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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Whitmer conspiracy allegations tied to boogaloo movement NBC News

    Whitmer conspiracy allegations tied to boogaloo movement


    Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny and Tom Winter and Caitlin Fichtel and Corky Siemaszko
    ,NBC NewsOctober 8, 2020


    Several of the six men charged in federal court Thursday with a conspiracy to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer have histories of anti-government organizing, as well as interest in countering what they saw as an "uprising" against President Donald Trump, according to their online profiles and comments.

    In addition, several of the seven men facing separate state terrorism charges for their activity with a group called the Wolverine Watchmen also posted pro-Trump and anti-government content.


    The men have not yet appeared in court or entered pleas.


    A senior federal law enforcement official said federal agents found that the group of seven tied to the Wolverine Watchmen believes in the "boogaloo" movement, which is largely dedicated to eradicating the government and killing law enforcement officers. Their social media profiles showed connections to a wide variety of known anti-government groups.


    Around the country, self-described members of the boogaloo movement have committed acts of violence and killed police officers in recent months, often in attempts to ignite what they believe will be a second civil war.

    Authorities said a California man accused of killing a police officer and a federal agent in June scrawled the word "Boog" in blood on the hood of a car during a standoff with police. Federal agents arrested two other members of the boogaloo movement whom they accused of offering to work with the terrorist group Hamas last month.


    The Michigan kidnapping suspects' online lives revealed boogaloo ties and swift online radicalization.

    In the Whitmer case, Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping. They are being held in U.S. marshals' custody pending their detention hearing Tuesday morning.


    NBC News analyzed numerous social media profiles connected to the men charged in the cases that were connected by biographical information and email addresses tied to public records.


    The profiles detail how some of the men who held anti-government views were spurred to action after Whitmer declared coronavirus lockdowns, which sparked protests that included members of armed right-wing groups, some of which called themselves militias.


    In a social profile verified by date of birth, Croft wore a tricorn hat and a sweatshirt with the insignia of the Three Percenters, an armed anti-government movement. Croft's online footprint shows what appears to have been years of involvement in armed movements.


    In 2016, while he was living in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, Croft pushed pro-Trump conspiracy theories that absolved Russia of meddling in the 2016 election, calling investigations of Trump an "uprising."


    Croft added that he would be willing to fight for his beliefs and that he would be joined by millions of others, adding that they had more firearms than their perceived enemies.


    Caserta's social media timelines showed a more rapid radicalization path that accelerated after the pandemic forced Michigan into lockdown.


    In a YouTube video from May, Caserta claimed in a 30-minute diatribe that "the enemy is government." Caserta recorded the video in front of an anarchist's flag and a map of Michigan. He did not post on YouTube again until three weeks ago. In that video, Caserta does not speak and simply loads and poses with a long gun while wearing a shirt that says "F--- The Government." Fox, also charged Thursday, responded to the video shortly after it was posted, saying "that safety lol," an apparent reference to the safety lock on Caserta's gun.


    On TikTok, Caserta posted selfie videos railing against the state, along with antigovernment hashtags.


    "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance," he said in a video posted Wednesday. In one video, Caserta is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, which is typically associated
    with the boogaloo movement. On Facebook, he posted about guns and Covid-19 conspiracies and espoused conflicting political ideologies, including anarchism.


    Caserta's Twitter timeline appears to show his rapid descent into radicalization. In 2018 and early 2019, Caserta largely liked and posted about comedy shows, podcasts like "The Joe Rogan Experience," motivational quotations and selfies. Caserta's only likes after the onset of the pandemic mention conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and a meme about hogtying police officers.


    Extremism researchers first noticed the boogaloo movement in 2019, when fringe groups from gun rights and "militia" movements to white supremacists began referring to an impending civil war using the word "boogaloo," a joking reference to "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo," a 1984 sequel movie about break dancing.


    The word is used to describe an uprising against a seemingly tyrannical or left-wing government, often in response to a perceived threat of widespread confiscation of guns.

    For many, the word "boogaloo" is used jokingly or ironically, but others share the boogaloo alongside violent text and images, seemingly to inflame an eventual confrontation.


    Others in the group facing federal charges had similar anti-government memes and posts on their social media profiles before they were deleted. Fox, who was a member of the public Facebook Group "Open Michigan," had as his profile picture a skull and crossbones with a Three Percenter label and the phrase "Liberty or Death."


    Fringe anti-government groups in Michigan have agitated for months against what they have claimed are illegal orders the state government put in place to contain the coronavirus. The groups got a boost in April when Trump tweeted "LIBERATE MICHIGAN," which some online extremist movements at the time took as a call to arms.


    Amy Cooter, a sociology professor and militia expert at Vanderbilt University, said Wolverine Watchmen is "a relatively new group that was spurred to action specifically by the pandemic and by Whitmer's response to it."


    "I absolutely believe that Trump plays a role in encouraging actions like this, in calling individuals to be members of groups like this in the first place and encouraging folks to show up in person to protests — by stoking fears and making them feel like it is their responsibility to do something about it," Cooter said.


    A second law enforcement action Thursday involved state charges against seven more members of the Wolverine Watchmen.


    The men, identified as Paul Bellar, Shawn Fix, Eric Molitor, Michael Null, William Null, Pete Musico and Joseph Morrison, face an array of state charges, including counts of threat of terrorism or material support of terrorist acts.


    Musico had a YouTube channel on which he railed against Whitmer and praised Trump.


