Dekalb County Senior Judge Mathew Robins last week granted low bonds to six left-wing activists who face domestic terrorism charges following violent protests at the planned site of Atlanta police’s new training center dubbed “Cop City.”
Robins reportedly granted bonds varying from $6,000 to $13,500. “A pretty sweet deal for people who did almost $1,000,000 damage and threw eight bombs at the police,” says one Atlanta attorney who emailed InsiderAdvantage. “Do you think someone at the January 6th, 2021 Capitol protest who threw a bomb at a cop would have gotten bail?”
The defendants deny all charges after being arrested Dec. 13 following a standoff and battle with Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents and Atlanta police, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. They are part of the so-called “Defend the Atlanta Forest” movement opposing the police center and, since last spring, they are accused of throwing rocks and glass bottles, vandalizing construction equipment, committing arson, resisting arrest and possessing pipe bombs and trip wires. (In May, Atlanta police arrested eight protesters accused of tossing Molotov cocktails at officers escorting construction workers to the site of the facility.)
Interestingly, an internet search of websites and articles “report” about how sensitive, caring, environmentally-committed and non-violent these activists are.
Some articles describe the accused as a coalition of local residents. They aren’t. The local residents in this mostly black middle-class, single-family neighborhood in fact not only aren’t supportive, they’re strongly opposed. When the story of the violent attack on the construction area (in which almost $1 million of damage was done to construction equipment and the site) first broke, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution quoted the locals as saying they thought these people were scary and frightening and wanted them out of their neighborhood.
Court records reveal that the defendants— who reportedly have ties to the left-wing Antifa movement– are Francis Carroll, 22, of Maine; Ariel Ebaugh, 22, of Stockbridge; Serena Hertel, 25, of California; Leonard Vioselle, 20, of Macon; Arieon Robinson, 21, of Wisconsin; and Nicholas Olson, 25, of Nebraska.
