Ohio couple facing charges related to cleanup sweep at Intrenchment Creek Park
Virginia Heckel, 30, of Ohio (left) is charged with criminal trespass and Robert Rayner, 20, of Ohio (right) is charged with obstruction (DeKalb County Jail).
DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. - Two people have been arrested in connection to a recent cleanup conducted at Intrenchment Creek Park, near the future site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested and charged Virginia Heckel, 30, of Ohio with criminal trespass and Robert Rayner, 20, of Ohio with obstruction in the sweep last week.
DeKalb County Government issued an executive order on March 24, that the park and other adjacent county-owned property be closed due to the discovery of "hidden traps or other devices designed to injure, maim, or cause the death of adults, children, and pets."
County leaders released photos showing wooden boards with spikes in them and other devices.
Under the executive order, anyone caught in the park or surrounding area will be subject to prosecution.
A multi-jurisdictional task force made up of local police, government, and the GBI combed through Intrenchment Creek Park starting on March 27 to clear out unauthorized people and vehicles. Workers with the DeKalb County Department of Sanitization demolishing several illegal structures built inside. Police say they found nailed boards, Molotov cocktails, and syringes filled with trace amounts of fentanyl during the sweep.
The park is at the center of a hostile standoff between police and protesters, who have dubbed the future training center "Cop City." Atlanta police want to build the $90-million training center there. The conflict, has at times, turned violent.
Last month, Atlanta police say masked protesters hurled rocks and makeshift explosives at officers. Twenty-three people were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism.
What is the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center?
In addition to classrooms and administration buildings, the proposed $90-million police and firefighter training center would include a shooting range, a driving course to practice chases, and a "burn building" for firefighters to work on putting out fires. A "mock village" featuring a fake home, convenience store, and nightclub would also be built for authorities to rehearse raids.
The 85-acre property is owned by the city of Atlanta but is located just outside the city limits in unincorporated DeKalb County, and includes a former state prison farm.
Police officials say the state-of-the-art campus would replace substandard offerings and boost police morale beset by hiring and retention struggles in the wake of violent protests against racial injustice after George Floyd’s death in 2020.
Opponents of the training center have been protesting since 2021 by building platforms in surrounding trees and camping out at the site. They say that the project, which would be built by the Atlanta Police Foundation, involves cutting down so many trees that it would be environmentally damaging. Many activists also oppose spending so much money on a police facility that would be surrounded by poor, majority-Black neighborhoods in a city with one of the nation’s highest degrees of wealth inequality.
FOX 5 put together a full timeline of the progression of protests over the past two years, including the trooper-involved shooting death of 26-year-old protestor Manuel Esteban Paez.