Summit Against ‘Cop City’ Concludes in Tucson as Hundreds March in NYC

On Friday, February 23rd, a summit against the “Cop City” counter-insurgency training facility in Atlanta, Georgia kicked off in so-called Tucson, Arizona, bringing together over two dozen chapters of the Weelaunee Defense Society (WDS). The summit featured a wide range of workshops, cultural events, and several demonstrations.

As the Atlanta Community Press Collective reported on the initial launch of the summit:

Approximately 150 organizers and activists opposed to the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, more commonly known as Cop City, kicked off a four-day summit in Tucson Friday afternoon. The summit marks the first major mobilization of the Stop Cop City movement to take place outside of Atlanta.

Sam Beard, an organizer of November’s Block Cop City convergence, spoke about why he sees the summit as a logical step for the movement. “Since the loss of the forest as a protest and encampment site, and with the increased repression, it becomes increasingly difficult to continue these types of mobilizations in Atlanta,” he said, referring to raids conducted Feb. 8. at the homes of three vocal Cop City opponents in Atlanta. One person who police allege is connected to an arson of several police motorcycles in July 2023 was also arrested.  “One of the primary goals of Block Cop City was to experiment with a new type of mobilization for this movement and to breathe life and energy back into the larger movement ecosystem,” Beard said. “I see the summit in Arizona as doing similar.”

“Even on land belonging to the Tohono O’odham Nation, Customs and Border Patrol is using surveillance technology from Elbit Systems to surveil and harass Indigenous people and it’s not all that different from how Cop City seeks to keep Muscogee people from repatriating their own lands. It’s all part of the same violent carceral system,” Jason added. Elbit Systems is one of Israel’s largest manufacturers of military technology.

As tents rose and cooking fires were lit, discussion among campers turned to the shared struggle of resistance against violent systems. The genocide in Gaza, the violence at the border with Mexico, the current repression in Atlanta, and the police killing of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, who went by the name Tortuguita, were all held up in those discussions as interconnected and inseparable examples of how the state seeks to crush those that stand against it.

Organizers of the summit expressed a hope that the gathering in Tucson will set a national example for local resistance not just to the ever-increasing number of Cop City-like facilities nationwide, but also to the prisons, the borders, the institutions of the carceral and criminal legal systems that already run rampant in so many communities across the globe.

On February 25th, protesters took to the streets in a militant march, where windows of two banks helping to fund the Cop City project were broken and spray painted slogans were written. As Unicorn Riot reported:

A Sunday night march through downtown Tucson in solidarity with the Stop Cop City movement ended with windows smashed at two downtown banks — a Wells Fargo and a PNC Bank. The proposed paramilitary police urban warfare school in Atlanta has drawn similar protests and actions since mid-2022.

A Wells Fargo executive sits on the board of the Atlanta Police Foundation, the organization responsible for the Cop City Project. PNC Bank is a funder of the Mountain Valley Pipeline and is believed to have been targeted for its role in the troubled and ecologically harmful project that’s been long opposed by direct actions.

A post on the Tucson Anti-Repression Instagram states that police arrested several demonstrators, and more information on how to support those arrested can be found here.

The action continued on Monday, February 26th, at a demonstration in Scottsdale, Arizona, which targeted the offices of an insurance provider involved in the Cop City project. As Candice Bernd reported for TruthOut:

On Monday morning, about 50 activists and organizers targeted the offices of the primary insurer of the $109 million police training center under construction in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, that opponents have dubbed “Cop City.” A few activists briefly blocked entrances before rallying outside the Scottsdale, Arizona, offices of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company subsidiary Scottsdale Insurance Co. Truthout first obtained Cop City’s certificate of insurance, which revealed the company’s involvement, in May 2023.

The action capped off the four-day Nationwide Summit to Stop Cop City in Tucson, Arizona, in which activists from more than 30 Weelaunee Defense Society chapters across the United States held camp at a parking lot near Mansfield Park and organized decentralized workshops and panels focusing on the interconnections between proposed police training facilities across the country, violence on the border, and Israeli apartheid and genocide, among other linkages. Activists refer to forested area of the Cop City site as “Weelaunee,” the Mvskoke word for the watershed, in part to highlight the tribe’s forced relocation from the area in the 1830s.

“The movement stop Cop City has experienced pretty significant repression, from the killing of Tortuguita, to the three raids that happened [this month], to the [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO)] charges,” said Sasha Berkman, who requested a pseudonym and traveled to the Tucson summit from Austin, Texas, in an interview with Truthout. “But the Nationwide Summit has been a way to retake the initiative to show that we aren’t afraid to expand the struggle nationwide to Nationwide [Insurance Company].”

