On Monday night, as I noted yesterday, someone (or more than one someone) shot five Black Lives Matter protesters in Minneapolis. Witnesses to the shooting and others who have been following the protest say that the shots came from a small group of white supremacists who had been hanging around the protest for days. .
We still don’t know who pulled the trigger, but it is growing increasingly clear that most if not all of the small squad of racists at the protest were 4channers associated with the /pol/ and /k/ boards, the first a politics board overrun with racists and conspiracy theories and the second a hangout for weapons enthusiasts.
But a lot has happened since my last post, so here’s a roundup of some of the more significant developments.
The police are holding four men — all white, and all in their twenties — allegedly involved in the shooting.
According to local newspaper, police have arrested 23-year-old Lawrence “Lance” Scarsella III, who is one of the two masked men shown driving to the protests in this video last week. (Here’s what appears to be a video of the arrest.)
Ironically, Black Powder Ranger, as Scarsella is apparently known online, was not the one brandishing the gun. BLM activists say that SaigaMarine, the gun-toting racist driving the car and spouting racist epithets, was the somewhat older Hispanic man arrested and released yesterday because he evidently had an alibi for the night of the shooting.
Two other men — identified as Daniel Thomas Macey and Nathan Gustavsson — turned themselves in to police yesterday. Newsweek reports that the police are also questioning a fourth man, Joseph Backman.
While we still don’t know the details of the shooting, someone — apparently one of the 4chan gang — sent a video to a local radio station that appears to show what happened in the minutes immediately before the shooting, in which a group of BLM protesters confronted the 4channers filming their protest. Unfortunately, the video has no sound
Videos of the racist gang at the protest — there are several making the rounds on YouTube — make it abundantly clear that they are either 4channers or others intimately familiar with 4chan lingo. One of the gang even sports a /k/ patch on his jacket.
Much of their conversation consists of little more than repitition of 4chan memes and coded language (e.g. “cultural enrichment”) that they apparently thought would conceal their racism from the Black Lives Matter crowd. No such luck for them: BLM activists figured out relatively quickly that the small group of masked men talking amongst themselves as they not-so-secretly filmed the crowd were up to no good.
Here’s one of the videos of them at the demonstration:
While the racist gang at the protests is clearly connected to 4chan, it’s not clear if any of its members are connected to broader hate movements or subcultures, from GamerGate to the militia movement.
But they are certainly steeped in racism and in America’s gun culture. Digging through the limited information on the internet about the 4chan contingent at the protests, Raw Story notes that they seem to share “a fascination with guns, video games, the Confederacy and right-wing militia groups.”
The cover photo on Scarcella’s Facebook page, for example, shows what’s known as the Bonnie Blue Confederate flag. One of his Facebook likes is OAF Nation, a veterans’ group so right-wing that it has attacked other veterans’ groups for distributing what it called ” f*ggoty ass yard signs” asking those lighting fireworks to not do so near the homes of veterans with PTSD.
Gustavsson, one of the men who turned himself in, brandishes a rifle in his Facebook profile picture as well.
SaigaMarine — apparently the man arrested and released — also posed for his Facebook profile “armed and donning full military gear, the StarTribune reports. “He describes his occupation simply as ‘Saving the Constitution.'”
I will post more when I know more.
Please email me, or post in the comments below, if you see something.
This is precisely how Westboro operate. Make the target angry. Get punched. Sue them.
The problem with legal and illegal is: it’s indistinguishable from “He hit me first.” It’s impossible to prevent it except by having witnesses dispute claims.
It bothers me that people think they can just demand a law without a solid framework to support it. There are legitimate self-defense scenarios and we cannot undermine those simply because someone figured out a way to take advantage.
Also here’s the problem and Westboro lawsuits prove it: the antagonist wins as long as they don’t initiate violence. There’s no abstract collective law or framework in that vein. The law is incident based. No matter how much someone agitates another person, they have a right to life. The law is based on the imminent threat of the moment.
