Faculty members at historically Black colleges and universities are pushing back against plans to build a state-of-the-art police training facility, claiming that the project will lead to “destruction.”
The Atlanta City Council approved in the fall 2021 the development of a $90 million 85-acre police training facility called the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. The “state-of-the-art training facility” would have shooting ranges, a “mock village” for police training, a leadership auditorium and myriad other amenities.
While the facility is planned to be built less than 10 miles from four historically black colleges and universities, it has prompted opposition from critics who call the project a “Cop City” that would lead to potential police brutality. Other critics claim that the facility will be harmful to the local environment.
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Morehouse College faculty sent a letter on Feb. 2 to Atlanta officials urging that the “Cop City” not be built.
“The proposal for a new police training facility was publicly announced in 2021, at a time when the nation was still reeling from the killing of George Floyd and a broad coalition of concerned citizens demanded that cities and states defund the police,” the letter states. “In a city that is rapidly losing its famed tree canopy, the project is also environmentally disastrous; it would require the clearing of 85 acres of Atlanta’s lush South River Forest.”
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The letter continues by saying the facility will lead to “more death” and that the project already has “blood” on its hands.
“Let us not delude ourselves: Cop City, if built, will result in more death and destruction at the hands of the police. Indeed, the Cop City project already has blood on its proverbial hands. On January 18, 2023, as authorities conducted a sweep of the forest…
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