The Hip Hop Caucus is asking on U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and different state and native politicians to cease the development of the Atlanta Public Security Coaching Middle, often known as “Cop Metropolis.”
The multi-million-dollar facility can be one of many largest militarized police coaching facilities within the nation, which can embrace lecture rooms, a taking pictures vary, a driving course for training high-speed chases, and a mock metropolis the place police can follow conducting raids.
Rev. Lennox Yearwood, president and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus, advised theGrio that activists and residents should proceed to strain their representatives in native, state, and federal authorities.
“Cop Metropolis is just a transparent illustration of how anti-Black racism, environmental injustice, and police brutality intersect,” stated Yearwood.
He advised theGrio that, thus far, Atlanta residents have filed over 116,000 petitions to native politicians protesting the development of the police facility.
In a letter obtained by theGrio, Warnock’s workplace requested Atlanta Mayor André Dickens to “err on the facet of giving individuals the flexibility to specific their views” because it pertains to their opposition to the police facility.
Final month, throughout the Congressional Black Caucus Basis’s 52nd Annual Legislative Convention, the Hip-Hop Caucus held an occasion titled “Cease Cop Metropolis” to talk out in opposition to the development of the ability.
Yearwood, actress and comic Amanda Seales, and actor Kendrick Sampson spoke to members of the press on the Walter E. Washington Conference Middle to voice their considerations about Cop Metropolis and the impacts the ability may have on Black and brown communities throughout the nation.
Seales advised theGrio, “It’s no far cry for us to only do the fundamental math that policing will not be for Black individuals.”
“Policing on this nation could be very particularly grounded within the disruption of the peace of Black individuals, however it’s masked as if it’s for crime,” she stated.
“However, in the event you have a look at Black individuals as criminals, nicely, then right here we’re. So after we’re constructing a complete metropolis that’s devoted to this already in a nation that’s been devoted to this, we see that it’s solely going to unfold like wildfire,” Seales added.
For months, environmental activists have protested Cop Metropolis. They are saying it additionally poses a risk to the surroundings and can be dangerous to Black and brown Individuals.
Seales advised theGrio that with a view to construct the police facility, that features destroying a forest, which can displace “not simply animals and never simply the individuals…however bushes.”
She added, “We’re in a local weather concern. We’re seeing flooding. I noticed flooding the opposite day at Morris Brown that [officials] had been in a position to contribute to the truth that these bushes have been cleared, and so now there are much less boundaries to guard the infrastructure that’s been constructed” close to the forest.
Because it stands, Cop Metropolis is slated to open on the finish of 2024.
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