The Shooting Gallery: Police Violence MEGATHREAD

[Syt]

https://www.startribune.com/charges-boogaloo-bois-fired-on-mpls-precinct-shouted-justice-for-floyd/572843802/

Texas member of Boogaloo Bois charged with opening fire on Minneapolis police precinct during protests over George Floyd

Feds say Texas adherent of far-right group fired on precinct building, conspired with cop killer to ignite civil war.

In the wake of protests following the May 25 killing of George Floyd, a member of the Boogaloo Bois opened fire on the Minneapolis Police Third Precinct with an AK-47-style gun and screamed "Justice for Floyd" as he ran away, according to a federal complaint made public Friday.

A sworn affidavit by the FBI underlying the complaint reveals new details about a far-right anti-government group's coordinated role in the violence that roiled through civil unrest over Floyd's death while in police custody.

Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old from Boerne, Texas, is charged with one count of interstate travel to incite a riot for his alleged role in ramping up violence during the protests in Minneapolis on May 27 and 28. According to charges, Hunter, wearing a skull mask and tactical gear, shot 13 rounds at the south Minneapolis police headquarters while people were inside. He also looted and helped set the building ablaze, according to the complaint, which was filed Monday under seal.

Unrest flared throughout Minneapolis following Floyd's death, which was captured on a bystander's cellphone video, causing Gov. Tim Walz to activate the Minnesota National Guard. As police clashed with protesters, Hunter and other members of the Boogaloo Bois discussed in private Facebook messages their plans to travel to Minneapolis and rally at the Cub Foods near the Third Precinct building, according to federal court documents. One of the people Hunter coordinated with posted publicly to social media: "Lock and load boys. Boog flags are in the air, and the national network is going off," the complaint states.

Two hours after the police precinct was set on fire, Hunter texted with another Boogaloo member in California, a man named Steven Carrillo.

"Go for police buildings," Hunter told Carrillo, according to charging documents.

"I did better lol," Carrillo replied. A few hours earlier, Carrillo had killed a Federal Protective Services officer in Oakland, Calif., according to criminal charges filed against him in California.

On June 1, Hunter asked Carrillo for money, explaining he needed to "be in the woods for a bit," and Carrillo sent him $200 via a cash app.

Five days later, Carrillo shot and killed a sheriff's deputy in Santa Cruz when authorities tried to arrest him, according to charges filed in California. Authorities say he then stole a car and wrote "Boog" on the hood "in what appeared to be his own blood."

A couple of days later, during police protests in Austin, Texas, police pulled over a truck after seeing three men in tactical gear and carrying guns drive away in it. Hunter, in the front passenger seat, wore six loaded banana magazines for an AK-47-style assault rifle on his tactical vest, according federal authorities. The two other men had AR-15 magazines affixed to their vests. The officers found an AK-47-style rifle and two AR-15 rifles on the rear seat of the vehicle, a pistol next to the driver's seat and another pistol in the center console.

Hunter denied he owned any of the weapons found in the vehicle. He did, according to the complaint, volunteer that he was the leader of the Boogaloo Bois in South Texas and that he was present in Minneapolis when the Third Precinct was set on fire. Police seized the guns and let Hunter and the others go.

Hunter had bragged about his role in the Minneapolis riots on Facebook, publicly proclaiming, "I helped the community burn down that police station" and "I didn't' [sic] protest peacefully Dude ... Want something to change? Start risking felonies for what is good."

"The BLM protesters in Minneapolis loved me [sic] fireteam and I," he wrote on June 11. According to the complaint, "fire team" is a reference to a group he started with Carrillo "that responds with violence if the police try to take their guns away."

"Hunter also referred to himself as a 'terrorist,' " the complaint states.

A confidential informant told police that Hunter planned to "go down shooting" if authorities closed in. He didn't. They arrested him without incident in San Antonio, Texas, this week, and he made his first court appearance Thursday.

