STOP CHARLOTTE’S COP CITY

No $175M Police Complex on a Colege Campus While Our Schools Starve

Across the country, we’re watching elected officials gut education, criminalize poverty, and

funnel bilions into policing — al while families struggle to keep a roof over their heads and

food on the table.

Now it’s happening here.

Central Piedmont Community Colege and Mecklenburg County are planning to build a massive

police and fire training compound — “Cop City” — on CPCC’s Levine campus in Matthews. It's a

multi-agency, militarized complex with burn towers, tactical driving courses, mock streets, and

indoor shooting ranges. And they want to spend $118 milion in county tax dolars to make it

happen.

THE TIMELINE THEY HID:

Dec 2021: CPCC quietly asks county for $60M to shift campuses for this facility.

Sept 2022: They officialy request over $125M for the training site, without public notice.

May 2023: County Manager announces funding, but never reveals the ful scope.

Oct 2024: County admits the project was never properly presented or voted on by the public.

April 2025: Lawsuit filed for violating open meeting laws and targeting students who spoke out.

The land? Forested. Flood-prone. Adjacent to schools. No Environmental Impact Statement

was done.

The project? Marketed as an “advanced manufacturing campus” — then flipped to a police

compound.

The budget? Exploding — while Mecklenburg County denied a funding increase for juvenile

justice and CMS faces a $31 milion shortfal.

The vote? You didn’t get one.

We are being told there’s no money for lunch programs, trade schools, or counselors — but

somehow there’s money to turn a public colege into a militarized campus.

This isn't just local mismanagement — it’s part of a national strategy. Federal policies are

pushing funding into law enforcement expansion, even in places like North Carolina where

public services are already stretched thin.

Sen. Thom Tilis just labeled Mecklenburg a “sanctuary jurisdiction.” Trump’s executive order

cals for more policing, more surveilance, and more local enforcement of federal immigrationlaws — with funding to match. And where is Charlotte’s biggest new policing infrastructure

being built? Right next to public schools, in one of the fastest-growing counties in the South.

This is about priorities. This is about power. And this is about who gets listened to.

We say:

Invest in kids, not cops.

Save our forests, not fund surveilance.

Demand public input, not backroom deals.

Stop Cop City. Now.

Sign the petition. Share the facts. Show up. The budget vote is coming in June.

Another world is possible — but only if we fight for it.

Police brutalize indiscriminately, from our most vulnerable children, to our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. Privatized prisons only perpetuate a flawed system, disappearing people and families into a broken system. Jails are overcrowded and poorly staffed while cop foundations hoard money and become more militarized every day. “Fraternal orders of police” and the like- have always kept killer cops out of jail, and kept the people paying for the problems that the cops created. 
Policing being founded on re-enslaving freed captives has never had that foundation re-written, and they refuse external training, relying on the “good ole boy system” and the “thin blue line” that take out the whistle-blowers trying to make a difference. Even with a de-escalation decree demanded by the President after George Floyd was killed by cops, many just miss training or are written off on it, whether they adhere or not. Case in point, the police have recently partnered with the mma community to further train police in take downs- still possibly lethal and often overused. 
we deserve alternatives to death by police. We deserve the community that we already put our hearts into and aspire to be, as parents, grandparents, children, mutual aid providers, health care workers, service industry, abled, disabled, anyone that doesn’t think violence and more police are the answer-it never has been. We have a chance to re-imagine our world. What would you like to see as far as accountability from the police right now, and what would you like to see done instead with $175 million now? Thank you, for imagining a safer world, and helping shape our future.  Sign this petition to tell our CPCC, so-called community college… institute of higher learning- that we will not stand for cops that have no accountability.  On this one year anniversary of 4 cops dying “in the line of duty” or might I say- lack of preparedness and training? Cmon. Hold these people behind the badges accountable. No more killer cops. And NO COP CITY in Charlotte! 
Tortugita died in a meditation pose with his hands up and his back to the police, sitting down, in the forest that Atlanta Cop City now occupies. You can’t justify that. You really think they need MORE funding?