Source: JEFF KOWALSKY / Getty
Organizers and community members warned about right-wing infiltrators during racial justice protests last year. When shots were fired in Minneapolis as the Third Precinct police station burned, people on the ground insisted the gunshots were the result of right-wing agitators. They were right.
According to MPR News, Ivan Harrison Hunter traveled to Minneapolis with the express purpose of causing chaos in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Hunter, from Boerne, Texas, made plans with two other members of the “Boogaloo Bois” to travel to Minneapolis. (Read the full article here).
“We were saying this was going on ALL last summer,” Dr. Jason Johnson, a professor and political commentator, tweeted.
“Hunter admitted that he fired 13 rounds from an AK-47-style rifle into the 3rd precinct police station on May 28, 2020,” reported Minnesota Public Radio. Per the sentencing guidelines, he could serve up to 46 months in federal prison for a single count of rioting.
According to the Associated Press, Hunter first came under law enforcement suspicion last June after he was found to have six loaded magazines for a semiautomatic rifle during a “routine” traffic stop. But he was not arrested until officers later realized his social media connection to another “Boogaloo Bois” member who has since been charged with the death of a federal protective service officer in Oakland, Calif during a post-Floyd protest.
The two men who met Hunter in Minneapolis previously pled guilty to conspiracy charges. In May 2021, the Department of Justice announced Michael Solomon of New Brighton, Minn., “pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.” The charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Solomon and Benjamin Ryan Teeter had been under investigation by the FBI for about a year as a part of a larger effort to track attempts at disrupting protests.
“In late May of 2020, the FBI initiated an investigation into members of the ‘Boogaloo Bois” based on information that members were discussing committing crimes of violence and were maintaining an armed presence on the streets of Minneapolis during civil unrest following the death of George Floyd,” the DOJ explained in a prior press release. “The Boogaloo Bois are a loosely connected group of individuals who espouse violent anti-government sentiments. The term ‘Boogaloo’ itself references an impending second civil war in the United States and is associated with violent uprisings against the government.
5 photos
