Atlanta Riots Timeline: How 'Stop Cop City' movement led to violent night in Downtown
ATLANTA -
Downtown Atlanta on Jan. 21 flooded with
people demanding justice for an activist killed near the site of a planned
Atlanta Police Department training facility.
Law enforcement said the protestor, who law enforcement identified as 26-year-old Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, opened fire on a Georgia State Patrol trooper before other officers returned fire.
The violence Downtown was part of ongoing tensions that have happened for more than a year in Atlanta and in
DeKalb County, where law enforcement said environmental activists camping out in the forest have fought against the training facility's construction by committing crimes. Protestors say the facility will destroy the Weelaunee Forest and expand law enforcement in the area.
The Atlanta City Council voted in September 2021 to approve the proposal to lease the forested land in unincorporated DeKalb County to the Atlanta Police Foundation to build the facility for first responders.
The measure was
approved after being postponed in August 2021. Activists with the "Stop Cop City" movement, said that the training facility would not help the city’s crime problem and further hurt relations between police and communities of color.
"We don’t believe that better-trained police officers is what the solution is to any of this," said Shafeka Hashash, chair of the Atlanta chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. "We in fact believe that if that funding does exist, it should go into community support and actually meeting the needs of community."
-Courtesy Fox.
Tree lives matter.