How a Police Protest in Atlanta Over Cop City Launched a ‘Domestic Terrorism’ Warzone

ATLANTA—At about 1 a.m. Thursday, an activist identified in prison records as Timothy Murphy, but who tends to use a different name, said they had not had food or water for about 16 years. now sitting “unbelievably tall” in a tree. According to their own accounts, these 25-year-olds act as a sort of sentinel — protecting a forest from forces trying to turn it into a Huge and controversial new police and firefighter training facility named city ​​police.

Hours have passed, Murphy told The Daily Beast via text message, since law enforcement ordered tree growers to cut down branches that for weeks had contained food and shelter. activists’ makeshift — hours since police fatally shot a nearby “treekeeper” then, authorities claim, the officer was fired first. (Activist groups have called the shooting “murder.”) Still, even after hearing the shrill gunshots a few hundred feet away, their muscles ached, their throats were parched, and their stomachs burned. cried out, Murphy said they remained motionless—until they were arrested around 7 a.m

Wednesday morning shot and killed protester Manuel Teran, along with domestic terrorism against those who are fighting to impede development, marking a major escalation in the battle for the South River Forest, which covers hundreds of acres just southeast of the city of Atlanta. It also represents a sort of culmination of months of chaos in a city grappling with a recent legacy of police brutality and anti-police rage, on the other hand anxiety about Crime.

The scale of the protest coalition is difficult to measure. Hundreds of people attended a vigil in the city after Teran’s death, which split into a march down busy streets lined with protesters littering the streets with e-scooters and signs. uprooted street signs.

Activists say they are waging a war against police misconduct, militarization and climate injustice, being bullied by police by taking advantage of increasingly aggressive tactics, including deploy chemical agents, rubber bullets and now live ammunition. But law enforcement agencies, led by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation – which claimed that Teran opened fire first and “unannounced”, wounding a state trooper – treated the protesters as Terrorists are ready to sow chaos and anarchy. The police have accused them of throwing rocks and glass bottles at the police car, and even use molotov cocktails to restrain construction activity.

Police arrested Murphy early Thursday morning, charging them with domestic terrorism after surrounding them, shining headlights at them and hurling them with marbles, they said. Protesters are believed by activists to be the last to live on trees, and their removal has left a question mark for the future of the movement.

Murphy – who claimed before their arrest, “I threw shit and kept telling the planters and the police that I wanted peace” – adding that they thought the terrorism charges could encourage encourage others to support the movement, and maybe even become treekeepers.

They said: “I always doubt and dream, but to see the support of each individual in this community, I strive to hope to win.”

John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP

Clashes between police and protesters culminate in 2021, when Atlanta City Council green light for development of an 85-acre public safety training center in one of the city’s largest green spaces, despite hours of public criticism of the proposal. Tensions really spiked as heavy machinery began to chew through the forest. It’s a notable change in a city that has toyed with police budget cuts after becoming the site of George Floyd protests in 2020—in part due to shot and killed Rayshard Brooks, 27 years old in an Atlanta Wendy’s parking lot.

And as the intensity of the protests escalates, you don’t have to be a full-time activist to get caught up in the fray.

When Barry Williams, a native of Atlanta, laced his running shoes for a jog through the neighboring woods on December 13 – which he does almost every day – he couldn’t imagine he would stare to the tip of a policeman’s rifle. “When I was running and saw the first policemen, they pointed their guns at me,” he told The Daily Beast last month.

Williams said he was held for three hours, but was eventually released amid deforestation activity that brought the first six terror charges against Cop City protesters. Those arrested included 22-year-old Ariel Ebaugh, who was found in possession of a Glock pistol, according to the arrest report. An attorney for Ebaugh declined to comment.

Williams says the so-called “guardians of the forest” he meets while jogging are always docile and unlikely to cause trouble, and he believes they have been abused by the police. None of the law enforcement agencies involved in this activity responded to requests for comment on this story. But Ryan Millsap, the film’s operator, who in 2020 acquired 40 acres in the southeast part of the forest in a land-swap deal with DeKalb County, sees things differently.

Even before Millsap leveled one of the entrances of the forestIn an interview, he said in an interview, when preparing the site for redevelopment, #StopCopCity activists dumped his land with graffiti and littered anti-enforcement law. Millsap said: ‘They came to my home, sprayed paint and left threatening messages. If these guys are mafia, you can just call it organized crime and intimidation.”

Outside the park’s now demolished entrance, tags read “If this park isn’t safe, so is Millsap,” “KILL COPS,” “EAT RICH” and “VOTE WITH MOLOTOV’s COCKTAIL”. YOU,” according to the reviewed images by The Daily Beast.

Millsap also finds me get caught up in a court battle with groups like the South River Forest Coalition and the South River Watershed Alliance, plaintiffs who support the conservation movement—and who consider the land swap to be legally sketchy. The protesters, who called the forest “Weelaunee Peoples Park,” nod to the Native American nickname for the area, imagining Millsap as a police-loving colonist, coming to privatize public land.

“I’m definitely a good law enforcer in a rural area,” he told The Daily Beast, arguing that the local police currently have “insufficient” training facilities and need to be upgraded. . “I definitely believe in the rule of law and the enforcement of the law.”

Millsap continued: “Ideologically, I have great respect for private property rights. A lot of wealth in this country has been created over hundreds of years through very clear property rights, and letting people believe they can usurp someone else’s property rights—that’s a very dangerous path. to come down as a culture.”

Before their arrest on Thursday morning, Murphy – whose arrest record says he was from Maine – said they knew they were at risk of being charged with terrorism charges when they joined the war a few weeks ago. That doesn’t stop them from trying to protect the canopy and, they say, limit the militarization of the police — even if the protest turns deadly.

“The term ‘domestic terrorism’ is an extremely scary language intended to incite fear,” Murphy said. But when they get out of prison, they added, they won’t give up the fight, even if they have to give up camping in the woods.

“It’s not just about sitting in a tree,” they said. “We are trying to educate and let people realize the importance of nature and the dangers of a police state.”