Even if someone told you that in two weeks at exactly 12:00pm, they would kill you, you would have no right under the law to strike first.
There. Is. No. Way. To. Construct. A. Law. Never. Mind. A. Case. Against. This.
Deal with it. Adapt.
Is there no accountability for WHOM was shot, then? If person X punched you, it’s a-okay to just turn around and shoot whoever the fuck you can shoot because you’re “scared”?
What about reasonable vs. unreasonable escalation?
In America? Yes, generally. It also has nothing much to do with Stand Your Ground. Stand Your Ground is about what you do once you determine that you are in danger — are you required to try to escape or can you straight to shooting. This is more a discussion about what constitutes a legitimate threat.
“Spike Lee’s adapting Aristophanes? I might have to watch that, and I don’t think I’ve seen a Spike Lee film in my life.”
Malcolm X was his best work. Denzel Washingon totally channelled Malcolm in that film. Great movie.
“Have 4chan trolls always been racist blowhards? Or were 4chan and other boards were originally places where “harmless” (relatively) trolls hung out, but was eventually co-opted by right wing groups?”
From what I heard, no. But this is exactly what I’m talking about. Things I’ve never heard or conceived of in my life are are found profusely on the….
internet. 4Channers may have previously never been exposed to this level of hate and bigotry but tre internetzzz is providing a perfect medium for haters to infiltrate *virtually* everything.
And I would think that BLM would be a group the “anti-gubmint, I save the Constitution between dead-end jobs” types would want to work WITH. BLM is addressing police (gubmint) brutality and corruption. HELLO?!?!?!
“Close. I think it had to do with Obama being elected.”
When did Fox News become a thing? Growing up I never remember News outlets talking about race so much.
“They turned themselves in, and a lot of us here in Minneapolis are wondering if that means they have some connection to the police.”
– WHY did they turn themselves in? This is very strange.
“God knows police are being lying, fascist assholes at every opportunity. Earlier this week, they posted to their FB wall an image of supposed “molotov cocktails” they’d found outside. It was a few dirty bottles and jars with uncut clothing stuck in them, one such being an entire shirt. It was so obviously faked: one “cocktail” was a dirty Ortega salsa bottle with the cap SITTING RIGHT GODDAMN THERE NEXT TO IT IN THE PHOTO.”
– The police posted that on their FB or who? Police are fabricating “evidence”?
OK everyone’s probably eating a tortured dead bird so no responses. Meanwhile I’m eating this…
&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fpinterest.com%2Fpin%2F373517362815042803%2F&size=115.8KB&name=%3Cb%3Evada%3C%2Fb%3E+sambar+%2C+coconut+%3Cb%3Echutney%3C%2Fb%3E+|+Indian+food+|+Pinterest&p=vada+chutney&oid=2b04dd7dd9ee5d976ab9be7d7230a51f&fr2=piv-web&fr=yhs-mozilla-004&tt=%3Cb%3Evada%3C%2Fb%3E+sambar+%2C+coconut+%3Cb%3Echutney%3C%2Fb%3E+|+Indian+food+|+Pinterest&b=0&ni=21&no=1&ts=&tab=organic&sigr=11c0t862i&sigb=14661mn68&sigi=12dslbmq5&sigt=125qvr9rj&sign=125qvr9rj&.crumb=cQKohmRGCXt&fr=yhs-mozilla-004&fr2=piv-web&hsimp=yhs-004&hspart=mozilla
VOT – yes, police posted an obviously faked image of Molotov cocktails to their own FB page. It’s not falsified evidence, because an unlit collection of clothes, bottles and lighter fluid is not a crime. But it is a lie.
They were sneaky with the wording, too: they wrote, “These items were recovered from the protest site. They are filled with gasoline for Molotov cocktails.” That’s not ACTUALLY claiming that the protestors assembled them that way, just letting people assume it.
You can still see the images on the MPD FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/MinneapolisPoliceDepartment/
Isn’t there some standard with regards to proportional response? And escalation? I would think that the law would be against having a person whip out a gun and shoot someone who punched them.
