[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] - Members of Antifa were arrested Tuesday in Atlanta for resisting a law enforcement operation to clear protesters from the site of a new police facility
- The site of the protest has been the source of numerous incidents over the last few months with arrests made for arson and attacks on government officials
- The protesters were seeking the preservation of the woods where the facility is to be built and for the police budget to be slashed
- Of the five Antifa members charged with domestic terrorism, only one hails from Georgia, with one being a resident of affluent Kennebunkport, Maine
Five members of Antifa are in custody on domestic terrorism charges after they were protesting outside of a planned $90 million police training center.
The site of the planned center has been the focal point of protests for months by Antifa who have referred to the site - which protesters have made an autonomous zone - as Cop City. Many of those who were arrested were holed up in treehouses where police later recovered explosives.
Prior to Tuesday's arrests, police detained several people at the site for crimes including destruction of property and arson along with car-jacking and attacks on locals and government officials.
The official reasoning for the protest, according to a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is environmental concern for the Weelaunee Forest. The center would cut out 381 acres of the woods.
Among the photos documenting the protest is an image of a group of ski mask-clad protesters standing over a truck with a banner reading: 'No forest, no peace, truck the police' as well as a smaller sign that read: 'No Cop City.'
Those arrested have been named as Serena Hertel, 25, of California, Nicholas Olson, 25, of Nebraska, Francis Carroll, 22, of Maine, Arieon Robinson, 22, of Wisconsin and Leonardo Vioselle, 20, of Macon, Georgia.
Earlier this week, the GBI said that protesters had begun attacking police and other emergency services workers at the scene with rocks and bottles. After officers cleared the area, they recovered bombs, flares and gasoline, authorities said.
Multiple crimes occurred on Saturday when the local fire department was called to the scene to extinguish a dumpster fire. Richard Porter told WXIA that he was set upon by the group when he attempted to pick up some scrap metal from the area.
Porter said that members of the group threw things at him including a 'gas bomb.' He fled, leaving his truck behind which was burned out. Porter told the channel: 'It seemed to me like they were going to burn the truck with me in it.'
| Antifa-linked groups named in the article: |
the Atlanta Community Press Collective, the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, the Community Movement Builder 
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