Proud Boys and others who infiltrated BLM demonstrations haven’t stopped wreaking havoc
This story was updated on Jan. 12, 2022.
In a ten-week period during the “Freedom Summer” of 2020, almost 9,000 Black Lives Matter protests occurred across the country. Many people believe most of those protests contained burning buildings, vandalized and looted businesses, and physical confrontations between police and demonstrators.
The truth is that such violence was confined to only 7 percent of those protests that occurred between May 25 and July 31, 2020. That’s not according to BLM. That’s according to a police group representing the nation’s largest cities, the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
So which cities had the most violent protests? Seattle, which Donald Trump and his merry band of right-wing sycophants often vilified, had to be up there, right? Nope. Only 16 percent of protests in Seattle turned violent. Other Team Trump targets, including New York, LA, Chicago, and Detroit, all turned in violent figures of less than 10 percent. Even Minneapolis, ground zero for BLM where George Floyd was killed, only had 20 percent of its demonstrations fall violent.
Portland, another Trump target, was up there with 62.5 percent of demonstrations degenerating into violence. But Denver [68 percent] and Columbus, Ohio, [63.8 percent] cited higher percentages. No other of the 67 total cities reported a figure higher than 27 percent.
So the left-leaning network Antifa, which Trump claimed was behind the BLM protest violence, was really busy in certain cities, huh? That group certainly had a presence in large cities, with 78 percent of the cities identifying participants who “seemed to self-identify” with far-left groups. But 51 percent of cities also found protesters who identified with violent far-right groups such as the Proud Boys and Boogaloo Bois.
Moreover, the violence was mostly perpetrated by “individuals or small groups that infiltrated the larger protests,” the police group reported. A whopping 90 percent of agencies found participants from out-of-state, and 29 percent discovered some being paid.
During those ten weeks, some 2,037 law enforcement officers were hurt. The violence included 624 arson cases and 97 police vehicles burned. Some 16,241 people were arrested nationwide, with 17 percent of those for more serious felonies, according to the police group. Two Portland residents were among those receiving prison terms for setting buildings on fire and other charges. While both were accused of being Antifa members, they appeared more likely to be “lone wolf” types, with one reportedly homeless for two years.
The large cities report was completed before the most violent protest occurred on January 6, 2021, after Trump incited supporters to fight police and breach the U.S. Capitol to disrupt Congress’ ceremony to ratify the 2020 election. Five people, including a police officer, died by the following day, and four other officers and one participant who were there committed suicide shortly afterwards. Many more were injured, including with deep concussions. The Trump crowd used metal poles, bats, bicycle racks, fire extinguishers, and chemical gas against police. Several thousand roamed the building, with some searching for politicians and the Electoral College boxes. They broke windows and vandalized hallways, artwork, walls, and doors. More than 700 people have been arrested, with at least 99 percent of them Trump backers.
That action was the climax of a coup attempt by Trump and allies to overturn the election. Along the way, Trump supporters engaged in more violence, including:
- On January 6, 2021, pro-Trump protesters fought with police and burned an effigy of Gov. Kate Brown outside the state Capitol in Salem, Ore. Some armed attackers carrying Trump flags breached a fence of the residence of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee in Olympia. They reached his door but did not try to break inside.
- On December 12, 2020, Trump adherents staged a rally in Washington, D.C., in which leaders spoke about Trump declaring martial law. That evening, suspected Proud Boys marched to Black Lives Matter Plaza just north of the White House, many carrying clubs and canes. They attacked a group dressed in black with medic crosses of red tape. They hit two women. Police used pepper spray to get them to leave but made no arrests. Proud Boys then attacked a lone African-American man, Phillip Johnson. He reportedly tried to walk away, when one punched him in the head. He whipped out a knife and four suspected Proud Boys suffered stab wounds, police said. That same night, Proud Boys vandalized some historic black churches.
- On December 6, 2020, Trump supporter Michael McKinney fired a bullet into a car with four teenage girls, striking a 15-year-old in the leg. The girls had exchanged insults with Trump backers in the parking lot outside a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, when the girls’ vehicle was surrounded. They bumped into McKinney’s car as they tried to escape, when he responded with the gunshot. He was sentenced to “up to” ten years in prison.
- On November 14, 2020, Trump supporters rallied in D.C. with speakers such as Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert calling for a “revolution” along the lines of the 2013 violent military-style coup in Egypt. That evening, suspected Proud Boys clashed with counterprotesters at Black Lives Matter Plaza. Trump supporters ripped down signs and artwork on the fence surrounding the White House, as some tried to stop them. Likely Antifa activists overturned tables of vendors selling Trump merchandise, burning hats and flags. Of the clashes journalist Luke Mogelson witnessed, most were instigated by Proud Boys, he wrote. One man was stabbed in the back. As the fights raged, Trump, who had a long history of inciting violence by his supporters, then ignoring or even justifying it, tweeted, “Antifa waited until tonight, when 99% were gone, to attack innocent #MAGA People.” The Proud Boys were clearly Trump’s “people.” Arizona far-right Rep. Paul Gosar chimed in with an even darker and more inaccurate tweet: “Mr. President… Send in the military to restore order. BLM terrorists are assaulting and burning our Capitol. The mayor of DC condones the violence.” The pro-Trump group continued to march through the streets around midnight, with some carrying a large flag emblazoned with “Trump Law and Order.”
- On Nov. 5, 2020, former Trump campaign leader and White House adviser Steve Bannon issued one of many violent threats by Trump aides. He said that Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded and have their heads placed on pikes in public outside the White House as a “warning to federal bureaucrats.”
