Photo of Atlanta Police car, courtesy of jobsforfelonshub at Flickr.com.
By Sarah Grinnell ’26
Staff Writer
Content Warning: This article discusses police brutality and racialized violence.
On Jan. 21, 2023, peaceful protests on the streets of downtown Atlanta saw widespread demonstrations following the police killing of 26-year-old environmental activist Tortuguita earlier in the week, NPR reported. According to CBS News, in the wake of anti-police protests, vandalism, assaults on officers and a myriad of arrests, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has officially issued a state of emergency.
The activist, whose pronouns were they/it, was a “forest defender” associated with the grassroots organization Defend the Atlanta Forest, CBS described. According to Fox5Atlanta, in September 2021 the forested land was leased out to the Atlanta Police Foundation to build a facility. Since then, this network has been fighting against the construction of a new $90 million public safety training facility for the Atlanta Police Department, which the activists dub “Cop City,” ABC News said.
On the Defend the Atlanta Forest website, members of the movement describe their motivation as being driven by the fact that “climate change and police violence are two of the most pressing issues affecting our society today, and they will only worsen if this facility is built.” According to CBS, the project requires the clearing of sizable portions of the surrounding Weelaunee Forest — which the activists emphasize is an ecosystem of “wetlands that filter rainwater and prevent flooding” and a rare “breeding ground for many amphibians in the region.” Additionally, the project would result in the expansion of law enforcement, another major concern of the activists. According to ABC, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms asserted that the facility will “help boost morale, retention and recruitment of our public safety personnel,” ensuring that officers “are receiving 21st-century training, rooted in respect and regard for the communities they serve.” However, the activists argue the training facility “would not help the city’s crime problem and further hurt relations between police and communities of color,” Fox5Atlanta reported.
Atlanta local and Mount Holyoke student Molly Malloy ’26 is no stranger to the notoriety of the Atlanta Police Department, they explained in an interview with Mount Holyoke News. According to Malloy, the deadly altercation between Tortuguita and the state trooper “sadly isn’t surprising.” They went on to explain that “policing in Atlanta has historically been racist, frightening and threatening, and this has been evidenced even further by recent tragedies like the murder of Rayshard Brooks at the hands of the Atlanta Police Department.” Brooks was a 27-year-old man who was shot and killed by the Atlanta police in a Wendy’s parking lot in June of 2020, as reported by 11Alive Atlanta. “This training environment would be a slap in the face to [people from Atlanta]who have made their stance clear that defunding the police and reducing the police force is what the people want,” Malloy said.
According to NPR, resistance to the training center by the forest defenders has been going on for over a year now, taking shape in camping out on platforms built in the surrounding tree cover, as well as staking out the construction site of the facility. In December 2022, five activists were arrested with charges of “domestic terrorism,” and convicted of crimes including carjacking, destruction of property, arson and physical altercations with police officers, ABC detailed.
These demonstrations culminated in a deadly apex on Wednesday’s raid when Tortuguita allegedly injured a police officer and was subsequently killed by other police officers nearby, Fox5Atlanta reported. Currently, there is no available first-hand account or body cam footage of the event, leaving the exact sequence of events largely unverified. According to NPR, the public response to this tragic turn has sparked anti-police demonstrations, with masked activists on Saturday initially gathering peacefully to remember Tortuguita, but soon throwing rocks and fireworks at buildings linked to the Atlanta Police Foundation, shattering windows and lighting a police cruiser on fire. Three businesses sustained damage in the protests, ABC News said.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp was quoted in an ABC article saying “those who break the law with no regard for those harmed by their actions will face justice, and I am grateful for these arrests.” However, according to ABC News, the protesters say “what is taking place is a classic example of tyrannical government overreach” and they believe “the public [had] a right to defend its interests.” As Malloy said, “as long as Georgia has a governor like Brian Kemp, the government will always be hostile against progressive agendas.” In Malloy’s view, this leaves activists with few options to demand change in a way that is seen as responsible.
Mount Holyoke Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Olivia Aguilar has provided some of her thoughts on the role of climate activism and whether or not there can be a ‘wrong’ way to go about it. “I think arguing about a binary of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ forms of activism about very complicated issues can be tricky and potentially misleading,” Aguilar said. While Aguilar emphasized that “climate activism takes many forms,” she also brought up the fact that “there is a lot of activism that doesn’t receive as much attention” and went on to say that “protests, strikes, corporate disruption, sit-ins, lawsuits and civil disobedience” — the tactics used in Atlanta — are some of the more dramatic tactics that activists use.
Malloy took a similar viewpoint, positing that climate activism is often “a cry for help towards an issue that feels utterly hopeless on an individual level.” In facing such desperate global situations as the climate crisis, Malloy points out that “people are forced to watch and grow fearful and angry as their futures are decided by … governments and corporations that never put the best interests of humanity first.” Therefore, they say that “extreme methods of climate activism are seen to some as the only option because the media will only take notice of fiascos that will garner attention and views.” Thus, Malloy suggests “if the ‘wrong’ way to some is the only option left and might lead to change, it’ll have to be the new ‘right’ way.”
When describing a future where the measures the forest defenders had to take to be heard are no longer necessary, Aguilar stressed that “environmental activism has been going on for centuries, but it is often politicians and influential corporations that impede progress on environmental action.” Aguilar believes that “environmental action has to affect policies and the pocketbooks of big Oil and Gas to be effective.” In her opinion, the best that citizens can do “is to work hard at having a government that is not hostile or unresponsive to our agendas” by taking their grievances to the ballot box. If this can be achieved, then Aguilar believes “questions about violence,” which enshroud the tragic cases of activists like Tortuguita, “won’t be necessary.”