Protesters across US attacked by cars driven into
crowds and men with guns
Protesters confronted by armed men – including members
of the so-called ‘boogaloo movement’ – in different parts of America
Jason Wilson
@jason_a_w
Published onTue 9 Jun 2020 11.00 BST
Anti
police-brutality protesters have been confronted by armed men in cities around
America in recent days, with some brandishing firearms or other weapons, some
driving vehicles at crowds, and others – including members of the so-called
“boogaloo movement” – claiming they have come to help anti-racism
demonstrations.
On Sunday,
in Seattle, a man drove at speed towards protesters, while several protesters
tried to slow or stop the vehicle.
One who
reached through the car window was shot in the arm by the driver. The driver
then exited the vehicle carrying a handgun, which appeared in photographs to
have a modified, extra-long magazine. He moved into the crowd, and later
surrendered to police.
But this
was not even the first such incident that day.
In
Lakeside, Virginia, an armed man named Harry “Skip” Rogers, was arrested on
charges of assault and battery after he allegedly drove his truck at
protesters, hitting a cyclist.
Rogers,
reportedly an organizer for the National Association for Awakening Confederate
Patriots, carried out a one-man protest in 2016 wearing Ku Klux Klan robes, and
was also part of the Unite the Right demonstration in Charlottesville in 2017,
where protestor Heather Heyer was murdered in a vehicular homicide.
Two days
days after Unite the Right, according to photographs and accounts of activists,
Rogers was bloodied in an altercation that took place when he attempted to
disrupt a memorial rally for Heyer, while wearing a shirt with KKK and
Confederate flag patches.
Other
vehicular attacks have also occurred, among other places, on 29 May in
Bakersfield, California and day before in Denver. On 30 May an armed man pulled
a gun before driving through a crowd in Gainesville, Florida.
In
Minneapolis, a man in a semi-trailer truck parted the crowd on an overpass when
he drove towards them.
Further
incidents involving firearms and other weapons have also occurred.
In McAllen,
Texas, last Friday, a lone man threatened Black Lives Matter protesters with a
running chainsaw, first screaming “go home” before shouting racial slurs.
In Upland,
California, on 1 June, a man pulled an AR-15 from his truck and brandished it
at protesters, and was subsequently arrested.
In Chicago
on 31 May, a lone man armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a sidearm pistol
was led away from the scene of a protest by police. Earlier, protesters say, he
had brandished the weapon at them.
In Boise,
Idaho, on 1 June, two armed men disguised with skull masks similar to those
favored by some neo-Nazi groups counter-protested a local Black Lives Matter
march. One, Michael Wallace, 19, was later arrested after what police were
investigating as an accidental discharge of his weapon.
In Salt
Lake City on 31 May, a man was arrested after threatening a crowd of protesters
with a hunting bow.
But some
armed individuals attending protests, identified as members of the “boogaloo
movement”, have presented protesters with a troubling ambiguity.
So-called
“boogaloo bois” are members of a loose-knit, pro-gun, anti-government movement,
which is preoccupied with what they believe to be a looming second American
civil war.
Last week,
three former armed servicemen associated with the movement were arrested and
charged over an alleged plot aimed at vital national infrastructure.
In general,
the subculture resents the police and government agencies who would restrict
their access to firearms. But they are divided within themselves on several
questions, including racial politics.
While some
ardent white supremacists use the vocabulary and imagery of the movement –
including donning Hawaiian shirts – others express strong sympathy for black
victims of police violence.
At protests
around the country, some members of the boogaloo movement have shown up armed
to protect stores from protesters, and others are implicitly hostile.
But others
claim to support the protests. Social media material obtained by the Guardian
shows some in smaller communities in the Pacific north-west marching alongside
Black Lives Matter protesters.
On social
media, some of the most popular Facebook pages and groups associated with the
movement have celebrated the protests against the killing of George Floyd.
One viral
social video shows a “boogaloo boi” vocally criticizing police brutality and
sympathizing with the protesters.
But worries
about infiltration and uncertainty about the true motivations of boogaloo
sympathizers have led many protesters to keep their distance.
