(AP) ATLANTA — According to Atlanta police, about 30 people have been detained after flaming bottles and rocks were hurled at police during a violent protest at a new police training facility that has previously seen protests and the murder of a protester.
At a news conference held around midnight, Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum reported that numerous pieces of construction equipment had been set ablaze on Sunday at the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in DeKalb County.
Two more suspects have been detained by the #SpecialInvestigationTeam (SIT) looking into the 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases. They are said to have been a part of a mob that set a house on fire during the unrest, which left 127 people dead in this area. #AntiSikhRiot #1984Riot pic.twitter.com/USthtawA0X
— Asiana Times (@AsianaTimes) July 6, 2022
At the facility that is now under construction and is referred to its opponents as “Cop City,” surveillance footage provided by the police shows a piece of heavy equipment on fire. According to authorities, it was one of many pieces of construction machinery that was destroyed.
Police reported that on Sunday at the construction site, protesters in all black hurled huge rocks, bricks, Molotov bombs, and pyrotechnics at police officers.
No city officers were hurt as a result of other police departments stepping in to help, according to Schierbaum. According to him, officers dispersed the gathering and arrested individuals responsible using nonlethal enforcement techniques.
Schierbaum remarked, “This was a really severe attack, extremely aggressive attack. “This had nothing to do with a public safety training facility. This was about anarchy, and we are dealing with it right away.
The people involved “chose damage and vandalism over legal protest, again again revealing the extreme agenda behind their acts,” Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said.
In a statement released on Monday, Kemp said that this state will not tolerate domestic terrorism.
We won’t stop until those who use violence and intimidation to further an extreme cause are fully prosecuted, he declared.
The names of those detained and the allegations brought against them were not immediately known early on Monday, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Schierbaum, however, noted that many weren’t natives of the Atlanta region.
A 26-year-old environmental activist was shot and killed by police in the woodland where the training centre is being constructed in January.
On January 21, protests moved to downtown Atlanta, where a police cruiser was set ablaze and the Atlanta Police Foundation’s skyscraper was attacked with fireworks and rocks. The windows of that structure and others were broken.
The $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center was approved by the Atlanta City Council in 2021 on the grounds that a cutting-edge campus would replace subpar programmes and improve police morale, which is suffering as a result of difficult hiring and retention issues following the violent anti-racial injustice protests that rocked the nation after George Floyd’s death in 2020.
The training facility would contain a shooting range, a driving course to practise chases, and a “burn building” where firemen could practise extinguishing flames in addition to classrooms and office buildings. Authorities will also construct a “mock hamlet” with a phoney residence, convenience store, and nightclub to practise raids.
The location will be utilised to train “urban warfare,” according to opponents. The 85-acre (34-hectare) training centre, according to self-described “forest defenders,” would require so many trees to be taken down that it would be harmful to the ecosystem.
Police announced Monday that additional protests are scheduled over the upcoming days.
The Atlanta Police Department, working with other law enforcement agencies, has a multi-layered strategy that involves reaction and arrest, according to a statement from police, with protests scheduled for the upcoming days.
