A far-right extremist movement born on social media and fueled by anti-government rhetoric has emerged as a real-world threat in recent weeks, with federal authorities accusing some of its adherents of working to spark violence at largely peaceful protests roiling the nation.
At a time when President Trump and other top U.S. officials have claimed — with little evidence — that leftist groups were fomenting violence, federal prosecutors have charged various supporters of a right-wing movement called the “boogaloo bois,” with crimes related to plotting to firebomb a U.S. Forest Service facility, preparing to use explosives at a peaceful demonstration and killing a security officer at a federal courthouse.
Prosecutors even successfully argued before a federal magistrate in Texas last week that a drug possession suspect with alleged boogaloo ties should be denied bond because Facebook and Instagram posts advocating violence against National Guard members and threatening to kill looters showed he was a “threat to the community.”
Boogaloo is more of a violent anti-government ideology than a formal movement, say those who study extremist groups. They say they cannot identify a leader, headquarters or command structure, just loosely affiliated social media pages ranging from explicitly violent to merely commercial, peddling boogaloo-themed merchandise.
But the visibility of boogaloo supporters at recent protests — dressed in trademark Hawaiian shirts and carrying military-style rifles — had alarmed researchers who for months had warned about the danger the groups posed.
U.S. Air Force Sgt. Steven Carrillo, 32, is seen in an image from surveillance video outside a business near the location where he was arrested in Ben Lomond, Calif., on June 6. (Justice Department/Reuters)
Now federal prosecutors in California, Texas, Nevada and Colorado appear to be endorsing those concerns with a series of criminal charges against self-described boogaloo supporters, whose arrests often were accompanied by the seizure of weapons and explosives.
One boogaloo supporter, Steven Carrillo, an active-duty Air Force staff sergeant, is charged with killing a security guard at the federal courthouse in Oakland last month. Court documents allege he scrawled the word “Boog” in blood on a car he had stolen.
“The numbers are overwhelming: Most of the violence is coming from the extreme right wing,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI agent who studies extremist political activity for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a think tank in Philadelphia.
U.S. Attorney David Anderson announced on June 16 that two men had been charged for the May 29 murder of a federal courthouse guard in Oakland, Calif. (Reuters)
Men wearing Hawaiian shirts and carrying guns add a volatile new element to protests
The shooting that killed one security guard and injured another took place May 29, near where demonstrators had gathered to protest the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minneapolis.
Facebook posts also figure in Carrillo’s prosecution, with court documents quoting one attributed to him: “Use their anger to fuel our fire. Think outside the box. We have mobs of angry people to use to our advantage.”
Carrillo also is accused of killing a sheriff’s deputy in a separate incident in California’s Santa Cruz County. Carrillo’s lawyer has cautioned against a “rush to judgement” on the charges.
The boogaloo movement was born on fringe social media forums such as 4chan but migrated to more mainstream ones such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, where researchers have found some groups had at times hundreds of thousands of followers. The name of the group comes from a 1984 break-dancing movie sequel regarded as almost indistinguishable from the original — boogaloo supporters contend that a second civil war will resemble the one in the 1860s.
Their names and symbols have evolved rapidly online, amid calls for violence against police and other authorities, with boogaloo becoming “Big Igloo” and “Big Luau,” which inspired a proliferation of movement symbols, including the Hawaiian shirts. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted an image of apparent boogaloo supporters, carrying rifles, atop an overturned and vandalized police car in Salt Lake City last month.
An officer was gunned down. The killer was a ‘boogaloo boy’ using nearby peaceful protests as cover, feds say.
The boogaloo ideology has proved adaptive as well, with supporters appearing regularly at a rallies opposing government coronavirus restrictions before shifting to the Floyd rallies — sometimes in avowed support of the protesters, sometimes to allegedly quell unrest and sometimes as provocateurs seeking to inflame it.
At a time when President Trump and other top U.S. officials have claimed — with little evidence — that leftist groups were fomenting violence, federal prosecutors have charged various supporters of a right-wing movement called the “boogaloo bois,” with crimes related to plotting to firebomb a U.S. Forest Service facility, preparing to use explosives at a peaceful demonstration and killing a security officer at a federal courthouse.
Prosecutors even successfully argued before a federal magistrate in Texas last week that a drug possession suspect with alleged boogaloo ties should be denied bond because Facebook and Instagram posts advocating violence against National Guard members and threatening to kill looters showed he was a “threat to the community.”
Boogaloo is more of a violent anti-government ideology than a formal movement, say those who study extremist groups. They say they cannot identify a leader, headquarters or command structure, just loosely affiliated social media pages ranging from explicitly violent to merely commercial, peddling boogaloo-themed merchandise.
But the visibility of boogaloo supporters at recent protests — dressed in trademark Hawaiian shirts and carrying military-style rifles — had alarmed researchers who for months had warned about the danger the groups posed.
U.S. Air Force Sgt. Steven Carrillo, 32, is seen in an image from surveillance video outside a business near the location where he was arrested in Ben Lomond, Calif., on June 6. (Justice Department/Reuters)
Now federal prosecutors in California, Texas, Nevada and Colorado appear to be endorsing those concerns with a series of criminal charges against self-described boogaloo supporters, whose arrests often were accompanied by the seizure of weapons and explosives.
One boogaloo supporter, Steven Carrillo, an active-duty Air Force staff sergeant, is charged with killing a security guard at the federal courthouse in Oakland last month. Court documents allege he scrawled the word “Boog” in blood on a car he had stolen.
“The numbers are overwhelming: Most of the violence is coming from the extreme right wing,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI agent who studies extremist political activity for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a think tank in Philadelphia.
U.S. Attorney David Anderson announced on June 16 that two men had been charged for the May 29 murder of a federal courthouse guard in Oakland, Calif. (Reuters)
Men wearing Hawaiian shirts and carrying guns add a volatile new element to protests
The shooting that killed one security guard and injured another took place May 29, near where demonstrators had gathered to protest the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in Minneapolis.
Facebook posts also figure in Carrillo’s prosecution, with court documents quoting one attributed to him: “Use their anger to fuel our fire. Think outside the box. We have mobs of angry people to use to our advantage.”
Carrillo also is accused of killing a sheriff’s deputy in a separate incident in California’s Santa Cruz County. Carrillo’s lawyer has cautioned against a “rush to judgement” on the charges.
The boogaloo movement was born on fringe social media forums such as 4chan but migrated to more mainstream ones such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, where researchers have found some groups had at times hundreds of thousands of followers. The name of the group comes from a 1984 break-dancing movie sequel regarded as almost indistinguishable from the original — boogaloo supporters contend that a second civil war will resemble the one in the 1860s.
Their names and symbols have evolved rapidly online, amid calls for violence against police and other authorities, with boogaloo becoming “Big Igloo” and “Big Luau,” which inspired a proliferation of movement symbols, including the Hawaiian shirts. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted an image of apparent boogaloo supporters, carrying rifles, atop an overturned and vandalized police car in Salt Lake City last month.
An officer was gunned down. The killer was a ‘boogaloo boy’ using nearby peaceful protests as cover, feds say.
The boogaloo ideology has proved adaptive as well, with supporters appearing regularly at a rallies opposing government coronavirus restrictions before shifting to the Floyd rallies — sometimes in avowed support of the protesters, sometimes to allegedly quell unrest and sometimes as provocateurs seeking to inflame it.