By John Ruch
Rev. Bernice A. King is calling for Atlanta’s controversial public safety training center to be moved to a new location, backing the nonviolent element of protests while criticizing government and corporate secrecy.
Rev. Bernice A. King.
In an April 10 open letter, the daughter of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and CEO of the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change urged City officials to “revisit the programming and design of the training center and to identify a more suitable location. Ignoring the calls of the community will only multiply the cries.”
King’s letter comes shortly before significant government meetings about the training center. The DeKalb County Zoning Board of Appeals is scheduled to hear an appeal of the training center’s land disturbance permit on April 12. And the Mayor’s Office announced that a new “task force” attempting to combine input on the training center and a larger South River Forest green space plan will meet on April 19. It is unclear if the task force meeting will be open to the public, as the Mayor’s Office has not responded to such questions and there was no legal notice posted on the Atlanta Municipal Clerk’s website as of April 11.
The private Atlanta Police Foundation’s (APF) plan for the training center on a secretly selected, City-owned site in unincorporated DeKalb has been enormously controversial since it was approved by the City Council in 2021 over a chorus of public opposition. The project has become a target of the Defend the Atlanta Forest protest movement, a leaderless effort encompassing a wide variety of legal and illegal tactics. Protest controversy – including controversial domestic terrorism charges against dozens of people – boiled over with the January police killing of protester Manuel Esteban “Tortuguita” Paez Teran after the protester allegedly shot a state trooper.
Meanwhile, the planning has remained largely secret in a process beset with…
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