Tag: white supremacists

Proud Boys Leaders in Four States Are Charged in Capitol Riot

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Prosecutors accused prominent members of the far-right nationalist group of conspiring together in connection with the Jan. 6 attack.

WASHINGTON — F.B.I. agents have arrested two organizers for the Proud Boys in Philadelphia and North Carolina, and prosecutors filed new charges against two other prominent members of the far-right group in Florida and Washington State as federal authorities continued their crackdown on its leadership ranks, three law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.

With the new conspiracy indictment, prosecutors have now brought charges against a total of 13 people identified in court papers as members of the Proud Boys. Federal investigators have described the group, which appeared in force in Washington on Jan. 6, as one of the chief instigators of the riot at the Capitol that left five people dead, including a Capitol Police officer.

In the indictment, prosecutors accused Charles Donohoe, a Proud Boys leader from North Carolina, and Zach Rehl, the president of the group’s chapter in Philadelphia, of conspiring to interfere with law enforcement officers at the Capitol and obstruct the certification of President Biden’s electoral victory. Two other high-ranking Proud Boys who were already facing similar charges — Ethan Nordean of Auburn, Wash., and Joseph Biggs of Ormond Beach, Fla. — were also implicated as part of the conspiracy. Continue reading.

Proud Boys leader reveals feds met with him before violent rallies and provided him with tips: report

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In a deep dive by the New York Times into the now-changing relationship between law enforcement officials and the extreme right-wing Proud Boys, one of the leaders of the group admitted that he exchanged information with federal authorities before their rallies that often turned violent.

According to the report, law enforcement officials for years have ignored the growing violence at Proud Boy rallies — choosing instead to arrest their antagonists — but things have changed since the Jan 6th riot when supporters of Donald Trump overran the Capitol and sent lawmakers fleeing for their lives.

As the Times’ David Kirkpatrick and Alan Feuer wrote of the Proud Boys, “The group’s propensity for violence and extremism was no secret. But the F.B.I. and other agencies had often seen the Proud Boys as they chose to portray themselves, according to more than a half-dozen current and former federal officials: as mere street brawlers who lacked the organization or ambition of typical bureau targets like neo-Nazis, international terrorists and Mexican drug cartels.” Continue reading.

Police Shrugged Off the Proud Boys, Until They Attacked the Capitol

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Two Proud Boys accused of leading a mob to Congress followed a bloody path to get there. Law enforcement did little to stop them.

A protester was burning an American flag outside the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland when Joseph Biggs rushed to attack. Jumping a police line, he ripped the man’s shirt off and “started pounding,” he boasted that night in an online video.

But the local police charged the flag burner with assaulting Mr. Biggs. The city later paid $225,000 to settle accusations that the police had falsified their reports out of sympathy with Mr. Biggs, who went on to become a leader of the far-right Proud Boys.

Two years later, in Portland, Ore., something similar occurred. A Proud Boy named Ethan Nordean was caught on video pushing his way through a crowd of counterprotesters, punching one of them, then slamming him to the ground, unconscious. Once again, the police charged only the other man in the skirmish, accusing him of swinging a baton at Mr. Nordean. Continue reading.

Judge rules against U.S., grants bail to Oath Keeper charged in Capitol riot

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The U.S. Justice Department arrested another alleged associate of the anti-government Oath Keepers militia on charges he took part in the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, 6, and a judge granted him bail on Monday, rejecting government requests to keep him detained.

According to court papers, Roberto Minuta, 36, who owns a tattoo shop in Newburgh, New York, “berated and taunted” U.S. Capitol Police while clad in military-style gear, then attacked the Capitol and disrupted Congress as it was certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory.

Minuta later deleted a Facebook account to “conceal his involvement in these offenses,” the court papers said. Continue reading.

Alleged hate groups get tax breaks as registered charities

Three years after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, one of the groups allegedly involved in inciting violence at the event has been granted tax-exempt status as a charity. And it’s not the only organization viewed by some as a hate group that is receiving financial benefits from the federal government in the form of an IRS tax exemption, a CBS News investigation uncovered.

