Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr on Monday reportedly defended the decision to bring domestic terrorism charges against those protesting the construction of a $90 million police and fire training facility.
Speaking to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution at the site of one of three youth centers set up to prevent gang recruitment of minors, Carr reportedly said, "The state of Georgia has passed a law that defines what domestic terrorism is. I’m confident we’ll have the ability to go to court and prove those charges."
Carr said it was "critically important" that construction of the public safety training center, which activists who dubbed themselves "forest defenders" call "Cop City," continue, citing last month’s fatal beating of Tyre Nichols by five Black police officers in Memphis, Tennessee.
"We’ve been talking for the last two years in particular, and then [the Memphis police death of Tyre Nichols] brought it back up, about well-trained law enforcement, well-trained first responders, well-trained firefighters as well," Carr, a Republican, told the Journal-Constitution. "And that’s what this facility is about."
At least 19 people have been arrested and charged with domestic terrorism since December in connection to protests against the training facility for Atlanta’s police and fire departments to be constructed on 85 wooded acres in southwestern DeKalb County on the site of a former prison farm.
Six of those arrests came during a Jan. 21 violent riot in downtown Atlanta in response to the deadly shooting of 26-year-old environmental activist, Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, by Georgia State Patrol tasked with clearing protesters from the construction site. Authorities say Teran, who reportedly went by the name Tortuguita, identified as nonbinary, and used they/it pronouns, first shot and wounded a state trooper in the abdomen before law enforcement returned fire, killing Teran.
In response, demonstrators set a police cruiser on fire days later in downtown Atlanta and threw rocks and lit fireworks in front of a skyscraper that houses the Atlanta Police Foundation. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency, giving him the option of calling in the Georgia National Guard to help "subdue riot and unlawful assembly."
Last week, body camera video from four Atlanta police officers who were part of the Jan. 18 "clearing operation" was released, but the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said no footage exists of the exchange of gunfire that ultimately resulted in Teran’s death.
Most of the activists charged with domestic terrorism are also accused of other offenses for allegedly trespassing on the construction site or hurling objects at first responders.
City Council approved the $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in 2021, saying a state-of-the-art campus would replace substandard offerings and boost police morale, which is beset by hiring and retention struggles in the wake of violent protests that roiled the city after George Floyd’s death in 2020.
Self-described "forest defenders" say that building the "Cop City" would cause an environmentally damaging loss of trees. They also oppose investing so much money in a project that they say will be used to practice "urban warfare." After the January riots, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens rebuked those claiming they were not violent, defending the public safety center as answering calls of 2020 for better training for law enforcement. Yet the activists, he said, don’t want "anything built that supports police."
The Journal-Constitution reported that approval of land permits for the facility have been challenged.
Carr spoke to the newspaper Monday following a tour of the Westside At-Promise Center, a juvenile diversion center meant to provide resources to prevent children from joining gangs. The attorney general spoke of support for Senate Bill 44, which seeks to impose mandatory minimum sentences on adults who recruit minors into gangs.
The city’s three At-Promise Centers are run by Atlanta Police Foundation, the same nonprofit that helped guide the public safety training center project. The Westside location toured by Carr Monday was "firebombed" last May by two still unidentified suspects who authorities say threw Molotov cocktails through a rear window. The damage has since been repaired.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
