Federal agencies pushed extreme view of Cop City protesters, records show

New documents seen by Drilled and the Guardian show how agencies laid groundwork for dozens of domestic terrorism arrests

The Department of Homeland Security monitored web posts critical of a proposed police training center in Atlanta known as Cop City and shared its findings with state and local law enforcement ahead of a crackdown that left one protester dead and more than 40 others charged with domestic terrorism.

The federal reports, shared with the Atlanta police and the Georgia bureau of investigation, concluded that property damage in the name of stopping Cop City, a planned $90m police training center in Atlanta’s South River Forest, was consistent with “anarchist violent extremist” and “environmental violent extremist” ideologies. A separate report from the multiagency National Counterterrorism Center reached a similar conclusion.