The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center will cost $90 million dollars to build and will include a training and education center, fire and EMS training, a Leadership Institute, a shooting range, an Emergency Vehicle Operations Course, a mock town center, a canine training center, stables for mounted patrol, and a fitness center (2). Originally, the Atlant Police Foundation wanted to conduct explosives training at the facility, but the city decided against it (3). 

One of the largest remaining greenspaces in Atlanta will be used to further embolden and train an already militarized police department for urban warfare and more police brutality against marginalized people. Atlanta decided to do this while millions of Americans took to the streets to protest the barbaric state murders of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Brianna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Patrick Kimmons, Quanice Hayes, Joseph Finley Jr, Mah-hi-vist Goodblanket, Allen Locke, Loreal Tsingine, Brian Babb, James Chasse, and so many other Black, Brown, Indigenous, and disabled people.  Atlanta’s lawmakers decided to strike down police reform measures, increase the police budget, and increase public surveillance. 

Activists and Forest Defenders have protested only to be met with police violence, arrest, and in one case, death. The Atlanta Police Department, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security formed a task force and decided to charge the Forest Defenders with domestic terrorism. This is a scare tactic used to demoralize and criminalize the movement (4).

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Demand District Attorney Sherry Boston drop domestic terrorism charges against Stop Cop City protesters: https://rightsanddissent.salsalabs.org/stopcopcity/index.html 

Then, on January 18, 2023, while law enforcement was conducting another raid, the Atlanta Police Department, fatally shot Tortuguita, an Indigenous queer environmental activist,

who was sitting cross-legged and unarmed,13 times (4).

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The facility is opposed by numerous community members and leaders, religious leaders, universities, environmental organizations, human rights groups, neighborhood associations, and more, including

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-Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America
-City in the Forest
-Climate Reality Atlanta Chapter
-Dogwood Alliance
-ECO-Action
-EcoAddendum
-Georgia Interfaith Power and Light
-Intrenchment Creek Community Stewardship Council
-Moms Clean Air Force Georgia Chapter
-Partnership for Southern Equity
-Poder Latinx
-Sierra Club Georgia Chapter
-South River Forest Coalition
-South River Watershed Alliance
-Sunrise Atlanta
-Center for Biological Diversity 
-Community Movement Builders-Atlanta-based non-profit organization
-NAACP  
-Defund APD 
-Refund Communities
-Atlanta Sunrise Movement 
-A World Without Police 
-Students at the University of North Carolina (5)
-Faith leaders, Community leaders, faculty, and students at HBCUs Emory University, Morehouse College, and Spelman College (6)
-Approximately 770 out of 1,100 (70%) Atlanta residents who gave public comments for a 17-hour virtual public hearing in September 2021 (7) 

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Neighborhood Associations: 

-East Atlanta Community Association 

-Grant Park Neighborhood Association 

-South Atlantans for Neighborhood Development 

-Kirkwood Neighbors Organization 

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The building of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center must be stopped for the same reason all police departments must be stopped. Law enforcement in this country is built on a foundation of genocide, scientific racism, and eugenics which has resulted in the targeting, brutalization, and murder of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and disabled people. Police kill over 1,000 people a year, they use excessive force, racially profile, criminalize, and dehumanize. They suppress free speech on the left and have ties to white supremacist groups. They don’t solve crime and they commit more sexual assault and domestic violence than the average person. There is no amount of training or police reform that can undo this. 

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I will go through each specific reason and provide statistics and data. Then I will explain the history of race science and eugenics and the corresponding American laws and policing practices they have inspired.