Section Branding
Header Content
Georgia Today: Lawmakers react to immigration sweeps; State of the Judiciary; 'Cop City' podcast
Primary Content
LISTEN: On the Tuesday, Jan. 28 edition of Georgia Today: Georgia lawmakers react to federal immigration-related arrests in the state over the weekend; The chief justice of Georgia's Supreme Court delivers the annual State of the Judiciary address; And a new podcast focuses on treatment of protesters opposed to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast from GPB News. Today is Tuesday, Jan. 28. I'm Peter Biello. On this program, you'll hear the latest reports from the GPB news team. You can send feedback or story tips to GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. On today's episode, Georgia's U.S. senators condemn President Trump's Jan. 6 pardons. The chief justice of Georgia's Supreme Court asks for better security for judges. And a new podcast argues the treatment of the protesters opposed to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center sets a dangerous precedent.
Matt Shaer: To me, the precedent is this that that the state is going to determine how and where and when you are allowed to express your voice and express your resistance and your dissent to something.
Peter Biello: These stories and more are coming up on this edition of Georgia Today.
Story 1:
Peter Biello: Georgia lawmakers are reacting to several immigration related arrests made by federal authorities in the state over the weekend. GPB's Sarah Kallis reports.
Sarah Kallis: After federal agencies carried out targeted operations in Georgia, Republican Sen. John Albers says he believes law enforcement will make the right decisions.
John Albers: And if someone is here and broken the law, then we need to get them at whatever point makes sense. So I trust the work that our law enforcement is doing.
Sarah Kallis: Sen. Kim Jackson, a Democrat who is also a pastor, referenced in arrest outside a church in Tucker. She says she opposes raids, especially in churches.
Kim Jackson: I'm just deeply disturbed that ICE has come into our communities and particularly into our faith group and taken people away from their loved ones.
Sarah Kallis: One immigration enforcement-related bail has already dropped in the Senate that requires local law enforcement agencies to honor detention requests from Homeland Security. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state capitol.
Story 2:
Peter Biello: The chief justice of Georgia's Supreme Court is asking state lawmakers to approve judicial pay raises and security upgrades in Georgia courthouses. Chief Justice Michael Boggs used his annual State of the Judiciary address today to push pay raises to attract and retain qualified judges. He said the security upgrades were needed because of what he called a, quote, "precipitous increase" in threats against judges, clerks and court staff.
Michael Boggs: Just last month, bomb threats forced the closure of the Muskogee County Courthouse. Now, more than ever, the safety of our state's 1,600 judges, as well as our court personnel and the general public who still enter our hallways and courtrooms each day has become a pronounced concern.
Peter Biello: A bill signed into law last year sought to improve security for judges by shielding their personal information, such as addresses and phone numbers, from the public.
Story 3:
Peter Biello: Atlanta police have released new details about the death of an unhoused man who died after he was crushed under construction equipment during the clearing of a camp where he was living. The report, released late yesterday, says an officer at the scene noticed the man, Cornelius Taylor, waving in distress. But it says the officer suspected him of using drugs and did not see any obvious signs of hurt. Representing Taylor's family attorney, Mawuli Davis calls the report, quote, "shocking."
Mawuli Davis: I think that this was very calculated and it's, again, an attempt to misdirect people. And I really believe that when this was initiated, they had no idea that so many eyes would be on what happened down there, that so many people would have gone down and inspected the space themselves and saw the blood for themselves and interviewed people themselves. I think they really thought that this would just be a flash in the pan and that they would be able to put that in a report and that Cornelius Taylor had no one that loved him enough to fight for him, and they were just dead wrong.
Peter Biello: Mawuli says the Taylor family is inviting the public to his funeral next week, on Monday.
Story 4:
Peter Biello: Two years ago this month, a protester was killed while opposing the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center known as "Cop City." Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, also known as Tortuguita, was shot by Georgia state troopers after first firing from inside a tent. What followed were protests and a renewed effort to stop the construction of the training facility. A new podcast examines Tortuguita's killing through a wider lens: the power imbalance between those who want to legally protest and the law enforcement and government agencies determined to build the training center. It's called We Came to the Forest. Host and journalist Matt Shaer is with me now. Welcome to the program.
Matt Shaer: Thanks so much for having me.
Peter Biello: So this podcast covers a lot of familiar ground for those who've been following the story. But what's new, you're alleging here, is the evidence that could influence the ongoing lawsuit that Tortuguita's parents filed. They're claiming excessive force, among other things. What new evidence did you find about what law enforcement did that day that was excessive?