The Puget
Sound John Brown Gun Club is a leftist “community defense organization”, which
itself frequently openly carries firearms in defense of leftwing protests, and
is known for attempting dialogue with members of rightwing militia groups.
Via a
messaging app, its spokesman reflected the ambivalence with which many
protesters regard boogaloo bois.
“The ‘boog
movement’ has many bad actors within its ranks proliferating antisemitic,
racist and QAnon dogwhistles, either deliberately or inadvertently, but the
movement has also scooped up legitimately disillusioned people,” the
spokesperson said.
Asked how
the group and other leftists should respond to “boogaloo bois” seeking to join
or assist protests, the spokesperson said: “We’ve had boogaloo types show up at
events. Usually we watch from a distance because of the risk and
unpredictability.”
Gun-toting members of the Boogaloo movement are
showing up at protests
By Robert
Kuznia, Drew Griffin and Curt Devine, CNN
Updated
2038 GMT (0438 HKT) June 4, 2020
(CNN)Benjamin
Ryan Teeter was at his home in Hampstead, N.C., when the call to action came.
It was an alert from the heart of the raging protests in Minneapolis, posted on
an online forum by a fellow member of the Boogaloo movement, a loosely knit
group of heavily armed, anti-government extremists.
The
"alert" was from a man who had a run-in with the Minneapolis police
while on the frontline of the police-brutality protests set off by the death of
George Floyd.
"He
caught mace to the face," said Teeter, and "put out a national notice
to our network."
After
Teeter -- who goes by Ryan -- said he saw the online posting, he and a handful
of other Boogaloo friends in the area mobilized.
They
grabbed their guns -- mostly assault rifles -- hopped into their vehicles, and
made the 18-hour trek to Minneapolis.
The
Boogaloos are an emerging incarnation of extremism that seems to defy easy
categorization. They are yet another confounding factor in the ongoing effort
among local, state and federal officials to puzzle out the political sympathies
of the agitators showing up to the mostly peaceful George Floyd rallies who
have destroyed property, looted businesses, or -- in the case of the Boogaloos
who descended on Minneapolis -- walked around the streets with assault rifles.
Boogaloo
members appear to hold conflicting ideological views with some identifying as
anarchists and others rejecting formal titles. Some pockets of the group have
espoused white supremacy while others reject it. But they have at least two
things in common: an affinity for toting around guns in public and a
"boogaloo" rallying cry, which is commonly viewed as code for another
US civil war.
Megan
Squire, a computer science professor at Elon University in North Carolina who
monitors online extremism, said the movement started in obscure online platforms.
It "is
now growing on mainstream platforms, and in this moment of protest it is
starting to move offline," she said. "It resembles the militia
movement that came before it, which has been well documented as a force for
promoting violence."
Teeter, in
an interview with CNN, said he identifies as an anarchist. His mission in
Minneapolis, he said, was to protect protesters from police abuse and white
supremacists, whom he deplores.
"If
people are going to initiate deadly force against us, we need to be willing and
able to initiate deadly force in return," Teeter, 22, said.
Despite the
presence of Teeter, and he said a dozen or so of his compatriots, federal, state
and local officials have put forth little evidence so far to suggest widespread
organization and mobilization by any one ideological group. A CNN review of the
backgrounds of those arrested during the first three days of protests in
Minneapolis did not surface any obvious links to known organizations.
Some police
said they suspect that much of the rioting and looting was perpetrated not by
ideological extremists, but smaller groups of criminal opportunists seeking to
profit by stealing merchandise.
"These
are straight up criminals. These are not protestors," said one
high-ranking LAPD official. In Los Angeles, he said, roving bands of thieves
drove around in cars and communicated by cellphone, identifying businesses to
loot.
Still,
there are some documented reports of group-affiliated individuals from the left
and right of the extremist spectrum mingling amid the less organized.
In Nevada,
federal prosecutors this week charged three men who allegedly identify with the
Boogaloo movement with possessing a "Molotov cocktail" explosive and
conspiring to "cause destruction during protests in Las Vegas,"
according to a press release from the US Attorney's Office.
Stephen T.
