Decatur, GA — On Friday, April 14, Agnes Scott College students led a community-wide march in solidarity with the “Stop Cop City” movement from the school campus to the DeKalb County Commissioners’ offices on Commerce Drive in Decatur.
Cop City is the name given to Atlanta’s proposed public safety training center by activists.
“The movement came together based on students who are politically engaged and concerned about the direction our country is going in,” Agnes Scott student Brandy Nalyanya said. “We’re organizing amongst multiple campuses, and Agnes is just one of them. As Agnes students, we want to use our voice to uplift communities that are in DeKalb County where they’re building the facility, and we know it’s disenfranchising Black and brown residents and the community that is there. It’s not just an environmental issue, which is a large issue, but it gets into deeper systematic issues that have to do with police brutality. As Scotties we care about our community, and this is how we’re showing it.”
Decatur City Commissioner Lesa Mayer, who marched with the students, said, “I want to make sure that I’m supporting the efforts to stop the construction of the police training center. I think that there are places that the city of Atlanta absolutely would not be putting a center of this type. Putting it in a predominately Black community and adjacent to an environmental space that should be protected is egregious … Something needs to be done to really reconsider this action and the implications that it will have, not just today but on our future generations.”
Agnes Scott student Julia Rademacher-Wedd said students wanted to reach out to say how they feel and let their government know that there is continued resistance.
“We’re going to keep coming out until this project is stopped,” Rademacher-Wedd said.
Agnes Scott College students led a community-wide march in solidarity with the “Stop Cop City” movement from…
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