ATLANTA, Ga. – Police arrested 35 protesters, including two Wisconsin women, in an urban forest where the city has proposed building a police training facility. Grace Martin, 22, and Kayley Meissner, 20, both of Madison, were charged with domestic terrorism. The so-called “Cop City” site has been the target of demonstrations for two years – a complex mix of eco-protests and anti-blue sentiments. This time, Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said, a group of protesters, dressed in black at night, deliberately escalated the situation and threw rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks at officers and destroyed construction equipment. The arrests actually were at a music festival a mile away. Those arrested came from 13 states, France and Canada, police said. The 85-acre police academy site is sacred to many Atlantans as an urban forest. From 1918 to 1995 the land was a forced-labor prison farm for men convicted of nonviolent crimes.
