A man who said he is a member of the anti-government group called the Boogaloo Bois was arrested and charged for his alleged role in the protests in Minneapolis amid the social unrest that followed the death of George Floyd.
Ivan Harrison Hunter, 26, of Texas, fired “13 rounds from an AK-47 style semiautomatic rifle into the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct building” on the night of May 28, 2020, according to a Friday press release from the Justice Department. He was arrested on Wednesday and charged with participating in a riot.
Hunter made his first court appearance on Thursday before Magistrate Judge Henry Bemporad in the U.S. District Court in San Antonio.
A criminal complaint, which was published by the Star Tribune, said law enforcement officials found footage of the incident and that after the person they identified as Hunter shot at the building, he “then walks toward the camera, high-fives another individual and yells, ‘Justice for Floyd!'”
Boogaloo Bois member Michael Solomon, a resident of Minnesota, posted on social media encouraging people to join him, the complaint added. Hunter responded to him. Another member, Benjamin Ryan Teeter, a resident of North Carolina, also communicated with Hunter as they left their respective states to meet up in Minnesota. Both Solomon and Teeter have been arrested on unrelated charges.
Hunter, upon returning to Texas, repeatedly boasted about his actions on social media.
“I helped the community burn down that police station,” he wrote. “I didn’t’ protest peacefully Dude … Want something to change? Start risking felonies for what is good.”
On June 3, members of the Austin Police Department witnessed Hunter and two other individuals “wearing tactical gear and carrying rifles” before they committed “numerous traffic violations,” the complaint said.
When they were pulled over, “officers observed a baggie of suspected marijuana in plain view. HUNTER- the front seat passenger – claimed ownership of the marijuana,” according to the criminal complaint. “Officers saw that HUNTER had six loaded magazines for an AK-47 style assault rifle affixed to his tactical vest while the two other men had AR-15 magazines affixed to their vests. Officers found an AK-47 style rifle and two AR-15 rifles on the rear seat of the vehicle plus one pistol in plain view next to the driver’s seat and another pistol in the center console.”
Hunter denied that any of the weapons belonged to him, and a day later, he posted on social media saying, “We need to riot.”
Days later, authorities discovered connections between Hunter and Steven Carrillo, another Boogaloo Bois member whom prosecutors have alleged was the gunman in the late May drive-by shooting in California that resulted in the death of Protective Security Officer David Patrick Underwood and several injuries to another security officer.
The Boogaloo Movement is a loosely affiliated group of extremists with a loose ideology that is variously far-right, anarchist, anti-government, or libertarian and focuses on the possibility of a second civil war.
