A group of festival attendees at the Weelaunee People’s Park in Atlanta remain in custody after a March 23 bond hearing. According to freelance writer Hannah Riley on Twitter, it was the second bond hearing for the group.
folks arrested in the forest attending a music festival are having their second bond hearing in DeKalb Court today. so far it's seeming like the judge will be granting (fairly expensive) bonds, as the prosecution has no evidence.
— Hannah Riley #StopCopCity (@hannahcrileyy) March 23, 2023
At the DeKalb court, the first person’s bond was set at $25,000. The second person was denied bond because they had a jail Support number on them, which was used as evidence that they came to commit a crime. Jail Support was created to help people arrested at political protests who might need water, food, a phone to call a loved one, or someone to take photos of injuries to document what happened to them.
Another concertgoer was denied bond because they are from New York, which makes them “a flight risk and a risk to the community,” Riley reported. Someone was also denied bond for “wearing black, having mud on their shoes and having “wet legs.”
On March 5, 23 people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism because a group of people, dressed in black, allegedly left the scene of the music festival to throw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks at law enforcement, Atlanta officials told WSB. According to fellow festival goers, the police showed up to the concert site and began arresting random attendees who had nothing to do with the attack.
The free festival was thrown as a protest against the development of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center. The center will be used to train both law enforcement and fire department officials. The $90 million facility is expected to take up over 85 acres. It will include a mock city for burning building training and urban police training. Protestors have dubbed the development as “Cop City,” and are against it because instead of addressing the issues of police brutality by distributing policing funds to other human care services, the city of Atlanta has decided to put more money into the current model. The center is also on the East side of Atlanta in DeKalb County, where Black people make up 54.6% of the population.
Among the performers at the free festival was Zack Fox, who said he grew up in the area and used to go to the park all the time to hang out with friends and walk his dog.
Protesters have camped out on the site of where the training center is planned to be built and in January, one of the protesters was shot and killed by police. Officials initially said the protester fired first, but it was later discovered the officer hit in the fatal encounter was accidentally shot by another officer.