Matt Shaer: So listeners who have followed this story at all will probably know the basics. And you got at some of this in your introduction. In January, January two years ago, police launched this massive raid on a forest southeast of Atlanta proper where there were the remnants of a much larger camp that had been raided previously by police. In the previous raids, a bunch of people had been arrested, a bunch of activists, and they'd been charged with domestic terrorism. Later, those charges were put under a superseding RICO indictment. This raid was much bigger in a sense, and the police came in and their narrative for a long time was that they came to a tent in which Tort was lying down and they interacted with Tort and asked them to leave and exit the tent and that Tort fired back through the tent and that the troopers responded with fire of their own. On the most basic level, the files that we've reviewed, that were leaked to us, show that this part at least is broadly accurate. However, it's a far more complicated story than the GBI report initially suggested.
Peter Biello: So you found ultimately that while Tortuguita did fire the first shot — that's not really in dispute anymore, at least on the official record — and in your podcast, that's not in dispute. What might be in dispute, however, is whether or not the officers should have fired the pepper bullets first into Tortuguita's tent, which may have scared them and prompted them to think they were being fired upon, in which case they may have thought they were acting in self-defense. That's one theory in your podcast — which may change the outcome, in your view, of the lawsuit that Tortuguita's parents have filed. Am I summarizing that correctly?
Matt Shaer: You're summarizing it exactly correctly. ... If we looked at the shooting itself, the exchange of lethal gunfire in a little encapsulated vacuum, and we said "what actually happened?" the evidence strongly suggests that the GBI's account of the order of shooting, the order of exchange of fire, is correct. However, when we set out to find this information, one question that we bumped up against is: Okay, if this is what the GBI alleges happened in this forest, why are they so reticent to give us these files? And I think now, having reviewed them really carefully, I understand why. Part of it is what you're saying here with the pepper balls. So on the one hand, you've got that. You've got just the fact that these are fired at very close range into a tent. But there are a few other factors here which are really important. One is the length of time that elapses between when troopers first make contact with Tort and when they disperse the pepper balls.
Peter Biello: That was three minutes.
Matt Shaer: Three minutes. Now we know that there's some sort of interaction between Tort and the troopers. In the depositions which we obtained, the troopers come back and they recall Tort said, "I'm not coming out of the tent. I refuse to come out of the tent." They very quickly escalated to pepper ball usage, which was, again, not included as an option in the — in the planning document. Which doesn't mean you can't use it. I mean, there are all sorts of tactics available to you. However, this is a marked escalation in the sort of terms of negotiation. It's going from talking within just, you know, a matter of seconds, really, to firing these pepper balls into the tent. Now we interview the use of force expert in the show. And I've since spoken to other people in law enforcement. There were other ways this could have gone. It's as simple as that.
Peter Biello: By the time of their killing, Tort had loved ones who had been charged with domestic terrorism just for allegedly being on that part of the public land. Vienna Forrest, who still faces terrorism charges, is a focus of this podcast. Normally when people have ongoing trials, they're reluctant to speak to the press. But Vienna spoke to you quite a bit. How did you connect with Vienna?
Matt Shaer: I met Vienna through attending the various criminal proceedings. I met her outside of the court and introduced myself. She had at that point spoken to some press and in a limited fashion. And, you know, I wondered the same thing when we first started talking. And Vienna is a thoughtful, careful person. She was always careful to speak within the scope of what she felt comfortable with. And one thing that she was always super careful about is not talking about other people's experiences. She wanted to talk about her own. And, you know, she has a pretty clear reason to do that. In her mind — and I'll tell you right now, I don't agree with her fully about everything, but I agree with her to a fair extent on this particular topic — that she was subject to state forces that were going to shut down every means and mode of dissent and protest available to the protesters in whatever way they could, whether through militarized raids, whether through these unprecedented RICO indictments and domestic terrorism charges, whether through more prosaic stuff like delaying the referendum vote for Cop City itself and finding out ways to sort of press it down. I've never seen a situation like this before where a city and a state seems to have said, "We are going to get this done. This is going to get done. This training facility is going to get built. And whatever dissent we encounter is going to be steamrolled." And the tragic part is that that was largely successful, wasn't it? You know, this training facility is completed and classes are going to start there soon. There, the movement to "Stop Cop City," as it's called, is still there, but what Vienna worries about, and why she wanted to talk to us, is she worries about the precedent that this sets all over the country for activists of any kind.
Peter Biello: What would you say the precedent is?
Matt Shaer: To me, the precedent is this, that — that the state is going to determine how and where and when you are allowed to express your voice and express your resistance and your dissent to something.
