Liberal activists in Atlanta, Georgia are furiously demanding the armed police guard be removed from the construction site of the controversial cop city Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. They want the officers reassigned and they want it done now.
Police guards draw anger
Citing fears of more crime on the streets and less police to respond to it, two community leaders are teaming up to “question why the city is shifting dozens of officers to guard a construction site where the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center is being built.”
They understand it needs protection but “do not want on duty cops removed their neighborhoods to accomplish that task.” Latonya Gates of Grove Park says “it’s unheard-of.”
The controversy started a week ago “with a reassignment of 30 officers for 24-hour-a day coverage.” Since then, the numbers of police officers at the site “has doubled and even tripled on some days.”
Atlanta Police Department sends officers to help secure public safety training center site #gapol https://t.co/aO9xwwx1kZ
— Brian O'Shea (@bposhea) February 14, 2023
The activists note that “forty officers are assigned just during the daytime when actual construction is going on.” Local anarchists don’t like that one bit.
Buckhead resident Bill White is the other community activist. “We cannot be removing officers from Buckhead streets and other parts of Atlanta, so they can be security guards. Come on now?”
He doesn’t have much faith in police officials. He’s also one of the ones against building the facility in the first place.
Georgia’s attorney general reiterated his support Monday for Atlanta’s controversial new public safety training center — and defended the use of domestic terrorism charges against activists protesting its construction. https://t.co/l2Fv88tJ58
— Atlanta Journal-Constitution (@ajc) February 14, 2023
There for a reason
City officials declare that the extra security at the construction site won’t have any noticeable effect on street safety. They have the manpower to do it. “We have placed some officers out there because of the violence that’s been at that particular location.”
They want to ensure that “the construction people — who are there doing the service on behalf of Atlanta Police Foundation and the build out — would be safe.” They need guards “because there have been threats, there have been a lot of things going on.” APD Deputy Chief Timothy Peek explains.
Peek notes that “it’s a very small footprint of people that are out there with a good plan in place to ensure that everyone’s safe.” Nobody will be left hanging at the end of a 911 call.
Two community leaders from opposite sides of Atlanta question why the city is shifting dozens of officers to guard a construction site where the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center is being built. https://t.co/fgXztD500X
— FOX 5 Atlanta (@FOX5Atlanta) February 14, 2023
His comments, reports note, “came a week after SWAT teams from Atlanta and DeKalb County police departments, as well as Georgia State Patrol troopers, cleared the woods in anticipation of construction of the $90 million facility.”
That activity was made necessary by the fatal January 18 incident. While performing a “clearing operation,” one of the encamped anarchists turned sniper and shot a trooper from the concealment of a tent.
That left the “trooper wounded from a bullet to the abdomen, and activist Manuel ‘Tortuguita‘ Teran dead.” The Atlanta Police Department “recently released footage from its own officers in the area, but they do not show the shooting itself.“
