ATLANTA — Six people were arrested Saturday night when protests over the future site of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center turned violent in Downtown Atlanta, police said.
Atlanta Police Department confirmed that five of the six people were arrested were from out of state. One person that was taken into custody was from Decatur. They are all being charged with domestic terrorism, a felony.
"They had explosives, they burned down a police car, they broke windows at businesses," Dickens said on CBS Face the Nation. "And so our police department, along with our state and federal partners took swift action within two blocks and brought that situation under control. And the violence stopped."
Here is the identity of each person and where they are from:
- Nadja Geier, a 24-year-old woman from Nashville, Tennessee
- Madeleine Feola, a 22-year-old woman from Spokane, Washington
- Ivan Ferguson, a 23-year-old man from Nevada
- Graham Evatt, a 20-year-old man from Decatur, Georgia
- Francis Carrol, a 22-year-old man from Kennebunkport, Maine (his second arrest for domestic terrorism charges relating to "Cop City")
- Emily Murphy, a 37-year-old woman from Grosse Isle, Michigan
Photos: 6 people arrested, charged with domestic terrorism for role in protest turned violent
In addition to domestic terrorism charges, they are each being charged with first degree arson, second degree criminal damage, and interference with government property -- all felonies. They also face multiple misdemeanor charges, as well.
Dickens said that while many protested peacefully, some had explosives, broke windows at businesses and burned a patrol cruiser.
"And it should be noted that these individuals were not Atlanta or Georgia residents. Most of them traveled into our city to wreak havoc," he said.
On Wednesday, a demonstrator was killed by law enforcement where the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said the 26-year-old shot a state trooper.
That same day, police said they made 7 arrests. None of those demonstrators were from Georgia, either.
The protesters have opposed the facility on environmental and historical grounds, saying it would decimate one of the largest preserved forest areas in the city and desecrate historically Native American land of the Muscogee Creek people, who once lived in the woods and called it the Weelaunee Forest before being displaced by white settlers in the early 19th Century.
They also oppose it on the grounds that the land was once the site of the Old Prison Farm, a jail complex that was billed during its operation in the mid-20th Century as an "Honor Farm" where prisoners farmed the land as a "dignified" means of imprisonment, a practice which has since been scrutinized for its profit generation and exploitation of unpaid labor.
Atlanta Police have characterized the tree-sitters occupying the forest as outsiders, though there has also been visible local opposition from community groups who oppose the facility both environmentally and for its placement in a predominantly Black section of the city. The police chief previously said several arrested on the site had out-of-state driver's licensees.