Peter Biello: Matt Shaer is an at-large reporter for The New York Times and co-founder of Campside Media. He hosts We Came to the Forest, a new podcast about the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, known to opponents as Cop City. Learn more about it at GPB.org. Matt, thank you very much.
Matt Shaer: Thanks so much for having me.
Story 4:
Peter Biello: Georgia's Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff joined 45 other senators in condemning President Trump's pardons of more than 1,500 Jan. 6 Capitol rioters. Sen. Warnock called the pardons disrespectful to officers who protected the Capitol. Sen. Ossoff called Trump's pardons "disgraceful." The senators will seek unanimous consent to pass the resolution this week.
Story 5:
Peter Biello: A new report by the Miliken Institute shows employers benefit by offering flexible work arrangements, paid leave and financial support to employee caregivers. GPB's Ellen Eldridge has more.
Ellen Eldridge: More and more adults are juggling full-time work and caregiving responsibilities, and it's costing employers about $33 billion a year in lost productivity and employee retention. Diane Ty with the Miliken Institute coauthored the report. She says it's good business for companies to invest in caregiving support.
Diane Ty: I think really creating a culture of openness so that people do feel safe so that they're, you know, able to feel like when they do explain what's happening, the employer is empathetic.
Ellen Eldridge: Ty worked with U.S. News and World Report on its inaugural list of best companies when it comes to supporting family caregivers. For GPB News, I'm Ellen Eldridge.
Story 6:
Peter Biello: Georgians voted in November to limit how much of a home's increasing value can be taxed. But many school districts across the state are opting out of the cap. A survey by the Georgia School Superintendents Association finds at least half of Georgia's 180 school districts have started the legal process to get out from under the law's limits. That's because some school districts stand to lose funding if the cap is enacted. The district in West Georgia's Carrollton was the first to opt out. Mark Albertus is the superintendent there. He says the city school system would have lost more than $4 million in tax revenue over the previous six years if this law had been in effect. Officials in Gwinnett County, Georgia's largest school district, estimate the cap could decrease tax revenue by $35 million a year. While some cities and counties are considering whether opt out, school districts appear much more likely to exempt themselves. That's in part because schools only raise revenue from property taxes and state and federal aid, while cities and counties have other options. The law also gave cities and counties the ability to increase sales tax by a penny on every dollar of sales to replace property taxes, but did not give school districts that power. However, some taxpayers liked the idea of a cap, and they cite their own high property tax bills.
Story 7:
Peter Biello: A Georgia judge has seated a jury today in the trial of former prosecutor Jackie Johnson, who has been charged with violating her oath of office and interfering with the police investigation of the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery. Jury selection began a week ago at the courthouse in coastal Glynn County, but was delayed by last week's winter storm. Opening statements by prosecutors and Johnson's defense lawyers were expected this afternoon. The judge says the trial could exceed two weeks. Johnson denies any wrongdoing.
Story 8:
Peter Biello: In sports, the Braves are losing another fan favorite from the bullpen. Veteran right-hander Jesse Chavez has agreed to a minor league contract with the Texas Rangers. The Rangers drafted the 41-year-old pitcher nearly 23 years ago. Chavez was 2 and 2 with a 3.13 ERA in 46 games last season for Atlanta. He was a World Series champion in 2021 with the Braves. His departure comes on the heels of the departure of A.J. Minter, who signed a deal with the Mets last week.
Story 9:
Peter Biello: And Home Depot is signing a multiyear sponsorship deal with U.S. Soccer. The Atlanta-based retail giant announced the deal this morning at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center under construction in Fayette County, south of Atlanta. U.S. Soccer's chief commercial officer, David Wright, says the facility will be a, quote, "cathedral for the sport."
David Wright: It will be a world-class facility that will set the new standard. To be able to have a central point for soccer at all levels, it'll be open and in service to the entire soccer ecosystem from professional all the way down to youth.
Peter Biello: The training center is named for Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank, whose independent $50 million donation jump-started its construction in 2023. It's now on track to open in April 2026, months ahead of the FIFA World Cup. Home Depot's sponsorship comes a month after the company inked a similar deal with FIFA. Financial terms of both agreements were not disclosed. Atlanta is scheduled to host eight World Cup matches.
Peter Biello: And that's a wrap on Georgia Today. But we've got more news on the way tomorrow, including reaction from the immigrant community to the ICE raids that occurred over the weekend. If you have firsthand knowledge of what happened, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out to us by email. The address is GeorgiaToday@GPB.org. Remember to subscribe to this podcast and check GPB.org/news for any late-breaking stories. I'm Peter Biello. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.
---
For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news
Secondary Content
Author
