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cop city
Cop City Is A Disability Issue, and Disabled Organizers Must Fight To Stop It
In a society that prioritizes profits over people, disabled people are frequently marginalized and disposed of. Incarceration and police violence underscore the ways capitalism fails its most vulnerable.
Jan 10, 2025
Snce 2020, plans to build militarized police training facilities, also known as cop cities, have erupted across the country in an effort to maintain the status quo and quell political dissent from abolitionist and progressive organizers. As of July 2024, there are 80 projects either already being built or in the process of negotiating contracts to begin construction. Ten states have plans for multiple police compounds. The creation of these training facilities marks a new chapter of policing in the U.S.
Disability justice and disabled community organizers must be at the forefront of the nationwide movement to stop cop cities because this movement is a disability justice issue.
The movement to #StopCopCity emerged in the wake of nationwide uprisings in response to police killings of Black people, sparking critical conversations around the role of policing, the limits of police reform, community safety, and alternatives to the criminal legal system. Along with other organizations, I organized on the ground in Atlanta, where multiple police agencies used militarized tactics against community members. This occurred even as we mourned the loss of Rayshard Brooks, a member of our community who was killed by the Atlanta Police Department. All of this unfolded as we grappled with the profound impacts of a global pandemic—a mass-disabling event affecting countless lives.
We must listen to and follow the leadership of disabled people, especially those who are formerly or currently incarcerated.
Our collective grief transformed into action, fueling demands to end state-sanctioned violence and redirect investment into our communities. Our displays of solidarity angered and alarmed corporations, as well as local and national political establishments. In collaboration with major media outlets, those in power obscured the focus, reframing the narrative around rising crime rates and once again positioning police as the solution to our social, political, and economic challenges.
As a response to our organizing efforts, the city of Atlanta decided to build a $90 million complex equipped with military-grade facilities and a mock city for urban police training. If completed, this would be the country’s largest police training facility. Other municipalities have followed Atlanta’s misleadership. Cop city proposals have surfaced in Baltimore, Maryland; San Pablo, California; Fitchburg, Massachusetts; and Nashville, Tennessee all in response to demonstrations that took place in 2020. Meanwhile, other facilities have completed construction and are currently in operation like the cop cities in Semmes, Alabama; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Decatur and Chicago, Illinois; and Madisonville, Kentucky.
In a society that prioritizes profits over people, disabled people are frequently marginalized and disposed of. Incarceration and police violence underscore the ways capitalism fails its most vulnerable. Disabled people are often excluded from discussions about the criminal legal system, resulting in limited and ineffective strategies for addressing the root causes of incarceration (e.g., poverty, racism, and capitalism).
The overrepresentation of people with disabilities in prisons and jails illustrates how victims of capitalism are locked up and harmed. Approximately 66% of incarcerated individuals in the U.S. report having a disability, while half of all people killed by police are disabled, with disabled Black Americans disproportionately affected. Even people without a disability who are locked up develop some sort of disability over the course of their imprisonment because the prison system is disabling.
Each year, an estimated 350 people with mental health diagnoses are killed by law enforcement, and individuals with psychiatric disabilities are 16 times more likely to be killed during police encounters. People like Anthony Hill, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Deborah Danner, Alfred Olango, Daniel Prude, Magdiel Sanchez, Freddie Gray, and countless others were all disabled people who were murdered by police.
These risks are even greater for people of color, women, trans folks, and LGBTQIA+ people. An alarming statistic reveals that by age 28, half of all disabled Black Americans have experienced arrest, underscoring the urgent need to address police violence and brutality as an intersectional issue that includes disability justice. These statistics will continue to rise as more Cop Cities are built, which will place BIPOC disabled individuals in closer proximity to police and increase their risk of harm.
The estimated budgets for these police training facilities are staggering; meanwhile police funding already consumes the majority of municipal budgets at the expense of essential social services. As police budgets grow, funding for education, direct services, infrastructure, and healthcare falls, leaving many—especially disabled individuals—without access to the resources they need. For example, Baltimore’s training facility is projected to cost $330 million; San Pablo, California estimates a $44 million facility, and Richmond, Kentucky, has a $28 million project budget.
