Last Monday, February 5th, protesters in Lacey Washington disrupted the groundbreaking of what has been called Cop City Lacey, a $60 Million project to build a new police training facility where a forest now stands. The facility would include a new police shooting range, an armory, and a defense simulator– all built with the explicit goal of increasing the brutality of the police state.

This project is similar to the infamous Atlanta Cop City, where government officials and a police union colluded to build an elaborate training facility in a forest in the heart of a low-income community. Forest defenders and the wider Atlanta community have been fighting back in continuous struggle since 2021. Forest defenders occupying the forest, gardening, and stewarding the land were met with incredible state violence. In retaliation to the brutal murder of some of the forest defenders, demonstrations and bombings across the country have ensued since.

As the struggle against Atlanta’s Cop City continues, the community prepares for a new one to begin here in Washington State. The City of Lacey and contractor Forma Construction “will be exterminating an old forest and all creatures who live there,” the Olympia Commune, an anarchist collective, wrote in a statement over the weekend. Because of the harmful and violent nature of the project the community is unsurprisingly united against the project.

At the protest last Monday, a crowd amassed and disrupted the Cop City Lacey groundbreaking ceremony. The crowd worked tirelessly to disrupt the event. At one point it is reported that they were able to successfully damage an excavator, smashing its windows in. This is just the beginning of a prolonged struggle in the Lacey forest. A struggle that will prove to be very costly to the city in the long run.

The City of Lacey and Forma Construction must stop Cop City now. If they choose not to, the people will. Stop Cop City Lacey. Stop Cop City Atlanta.