City Council go on record in opposition to the Cambridge Police Department and the City of Cambridge government sending trainees to, participating in any collaborations with, or supporting the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center or any similar facilities, in any way

If built, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center would be the largest police training facility in the US nearby a predominantly Black residential town just outside of Atlanta. The Center would hold shooting ranges, a helicopter pad, and a “tactical village” meant to mimic an Atlanta neighborhood. It would enhance the militarization of not just the Atlanta Police Department, but any municipal, state or federal agency invited to train there. The military-inspired style of training will assuredly make Black, disabled, poor, and other marginalized communities more vulnerable to the violence of over policing; and

In May, 2009 the Cambridge City Council declared a climate emergency and we understand that the climate crisis is borderless. According to the Georgia Forestry Commission, Atlanta forests remove about 19 million pounds of air pollutants each year and the Weelaunee (South River) Forest is one of the last unspoiled forested areas in the metro Atlanta area; and

The area that the Center is planned to be placed on was stolen from the Muskogee Creek Nation by the Indian Removal Act of 1830, it had been used for Indigenous burial and ceremonial sites. The land then housed a prison farm where many Black people were incarcerated and enslaved for accusations of violating Jim Crow laws. Building the Center would disturb this important land once again and “continue its long history of racism”; and

Atlanta Police murdered Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán by shooting them 57 times during a multi-agency raid of the Weelaunee Forest (also known as the South River Forest). Autopsy reports show that Tortuguita had their hands raised when they were killed and there is no evidence that they were armed. Embedded in a long tradition of environmental activism, Tortuguita among many others was camping in the Weelaunee forest in order to prevent deforestation and construction. They were murdered over 4 months before the Atlanta City Council had even approved public funds for the Center; and

In a survey written by lender Cadence Bank, the Atlanta Police Foundation’s

Program Manager answered that 43% of recruited trainees at the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center would be from out-of-state; and

The Cambridge Police Department should not be trained by or alongside a policing system that violates constitutional and human rights; and

Chicago, Baltimore, Tennessee, and Houston have already built or proposed “tactical villages” similar to the Center, indicating a growing and deeply concerning militarization of municipal police departments nation-wide; now therefore be it

That the City Council go on record in opposition to the Cambridge Police Department and the City of Cambridge government sending trainees to, participating in any collaborations with, or supporting the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center or any similar facilities, in any way; and be it further

That the City Council go on record strongly condemning the destruction of the Weelaunee Forest and the building and implementation of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center as a gross violation of human rights; and be it further

That the City Council go on record in urging Representatives Katherine Clark

and Ayanna Pressley and Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren to publicly condemn the destruction of the Weelaunee Forest and the building and implementation of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center; and be it further

That the City Clerk be and hereby is requested to forward a suitably engrossed copy of this resolution to the Atlanta City Council and Mayor Andre Dickens, and the offices of Senators Markey and Warren, and Representatives Clark and Pressley.

In City Council September 18, 2023. Adopted by Attest:- Diane P. LeBlanc, City Clerk

A true copy;

ATTEST:-

Diane P. LeBlanc,

City Clerk

History: 09/11/23

City Council

RECONSIDERATION FILED

Next: 09/18/23