feasible alternate site for the training center and argued that the location is "not a forest".[6]
The state charged several protestors with domestic terrorism and indicted sixty-one people for criminal conspiracy in September 2023. The protests have drawn participants from all over the United States, and many of those indicted are not from Georgia—leading the project's proponents to cast them as "outside agitators", while movement participants argue that the project will train many police officers from outside of Georgia.[7][8] A petition for public referendum on the project also became embroiled in a lawsuit, and neither this nor the criminal suits had been resolved by April 2025 when the facility opened.[9][10]
FollowingBlack Lives Matter protests in the US in 2014, funding for police training at all levels of government skyrocketed, and some cities proposed additional police training facilities. A similar facility was approved in New York City in 2015 following the policekilling of Eric Garner, and also in Chicago following a string of police killings in that city between 2014 and 2016.[11]
In 2020, as part of the nationwide response to themurder of George Floyd, Atlanta witnessed a months-longseries of protests against police brutality.[5][12][13] Less than three weeks afterMinneapolis police officerDerek Chauvin murdered Floyd on a public street, anAtlanta police (APD) officer shot and killed Atlanta residentRayshard Brooks, which resulted in protests, arson,[14] and calls todefund the police.[5]
Criticism of police and associated unrest reduced police morale.[12] Authorities claim that Atlanta had struggled with rising crime, citing 149 homicides in 2021: the most in a single year since the 1990s.[6] However, the city's crime compilation data showed a drop in overall crime rates and an inconclusive trend in homicides from 2009 to 2023.[15] Advocates for the training facility said the facility would help address these problems.[6][12]
The training center includes ashooting range and a mock village that led to the project being nicknamed "Cop City." The city was expected to pay one-third of the $90 million cost, with the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF) paying the rest.[6] The eventual cost of the project was $118 million, with taxpayers contributing $67 million.[16] The APF first proposed the 85-acre (34 ha) facility in 2017.[17] According to the APF, the project provides "the necessary facilities required to effectively train 21st-century law enforcement agencies responsible for public safety in a major urban city." Atlanta mayorKeisha Lance Bottoms announced the facility in her 2021 State of the City address.[18]
Residents who support the construction of the training facility have said that they want a properly trained police force and hope the project would improve the quality of the Atlanta police force to make their communities safer.[12]
The facility is located at the Old Atlanta Prison Farm (OPF), which in 1999 the Department of City Planning recommended be preserved and placed on theNational Register of Historic Places.[citation needed] The majority of prisoners had been arrested for "public inebriation" and related crimes. Prisoners frequently went on strike to demand better food, sanitation, and medical care, and to protest the prison's habit of releasing prisoners downtown late at night with nowhere to go. Beginning in the 1970s, the prison's agricultural operations were "scaled back down to dairy and livestock—250 cows, 300 hogs, 145 prisoners—and abandoned field by field."[19] It was closed officially in the 1990s.
