Manuel "Tortuguita" Teran, murdered yesterday (January 18) by police in Atlanta for protecting Weelaunee Forest from being destroyed and converted into the country's largest militarized police training center.

Help protect Weelaunee Forest and stop the construction of cop city!

There was a conference last night for the Stop Cop City week of solidarity coming up February 19th-26th.

The main takeaway is that if people are interested in taking action, the best thing to do would be to target the construction company that the police have contracted, the funders of the project, and the insurance company insuring the project. The cops are the ones who want cop city built, but they can't do it without the groups mentioned above.

The construction company is Brasfield and Gorrie. My understanding is the company itself probably won't turn a huge profit from the project and is mostly doing it to strengthen relations with the police. If we can show them they will lose money from this project they may pull out. One way to show them how unprofitable this venture would be for them is to make it harder for them to complete other projects they're working on. One suggestion from the conference is that those who live near construction projects being done by Brasfield and Gorrie could try to obstruct progress on these projects to show there will be repercussions if they don't pull out of cop city.

The main funders of the project are big banks and corporations. I've included a link at the bottom with more details but some of the groups funding this are Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Target, Home Depot, and Chik-fil-a. The Atlanta Police Foundation is also helping fund and support the project. Below I've linked a map that shows the locations of these funders and offices of members of the Atlanta Police Foundation.

The insurance company signed onto the cop city project is AXA. At the conference last night it was emphasized that AXA is the main target we want to go after during the upcoming week of solidarity. The destruction of the forest cannot continue without an insurance company covering them. I did a quick google search and was able to find several AXA offices near me. Like with Brasfield and Gorrie, if we put the pressure on AXA they will hopefully realize this project is simply not worth it and pull out.

This is a list of targets which includes a map of where these targets are located throughout the US. There is also a list of actions that people can take, but be creative.

Nobody wants cop city except the police and corporations. Let's help save the Weelaunee Forest!

Our comrade Victor was snatched out of atlanta, and is approaching his 6th month of incarceration. First in DeKalb County, now in the Stewart Detention Center. Here's his site

"Stop Cop City / Avenge Tort"

Graffiti in a skate park in Brooklyn, NYC in response to the murder of Manuel Teran aka Tort, an Atlanta Forest defender who was shot and killed by cops on Wednesday.

The Atlanta city council plans to clear the forest to build a massive police training facility dubbed "Cop City".

From @r3volutiondaddy on Insta: “Atlanta Police Department vehicle was burned along with several other vehicles that got their windows smashed. Windows at banks who have been funding Cop City were smashed, and the Atlanta Police foundation building was also hit. This all occurred at a march after a vigil for Tortuguita, the forest defender who the cops murdered, tonight in downtown Atlanta. Near a dozen arrests were made reportedly, and it was seemingly on whoever the cops were able to grab randomly from the outskirts of the march. #StopCopCity #DefendAtlantaForest”

We are witnessing a state-created moral panic backlash against calls to defund the police that rivals anything we talk about in similar terms and will have similarly dire consequences for the population. https://www.curbed.com/2023/06/atlanta-cop-city-design-architecture-tactical-village.html

Protesters are scrapping with cops in Atlanta

COP CITY WILL NEVER BE BUILT!

Defend ATL Forest

Atlanta Solidarity Fund

Crimethinc RICO

"Tax breaks for the rich don't trickle down, Nazi ideas do"

Email: [email protected] to endorse the below statement as an individual or organization. "We call on all people of good conscience to stand in solidarity with the movement to stop Cop City and defend the Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta.

On January 18, in the course of their latest militarized raid on the forest, police in Atlanta shot and killed a person. This is only the most recent of a series of violent police retaliations against the movement. The official narrative is that Cop City is necessary to make Atlanta “safe,” but this brutal killing reveals what they mean when they use that word.

Forests are the lungs of planet Earth. The destruction of forests affects all of us. So do the gentrification and police violence that the bulldozing of Weelaunee Forest would facilitate. What is happening in Atlanta is not a local issue.

Politicians who support Cop City have attempted to discredit forest defenders as “outside agitators.” This smear has a disgraceful history in the South, where authorities have used it against abolitionists, labor organizers, and the Civil Rights Movement, among others. The goal of those who spread this narrative is to discourage solidarity and isolate communities from each other while offering a pretext to bring in state and federal forces, who are the actual “outside agitators.” The consequence of that strategy is on full display in the tragedy of January 18.

Replacing a forest with a police training center will only create a more violently policed society, in which taxpayer resources enrich police and weapons companies rather than addressing social needs. Mass incarceration and police militarization have failed to bring down crime or improve conditions for poor and working-class communities.

In Atlanta and across the US, investment in police budgets comes at the expense of access to food, education, childcare, and healthcare, of affordable and stable housing, of parks and public spaces, of transit and the free movement of people, of economic stability for the many. Concentrating resources in the hands of police serves to defend the extreme accumulation of wealth and power by corporations and the very rich.

What do cops do with their increased budgets and their carte blanche from politicians? They kill people, every single day. They incarcerate and traumatize schoolchildren, parents, loved ones who are simply struggling to survive. We must not settle for a society organized recklessly upon the values of violence, racism, greed, and careless indifference to life.

The struggle that is playing out in Atlanta is a contest for the future. As the catastrophic effects of climate change hammer our communities with hurricanes, heat waves, and forest fires, the stakes of this contest are clearer than ever. It will determine whether those who come after us inherit an inhabitable Earth or a police state nightmare. It is up to us to create a peaceful society that does not treat human life as expendable.

The forest defenders are trying to create a better world for all of us. We owe it to the people of Atlanta and to future generations everywhere to support them."

"Defend ATL Forest / Stop Cop City"

Graffiti in NYC in solidarity with the struggle to defend the Atlanta Forest from being cleared to make way for a massive police training facility dubbed 'Cop City'.

Cops rolling through the forest location of Tortuguita’s vigil tonight mocking and attempting to intimidate gatherers and break up the vigil. they threatened to come back later tonight at 11.

Atlanta police vehicle set on fire during a “Stop Cop City” protest in Atlanta, GA, Jan. 21, 2023 [photo: Benjamin Hendren/Anadolu Agency]