Antifa, boogaloo, gangs cited in CPD protest report. Who were agitators?
Antifa, Boogaloo Boys, The New Black Panther Party, street gangs as well as a couple of President Donald Trump supporters were all at Columbia’s protests for racial justice in late May, according to a Columbia Police Department report released Dec. 2.
But only people belonging to two of those groups — the Boogaloo Boys and gangs — were arrested after the demonstrations turned violent.
The after-action report details the Columbia protests in late May against police killings of Black people and the department’s response to the protests. The demonstrations escalated into property damage, assaults, objects thrown at police and burned police vehicles.
During the protests, local police worried that members of Antifa, the Boogaloo movement, the New Black Panther Party and street gangs were “intent on promulgating chaos and promoting anti-government ideologies,” the report said.
During and after the protests, authorities said certain protesters were peaceful while others were intent on criminality and violence. City and county officials claimed outside agitators incited violence. The new report puts names and statistics to those claims.
An ‘extremist movement’
As police looked over the crowd on the second day of the protests on Sunday, May 31, the Hawaiian shirts disturbed them.
The men in the flowery tops were part of “less well-intentioned individuals and groups mingling in the crowd,” the report said. It labeled them as members of an “extremist movement.”
The Boogaloo movement, sometimes called Big Igloo or Big Luau, is a nascent, largely white and loosely organized right wing group. Adherents, often extremists, sometimes align with leftists over anti-government ideology, according to news reports. Because of the secondary Big Luau name, adherents wear Hawaiian shirts at rallies. They often carry semi-automatic rifles in public.
Alleged Boogaloo Boys are pictured wearing their distinct shirts in the police department’s report.
When Boogaloo Boys are first mentioned in the report, they and the New Black Panthers are said to be ”providing security to the protesters.”
Security by some Boogaloo Boys turned into objects thrown, police cars broken into and other offenses, according to police.
After the protests, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department arrested 22-year-old Kevin Ackley and 24-year-old Joshua Barnard. Sheriff Leon Lott said they were Boogaloo Boys, and the department released photos of belongings taken from their homes, which included Hawaiian shirts, a semi-automatic rife and other guns, as well as boxes of ammunition, tactical-styled vests and a hat that said “Boojahideens for liberty.”
Deputies charged Ackley with rioting and aggravated breach of peace for throwing a water bottle at police, the department said.
Barnard was charged with breaking into a motor vehicle, looting, larceny, aggravated breach of peace and instigating a riot, in part for taking a jacket out of a police vehicle that had been attacked, according to police.
The charges against the two are still pending.
‘A known gang member’
As police scanned the crowds on May 30 and 31, they also saw members of “known criminal street gangs operating within the local area,” the report said. At least one person arrested in the aftermath was a gang member, according to police.
On Saturday, May 30, as the peace broke and the crowd moved through the Vista, the manager of a business called employees while standing on the sidewalk, police said. Someone in the crowd said he was calling police and at least three men jumped the manager. One punched him in the head and another stomped on his head before others came to his protection, according to police.
About two weeks later, the Richland County Sheriff’s Department arrested a 16-year-old, who was not identified because he is a minor, and accused him of throwing the first punch.
Deputies charged him with assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, instigating a riot and aggravated breach of peace.
“The 16-year-old is one of dozens of agitators who hijacked the peaceful protests that took place earlier in the day,” deputies said in a separate report. “He is a known gang member.”
The red hat
On Saturday, May 30, a tense but peaceful protest escalated, with the crowd throwing water bottles and other objects at police and their headquarters.
Then the red hat showed up.
A white man wearing what the Columbia police believed to be a distinct “Make America Great Again” hat popular among supporters of President Donald Trump encountered a group of protesters near Washington Street, according to the report, which does not say whether he said anything to the protesters.
Some protesters pleaded with others not to react to the man, according to a reporter from The State who was at the scene. Some protesters said any violence directed at the man would feed a narrative of anti-protesters. But the appeals weren’t enough.
A large group of protesters assaulted the man. When police moved in, one officer was assaulted with items thrown at him, according to the report.
Another white man was with the person wearing the red hat and was video recording what happened.
A group followed after the man wearing the red hat as he walked away on Washington Street minutes after arriving. After someone tried to grab his hat, he ran, tripped and a group punched and kicked him, video showed. Police drove over with sirens on and the crowd dispersed from around the man.
Police did not arrest anyone in the assault, a department spokesperson said. The man with the red hat also ran away and did not file a victim’s report. The police department’s report assigns no blame to him.
But after that encounter, protesters began throwing more objects, including pieces of cement and bricks, at police, who blocked off the direction in which the man ran, video showed.
A piece of concrete hit an officer in the leg, chipping a bone, the report said. A brick hit WIS Reporter Miranda Parnell in the head, causing a gash. She had to leave the protest.
A Trump supporter is directly blamed later in the report for agitating protesters on Sunday, May 31.
At about 4:11 p.m. that day, as police were trying to break up the protest, officers called in that “a supporter of President Trump was antagonizing the crowd, and that a group of protesters were following the individual.” The report does not note how the situation ended.
Some white supremacists practice “acceleration,” according to experts on white supremacy.
“Accelerationism is the idea that white supremacists should try to increase civil disorder” and accelerate it, wrote Daniel L. Byman, a professor at Georgetown University who studies the Middle East and terrorism.
Some white supremacist organizing sites often call this kind of action “triggering,” or causing a reaction that will reflect poorly on a left leaning group.
‘Outside presence’
The after action report suggests an “outside presence” of people not from Columbia could be blamed for the escalation of the protests.
Of the 90 people arrested during and after the protests, 73 had Columbia addresses, according to the report. Twelve others lived in South Carolina and five were from out of state.
The report said 19% of the people arrested were not from the Columbia area. “This number appears to indicate the presence of elements intent on inciting normally peaceful protesters to riot and become violent.”
Some of those not from Columbia were from nearby places like Lexington and Orangeburg counties, police noted in arrest reports. Residents from those areas often come into the state’s capital for any number of reasons, but particularly during political events.
An Antifa plot?
Police confirmed that they found one person they believed identified with Antifa at the protests. He wasn’t accused of agitating the protesters. Rather, police say he spray painted a parking garage and destroyed surveillance cameras.
“Investigators believe he is a danger to the community, for he seems to identify with Antifa ideology,” Richland County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement issued in September.
In a photo the department released, the man wore a black bandanna, a black shirt and lace up boots, common attire for anti-fascist groups.
Deputies put out a call to help identify the man. He hasn’t been identified or arrested, police said.
As the weekend of protests and violence neared its end on May 31, police investigated what they believed might be an Antifa plot.
At about 4:30 p.m., the Columbia bomb squad reported that SC police agents were checking a vehicle in a Lincoln Street parking garage near police headquarters, according to the report. The vehicle “contained a lot of Antifa materials.”
“There was some concern that this vehicle might contain hazardous materials that had possibly been stored for later use by members of Antifa,” the report said.
After investigating, the “vehicle was determined to be safe,” the report said.