    "So sick and tired of hearing about Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump. Well guess what?" Musico said, pointing to a Trump 2020 hat on his head. "I hope that triggered a whole lot of people."

    https://news.yahoo.com/whitmer-consp...001126750.html
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  2. #2
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    FBI: ‘Boogaloo’ movement member arrested on gun charge

    By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
    OCT. 9, 2020 2:08 PM

    COLLEGE PARK, Md. —A Maryland man described by the FBI as a member of the anti-government “boogaloo” movement has been arrested on a gun charge, court records show.
    Frank William Robertson Perry, 39, remained jailed after his initial appearance in federal court on Friday by video conference. He has a detention hearing set for Oct. 19.
    Perry was arrested

    Wednesday on a criminal complaint charging him with illegal possession of a firearm. He is prohibited from possessing a firearm or ammunition due to a 2002 burglary conviction, the FBI said.


    The FBI identified Perry as a member of the boogaloo movement in September, an agent wrote in seeking a warrant to search the Dundalk home he shares with his girlfriend. Boogaloo adherents are part of a loose, anti-government, pro-gun extremist movement. The name is a reference to a slang term for a sequel -- in this case, a second U.S. civil war.


    Court records don’t specify why the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force opened its investigation of Perry, who posted images associated with the boogaloo on a Facebook account that the FBI says belongs to him..

    Some boogaloo promoters insist they aren’t genuinely advocating for violence. But the boogaloo movement has been linked to a recent string of domestic terrorism plots, including the arrests of three Nevada men accused of conspiring to incite violence during protests in Las Vegas.


    Authorities also said they found a boogaloo connection in the fatal shooting of a federal security officer outside an Oakland courthouse and the ambush killing of a California sheriff’s deputy. Steven Carrillo, an Air Force sergeant charged with the killings, was tied to the boogaloo movement from social media posts.


    Some white supremacists groups have adopted the term as slang for a race war or collapse of the U.S. government.


    “The Boogaloo is not a single cohesive group, but rather a loose concept arising from internet platforms which has become a rallying point for some extremists,” FBI Special Agent Patrick Straub wrote in an affidavit dated Tuesday.

    Supporters have shown up at protests over COVID-19 lockdown orders and protests over racial injustice, carrying rifles and wearing tactical gear over Hawaiian shirts. The shirts are a reference to “big luau,” a riff on the term boogaloo. The movement is named after “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” a 1984 sequel to a movie about breakdancing.


    Agents who searched Perry’s home on Wednesday seized a rifle, ammunition and other firearms-related accessories, according to the FBI.


    The FBI says Perry’s girlfriend purchased the lower receiver of a rifle at a gun store in Baltimore County in April, stating on a government form that she bought it for herself. But the FBI said investigators reviewed the girlfriend’s social media accounts and didn’t find any evidence that she is interested in firearms or capable of assembling her own rifle.


    However, the content on Perry’s Pinterest account “reflects a substantial interest in firearms and militia extremist activities,” the agent wrote.

    “The profile also contained numerous saved or pinned pictures of firearms and ammunition, information on how to manufacture gun powder, and various statements regarding one’s obligation to fight against a tyrannical government,” the agent’s affidavit says.


    Perry’s girlfriend hasn’t been arrested or charged in the case, according to a spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Robert Hur’s office.


    Perry is represented by Desiree Lassiter, an assistant federal public defender. Lassiter didn’t address the allegations against her client during Friday’s hearing and declined to comment after it ended.

    https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...-on-gun-charge
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    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Delaware suspect in Whitmer plot was pardoned last year

    Delaware suspect in Whitmer plot was pardoned last year

    DOVER, Del. (AP) — The Delaware man charged in federal court with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has a long criminal history and was pardoned just last year by Delaware’s governor for crimes dating to 1994, according to state records.

    Barry G. Croft Jr., 44, was taken into custody this week after being arrested by the FBI in Swedesboro, New Jersey. Croft made an initial appearance before a federal magistrate in Wilmington on Thursday.


    Croft was being held Friday at a state prison in Wilmington. A hearing on his continued detention and removal to Michigan is scheduled for Tuesday.


    Five other men, all from Michigan, were charged in the alleged scheme that involved months of planning and even rehearsals to snatch Whitmer from her vacation home.


    Croft spent nearly three years in prison after being convicted on Dec. 1, 1997, of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. That sentence followed a one-year stint that ended in March 1996.

    In April 2019, one week after Delaware revenue officials filed a state tax lien against Croft for more than $36,700, Democratic Gov. John Carney granted him a pardon for the 1997 gun charge and several other convictions from 1994 to 1996. The crimes involved included assault, burglary, theft and receiving stolen property.


    Carney’s pardon came after a December 2018 Board of Pardons hearing at which the attorney general’s office did not object to Croft’s request for a pardon. The board’s recommendation for a pardon was based on the lack of opposition from the state “and the need for a pardon for employment purposes.”


    “The prior administration did not oppose this application because Croft’s criminal history was more than 20 years old and it appeared to everyone involved that his offenses were in his past and that he had gotten himself on the right track,” said Mat Marshall, a spokeswoman for Democratic Attorney General Kathy Jennings. “Needless to say, nobody — neither the DOJ nor the bipartisan Board of Pardons — would have endorsed a pardon had they known what the future held.”


    Jonathan Starkey, a spokesman for Carney, noted that the charges in Croft’s unopposed pardon petition were from 1994 and 1997, more than 20 years earlier, and the pardon was unopposed.


    “The charges brought in Michigan are disturbing and everyone charged in this plot should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Starkey said. “This is also another warning sign about the growing threat of violence and radicalization in our politics.”


    In addition to Croft’s criminal convictions, authorities in Delaware twice sought to have him declared a habitual offender for motor vehicle offenses, first in 1995 and again in 2004.


    He was also the subject of a criminal judgment filed in July 2005 but not satisfied until 2018. It’s unclear what offense that involved.


    According to the Delaware Department of Correction, Croft was last under DOC supervision in January 2005, when a period of probation ended.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/delaware-...201513253.html
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  6. #6
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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