- On Oct. 30, 2020, Trump supporters displayed weapons and physically shoved people at Joe Biden get-out-the-vote events in Houston, Corpus Christi, and other Texas cities, with one Trump backer threatening a Biden staffer that he would “fucking kill” him, according to a lawsuit. The following day, a caravan of vehicles displaying Trump flags targeted a Biden campaign bus, slowing it to about 20 miles per hour on the highway and trying to “run the bus off the road,” according to the lawsuit. A vehicle with Trump flags “side-swiped” one driven by a Biden campaign staffer behind the bus, and the Trump backer harassed the Biden campaigner after he had to stop the vehicle. The incident caused the campaign to cancel three Central Texas events due to safety concerns. Trump tweeted a video of the dangerous bus-slowing stunt with a fight theme song and claimed his “patriots did nothing wrong,” that they were “protecting” the Biden bus “because they’re nice.”
- On Oct. 8, 2020, some 13 members of right-wing, Trump-supporting militias were arrested for plotting to kidnap and kill Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
- On Oct. 28, 2020, a member of the far-right, Trump-supporting Proud Boys was arrested in North Dakota for threatening to bomb a polling site.
The violent incidents at BLM protests included:
- On Aug. 25, 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, killed two BLM protesters during protests of a police shooting in which James Blake was shot seven times in the back in Kenosha, Wis. Rittenhouse later was photographed with Proud Boys and was acquitted.
- On July 25, 2020, members of the far-right, anti-government Boogaloo Bois marched with semi-automatic rifles in a BLM protest in Richmond, Va. They “spearheaded” the night of violence that saw a dump truck set ablaze and businesses’ windows broken, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney said.
- On May 30, 2020, two Boogaloo members were arrested during a BLM protest in Columbia, S.C. Paramedic Kevin Ackley threw a water bottle at police during the protest, while Joshua Barnard was charged with breaking into a car and looting, authorities said.
- Also on May 30, three suspected Boogaloo members who plotted to cause violence at protests in Las Vegas were arrested by FBI agents. Stephen Parshall, Andrew Lynam, and William Loomis planned to toss Molotov cocktails at police during a BLM protest that night, according to the FBI.
- On May 29, 2020, U.S. Air Force sergeant Steven Carrillo reportedly shot two security officers in front of a federal building in Oakland as BLM protests occurred several blocks away. One officer died, and the other was severely injured. He and Robert Justus, a suspect who reportedly drove a van by the building as Carrillo fired from it, were allegedly part of the boogaloo movement. Carrillo used the BLM protests as a cover to attack the officers, according to the FBI. A friend said Carrillo changed immensely after his wife committed suicide, leaving him to care alone for his two daughters. About a week later, Carrillo reportedly engaged in a shootout at his home after authorities tried to arrest him. One sheriff’s officer died. Many conservative commentators wrongly blamed the killings on BLM members or Antifa.
- Also on May 29, Matthew Lee Rupert of Galesburg, Ill., reportedly filmed himself setting a Minneapolis building on fire and taking some items from an Office Depot. He made social media posts in support of Trump and against police. He was sentenced to eight years and nine months in prison.
- On May 28, 2020, Ivan Harrison Hunter of Boerne, Tx., fired 13 times at the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct building with an automatic weapon during BLM protests, according to an FBI affidavit. Hunter claimed to be a member of the Boogaloo movement, according to authorities, and later pled guilty to a rioting charge. Two other Boogaloo members who attended the late May BLM protests in Minneapolis were indicted on federal charges of attempting to provide material support to foreign terrorist organization Hamas.
There were indications that the infiltration of BLM protests were part of a loosely coordinated campaign by far-right groups. Media reports have documented that a white supremacist channel on the messaging app Telegram encouraged followers to commit violence during the protests, according to an internal Department of Homeland Security intelligence note.
A Twitter account claiming to be from Antifa that advocated violence was actually run by the white nationalist group Identity Evropa, according to an NBC report.
That would fit a pattern in which these white supremacist groups want a kind of war to help further their goals of chaos, fear, and division. Graffiti alluding to a race war has been found in cities such as Baltimore. Groups such as the Three Percenters are growing in popularity.
Studies show that right-wing extremist groups are more violent than left-wing ones. For instance, 90 percent of the extremist-related murders in the US in 2019 were linked to right-wing extremists, according to an Anti-Defamation League study. Between 2010 and 2016, about 35 percent of terrorist attacks in the United States were carried out by right-wing extremists ,compared with 12 percent by left-wing or environmentalist extremists, according to a University of Maryland-led consortium.
What to do about this?
Over the course of 2021 and into 2022, violence by far-right proponents continued. In early 2022, Kyle “Based Stickman” Chapman, a suspected Proud Boy with a history of violence, was arrested for allegedly grabbing an Idaho hospital employee against her will. Two Washington state men who claimed to be with the Boogaloos were indicted on federal charges that they conspired to build explosives to use against police. Numerous Proud Boys have attended school board and town council meetings, carrying weapons and disrupting meetings in apparent campaigns to take their violent tactics to the local level.
Trump still not being prosecuted for at least inciting a riot, as of January 2022, is a key factor in such incidents. Violent supporters are emboldened when there are not consequences for movement leaders and planners of coup attempts. Trump’s supporters in Congress, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Paul Gosar, continue to support dangerous, violent ideas.
For now, prosecuting the perpetrators of violent acts is the best way to ensure that the movement stays mostly underground. Long term, some believe better education programs could help, though individuals have to be motivated at early ages to learn. And highly educated people support Trump, as well. It’s a vicious cycle with few easy answers.
Kevin Shay is author of several books.
