This is Eloise Navarro, 350PDX National Fossil Fuels Organizer. I’m reaching out to you from Atlanta, where I’ve been part of a delegation of folks who traveled here from around the country to support the fight to #StopCopCity – ahead of a mass mobilization in Atlanta March 4th-11th (learn more and join here). The delegation includes Evan Fritz (350 CT), Lisa Demaine (350 NH), Jeff Ordower (350.org), Krystal Two Bulls (Honor the Earth), and Skyler Bouyer (an Indigenous youth organizer).
Being on the ground in Atlanta has shown us how #StopCopCity is truly an intersectional fight against some of the most powerful and pernicious forces in the world: the American police-military industrial complex, multi-billion dollar corporations, and the engines of white supremacy and colonization in American politics. But let’s take a step back and explain.
At surface level, the Cop City development proposal is already horrific: a plan to destroy 85 acres of the Weelaunee Forest to build a massive police training facility. The Muscogee people lived and thrived around Weelaunee forest since time immemorial. Then in 1783, the State of Georgia drew the Muscogee people into an illegal treaty negotiation, beginning a long saga of land theft and broken promises. Weelaunee forest should be given back to the Muscogee people, not destroyed.
Going deeper, the story of Cop City only gets worse. The $90-million police training facility would be one of the largest in the country, and used to train police in paramilitary tactics – tactics they would use to further harass, surveil, and brutalize people, particularly Black and Brown communities. Atlanta’s communities of color are already the targets of extreme police surveillance and hostility, which goes hand-in-hand with gentrification. Atlanta residents have overwhelmingly opposed Cop City since the proposal went public in 2021, and a vast movement of police and prison abolitionist organizations, environmental justice and civil and human rights groups, neighborhood associations and others have been working hard to elevate those community voices.
So why, then, did the Atlanta City Council approve the facility, despite that decision being so deeply undemocratic? For the same reason why so many “development” projects have gotten approved that harm and gentrify BIPOC and low-income communities: because those who benefit from the existing systems of racial capitalism are motivated to protect systems of policing and imprisonment, all while calling those efforts “public safety.” Those to benefit from Cop City? Powerful companies like Delta Airlines, Koch Industries, and Coca-Cola – all of whom are funding the Atlanta Police Foundation (which in turn funds the new police facility). With such deep corporate backing and a system set up for new police projects to receive funding without public support, the police facility has sailed through City approvals processes.
But this fight is far from over. Backing the forces of joy and resistance is a diverse, vast movement defending the Weelaunee Forest. Among the forest defenders was Tortuguita, who not only was at a Stop Cop City resistance camp for months on end, but also raised huge amounts of mutual aid for the surrounding community. Tortuguita was murdered by a SWAT team during a police raid targeting the camp. Five people are still imprisoned from that raid, held on domestic terrorism charges despite no evidence, and it’s been over a month. We are calling for justice for Tortuguita, and for the five imprisoned to be immediately released.
Top image: 350/Honor the Earth delegation (left to right: Evan, Jeff, Krystal, Lisa, Eloise, Skyler). Bottom left: land acknowledgement in the public park/forest. Bottom right: Tortuguita memorial in the public park/ forest
What can you do to take action?
First of all, we need everyone to come to Atlanta for a Week of Action this March 4th-11th
This is a mass mobilization for folks to come together to support those on the frontlines of the #StopCopCity fight, defend the Weelaunee Forest, and honor Tortuguita. More details will be coming soon, but please make your plans now, and share this invitation with your networks, organization, friends, and family. Learn more about the mass mobilization here
Second, we need you to organize at home.
Here is a calendar with actions across the country where folks are showing up in solidarity with the forest defenders.
Learn more about how you can organize your own solidarity action here.
Finally, take 10 minutes to make calls and send emails to #StopCopCity. Learn more here.
All of us in the delegation are learning about the web of actors working hard to build Cop City and silence public input on the project. Those actors include right-wing politicians, large corporations that hold influence over the media, and a gentrifying middle-class constituency who not only wants more police, but more repression and fewer public spaces. They’re all working to create an overpoliced state that does not hesitate to destroy the environment or ignore Indigenous land rights.
We know many of you are following the struggle, and we hope you join the movement – both in Atlanta and at home. We will keep you informed in the coming weeks leading up to the mass mobilization March 4th-11th, and do our best to uplift voices on the ground.
With rage, sadness and solidarity,
Eloise Navarro, 350PDX Fossil Fuels Organizer