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-under-construction Atlanta Public Safety Training Center — dubbed “Cop City.”

The ordeal unfolded when the protesters started throwing Molotov cocktails, fireworks, rocks and bricks at officers during the demonstration.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 Georgia Department of Public Safety said some protestors also tried to blind officers by shining green lasers into their eyes.

“An employee at the SPLC was arrested while acting — and identifying — as a legal observer on behalf of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). The employee is an experienced legal observer, and their arrest is not evidence of any crime, but of heavy-handed law enforcement intervention against protesters.“This is part of a months-long escalation of policing tactics against protesters and observers who oppose the destruction of the Weelaunee Forest to build a police training facility. The SPLC has and will continue to urge de-escalation of violence and police use of force against black, brown and Indigenous communities — working in partnership with these communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements and advance the human rights of all people.”