ATLANTA — Police activity had a portion of Peachtree Street in Midtown closed early Thursday morning, with protesters against the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center saying an activist was chained to construction equipment.
The situation had Peachtree Street closed in the early morning between 17th Street and West Peachtree Street closed, a couple blocks north of the Arts Center MARTA station. Police worked to remove the protester and Peachtree reopened in the mid-morning.
A group that opposes the center, called "Drop Cop City," issued a press release saying an activist "used reinforced pipe to attach themselves to a key piece of construction equipment at a Brasfield & Gorrie work site to protest the company's involvement in the controversial 'Cop City' project."
Atlanta Police addressed the incident in a news conference just before 9:30 a.m. APD said in a statement that officers responded a little before 6 a.m. and "located a male who had chained, and duct taped himself to an elevator shaft inside the building which is currently under construction."
"APD Homeland Security Investigators, Atlanta Fire Rescue and Zone 5 Units arrived on scene and was able to successfully remove the male from the device without incident with the assistance of AFRD," the statement said.
Groups opposed to the police and fire training center call it "Cop City." Brasfield & Gorrie is a contractor for the project, which has been the subject of a long-running protest movement.
A similar protest action was staged at another Midtown construction site in January. In that instance, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum described the reinforced pipe mechanism as a "sleeping dragon." Brasfield & Gorrie said in January that "we continue to work closely with law enforcement agencies to monitor and respond to potential activity on an ongoing basis."
A statement from a protester included in the "Drop Cop City" group's release Thursday morning said, "They want us to be afraid, but I am not going to yield. I'm going to take action and I'm going to make it joyous."
The City of Atlanta said in January that site prep work at the construction site for the training center was 75% complete, with officials now targeting December of this year for completion of the project.
Those opposed to the training center have protested and organized against it for roughly two years. A RICO indictment brought by Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr has charged over 60 people for their involvement with the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” movement, though what level of organization — if any — that might exist between various factions of activists under this umbrella is not clear.
The protests at construction sites follow on other, more extreme actions that some have taken to oppose the training center project.
APD responded to a site in January where construction equipment had been set on fire. Police in that instance said they believed the arson was connected to the public safety training center opposition movement, though several social media accounts and websites connected to the movement that have claimed responsibility for past actions did not do so in this instance.
Fires were set at a concrete company in Gwinnett County last November, and Atlanta Police motorcycles were destroyed in an arson incident in July 2023. Police also previously highlighted three arsons earlier last year on McDonough Boulevard involving construction equipment, in what was believed to be the targeting of a company for ties to the building of the training center when it in fact was not involved.
The protest movement mushroomed following the Jan. 2023 law enforcement shooting death of Manuel Teran, known as Tortuguita, during a clearing operation of the forest encampments where protesters first started opposing the training center's construction.
The elements of the opposition movement against the center have included lawsuits to halt its construction, a referendum drive to put the facility's funding on the ballot in Atlanta, marches and protest actions such as the one Monday morning, and more radical elements of the movement that allegedly have vandalized the construction site and set arson fires targeting companies tied to the center.
The Cop City Vote referendum drive in particular has been a flashpoint with the city generally trying to quash it through bureaucratic maneuvers.
City officials have said the opposition movement has ballooned the cost of the project from an initial estimate of $90 million to nearly $110 million. Schierbaum said APD has been in touch weekly with training center contractors as the project continues.
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