“he invocation of terrorism signals to state actors and ordinary people that police protestors are enemies of the state against whom extraordinary violence is acceptable,” wrote Shirin Sinnar, an associate professor law at Stanford Law School, in a commentary piece that was cross-posted on Just Security, the American Constitution Society, and the Stanford Law School blog.Ī week before the May 30 protests, Salt Lake City police department body camera footage showed officers firing 34 shots at 22-year-old Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal as he was fleeing police. Related: The deafening silence of veteran service organizations on Black Lives Matter One legal expert warned that treating American protestors as terrorists and expanding domestic terrorism frameworks could have destructive consequences for civil rights. The airman was arrested by members of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, two months after Attorney General William Barr pledged to use regional JTTFs to track down ‘violent radical elements’ participating in nationwide protests such as the one Williams participated in.

Williams, a security forces gate guard with the 75th Security Forces Squadron, according to Air Force Times, entered active duty on May 7, 2019. “The lot number for one of the gas canisters assigned to Williams was identical to the number observed on the gas mask as depicted in pictures taken at the riot,” the attorney’s office wrote. Investigators used several photographs and a lot number written on the gas canister to identify Williams. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah said in a press release on Wednesday. In a video of the protest, Airman First Class Larry Raynold Williams Jr., 22, can be seen wearing an M50 Joint Service General Protective Mask that the airman had been issued in March for training purposes, the U.S.

An airman stationed at Hill Air Force Base was charged with destroying government property on Wednesday after the airman was allegedly caught on video setting fire to a Salt Lake City patrol car while wearing a government-issued gas mask during a protest in May.

Police riot gas mask