“Stop Cop City!”: How collective
framing transformed a local environmental
protest into a national social
justice movement.
Alannah Maxwell
Abstract
In a time where the right to protest appears to be under increasing threat in liberal democracies, an understanding of the effects of collective framing is critical for the realisation of ongoing and future social justice movements. Using the ‘Stop Cop City’ movement in Atlanta, Georgia as a case study, this paper explores how the narratives proffered and frames used by various state agencies have affected and consequently transformed the movement. Originally a local movement, primarily concerned with the environmental impact of the building of an 85-acre police training facility in Atlanta’s largest urban forest, it has been transformed to a larger call for social justice. Using the polity model framework introduced by McAdam et al. (2001) to create a visual map of the contention, the paper then examines claims made by involved parties by applying Snow and Benford’s (2000) theory of collective framing to selected media and news articles chronicling the contest over the period of September 2021-March 2023 inclusive. Through this analysis, the paper documents the inadvertently positive effects of state terrorist framing on the effectiveness of the counter-narratives used by Stop Cop City activists and the movement’s overall mobilisation capacity.
Introduction ​​​​
​Since its proposal in April 2021, the building of an eighty-five-acre police training facility in Atlanta’s South River Forest has been a contested and deeply divisive topic amongst local residents and federal legislators alike. This paper explores how the use of specific frames and the political con¬text in which they have been made has contributed to a dramatic esca¬lation of violence between law enforcement and protestors in the state of Georgia in the initial period of September 2021-April 2023 inclusive. To better understand the nature and character of the contestation, the claims being made, and the aims of the actors making them, this arti¬cle will first outline key events and critical junctures of the conflict in chronological order. Once a clear timeline has been outlined, the second section of the paper will then conduct an analysis of the frames and counter-frames constructed by the main actors in the conflict.
With the initial labelling of environmental protestors as domestic ter¬rorists by state officials resulting in increased public opposition to the actions of law enforcement, the inadvertent delegitimization of the state’s use of force through narratives pushed by state agencies themselves pres¬ents an unusual inversion of social movement framing dynamics. As this paper argues, it is this inversion that renders the manner in which both sides present their claims and counter-claims crucial to understanding the expansion and transformation of the Stop Cop City movement.
Given the ongoing nature of the contest, little academic research has thus far been conducted on the Stop Cop City movement. At the time of print, no peer-reviewed articles examining the protest site using prior literature and theory from the social movement canon have been pub¬lished. This paper aims to fill that gap by applying Snow and Benford’s understanding of framing processes as a method of meaning-formation (Snow and Benford, 2000) to the case of Stop Cop City in an attempt to better understand the mechanisms by which the state and opposing actors mobilise support for their respective narratives. The article also applies the polity model (McAdam et al., 2001) to the conflict detailing the nature and frequency of claims made by activist groups and state agencies in order to provide a visual map of the episodic and conten¬tious nature of this claims-making and its (un)intended outcomes.
Through the application of established social movement theory onto a currently unfolding protest movement, this article offers a current com¬mentary and analysis of the situation in Atlanta. Due to the dynamic and evolving character of the majority of protest movements, I posit that such concurrent research provides a unique insight into the relationship between state and opposition actors through the real-time documen¬tation of meaning-formation and strategic frame selection. This docu¬mentation may then be used to later chart critical junctures within the contest, to identify possible mechanisms for de-escalation, and to poten¬tially inform future framing strategies used by the parties involved in the Stop Cop City movement.
Timeline
Figure 1 presents a visual representation of the key events described in this section. While the proposal for the $90 million dollar facility was first introduced by former Mayor Bottoms in April 2021 (Matthews, 2023), the current contention was triggered by the Atlanta City Council’s approval of the project in September 2021. Despite listening to seventeen hours of recorded citizen commentary about the plans, of which seventy-percent were negative, the council proceeded to vote 10-4 in favour of the development (Kelley, 2021). This perceived disregard for properly executed democratic deliberation exacerbated strained relations between local governance structures and residents, with approval given despite local populations exercising their voice mechanism to “communicate [their] complaints…effectively” (Hirschman, 1972, p.43). In the wake of the council’s decision, umbrella activist movements such as ‘Defend the Atlanta Forest’ and ‘Stop Cop City’ were formed. Initially in the summer of 2022, these groups were primarily composed of environmental activists who opposed the destruction of the surrounding ecosystem and vital community space. It was under these environmentalist claims that the first ‘forest defenders’ comprising a diverse collection of individuals and community groups set up camp on the site, living for months in the forest as a form of peaceful protest against the facility’s construction (Bethea, 2022).
