Remember the 2020 George Floyd protests—where the vast majority of those participating were 100% peaceful, but a few bad apples stirred up trouble? At the time, there was plenty of speculation about right-wingers infiltrating the protests to tarnish the Black Lives Matter movement, to blunt the impact of the protests, and generally foment chaos.
Turns out our instincts about some of the hinky goings-on during the protests turned out to be spot-on.
In federal court on Thursday, Ivan Harrison Hunter, a member of the right-wing, anti-government Boogaloo Bois, admitted that he traveled from Texas to Minneapolis in May 2020 to participate in the Floyd protests. While there, he fired several rounds from his rifle at a Minneapolis police station while masquerading as a Black Lives Matter protester.
Minnesota Public Radio:
Hunter admitted that he fired 13 rounds from an AK-47-style rifle into the 3rd precinct police station on May 28, 2020, as other rioters looted and set fire to the building after police evacuated. No one was struck by the gunfire.
After shooting at the building, Hunter was recorded on video high-fiving another person and yelling "Justice for Floyd!" Investigators matched the skull mask Hunter was wearing in the video to a photo on his Facebook page.
Prosecutors say Hunter came to Minneapolis in the days following Floyd’s murder after corresponding on Facebook with Michael Solomon of New Brighton, Minn., and Benjamin Teeter of Hampstead, N.C. The men had been part of the “Boogaloo Bois,” a group that exploits tensions to further violence.
Hunter pleaded to one count of rioting, and faces up to five years in prison.
While the brimming slop trough of moist yam rinds that occupied the Oval Office at the time tried to pin the rioters’ worst excesses on Joe Biden and the “radical” Democrats, Biden consistently condemned the violence—something Donald Trump was far too reluctant to do when it came to violent, anti-social actions undertaken by members of his own base. And as we all know, his winking approval stirred up a shitshow entirely of his own making on—what was that date again?—oh, yeah. Jan. 6.
Meanwhile, it remains an open question as to just how much of the rioting was actually precipitated by right-wingers and other racist troublemakers. My own educated guess? A whole heckuva lot.
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