Cop City Atlanta Update 2026: Training Center, RICO Appeal, Lawsuits

Updated Oct. 17: This guide has been rewritten with the latest on the training center’s first year of operation, the status of the state’s appeal in the racketeering case, the dismissed lawsuit over the death of Manuel Paez Terán, the referendum ruling and new criminal cases. Older material that could not be confirmed has been removed.

Atlanta’s $117 million public safety training center, the project opponents named “Cop City,” has now been open for more than a year. The fights over it have not ended. They have moved into courtrooms.

Here is where things stand as of October 2026.

The center in its second year

The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center sits on 85 acres of the old Atlanta Prison Farm in unincorporated DeKalb County, in the South River Forest. It formally opened with a ribbon cutting on April 29, 2025, though police recruits had begun training there in 2024, WSB-TV reported.

Police and firefighters train side by side. The campus includes burn buildings for fire training, a mock village for live scenarios, virtual reality training, a driving course, a shooting range and a wellness center, WABE reported at the opening.

“This thing is state of the art, and it is for the people of Atlanta,” Mayor Andre Dickens said that day, WSB-TV reported.

By May 2026, about 650 recruits had trained at the center, including 458 police recruits and nearly 200 fire recruits, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. The police department had held nine graduations there and the fire department three. The mayor’s office said attrition was down 16% for the year.

Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said the center had helped with hiring and keeping officers. “It’s certainly given us an edge in recruitment, but it’s helped our retention,” he told WSB-TV at the one-year mark, putting police staffing at about 90%. Eight academy classes in that first year put 157 new officers on the street, Atlanta News First reported.

Opinions have barely moved. “It’s the gold standard for public safety training,” City Council President Marci Collier Overstreet told the AJC. Council member Kelsea Bond said “there was no opportunity for community input.”

What it cost

The price rose as the project went on. When the council approved the land lease in 2021, the center was estimated at $90 million, with the city paying $30 million. By opening day, the cost had reached about $118 million, WABE reported. The AJC now puts it at $117 million. Corporate donors, through the Atlanta Police Foundation, covered most of the rest.

The city’s total commitment is larger than the original $30 million. In June 2023, the council approved funding 11-4 at about 5:30 a.m. after a 16½-hour meeting with more than 350 public speakers. That vote put taxpayers’ cost at up to $67 million, including a 30-year lease-back arrangement of $1.2 million a year, Atlanta News First reported. The AJC has reported the city also spent more than $2.8 million on litigation and consultants.

The racketeering case is on appeal

The biggest prosecution tied to the protests is not over. In August 2023, a Fulton County grand jury indicted 61 people under Georgia’s racketeering law, accusing them of a conspiracy to stop the center, The Associated Press reported. Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s office brought the case.

On Dec. 30, 2025, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Kevin Farmer dismissed the racketeering charges, ruling that Carr lacked authority to bring them without permission from Gov. Brian Kemp, the AJC reported. Farmer had signaled the outcome at a September hearing: “The mechanisms were in place and the steps just weren’t followed.” He upheld Georgia’s domestic terrorism law as “neither unconstitutionally overbroad nor unconstitutionally vague,” and five defendants still face arson and domestic terrorism charges.

“We strongly disagree with this decision,” Carr’s office said. It asked to appeal in January, and on Feb. 12, 2026, the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to hear the case, according to the attorney general’s office. “When it comes to fighting Antifa and keeping people safe, we won’t back down,” Carr said. The attorney general’s office noted that only 13 of the 61 defendants are from Georgia.

As of mid-October, no appellate ruling had been reported.

An earlier spinoff case collapsed. In September 2024, prosecutors dropped all 15 money laundering counts against three activists who ran a bail fund for arrested protesters, WABE reported.

New criminal cases

Prosecutors have brought other charges this year. In April, a Cobb County grand jury indicted three people over a May 2022 attack on an office of Brasfield & Gorrie, a contractor on the project, on charges of criminal damage to property and arson, according to the attorney general’s office. “This isn’t Portland or Seattle,” Carr said.

In federal court, activist Sam Tunick faces a felony charge of destroying property to prevent its seizure, which carries up to five years in prison, over a phone search at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in January 2025, the AJC reported in August. No trial date has been set.

The Tortuguita lawsuit was dismissed

On Jan. 18, 2023, Georgia State Patrol troopers shot and killed Manuel “Tortuguita” Paez Terán, 26, during a raid on the protest camp in the forest. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Paez Terán fired first and wounded a trooper. An independent autopsy commissioned by the family found Paez Terán was shot more than a dozen times while sitting cross-legged with hands raised. No body camera captured the shooting, and a prosecutor declined to charge the troopers, WABE reported.

On March 30, 2026, U.S. District Judge Steven Grimberg dismissed the civil rights lawsuit filed by Paez Terán’s parents, granting the troopers qualified immunity, WABE reported. He found the troopers’ actions “objectively reasonable” and wrote that “because Paez Teran initiated gunfire,” the parents could not show the troopers caused the deadly force. Family attorneys said the parents felt “denied the accountability they deserve.”

The referendum is dead, for now

Opponents gathered more than 100,000 signatures in 2023 to put the center’s land lease to a citywide vote. The city never counted them.

In January 2026, a divided panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated an earlier ruling that had favored the petitioners. Relying on a 1998 Georgia Supreme Court decision, the court said voters “can not use the referendum process to repeal a local ordinance,” CBS News Atlanta reported. The case went back to the district court.

Environmental concerns

The site sits beside Intrenchment Creek in the South River watershed, and runoff from construction drew repeated challenges. DeKalb County once halted work after finding silt fences “malfunctioning,” 11Alive reported.

In January 2024, U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee refused to halt construction over alleged sediment flowing into the creek, after the city committed $227,000 for extra erosion controls and inspections, GPB reported. In November 2024, the city settled a Clean Water Act lawsuit the South River Watershed Alliance had brought against it and the police foundation over stormwater discharges, the AJC reported. The terms were not made public.

How it started

Sept. 8, 2021: The City Council votes 10-4 to lease 85 acres to the Atlanta Police Foundation, the AJC reported.
Jan. 18, 2023: Troopers kill Paez Terán during a raid on the forest camp.
June 6, 2023: The council approves construction funding 11-4 after an all-night meeting.
Aug. 29, 2023: 61 people are indicted on racketeering charges.
April 29, 2025: The center formally opens.
Dec. 30, 2025: A Fulton judge dismisses the racketeering charges.
Jan. 2026: The 11th Circuit rules against the referendum effort.
Feb. 12, 2026: The Georgia Court of Appeals agrees to hear the state’s appeal.
March 30, 2026: A federal judge dismisses the Paez Terán family’s lawsuit.