Antifa thugs who stormed the construction site for a police training facility in Atlanta have released a propaganda film which paints the rioters as ‘forest defenders’.
The short video shows the mask-clad mob as they descended on the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center on Sunday before destroying machinery and attacking police with Molotov cocktails and fireworks.
Activists in combat fatigues and hoodies, some carrying makeshift shields, are seen blocking roads before swarming the site. The footage then shows them smashing the windows of a metal cabin, setting fire to vehicles and hurling flares.
The two-minute film, titled ‘Cop City Finds Out’ after the name activists have given to the training facility, was published on Monday, about 24 hours after the rioting. It includes a dramatic soundtrack and concludes with the message ‘cop city will never be built’.
The creators of the film have blurred out the faces of the rioters. Twenty three people were charged with domestic terrorism over the incident and appeared in court on Wednesday. All were denied bail except Thomas Webb Jurgens, 28, an attorney for the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center.
A description for the propaganda video says that the latest unrest – which follows months of protests and violence at the site – was part of a ‘week of action in defense of the Weelaunee Forest and against cop city’.
It says the mob ‘held forest defense workshops and a music festival attended by over 800 people’ before the violence.
‘That evening a large crew of forest defenders gathered and marched to the cop city construction site,’ said the description.
‘Forest defenders torched construction equipment, a police surveillance station, and destroyed barricades intended to keep people out of the forest.
‘As smoke rose from the smoldering ashes of their new training facility, police locked down the park and began making arrests.
‘As part of their brutal repression tactics police have handed down domestic terrorism charges to 23 people.’
Aerial footage of riots show the nearly 150 Antifa thugs marching on the site of the city’s Public Safety Training Center, dubbed ‘Cop City’ by activists
The frenzied thugs torched a power line after gaining access to the site which they’ve dubbed ‘Cop City’
Police previously released footage of the frenzied, 150-strong mob storming the site and hurling Molotov cocktails.
The group were filmed by a police chopper’s heat-sensitive cameras marching through scrub and woodland. Police officers protecting the site were forced to stand off as the mask-clad attackers overran the site, which has been a hotbed for Antifa violence since last spring.
The officers were pelted with rocks and fireworks by the thugs, many of whom travelled from outside of Georgie to take part in the violence.
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Activists from as far away as France and Canada were also charged with domestic terrorism after the riots.
Jurgens joined the SPLC in September 2021 and worked on its Economic Justice Project, according to his LinkedIn page. He has also worked as an assistant public defender and a legal intern at a US attorney’s office in Florida.
Jurgens was present as a ‘legal observer on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild’, the SPLC said.
The 23 Antifa ‘terrorists’ who were arrested after violent clashes at the construction site for a police training facility in Atlanta dubbed ‘Cop City’
Thomas Webb Jurgens, 28, an attorney for the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center, was also detained after violent clashes between police and protesters at the construction site. Left: his professional LinkedIn picture, right: Jurgens’ police mugshot
Mattia Luini, 30, is among the 23 Antifa rioters who were arrested over the weekend after setting fire to construction vehicles and attacking police officers with fireworks and Molotov cocktails
Another of those charged with domestic terrorism was revealed as the son of a New York City plastic furniture tycoon.
Mattia Luini, 30, whose late father Ivan Luini helped popularize high-end plastic furniture in the United States, remained in custody on Wednesday night. His mother owns a $2 million condo.
Luini had told his mother, Martegani, he was traveling down to Atlanta over the weekend to attend a concert and ‘protest the development of the forest.’
Others who were charged include several serial protesters and a young dancer who recently turned to violent activism.
The dramatic confrontation between police and protesters comes as individuals and activist organizations descend on the proposed site for a ‘week of action’ to protest its development.
Demonstrators, who have set up a group called ‘Stop Cop City’, say the 381 acres of Weelaunee Forest is ‘stolen Muscogee land’ and that the creation would mean the destruction of wildlife and forestry.
They have become increasingly violent since they first descended on the woods last spring, with 19 people arrested on domestic terrorism charges since December. Stop Cop City activists also say that the City of Atlanta has ‘leased’ the land – something the Mayor’s office has denied, saying that the City in unincorporated DeKalb County owns it.
