‘Cop city’ backers and opponents battle for public opinion over $90m project

Poll shows Atlanta divided on racial lines over planned police and fire department training center

Nearly two years into protests against a controversial $90m police and fire department training center in Georgia known as “Cop City”, recent weeks saw the first academic, Atlanta-area public opinion poll about the issue.

Top-line results of the recent Emory University poll included: more white residents are for the project than against it, and more Black residents are against it than for it. The numbers add up to a portrait of a city divided in the face of a protest movement – still stunned by the shooting death of one its members at the hands of the police – that has created global headlines.