Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine. We are pleased to be joined today by Christopher Bruce. He is the policy and advocacy

director of the Georgia ACLU, and he is with us to discuss the latest developments in the case surrounding

the Stop Cop City Movement in Atlanta. Christopher Bruce, thank you for joining us on current affairs

today.

Hey, you're happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. And thank you for covering this important

topic. Yeah, well, it hasn't gotten nearly

enough press up until now. And so I wonder if you could start perhaps for our listeners and readers

by just giving us a little bit of the basic background of how this all originally, how and when

this all originally came about. What are the

origins of this whole controversy over, quote, Cop City? I'm glad you're saying that because

a lot of people who have opinions on if Cop City should go through or does not go through.

A lot of them may not know the history of the area of the

legislation. And I may not even know all of it. So we just summarize a piece of it. The area that's

being proposed for Cop City has been used traditionally by the Atlanta Police Department. So I'll say that as a

firing range and other type of exercises. Now, with it being used like that, it's kind of dilapidated

the area. So there are bullets, there's waste, other places, run down buildings of the sort.

A few administrations ago, Mayor Christine Reed was approached about building a new facility where the Atlanta Police Department can train.

The Atlanta Police Department alleges that there's no training facilities for them.

They get their trainings and classes at the Atlantic Metropolitan Center,

and sometimes they'll go out to other counties or areas to get trained. So I think that's an

important part to say. For you saying that there's no training facilities for you when there are

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