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Wealthy NYC Man Arrested at Atlanta Anti-Cop Protest; Charged with Domestic Terrorism

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Wealthy NYC Man Arrested at Atlanta Anti-Cop Protest; Charged with Domestic Terrorism

Edited by: TJVNews.com

The growing national animus directed towards law enforcement agencies along with the momentum that the “Defund the Police” movement has garnered of the last several years has led to violent confrontations between protestors and cops throughout the country.

The New York Post has reported that a wealthy New York resident was charged with domestic terrorism when a protest he participated in at the site of a future Atlanta police training facility descended into chaos.

Mattia Luini, 30, and his fellow protesters were among the nearly two dozen “violent agitators” charged in the “coordinated attack” on the under-construction Atlanta Public Safety Training Center that took place on Sunday, the Post reported.  It was at the protest that police officers were the targets of Molotov cocktails that were thrown at them as well as fireworks, the report indicated.

Luini, is the son of the late Ivan Luini, who helped popularize high-end plastic furniture in the US, the Post reported. Court records that were posted online indicated that Luini was still in jail as of Tuesday afternoon for his participation in the violence that ensued at the anti-cop protest.

The late Ivan Luini was president of the New York-based Kartell US, a high-end Italian furniture company that specialized in plastic design, the Post reported. In 2006, the New York Times reported that the elder Luini was killed in a small plane crash near the Colorado-Wyoming border, according to the Post story.

Speaking to the Post, Luini’s mother, Micaela Martegani, who is involved in New York City’s extensive art world, said on Tuesday that she’d only spoken to her son briefly since his arrest — and that he’d insisted the violent incident was “completely random.”

Martegani told the Post, “We haven’t been able to talk in much detail. He doesn’t know much of what happened. Mattia said it was completely random. I don’t know more than that.”

Luini’s mother also said that her son told her that he would be in Atlanta over the past weekend for the purpose of attending a concert and to “protest the development of the forest,” the Post reported.

Luini’s mother is the founder and director of More Art, a nonprofit organization that helps create public art projects across New York City. Also on Tuesday, she told the Post that she wasn’t sure if she had plans to travel to Atlanta to meet with her son Mattia who is currently still in jail.

She told the Post that, “He’s doing okay. I spoke to him recently but I’m not sure yet if I’m going to go down to Atlanta.”

Local law enforcement in the Atlanta area, however, have said that Luini was one of the many protestors who allegedly staged an attack to protest the $90 million development of the training center — dubbed “Cop City,” the Post report indicated.

The Post reported that it did not have details about Luini’s employment status or lack thereof.  He was raised in New York City but the paper said they did not know whether he still lived in the Big Apple.

The Post reported that cops have accused Luini and his fellow protesters of using the “cover of a peaceful protest” at the proposed training center to unleash havoc.

Law enforcement in Atlanta said of the protestors, “They changed into black clothing, entered the construction area, and began to throw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers. The agitators destroyed multiple pieces of construction equipment by fire and vandalism.”

Another protestor who participated in the melee included an Atlanta-based attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center named Thomas Webb Jurgens, 28.  He too was arrested for engaging in violence at the demonstration, the Post reported.

Police also said that the majority of those arrested hail from outside Georgia, including as far as France and Canada, according to the Post report.

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