The conflict’s first key event was the arrest and subsequent charging of five environmental activists with domestic terrorism offences. In December 2022, law enforcement representing several government agencies attempted to remove barricades erected by protestors to prevent construction equipment from entering the forest. Some activists threw projectiles at police vehicles, while officers fired pepper balls, tear gas and chemical irritants in an attempt to control the situation (Wheatley, 2022). This clash marked the first time environmental activists had been charged as domestic terrorists in the United States (Pratt, 2023). This designation of terrorist meant that individuals involved in acts of civil disobedience now faced up to 35 years in prison and allowed Georgia’s attorney general Chris Carr to deny activists bail and issue no-contact orders between defendants (Arnold, 2023; Chidi, 2024). This first violent contest, along with the increased possibility of federal sentencing for the arrested protestors, escalated hostilities between those opposed to the ‘Cop City’ development and law enforcement agencies.
After several weeks of claims made by both sides regarding the December raid and the subsequent denial of bail to activists (Arnold, 2023), tensions boiled over in mid January 2023. A second “clearing operation” on the South River Forest camps led by Georgia State Patrol Troopers resulted in the fatal shooting of forest defender and environmental activist Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, or Tortuguita, as they were known in the community (Wheatley and Dixon, 2023). Arguably the most pivotal moment in the trajectory of the movement thus far, public reaction to Tortuguita’s shooting was a critical factor in the wider mobilisation of national opposition to the training facility (Maxwell , 2024). The incident made the headlines of both national and international news publications, with articles published by The New York Times, The Guardian, the BBC and Al Jazeera (NYT, 2023; The Guardian, 2023; BBC News, 2023; Al Jazeera, 2023) increasing national and international awareness of the Stop Cop City cause. Tortuguita’s death at the hands of a state trooper, as well as the denial of law enforcement agencies pertaining to the existence of any footage of the incident, tapped into a growing public criticism of increasingly “militarized warrior-style” policing in the Unit¬ed States (Cobbina-Dungy and Jones-Brown, 2023, p.4). Environmental claims remain an integral element of the ‘Stop Cop City’ movement, but the shooting of Tortuguita ignited an active anti-police sentiment that sparked riots across downtown Atlanta. Much like the death of Tyre Nichols, Tortuguita’s killing elicited a strong emotional response shared amongst various communities that manifested in the form of a conflict-oriented feedback loop (Collins, 2012, p.3), wherein perceptions of atrocities lead to increased group solidarity which in turn produces ideological polarisation between opposition parties that results in larger conflict. In this case, the death of Tortuguita at the hands of State Patrol Troopers created an increased sense of group solidarity between activists that strengthened pre-existing anti-law enforcement ideologies and led to a spiral of rioting and conflict escalation.
On the 21st of January 2023, a vigil for Tortuguita was held in the city by a mixture of community leaders and forest defenders. After marching peacefully for an hour, a group began smashing windows and police vehicles (Fox 5 Atlanta, 2023). Two cars were set alight, while protestors also threw rocks and detonated fireworks outside of the Atlanta Police Foundation’s offices. The state’s reaction was swift, with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp declaring a state of emergency and calling in the National Guard to “subdue riot and unlawful assembly” (Mier & Madarang, 2023). Having previously described Tortuguita and the forest defenders as committing “acts of violent intimidation, destruction, and terrorism” (Kemp, 2023), Governor Kemp’s executive order that sent 1,000 National Guard troops to Atlanta demonstrated the willingness of state authorities to repress popular dissent by means of force.
