‘This is how I’m going to die’: police swarm activists protesting ‘Cop City’ in ‘week of action’

The ‘Cop City’ project had been opposed even before police killed activist Manuel Paez Terán in January. Photograph: Steve Eberhardt/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock

“Check their shoes and look for mud!” shouted one Atlanta police department officer to another.

The sun was setting against a tree line growing greener daily due to recent balmy, spring-like weather in Atlanta, but the bucolic setting of a Sunday in the sun at a free music festival abruptly became panic and chaos.