Tag: Boogaloo Bois

“I Felt Hate More Than Anything”: How an Active Duty Airman Tried to Start a Civil War

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Steven Carrillo’s path to the Boogaloo Bois shows the hate group is far more organized and dangerous than previously known.

It was 2:20 p.m. on June 6, 2020, and Steven Carrillo, a 32-year-old Air Force sergeant who belonged to the anti-government Boogaloo Bois movement, was on the run in the tiny mountain town of Ben Lomond, California.

With deputy sheriffs closing in, Carrillo texted his brother, Evan, asking him to tell his children he loved them and instructing him to give $50,000 to his fiancée. “I love you bro,” Carrillo signed off. Thinking the text message was a suicide note from a brother with a history of mental health troubles, Evan Carrillo quickly texted back: “Think about the ones you love.”

In fact, Steven Carrillo had a different objective, a goal he had written about on Facebook, discussed with other Boogaloo Bois and even scrawled out in his own blood as he hid from police that day. He wanted to incite a second Civil War in the United States by killing police officers he viewed as enforcers of a corrupt and tyrannical political order — officers he described as “domestic enemies” of the Constitution he professed to revere. Continue reading.

St. Cloud ‘Boogaloo Bois’ member charged with planning attack on Minnesota Capitol

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Boogaloo Bois member from St. Cloud is accused of plotting strike in St. Paul. 

Federal agents in Minnesota have arrested a St. Cloud man who claims allegiance to anti-government Boogaloo Bois and plotted a violent attack on the Minnesota State Capitol earlier this year, according to charges unsealed in Minnesota U.S. District Court on Wednesday.

Last December, Michael Paul Dahlager, 27, traveled to a “Stop the Steal” rally at the Capitol in St. Paul to take video of law enforcement numbers, scout tactical positions for the Boogaloo Bois and note which streets were being blocked off, according to the criminal complaint. He told a confidential informant, who recorded the conversation for the FBI, he was conducting reconnaissance for an attack on Jan. 17. Rallies to protest President Joe Biden’s election were planned for that date by a nonviolent group of Donald Trump supporters.

After the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Minnesota erected a fence around the Capitol, and hundreds of state police officers — which Dahlager called an “army” — stood guard on the perimeter in response to threats of more attacks. Continue reading.

The Boogaloo Bois Have Guns, Criminal Records and Military Training. Now They Want to Overthrow the Government.

Hours after the attack on the Capitol ended, a group calling itself the Last Sons of Liberty posted a brief video to Parler, the social media platform, that appeared to show members of the organization directly participating in the uprising. Footage showed someone with a shaky smartphone charging past the metal barricades surrounding the building. Other clips show rioters physically battling with baton-wielding police on the white marble steps just outside the Capitol.

Before Parler went offline — its operations halted at least temporarily when Amazon refused to continue to host the network — the Last Sons posted numerous statements indicating that group members had joined the mob that swarmed the Capitol and had no regrets about the chaos and violence that unfolded on Jan. 6. The Last Sons also did some quick math: The government had suffered only one fatality, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, who was reportedly bludgeoned in the head with a fire extinguisher. But the rioters had lost four people, including Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran who was shot by an officer as she tried to storm the building.

In a series of posts, the Last Sons said her death should be “avenged” and appeared to call for the murder of three more cops. Continue reading.

The Boogaloo Bois have guns and military training. Now they want to overthrow the government

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Hours after the attack on the Capitol ended, a group calling itself the Last Sons of Liberty posted a brief video to Parler, the social media platform, that appeared to show members of the organization directly participating in the uprising. Footage showed someone with a shaky smartphone charging past the metal barricades surrounding the building. Other clips show rioters physically battling with baton-wielding police on the white marble steps just outside the Capitol.

Before Parler went offline — its operations halted at least temporarily when Amazon refused to continue to host the network — the Last Sons posted numerous statements indicating that group members had joined the mob that swarmed the Capitol and had no regrets about the chaos and violence that unfolded on Jan. 6. The Last Sons also did some quick math: The government had suffered only one fatality, U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, 42, who was reportedly bludgeoned in the head with a fire extinguisher. But the rioters had lost four people, including Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old Air Force veteran who was shot by an officer as she tried to storm the building.

In a series of posts, the Last Sons said her death should be “avenged” and appeared to call for the murder of three more cops. Continue reading.

‘Boogaloo Bois’ face new charges for possessing machine guns, silencers

They’re accused of trying to sell weapons to Hamas to fund an overthrow of the government. 

After trying to capitalize on the civil unrest in Minneapolis this summer, two members of the anti-government Boogaloo Bois attempted to sell untraceable machine guns and unregistered silencers to Hamas, an international terrorist group, to be used in attacks against United States and Israeli soldiers overseas, according to a new indictment announced by federal prosecutors in Minnesota on Friday.

Michael Robert Solomon, 30, and Benjamin Ryan Teeter, 22, met with an undercover FBI agent, who they believed to be a senior member of Hamas, on July 30, according to federal court documents. The two men delivered silencers and a “drop in auto sear” — a device that converts semi-automatic weapons into illegal machine guns — to the undercover agent. They said they could make untraceable weapons and gun parts, and negotiated to sell five more silencers for $1,800 apiece, according to court documents.

The indictment adds two new weapons counts to the criminal case against Solomon and Teeter, adding to the previous terrorism charges, for illegal possession of machine guns and silencers. Along with other federal court documents, the indictment provides detail about the role the Boogaloo Bois, a loose-knit group bent on starting the next American civil war, played during Minneapolis riots after the police killing of George Floyd in May and their alleged plot to enlist as mercenaries for Hamas to raise money for their movement. 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.

A man tied to the far-right Boogaloo movement is accused of killing 2 officers amidst Black Lives Matter protests

AlterNet logoIn Northern California, a man with alleged ties to the far-right Boogaloo movement is facing murder charges in connection with the shootings of two law enforcement officers: Damon Gutzwiller, a sergeant in the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s office, and David Patrick Underwood, a 53-year-old federal security officer.

On May 29, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, Underwood was guarding the federal building in Oakland when a drive-by shooting occurred. Steven Carrillo, a U.S. Air Force sergeant, is accused of the shooting, and Robert Justus is alleged to be his accomplice. Gutzwiller was killed in a separate shootout in Ben Lomond, California.

In a criminal complaint, the Special Agent Brett Woolard of the FBI claimed to find evidence linking Carrillo to the far-right Boogaloo movement. In particular, a search uncovered a patch, shown below, he said was “associated with the ‘Boogaloo’ movement.” 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.