Always Find a Boogeyman
page two
By early June 2020, 51 people faced federal charges related to the riots/protests. Of those already formally charged, 20 alleged crimes involved arson; 16 involved the illegal possession of a firearm, and 8 involved inciting a riot, civil disorder and/or looting. Federal court records from the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) at that time showed zero links between any serious federal crimes that had occurred and anti-fascist groups. Read this again: Zero.
By the end of September 2020 – after Barr had established a “task force” to counter “anti-government extremists” – over “300 individuals in 29 states and Washington, DC, had been charged for crimes committed adjacent to or under the guise of peaceful demonstrations since the end of May.” Although a few of the defendants self-identified as having far left and/or anti-government views, there was zero evidence that any of them had official ties to Antifa.
In fact, the only reference to any extremist group in federal court documents during that time involved men associated with a far-right, mostly white supremist group called boogaloo. The “Boogaloo Bois” (pronounced “boys”) are a Hawaiian-shirt-wearing anti-government, anti-law enforcement gang who are convinced that the U.S. government is determined to take their guns away and that a second “civil war” is coming soon.
An intelligence bulletin distributed to police departments across the nation in early June 2020 – issued jointly by the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center – warned: “Would-be domestic terrorists including militia extremists and groups who advocate a belief in the superiority of the white race have sought to bring about a second civil war, often referred to as a ‘Boogaloo’ by intentionally instigating violence at First Amendment-protected activities.”
In June 2020, one man allegedly associated with the group, Air Force Staff Sergeant Steven Carrillo, faced federal charges of murder and attempted murder involving two federal security officers outside a courthouse in Oakland, California. Carrillo also faced state charges for murdering a Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputy and injuring several other law enforcement officers days later. Two years later, Steven Carrillo was sentenced to 41 years in prison for the crimes in Oakland and received a life sentence for the murder of Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller in Santa Cruz.
Three other self-identified Boogaloo Bois – all of whom have military backgrounds – were indicted by a federal grand jury during that time for conspiring to destroy government and private property during protests in Las Vegas on May 30, 2020. In a statement, the DOJ said the men “possessed Molotov cocktails to throw at police in downtown Las Vegas.” They also faced state charges in Nevada, including charges of terrorism.
In September 2023, one of the men, former Navy enlistee Stephen “Kiwi” Parshall, was sentenced to life for assisting, soliciting or conspiring to commit an act of terrorism as part of a guilty plea agreement. Six months earlier, he received 33 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing a young girl. Parshall abused the victim for years, beginning when she was younger than 10. These guys are real winners. No word yet on the cases against the other two men, Andrew Lynam and William L. Loomis.
Although there was one incident in Austin where a group that burglarized a Target store was initially identified as being affiliated with Antifa, people with confirmed links to the movement adamantly denied these people’s affiliation, as did at least one of the defendant’s attorneys.
As for those police chiefs and other officials around the country who Bill Barr claimed blamed Antifa for being the “ramrod for the violence?” When asked directly about Antifa and/or other specific groups…
Josh Rubenstein, the public information director for the Los Angeles Police Department, said, “We saw no organized effort of Antifa here in Los Angeles.”
Medaria Arradondo, the Minneapolis chief of police, said: “As I sit here today, I have not received any sort of official information identifying any of the groups.”
The Sturgis, South Dakota Police Chief Geody VanDewater, said: “As far as we know (the protesters) were just local citizens from Rapid City and not affiliated with Antifa.”
Dermot Shea, New York City’s police commissioner, said that most of the people arrested at the riots/protests were people who lived in New York and were simply taking advantage of the chaos to commit crimes. He made clear they were not driven by political ideology. John Miller, a New York City police official, confirmed this, saying the crimes were committed by “regular criminal groups.”
A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Portland told Reuters that his office had “not alleged defendant affiliation with any specific groups or ideologies in cases stemming from Portland protests” and that their cases “focus purely on the criminal conduct alleged.”
