Garrison Davis

I think anyone who has watched the cops retreat has seen this before.

But the more the same thing happens, the more you get used to it, the more you experiment and find ways to adapt and overcome.

Quoting an Atlanta anarchist, quote, cops panic and you can see it in the way they walk.

Like they weren't ready for that.

And next time they might be, which means you have to add something new.

A new spice has to get thrown in, a new flavor profile.

They'll get used to pushing through crowds like that until someone hits them at the end of the day.

And whether you're like confronting them on the ground or trying to get to the neighborhoods ahead of time to knock on people's doors to get them out, eventually cops will start to find ways to counteract your strategy.

And eventually you will have to reshift and recalibrate the tools you are using, unquote.

To orient back to Atlanta, all these instances I've mentioned amount to failing to take advantage of key moments, whether that be in the aftermath of March 5th, the seeming impossibility of continued forest encampments, or the city's blanket refusal to accept the results of the referendum.

In these moments, the police and the state were able to determine where battle lines were drawn, and quite literally so during the quote-unquote block cop city protest in October of 2023, where police easily repelled a protest march from even reaching the road to the cop city construction site.

And the state continued to push their lines forward with the joint FBI-ATF raids on activist houses in February 2024, which further stifled the movement and was coupled with months to years-long persistent surveillance and intimidation denoted by cops parked outside of homes of alleged activists, mobile surveillance, and hidden cameras placed in front of activists' homes and a local community center.

One of the more frightening incidents came in May of 2024, where a resident of one of the homes raided that February woke up in the middle of the night to a bright light outside the bedroom window, only to find a lit road flare catching the wooden railing of their porch steps on fire.

One of the things I've been reflecting on regarding Cop City is the way people talked about fear as a tool.

Frank Herbert's litany against fear was a common refrain to overcome the fear that this state used as a weapon.

But the first time I heard fear mentioned as an offensive measure wasn't in reference to this state using fear.

It was in early 2022 when I first visited the forest encampment and the anarchists talked about how the police were scared of entering the forest.

How delusions of Vietnam-style booby traps demonstrated that the cops are not impervious super soldiers.

Instilling fear is a major aspect of police training.

They're susceptible to emotional impulses like all of us.