The protests in Atlanta against "Cop City" build on a history of organizers challenging prison construction as a force for environmental destruction. In defiance of the ongoing protests, the police and their contractors have started to cut down the forest, and the future of the encampment remains unclear. The campaign against Cop City is simultaneously an objection to building a new center for police training and a campaign to defend the Weelaunee Forest. The activists fighting against Cop City argue that police violence itself constitutes an environmental hazard, and that toxic chemicals associated with explosives that could be used on the site will destroy the air, water, and land on which myriad forms of life depend.