According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, an incident near the proposed location of an Atlanta police enforcement training facility resulted in the death of one person and the injury of a Georgia state trooper.
At the location of the city’s proposed $90 million, 85-acre facility, which is to be erected in a forested area in a neighbouring county, activists and law officers have already engaged in conflict. In an effort to stop development, opponents of the project, which campaigners have called “Cop City,” have been camped out in the forest for months.
A person allegedly “shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper without warning” during a “planned clearing operation” that the GBI and many other law enforcement agencies carried out at the scene on Wednesday morning, according to GBI Director Mike Register.
According to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, an incident near the proposed location of an Atlanta police enforcement training facility resulted in the death of one person and the injury of a Georgia state trooper.
At the location of the city’s proposed $90 million, 85-acre facility, which is to be erected in a forested area in a neighbouring county, activists and law officers have already engaged in conflict. In an effort to stop development, opponents of the project, which campaigners have called “Cop City,” have been camped out in the forest for months.
A person allegedly “shot a Georgia State Patrol Trooper without warning” during a “planned clearing operation” that the GBI and many other law enforcement agencies carried out at the scene on Wednesday morning, according to GBI Director Mike Register.
On Wednesday, “police killed a forest defender today, someone who loved the forest, someone who battled to safeguard the land & its inhabitants,” according to the “Defend the Atlanta Forest” movement’s Twitter account.
The Defend the Forest movement has been contacted by CNN for additional comment.
Kei Diliza, a Gresham Park resident and part of “Stop Cop City,” a neighbourhood opposition group, told CNN on Wednesday that allegations from other activists who were close to the construction site contradicted the police’s claim of a protester firing shots at them.
“Stop Cop City” claimed that the police operation on Wednesday allegedly started with “many armed cops shutting down a public road and pointing firearms into the park” in an email statement to CNN.
“For months, community members have been calling for police to stop using violent techniques against forest defenders. To demand an end to police repression of the campaign to stop cop city, more than 100 residents and organisers gathered at the DeKalb County Courthouse just on Monday, according to the statement.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, who voted in favour of the training centre in 2021 along with other city council members, said in a statement on Twitter that he and his administration “are providing full support to our state and county partners as they secure the site in DeKalb County and investigate the incident.”
The mayor prayed for a quick and complete recovery for the trooper.
In a separate tweet posted on Wednesday, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp stated that he and his family “are praying for this brave Trooper and public safety professionals throughout all law enforcement agencies today.”
According to Register, the GBI’s investigation into the incident is “remain active and fluid.”
Register noted that four others had also been held and that charges against them were “forthcoming perhaps,” however it was unclear whether the four had any connection to the shooting.
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