The far-right militia group connected to the killing two law enforcement officers last year had far more elaborate plans to kill many more officers. And, unsurprisingly, we learn of child enticement charges against the very people who claim a cabal of pedophiles is running the government.
It was one year ago yesterday, at the height of the George Floyd demonstrations, that Santa Cruz Sheriff's Sergeant Damon Gutzwiller was shot and killed in an ambush, and police later arrested Boogaloo-affiliated Air Force veteran Steven Carillo for the attack. The white van used in that attack was linked to the previous week’s killing of federal security officer David Underwood, an operation meant to leave antifa protesters blamed for the murder, a lie that worked to the degree that then-vice President Mike Pence repeated it at last August’s Republican National Convention.
But today we learn that the “blame antifa” strategy was far further reaching, and with much deadlier aspirations. The Santa Cruz Sentinel just uncovered court documents alleging that Carillo was part of a Boogaloo-affiliated militia group that had elaborate plans for “war” on law enforcement and schemes to make it look like antifa did it.
4 men who were part of a local group affiliated with the 'Boogaloo' movement were indicted Fri in federal court for allegedly destroying evidence connected to indicted murder suspect Steven Carrillo. https://t.co/oYSMOArT6Z
— SFist (@SFist) April 12, 2021
This “new” news is actually news from April that was not reported at the time. In court filings on four more associates connected to the scheme, federal prosecutors argued that the group were not technically Boogaloos — the right-wingers who don Hawaiian shirts and hope for a second Civil War — but a Boogaloo subset who called themselves the Grizzly Scouts, and they hoped to blend in as antifa.
The filings point to a document that the Grizzly Scouts called “Operations Order,” wherein this mini-militia referred to law enforcement officers as “enemy forces.” The feds allege that the group intended to capture police as “POWs,” and that once cops were captured, “POWs will be searched for intel and gear, interrogated, stripped naked, blindfolded, driven away and released into the wilderness blindfolded with hands bound.”
Before Steven Carrillo killed officers in Oakland and Santa Cruz, members of his Boogaloo group discussed taking officers prisoner. But when an OPD officer was wearing a Hawaiian shirt on duty, the chief said he didn't even know the association. https://t.co/rFuIptViBp
— Scott Morris (@OakMorr) June 6, 2021
The boys were also hoping that their hero-messiah Donald Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act, which to them would set off all manner of other opportunity for mayhem. “[T]hat ^^^ will be our sign,” co-defendant Jesse Rush allegedly texted the group. “That effectively means the federal gov has declared war on things they’re afraid of.”
California Boogaloo boys wanted to murder cops and frame up Antifa. During the first night of the George Floyd uprising in Oakland, Steven Carrillo murdered a cop and this was his likely motivation. https://t.co/J2i5A8sQR2 pic.twitter.com/mwKIKegHwi
— Follow #BlocktheBoat (@lesuperburp) June 6, 2021
Other texts detail the plan to appear as Antifa when committing acts of violence. “It’s the tactically sound option,” co-defendant Robert Blancas texted to the group, according to prosecutors. “Them fucking each other up only helps us.”
But the coup de grâce here (no pun intended) is that despite the consistent wingnut-QAnon-Proud Boy claim that key Democratic leaders are involved in some secretive pedophile cabal, the real sexual exploitation of minors is coming from within the conservatives' house. As the Sentinel reports, the above-mentioned Blancas was not eligible for bail because he “also faces a child enticement charge related to alleged sexual conversations with a teen girl that were discovered during the investigation.”
Image: RICHMOND, VIRGINIA - JANUARY 18: Members of the "boogaloo boys" join other gun rights advocates in front of the State House as pro-gun supporters gather on January 18, 2021 in Richmond, Virginia. The event, which is taking place on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, is also known in Richmond as Lobby Day for the tradition of Virginia citizens coming to the capital to petition legislators at the start of the General Assembly session. This year’s event is taking place in the tense atmosphere following the storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)