In the two decades before the Cop City controversy, the grassroots organization Save the Old Atlanta Prison Farm advocated for converting the abandoned prison farm into a public park. Members built trails and led historical walking tours for neighbors as part of their advocacy, laying the foundation for the movement to Defend the Atlanta Forest.[20]
Opponents of Cop City have objected to placing the police facility on the site of alleged human rights violations.[5][21]Environmental justice advocates and organizations have proposed that the OPF should remain a centerpiece in the 3,500-acre (14 km2) urban green space called theSouth River Forest,[6][12] citing "massive disparities" in Atlanta’s access to green space: African-American residents—including the area surrounding the OPF—have fewer and smaller parks.[12]
Cop City has been opposed by a varied coalition that includes residents and neighborhood associations[22] as well as groups organized around racial, housing, food, and environmental justice.[7][23][24][25] Plans were approved by the city in September 2021 after 17 hours of public comment from over 1,100 persons from Atlanta and elsewhere, 70% of whom opposed the project.[6] Some expressed concern that the approval process was secretive with limited input from affected communities.[12] The city appointed a community-advisory committee, and in 2022 Atlanta mayorAndre Dickens said that there was "a lot of room for input."[6] The advisory committee did not include representatives from environmental groups, but does include representatives from the police and fire departments and the Dickens administration.[6]
DTF supporters led divestment movements against corporate sponsors of the APF, and four "week of action" campaigns in 2021–22 that featured live music, supply drives, skill shares, and history lessons about the area.[26]
A portion of the South River Forest adjacent to the APF training center has also been threatened with development byBlackhall Studios—part of theAtlanta film industry. Two environmental organizations, the South River Forest Coalition and the South River Watershed Alliance, filed a lawsuit against the film studio development.[6]
Beginning in late 2021, the contested forest was occupied by self-describedforest defenders who barricaded the area and constructed tree-sits to prevent trees from being cut. Forest defenders had several conflicts with police, resulting in some arrests. They have also destroyed equipment being used by developers in the forest, vandalized property belonging to corporations connected with the APF and Blackhall studios, and committed arson.[6] In May 2022 the corporate offices ofBrasfield & Gorrie in Birmingham, Alabama were vandalized, and the message "Drop Cop City Or Else" was spray-painted on the building.[27]
There is wide variation in the political stance and approach of DTF forest defenders,[27] and several sources describe the movement as leaderless and autonomous, with any participant able to act as they wish.[28][29][30]Prison abolition was a strongly represented political philosophy among those camped in the forest.[5][13]
In September 2022, the APF reported that it projected opening the first phase of the facility in late 2023. DTF estimated that it had delayed the project by at least a month and a half.[26] (The project eventually opened in 2025).[16]
On December 13, 2022, a task force of multiple police agencies conducted a joint raid at the training facility site.[31] Five people, none of whom were Atlanta residents, were arrested and charged withdomestic terrorism.[32] TheGeorgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) stated thatroad flares, gasoline, and explosive devices were found in the area;[31] when reporters asked police whether the explosive devices were fireworks or something more dangerous, the police declined to answer.[33]
On January 18, 2023,Georgia State Troopers and other agencies launched another raid. During the raid a trooper was shot in the leg, and a Venezuelan protester,Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, aka "Tortuguita", was shot and killed by police.[34] Police stated that Tortuguita fired on them after they fired pepper balls into Tortugita's tent.[35][36] Multiple groups, including other protestors, two independent journalists who had previously interviewed Tortuguita, and Tortuguita's family, have questioned whether they fired first or fired at all,[35] pointing to the lack ofbody camera footage of the shooting and calling for an independent investigation.[35][37][38][39]GBI conducted a forensic ballistic analysis that matched the projectile recovered from the officer's wound to the handgun found in Tortuguita's possession.[40] The GBI said that there is no body camera footage of the shooting because Georgia State Patrol officers do not wear body-cameras.[41]
Documents released in 2025 appeared to confirm that Paez Terán shot at police, but also indicated that police may have precipitated a violent confrontation by casting forest defenders as domestic terrorists when previous conflicts had only involved fireworks and slingshots, and by escalating the encounter with pepperballs only three minutes after contacting Paez Terán.[42]