"Kiwi" Parshall, Andrew Lynam, and William L. Loomis, all of whom
have military experience, had attended a protest on May 29 honoring George
Floyd in Las Vegas, according to the criminal complaint. Parshall allegedly
tried to encourage violence by "telling protesters that peaceful protests
don't accomplish anything," the complaint states. The three men were
arrested on their way to a second Floyd-related demonstration the following
day, allegedly armed with a Molotov cocktail, according to the records.
Gun-toting
Boogaloo members also have appeared at George Floyd protests in Minneapolis,
Salt Lake City, Dallas, Atlanta and elsewhere, according to The Washington
Post.
Known for
sporting Hawaiian shirts and arriving to public protests heavily armed, the
decentralized Boogaloo movement -- sometimes referred to as the "Boogaloo
Bois" -- is often associated with the far-right.
But it is
far from a cohesive group, said J.J. MacNab, a fellow at George Washington
University who studies anti-government extremism.
"While
there are pockets of white supremacist Boogaloos, the younger and bigger groups
are generally not," she said in a recent Twitter thread. "While there
are Boogaloos that support police, the younger and bigger groups detest them.
While there are Boogaloos that want to discredit protests angry at the murder
of a black man, there are younger Boogaloos that are incensed by the murder and
want to join the protests."
MacNab
added that such internal divisions don't always play out according to age.
"They
share jargon, outfits, a love of firearms, and a desire to use violence to gain
power, but they don't actually share a common goal once power is
achieved," she said.
The origin
of the name is thought to trace back to a 1980s movie sequel about breakdancing
called "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo." The term "boogaloo"
in recent years has caught on as a sly online reference to social unrest and a
desired second civil war.
"The
boogaloo meme" is a "joke for some," but "acts as a violent
meme that circulates instructions for a violent, viral insurgency for
others," says a white paper released in February by the Network Contagion
Research Institute, a group of independent researchers who monitor
misinformation and hate speech, in association with Rutgers University.
"Termed
the 'boogaloo,' this ideology self-organizes across social media communities,
boasts tens of thousands of users, exhibits a complex division of labor,"
says the report, and "evolves well-developed channels to innovate and
distribute violent propaganda."
There are
signs that adherents have been venturing out of the chat rooms and into the
real world, most notably at various reopen demonstrations during the Covid-19
lockdowns. In April, a Boogaloo devotee was arrested in Texas for allegedly
attempting to find and kill police officers while filming on Facebook Live,
according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The
movement seems to have gained considerable traction in recent months.
The Tech
Transparency Project of a non-profit watchdog group called Campaign for
Accountability released a report this spring concluding that more than 60% of
the 125 identifiable Boogaloo groups on Facebook have sprung up since January,
and picked up steam after the onset of the Covid-19 lockdowns.
To talk to
Teeter -- who also recently attended protests decrying the Covid-19 lockdown --
is to get a sense of just how profoundly scrambled the Boogaloo ideology can
be.
"I'm a
member of the LGBT community," said Teeter, who describes himself as a
non-voting "left anarchist...People think I'm part of a Nazi group; I'm
not."
But, he
added, "I don't think people should be forced to bake the cake,"
referring to a US Supreme Court case that stemmed from the refusal of a
Christian owner of a bakery in Colorado to provide a wedding cake for a gay
couple.
In
Minneapolis, Teeter said, he and others in his group stood sentry with firearms
outside of mom-and-pop shops, but in solidarity with the black community in
opposition to police brutality.
"We
are very careful to make sure that people realize that we are on their side. We
are here to defend them ... Once people realize that we are on their side and
we are here to protect them, everybody has been -- almost everybody -- has been
very happy to have us here."
Teeter said
he was home schooled, but did not complete college despite being offered
scholarships.
"I've
always been able to self-educate," he said. "We have the Internet.
You can learn anything you want to learn for free."
He has had
some brushes with the law. He said on a recent podcast that he's been to jail
"eight or nine" times, though he suggested at least some of those
incidents involved actions related to his activism.
An
administrator for the New Hanover County criminal court in North Carolina told
CNN that Teeter has a pending charge from January of 2019 for discharging a
firearm in city limits. Teeter told CNN it was an accidental discharge that
occurred while he was cleaning the weapon.
