A member of the far-right “Boogaloo” movement allegedly opened fire on a Minneapolis Police building in May at the height of protests over the killing of George Floyd, according to federal charges announced Friday. Ivan Hunter, 26, is accused of one count of riot for his alleged participation in the protests, during which prosecutors say he fired 13 rounds from a semi-automatic rifle into the Minneapolis […]
Kelly Weill
29 posts
You can add rogue landlords to the list of potentially sinister characters, along with far-right Proud Boys, Boogaloos, and militia members, looming over one of the most fraught elections in American history. Two weeks before Election Day, voters in New York and Colorado received letters from their landlords. Democratic candidates were sure to raise taxes, the landlords warned in the letters, and it would be a […]
Threatening emails. Weird recruitment text messages. A website with an “assault weapon” raffle. In the weeks immediately preceding and following President Donald Trump’s debate-night nod to the Proud Boys, voters have reported a slew of spam messages that claim to come from the far-right paramilitary group. But many or all of those messages are hoaxes, some of which originate from a serial prankster who has previously […]
QAnon—an unhinged conspiracy theory falsely accusing President Donald Trump’s foes of Satanic pedophilia and cannibalism—has become so enmeshed in the GOP that at least one Q-loving Republican is expected to win a congressional seat this year. But in more level-headed industries, the theory is so toxic that few U.S. companies want anything to do with it. That includes an Oregon-based web services company that severed ties […]
Nine immigrant-rights activists who’d been extradited across state lines on misdemeanor charges of trespass and littering gathered outside the Henrico County, Virginia, Sheriff’s Office on Thursday with supporters, waving flags and calling for their charges to be dropped. An hour away in Newport News, Virginia, heavily armed men—some associated with the right-wing “Boogaloo” movement—also gathered outside a police station to protest a misdemeanor trespassing charge against […]
As the University of Miami campus filled up again for an uncertain new school year last month, a group of students, faculty, and on-campus workers acted out a grim warning. On Sept. 4, demonstrators lay on the ground as if dead, some of them holding tombstones, while a Birkenstock-clad person in a grim reaper costume patrolled the scene. The protesters were targeting what they said were […]
A Madison Heights, Michigan, man killed by FBI agents during a still-murky standoff over a weapons warrant. Thirteen other Michigan and Delaware men arrested in state and federal busts over alleged plots to take over the state government. A Maryland man busted on federal weapons charges. A Virginia man arrested for allegedly violating a local open-carry law. At least four state and federal busts—and, in one […]
The truck-revving, banner-waving, loudspeaker-blaring pro-Trump rally took place, conveniently, on Sept. 19, the first Saturday of early voting in the swing state of Virginia, in a parking lot where voters in Democratic-leaning Fairfax County were lined up to cast their ballots. Some Trump supporters drove circles around the voters while others—many without face masks—mingled with the line, chanting and waving flags. “We had a couple poll […]
Four people are dead. One criminal trial is pending, while a second will never take place. And amid all that death and uncertainty, the two shooters at the heart of the incidents are enjoying spectacular martyr status on the right. Jake Gardner, an Omaha, Nebraska, bar owner, who shot and killed a Black man during local Black Lives Matter protests in May, died of suicide this […]
Downplay the white supremacist threat. Hype up rhetoric about anti-fascists and other “left-wing” groups stoking violence. That’s what the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership ordered one of its top intelligence officials to do, according to a complaint from that staffer, Brian Murphy, released Tuesday. In a filing with the Department’s Inspector General, Murphy, until recently a top official in the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, […]
One hundred days into sometimes chaotic protests over police brutality, with federal agents throwing protesters into unmarked vans and recent political clashes between demonstrators leading to two deaths, even some of Portland, Oregon’s more extreme actors think things are getting out of hand. Now they could get even worse. Portland, a longtime hotbed for political clashes, veered into its latest protest escalation last Saturday, when a […]
Maine’s biggest COVID-19 outbreak is linked to a wedding officiated by the pastor of a distancing-defying church who says masks are part of a “socialistic platform.” Now more than 144 COVID-19 patients have been linked to the event, and three people are dead. Todd Bell is pastor of the Calvary Baptist Church in Sanford, Maine. Famous for flying between ministries in multiple states on his private […]
Daniel Prude was naked when Rochester, New York, police ordered him onto the snowy ground in March. The only thing besides handcuffs that officers placed on his body before he went unconscious? A white mesh bag commonly known as a “spit hood.” Prude, 41, died of homicide asphyxiation on March 30, after a week in a coma. His demise began after he experienced an apparent mental […]
After two months of protests across from the State Capitol building in Nashville, Tennessee lawmakers voted for a tidy way to disperse their new neighbors: making it illegal to camp there. The law, which also targets protests on public property, makes convictions punishable by up to six years in prison—and even loss of voting rights. The Tennessee bill, passed by the state legislature last week, was […]
