Police in riot gear tear gas Block Cop City protesters
The heavy handedness is the point: Georgia police are trying to create a world where protest incurs too heavy a cost. Protesters showed up anyway.
On Monday, hundreds of activists from around the country marched towards the Cop City construction site, bearing bug puppets, protest signs, and banners reading “Defend the Forest, Defund the Police” and “We Are the People’s Stop Work Order.” A marching band played, Atlanta hip hop blasted from speakers, and indigenous people banged drums.
May, a local activist, described Monday’s protest as “claiming the terms of engagement away from the powerful.” Over the last two years, activists have tried every tactic. Activists tried to peacefully occupy the forest. Then police assassinated a protester. Activists tried to march in downtown Atlanta. Police came out in force to intimidate the protest and harassed a journalist covering the movement. Activists tried to put Cop City on the ballot. The City of Atlanta fought to bury the referendum in a legal black hole. Last Monday, 61 protesters, bystanders, bail fund organizers, and 2020 racial justice activists were arraigned on RICO charges.
“It was said at the march that this is about two competing visions,” said May. “But I also think it’s about two competing realities, one of which is attempting to invert the truth and serve an authoritarian position. Where’s their authority? Their legal arguments? For them, the referendum drive is illegal. Gathering to protest is illegal. Being engaged in mutual aid or believing in certain political principles is a criminal conspiracy.”
Monday’s march was intended to show the movement’s strength and determination, even in the face of police retribution and prosecutorial intimidation. Activists planned to march on the Cop City construction site to plant trees and engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. At every planning meeting, protesters affirmed their commitment to nonviolence, including pledges to bring neither weapons nor incendiary devices to the march.
On Monday, as the march gathered, police helicopters circled overhead. As protesters approached the construction site, they were met with armored vehicles and a line of police in riot gear.
Using banners made with PVC pipe, protesters pushed through the police line, and parts of the march headed towards the fence, intending to break through onto the construction site. Immediately, police began firing tear gas canisters, the first round of which was fired in the direction of the clearly marked press contingent. Someone on a bike - possibly a bystander from the surrounding neighborhood - picked up the tear gas canister and threw it elsewhere, sparing the other reporters and me from the worst of the first round of tear gas. Several journalists who ran ahead were blocked by police from covering the march further, and were threatened with arrest.
As protesters continued to try to breach the fence, police lobbed more tear gas and flash bang grenades into the crowd. In the chaos, protesters locked arms, determined that no one would be separated. In a success of collective organizing and coordination in the face of police violence, no one onsite was arrested. (Preliminary reports suggest three indigenous people were arrested in the forest in the preceding weekend and one other arrest occurred offsite.)
Photo credit: Thorne
For their part, police flooded the area with an armored ramp vehicle called “The Beast,” canine units with dogs in anti-tear gas goggles, and more lines of riot police. As protesters were retreating, DeKalb County police repeatedly declared “This is an illegal protest” and called for protesters to disperse. Protesters walked out of the forest with their hands up, and yelled that they were leaving together. Coughing and vomiting from tear gas, but still dancing, the protesters returned along the same route.
In the face of political repression and fears of police violence, simply showing up to protest demands tremendous courage. The heavy handedness is the point: Georgia police are trying to create a world where protest incurs too heavy a cost. On Monday, people stood up against the very world Cop City is trying to create - one where movements are deprived of oxygen by political repression and police militarization. Protesters claimed the terms of engagement: Stop Cop City will not be silenced.