Jill Sanborn, assistant director for the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said “Most of what we’re seeing is just that opportunistic individual that’s taking advantage of the peaceful protests, almost as cover as a way to conduct their criminal behavior.”
“It’s a wide range of criminal activity,” said Calvin Shivers, assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division. Shivers added that his unit had “not seen concerted or organized efforts” beyond instances of rival gang members.
Looking back, the police brutality protests were just Round One. Round Two came months later, after the 2020 presidential election. True to form, before the Capitol riots even ended on January 6th, right-wingers were back at it, saying that Antifa was the real monster wreaking havoc at the U.S. Capitol, and were “masquerading as Trump supporters” – as Republican Representative Matt Gaetz put it that afternoon, from the U.S. House floor no less.
“I don’t know if the reports are true,” Gaetz hedged but continued anyway, “but The Washington Times has just reported some pretty compelling evidence from a facial recognition company that some of the people who breached the Capitol today were not Trump supporters, they were masquerading as Trump supporters, and in fact were members of the violent terrorist group Antifa.”
Televangelist Mark Burns – who was described by Time magazine as “Donald Trump’s Top Pastor” during the 2016 election; offered the benediction on the first day of the 2016 Republican National Convention; and who Donald Trump endorsed for a South Carolina congressional seat in the 2024 election – tweeted a photo of the widely-recognized QAnon devotee and Trump loyalist Jake Angeli (a.k.a. the “Q Shaman”…yes, the genius in the face paint, furs and horned headdress getup), along with the caption, “This is NOT a Trump supporter...This is a staged #Antifa attack.” (QAnon is the preposterous conspiracy theory group that believes Donald Trump is saving America from a cabal of Satan worshipers and child sex traffickers.)
Republican Representative Paul Gosar said, “This has all the hallmarks of Antifa provocation,” and Republican Representative Mo Brooks chimed in later that night, saying “There is some indication that fascist Antifa elements were involved, that they embedded themselves in the Trump protests.”
Conservative radio talk show host Todd Herman, who happened to be the guest host on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show on January 6th, referenced a tweet from another conservative radio guy Michael D. Brown that said: “Antifa or BLM or other insurgents could be doing it disguised as Trump supporters. Come on, man, have you never heard of psyops?” Then, Herman said to Limbaugh’s millions and millions of listeners: “It’s probably not Trump supporters who would do that. Antifa, BLM, that’s what they do. Right?” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton retweeted conservative writer Paul Sperry’s tweet that said, “Breaking: Former FBI agent on the ground at U.S. Capitol just texted me and confirmed that at least 1 busload of Antifa thugs infiltrated peaceful Trump demonstrators as part of a false Trump flag ops,” with Paxton adding his own caption, “These are not Trump supporters.”
The busload of Antifa thugs reference resembled a conspiracy theory Donald Trump had pushed months earlier in an interview with conservative Fox television host Laura Ingraham. That day, Trump said – with no evidence – that people were being brought in to Charlotte, NC specifically to disrupt the Republican National Convention: “We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend, and in the plane it was almost completely loaded with thugs, wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms, with gear and this and that.”
Although he stopped short of naming Antifa, Trump’s claims echoed ones that had been tearing through social media at the time, declaring Antifa was infiltrating American cities for the sole purpose of violence and destruction. One post, for example, warned that “at least a dozen males got off the plane in Boise from Seattle, dressed head to toe in black,” and warned locals to “be ready for attacks downtown and residential areas.” It also said that at least one of the guys had “a tattoo that said Antifa America on his arm.”
The night of January 6th, Ingraham spent most of her show suggesting to her audience that the Trump protesters had somehow been infiltrated by Antifa. By way of evidence, she said she knew this to be true because she had never once seen protesters wearing helmets and knee pads at Trump rallies.
But here is the God’s-honest truth about Antifa being behind or even remotely involved with the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6th: It’s just not true. Period. End of story.