ATLANTA The location of Atlanta’s planned Public Safety Training Facility infamously known as Cop City by protesters is currently on lockdown while flames and smoke were put out and the site was secured. FOX 5 saw SWAT reporting to the scene after dark fell.
About 8 p.m. A FOX 5 reporter on the ground claimed to have heard an ominous sound that resembled that of gunshots or fireworks, but she hasn’t been confirmed by officials.
Police haven’t divulged the number of protesters taken into custody during or following the incident.
There was a large police presence all along Key Road in southeast Atlanta late Sunday night in the evening when FOX 5 was told protestors were violently fighting officers. At least one vehicle used for construction was burned to the ground.
We’ve since learned that the protest has been confined and that many protesters are scattered in the woods.
An officer from Georgia’s State Police has told FOX 5 photographer Billy Heath that sticks, rocks and even the Molotov cocktail were shot at police.
Protesters have been demonstrating against the design, and later construction of the proposed school since the facility was first proposed in June of 2021.
In July 2021, those opposed of the center were camp out in the trees around and famously coined the location to be “Cop City”.
In the course of time, the group established an official website that carried a the following mission statementthat reads “We call on all people of good conscience to stand in solidarity with the movement to stop Cop City and defend the Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta.”
FOX 5 put together a complete timeline of the development of protests during the last two years, which includes the shooting death of a trooper by 26-year-old protester Manuel Esteban Paez.
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