Federal responses to the rioting in Atlanta, and the subsequent refusal of law enforcement to explain the events that led up to Tortuguita’s shooting inadvertently created a clearly identifiable opposition that reinforced solidarity between groups of protestors who may previously have not been known to one another and who may have previously failed to con¬nect their causes to a single common enemy (Collins, 2012, p.4).
This high level of group solidarity has been sustained since January, both as a result of community-led protest efforts and the perceived refusal of the Atlanta authorities to listen to and engage with residents and local leaders. A “Week of Action’’ was organised for the first week of March by a number of activist coalitions and community groups (Pratt, 2023). It was during the South River Music Festival, a flagship event of the week, that another direct confrontation between law enforcement and protestors occurred. On the 5th March 2023, officers carrying automatic weapons descended upon the forest in an attempt to uncover a group of protesters who had set fire to a bulldozer earlier that day. Police arrested thirty-five attendees, with only one later granted bail (Bernd, 2023). Twenty-three were subsequently charged with domestic terror offences, marking a significant rise on previous arrest numbers as shown in Figure 2.
Not included in the figures and models below, but still important to note is the state of the movement post-April 2023. Since then the Stop Cop City movement has undertaken a variety of protest strategies, with the most visible being the ‘Cop City Vote Campaign’ held over June-December of 2023 (Cop City Referendum, 2023). Organised by a number of groups within the larger Stop Cop City protest coalition, the campaign oversaw the collection of approximately 106,000 signatures from resi¬dents in Atlanta calling for the building of the proposed training facility to be put to a public referendum (Mock, 2023). In response to the cam¬paign the Atlanta city council adopted a new ordinance requiring signa¬ture matching on referendum petitions, effectively blocking the possibility of a referendum being held that year (Chidi, 2024). Similar efforts to halt the construction of the site by the South River Watershed Alliance have seen the launching of several unsuccessful legal cases against the City of Atlanta and the Atlanta Police Foundation for reported violations of the Clean Water Act (GPB News, 2024). In response to a perceived increase in direct action and vandalism, officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), Georgia law enforcement, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) conducted early morning “SWAT-style” house raids on several homes in Atlanta on the 9th of February 2024, resulting in three arrests and the confiscation of laptops, cellphones, and personal journals (Pratt, 2024). This most recent escalation by law enforcement was followed by a “Nationwide Summit to Stop Cop City”, which was held from the 23-26th of February 2024 in Tucson, Arizona and included solidarity rallies, workshops, and panel discussions on the future of the movement (Bernd, 2024).
Methodology
The timeline, with its escalation in arrests and increased use of domestic terror charges, demonstrates a clear increase in the use of force by both protestors and law enforcement. Instead of attempts to come to a negotiated settlement or compromise, tensions have only risen. Using a polity model, this next section will illustrate and track the contest in addition to exploring the critical role framing has played in the continuation of the dispute. However, before we can examine such possible roles we ought to first clarify two key concepts: polity models and framing.
a) Polity Model:
Using the framework outlined by McAdam et al., the polity model is preferred to alternative models due to its ability to capture the shifting of boundaries between institutionalised and non-institutionalised politics. Highlighting the dynamism of political processes, the two spheres of action (polity and outside of polity) allow for the inclusion of multiple government bodies and outside actors; the model captures how those agents operating outside of established political channels form coalitions and negotiate across polity boundaries with different government bodies. In short, the model accurately shows government and non-government coalitions as “subject to growth, decline and incessant renegotiation” while also representing the construction and/or transformation of political actors over time (McAdam et al., 2001, p.11).
FIgure 3 provides a visual overview of the polity model developed in this paper. The model illustrates the transgressive nature of the Stop Cop City movement, with both government agents like the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and “newly self-identified political actors” like Defend Atlanta Forest seen interacting within and outside of polity boundaries (McAdam et al., 2001, p.7). The size of each actor relates to the number of claims they have received and/or made in the period September 2021-March 2023 inclusive. The most frequent claim-making in that period has occurred between activist groups (16, 13, and 9), Atlanta City Council (1) and the Atlanta Police Department (3). Lines connecting ac¬tors represent the claims-making process, with thick lines being repeated claims made by both sides back and forth over a short period, dashed lines representing a positive relationship between actors, and arrowed lines representing claims made against another specific actor.
