Atlanta is known to be culturally iconic. Whether it’s due to music, dances, food, or people, the teens that live here drive the culture. But what about politics? Do they know they have influence? Do they care, or more importantly, do they know enough to care?
Atlanta’s “Public Safety Training Center,” more commonly called “Cop City,” has attracted publicity and protests against the over $100 million-dollar police training facility in DeKalb County. I asked 26 Atlanta teens a straightforward question: “Do you know what Cop City is?” Of the teens I spoke to, aged between 13 and 17, 11 said they didn’t know about it and 15 said they did. But when I asked them to rate their knowledge on a scale of 1-10, (one meaning no knowledge and 10 being complete knowledge), the majority, who said yes they know about Cop City, used numbers between 1-5.5.
The idea for Cop City dates back to 2017. Cop City will replace the old police & firefighting training facility that had reports of roaches, mold, and rats, according to WSB TV. Officers said, “We had to go through the hallways to make sure all the dead cockroaches had been removed.” Cop City is a $109.65 million police training facility that will be built on Entrenchment Creek Park. According to Capital B, the land on which Cop City is being built was given to Dekalb County in 2003 “with the stipulation that it will be used forever as park property.” As the years progressed, exposure and opposition to the plan grew. Many protesting groups, like “Stop Cop City,” oppose the plan because they believe it will increase the police presence in the city and further push the negative relationship between police and minority groups. Many are also claiming bleak impacts on public health and the environment and, according to The Guardian, cost taxpayers $30 million.
Police encounters increased in 2023, culminating when police killed an environmentalist protester, Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran. However, according to NBC, Teran was “alleged to have shot and wounded a state trooper, and then officers opened fire.” Multiple protesters were arrested due to charges like domestic terrorism, destroyed property, and accusations of protestors throwing drinks at officers.
The Center for Public Integrity reports that when the new facility is built, it may have destructive impacts on the environment, such as heightened water and air pollution in areas already home to marginalized communities, where residents are more vulnerable to illnesses linked to environmental issues. Reports from the Legal Defense Fund say that “Cop City places Atlanta residents, especially Black residents, at continued risk of contact with militarized policing.”
These worries of police militarization and aggression against Black People are nothing new. These reports can date back to The Red Dog Units in Atlanta in the 80s. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, ”Its sole mission [was] getting drugs off city streets.” According to The Pioneer, the units’ aggressive approach to policing created fear and mistrust in minority communities.
Despite multiple attempts, no one from the Stop Cop City movement, or Atlanta city government, would respond for comment.
Maya Flowers-Glass, 14, got interested in the topic because of her dad’s involvement in stopping its development. She said, “I think a lot of kids don’t recognize how easy it is to get involved even at a young age.” I asked her how adults can educate and inform teens. She said, ”You can’t teach them anything else if they don’t recognize the importance of the work we are doing at its base. Once you have done that, kids tend to start taking it into their own hands.”
Editor’s Note: VOX ATL primarily follows AP style but makes VOXy exceptions to ensure readability for teens. For instance, in this article, we used “1-10” instead of “on a scale of one to 10” for a cleaner presentation.
