A Texas man pleaded guilty on Sept. 30 to a federal riot charge, and admitted he traveled to Minneapolis after George Floyd died to sow mayhem.
Ivan Harrison Hunter, 24, admitted he traveled from the San Antonio area to Minneapolis after Floyd’s death and fired 13 shots from an AK-47 style semiautomatic rifle into the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct building on May 28, 2020.
Protesters gathered outside of the building in the days after Floyd’s May 25 death. On the night of May 28, protesters threw rocks at the windows of the precinct, and it was set ablaze.
Footage taken that night shows Hunter, in a skull mask, give someone a high-five after firing the shots and yell, “Justice for Floyd!”
Looters were thought to be inside the building at the time; no one was injured by gunfire, according to a release from the Department of Justice.
Ivan is a self-proclaimed member of the Boogaloo Bois, a far-right, anti-government extremist group. Members of the movement appeared at Black Lives Matter protests across the country in 2020, carrying weapons and wearing Hawaiian shirts and tactical gear.
Boogaloers believe a second civil war, known as the “boogaloo” is imminent, and will result in the overthrow of what they believe to be a corrupt political system.
The Boogaloo Bois are known to exploit tensions and sow chaos in pursuit of further violence. The term “boogaloo” has in some cases been used as an outright call for a race war, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Federal agents identified Hunter as the shooter after spotting him wearing the same skull mask in a Facebook photo. After the protest, Hunter bragged on social media about his actions, saying he’d “helped the community burn down that police station in Minneapolis.”
Hunter was the third Boogaloo Boi to be charged in connection with the Minneapolis protests.
He communicated with other members of the group via Facebook after Floyd’s death, writing that he was going to Minneapolis and was “72 hours out,” after a Minnesota-based member posted that he needed a “headcount.”
An informant also told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Hunter had admitted to shooting at the building and helping to set it on fire. He was charged with participating in the riot in October 2020 and faces a maximum of five years in prison.
