Activists seeking to challenge the construction of the new Atlanta Public Safety Training Center claim to have turned in more than 115,000 petition signatures on Monday, three weeks after the City of Atlanta required signature gathering to conclude. The city has accepted the signatures, but said it will not examine them without a ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Though activists were originally given until August 21 to return at least 58,232 valid signatures, a legal ruling on July 26 provided an additional 60 days, and stripped a requirement for those gathering the signatures to be residents of Atlanta. However, on September 1 a stay was issued freezing that ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on September 1, meaning the additional time granted to activists may have disappeared.
Nonetheless, reporters captured video and images of activists attempting to turn in petition signatures on September 11, with signs claiming they gathered 116,000 in total. If accurate, the petition was signed by about a fifth of Atlanta’s voters, and more than the total number of voters who participated in the 2021 mayoral election.
RIGHT NOW: Organizers in the movement against Atlanta’s public safety training center are turning in 116,000 signatures to the Clerk’s Office with hopes to have ATL voters decide this issue.
There needs to be 58,232 valid signatures to be eligible for a ballot referendum in ATL. pic.twitter.com/6xcO1Y0DIv
— Patrick Quinn (@PatrickQuinnTV) September 11, 2023
The City of Atlanta accepted the petition signatures for safekeeping, but, in a statement, said it would not begin examining them until the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals made a ruling, adding that 81 days have passed since the activists filed their original petition with the city.
Foris Webb III, the clerk emeritus for Atlanta, noted that state and local laws outline “a clear and strict 60-day deadline for petition circulation,” and that activists submitted their original petition on June 21, making August 21 the final date signatures could be accepted without the July 27 ruling in place.
“However, the City is willing to receive the signed petition pages into its custody,” said Webb, “subject to the express understanding that such receipt does not constitute acceptance for verification, pending further rulings and guidance from the 11th Circuit.”
Activists attempted to turn in their signatures less than one week after Georgia charged 61 individuals associated with the effort to stop the training facility, particularly those who allegedly facilitated a riot and takeover of the site, under the Georgia Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
In a 109-page indictment, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr (R) detailed an alleged criminal conspiracy to fund and enact an anarchist takeover of the site of the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center and eliminate the police in their entirety.
Announced in 2021, the training center quickly became the subject of local protests. Those protests gained national notoriety in January, when a protester was killed after shooting a Georgia State Trooper. Protests soon intensified, with police describing a “coordinated attack” in March.
The indictment also offered details on what officers saw when responding to the deadly January forest occupation that led to the death of a protester, including “dangerous, sharp traps,” partial “ingredients for making Molotov cocktails” and “a rudimentary pipe bomb that had not been completed.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Georgia Star News and a reporter for the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Stop cop city Activist Gathers Petition Signatures” by Stop Cop City Movement.
Lemme guess…all the signatures were in the same handwriting!