New York Post

LEFTY ATTORNEY A GA. ‘TERRORIST’

- By EMILY CRANE

An attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center is among the 23 protesters who have been charged with domestic terrorism after they allegedly hurled Molotov cocktails and fireworks at a future Atlanta police training facility, cops said Monday.

Thomas Webb Jurgens, 28, was one of the nearly two dozen people detained on Sunday in what police have described as a “coordinate­d attack” on the still-underconst­ruction Atlanta Public Safety Training Center — dubbed “Cop City.”

Jurgens is a staff attorney with SPLC — the left-leaning anti-hate group, according to the State Bar of Georgia and his since-deleted LinkedIn page.

Of the 23 people slapped with domestic-terrorism charges over the violent protest, Jurgens and only one other man, Jack Beaman, hail from the state of Georgia.

Police said the majority of those arrested are from other parts of the US — as well as France and Canada.

A handful of protestors could be seen smirking in their mug shots released by authoritie­s on Monday.

On Fox News, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr blasted those arrested as “an internatio­nal group of people that are organized to come to our state to undermine a public safety training center.”

The SPLC didn’t respond to The Post’s request for comment following Jurgens’ arrest.

In total, 35 “violent agitators” were nabbed after they attacked the future site of the $90 million facility, cops said.

It wasn’t immediatel­y clear if the remainder of those arrested will also be hit with domestic-terrorism charges.

The ordeal unfolded when the protesters threw Molotov cocktails, fireworks, rocks and bricks at officers.

Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum described the flare-up as “coordinate­d” and said multiple pieces of constructi­on equipment were set on fire at the 85-acre site outside of the city.

The site of the training facility has resulted in clashes between police and left-leaning protestors ever since it was approved by the Atlanta City Council in 2021.

It is the same site where 26year-old environmen­tal activist Manuel Esteban Paez Terán was shot to death by cops during a raid at a protest camp in January.

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 ?? ?? RIOT SQUAD: Police at an under-constructi­on cop-training facility outside Atlanta withstand protesters’ (top right) Molotovs and fireworks Sunday, which left equipment burning.
RIOT SQUAD: Police at an under-constructi­on cop-training facility outside Atlanta withstand protesters’ (top right) Molotovs and fireworks Sunday, which left equipment burning.
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 ?? ?? Thomas Webb Jurgens
Thomas Webb Jurgens

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