A neo-Bolshevik antifa militant, armed with a rifle, has been killed by police killed while throwing firebombs and incendiary devices at a building and vehicles, trying to storm an immigration center.
By John Friend
A longtime antifa activist was killed by Tacoma, Wash. police on July 13 after the radical left-wing extremist attacked a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in the early morning hours in an act that demonstrates once again the threat the radical left poses to America.
According to the Tacoma Police Department, the antifa extremist, later identified as Willem Van Spronsen, threw firebombs and incendiary devices at both the facility and vehicles parked at the facility, resulting in one car being set on fire before police responded at roughly 4:00 a.m. Van Spronsen, who was armed with a rifle at the time, was shot and killed by police shortly after they arrived on scene.
“He was throwing these items at the building in an effort to set it on fire,” Officer Loretta Cool of the Tacoma Police Department told reporters following the incident. “It didn’t work; it’s a concrete building.”
Van Spronsen, long affiliated with the radical left and antifa groups in the Pacific Northwest, was arrested about one year ago for assaulting a police officer at the same detention facility he would later attack with incendiary devices. The Northwest Detention Center has been the site of numerous left-wing protests in recent years, some of which have turned ugly.
According to court documents, Van Spronsen jumped on the back of a police officer who was attempting to detain a protester at the facility at one such protest last year. Detectives found a knife and baton on Van Spronsen after he was arrested.
Van Spronsen allegedly penned a brief manifesto before attacking the ICE detention facility in which he openly identified as a member of antifa and described the detention facility as a “concentration camp,” a loaded term that invokes memories of Jews who were incarcerated during WWII, which has been used by other radical leftists, including the firebrand New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“This is my clear opportunity to try to make a difference. I’d be an ingrate to be waiting for a more obvious invitation,” Van Spronsen wrote in part. In the manifesto, he described the United States as a fascist country and cited John Brown and Emma Goldman—two radical left-wing figures in American history—as his moral and political guides.
Unsurprisingly, certain members of antifa and other radical leftists sympathized with Van Spronsen, and many leading Democrats failed to denounce his violent actions. Even many Republicans, including President Trump, failed to comment on this blatant act of left-wing violence and terrorism.
“RIP to anarchist fighter Willem Van Spronsen,” an antifa member tweeted following the incident. “The attack on the ICE facility in Tacoma is a proportionate action against enslavers and internment camp operators. He joins a long list of fallen anarchist martyrs who fought for a liberated world!”
Van Spronsen’s violent assault on the ICE detention facility comes as other radical left-wing protesters engage in civil disobedience and protests at various immigration facilities and detention centers across the nation.
Never Again Action, a group of radical left-wing Jewish activists, has vowed to shut down ICE and other immigration offices with disruptive protests and other actions at various buildings and facilities responsible for enforcing America’s immigration laws. Earlier this month, the group marched on the headquarters of ICE in Washington, D.C., which led to the arrest of some of the protesters. The group later boasted that it had “disrupted things so thoroughly” that ICE “locked down the entire building and didn’t reopen until we left.”
“As Jews, we know from our own history what happens when a government targets, dehumanizes, and strips an entire group of people of all their civil and human rights,” Hannah Klein, an organizer with Never Again Action, stated. “We refuse to wait and see what happens next.”
The group, along with countless other immigrant advocacy groups, has protested at ICE facilities across the country in recent weeks, often in an extreme and lawless manner.
For example, a band of radical activists in Aurora, Colo. recently pulled down the American flag at an ICE detention facility in that city, attempted to burn it, and then raised the Mexican flag in its place, demonstrating the radical left’s blatant disregard for the law and American traditions. Additionally, a group of activists helped prevent ICE officers from apprehending an alleged illegal immigrant and his son in Nashville, Tenn. recently when they formed a human chain around the suspect’s van after he was pulled over by ICE agents.
As antifa and the rest of the radical left continue to show their true colors and demonstrate their violent, anti-American nature, the immigration crisis along the southern border continues unabated. It is long past time law and order is restored in this country, particularly in light of even more examples of the radical left flagrantly violating the law and disrespecting the country.
John Friend is a freelance writer based in California.
