The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, commonly known as Cop City, is a police and fire department training campus under construction in the South River Forest area of DeKalb County near Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Much of the land included in the plans was formerly part of the Old Atlanta Prison Farm, which was abandoned in 1995.

In 2021, the location was identified by the City of Atlanta as the only suitable location to build the training center. This resulted in the development of Stop Cop City, a multi-faceted movement opposing the construction of the training center. In January 2023, Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, a member of the Stop Cop City movement, was fatally shot by Atlanta police. Following the shooting, law enforcement accused Terán of firing at officers; however, this is disputed by Terán's family. Protesters affiliated with the Stop Cop City movement were arrested in late 2022 and early 2023 and charged with domestic terrorism offenses; the validity of these charges has been called into question and created a nationwide controversy.

Description

The $90 million construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center began in spring 2023 on an 85-acre plot of land in the South River Forest, DeKalb County, Georgia. The land is owned by the City of Atlanta.

Once complete, the center is planned to be used as a training campus for police and fire services and is expected to open at the end of 2023. Planned facilities include classrooms, a burn building, a mock city (including apartments, a bar/nightclub, and a school), and a shooting range. 265 surrounding acres of the site are planned to be used as green-space.

Land use history

The Muscogee peoples lived in the area of the South River Forest until the 1830s, when the United States federal government forcibly removed most of the community to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) during the Trail of Tears. The name for this land in the Muscogee language was "Weelaunee," translatable as "brown water [place]."

After the Muscogee people were displaced, logging in the area removed much of the Oak-Hickory forest community. The Muscogee people harvested from the forest for human needs, including acorn flour for food and hickory wood for toolmaking.

The site was initially purchased in 1863 by the City of Atlanta for use as a cemetery during the American Civil War, but it was never used for that purpose. In 1917, the federal government purchased the land to be used as a prisoner-of-war camp, and it was used as the Atlanta Prison Farm from 1920 until 1995.

After it was vacated, the building was used to illegally dump tires, and was damaged by serious fires in 2009 and 2017.

Cop City development history

Terracon Consultants are the acting consultants to Atlanta Police Foundation, the project client.

In September 2021, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, accompanied by Dave Wilkinson, CEO of the Atlanta Police Foundation, said the site had been selected to house a training center, as it was deemed the only suitable location available to the city. Bottoms had previously endorsed the use of the site in spring of the same year. Pre-construction clearing of the site began in May 2022.

Since 2021, the site has been the subject of numerous public gatherings and protests. Community events, including skill shares, guided hikes, and musical performances have been held.

Five protesters were arrested in December 2022 and charged with domestic terrorism. In January 2023, 26-year-old protester Manuel Esteban Paez Terán was fatally shot by police. According to a lawyer working on behalf of Terán's mother, an independent autopsy revealed "Both Manuel's left and right hands show exit wounds in both palms. The autopsy further reveals that Manuel was most probably in a seated position, cross-legged when killed."

On March 5, 2023, protesters threw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers, and destroyed various construction vehicles. Hours later, police raided the nearby South River Music Festival and detained 35 people, alleging that vandals had hidden in the crowd. Twenty-three people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism, although arrest warrants did not present evidence of violence or property damage. Of the arrestees, one was from France, one was from Canada, and two were residents of the state of Georgia. Only one of the 23 arrestees was offered bond: a lawyer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, who had only been there for observation and because of this was freed on a $5,000 bond.

By May, prosecutors had charged more than 40 protesters with domestic terrorism, a move that Human Rights Watch called an "attempt to smear protesters as national security threats".

At a May 2023 public meeting, Atlanta City Council members faced record-setting public opposition to a vote providing $31 million for the Cop City project. At the time, the project had received $60 million of corporate funding and was several months delayed. On May 31, a SWAT team arrested three organizers of a bail fund that had supported protesters with bail and legal defense. Those arrested were charged with money laundering and charity fraud. That same month, developers finished clearing the site of all existing vegetation and debris in preparation for construction.

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. More than 1,000 people signed up to speak, but hundreds of people were not admitted to the building.

In June 2023, a coalition of activist groups opposed to the construction project announced their plans to force a referendum on Cop City. The referendum was inspired by a similar successful effort in Camden County, GA. The Georgia 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 to 70,000 signatures would be required. The referendum against Cop City would cancel the city’s lease to the Atlanta Police Foundation, which the city said isn't legal.

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 District Judge Mark Cohen, but the city's appeal of that decision is being considered by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

61 activists affiliated with the Defend the Atlanta Forest group were charged with racketeering in September 2023.