Funding Approved for Controversial Atlanta Cop Training Center

Facts

• After a 14-hour public meeting stretching from Monday into early Tuesday, the Atlanta, Ga., city council voted 11-4 to approve $31M for the construction of a new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, dubbed 'Cop City' by critics.¹
• The approval of the 85-acre facility, where police, firefighters, and emergency responders would train and which will cost a total of $90M, comes after years of opposition from protesters who say it will hurt the environment and be used by police to "practice urban warfare."²
• Alongside the $31M, the council voted to allocate another $1.2M of city money per year over 30 years, totaling $36M. The rest of the $90M budget will be funded by private donations to the Atlanta Police Foundation, the non-profit responsible for planning and building the facility.¹
• The council included a list of requirements for the facility, such as prohibiting the use of helicopters and explosives, as well as requiring police to take training programs on safeguarding free speech, recognizing bias, and avoiding interactions with the public that could escalate to violence.³
• The funding vote, which comes over a year since the facility was approved in September 2021, follows last week's arrests of three organizers — accused of fraud — who lead the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which has provided bail money and helped find attorneys for arrested protesters.⁴
• Clashes between police and protesters have become increasingly violent in recent months with an environmental activist shot and killed by police in January, and dozens arrested on domestic terrorism charges following alleged acts of violence, including the torching of police equipment.⁵

Sources: ¹BBC News, ²NBC, ³New York Times, ⁴Guardian, and ⁵Archive.

Narratives

• Progressive narrative, as provided by Common Dreams. The Atlanta city council just voted to increase the law enforcement targeting of minorities while simultaneously destroying the water quality of a majority Black and Brown population. Instead of allocating $60M toward environmental protection, housing, or education, the city chose to fund what is essentially a resort for police. If the city doesn't think this will lead to more police brutality, it should look at how they've already treated protesters.
• Democratic narrative, as provided by Washington Post. While the city council has listened to and acknowledged the concerns of protesters, the Democrat-led legislature voted yes on this funding for justified reasons. This facility isn't just for cops, though Atlanta certainly needs to better train its law enforcement at a time of racial reckoning, it's also for firefighters and paramedics. Furthermore, the loudest opponents have used not just their rights to speech but violence to intimidate the men and women in charge of protecting Atlanta and its surrounding neighborhoods.
• Republican narrative, as provided by The Post Millennial. Far-left, anti-police militants have been attacking Atlanta law enforcement nonstop since this facility was first proposed. Just last month, three extremists were caught putting flyers with the identity of one officer in peoples' mailboxes with the sole intention of harassing him publicly. Not that Atlanta needed another reason to bolster its police department, but this should certainly be the nail in the coffin on that issue.