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A leader in the insurgent Boogaloo movement is facing charges for firing 13 rounds from an AK-47-style rifle into a Minneapolis police building during the riots that swept the city in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
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Police arrested 26-year-old Ivan Harrison Hunter, of Boerne, Texas, on Thursday for allegedly opening fire on the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct building on May 28 after it had been stormed and set on fire by protesters. According to federal prosecutors, people were still in the building when Hunter started shooting at it. He claimed to be the leader of the South Texas Boogaloo Bois, part of a national network of anti-government extremists who fantasize about a violent uprising or civil war.
Hunter is facing a rioting charge, which carries fines, imprisonment up to five years, or both.
Feds were monitoring Hunter’s social media when he returned to Texas from Minneapolis. They also noted he was in communication with Michael Solomon, a Minneapolis resident and Boogaloo Boi who was recently hit with federal charges for attempting to sell weapons to Hamas alongside fellow Boogaloo Boi Ryan Teeter, of North Carolina.
On June 3, Hunter was in Austin allegedly leaving a protest over Floyd’s death in a pickup truck with two other men when police pulled him over for driving infractions. Officers found six loaded magazines for an AK-47 affixed to a tactical vest Hunter was wearing, an AK-47-style rifle, three additional semi-automatic rifles in the backseat, and two loaded pistols elsewhere in the vehicle.
During that interaction with police, Hunter volunteered that he was the leader of the Boogaloo Bois in South Texas but denied owning any of the weapons, according to prosecutors. The weapons were confiscated, along with the ammunition and weed that was also in the car, and Hunter and two men in the car were released from the scene.
A few days after that traffic stop, federal agents learned that Hunter had been in communication with Steven Carrillo, an Air Force staff sergeant who is facing charges for a deadly ambush attack on federal security officers during protests in Oakland, California, on May 29. Carrillo was arrested a few days after that traffic stop, and during the arrest he shot and killed a sheriff’s deputy.
The Boogaloo movement is relatively new. The meme, which signifies a second civil war, transformed into a full-blown movement this year, with heavily armed adherents who began showing up to protests wearing Hawaiian shirts. Despite the movement’s short existence, its supporters have already been tied to a number of violent plots and actions.
In May, three men who’d met on Boogaloo Facebook pages, were arrested for allegedly plotting to throw explosives into a crowd of protesters and police in Las Vegas. Recently, a man with ties to the Boogaloo movement was killed during a shootout with the FBI in Detroit. And earlier this month, 13 men—many with ties to the Boogaloo movement and who promoted Boogaloo memes online—were arrested for allegedly plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
