The Atlanta City Council approved funding for the construction of a proposed police and firefighter training facility—dubbed “Cop City” by locals.
In a statement, Mayor Andre Dickens said the passage of the budget resolution “marks a major milestone for better preparing our fire, police and emergency responders to protect and serve our communities.”
Council members voted 11-4 to approve $31 million in public funds for the erection of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. The city has agreed to fork out $36 million— $1.2 million a year over 30 years—for using the facility, according to The Associated Press. Cop City is being built in the middle of the Weelaunee Forest.
Several nonprofit organizations and other human rights groups held protests outside City Hall ahead of the vote in a last-ditch attempt to stop the project.
“We’re here pleading our case to a government that has been unresponsive, if not hostile, to an unprecedented movement in our City Council’s history,” said Matthew Johnson, the executive director of Beloved Community Ministries, a local social justice nonprofit. “We’re here to stop environmental racism and the militarization of the police. … We need to go back to meeting the basic needs rather than using police as the sole solution to all of our social problems.”
“Cop City has already proven to be a source of violence, oppression, militarized approaches to civilians, unconstitutional activity and economic and environmental disaster,” said Susi Durán, a leader in the Atlanta chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.
The official StopCopCity website states that the new facility will “include military-grade training facilities, a mock city to practice urban warfare, explosives testing areas, dozens of shooting ranges, and a Black Hawk helicopter landing pad.”