Investing more in police departments does not create safer communities. Increased training does not address the root causes of violence. The safest communities are those that are well-resourced and have minimal police presence. Our communities deserve better.
The changing landscape of policing in the U.S. is increasingly characterized by international police exchange programs (also known as Deadly Exchange programs), which expose officers to new surveillance methods, military tactics, and forms of political repression from countries with notorious human rights abuses.
The Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program in Atlanta sends U.S. officers to train with the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), who are responsible for the ongoing genocide of Palestinians. The IOF conducts urban warfare training in a mock city called "Little Gaza," a replica of the Gaza Strip designed to simulate combat scenarios. These practices serve as the blueprint for cop cities across the U.S.
In Baltimore, an Amnesty International report found that the Baltimore Police Department’s participation in deadly exchange programs with Israel contributed to “widespread constitutional violations, discriminatory enforcement, and a culture of retaliation.” However, more police departments are participating in deadly exchange programs. Police officials from states including Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Washington, and D.C. have also trained with Israeli paramilitary forces.
Israel, a nation responsible for the killing and disabling of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, serves as the model for these military complexes. These tactics will disproportionately impact marginalized communities domestically and amplify surveillance and repression in already vulnerable areas. Disability Justice involves liberating Palestinians from the disabling effects of genocide.
Climate change is deeply connected to the issues of cop cities and disability justice. Projects like those in Atlanta and Nashville involve clearing large areas of urban forest, causing severe environmental harm. For example, Atlanta’s urban forest, which protects communities from flash flooding, has already been compromised, leading to increased flooding across the city. Such environmental degradation worsens health conditions for disabled people, leaving them to face the consequences with little support, as we saw during disasters like Hurricane Helene. This situation will only deteriorate further.
What is to be done?
The phrase “death by a thousand cuts” reminds us that there is no single solution to combat social injustice in this country. Addressing these challenges requires a diversity of tactics and a shared commitment to building a better world. Everyone has a role to play in movement work—whether it’s cooking for comrades, taking meeting notes, providing childcare so others can participate, or conducting research on targets. Every action, big or small, adds up, creating momentum when combined with the efforts of others. There is a place for you; come find it.
We must listen to and follow the leadership of disabled people, especially those who are formerly or currently incarcerated. Those directly impacted by oppressive systems possess invaluable knowledge of how these systems function and must be at the forefront of our movements. Yes, that means building relationships with people currently incarcerated.
It’s equally critical to learn from past campaigns, both their victories and setbacks. For example, the 2017 #NoCopAcademy campaign in Chicago, which sought to stop the construction of a police training facility, illustrates how grassroots organizing can achieve tangible wins. While the facility was ultimately built, organizers succeeded in cutting $21 million from school policing budgets, a significant step toward redistributing resources.
A new world is emerging, whether we are ready for it or not. It’s up to all of us to prepare and take action to shape what comes next. Liberation is possible, but we need you to make it a reality.
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Democratic Leaders Are Repressing Their People to Protect the Status Quo
The same Western democracies who claim to represent the “free world” have seen dangerous backsliding on the right to protest on issues ranging from Palestine to the climate emergency.
Oct 08, 2024
Much of the world looks bleak in the fall of 2024.
Israel’s assault on Gaza, the world’s first live-streamed genocide, goes on unchecked, with material and diplomatic support from powerful countries. Emboldened by this support, Israel is now attacking Lebanon as well.
Large numbers of people in countries abetting the genocide are appalled at their own governments’ position, and are using a multitude of tactics to demand their governments stop supporting genocide, but their governments are stubbornly sticking to their position.
Even as the world heads towards climate catastrophe, governments of wealthy nations most responsible for the crisis are criminalizing resistance against fossil fuels.
This is also likely to be the hottest year ever recorded, with life-threatening heatwaves in Mexico and South Asia, devastating hurricanes hitting the Caribbean and the U.S. South, and unprecedented wildfires in Canada.
Governments of powerful countries are on the wrong side of this issue as well. They continue recklessly issuing permits for expanding fossil fuel infrastructure. Confronting fossil fuel barons is politically popular, but governments of self-proclaimed democracies ignore public opinion.