Actors have been colour-coded according to the polity category they most closely correspond to, using definitions provided by McAdam et al. (2001): purple and pink agents of government represent the judicial and executive sides of state government bodies respectively; red polity members such as the Atlanta City Council are political actors who enjoy routine and impersonal access to government agents and resources; orange polity members enjoy that same access but consist of community members, not professional politicians and officials; blue challengers are political actors who lack routine access to government (this group has been split into single and umbrella organisations); lastly, green subjects like the family of Tortuguita are persons and groups not currently organised into constituted political actors.
b) Framing
Taking collective action frames to mean “action-oriented sets of beliefs and meanings that…legitimate the activities…of social movement organisation[s]” (Snow and Benford, 2000, p.614), frames can be used by both individuals and groups to further their cause. Initially conceptualised by Erving Goffman, frames help individuals to “locate, perceive, identify, and label” instances in their lives or from the wider world that generate meaning (Goffman, 1974, p.21). In the context of social movements, frames are used by governmental agencies and oppositional activist organisations to mobilize support while simultaneously demobilising antagonists (Snow and Benford, 2000, p.614). As we see in this case study, framing - much like claims-making in the polity model - is not a static action. Frames instead interpret and interact with one another in a process of generating new and different meanings. In sum, frames are not only aggregate narratives proposed by one group and then another, they are in fact the “outcome of negotiating shared meaning” (Snow and Benford, 2000, p.613). As we will see below, this shared negotiation is key to the inadvertent transformation of the Stop Cop City movement over time.
Frames can be used at different points during a conflict in order to achieve a variety of tasks. Diagnostic frames involve problem identification and attribution whereby actors attempt to create clear boundaries that separate them from their adversaries (Snow and Benford, 2000). Typically utilised at the beginning of a contest or revised when the original diagnostic frame loses its explanatory power, these frames invite a corresponding prognostic frame. Often presented alongside or soon after the diagnostic frame has been produced, the prognostic frame identifies possible solutions or strategies to the problems articulated by its diagnosing counterpart (Snow and Benford, 2000). It is then at this prognostic or solution-oriented stage that we observe active counter-framing, where groups who disagree with the given solution begin to deploy narratives and strategies that support their own alternate solu¬tion. Once these frames have been established, involved parties begin to utilise motivational framing processes. This motivational aspect can be simultaneously applied to diagnostic and prognostic frames and sees groups attempting to provide a rationale for engaging in ameliorative collective action through vocabularies of urgency or severity (Snow and Benford, 2000).
The greater the mobilisation capacity of a frame, i.e. the more people it can attract to support and act for the cause, the more successful a social movement often becomes. “Master frames” such as rights and injus¬tice frames increase the scope of a movement by widening the range of social groups that can be addressed and impacted by the frame (Snow and Benford, 2000). These master frames attract a wider audience and mobilise greater support through the inclusion of various pre-existing causes, thereby amplifying the movement’s message and increasing its influence.
Analysis: Framing the Conflict
Six of the eleven major claims made in the month of March relate to the tactics of repression and intimidation used by members of law enforcement against activists, protestors, and civilian populations (Pratt, 2023). Challenger claims of police aggression and the systematic suppression of democratic freedoms have been countered by government agents like Governor Brian Kemp, who argues external “agitators” do not reflect the views of Atlanta residents, something local organisers (18 and 13) dispute (Thigpen, 2023).
Claims making has largely occurred in response to the coordinated actions of the opposition; faith leaders convened outside the City Hall a day after police raids on the South River Music Festival (Bagby, 2023), while the raid itself was conducted after protestors threw Molotov cocktails at police guarding the construction site (Spender and Matza, 2023). Given the relatively small geographical area in which the contest is taking place (referring only to those principal actors who are located in the state of Georgia), and the repeated nature of each side’s claims, it would appear that these actors possess relatively symmetrical information about the other.
