TOPLINE
Reminder: Twenty-three far-left extremists received domestic terrorism charges after launching an attack on an under-construction Atlanta police facility earlier this month. Some of those arrested have ties to a legal group that often represents and supports Antifa.
Although it didn’t receive even a fraction of the mainstream coverage it should have, earlier this month nearly two dozen extremists affiliated with Antifa were arrested and charged with domestic terrorism after they led dozens of other lawbreakers on a violent attack on a police-training facility construction site in Atlanta, Georgia.
Shocking video of the events—posted to Twitter by Jack Posobiec—shows a horde of black-bloc-wearing individuals descending on the construction site in an organized column before wreaking havoc across the property. The violent group launched explosives and threw Molotov cocktails at construction equipment, as well as police on the scene. The horde also threw rocks at police.
“The agitators destroyed multiple pieces of construction equipment by fire and vandalism,” a press release from the Atlanta Police Department stated. The release added that “the violent agitators used the cover of a peaceful protest of the proposed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center to conduct a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers.”
Protestors gathered that day to push back against the proposed police training facility, which activists have labeled “Cop City.” The facility will reportedly include a “mock village” where law enforcement can practice raids.
Darin Schierbaum, the Atlanta Police Department chief, called the attack an “attempt to destabilize” the Atlanta police force and equated it to “anarchy.” Indeed, the video immediately below shows that the mob was violent and intended destruction.
“This was a very violent attack that occurred this evening. Very violent attack. This wasn’t about a public safety training center, this was about anarchy and this was about the attempt to destabilize,” Schierbaum added in his statement.
Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp released a statement condemning the violent attacks on Twitter. “They chose destruction and vandalism over legitimate protest, yet again demonstrating the radical intent behind their actions,” Kemp said of the criminals. “Domestic terrorism will NOT be tolerated in this state,” the governor added.
Two of the violent extremists arrested have ties to a radical legal group, the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). The NLG often defends Antifa militants and also, according to Fox News, offers support and training to left-wing activists. One man arrested was attorney Tom Jurgens, who is a legal observer for the NLG and a staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
James Marsciano, a second-year law student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, was also arrested by police. Marsciano identifies as a “white trans femme organizer” and once worked as an organizer for “Charlotte Uprising,” a group that calls for a “world without police or prisons.”
Both the SPLC and NLG defended the actions of the Atlanta demonstrators while criticizing the Atlanta police department. “This is part of a months-long escalation of policing tactics against protesters and observers who oppose the destruction of the Weelaunee Forest to build a police training facility,” the SPLC said. “The SPLC has and will continue to urge de-escalation of violence and police use of force against Black, Brown and Indigenous communities – working in partnership with these communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements and advance the human rights of all people.”
The NLG called the violent extremists’ arrests “part of ongoing state repression and violence against racial and environmental justice protesters, who are fighting to defend their communities from the harms of militarized policing and environmental degradation.”
Feature image: the Atlanta Police Department
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