As with the Gaza genocide, people in these countries—and worldwide—are using creative protests to challenge the fossil fuel industry and its government and financial backers.
When governments ignore popular demands, people protest. In a democracy, they have a right to do so. Even when these protests break laws (for example, by blocking access to government offices), evolving norms of democratic rights recognize civil disobedience as a form of free speech that can lead to legal consequences but that should not be criminalized.
But the same Western democracies who claim to represent the “free world” have seen dangerous backsliding on the right to protest.
Erasing Palestine
Governments in Western democracies violate core protections for free expression when it comes to solidarity with Palestine. In Germany, this has included blanket bans on Palestine solidarity demonstrations (subsequently lifted after political pressure and legal challenges), and censorship and retaliation directed at critical voices.
Germany is not unique in this regard. Amnesty International notes a concerning trend of restrictions on Palestine solidarity activism across Europe.
In the U.S., Palestine solidarity encampments on college campuses in the spring of 2024 were met with a heavy-handed response from university officials and law enforcement. Students faced suspension, evictions from university housing, violence from police and vigilantes, arrests, and serious criminal charges for actions such as sit-ins and building occupations, which have a long history in U.S. student protests.
Many U.S. colleges adopted highly restrictive policies to prevent protests before reopening for the fall semester, raising serious concerns about their respect for their students’ free speech rights.
Criminalizing Climate Protection
Even as the world heads towards climate catastrophe, governments of wealthy nations most responsible for the crisis are criminalizing resistance against fossil fuels.
Few examples are as egregious (and blatantly racist) as the Canadian states’ response to Indigenous Wet’suwet’en peoples protecting their traditional territories from a polluting gas pipeline they didn’t consent to. Protesters have faced harassment, surveillance, and militarized raids by law enforcement and the pipeline company’s private security force.
Amnesty International has declared Dsta’hyl, a clan chief of the Wet’suwet’en, to be the first prisoner of conscience in Canada because of his house arrest for resisting the pipeline. Canada attacks Indigenous peoples fighting for their futures (and all of our collective futures) even as it increases production of polluting tar sands oil.
South of the border in the United States, the world’s largest oil and gas producing country, environmental defenders have been targeted by laws criminalizing protest against fossil fuel infrastructure, now on the books in nearly half the states,
My former colleague Gabrielle Colchete and I found in a 2020 study that these laws were systematically pushed by fossil fuel industry interests, and introduced by legislators who were plied with campaign cash by the industry. We looked at case studies of three communities targeted by polluting infrastructure projects that benefited from these laws. They were Black, Indigenous, or poor white communities, with more widespread poverty than the national average. Clearly, these laws were intended to further restrict the ability of already marginalized communities to resist projects that would sacrifice their health and livelihoods yet again for corporate profit.
Meanwhile, in Australia, a major coal and oil producer, both the national and state governments are targeting peaceful climate activists with punitive laws. A recent study by Climate Rights International has documented this trend in eight countries (including the U.S. and Australia) in great detail.
What emerges is a chilling pattern of powerful, wealthy countries who have no intention of stopping their expansion of fossil fuel production, but are instead resorting to draconian crackdowns on growing public opposition. This bodes ill for the likely state response to popular desperation and anger in the not so distant future when heatwaves, wildfires, hurricanes, and food scarcity reach catastrophic levels, which they inevitably will if these countries don’t reverse course on fossil fuels.
Framing Dissent as Conspiracy
In the U.S. in particular, in addition to solidarity with Palestine and resistance to fossil fuels, the abolitionist movement against racist, militarized policing also faces extraordinary repression. The state response to the fight against a militarized police training facility in Atlanta best exemplifies this.
Authorities have killed a movement activist, Manuel Paez Terán (also known as Tortuguita), in what looks suspiciously like a targeted assassination, or at best a “friendly fire” accident, followed by an official cover-up. They have used overbroad conspiracy charges to target operators of a community bail fund, and about 60 other activists. The evidence cited for conspiracy and intent to commit crimes includes distributing flyers, social media posts, recording the police, writing legal support numbers on their arms, and using encrypted messaging apps such as Signal.