A CBS News search of IRS tax-exempt charities revealed that 90 white supremacist, anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-LGBTQ groups are registered as tax-exempt charities with the IRS. This includes groups such as the one formerly known as Identity Evropa and others associated with the Unite the Right rally, as well as the Council of Conservative Citizens, which inspired white supremacist Dylann Roof to open fire on a Charleston church in 2015, killing nine Black church members.

That day in Charlottesville still haunts Liz Sines, who narrowly escaped injury when a car deliberately plowed into a crowd of counter-demonstrators, killing Heather Heyer. Continue reading.

Militias flocked to Gettysburg to foil a supposed antifa flag burning, an apparent hoax created on social media

Washington Post logoFor weeks, a mysterious figure on social media talked up plans for antifa protesters to converge on this historical site on Independence Day to burn American flags, an event that seemed at times to border on the farcical.

“Let’s get together and burn flags in protest of thugs and animals in blue,” the anonymous person behind a Facebook page called Left Behind USA wrote in mid-June. There would be antifa face paint, the person wrote, and organizers would “be giving away free small flags to children to safely throw into the fire.”

As word spread, self-proclaimed militias, bikers, skinheads and far-right groups from outside the state issued a call to action, pledging in online videos and posts to come to Gettysburg to protect the Civil War monuments and the nation’s flag from desecration. Some said they would bring firearms and use force if necessary. Continue reading.

What is the Boogaloo movement? The internet group itching for another civil war

This week, federal prosecutors announced that they had charged Steven Carrillo with murder and attempted murder for the killing of Security Officer David Patrick Underwood outside a courthouse in Oakland, California, on May 29. While the FBI claims Carrillo, a 32-year-old staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, is the gunman who “allegedly fired multiple rounds from a firearm toward the guard post” out the passenger side of a moving van, their allegations against Carrillo hint at an even darker layer of the drive-by shooting, involving the nebulous, ill-defined Boogaloo movement.

Per the Department of Justice’s press release announcing the charges:

Carrillo appears to have used his own blood to write various phrases on the hood of the car that he carjacked. The phrases relate to an extremist ideology that promotes inciting a violent uprising through use of militias.

That “ideology” they’re referring to is the Boogaloo group. Continue reading.

‘Boogaloo Boi’ Seeking Civil War Is Arrested For Deadly Attack On Deputies

It’s becoming clear that the “Boogaloo Bois” who have been filling Facebook and other social media platforms with their increasingly violent scenarios about engaging in a civil war—beginning with civil authorities as the chief targets, expanding to include racial and ethnic minorities, and finally including their ordinary neighbors—are not content to merely keep fantasies online.

A 32-year-old Air Force sergeant with special combat training tried to make the “Boogaloo” a reality this week in Santa Cruz, California, when he embarked on a killing rampage targeting law enforcement officers, ambushing two sheriff’s deputies, killing one, and severely wounding another. He then was stopped by a determined neighbor before he could get any farther. On the hood of his car, he had scrawled in blood: “I became unreasonable” and “Boog.”

It shortly emerged that Steven Carrillo is also the primary suspect in the shootings of two federal protective services officers (one of whom died) last month in Oakland during street protests over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. There has been previous evidence that so-called “Boogaloo” fans have been involved in some of the violence at the anti-police brutality protests around the nation. Continue reading.

The Coronavirus Becomes a Battle Cry for U.S. Extremists

New York Times logoWhite supremacists seek to stoke the fear and disruption caused by the pandemic to push their agenda and to recruit.

America’s extremists are attempting to turn the coronavirus pandemic into a potent recruiting tool both in the deep corners of the internet and on the streets of state capitals by twisting the public health crisis to bolster their white supremacist, anti-government agenda.

Although the protests that have broken out across the country have drawn out a wide variety of people pressing to lift stay-at-home orders, the presence of extremists cannot be missed, with their anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic signs and coded messages aimed at inspiring the faithful, say those who track such movements.

April is typically a busy month for white supremacists. There is Hitler’s birthday, which they contort into a celebration. There is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the domestic attack 25 years ago that killed 168 people and still serves as a rallying call for new extremist recruits. Continue reading.