In March, Terán's family released the results of an independent autopsy revealing that Terán was shot fourteen times while sitting cross-legged on the ground with their hands raised in the air.[43][44]
The killing of Tortuguita brought national and international attention to the project and its opposition, strengthened existinganti-police sentiment in the US, and significantly escalated the conflict. A vigil for Tortuguita a few days after the shooting erupted in riots, andGovernor Kemp called theNational Guard to subdue the protests.[2]
On January 21, 2023, protesters marched fromUnderground Atlanta downPeachtree Street. At the intersection with Ellis St, some protesters damaged institutions who support the facility and burned anAtlanta Police Department vehicle. Six arrests were made. Responding to condemnation of these acts, Stop Cop City issued a statement asserting that "Destruction of material is fundamentally different from violence. All reported acts appear to be explicitly targeted against the financial backers".[45]
Vigils and protests were also held in other cities, such asBridgeport,Minneapolis,Nashville,Philadelphia, andTucson, from January 20 to 22, 2023.[46] Some demonstrators spray painted graffiti on Bank of America buildings to protest the company's involvement in financing the facility's construction.[46]
On March 5, 2023, dozens of people attacked the Cop City construction site with rocks and firebombs, destroying construction equipment. Hours later, police raided the South River Music Festival about 0.75 miles away and detained 35 people, of which 12 were released and the remaining 23 were charged with domestic terrorism.[47] Festival attendees have accused police of selectively charging protestors from out of state, while releasing Georgia residents, in order to further the narrative that "outside agitators" coordinated and controlled the protests.[citation needed]
The arrest warrant for the festival attendees stated that domestic terrorism charges were brought against those based on probable cause, such as having had mud on their feet, and that those with legal aid phone numbers written on their bodies were considered suspicious. According toThe Intercept, there is no information contained in the warrants that directly connects any of the defendants to illegal actions.[48][49] Atlanta police chief Darin Schierbaum refused to comment when confronted by journalists about this allegation.[50]
In May 2023, three activists were arrested and charged withfelony intimidation of a police officer andmisdemeanor stalking, with penalties up to 20 years in prison, for posting fliers and identifying an officer that shot Tortuguita.[51]
That same month, the GBI and APD conducted a SWAT style raid on the Atlanta Solidarity Fund (ASF), a legalbail fund.[52] Three of the fund’s organizers were arrested and charged withcharity fraud andmoney laundering. Regarding the arrests, Georgia Attorney GeneralChris Carr pledged to “not rest until we have held accountable every person who has funded, organized, or participated in this violence and intimidation” regarding the protests.[53] All fifteen charges of money laundering against three ASF organizers were eventually dropped in September.[54]
On June 6, 2023, the Atlanta City Council approved the $31 million funding after more than 16 hours of in-person public comment from over 300 speakers, the vast majority of whom were opposed to the project.[55][56][57] More than 1,000 people signed up to speak,[58] but hundreds of people were not admitted to the building.[59] A minority of speakers supported the project, stating that opponents do not represent the people of Atlanta.[60]
In June 2023, a coalition of activist groups opposed to the construction project announced their plans to force areferendum that would cancel the city’s lease to the APF for Cop City.[61] TheGeorgia constitution allows residents to force a referendum on decisions by local governments if they can get 15% of registered voters to sign petition; in Atlanta, 60,000[56] to 70,000[62] signatures would be required. The city said cancellation of the lease would not be legal.[63]
In September 2023, organizers submitted 116,000 signatures for the referendum, but the City Council refused to count them, and said the activists had missed the deadline to turn in the signatures. That deadline had been extended by US DistrictJudge Mark Cohen, but the city's appeal of that decision got held up for over a year[64] in the11th Circuit Court of Appeals,[63] and had not resolved as of April, 2025.[10]
In September 2023, sixty-one people who had been arrested in the forest or at stop cop city protests were charged withracketeering underGeorgia’s RICO law.[65] This indictment is likely the largest criminal conspiracy case ever filed against protestors in the US.[9]
As of April 2025, the racketeering case was stalled. Defendants in the case maintained their innocence and reported difficulty getting work and other hardships while they awaited trial for more than 20 months.[9] Some of the 61 were required to leave the state while the case was ongoing, though obliged to return to Atlanta for trial.[66]