This paper argues that the reason the conflict has continued, and indeed escalated, is due to the deliberate framing and refraction of information by those involved. What makes Stop Cop City such an unusual case of framing is how the initial frame and categorisation of the forest defenders used by law enforcement resulted in increased opposition and backlash against the state.
Prior to the formation of any active protest movements against the building of the training facility, government agents and polity members utilised a prognostic frame when advocating for the development (Snow and Benford, 2000, p.616). Atlanta City Council positioned the facility as the solution to rising crime rates in the city, claiming a state-of-the-art police training centre would ameliorate public safety issues (Kelley, 2021). While this initial frame was subject to counter-frames by the Defend the Atlanta Forest group, opposition to the project existed largely along limited environmental injustice narratives. What transformed this environmental narrative into a more powerful frame focused on police brutality was the designation of activists and protestors as domestic terrorists. The legal designation of oppositional political actors as terrorists means individuals arrested at the South River Forest site are now prosecuted at the federal level (Lara-Millán, 2017). In this case, law enforcement officials claimed the Defend the Atlanta Forest group had been designated a violent extremist group by the US Department of Homeland Security, and so could face up to thirty-five years in pris¬on. This claim was later denied by the Department, who lack the legal jurisdiction to designate individual groups operating within the US as ‘violent extremists’ (Mitchell, 2023). Georgia’s laws on domestic terror¬ism were revised in 2017 to rationalise post-hoc the disproportionate reactions of law enforcement agencies against oppositional social protest movements (Lara-Millán, 2017, p. 97). The revisions as enacted by the Georgia General Assembly constituted an expansion of the statute’s reach to now include certain acts of property crimes that intend to “to alter, change, or coerce the policy of the government…by intimidation or coercion” (Georgia, 2017). As previously discussed, this expanded definition of domestic terrorism came with the possibility of harsher punishment for acts of property damage that were already criminalised by virtue of any accompanying political expression that criticised policy (Taitz and Rather, 2023). This choice seems to have been intended to lend legal credibility to the state’s framing of the conflict.
However, this reclassification instead damaged the state’s initial prognostic frame. Previously, polity members could justify the destruction of part of the South River Forest in the interests of public safety. The reclassification meant that the designation of environmental activists as domestic terrorists for the first time in American history did not naturally fit into the public safety narrative. Classification of a group that largely engaged in acts of civil disobedience as violent extremists who needed to be forcibly detained and subdued by any means possible clashed with popular understandings of citizens’ rights to “freedom of speech [and] the right of the people peaceably to assemble” as protected by the First Amendment of the American Constitution (US Const. amend. I, sec. 7). Instead, this change gave challenge groups like the Community Movement Builders a clear opportunity to present their claims of police militarisation and environmental crisis through both diagnostic and prognostic counter-frames (Snow and Benford, 2000, p.626). It was the classification of activists in South River Forest as terrorists that increased the probability of law enforcement officials using excessive amounts of force against the forest defenders, and ultimately led to the extreme adversarial framing that later contributed to the kill-ing of Manuel Paez Teran at the hands of a Georgia State trooper. Officers stormed the site expecting an organised and dangerous terrorist cell, with the Georgia Bureau of Investigations telling officers that activists possessed “improvised explosive devices” and “booby traps’’ designed to seriously injure or kill police personnel (Beaumont, 2023). The hollowed definition of terrorism outlined in the 2017 statute, whereby any individual who has committed an act of vandalism that can be construed as critical of the government may be deemed a terrorist, resulted in law enforcement treating individuals engaging in acts of civil disobedience as a serious threat to the security and lives of others. This has led to escalated tensions between police and protestors, with the prospect of violence and federal prison sentences upping the stakes for both parties.
In the wake of this shooting, protesters were better able to use narratives centred on racial injustice, police militarisation, and the lack of democratic process in the approval of the facility as well as environmental concerns. The building of the training facility was no longer a simple question of increasing public safety, but a question of democratic participation, civil rights, and police brutality. This is not to say these frames were not used before the charging of five activists with terrorism in December 2022 and Tortuguita’s death in January 2023, but the actions of law enforcement bolstered the credibility of the activists’ counter-frames by; a) providing evidence that supported protestors’ claims regarding the excessive use of force by police; and b) tapping into many people’s distrust of the American policing system and the ability of police officers to handle certain situations (Cobbina-Dungy et al., 2022).
