Atlanta Democrats Vote to Fund Controversial Police Center
TimeJun 04, 2023
Funding Approved for Controversial Atlanta Cop Training Center
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The Facts
After a 14-hour public meeting stretching from Monday into early Tuesday, the Atlanta, Ga., city council voted 11-4 to approve $31M for the construction of a new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, dubbed 'Cop City' by critics.
The approval of the 85-acre facility, where police, firefighters, and emergency responders would train and which will cost a total of $90M, comes after years of opposition from protesters who say it will hurt the environment and be used by police to "practice urban warfare."
The Spin
Progressive narrative
The Atlanta city council just voted to increase the law enforcement targeting of minorities while simultaneously destroying the water quality of a majority Black and Brown population. Instead of allocating $60M toward environmental protection, housing, or education, the city chose to fund what is essentially a resort for police. If the city doesn't think this will lead to more police brutality, it should look at how they've already treated protesters.
Democratic narrative
While the city council has listened to and acknowledged the concerns of protesters, the Democrat-led legislature voted yes on this funding for justified reasons. This facility isn't just for cops, though Atlanta certainly needs to better train its law enforcement at a time of racial reckoning, it's also for firefighters and paramedics. Furthermore, the loudest opponents have used not just their rights to speech but violence to intimidate the men and women in charge of protecting Atlanta and its surrounding neighborhoods.
Republican narrative
Far-left, anti-police militants have been attacking Atlanta law enforcement nonstop since this facility was first proposed. Just last month, three extremists were caught putting flyers with the identity of one officer in peoples' mailboxes with the sole intention of harassing him publicly. Not that Atlanta needed another reason to bolster its police department, but this should certainly be the nail in the coffin on that issue.
