Atlanta police say at least eight other people were arrested at a planned $90 million public protection education center that warring parties have occupied for months in a bid to save construction.
Atlanta Police Department Deputy Chief Darin Schierbaum told reporters Tuesday that some warring parties threw rocks and what a Molotov cocktail said about officials who invaded the property. In a press release, police said the Molotov cocktail caused a small fireplace that had to be extinguished and then the occasional molotov cocktail lit thrown at police.
The assets are owned by the city of Atlanta, but are located in unincorporated DeKalb County, just outside the city limits.
Opponents of the school continued to protest the $90 million project, which would be built through the Atlanta Police Foundation, saying cutting down so many trees would be harmful to the environment. They also oppose making an investment of so much money in what they call “Cop City” in light of the Black Lives Matter movement’s opposition to racial injustice in law enforcement.
Some other people who call themselves “forest defenders” have been camping since last year. Police said they sabotaged the structure’s efforts and protesters claimed to have planted barbs on the trees to make cutting them harmful.
Schierbaum said Tuesday’s heavy police presence at the site, which included agents from the FBI and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, accompanied contractors transporting construction materials. Schierbaum said the paintings were aimed at cleaning up unauthorized structures and making way for structural and site preparation paintings.
“There have been a number of concerted efforts to prevent the means of public protection from committing criminal acts,” Schierbaum said.
Opponents say protesters and bystanders were illegally pushed, caught with stun guns and arrested a protest march in another part of the city on Saturday.
“APD is frustrated with the effective and vocal motion opposing their new police station, so they are doing everything they can to shut it down,” Marlon Kautz of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund told Atlanta station WSB-TV. “Atlanta, with its rich civil rights legacy, is not a position where other people are brutally arrested for peacefully protesting. “
The 85-acre assets include a former state farm.
“We know there are other people in the assets now,” Schierbaum said. “We ask them to leave. It is illegal to be in the assets. So if those Americans left, there would be no arrests.
The Atlanta City Council voted in September to lease the land to the Atlanta Police Foundation. The school would feature a shooting range, classrooms, a simulated village, an emergency vehicle driving course, police horse stables and a “burning building” for firefighters to practice firefighting. The vote came after weeks of protests from others opposed to the complex.
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