Hunter is the third member of the Boogaloo Bois, a loose-knit group intent on igniting a second American civil war, to be charged in Minneapolis as a result of the unrest that followed Floyd's death.

Michael Robert Solomon and Benjamin Ryan Teeter were indicted in September with conspiracy to provide material support to Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

[Josquius]

Does that go here? Isn't this the school shooting thread? Sounds more like the acts of terror thread material.

[Eddie Teach]

Amazing that people will leave an electronic record of their conspiracy.

[Maladict]

PHILADELPHIA — Police shot and killed a 27-year-old Black man on a Philadelphia street Monday afternoon after yelling at him to drop his knife.

The shooting occurred before 4 p.m. as officers responded to a report of a person with a weapon, police spokesperson Tanya Little said.

Officers were called to the Cobbs Creek neighborhood and encountered the man, later identified as Walter Wallace, who was holding a knife, Ms. Little said.

Officers ordered Mr. Wallace to drop the knife, but he instead "advanced towards" them. Both officers then fired "several times," Ms. Little said.

Mr. Wallace was hit in the shoulder and chest. One of the officers then put him in a police vehicle and drove him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later, Ms. Little said.

Video of the fatal confrontation, recorded by a bystander and posted on social media, shows officers pointing their guns at Mr. Wallace as he walks in the street and around a car. He walks toward the officers as they back away from him in the street, guns still aimed at him. They yell at him to put his knife down.

Both then fire several shots, and Mr. Wallace collapses in the street. A woman runs up to him, screaming; several bystanders then approach him.

It is unclear in the video if he had a knife. Witnesses said he was holding one.

No officers or bystanders were injured, Ms. Little said. The names of the officers who fired the shots were not immediately disclosed. Both were wearing body cameras and were taken of street duty pending the investigation.

A large crowd gathered where the man was killed, with video showing many yelling at the police officers and crying. Some people later spoke with city police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who arrived at the scene a short time after the shooting occurred. The crowd had mostly dispersed about two hours later.

"I heard and felt the anger of the community," Commissioner Outlaw said in a statement, adding that the video "raises many questions" and that "those questions will be fully addressed by the investigation."

Mr. Wallace's father, Walter Wallace Sr., told The Philadelphia Inquirer that his son was also a father, was on medication and struggled with mental health issues.

"Why didn't they use a Taser?" he asked.

The races of the police officers weren't immediately confirmed. The shooting occurred in a predominantly Black neighborhood in West Philadelphia.

The Inquirer reported that dozens of protesters gathered at a nearby park and chanted "Black lives matter."

[grumbler]

PHILADELPHIA — Police shot and killed a 27-year-old Black man on a Philadelphia street Monday afternoon after yelling at him to drop his knife.

The shooting occurred before 4 p.m. as officers responded to a report of a person with a weapon, police spokesperson Tanya Little said.

Officers were called to the Cobbs Creek neighborhood and encountered the man, later identified as Walter Wallace, who was holding a knife, Ms. Little said.

Officers ordered Mr. Wallace to drop the knife, but he instead "advanced towards" them. Both officers then fired "several times," Ms. Little said.

Mr. Wallace was hit in the shoulder and chest. One of the officers then put him in a police vehicle and drove him to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later, Ms. Little said.

Video of the fatal confrontation, recorded by a bystander and posted on social media, shows officers pointing their guns at Mr. Wallace as he walks in the street and around a car. He walks toward the officers as they back away from him in the street, guns still aimed at him. They yell at him to put his knife down.

Both then fire several shots, and Mr. Wallace collapses in the street. A woman runs up to him, screaming; several bystanders then approach him.

It is unclear in the video if he had a knife. Witnesses said he was holding one.

No officers or bystanders were injured, Ms. Little said. The names of the officers who fired the shots were not immediately disclosed. Both were wearing body cameras and were taken of street duty pending the investigation.

