By Ryan Fatica
Atlanta, GA – On Tuesday, May 17, law enforcement from several jurisdictions, including SWAT teams armed with rifles, conducted a raid on the burgeoning autonomous zone within the Atlanta Forest, arresting eight people and destroying six treehouses and other protest infrastructure.
After the raid, officers from Atlanta Police Department’s Zone 3 Field Investigations Team discussed using “deadly force” against protestors if they used Molotov cocktails to defend themselves from a raid, according to scanner audio from 6:41 p.m.
“I told you, deadly force encounter,” said one officer. “That’s why I bought it up, as long as we’re all on the same page, Molotov cocktail’s a deadly force encounter.”
A “deadly force encounter” is a situation in which officers are legally allowed to shoot to kill.
“They started staging at around 9 a.m. and started coming in at around 10 a.m. and we started mobilizing and calling for support,” said one protester who was in the forest during the raid and asked not to be named due to potential retaliation.
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