Legal Observer Charged With Terrorism After ‘Cop City’ Sweep

Thomas Jurgens, a legal observer and lawyer with civil liberties group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), was arrested and charged with domestic terrorism throughout a Sunday night presentation versus the advancement of a 85-acre police training complex in Atlanta’s South River Forest.

Jurgens is among more than 40 individuals charged with domestic terrorism in connection to the center, which demonstrators have actually called “Cop City.” The lawyer was functioning as a legal observer at the time of his arrest, the National Lawyers Guild (which keeps an eye on demonstrations) stated in a declaration, according to the Daily Beast.

“An staff member at the SPLC was apprehended while acting—and recognizing—as a legal observer on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG),” the SPLC stated in a declaration, per the report. “The staff member is a skilled legal observer, and their arrest is not proof of any criminal activity, however of heavy-handed police intervention versus protesters.”

Terrorism charges have actually been utilized as a technique to dispatch demonstrations versus the cops training center. In January, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp charged demonstrators in downtown Atlanta with domestic terrorism, calling up the National Guard to stand by to put down any further resistance.

In two raids on the protesters’ forest encampment in December and January, over a dozen other protesters were arrested and hit with similar charges, despite many of their arrest records showing that they committed no specific crimes other than misdemeanor trespassing. Police killed Manuel “Tortuguita” Teran, a 26-year-old during one of these raids on Jan. 18. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation claimed that Teran shot first, hitting an officer from the Georgia State Patrol in the abdomen, before he was gunned down by police. However, forest demonstrators have actually rejected the narrative, as there is no body camera footage or civilian witnesses to Tortuguita’s killing.

“All of these arrests are part of ongoing state repression and violence versus racial and ecological justice protesters, who are fighting to defend their communities from the harms of militarized policing and ecological destruction,” NLG included a declaration. “Each of these circumstances, consisting of the numerous protesters charged with domestic terrorism, explain that police views motion activists as opponents of the state.”