Suspects from Antifa Autonomous Zone Charged with Domestic Terrorism

ATLANTA, GA - DECEMBER 12: Antifa members gather behind protective shields during a Stop T
Photo by Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire
Amy Furr

Officials charged five suspects connected to a far-left occupation in Atlanta, Georgia, with domestic terrorism and additional charges on Tuesday.

“On Dec. 13, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) launched a raid on the so-called autonomous zone at the site of the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center,” the Post Millennial reported Thursday.

Members of Antifa and additional left-wing extremists from across the nation have gathered at the site to halt construction of what they have deemed “Cop City,” the article said.

According to journalist Andy Ngo, police found explosives at the site and “Leading up to the raid, militants tried to burn a man to death in a car.”

In an update, Ngo reported the suspects were denied bail during their bond hearing. Ngo also shared a photo showing members of the group suspended from trees and standing on top of an overturned truck with a sign above them reading “No Forest, No Peace, Truck the Police”:

“Before the raid on Tuesday leading to the finding of explosives, the members of the autonomous zone had been terrorizing the community. A man who drove into the area thinking there was free junk was nearly killed when they set his car on fire w/him in it,” Ngo wrote in a social media post on Friday.

In a press release Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) said the five people were arrested and charged after an operation at the training center’s future location.

Several individuals were previously arrested at the location regarding criminal activity that included carjacking, crimes against persons, destruction of property, arson, and attacks on public safety officials, the GBI noted.

“Yesterday, several people threw rocks at police cars and attacked EMT’s outside the neighboring fire stations with rocks and bottles. Task force members used various tactics to arrest individuals who were occupying makeshift treehouses,” the agency said.

The reason for the so-called protest was reportedly over environmental concerns about the Weelaunee Forest, according to the Daily Mail which added, “The center would cut out 381 acres of the woods.”

Meanwhile, the GBI said those arrested and taken to the DeKalb County Jail are 22-year-old Francis Carroll of Maine, 25-year-old Nicholas Olson of Nebraska, 25-year-old Serena Hertel of California, 20-year-old Leonardo Vioselle of Georgia, and 22-year-old Arieon Robinson of Wisconsin.

“They were not involved in endangering anybody. They were sitting passively in trees trying to express a political position,” a leader of a group trying to halt construction at the site claimed.

Breitbart News has covered extensively the far-left group known as Antifa.

Meanwhile, “Convictions of domestic terrorism carry with it sentences of anywhere between five and 35 years in prison,” the Mail report stated.

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