ATLANTA — Mayor Andre Dickens hailed the passage of funding for the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center as a "major milestone" toward the city becoming a "national model for police reform with the most progressive training and curriculum in the country."
The mayor staked out significant political capital in seeing through the project, which has faced a long-running and growing protest movement calling it "Cop City" which reached a peak with the vote on funding.
RELATED: Funding approved for Atlanta's public safety training center after 16-hour city council meeting
From Monday afternoon overnight into early Tuesday morning, opponents of the project spoke in the public comment period of city council, stretching the meeting to more than 16 hours long. At its end, the council passed $30 million for the construction of the public safety training center, as well as a "lease-back" agreement that will see Atlanta make $1.2 million yearly payments for 30 years toward paying off the project.
The funding vote represented one of the last official hurdles for the project, which had already cleared regulatory steps in DeKalb County, where it is to be built, as well as some legal challenges.
For Dickens, the conclusion of this phase of the process "also helps us look towards the north star of leading the country in anti-bias training, de-escalation techniques and other community-based solutions to keep our city safe and focused on our citizens."
His statement, issued Tuesday, also acknowledged the many voices that spoke out against the project - and, as the project progressed to a final council vote, the ire increasingly turned toward the mayor himself.
“We know there have been passionate feelings and opinions about the training center," Dickens said. "Over the past several months, we have heard from citizens who have concerns about the center as well as from many who support it. I want to thank all who serve on a committee, task force or have weighed in on this issue, especially those who came to City Hall, for exercising your voice and your First Amendment rights in a peaceful manner."
The mayor added: "Atlanta is made up of people who care, and I will continue to work with all Atlantans to develop a comprehensive approach to keep our city safe."
Dickens has long argued the facility was necessary to modernize the Atlanta Police Department's training methods, and said again that it would "allow us to recruit, retain and prepare our fire-rescue, police, and emergency medical personnel to better serve the diverse, vibrant, and unique neighborhoods that comprise our city."
Contractors have said construction on it could begin as soon as August.
More on the center and its opposition
What began in late 2021 as loosely organized treehouse encampments in the South River Forest, where the facility is to be built, has rapidly grown as a political movement since the law enforcement shooting death early this year of a protester, Manuel Paez Teran, in the forest during a clearing operation of the encampments.
Officials have said Teran first shot at a Georgia State Patrol trooper as a clearing operation was ongoing, then was killed in return fire. Teran's family and activists have fiercely contested the official narrative. The lack of bodycam videos - which are not worn by state law enforcement officers such as GSP troopers or GBI agents - has left unresolved what exactly happened.
Authorities have arrested several dozen people associated with the protest movement over the last few months and charged them with domestic terrorism - a designation activists have strongly denounced as suppression of political speech and organizing.
RELATED: Judge grants bond to organizers with Atlanta protest fund | 'There's not a lot of meat on the bones'
Three people with the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, which supports the movement and other social justice causes, were arrested this week for alleged financial crimes. A judge granted them bond Friday, saying he did not find the initial details of the case "very impressive" and that "there's not a lot of meat on the bones."
The protesters have opposed the facility on environmental and historical grounds, saying it would decimate one of the largest preserved forest areas in the city and desecrate historically Native American land of the Muscogee Creek people, who once lived in the woods and called it the Weelaunee Forest before being displaced by white settlers in the early 19th Century.
The project's backers - including the law enforcement community, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond - have argued it would improve training and community ties, framing it as an answer to police reform demands to eliminate contentious policing practices and reduce tensions between the police department and the public.
Warrants in the Atlanta Solidarity Fund case allege the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement is extremist and violent, citing a designation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as "Domestic Violent Extremists."
The warrants allege the tag is based on "acts... stating their intent was to intimidate employees of the government and private companies into not accepting or completing tasks in and around the site of the Atlanta Police Training Center."
The acts "have included vandalism at offices and private residences; throwing Molotov cocktails, rocks, and fireworks at uniformed police officers; arson of public buildings, heavy equipment, private buildings and private vehicles; shooting metal ball bearings at contractors; discharging firearms at critical infrastructure; preventing access to private land; and several other violations of law," the warrants state.
The Defend the Forest protest collective called the arrests an "attack" that "should concern all bail funds, all abortion funds, all travel funds for migrants, watchdog groups, all organized material support for people criminalized by the government."