For those like me who are unaware of what that is, here is the skinny. Cop City is the name given to Atlanta Public Safety Training Center being built on an 85-acre plot of land in the South River Forest, of DeKalb County, Georgia.
The facility is planned to be used as a training campus for police and fire services and will include classrooms, a burn building, a mock city (including apartments, a bar/nightclub, and a school), and a shooting range. The surrounding acres of the site will be used as green space.
There have been several protests against the construction of the center, including one that resulted in the death of protestor Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, who was fatally shot by Atlanta police in January 2023.
During the press conference, President and CEO of Hip Hop Caucus, Rev Lennox Yearwood Jr. had this to say “Cop City is a clear representation of how anti-Black racism, environmental and climate injustice, and police brutality intersect. Cop City’s police expansion and militarization will be especially harmful for Black communities and it is a signal to us all of what’s to come in Black communities across the country.”
The estimated cost to build “Cop City” is $90 million dollars, something that wasn’t lost on actor Kendrick Sampson. “The average Black person on the street can tell you with no expertise in how to write policy and how to split up budgets what to do with $100 million. And it’s not to build a city and cut down more trees and make our environment less healthy, said Sampson.
He added: “They are going to demand it to be spent on things that make us healthier. Police do not do that. Police make us less healthy and they take up so much of the budget that the things that we really need don’t get addressed.”
“Cop City” It’s not just a financial problem, according to actress/comedian Amanda Seales it is an environmental problem. “When we talk about the way the environment is going to shift with a Cop City in Atlanta, we’re not just talking about the physical environment,” she said.
“It changes the environment of the society that is there. We already know from back in the 1990s when Goodie Mob was talking about ‘Red Dogs’ on their album, that policing in Black communities is done in an authoritative and menacing way. We cannot continue to increase that by now creating a facility to make that practice in a very practical way.”
The full list of press conference and solidarity action speakers were:
- Rev Lennox Yearwood Jr. — President and CEO of Hip Hop Caucus
- Amanda Seales — Actress, Comedian, and Activist
- Kendrick Sampson — Actor and Co-Founder of BLD PWR
- Linda Sarsour — Co-Founder of Until Freedom
- Cliff Albright — Co-Founder of Black Voters Matter
- Rev. James Woodall — Public Policy Associate at the Southern Center for Human Rights
For more information about the Hip Hop Caucus and its initiatives, visit hiphopcaucus.org.