More recently, the conspiracy charges against the community bail fund collective have been dropped. It’s likely the state knew all along that the charges were baseless, but prosecuted them anyway, with the goal of intimidating activists.
This is the real criminal conspiracy: the State of Georgia and the City of Atlanta are conspiring to thwart expression of the popular will through official channels, and to criminalize protests.
The police training center, dubbed “Cop City” by activists, is broadly unpopular in Atlanta. City Council hearings on the subject have generated hours of public testimony, overwhelmingly in opposition to the project. Opponents of the training center have collected twice as many signatures as required for a ballot initiative to stop public funding for the center, only to be stymied by bad-faith legal maneuvers by the city to keep the measure off the ballot.
This is the real criminal conspiracy: the State of Georgia and the City of Atlanta are conspiring to thwart expression of the popular will through official channels, and to criminalize protests, effectively closing off all avenues for the public to have a say in a project that impacts them.
Creeping Authoritarianism
Authoritarian governments are on the rise worldwide, in Russia, India, Hungary, and elsewhere.
But increasingly, authoritarianism isn’t a feature of overtly authoritarian governments alone. Nominally liberal democracies are turning to authoritarian methods to crush popular dissent against the status quo favored by the elite. This status quo includes support for a belligerent, lawless Israel to uphold Western geopolitical interests in the Middle East, and unwavering loyalty to the powerful, politically connected fossil fuel industry.
This is highly relevant to our organizing today. Keeping overtly far-right political parties out of power (as French voters did recently) is essential, but insufficient. Recent events in France, where President Emmanuel Macron is refusing to honor the election results, confirm the ongoing threats to democracy even when the far right is not in power.
Movements for democracy need to understand, name, and confront creeping authoritarianism in so-called free countries, regardless of who is in power.
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Taking Action for Public-Safety Alternatives to Policing
Having people who are uniquely trained and qualified to respond in moments of trauma or mental health struggles could mean drastically better care, support, and outcomes.
Jul 01, 2024
Imagine someone you love, your sibling, partner, parent, or child, has been struggling with mental illness recently, a reality for more than 1 in 5 people in the U.S. You’ve been offering support however you can, helping them find the right resources, doctors, medications, or treatment, saving up to help them afford it.
One day, they have a particularly difficult episode, and you’re afraid they might hurt themselves or even another person. You try to de-escalate, but it’s more than you can handle, and you realize you need help to ensure everyone’s safety. You decide you have to call 911, but you hesitate, especially if you’re Black, knowing police could just as easily hurt your loved one as help them, but knowing there’s no one else to call for support. You call and tell the operator everything, emphasizing that it’s a mental health crisis, saying everything you can think of to prevent police from responding with force. But when police arrive, they still perceive your loved one as a threat and make the choice to kill them rather than help them. The person you love, who just needed help, is gone, and you’re left forever wondering if there was something else you could have done instead of calling the police.
This is the reality for the families of Takar Smith, Marcus-David Peters, Tanisha Anderson, Miles Hall, Walter Wallace Jr., Eudes Pierre, Jada Johnson, Christian Glass, Ricardo Muñoz, Angelo Quinto, and thousands of others in the U.S. left with guilt, grief, and anger because police should not be the responders for a mental health crisis.
We are building toward a system of public safety that treats us with care and humanity, and we are doing so with a clear mandate from our people.
Ten years ago, the Movement for Black Lives formed around the imperative to address the violence policing imposes on the Black community. We’ve felt the pain of that first scenario, some personally and all as a community, and we’ve committed ourselves to fighting for liberation from being forced to experience that pain ever again.
As we enter our 10th year doing this work, we decided it was time to hear from Black people collectively across the country to determine what our people need from this movement next in our fight for liberation. We found some important and powerful answers. The comprehensive report Perspectives on Community Safety from Black America, in partnership with GenForward, surveyed a broad sample of Black people across lines of gender, generation, region, and partisanship in the U.S. on their experiences with policing and their views on alternatives for public safety and mass incarceration.