'All
the world is watching': After nationwide protests, 4 ex-officers face
new charges in
His social
media posts appear consistent with his idiosyncratic political persuasions:
photos of himself in a flak jacket or participating in the reopen protests, and
memes lamenting police brutality, celebrating black men with guns, ridiculing
both President Trump and Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden, and
glorifying the Boogaloo movement and the notion of "coming civil
conflict."
Extremism
experts say other militias are starting to adopt the Boogaloo moniker.
A report on
the "Militia-sphere" https://ncri.io/reports/covid-19-conspiracy-and-contagious-sedition-a-case-study-on-the-militia-sphere/
released Tuesday by the Network
Contagion Research Institute said militias such as Oath Keepers and Three
Percenters "now share the same boogaloo meme both in the virtual and real
world."
Squire said
there appears to be a generational divide in the Boogaloo movement, with the
younger subset having been steeped in meme culture online, and the older group
looking for a rebrand.
"It's
like an updated, younger take," she said. "And so that's appealing to
the guys who are in the actual meme-ing, very online age group, right. But it's
also appealing to these older guys, who are kind of stale."
Squire, who
tracks the online chatter of groups such as Boogaloo, alerted CNN about
Teeter's trip to Minneapolis. She said he is emblematic of the younger subset.
But according to the social media data she monitors, Squire said Teeter stands
out for having taken the initiative to drive all the way to Minneapolis.
"We've
seen less of that -- driving across the country -- because the protests have
erupted in more places," she said. "And so these guys that were on
the fence about whether or not to go, they can just stay where they are and
just do the local protest."
Teeter, by
contrast, is proactive, Squire said.
"He's
committed," she said. "He's a vanguard."
On the
streets of Minneapolis, Teeter said his group hasn't always been "kitted
out" with guns drawn. During the day, when the protests have been more
peaceful, Teeter said, he and his ilk have blended in with the crowds, chanting
along.
He said
they often bring out their weapons later in the day and into the evening,
"once things start to get dark."
CNN's Scott
Bronstein, Scott Glover and Collette Richards contributed to this report
(…) Federal law enforcement sees extremists across
spectrum
While Trump
and Barr have focused on Antifa, the FBI and other agencies are tracking groups
from both the extremist right and left involved in the riots and attacks on
police.
Federal law
enforcement officials tell CNN they are aware of organized groups who are
seeking to carry out the property destruction and violence, using the cover of
the legitimate protests in Minneapolis and elsewhere. Those domestic extremist
groups include anarchists, anti-government groups often associated with
far-right extremists and white supremacy causes, and far-left extremists who
identify with anti-fascist ideology.
In the past,
some of the groups have been known to organize and travel specifically to
confront police and destroy property, according to federal law enforcement
officials, who say they've seen a similar pattern in Minneapolis and other
cities where protests have turned violent in recent days.
Antifa
describes a broad group of people whose political beliefs lean toward the left
-- often the far left. Antifa positions can be hard to define, but many members
support oppressed populations and protest the amassing of wealth by
corporations and elites. Some employ radical or militant tactics to get out
their messages.
The FBI and
other federal agencies are working with local authorities to track social media
posts and other communications to identify those who have crossed state lines
to carry out violence. Federal officials say they believe there is an amalgam
of groups showing up in protests from the extremist left and right that
normally oppose each other but see common cause in attacking the police and the
government.
The Trump
administration's message has focused only on the far-left extremists. Barr's
statement referred to violence from "antifa and other similar
groups." On CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, national
security adviser Robert O'Brien said, "These Antifa groups are organized
and use Molotov cocktails and fireworks and gas to burn down our cities."
Asked by
CNN's Jake Tapper about far-right groups participating in the violence, O'Brien
said: "I haven't seen the reports on far-right groups. This is being
driven by Antifa."
Trump has
also blamed Democratic officials in Minnesota and other states where violence
has occurred. "Get tough Democrat Mayors and Governors. These people are
ANARCHISTS. Call in our National Guard NOW," Trump tweeted Sunday.
