Update: This article was updated on Dec. 28 at 3:32 p.m. to include quotes from one of the arrestees.
ATLANTA—Three activists were arrested on the morning of Fri., Dec. 22, during a weekly picket protest Weelaunee Coalition organizers have named “Forest Fridays.” Last Friday marked the ninth consecutive week of the protests that have taken place just outside the construction site for proposed $90 million-plus police militarization training facility known by many as “Cop City.”
Sources reported to Mainline that around 15 protesters were gathered outside the gate of the construction site when around 20 police officers surrounded them. As police approached the protesters, they issued a call to disperse while simultaneously attempting to grab a few of the demonstrators, according to witnesses on the ground. Video shared with the media shows the arrests taking place.
“We were peacefully demonstrating outside the construction site, just like we’ve done every Friday the past two months,” explains one of the arrestees, Noah Grigni, in an interview with Mainline. “The police were calm one moment, then they just snapped.”
Grigni added that they and other protesters were complying with the police officers’ dispersal orders, but that the police “grabbed us and handcuffed us before we could get away.”
“It was so sudden; it felt targeted,” they said. “There were children with us who were scared by the way the cops stormed in with assault rifles, violently grabbed us, and threatened to arrest the whole group.”
As of Dec. 23, all three individuals arrested were released. They were all charged with criminal trespass, with one person additionally charged with obstruction. Arrestees reported inhumane jail conditions during their detainment. Grigni said they were put in solitary due to being trans.
Cop City is being bankrolled by the Atlanta Police Foundation and the land is leased by the City of Atlanta. Both entities have garnered criticism for their lack of transparency throughout the process since the facility was initially proposed in Atlanta City Council in summer 2021. Locals have been in strong dissent and widespread opposition for over two and a half years of the deal, where the City of Atlanta leased hundreds of acres of forested land to the APF, a nonprofit organization, for $10 a year. Opponents have also decried the void of democratic processes, particularly towards DeKalb County residents who do not have an electoral say in whether or not the facility is built.
The lease agreement was passed in September 2021, despite nearly unanimous widespread opposition among constituents. As the movement has persisted, so has the escalation of state repression. Since the Stop Cop City movement began its opposition, Georgia police killed 26-year-old queer climate activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán, 42 people have been accused of domestic terrorism, 61 people have been charged with RICO, multiple destructive police raids have happened on the forest, and the City of Atlanta has delayed the referendum process to put the fate of Cop City on a public ballot.
This past September, five activists from the Faith Coalition to Stop Cop City were arrested after chaining themselves to a bulldozer in the construction site. In early November, four elders were arrested for blocking the entrance to the site. Activists say they believe that “police are increasingly targeting any protest against Cop City with the goal of maximizing arrests, hoping that the public wouldn’t notice during the holiday season.”
In response to the Dec. 22 arrests of the “Weelaunee Three,” activists held a jail vigil at DeKalb County Jail to show support.
