Proud Boys are a dangerous 'white supremacist'
group say US agencies
Law enforcement have shown concerns about the group’s
menace to minority groups and police officers, and its conspiracy theories
Jason
Wilson
@jason_a_w
Thu 1 Oct
2020 09.30 BSTLast modified on Thu 1 Oct 2020 09.31 BST
The
far-right Proud Boys group whom Donald Trump told to “stand by” during this
week’s presidential debate is seen as a dangerous organization by law
enforcement, according to leaked assessments of the organization from federal,
state and local agencies.
Trump’s
refusal to condemn white supremacists during the debate, and his suggestion
that the Proud Boys “stand by” during the current 2020 election campaign sent
shockwaves through American politics. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the
Proud Boys a hate group.
Files from
the Blueleaks trove of leaked law enforcement documents reveal warnings that
the Proud Boys, who some of the US agencies label as “white supremacists” and
“extremists”, and others as a “gang”, show persistent concerns about the
group’s menace to minority groups and even police officers, and its
dissemination of dangerous conspiracy theories.
Repeated
warnings about the Proud Boys, and descriptions of them as a dangerous white
supremacist group, were issued by members of the national network of
counterterrorist fusion centers. The Colorado Information Analysis Center
(CIAC) showed particular, repeated concerns about the group, and their
activities in that state.
In a
22-page 2019 document titled Violent Extremism in Colorado: a Reference Guide
for Law Enforcement, published by CIAC, the state’s Division of Homeland
Security, and the Colorado Department of Public Safety, various incidents of
violence involving the Proud Boys are discussed under the heading of White
Supremacist Extremism.
On page 15
of the document, the group is discussed in terms of the “threat to Colorado”
from white supremacist extremists, and the “concern that white supremacist
extremists will continue attacking members of the community who threaten their
belief of Caucasian superiority”.
In
illustrating this threat, the document reports on local members of Neo-Nazi
group Atomwaffen Division, and Charlottesville’s deadly Unite the Right rally,
but also offers that “there have been several incidents in Colorado between the
Proud Boys and Rocky Mountain Antifa, to include violent clashes at protests”,
and “two members of the Proud Boys were convicted of assaulting Antifa members
during a 2018 fight in New York”.
Two pages
later, the same document incorporates the Proud Boys, along with Atomwaffen,
the Soldiers of Odin, and skinhead groups such as the Hammerskins in a list
titled White Supremacist Groups with a Presence in Colorado.
Later, CIAC
pointed to the group as a source of Covid-19 conspiracy theories. On 10 May
this year, in a bulletin on Covid-19 Protest Disinformation Campaigns, CIAC
described how “the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, has been active in
spreading conspiracy theories regarding Covid-19 on Twitter, Facebook, and
Telegram”, suggesting that “a faction of elites are weaponizing the virus, and
a vaccine would likely be a tool for population control and mind control”.
The
bulletin also warns that “spread of disinformation has the potential to cause
civil unrest and mass panic”.
Agencies
have defined the Proud Boys as a threat throughout most of their active
existence.
As early as
August 2018, a brief from another fusion center, the Northern California
Regional Intelligence Center (NCRIC), summarizes a report of right-wing groups
gathering weapons prior to a rally. The basis for the warning is a July call
from a named man to the Berkeley police department, expressing concern about
someone who he knew “who is allegedly a member of the right-wing group called
Proud Boys” who is “gathering masks, helmets, and guns and would have absolute
war with the liberals at an event scheduled to take place in Berkeley on August
5, 2018”.
A
much-heralded Say No to Marxism rally was held in the city that day, and saw
the Proud Boys and their allies outnumbered by counter-protesters.
Mike Sena,
executive director of NCRIC, said told The Guardian that “everyone’s absolutely
entitled to their freedom of speech”, but that “violence is a crime”, and that
this kind of intelligence was passed to partners when “people mention the
possibility of going to an event with weapons”.
In 2019,
the Texas-based fusion center, the Austin Regional Intelligence Center, warned
in a Special Event Threat Assessment of potential dangers to the Austin Pride
Parade.
It
identified the Proud Boys as being associated with a “growing backlash against
Pride Month [which] has emerged in the form of the Straight Pride movement”,
noting that “on 28 June 2019, a Trans Pride parade event in Seattle, Washington
was disrupted by the alt-right Proud Boys organization”.
There is
also evidence of concern about the group from local agencies, some of whom
define the Proud Boys as a gang.
In 2019, a
flyer from the Orange county, California, probation department advertised a
“One Day Law Enforcement Training” day covering “white gangs”.
In one
session of the training day on 19 April, the flyer said, two probation officers
would “delve into ideological groups including KKK in Orange county as well as
other hate groups/gangs including RAM (Rise Above Movement) Proud Boys,
Traditionalist Worker’s Party, Hammerskins, WAR, and cover Antifa and sovereign
citizens”.
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