DON’T SAY COP CITY!
LABELS DEVELOPED BY TERRORISTS AND CRIMINALS CONFUSE THE ISSUE.
The attack on the Atlanta Public Safety Training Facility has nothing to do with tree huggers and green spaces. USA Today played a video on their website of the horrific attack on Sunday, March 5, 2023, and it looked like a 1980s action movie. This resulted in the arrest of 23 people.
The titles on the video, during the scene where the pyrotechnics are exploding all around the cops defending the construction site said ‘Atlanta activists allegedly threw bricks, fireworks and Molotov cocktails at a proposed police and fire training center.’
It was the new ‘mostly peaceful’ moment in journalism.
Screenshot of USA Today with link to original story
THE SEMANTIC OBLIGATION TO COMPLETE THE FACILITY
If the City of Atlanta is going to charge these terrorists as domestic terrorists, and they have, it creates the political obligation to complete the project. To fail to complete the facility will be surrendering to the will of those who use violence for political purposes. It will be akin to surrendering the Third Precinct.
I have mentioned in previous articles that advanced training is critical to retaining Gen Z officers. We will see a rise in regional training centers, but should the anarchists succeed in Atlanta, will there be a hesitancy in cities and counties to invest in public safety training due to fear of this terrorism?
THE ENVIRONMENTAL SMOKESCREEN
The 85-acre parcel has been in use since the city purchased it more than 100 years ago. It is not a pristine forest about to be clear cut in the name of progress. It is repurposed land. The mayor’s office said as much in press release:
“The facility will not be built on a forest. The training center will sit on land that has long been cleared of hardwood trees through previous uses of the site. Arborists have confirmed the existing vegetation on this land is overwhelmingly dominated by invasive species like brush, weeds, vines, and softwood trees. Much of the site contains rubble from old building structures and asphalt from old parking lots.”
Overlooked by the city were diversity, equity and inclusion issues that are critical while facing “climate collapse.”
A coalition of 14 environmental groups and the Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America wrote an open letter to the Atlanta City Council and Mayor stating:
“As local environmental organizations who work with surrounding neighborhoods to fight for climate justice and equity, we are informed by local community leadership and historical context that this area has endured histories of environmental injustices and pollution in the city. The environmental disinvestment of the area in and around the South River Forest has historically marginalized surrounding neighborhoods, which are primarily Black and Latinx communities. The continued disinvestment of this area from the city of Atlanta has perpetuated environmental harm and degradation. Protecting these lands can interrupt the cycles of injustice.”
HISTORY SO FAR
Dating back to 2017, a plan was presented to the city and approved to designate the site and the adjacent 300 acres as greenspace and have them connect to other parks in the area.
The Sierra Club Georgia Chapter accused city leaders of not listening to their constituents.
"Moving the pieces around or pledging more greenspace in the project's footprint does not change the fundamental disagreement over this unnecessary facility," the group said, calling for "city officials to cancel the lease with the Atlanta Police Foundation and protect the entire South River Forest."
Since 2021, activists have intentionally camped in the area with the intent of disrupting progress on the facility. On January 18, 2023, Manuel Teran aka Tortuguita was shot and killed after he shot a Georgia State Trooper who was trying to get him out of his tent. The criminal who attempted to murder a law enforcement officer is now the martyr of the movement.
BE MOST CONCERNED WITH THE LEADERLESS MOVEMENT: DTF
Defend the Atlanta Forest (DTF) is primarily concerned with social issues cloaked in an environmental title. Self-described as a social movement with no leader or spokesperson, they provide the eerie reminders of Occupy Wall Street and its offshoots in 2011 and 2012. Their manifesto provides no indication that they are tree huggers, and their primary concern is the facility will hyper-militarize law enforcement. Functionally, they appear to be the cover for Antifa and other anarchists.
Of the 23 arrested Sunday, only two were from Georgia and two were foreign nationals. Of the two from Georgia, one is an attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center.
But what does this have to do with avoiding the term?
BECAUSE IT’S NOT COP CITY!
The enemies of freedom, law, order, peace and safety have been mislabeling core issues for too long. We can never call it by their name. The Parental Rights in Education Act was never the Don’t Say Gay bill and in fact, it never says gay or don’t say gay. This time the narrative will not be appropriated by Antifa criminals and domestic terrorists.
This amazing facility is being developed for the benefit of the citizens of Atlanta and the greater surrounding area. It will be serving both fire and police public services. Federal, state and county agencies will have advanced training opportunities because of this investment. After every critical incident, politicians and pundits declare the solution for whatever just happened is advanced, improved and more frequent training.
Everyone who writes in this space needs to drop that term like a hot rock. Let’s be disciplined and support Atlanta until they move in!
Please keep every first responder in your prayers.
https://www.atlantaga.gov/Home/Components/News/News/14533/672
https://www.npr.org/2023/03/07/1161343394/atlanta-cop-city-protests-explained
https://www.sierraclub.org/georgia/blog/2021/08/SouthRiverForestLetter
https://defendtheatlantaforest.org
https://www.wabe.org/family-demands-answers-over-cop-city-activists-death/
https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/cop-city-protestors-police-smoke
Well written. I’m glad to hear other people talk about the importance of correctly using vocabulary. Especially when it comes to delineating the line between law abiding citizens and criminals. I do not abide in my agency or life any slang terms or euphemisms when it comes to things that I would lay my life down for. Thank you for continuing to defend truth, sir!
Thank you for writing this. I have been following this story since the OIS with the eco-terrorist a few weeks/months ago.
Tho, not being local - I have a difficult time wondering why it is so opposed?
Is it?
1) The anti-police activists who want to abolish police and oppose everything police do.
2) Actual environmentalists.
3) fiscal conservatives.
- The obvious hypocrisy is: they claim to want better police - yet literally set fire to a state of the art police training facility.