From the New York Times, I'm Serena Tevernice and this is The Daily.

We are opening our mouths and crying with a loud voice to say that we don't want cop city.

In a patch of woods southwest of Atlanta, protesters and the police have been clashing over a massive police training facility that the city wants to build there.

This is a historic investment in public safety that will pay dividends in every community that we have.

Earlier this month, that fight came to a head.

We already say demonstrators were armed with rocks and maltop cocktails.

Today, Atlanta-based reporter Sean Keenan, on how the facility in the woods surrounding it,

have become an unlikely battleground in the nation's debate over policing.

It's Tuesday, March 28th.

So Sean, tell me about this planned police training facility just outside Atlanta. This become so controversial.

What's planned is 85 acres of training ground for police and firefighters.

And it's going to sprawl across forced-ed land southeast of Atlanta and unincorporated to Cab County.

Now the plan is expected to include a gun range, a helipad, pasture land for police horses, classrooms for police and fire training and amphitheater,

and a racetrack for police to practice high-speed chases and firefighters to learn how to drive fire trucks.

But what is probably the most contentious element of the whole plan is this mock city, which is plans that the police can prepare for real life scenarios like a mass shooting or a robbery.

It'll have apartments, gas station, a nightclub, a grocery store, you know, simulation zone.

How many other facilities are out there like this?

Relatively speaking, this is going to be one of the largest facilities of its kind in the US.

All said we're talking about a $90 million investment. Could even go over that.

30 million of that is coming from the city, meaning taxpayers.

And the other 60 million is being covered by the Atlanta Police Foundation, which is really spearheading the development.

And it's seen as this culmination of years of concern about how to address this surge in violent crime in Atlanta, which really spiked during the brunt of the pandemic, just like it did in many other major cities.

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