A large crowd gathered where the man was killed, with video showing many yelling at the police officers and crying. Some people later spoke with city police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, who arrived at the scene a short time after the shooting occurred. The crowd had mostly dispersed about two hours later.

"I heard and felt the anger of the community," Commissioner Outlaw said in a statement, adding that the video "raises many questions" and that "those questions will be fully addressed by the investigation."

Mr. Wallace's father, Walter Wallace Sr., told The Philadelphia Inquirer that his son was also a father, was on medication and struggled with mental health issues.

"Why didn't they use a Taser?" he asked.

The races of the police officers weren't immediately confirmed. The shooting occurred in a predominantly Black neighborhood in West Philadelphia.

The Inquirer reported that dozens of protesters gathered at a nearby park and chanted "Black lives matter."

This one doesn't seem very contentious (other than that the officers did not use - or maybe even have - a taser).  It smells a lot like suicide by cop.

[DGuller]

I wish people were a little selective with protests of police brutality.  Sometimes police shootings are justified.  When you protest indiscriminately, you lose power to affect change, because your response has no correlation with the actions you're trying to influence.

[Barrister]

I remember when people used to criticize tasers as being cruel.  But they are indeed a less lethal form of force.

Not an expert in Philadelphia PD, but in my experience only a handful of officers carry a taser on them.

[DGuller]

I remember when people used to criticize tasers as being cruel.  But they are indeed a less lethal form of force.

Not an expert in Philadelphia PD, but in my experience only a handful of officers carry a taser on them.

Is taser even appropriate to deal with someone armed with a knife?  You can go from zero to someone's throat in one second flat with a knife, it's not a toy.  I'm under impression that taser is more for situations where the suspect is unarmed, but resisting so much that subduing them would require administering a severe beatdown by multiple officers.

[Barrister]

I remember when people used to criticize tasers as being cruel.  But they are indeed a less lethal form of force.

Not an expert in Philadelphia PD, but in my experience only a handful of officers carry a taser on them.

Is taser even appropriate to deal with someone armed with a knife?  You can go from zero to someone's throat in one second flat with a knife, it's not a toy.  I'm under impression that taser is more for situations where the suspect is unarmed, but resisting so much that subduing them would require administering a severe beatdown by multiple officers.

From the RCMP, but captures the general principles.

Even if lethal force could have been justified, police can also rely on intermediate weapons as well.  There's no hard binary options.  For example tactical re-positioning (e.g. backing up) remains an option throughout.

[The Brain]

I don't know what "advanced towards" means in this case. There's a big difference between someone walking towards you with a knife and someone charging you with a knife.

[The Brain]

FWIW my impression from the little info in the article is that it's a situation where Swedish cops would have shot him in the leg.

[Barrister]

I don't know what "advanced towards" means in this case. There's a big difference between someone walking towards you with a knife and someone charging you with a knife.

Not a lot.  In both cases the subject is not following directions and getting closer to the officer.

FWIW my impression from the little info in the article is that it's a situation where Swedish cops would have shot him in the leg.

Okay Marti.

[The Brain]

I don't know what "advanced towards" means in this case. There's a big difference between someone walking towards you with a knife and someone charging you with a knife.

Not a lot.  In both cases the subject is not following directions and getting closer to the officer.

FWIW my impression from the little info in the article is that it's a situation where Swedish cops would have shot him in the leg.

Okay Marti.

In Sweden there's a difference between cops being in direct danger and cops not being in direct danger. Not following police orders isn't an automatic death sentence in Sweden.

[DGuller]

FWIW my impression from the little info in the article is that it's a situation where Swedish cops would have shot him in the leg.

There is no concept of shooting in the leg in the US.  Shooting someone in the leg is still dangerous and can kill them, the only safe option is to shoot at the center of mass, or head if at point blank range.

[crazy canuck]

FWIW my impression from the little info in the article is that it's a situation where Swedish cops would have shot him in the leg.

Wait, Swedish police shoot for the leg?