Despite the widespread media narrative blaming Black Lives Matter and antifascist activists for last summer’s protest violence, there were plenty of suspicions that far-right extremists seeking to intensify the public’s fear of the “violent left” were in fact responsible for a significant amount of it. These suspicions were fed by such incidents as the assassination of a federal officer in Oakland by two far-right “Boogaloo Bois” and the arrest of another “Boogaloo” enthusiast from Texas for attacking a police station in Minneapolis.
Now we know, thanks to federal prosecutors investigating the Oakland incident, that in fact it was not the act of a single “lone wolf” and his accomplice, but rather part of a larger plot by group of far-right extremists who called themselves the “Grizzly Scouts” and planned a series of deadly attacks on law-enforcement officers with the intent of making it appear to be the work of the “violent left.” Even more disturbing, according to the San Jose Mercury-News, most of these conspirators, following their arrests for destroying evidence in the case, have been released on bond by federal magistrates who have deemed them not a risk to the community.
The Grizzly Scouts, according to the grand jury indictment handed down in April, plotted a variety of lethal actions targeting law-enforcement officers in the months and weeks before fellow “Boogaloo Boi” Steven Carillo—an active-duty Air Force sergeant—shot and killed federal protection officer Dave Patrick Underwood on May 29, 2020, and then a week later, a Santa Cruz sheriff’s deputy seeking to arrest him. Carrillo was a key member of the group, which in addition to planning attacks on police, engaged in paramilitary training exercises at the home of a member near Turlock, California. Continue reading.