Later that evening, another Scottdale protest took place, this time at the entrance to the Hidden Hills neighborhood, the home of an executive for Nationwide. According to a press release sent to It’s Going Down:

At least 6 activists have been arrested after chaining their bodies to the entrance of the Hidden Hills neighborhood, home to an executive at Nationwide Insurance who is currently insuring the proposed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center in Southeast Atlanta, more commonly known as “Cop City.” Delays are expected to hour as the police extract protestors.

“I’ve decided to lock myself down today to show that there will be no peace in your home while you attack ours” says Stella Bogart shortly before locking themselves down. Stella identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.

This evening’s action follows a flurry of protest activity coinciding with the National Stop Cop City Summit in Tucson, Arizona. The goal of the summit was to bring together activists around the country who oppose the expansion of police power and environmental destruction to meet one another, develop stronger networks, and connect the movement in Atlanta to movements in the Southwest opposing similar issues. This morning, over 50 activists gathered to rally near the main headquarters of Nationwide Insurance in Scottsdale, Arizona, to protest the company’s ongoing involvement in the Cop City project outside Atlanta, Georgia. Nationwide Insurance had pre-emptively shut down its headquarters in anticipation of protests.

Nationwide Insurance, through its subsidiary Scottsdale Insurance, currently holds the liability contract for the Cop City project currently underway outside Atlanta, Georgia. The multi-million dollar militarized police training facility has already destroyed 85 acres of the Weelaunee Forest on unceded Muscogee territory.

“The expansion of police power in Atlanta is intimately connected to the violence of the border here in the Sonoran Desert, which is intimately connected to the ongoing genocide in Gaza,” said Ian Blank, an activist who came out to rally near Nationwide Insurance Headquarters this morning. “The same corporations profiting off the genocide in Gaza, such as Tucson-based weapons manufacturer Raytheon, are also innovating surveillance technologies along the U.S./Mexico border while Israeli Defense Forces plan to share militarized tactics at Cop City.”

On social media, summit organizers and chapters of the Weelaunee Defense Society reported that the summit was an overall success. Stop Cop City Summit on Instagram commented, “Life at camp is proof that we can live and experience collective joy outside of the rigid confinement of the capitalist system. The Summit camp is a beautiful experiment on the horizon of autonomy and mutual aid!”

The Weelaunee Defense Society of Phoenix also wrote, “The Stop Cop City summit in so-called Tucson was a resounding success. The activity and community was overflowing. Big ups to the locals who put this all together. Looking forward to the future of the Tucson-Phoenix alliance!”

A summit participant speaking to It’s Going Down anonymously remarked on the gathering, “was overall a success,” and encouraged movement supporters to follow Tucson Anti-Repression for ways to support those arrested during recent demonstrations. They went on to say that “the sort of organic coordination that networks of people in New York were able to pull off and a lot of this pressure being focused on Nationwide and other [Cop City] funders, has just been so inspiring and awesome.”

As the summit in so-called Tucson was wrapping up, hundreds took to the streets of New York City, highlighting the connections between the fight against Cop City in Atlanta and the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Through the GILEE program, Atlanta police have long partnered with the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) in Israel, in an effort to cross pollinate tactics and strategies in militarized counter-insurgency – a relationship that many activists contend will only expand with the construction of Cop City. As CrimethInc. reported on Mastodon:

On the final day of the #StopCopCity summit in Arizona, multiple protesters locked down in front of the suburban mansion of a Nationwide Insurance executive to pressure Nationwide to stop supporting police militarization.

Across the country in New York City, 200 people marched to the joint offices of AXA XL and Nationwide Insurance, both of which profit from the ongoing genocide in Gaza as well as their ties to the Atlanta police foundation and Cop City. Over 100 protesters stormed to the building, hanging banners and disrupting business.

This is not a local struggle!

Finally, an anonymous communique posted on February 26th to the counter-information website Scenes from the Atlanta Forest claimed responsibility for acts of sabotage to offices of Nationwide, the Cop City insurance provider, in Tucson, Arizona. From the communique post:

On the night of Friday, February 23rd we attacked three subsidiaries of Nationwide insurance in Tucson, Arizona, smashing their windows and vandalizing their buildings. We were able to do this easily and quickly with only a small group of friends. It was easy, fast, and brought us great joy. We write this hoping it raises your spirits as well.

This action is something that can be replicated any night, in any city. The continued work on cop city in Atlanta is only possible due to the support of Nationwide insurance and their many subsidiaries, and these same companies allow for the proliferation of militarized police projects everywhere.

We are undeterred by your repression, and we will not stop until everyone is free.

For Tortuguita, for Palestine, for abolition, for total liberation,
For the sugauros and every moment we have together,
We’ll never stop fighting,
-Some Anarchists

For ongoing updates on the struggle against Cop City, check out Defend the Atlanta Forest on social media and reports from the Atlanta Community Press Collective.