The article “Militarized Police ‘Indiscriminately’ Attack Nonviolent Stop Cop City March With Tear Gas“ by Brett Wilkins appeared November 13, 2023 on Common Dreams Website.
The article can be read in full on Common Dreams’ website.
The following are excerpts from the article:
- Militarized state and local police on Monday attacked a peaceful protest against the construction of the so-called “Cop City” training center outside Atlanta, Georgia with “less-lethal” weapons including tear gas, pepper balls, and flash-bang grenades, journalists and activists there said.
- Hundreds of #StopCopCity activists marched from a park toward the Weelaunee Forest in suburban DeKalb County early Monday morning. Some carried large and elaborate puppets, others had saplings to plant in woodlands bulldozed during construction, and a few carried banners reading “Block Cop City” and “Viva Tortuguita”—a reference to forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, aka “Tortuguita,” who was fatally shot 57 times with live ammunition by police during a January raid on a protest camp.
Since Terán’s killing, more than 40 Stop Cop City campaigners have been criminally charged as domestic terrorists, while over 60 activists have also been indicted under the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act—some for simply handing out fliers.
- “The police have effectively separated the press at the front of the march from the rest of the march,” the group Defend the Atlanta Forest wrote on social media. “Police are preventing them from rejoining the march and threatening to tow their cars.”
- Responding to the police action, Mary Hooks, field secretary for the Movement for Black Lives, said in a statement: “We just witnessed overt violations of our civil rights on a road named after the U.S. Constitution. Atlanta claims itself to be a civil rights hub, but it erases its own legacy when protests arise that confront the power of politicians and police. The police’s violence against protestors today affirms our belief that Cop City must never be built.”
The following are additional resources:
Website (external to GJEP): Block Cop City
October 2023:
- Georgia state troopers who shot, killed ‘Cop City’ protester won’t face charges (Patrick Hilsman, Oct 6, 2023, UPI News)
September 2023:
- ATLANTA MAYOR DISMISSES COP CITY REFERENDUM AS “NOT AN ELECTION” (Prem Thakker, September 27, 2023, The Intercept)
- Watershed moment’: activists speak out about ‘Cop City’ conspiracy charges (September 25, 2023, Timothy Pratt, The Guardian)
- The Racketeering of State Violence (Ray Acheson, Sept 20, 2023, Counterpunch)
- Cop City Indictments Threaten Press Freedom Too (Seth Stern, September 11, 2023, The Intercept)
- Cop City activists charged with racketeering (Timothy Pratt, September 7, 2023, The Guardian)
- In bringing RICO charges against ‘Cop City’ protesters, Georgia criminalizes dissent (John Ruch, Sept 7. 2023, MSNBC)
- Defying RICO Indictment, Faith Leaders Chain Themselves to Bulldozer to Stop Cop City (Natasha Lennard, September 7, 2023 The Intercept
- ‘Alarming and absurd’: concern as ‘Cop City’ activists charged with racketeering (Timothy Pratt, September 7, 2023, The Guardian)
August 2023:
- ‘Cop City’: civil rights groups urge US to investigate surveillance of protesters (Timothy Pratt, August 3, 2023, The Guardian)
July 2023:
- In These Times: Cop City and the Escalating War on Environmental Defenders (Basav Sen and Gebrielle Colchete, July 13, 2023, In These Times article)
June 2023:
- The Chris Hedges Report Podcast with former Chicago Tribune reporter and author Will Potter on how terrorism laws are used to criminalize social and political activism and construct a police state (June 7, 2023, The Chris Hedges Report)
May 2023:
- Activists face felonies for distributing flyers on “Cop City” protester killing (Natasha Lennard & Akela Lacy, May 2 2023, The Intercept)
- Press Release: Sign on Letter Demands Justice for Forest Defender Killed by Police near Atlanta (May 2 2023, GJEP)
April 2023:
- Police Shot Atlanta Cop City Protester 57 Times, Autopsy Finds (Natasha Lennard, April 20 2023, The Intercept)
March 2023:
- Sign on letter to demand justice for Manuel Paez Teran, known as Tortuguita, who was killed by police in a hail of gunfire during a protest in a forest near Atlanta on 17 January 2023 (GJEP)
- BEATEN, BOMBED AND BURIED The decades-long persecution of Forest Defenders (Don Kimball, March 17 2023, Special exclusive report for GJEP)
2020:
- Muzzling Dissent: How Corporate Influence over Politics Has Fueled Anti-Protest Laws (2020, Institute for Policy Studies)
