under the watchwords “Defend The Forest” and “Stop Cop City” to oppose these developments and protect the Weelaunee forest since the Spring of 2021.
indictments are already controversial for how broadly it defines racketeering and allows a DA to “introduce evidence that, without racketeering charges, would not stand on its own as individual crimes.”5 On top of all of this, the Cop City RICO indictment was still such a weak and absolutely ridiculous case that no prosecutor would sign the indictment! Christopher Carr, the Attorney General of Atlanta, had to.
If a tree falls in a forest, and
no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? There are countless movements going on in the world at any given moment, and we inherently have a certain capacity as to what we can put our attention towards, especially in a capitalist society that leaves us little time to dedicate towards things that don’t have a monetary incentive. So, why Atlanta? Why now? Let’s start with the more direct implications.
If A Tree Falls In Atlanta:
Madison and the Stop Cop City Movement by Quinn Henneger
“When a tree is growing, it’s tender and pliant. But when it’s dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.”1 This quote by Anderi Tarkovsky were the first words I read from “The City In The Forest” zine that I had picked up while waiting for a presentation to start about the Block Cop City movement at the Social Justice Center in Madison, Wisconsin. The presentation was being given by a forest defender who had traveled from Atlanta to speak on behalf of the movement-about a 869-mile trip. When I picked up this zine and sat down with about fifteen other people on a warm September Friday
night, I was generally expecting to get some more clarity on this issue that I’ve been loosely following for the past couple months. Little did I know that about an hour and a half later, I would be planning the logistics of a cross-country roadtrip with a group of people I have never met before that night to join the forest defenders in Atlanta in a protest that had been described as one of the most important demonstrations of my generation’s lifetime. A demonstration 869 miles away that has direct ties to Madison, as well as the rest of the country. For those that don’t already know what is happening in Atlanta or what the Stop Cop City movement is, essentially, the govern-
ments of Atlanta and Dekalb County along with the Atlanta Police Foundation have been attempting to build a police training compound in the Weelaunee forest; land that is home to the Muscogee (Creek) people. Land that functions as the “lungs” of the city, trapping carbon emissions and runoff in its marshy lands and dense tree canopy. It is also land where, in the 19th century, slaves were sent to work fields that were eventually turned into a prison camp. Therefore, as the “The City In The Forest” zine I mentioned earlier states, “Paving this land over with new carceral infrastructure perpetuates a historical continuum of dispossession and abuse.”2 Abolitionists and environmentalists from across the country have come together
1 Anonymous, “The City In The Forest: Reinventing Resistance for an Age of Climate Crisis and Police Militarization” [Zine], Crimethinc. Ex-workers Collective. May 2022, p.4. 2 Anonymous, “The City In The Forest: Reinventing Resistance for an Age of Climate Crisis and Police Militarization” [Zine], Crimethinc. Ex-workers Collective. May 2022, pp.5-6.
Just this past September in 2023, 61 people were named in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) indictment asserting that these people are all part of a well-organized conspiracy called “Defend The Atlanta Forest.” In the indictment, the state of Georgia claimed that “the purpose of Defend the Atlanta Forest is to occupy of parts or all of 381 forested acres in DeKalb County, Georgia that is owned by Atlanta Police Foundation… Defend the Atlanta Forest is a self-identified coalition and enterprise of militant anarchists, eco-activists, and community organizers… formed in 2020 following the high-profile killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police Officers.”3 The indictment put words like solidarity, mutual aid, collective, and “other anarchist terms” (as they describe) in alienating quotations and used them as their reasoning behind why “Defend The Atlanta Forest” is a high-profile conspiracy group. First of all, “Defend The Atlanta Forest” are watchwords for an enormous autonomous group of people across the country that oppose Cop City. There is no “board of directors” for Defend The Atlanta Forest. RICO indictments are a huge deal, and are used sparingly because they are hard to prove, and are also similar to the federal version of the statute that was made to target Mafia bosses and entire criminal enterprises.4 Georgia RICO
Additionally, it is incredibly ironic for the indictment to claim that the Defend The Atlanta Forest “conspiracy group” was formed in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd because it was in fact that moment, and the wave of backlash against police that followed, that sent an intense ripple of fear within police departments across the country. A ripple that caused police departments like in Atlanta, and many others in the United States, to scramble to validate themselves by increasing their funding towards military-grade weapons and training facilities that, as mentioned before, would perpetuate a historical continuum of dispossession and abuse. This has an immediate tie to UW as 4 of the 61 people charged in this absurd RICO indictment are from Madison and around student age. All four of these people had already been facing faulty charges that they gained earlier in the movement. This includes when in March 2023, during the wave of action that spurred after Tortuguita, a prominent forest defender in the movement, was killed in cold blood by the Atlanta Police on January 18th, 2023, police raided the South River Music Festival and indiscriminately arrested 23 people and charged them all with “domestic terrorism”. This included two of the Madison co-defendants of the September 2023 RICO indictments. So, Cop City is not only causing serious harm to fellow Madison community members, but also, if the construction of this training facility in Atlanta is completed, it sets a precedent for other police departments around the county. There are already developments for more cop cities across the United States, one of the most
prominent being in Nashville where there is a 415 million dollar training facility proposal that will be located adjacent to the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.6 Still, given all this, one of the most concerning consequences of Cop City in Atlanta has not been mentioned yet: the criminalization of protests. Backlash against protests has been around since the first pickett sign was made - that is not new. What is new are charges against protestors that are used to target entire criminal enterprises. Charges of domestic terrorism for people that were attending a concert or sitting in a hammock in the Weelaunee Forest. Given UW’s rich history of student protest, what happens in Atlanta will have serious consequences for the future of resistance efforts at the UW campus and the rest of the country. For the past two years, forest defenders in Atlanta have used a wide array of tactics to resist Cop City: canvassing, pressure campaigns, speaking out at city hall, children’s marches, traditional Muscogee stomp dances, music festivals, weeks of action, sabotage, and demonstrations across the United States. The movement is now facing unprecedented repression as I explained before, but the forest defenders are not stopping any time soon. In fact, from November 10th-13th 2023 there is going to be a mass collective action demonstration that will be taking place in the Weelaunee forest. This protest has been building for many months, as the forest defenders have been traveling across the country, spreading the word, and inviting anyone who is able to participate in a mass mobilization that will alter the meaning and implication of resistance forever. As their invitation reads, “With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history.” Join us on November 13th at Library Mall from 12pm-3pm for a tabling event followed by a march to show solidarity with the Block Cop City day of collective action and protect our right to resist at UW-Madison.
3 United States, State of Georgia, et al. Cop City RICO Indictment, September 2023. pp. 24–30. 4 Hallerman, Tamar. What to Know about Georgia’s Rico Law, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6 Sept. 2023, www.ajc.com/politics/ what-to-know-about-georgias-rico-law/3Y2PBKLHWFDMLKYFEURTHLBVZY/. 5 Hallerman, Tamar. What to Know about Georgia’s Rico Law, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6 Sept. 2023, www.ajc.com/politics/what-to-know-about-georgias-rico-law/3Y2PBKLHWFDMLKYFEURTHLBVZY/ 6 Stockard, Sam. “State Contracting with 20 Firms for $415M Law Enforcement Training Project .” Tennessee Lookout, 12 Oct. 2023, tennesseelookout.com/2023/10/12/state-contracting-with-20-firms-for-415m-law-enforcement-training-project/.