This episode is a double feature: the debut of The Mainline News Hour on WRFG 89.3 in Atlanta as well as the People’s story about the growing #StopCopCity movement in the city. In this special report, founding editor Aja Arnold delivers a brief explainer of Cop City — the City of Atlanta and Atlanta Police Foundation’s newly-proposed massive $90 million police training facility — and the land the city wishes to place it on, the Old Atlanta Prison Farm.
The report features recorded audio from last month’s People’s Town Hall, an event organized by local groups DARC, Atlanta DSA, Community Movement Builders, and Sunrise ATL. The People’s Town Hall is the only true public forum event regarding Cop City to date, with no collaboration with any elected officials in city council or City Hall. Of the 13 council members, only two were in attendance.
Over 100 Atlantans gathered to speak their opposition, concerns, and sentiments towards the proposal and the city’s governance at-large. Tune in to hear the people’s story of #StopCopCity. This episode plays exactly as it aired on WRFG on Fri., Sept. 3.
INDIGENOUS LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT [also discussed in the report]
The City of Atlanta and Atlanta Police Foundation are attempting to build a 150-acre police training facility on 381 acres of forested land that is historically known as the Old Atlanta Prison Farm. The prison farm land is city-owned, but resides in unincorporated DeKalb County. This land was once home to the Muscogee (Creek) indigenous peoples before the land was awarded in a land lottery to a plantation owner who practiced the chattel enslavement of African people.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Aja’s recent report about the training facility published in The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2021/08/11/atlanta-police-training-center/
An info starter kit to #StopCopCity via The Mainline: https://www.patreon.com/posts/53201136
A local researcher’s metal analysis testing of Intrenchment Creek, the water source in the South River Forest/Old Atlanta Prison Farm: https://twitter.com/lilponitz/status/1425103516390014991
To learn more how you can help in the movement: https://stopcopcity.org
To support our work, become a sustaining member at https://patreon.com/mainlinezine or consider making a one-time donation at https://mainlinezine.com/donate
