'Boogaloo Boi' who impersonated Black Lives Matter supporter and shot up police station pleads guilty
Ivan Harrison Hunter, 24, a member of an extremist group that seeks to spark a civil war, pleaded guilty to a single count of rioting this Thursday, Minnesota Public Radio reports.
Prosecutors contend that Hunter travelled from Texas to Minneapolis to sow chaos after George Floyd was killed by police.
Hunter admitted that he fired 13 rounds from an assault rifle into the 3rd precinct police station on May 28, 2020, as other rioters looted and set fire to the building after police evacuated. No one was hurt by the gunfire.
As the Daily Beast notes, Hunter posed as a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement and was caught on security footage yelling, "Justice for Floyd!" after opening fire on the building.
"Prosecutors say Hunter came to Minneapolis in the days following Floyd's murder after corresponding on Facebook with Michael Solomon of New Brighton, Minn., and Benjamin Teeter of Hampstead, N.C. The men had been part of the 'Boogaloo Bois,' a group that exploits tensions to further violence," MPR reports. "According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the group presents itself as libertarian and race-blind and calls for armed insurrection against what they see as government tyranny. But the [Southern Poverty Law Center] says the Boogaloo Bois' origins are violently racist. The group emerged online early in the last decade, and 'boogaloo' was associated with a call for a race war. The term is often used by white nationalists and those seeking to generate chaos."
If convicted, Hunter faces a maximum prison term of five years.