Acting Senate
Intelligence Chairman Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, said Saturday that the
outsiders included "a rogues gallery of terrorists from Antifa to
'Boogaloo' groups encouraging and committing violence." Boogaloo is a
group often associated with far-right extremist ideology that wants to initiate
a civil war. Rubio tweeted that the groups were not "ideologically
compatible but share a hatred of govt & police & are taking advantage
of the protests."
"Many
of these professional agitators don't fit a simple left vs right
identity," Rubio said. "They are part of a growing anti-government
extremist movement. They hate law enforcement & want to tear the whole
system down even if it requires a new civil war."
What local
officials are saying
Minnesota
officials said this weekend white supremacists and others were mixing in with
legitimate protestors. Authorities there are looking at connections between
those arrested and white supremacist organizers who have posted online about
coming to Minnesota. Officials have also tracked messages about seeking to loot
and whether there was a connection to organized crime.
At a news
conference on Sunday morning, Minneapolis Public Safety Commissioner John
Harrington said that one-fifth of the weekend arrests to date were from outside
the state. Among those arrested Saturday were residents of Arkansas, Kansas
City, Iowa, Illinois and Michigan, Harrington said, though he did not have
arrest data from overnight.
Walz also
said the state was looking at who was behind a "very sophisticated"
denial of service attack on all state computers that was executed on Saturday.
"That's not somebody sitting in their basement, that's pretty
sophisticated," he said.
Officials
across the country are also assessing the make-up of the agitators mixed in
with legitimate protestors.
Denver
Mayor Michael Hancock told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Sunday he "wouldn't be
surprised if Antifa" was behind some of the actions in his city. "We
don't have the specific information they're directly engaged, but we have intel,
we have watched and intercepted, frankly, groups coming into Denver. We have
confiscated weapons, including assault weapons, that were heading to the
demonstrations."
Salt Lake
City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said the city too is trying to determine the role of
those behind the violence, telling CNN, "We have yet to unpack of the
arrests we made who the instigators are and their locations. We're anxious to
find out."
In Chicago,
Mayor Lori Lightfoot said looters organized across the city and possibly came in
from outside: "There clearly was coordination, they were clearly listening
to our radio traffic," she said. "The number of U-Haul trucks that
magically showed up in front of stores, car caravans that dropped people off
and broke windows, and then were hustling the goods out into the backs of the
cars. Absolutely, it was organized -- there's no question whatsoever about
that."
Philadelphia
Mayor Jim Kenney on Sunday denounced what he called "anarchists" for
the looting and vandalism that occurred Saturday night in his city and claimed
rhetoric from the White House was "perpetuating" the violence.
In New
York, investigators are also searching social media to identify leaders who are
trying to get protestors to gather to incite violence, a law enforcement official
told CNN. Investigators there have seen antagonizers more affiliated with
Antifa and far-left causes, and not necessarily white supremacist groups.
"They do not represent the peaceful New Yorkers that want to
protest," the official said.
Foreign influence looms, too
Allegations
of foreign influence attempting to influence and stoke the disruption in the US
have quickly followed the violence coming out of the protests. O'Brien pointed
to Chinese social media messages gloating about the chaos. On ABC's "This
Week," he also acknowledged some Russian activists and mentioned Zimbabwe
and Iran.
But the
role and effectiveness of foreign actors is hard to measure -- some suggest
their role is additive, not initiating any unrest.
Rubio, who
was appointed acting Intelligence Committee chairman earlier this month,
tweeted Saturday he was seeing "VERY heavy social media activity on
#protests & counter reactions from social media accounts linked to at least
3 foreign adversaries."
Rubio may
have been basing some of his information on analysis from Graphika, a company
that helped the committee with its report on Russia's social media influence
during the 2016 elections. Graphika CEO John Kelly sent information to Senate
Intelligence Committee leadership on Saturday, which was obtained by CNN.
"Yes,
we are seeing very active engagement with the issue from clusters of social
accounts in the social media influence networks of Russia, Iran, and
China," Kelly said. "Our team is actively monitoring the situation
now, including growing activity around the 'Boogaloo' movement, which is
pushing for a 'Second American Civil War.'"
CNN has
reached out to Graphika for comment about what is behind their analysi
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário