The Emory Wheel Since 1919
Emory University’s Independent Student Newspaper
Volume 104, Issue 2
Printed every other wednesday
Wednesday, February 1, 2023
Emory community condemns Cop City death By Mitali Singh and Marian Moss Asst. A&E Editor and Contributing Writer
As the sun set on Jan 23., a group huddled close together on Asbury circle. Some held bunches of flowers in their arms, kneeling to place them around candles and pictures. Soft guitar lingered in the air. Emory University students hosted a vigil on Asbury Circle to honor the life of Indigenous environmental activist Manuel Terán, known as Tortuguita, who was shot and killed on Jan. 18 in an altercation with the Atlanta Police Department and Georgia Bureau of Investigation in the forest. They were 26 years old. Dozens of students, alumni and community members attended the vigil, and many were dressed in black for mourning. This was the first time in United States history that an activist was killed in an attempt to protest the forest being developed. Terán was one of the environmental activists living in the South River Forest, also called the Weelaunee Forest to protest the Atlanta Police Foundation’s $90 million proposed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, coined “Cop City” by activists. This follows the Atlanta City Council proposing the construction of the police training facility in June 2021. Building the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center would require 85 acres of Weelaunee Forest land to be cut down, and in total, City Council leased 381 acres of land to the Atlanta Police Foundation.
The death of Manuel ‘Tortuguita’ Terán
Sophia Guerieri/Contributing Photographer
Photos, signs and flowers lay on Asbury Circle in honor of Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán. The facility aims to “improve and racial justice grounds. However, mental activists, who call themselves morale, retention, recruitment and Atlanta approved plans later that “forest defenders,” on domestic tertraining” for the Atlanta Police month. rorism charges. The agencies reportDepartment and the Atlanta Fire Officers have been deployed to the edly found gasoline, explosive devices Rescue Department in a state which site multiple times to start construction, and road flares. While the forest is would have the fourth highest incar- but have been unable to begin devel- public land, it is considered trespassceration rate in the world if every opment due to protesters on the site. ing if protesters fail to leave after U.S. state were a country. In mid-January 2022, environmental being ordered to do so. The same day, The encampment includes com- activists living in the forest escorted sev- law enforcement sprayed the forest mon spaces and kitchens, and the eral workers who had entered the forest defenders who were living in the forcommunity often holds teaching ses- with bulldozers to conduct soil boring est with tear gas and forced them off sions on the history of the land, and geotechnical engineering tests but Weelaunee Forest. guided walks, dinners, book talks lacked the paperwork legally required Police attempts to remove the proand music shows. to do so. testers — which escalated to the use of When the Atlanta City Council Since December 2022, there have chemical weapons — have resulted in opened for solicited public comment been two police raids attempting to the destruction of the forest’s bike and on the facility in September 2021, remove protesters from the forest. walking paths, community gardens and they received 17 hours of comments. On Dec. 13, 2022, The Atlanta Police installations. Of the comments, 70% opposed the Department and Georgia Bureau of Then, on Jan. 18, police killed a forest Cop City facility on environmental Investigation arrested five environ- defender.
African American studies Ph.D. program to admit first students
Illustration by Matthew Chupack/Executive Editor
By Jaden Song Contributing Writer Emory University’s new African American studies Ph.D. program will send out acceptance letters to the first cohort of students by the end of the first week of February, according to Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Religion and African American Studies Dianne Stewart, who also serves as interim African American studies department chair. The Ph.D. program, which is aiming to accept four students out of 105 applicants for fall 2023, is the first African American studies Ph.D. program in the Southeast and the first African American studies Ph.D.
NEWS See More: Students Hold Vigil for Activist PAGE 3 Manuel Terán ... P
program at a private university in the South. The African American studies department expects to enroll four new Ph.D. students each year, according to the program description. The doctoral program comes 52 years after Emory created the first degree-granting African American studies program in the South in 1971. Stewart and Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies Carol Anderson, who is on leave for the 2022-23 academic year, helped establish the Ph.D. program. “The Ph.D. program in African American studies is something that
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At the time of the Jan. 18 raid, Terán was living in the Weelaunee Forest to protest Cop City, which would be one of the largest police training facilities in the United States. At 85 acres, the complex will include shooting ranges, virtual reality shooting simulations, a burn building, neighborhoods and a mock city. Los Angeles and New York City — cities with two of the top three largest police departments in the country — use a 32-acre facility and 21-acre facility, respectively. Meanwhile, the Atlanta Police Department ranks No. 19 in size. The moments leading up to Terán’s death have been called into question by activists. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation wrote in a Jan. 18 statement that Terán fired first, hitting a Georgia State Patrol trooper before other officers returned fire. Five days later, the Bureau confirmed that Terán legally purchased the firearm they used to shoot the trooper in 2020. However, a lack of bodycam footage and contradicting witness accounts led to calls for further investigation. The Bureau responded in a Jan. 23 statement, saying that although the officers near the shooting were not wearing bodycams, footage of the aftermath was captured but has not been released. In an article about the incident, journalist David Peisner — who spent six months in the forest getting to know Terán — said that although it is possible law enforcement is being truthful, officials have given “erroneous” narratives in the past after killings by police, citing
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Students report long ER wait times By Melina Ross Contributing Writer Amy Kaku (26C) said it “felt like a drill” was going through her head when she walked out of the Emory University Hospital emergency room (ER) after being told it would be two or three hours before a doctor could see her. “That’s the prevalence of this issue,”Rachel Wang (26C), who is a friend of Kaku, said. “The longer the wait time, the longer someone is suffering.” Kaku’s experience wasn’t a lone incident. Izzy Hipple (26C) said she waited five hours to get her blood drawn and receive the results at the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) ER, while Casey Hampton reported waiting a total of 13 hours at two Emory Healthcare hospitals — seven at Emory University Hospital on Clifton Road and four at Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital. “If it were an emergency, I mean, I guess the only place I’d have to go is the ER,” Hipple said. “I’ve just kind of dealt with it myself because I feel like it’s not worth it.” This follows a rise in patient complaints about long ER wait times across Georgia. Additionally, the Georgia Coordinating Center con-
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sistently lists Emory hospitals as predominantly “overcrowded” or “severe.” In an email to the Wheel, Emory Healthcare reported experiencing longer wait times in ERs due to an increase in respiratory illnesses and the closure of Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center on Nov. 1, 2022, which displaced approximately 50,000 ER visits a year across the remaining metro Atlanta hospitals. “We, like other metro Atlanta health care systems, are seeing higher volumes of patients who need care,” Emory Healthcare wrote. Emory Healthcare noted that they are working to hire additional staff to assist with larger patient volumes. “Longer wait times may occur and we ask for your patience and grace as we serve all of those who need medical attention,” Emory Healthcare wrote. “We are here to support our community and those who come to any Emory Healthcare hospital needing care.” Low resources Emergency Medicine Specialist Jennifer Steele, who has worked in ERs in the Bronx and Long Island, N.Y. for over 20 years and is not affiliated with Emory, attributed long
wait times to overcrowded hospitals. “When patients do go there, it can just be overwhelming from a provider standpoint, you have so many patients to see that you’re just overwhelmed,” Steele said. “Your ability to care for all the patients is impeded, just simply by patient volume.” Hipple reported seeing a similar situation during her wait at CHOA, noting that the waiting room was “packed.” “There are only so many doctors and they can only do stuff so fast,” Hipple said. “When there’s that many people, I just can’t imagine they could do it faster.” Some students have reported negative experiences at Emory University Student Health Services (EUSHS) that have led them to go to the ER instead. Hipple recalled that a nurse forgot to take her vitals when she sought treatment for a “serious health issue” at EUSHS. She also said that a physician’s assistant mistreated her. “She was extremely rude,” Hipple said. “She was very short with me. She did not listen to anything I was saying, and she told me that I came in with too many symptoms, and we could only focus on one symptom at a time.”
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