Stand your ground is not relevant here. Minnesota is not a stand your ground state. Also, a couple of years ago a man here set a trap for a couple of teenagers who had been breaking into his house and shot and killed one of them. He was charged and convicted with murder. In MN, you have to be in imminent danger from somebody to be allowed to commit violence in self defense. In Minnesota, there is a duty to retreat. Force has to be a last resort.
As LG said, we also don’t know if the five people shot were chasing or threatening the shooters in any way. If a couple of the protestors were chasing them, they don’t get to act in self defense against the entire group of protestors. The fact that anyone was arrested at all makes me think the facts – many of which are still unknown – mean the shooters’ self defense case will be fairly weak. The cops here are assholes and they acted as such the night of the shooting. They weren’t about to arrest those guys if it weren’t necessary.
Just to give people an idea of how shitty the cops are here, they leaked a picture of her with an ex con who is reformed and now a community activist to the right wing media in order to make it seem like she was involved in gang activity. They did this in retaliation because when she took office, she started talking about reforming the police department, which has had a couple scandals and has faced scrutiny from the ACLU for overwhelmingly arresting black people for drug possession even though white people are just as likely to possess drugs.
Catalpa – that’s the thing, though: they didn’t shoot “the person who punched them,” they shot FIVE PEOPLE. There is no reasonable standard of self-defense that should cover doing that in response to a punch! Especially because we only know of MAYBE one of the two shooters getting punched.
If Alan is going to argue that it’s defensible to shoot five people because your buddy got punches by one, he’s going to get nothing but the biggest eyeroll imaginable from me.
My last paragraph is about the mayor of Minneapolis. I don’t know I managed to not mention that.
Minneapolis has a reformed-convict female mayor? Good on the burghers of Minneapolis.
“it’s not clear if any of its members are connected to broader hate movements or subcultures, from GamerGate to the militia movement.”
“David, you are coming dangerously close to making allegations that you really don’t want to make. If you have some reason to believe that GG is involved, you’d damn well better state it.”
I’m sorry, but this statement doesn’t come anywhere near making any allegations about anything. Take a few deep breaths.
EJ – no, our mayor just met with one.
The shooters likely could raise the points Alan brought up and a jury would need to decide whether they acted in self defense. But the duty to flee in Minnesota should complicate that. Also if the prosecution presents evidence of a conspiracy to “prove” the BLM protesters are violent.
It’s a really common right-wing counter-protest tactic to try to provoke violent behavior from protesters.
Here’s a story about Betsy Hodges and the “gang sign.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/minneapolis-mayor-betsy-hodges-responds-pointergate
Hopefully that clears up the confusion I caused by trying to post just after I woke up 😀
What the fuck? I hit post and my comment just disappeared!
Trying again. Here’s a story about how mayor Hodges supposedly posed with a criminal and “flashed a gang sign”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/minneapolis-mayor-betsy-hodges-responds-pointergate
Yeah, the cops here are the worst.
And now it’s in there twice. Why WordPress? Why?
Or … what? Or else what? What are you coming dangerously close to threatening will be the consequences if David doesn’t act in a way that personally satisfies you?
Nazis and other white supremacists realized they could blend in with the “ironic” racism on 4chan and use 4chan as a recruiting platform. They eventually completely took over boards like /pol/.
The increase in membership in racist groups since 2008 is probably a mix of Obama’s getting elected and the economic crisis (so it’s easier to blame Obama if you can’t pay your mortgage when you think you did everything right, and then white supremacists tell you you’re entitled to economic prosperity and you actually were doing everything right).
I’m not so sure that Obama’s skin colour is that much of a factor – the hard Right has also been on the rise in Europe, Russia, Israel and Australia; and similar groups are rising in the Islamic world and in India.
Personally I ascribe it to a backlash against the democraticising power of the internet. Culture no longer belongs to the local patriarchy; cultural narratives are shifting away from parochialism; and this scares people into a frenzied drive to “preserve their culture” at all costs.