This survey showed strong, clear support among Black Americans for divesting from traditional policing in their communities and investing in public-safety alternatives, especially those that would center de-escalation, mental health support, and solutions that do not rely on incarceration.
- 67% of Black Americans support reinvesting part of their community’s police budgets toward crucial areas such as healthcare, education, and housing, while 55% support reallocating entire police budgets toward such investments.
- 86% of Black people support creating a new agency of first responders who specialize in de-escalating violence and providing mental health support and other social services that would take over these responsibilities from police.
- 78% support a process whereby city officials promote public safety by investing in solutions that do not rely on incarceration. 82% of respondents support increased federal funding for states to develop crisis-response systems that do not rely on incarceration.
- Half of respondents admitted to fearing calling the police in crisis and emergency situations, yet 55% would still turn to them for help.
The reality of that contradiction, paired with the overwhelming support for alternatives, called us to action and inspired The People’s Response Campaign. Through our new campaign, we’re shifting the narrative on what keeps us safe. In partnership with 20 Black-led organizations across the country, we’re centering public safety as a public health issue, advocating for non-police response to mental health emergencies, and engaging with the 2024 elections, especially on the local and state levels to prioritize ballot initiatives and candidates who support non-police, non-carceral public-safety solutions. Our fellows will work together to build Black political power at all levels and get us closer to a more safe and free future.
Think back to what you pictured earlier in this piece, but instead imagine that when your loved one experienced that crisis, you didn’t hesitate to call for help because you knew that your community had a mental health first-responders team, highly trained in de-escalation and support, who come instead of police. They even know your loved one from past interactions; they’re a familiar and trusted face that puts you and your loved one more at ease; you know they can help you both through this. They help soothe your loved one, discuss next steps with both of you, and come up with a plan to get them the support they need. They connect your loved one to accessible and quality care and resources to get them to the right medical facility. Your loved one’s difficult episode was just a moment in their life instead of the end of their life.
The People’s Response Campaign’s goal is to make that vision a reality. On a local level, we’re turning our data into action as our fellows campaign hard for resolutions in their cities in support of a non-police community wellness first-response system. Having people who are uniquely trained and qualified to respond in moments of trauma or mental health struggles could mean drastically better care, support, and outcomes. It will definitely mean fewer people in those moments of crisis will be killed by police when they need help.
On the federal level, we’re advocating hard for the People’s Response Act (PRA) alongside its champion, Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.). The PRA, directly inspired by M4BL’s BREATHE Act, emphasizes an inclusive, holistic, and health-centered approach to public safety by creating a public-safety agency within the Department of Human Health and Services—because our communities know first-hand what experts have found for decades: Public safety is a matter of public health. The PRA would fund programs for non-carceral first responders, trauma-informed healing, restorative justice, survivor services, harm-reduction-based treatment for mental health and substance abuse, and so much more. Our fellows spent just one day lobbying on the hill and already gained five new co-sponsors for the bill.
Lastly, our campaign will focus on activating voters for the 2024 elections. Major decisions are being made to take away our right to vote, to protest, to make decisions for our own bodies, especially at the state and local level. We’re pushing for public conversations and candidates that will enshrine our rights and advance progress toward liberation while also fighting off the emboldened white supremacist right wing.
The truth is that Black people in America desperately want to feel safe in our communities. Policing is the only option for public safety we’ve ever really been offered, so we’ve been taught to think the solution must be more policing. But we’ve tried more policing. Police have massive budgets, act with impunity, are given military equipment, and still we don’t feel any safer. In fact, the threat of the police against the people feels more palpable than it has in years as they attack college students protesting genocide, invest in new military technology to surveil us, and build cop cities across the country to train for urban warfare. That’s why when people are presented with real, viable solutions for public safety that don’t involve policing and instead address the root issues that create unsafe conditions, Black people eagerly support them.
We are building toward a system of public safety that treats us with care and humanity, and we are doing so with a clear mandate from our people. Safety that does not come at the expense of our freedom, our health, or our lives, the kind of true safety found in solutions that meet our needs and prioritize our humanity above all else. This year, we are answering the call from our people; it’s time to make way for a new system of public safety.
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