The Stop Cop City movement was thus able to expand upon the initial environmental frame to cover a large range of social movements, thereby increasing the mobilisation capacity of the frame (Snow and Benford, 2000, p.618). The use of “master frames” (Snow and Benford, 2000, p.619) like those concerning civil rights, environmental justice and racial injustice can be seen in the ‘Week of Action’ held on the 4th to the 11th of March, where multiple groups participated in a variety of events and protests against the project (Unicorn Riot, 2023). Frames become more flexible, accommodating a wider range of causes whilst retaining their relative salience to the lives of Atlanta residents (Snow and Benford, 2000, pp.618-19). The intersectionality of the various frames reflects the movement’s diverse support base, with activities organised ranging from Earth Day weekends of connection to marches and bike rides in the name of protest (@stopcopcity, 2023). Use of master frames has also meant the movement has received greater support on a national and international scale, with various universities and politicians around the world denouncing the construction of the training centre (Pratt, 2023). As of April last year, the relevant authorities in Atlanta were yet to implement an effective reframing strategy as the Stop Cop City movement grows.
In short, the state designation of environmental activists with Defend the Atlanta Forest as domestic terrorists inadvertently transformed the framing of the Stop Cop City movement from a largely local environmental narrative to a larger movement that could better justify its use of broader civil rights, racial injustice, and police militarisation frames after the killing of Tortuguita. By facilitating the selection of master frames with greater mobilisation capacities, state application of the terrorist label and its inadvertent escalatory effect meant that activists garnered greater support for their cause and reinforced anti-police sentiment among the general population.
Conclusion
To conclude, this paper argues that state framing strategies and the reclassification of protestors as domestic terrorists has amplified and transformed the Stop Cop City movement to the detriment of the state, and to the benefit of protestors. This paper first presented a comprehensive timeline of the conflict as it has played out. Using a polity model, we then elaborated on the critical junctures in the movement, exploring the role of framing in escalating tensions between protestors and law enforcement. I argue that the state’s use of terrorist frames enabled protestors to use “master” counter-frames which allowed for the greater mobilisation of opposition to the development.
Whether the training facility is built remains to be seen, but it is clear that framing has played an integral role in shaping the actions and mobilisation of this social protest movement. This paper has demonstrated how certain frames used by oppositional sides can have substantial implications on the legitimacy of the state’s use of force and the commitment levels of activists and protestors in opposition to the state. The public response to Cop City and the cross-mobilisation of various social justice movements highlight the contextual and dynamic environments in which specific protest strategies are deliberately chosen and implemented. It is through this understanding of framing, and the options that each frame generates, that we can then apply the lessons being learnt in Atlanta to other national and international social movements.
​
Bibliography
@stopcopcity. (2023). Instagram [online]. Available from: https://www.instagram.com/stopcopcity/ [Accessed 16 April 2023].
Arnold, A. (2023). Atlanta Activists at ‘Stop Cop City’ Aren’t Backing Down After Police Kill Protester. Vice [online], 26 January 2023. Available from: https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy7m3a/atlanta-activists-at-stop-cop-city-arent-backing-down-after-police-kill-protester [Accessed 31 January 2023].
Bagby, D. (2023). Faith leaders call on Atlanta leaders to stop construction of ‘Cop City’. RoughDraft Atlanta [online], 7 March 2023. Available from: https://roughdraftatlanta.com/2023/03/07/faith-leaders-call-on-atlanta-leaders-to-stop-construction-of-cop-city/ [Accessed 7 March 2023].
Beaumont, H. (2023). Officers in ‘Cop City’ raid shot pepperball gun into activist’s tent first. The Guardian [online], 25 March 2023.
Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/25/ cop-city-raid-georgia-officers-manuel-paez-teran [Accessed 12 April 2023].