On September 7, 2023, two days after the RICO charges were announced, a group of clergy members and people of faith ran on to the Cop City construction site and chained themselves to a bulldozer. The action temporarily stopped work at the site. Five people were arrested as part of the action and charged with trespassing.[67] On November 8, four "elders" were arrested after using their bodies to block one of the entrances to the Cop City construction site.[68]
On November 13, a group of over 400 protestors attempted to march into the construction site as part of the "Block Cop City" mobilization. Atlanta Police deployed pepper spray, tear gas, flash-bang grenades, and armored tanks in order to stop the march from advancing.[69][70]
From January to March 2024, there were a series ofcivil disobediencedirect actions atBrasfield & Gorrie construction sites in Atlanta. The stated goal of these actions was to pressure Brasfield & Gorrie to drop their contract to construct Cop City. The first of these actions occurred on January 29th when two people chained themselves to equipment at a Brasfield & Gorrie worksite in mid-town Atlanta.[71] On March 7th a similar action took place at another worksite which led to one arrest.[72] Then on March 27th two people scaled a 250 foot tall crane at a Brasfield & Gorrie construction site. The pair unfurled a banner that read "Drop Cop City" and then chained themselves to the crane.[73] They were arrested and charged with felony false imprisonment.[74]
In February 2024 there were multiple protests in Arizona targetingNationwide Mutual Insurance Company over their role in providing insurance to the Atlanta Police Foundation. At one protest, people staged a sit in which involved using concrete filled tires to block the entrance to neighborhood home to a Nationwide executive.[75]
In April 2024, protesters organized adisturbance in front ofEmory's Commencement stage against Cop City and the university's ties to Israel amid thewar in Gaza. The university stated that the protesters were not members of the Emory University community.[76][77][78] A statement from protest organizers accused the university of being “complicit in genocide and police militarization” and called for "total institutional divestment fromIsraeli apartheid and Cop City at all Atlanta colleges and universities."[79][80]Georgia State Patrol,Atlanta Police and University Police forcefully dispersed the interlopers,[79][81] allegedly using tear gas, rubber bullets, and tasers.[82] 28 people were arrested, many with ties to Emory University.[83]
Legal scholars, protesters, and state and local governments were interested in the precedent the domestic terrorism charges would set for similar cases. Supporters said it would deter criminal behavior, while critics called it overreach that would stifle legitimate protest.[84]
In March 2023, several human rights groups co-signed a letter which said that "application of the domestic terrorism statute" against 19 of the 35 arrested March 2023 protestors "is an escalatory intimidation tactic and a draconian step that seems intended to chillFirst Amendmentprotected activity". The groups that signed the letter includedAmnesty International,Human Rights Watch, theNational Lawyers Guild, and theCenter for Constitutional Rights.[85]
Nearly half of the trainees at Cop City will come from outside of Georgia, and Stop Cop City participants have been drawn from all over the country. Proponents of the facility have argued that these participants are "outside agitators" that don't represent Atlanta.[8]
Organizers have also pointed to the decades-long partnership between Atlanta Police andIsraeli Police forces that is facilitated by theGeorgia International Law Enforcement Exchange program, and made connections between the struggle against Cop City, thewar in Gaza, andallegations of Palestinian genocide. The movement has received significant international solidarity, especially after the killing of Tortuguita.[8][7]
Organizers have also connected the struggle against Cop City with the role of the US in driving militarization of police in Latin America.[86]
In Spring 2023, students and faculty fromGeorgia State University,Emory University,Agnes Scott College,Morehouse College, andSpelman College petitioned their institutions to officially denounce the training center.[22][87] None had as of April 2025.
On April 25, 2023, 20 protesters pitched tents in front ofEmory University's Commencement stage to urge university leadership to denounce the training center.[88] Those 20 also asked that Emory University President Greg Fenves step down as a member of the Atlanta Committee for Progress (ACP), which played a role in building the project;[89] Fenves maintained his participation.[90] The protest ended when Emory Police ordered students to leave or be arrested.[88]
In 2023,Chris Carr, theGeorgia Attorney General, defended bringing charges of domestic terrorism against protestors.[91]
A forensics report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation about guns fired during Tortuguita's killing named six state patrol officers: Bryland Myers, Jerry Parrish, Jonathan Salcedo, Mark Jonathan Lamb, Ronaldo Kegel, and Royce Zah. According to public records, one of the officers named lives in the area where the activists posted flyers. The report was obtained by the Atlanta Community Press Collective, an abolitionist nonprofit media group, through an open records request.
