Sources tell InsiderAdvantage that operators of the Stone Mountain Confederate memorial park can deny groups with a record of fomenting violence from getting future demonstration permits inside the park grounds. That ban could apply to far-left groups like All Out ATL– some of whose adherents are accused of attacks on law enforcement officials on Saturday.
Law enforcement agencies sought to keep a small white supremacist group, a separate Confederate flag heritage demonstration and militant anti-Confederate counter-protesters apart on the sprawling park grounds.
.
The Stone Mountain Memorial Association board. which oversees the park and the iconic granite mountain with its carving of Confederate heroes, supports the First Amendment right of assembly through the granting of demonstration permits. But the violence that broke out on Saturday will lead to new strategies in the future, InsiderAdvantage is told.
One leftist counter-demonstrator sprayed a state trooper with pepper spray. Other masked militants threw rocks and physically attacked law enforcement officers as they tried to break police lines to confront the other groups, Stone Mountain park police said. And some police officers sustained injuries.
Eight of the counter-demonstrators were arrested and charged with failure to remove masks. Another far-left protester was charged with aggravated assault after throwing a smoke bomb at a police officer.
