(NewsNation) — At least 23 people are facing domestic terrorism charges after dozens of people allegedly threw rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails and fireworks at law enforcement near the site of a future police training center outside Atlanta on Sunday.
Video of the incident released by Atlanta police shows numerous black-clad demonstrators hurling projectiles and setting construction equipment on fire.
Authorities initially detained “35 agitators” before eventually charging 23 people with domestic terrorism. The majority, 21 out of 23 suspects, are from outside Georgia, according to Atlanta police, including two people from France and Canada.
Thomas Jurgens, a 28-year-old staff attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was one of two locals charged. The SPLC, a left-leaning legal advocacy group known for tracking hate groups, said its employee was at the scene as a “legal observer” on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild.
“Their arrest is not evidence of any crime, but of heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters,” the SPLC wrote in a statement.
The Atlanta Police Department said it “exercised restraint” and used “non-lethal enforcement” to take people into custody.
Arrest records show most of the people facing terrorism charges are in their mid-to-late twenties and early thirties. The oldest suspect, 48-year-old Priscilla Grim, is a longtime activist from New York City who was involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement back in 2011.
Grim is one of seven suspects from the Northeast. The other 14 American suspects came from various states across the country including Arizona, Colorado and Florida, among others.
At least three of the people charged are apparently college students at major state universities, according to social media posts.
Other suspects, records show, have faced previous charges stemming from protest behavior.
Jamie Marsicano, who was booked under the name “James Marsicana,” is a 29-year-old law student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, according to the school’s website.
Marsicano — who identifies as a “white trans femme organizer” in online profiles — was arrested in June 2020 and charged with assault on a government official and resisting a public officer during the George Floyd protests in Charlotte. Those charges were later dropped.
Between June 2020 and September 2020, Marsicano was arrested five times, according to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office.
The recent violence is just the latest clash in a yearslong dispute between law enforcement and protesters at the site of a $90 million Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, which remains under construction.
The 85-acre training center, which opponents have dubbed “Cop City,” has drawn the ire of environmental activists, who fear damage to the local forest, and anti-police demonstrators alike.
Defend the Atlanta Forest, a social media account used by some members of the “Stop Cop City” movement, accused police of selectively charging protesters from out-of-town to advance a narrative. The account suggested that police let 12 others go because they were local residents.
Keyanna Jones, an organizer and activist with Stop Cop City, told NewsNation that opposition to the facility is about standing up for the right to live in an environmentally safe community. She acknowledged that some people had come to the area with bad intentions, but said they were not part of the broader community organizing effort.
“There are some people who are really here to do violence and those are not the people who are a part of our movement,” Jones said.
The domestic terrorism charges come less than two months after police shot and killed 26-year-old environmental activist Manuel Esteban Paez Teran, or “Tortuguita,” during a raid at a protest camp after authorities said Teran shot and injured a Georgia state trooper.
In a NewsNation interview Monday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr vowed to prosecute everyone involved in Sunday’s attack at the construction site.
“This isn’t Oregon, this isn’t Washington,” Carr said. “This is the state of Georgia and you will be held accountable.”
In Georgia, domestic terrorism is a felony that carries up to 35 years in prison. So far, every suspect except one has been denied bond. SPLC attorney Jurgens had his bond set at $5,000.
The 23 suspects facing terrorism charges are: Jack April Beamon (Georgia), Ayla Elegla King (Massachusetts), Amin Chaoui (Virginia), Colin Dorsey (Maine), Dimitry Leny (France), Ehret William Nottingham (Colorado), Emma Bogush (Connecticut), Grace Martin (Wisconsin), James Marsicana (North Carolina), Kamryn Darel Pipes (Louisiana), Kayley Meissner (Wisconsin), Luke Harper (Florida), Maggie June Gates (Indiana), Mattia Luini (New York), Max Biederman (Arizona), Priscilla Grim (New York), Robert-Paul Fredrique (Canada), Samuel Ward (Arizona), Thomas Webb Jurgens (Georgia), Timothy Bilodeau (Massachusetts), Victor Puertas (Utah), Zoe Larney (Tennessee) and Alexis Papali (Massachusetts).