Petition to Fulton county superior court seeks halt to building work while appeal against huge police training center is ruled on Recent mornings at South River Forest, south-east of Atlanta, have begun with workers driving tractors around, clearing paths and felling trees, guarded by more than 100 police officers. 

The workers are taking the first steps in building an 85-acre, $90m police and fire department training center planned for the land, called “Cop City” by activists. 

The police shooting last month of “Tortuguita” – one of dozens who camped in the forest during the last year-plus to protest the training center and a separate, corporate project threatening an additional 40 acres – helped bring the movement to national and international attention. 

But this week, local residents took the fight to city hall – or rather, the county commission, a zoning appeals board and Fulton county superior court – in an attempt to stop the tractors while an appeal against Cop City is ruled on, based on claims that the project will contaminate a stream with sediment that runs through the forest, in violation of the Clean Water Act and state law. 

Judging by a late Friday afternoon court ruling denying a temporary restraining order on the project, plus a county inspection of the forest site, that fight mostly resulted in losses. 

“We’re back to where it started,” said Sam, part of the Atlanta Community Press Collective, an anonymous group of activists who use journalistic methods to monitor the project. She was referring to local politics, and the late 2021 Atlanta city council decision to lease the city-owned land for $10 per year to the Atlanta Police Foundation – despite the nearly 70% of more than 1,000 comments from residents opposing the plan. 

One and a half years later, Amy Taylor, a resident who lives within 250ft of the forest – and who serves on a “community stakeholder advisory committee” meant to offer input on the training center – last week appealed the Dekalb county commission’s “land disturbance permit” to the city of Atlanta. The land is located in the county and owned by the city. 

Emails obtained by open records request at the collective show that Dave Wilkinson, chief executive of the Atlanta Police Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the project, responded to the appeal by stating his intention to “continue full speed ahead unless the county issues a stop work order”. 

So it was that on Thursday, residents packed the Dekalb county commission’s monthly meeting to urge its members to support such an order – as the county’s own code appears to suggest it should have done as soon as the appeal was received, and until the appeal is heard by a zoning board, which will happen in April.