For nearly a month, Riot Ribs served barbecue, tacos, jalapeno poppers—whatever they had on hand—from a series of tents near the site of ongoing protests in Portland, Oregon. Then, on Tuesday, the food collective announced an abrupt closure. Someone was impersonating the group and swindling money, members said. Riot Ribs was among an emerging network of mutual aid groups aimed at distributing free food to protesters […]
Members of the so-called “men’s rights” movement want to get one thing straight: while a prominent member allegedly killed a judge’s son, seriously wounded her husband, and was implicated in the killing of another activist, it should not reflect badly on their community. In fact, the most deranged strand of the insular crowd’s alternately panicked and dismissive reaction to a bizarre internal beef spilling out into […]
Even in a time of record unemployment, some of Dan’s colleagues at an Indiana Walmart have walked off the job. They aren’t quitting over fears of catching COVID-19, he explained. They’re quitting because of customers who become abusive when asked to wear face masks. “A lot of our people have been verbally harassed to the point of breaking down and just quitting,” Dan, who like other […]
A Wilmington, North Carolina police officer who was fired for taking part in a violently racist conversation has filed an appeal, claiming his comments were protected religious speech. Wilmington Police officer James “Brian” Gilmore was one of three officers fired last month for taking part in recorded racist conversations. One of those conversations, for which Gilmore was not present, involved racist slurs and talk of massacring […]
Take a gander at any of the public social media groups for enthusiasts of Orlando, Florida’s Walt Disney World and you’ll find a common refrain: the theme park, which re-opened on Friday amid a COVID-19 catastrophe, has super-short lines for all its top roller coasters right now. Disney World closed in mid-March, when COVID-19 cases began sweeping the country. Then on Friday, the same day Florida […]
The leader of Florida’s biggest sham “church” network peddling bleach as a miracle drug says he’s camped out in Colombia while his sons face arrest for allegedly selling a fake COVID-19 cure and threatening a judge with a “Waco”-style standoff. For years, the Genesis II Church of Health and Healing has been at the center of a lucrative, world-wide network that claims—falsely—that drinking glorified Clorox can […]
Facebook had the chance to curb voter suppression targeting Black Americans ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Instead, it stumbled on that and other civil liberties issues, according to a new independent civil rights audit released on Wednesday. The audit, commissioned by Facebook and conducted over two years by civil rights experts and lawyers, comes as Facebook faces public ire for racism and disinformation on the […]
When one of Bloomington, Indiana’s most prominent Black activists filmed a harrowing encounter by men who allegedly threatened to hang him, locals held a protest in his defense. But that same Monday night, the protest was met with a car plowing through demonstrators. Bloomington, like many American cities, is undergoing a public reckoning over racism. One Bloomington incident made national news this week, after activist Vauhxx […]
Dozens of residents of a St. Louis neighborhood have signed a letter condemning the actions of the couple who brandished guns at Black Lives Matter marchers on Sunday. Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a pair of personal injury attorneys, made headlines this week after they were filmed waving weapons at Black Lives Matter activists who walked in their gated neighborhood en route to a protest at the […]
After a week of lusting for conflict in a six-block activist zone in Seattle, far-right figures went and made their own trouble. Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone—or CHAZ, although some newer stylings refer to it as the Capitol Hill Organized Protest, or CHOP—is a small protest area that emerged last week, after police vacated a nearby precinct and city leaders agreed to leave the streets open […]
President Donald Trump says Seattle’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, a largely police-free community space fashioned amid protests, is run by “domestic terrorists.” Seattle’s police department made (and walked back) a claim about anarchists “extorting” businesses in the area. But actual businesses around the zone say they’re watching Ava DuVernay films, handing out granola bars, and having a nice time. Following several nights of showdowns between police […]
One week before the Minnesota National Guard was deployed to racial justice protests in Minneapolis, the organization released a statement about two members who’d made racist statements in a Snapchat video. “You’ll learn the military is racist as shit, so get used to it now you fucking piece of shit,” one of the guards-members said in the clip. The remark did not appear to be issued […]
The people behind Advanced Placement (AP) tests would like to make one thing very clear: they are not secretly posing as a teenage Redditor named “Dinosauce313” in a plot to catch kids cheating on their exams. The high-pressure tests, which help decide who gets into America’s elite colleges, are not being used for entrapment-style stings. But as the APs—like every other aspect of schooling—move online amid […]
A Queens, New York, man accused of threatening mass shootings and buying illegal weapons was also a prolific internet troll targeting Jews and people of color online. Joseph Miner was arrested Tuesday along with another man, Daniel Jou, after allegedly trying to buy assault-style weapons with the serial numbers removed from an undercover agent at an airport hotel. Miner allegedly used Instagram to post about “martyring” […]
Morningside USA was supposed to be apocalypse-proof. A gated, stucco fortress in the southwest corner of Missouri’s Ozark mountains, Morningside is an evangelical Christian community built to rent condos right through the end of the world. “Where are you going to go when the world’s on fire? Where are you going to go? This place is for God’s people and this place, we need some farmers […]