For years now, opponents of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center have had a simple mantra: "Cop city will never be built."

Atlanta- “Cop City will never be built!”

Protesters chant and begin to march down the sidewalk on their way to the Atlanta police foundation in protest of “cop city” pic.twitter.com/edV6CYk52I

— Savanah Hernandez (@sav_says_) March 10, 2023

People are entering the City Council chamber, chanting “Cop City will never be built!” pic.twitter.com/i3pq8z7W0c

— Atlanta Community Press Collective (@atlanta_press) June 5, 2023

And you have to give the activists credit for trying. Not only did they camp out in the forest and attempt to tie up the project in the courts, they also resorted to arson on a number of occasions, targeting both police and the construction companies that were working on the project. Here's a report from January 2023:

And one from Oct. 2023.

Here's one from January 2024:

Here's another one from February 2024.

And here's one from last August about another arson attack against construction equipment which was also likely connected to the "cop city" protesters.

I'm still just scratching the surface here but I think you get the idea. This group of anarchists didn't stop with legal protest. In fact, they openly vowed on many occasions, "If you build it we will burn it."

And yet, here we are in January 2025 and the Atlanta Public Training Center is nearly complete and is already being used. 

Atlanta’s new public safety training center that’s been the subject of protests for years is finally built, and officials must now find a way to balance security with community building.

A first look at the 85-acre, now-$115 million complex in the South River Forest in unincorporated DeKalb County featured walking trails, dog kennels, classrooms, a six-story burn building and even a barn near the front entrance that will house 11 horses...

Crews are still putting on the finishing touches, but officials expect the center to be fully up and running in the first quarter of 2025.

Despite all the chanting, arson and threats, Cop City has been built. Police gave local media outlets a tour of the new facility just before Christmas.

So what happens next? Will the activists follow through on their promise to burn the place down? The police chief seemed prepared for an attempt.

“If you want to protest the training center, if you want to protest how police are trained, we’re going to give you an environment to do that in and we’re going to protect your right to do that,” Schierbaum said. “If your intent, however, is to damage or burn, then we’re going to arrest you, and we do have an effective plan to make sure that does not happen here.”

I hope he's right about having an effective plan because the left-wing extremists responsible for all those arson attacks mentioned above (and many more) are probably not going to stop now. They failed to stop it being built but they can still keep their other promise: "If you build it, we will burn it."