DeKalb County has approved the stalled land development permit for the controversial public safety training complex dubbed “Cop City” by what’s become a national protest movement.
- That’s after 11 months of analysis and an agreement between Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond regarding the project’s parameters and details.
Why it matters: Protests about the project have recently escalated into violence between law enforcement and activists trying to stop its construction. Some protest the environmental effects on the forested south DeKalb County land — and others more because of a broader criticism of police brutality.
Catch up quick: Manuel Esteban Paez Terán was shot and killed last month by a Georgia state trooper during a “clearing operation” at the site. State law enforcement says the trooper was returning fire at Terán, who went by Tortuguita.
What’s happening: The agreement, which Thurmond called a “compromise solution,” has taken into account some requests from a community advisory committee created by Atlanta City Council featuring members from the city and unincorporated DeKalb.
- Those include a 100-foot tree buffer between the training facility and adjacent residences, eliminating an explosives range, relocation of a firing range away from residences, and ideas for the nearly 300-acre public greenspace including sidewalks, lighting and public parking.
The other side: In response, the Defend the Atlanta Forest collective said in a statement “nothing is over” and decried the agreement as “empty rhetoric to cover over the undemocratic railroading of this project on to un-represented, disenfranchised residents of Atlanta and Dekalb County.”
- In a statement, the Sierra Club of Georgia director Gina Webber also criticized the news and called on the city to cancel the lease: “The forest is too important to the health of our communities to destroy even a portion of it.”
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