Bernd, C. (2023). Atlanta Was a Constitution-Free Zone During “Stop Cop City” Week of Action. Truthout [online], 14 March 2023. Available from: https://truthout.org/articles/atlanta-was-a-constitution-free-zone-during-stop-cop-city-week-of-action/ [Accessed 8 April 2023].
Bethea, C. (2022). The New Fight Over an Old Forest in Atlanta. The New Yorker [online], 3 August 2022. Available from: https://www. newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-south/the-new-fight-over-an-old-forest-in-atlanta [Accessed 9 April 2023].
Chidi, G. (2024). Protests as Atlanta council adopts new rules for referendum on Cop City. The Guardian [online], 6 February 2024. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/05/atlan-ta-cop-city-referendum-protests [Accessed 1 March 2024].
Cobbina-Dungy, J., Chaudhuri, S., LaCourse, A. and DeJong, C. (2022). “Defund the police”: Perceptions among protestors in the 2020 March on Washington. Criminology & Public Policy, 21, pp.147-174.
Cobbina-Dungy, J. E. and Jones-Brown, D. (2023). Too much policing: Why calls are made to defund the police. Punishment & Society, 25(1), pp.3-20.
Collins, R. (2012). C-Escalation and D-Escalation: A Theory of the Time-Dynamics of Conflict. American Sociological Review, 77(1), pp.1- 20.
Vote to Stop Cop City Coalition. (2023). Cop City Vote [online] Available from: https://www.copcityvote.com/ [Accessed 2 January 2024].
Fox 5 Atlanta. (2023). Atlanta Riots Timeline: How ‘Stop Cop City’ movement led to violent night in Downtown. Fox 5 Atlanta [online], 22 January 2023. Available from: https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/ atlanta-riots-timeline-stop-cop-city-movement-apd-training-facility [Accessed 10 April 2023].
Georgia, G. A. o. (2017). Senate Bill 1 [online]. Available from: https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20172018/167322 [Accessed 21 January 2023].
Georgia Public Broadcasting. (2024). Judge rules against environmental group’s attempt to stop construction of police training facility. GPB News [online], 19 January 2024. Available from: https://www.gpb.org/news/2024/01/19/judge-rules-against-environmental-groups-attempt-stop-construction-of-police [Accessed 2 February 2024].
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organisation of the Experience. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Hirschman, A. O. (1972). Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Keenan, S. (2023). No Charges for Troopers Who Killed ‘Cop City’ Protester Near Atlanta. The New York Times [online], 6 October 2023. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/us/atlan¬ta-cop-city-teran-shooting.html [Accessed 2 November 2023].
Kelley, C. (2021). Mayor, law enforcement celebrate approval of ‘Cop City’ training facility despite public opposition. Rough Draft Atlanta [online], 9 September 2021. Available from: https://roughdraftat-lanta.com/2021/09/09/mayor-law-enforcement-celebrate-approv¬al-of-cop-city-training-facility-despite-public-opposition/ [Accessed 14 April 2023].
Kemp, G. B. (2023). Twitter [online], 19 January 2023. Available from: https://twitter.com/GovKemp/status/1616203770219663379?cxt=H¬HwWpsC4iYOx9O0sAAAA [Accessed 2 February 2023].
Kim, C. (2023). ‘Cop City’ activist Manuel Paez Terán shot 57 times in Atlanta, autopsy says. BBC [online], 20 April 2023. Available from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65340456 [Accessed 21 April 2023].
Kook, A. (2023). Atlanta: Police shooting of activist fuels ‘Cop City’ controversy. Al Jazeera [online], 13 February 2023. Available from: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/2/13/atlanta-police-shooting-of-activ¬ist-fuels-cop-city-controversy [Accessed 20 February 2023].
Lara-Millán, A. (2017). States as a Series of People Exchanges. In: Morgan, K. J., and Orloff, A. S., eds. The Many Hands of the State: Theorising Political Authority and Social Control. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.81-102.
Matthews, A. L. ( 2023). Atlanta’s so-called ‘Cop City’ is igniting protests. Here’s what we know about the foundation behind it. CNN [online], 29 March 2023. Available from: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/29/us/atlanta-cop-city-protests-police-foundation-dg/index.html [Accessed 8 April 2023].
