Four Senior Women Arrested for Blocking Entrance to Cop City

“The women gave several reasons for risking arrest to stop construction on Cop City:  the people should decide the fate of the forest, not the Mayor, Atlanta City Council, or the Atlanta Police Foundation.” 

Editor’s Note: This article, originally published in the Streets of Atlanta, can be viewed at https://streetsofatlanta.blog/2023/11/10/four-senior-women-arrested-for-blocking-entrance-to-cop-city/ Photos are by Gloria Tatum

For over two years, almost one hundred people have been arrested for protesting the destruction of the Weelaunee Forest to build the Atlanta Public Safety Facility dubbed Cop City. Thousands more people have marched, lobbied, and testified against this unpopular project that destroys green space.

The latest warriors in this battle to save the forest and stop Cop City are four elder women: Laura Kearns, 63; Priscilla Smith, 67; Shelley Nagrani, 73; and long-time activist Lorraine Fontana, 76.

The women gave several reasons for risking arrest to stop construction on Cop City:  the people should decide the fate of the forest, not the Mayor, Atlanta City Council, or the Atlanta Police Foundation. 

“One hundred sixteen thousand (116K) people signed a petition to vote on whether cop city construction should go forward or whether it should stop. We should no longer use millions of (our tax) dollars in Atlanta to support this project. The Mayor and City Council have ignored the will of the people and don’t want the people to vote on this project. I still have hope because I believe the power of the people is greater than the people in power,” Fontana said.

Shelley Nagrani said she was willing to go to jail so her grandchildren could have a better future. “I watched the militarization of the police increase every year. I’m afraid that Cop City will push that trend into a much more dangerous place. The militarization of the police affects black people, indigenous people, and people of color disproportionately. It is up to all of us to stand up and say this is wrong.”

“If you want your voice to matter, you must find out what is happening, get involved, keep talking, and participate,” Smith said.

All four women courageously sat in chairs holding a banner in front of the entrance to a Cop City construction site and refused to move. The Atlanta Police arrested the fearless four and charged them with criminal trespassing. 

About 50 supporters sang protest songs and gave speeches as police picked up the unmovable four and carried them to patrol cars for transport to the Dekalb jail. The Elders spent the night in jail and most of the next day before being released.

They are not the first, nor will they be the last to go to jail in the ongoing battle of the People vs Cop City.

Another reason Cop City is so unpopular is that it was a secret backroom deal between former Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and the Atlanta Police Foundation (APF).  The APD is a coalition of wealthy corporations that help fund the building of Cop City. Activists know that money rules and corporations should not have control over the police.

“We will not stand for the murder of our friend Tortuguita. We will not stand for the political imprisonment of our young people for months on felony RICO indictments for handing out pamphlets, for protesting, for organizing our communities in solidarity, or for providing support to get one another out of jail,” Rev. Jonathan Rogers, Minister at West End Unitarian Universalist Congregation, said. 

It was MAGA Republican Attorney General Chris Carr –  part of Trump’s infamous January 6th insurrection team to overthrow the 2020 presidential election – that brought Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charges against 61 young citizens for protesting Cop City. Carr called them “militant anarchists.” Forty-three were already falsely accused of domestic terrorism for camping in a public forest or attending a music festival. This is political revenge on a scale not seen in a democracy.

The people who destroyed property and burnt bulldozers were unknown and were gone when the police rounded up innocent kids at a music festival and charged all of them with domestic terrorism for being part of Defend the Forest, which Chris Carr calls a corrupt, organized gang.

 Dr. Jacqueline Echols, President of South River Watershed Alliance, has advocated for the importance of green spaces for decades.

 “We have been fighting environmental destruction for a long time, and what you see here is just destruction on steroids. When you destroy the largest green space remaining in Atlanta, there will be no more. The impact will be significant for generations,” Dr. Echols said.

In the age of Climate Change, cutting down a forest to build an urban warfare school is foolish. Forests like Weelaunee are front-line troops against Climate Change. They give us oxygen and suck up carbon, clean the air, give us shade to lower the temperature, soak up stormwater runoff, and people with respiratory problems can breathe better with clean air.

Green spaces, trees, and forests are worth fighting for. And to end militarized police violence against people of color, to end corporate control of the police, and to end the Israeli military training police is worth fighting against.

Power to the people, fight on for justice, democracy, freedom, and the right to protest.