Maxwell, A. (2024) ‘‘Stop Cop City’: How state suppression, terrorist framing, and movement decentralisation affect the fight for social justice in Atlanta’. UN3010: Methods for Social Research. Columbia University. Unpublished essay.
McAdam, D., Tarrow, S. and Tilly, C. (2001). Dynamics of Contention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mier, T. & Madarang, C. (2023). Georgia Governor Declares State of Emergency, Activates 1,000 National Guard Troops. Rolling Stone [online], 26 January 2023. Available from: https://www.rolling-stone.com/culture/culture-news/georgia-governor-brian-kemp-de¬clares-state-of-emergency-protests-1234669274/ [Accessed 10 April 2023].
Mitchell, T. (2023). ‘Feds: “No ‘violent extremist’ label on Defend the Atlanta Forest group”’ Atlanta Journal-Consortium [online]. Available from: https://www.ajc.com/politics/arrest-of-activists-references-home¬land-security-flag-that-doesnt-exist/3P3DA7SM4FA77FTU6HLRRHD22Y/ [Accessed 10 July 2023].
Mock, B. (2023). Atlanta’s ‘Cop City’ Neighbors Have No Voting Rights to Stop It. Bloomberg [online], 4 October 2023. Available from: https:// www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-10-04/-cop-city-referendum-aims-to-repeal-planned-atlanta-police-training-center [Accessed 15 November 2023].
Pratt, T. (2023). ‘This is how I’m going to die’: police swarm activists protesting ‘Cop City’ in ‘week of action’. The Guardian [online], 7 March 2023. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/ mar/07/copy-city-atlanta-georgia-police-crackdown [Accessed 8 March 2023].
Pratt, T. (2023). ‘Cop City’ opposition spreads beyond Georgia forest defenders. The Guardian [online], 9 February 2023. Available from: https:// www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/09/cop-city-opposition-geor¬gia [Accessed 12 April 2023].
Pratt, T. (2024). Georgia police and FBI conduct Swat-style raids on ‘Cop City’ activists’ homes. The Guardian [online], 10 February 2024. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/10/ georgia-police-fbi-raids-cop-city-activists-atlanta [Accessed 11 February 2024].
Snow, D. and Benford, R. D. (2000). Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, pp.611-639.
Spender, T. and Matza, M. (2023). Atlanta ‘Cop City’: Terror charges filed against 23 protesters. BBC News [online], 7 March 2023. Available from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64842272 [Accessed 9 March 2023].
Taitz, S. and Rather, S. (2023). How Officials in Georgia are Suppressing Political Protest as ‘Domestic Terrorism’. ACLU [online], 24 March 2023. Available from: https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/how-offi¬cials-in-georgia-are-suppressing-political-protest-as-domestic-terrorism [Accessed 30 March 2023].
Thigpen, M. (2023). Yes, Black People Are Protesting Cop City, Too. Capital B Atlanta [online], 9 March 2023. Available from: https://atlan¬ta.capitalbnews.org/black-atlanta-stop-cop-city-protests/ [Accessed 12 March 2023].
Unicorn Riot. (2023). ‘Stop Cop City’ Week of Action Begins in Atlanta. Unicorn Riot [online], 4 March 2023. Available from: https://unicorn¬riot.ninja/2023/stop-cop-city-week-of-action-begins-in-atlanta/ [Accessed 5 March 2023].
United States Constitution (1787) Article I, section 7.
Wheatley, T. (2022). “Cop City” activists charged with domestic terrorism. Axios [online], 15 December 2022. Available from: https://www. axios.com/local/atlanta/2022/12/15/atlanta-cop-city-occupation-activ¬ists-charged-with-domestic-terrorism [Accessed 8 April 2023].
Wheatley, T. and Dixon, K. (2023). Fatal shooting at “Cop City” opens new chapter in movement. Axios [online], 19 January 2023. Available from: https://www.axios.com/local/atlanta/2023/01/19/cop-city-fa¬tal-shooting-atlanta [Accessed 8 April 2023].
