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.
Thanks for this post David. I’ve noticed that not much has been said about this shooting which I find alarming and horrific. How is it okay for any protesters to be shot at in the “land of the brave and home of the free”?
Everyone — and not just BLM supporters — should be denouncing the shootings and demanding that justice be done. I haven’t even heard whether the shooters have been charged with anything as yet.
Just read the other crappy devil’s advocacy in the Scott Adams forum, and it’s about five steps more ridiculous than this.
Alan, you really need to start putting up or shutting up. If you want us to believe that laws work the way you say they do, you need to CITE EXAMPLES. I don’t care if they’re anecdotal and from your own history or from elsewhere, if all you can do is say, “No, totally, that’s how it works in the US, I know ‘cuz I’m a barrister in England!” then I’m going to feel perfectly safe in continuing to consider what you’re saying to be puffball bullshit because you want attention just for showing up here.
You may be a barrister, but no one here is under any obligation to consider you a good one.
Alan,
I will say I was a bit surprised initially that you did offer an opinion, and such a strong one. Most attorneys I know are extremely cautious about commenting on matters outside the jurisdictions where they practice. I’m a bit surprised that an English attorney would claim expert knowledge of Minnesota criminal law.
@Alan
Look, Alan. I like you and I understand that lawyers live on a different planet to everybody else, but your behaviour over the past couple weeks has been fucking ridiculous.
1. Yes, you’re probably right that these assholes will get off – but it’s not because of the law. What the law says won’t even factor into the equation. It could be a child’s scribble of a platypus in a hat for all it matters here. The fact is that white-on-black violence is effectively legal in America, and everything else is completely irrelevant and boils down to you wanting to hear yourself talk.
2. This is the second time in as many weeks that you’ve taken it upon yourself to act as the pro-bono defense for violent racists. First the Islamophobes in Europe, now these guys. That’s… Please tell me that’s a coincidence. =|
Eugh… Anyway, sit down and shut up, please. Go play Phoenix Wright or something until you’ve gotten it out of your system.
Isn’t it weird that when you breathe on a cold day it makes a little puff of steam, but when you fart on a cold day it doesn’t?
How do you know that?
@ LG
I offered a link to the more detailed analysis of the law, which does have the relevant citations. No one was interested (fair enough). They’re entitled to go with their assumptions.
@ Katz
Nowhere have I defended Scott Adams. I made a generic response to a post about author’s responding to comments and answered any follow up queries.
@ SFHC
I’m sure you of all people can distinguish between predicting a result and wanting that result. I do believe the men’s actions are legally defensible; some peoplet have misrepresented that to suggest I’m saying the actions were morally defensible, notwithstanding I’d made my position quite clear on that.
I can assure you my *legal* defence of asshole is purely coincidental. I quite often chip in with legal stuff whenever that’s an issue in a story. Normally that’s pretty non controversial. Or the law favours the “good guys” like the woman who threw the beer. Sometimes though the law comes out in favour of the bad guys. It’s horrible when that happens, and some people find that so upsetting they’ll either go into denial about what the law entails or blame the lawyers for a law we didn’t make.
Some people seemed to find the legal stuff interesting but if others don’t I’m happy to drop it.
Inductively, through empirical observation.
@ Orion
Yeah, it’s almost a cliché that you can’t get a straight answer from a lawyer. When dealing with lay clients that’s often sound practice. By covering all the options, however unlikely, you can’t be sued no matter how things turn out.
Between lawyers and other professional clients it’s really common to offer very firm preliminary opinions. That enables people to make decisions early and cheaply, whether that’s a decision about a plea bargain or whether to settle a case rather than litigate.
In this instance the result is pretty easy to predict with the caveat I initially mentioned that it depends on the veracity of that transcript.
Alan –
I went back through this thread and you haven’t posted a single link. Not one.
Put up or shut up.
*Wanders in*
*Checks if Alan is saying “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again”*
*Wanders out*
Also, Alan, way to just completely ignore all of the criticisms that you don’t have a comeback for. How many times do people need to tell you, “This is less about whether you’re correct than it is about whether it’s appropriate for you to be offering this unsolicited prediction right now,” before you’ll fucking listen?
I’m more worried about the failure to acknowledge that the ethnicities of victims and perpetrators make a huge difference in how these supposed objective and impartial laws applied. Have you not been following the news in the last few years at all?
Now my go-to response for any awkward situation ever.
Oh dear, the last time I posted regularly I had quite a nice exchange with Alan about hipsters in London. What’s happened? He seems to have gone a bit ‘splainy.
Well, I tried.
In other things, I think your pants/skirt/etc “eats” the steam (yes I’ve had this thought before)
Yeah, I think if you went outside pantsless and farted there may very well be steam.
I have a balcony. I’m tempted.
I would guess that there’s not enough water moisture in a fart. Methane doesn’t steam.
https://youtu.be/ZumwmEqAkOI
This requires further research.
Do it dhag! For science!
If you don’t, I will, Tbh, even if you do, I will. We’ve got a cold spell coming and enquiring minds need to know.
4 or 39 degrees here depending on what scale we’re using. Not sure if it’ll be cold enough. I’m also not convinced that I can bend my body in a way so as to confirm with my own eyes, and, no, I am NOT videotaping my naked butt on the balcony. 🙂
By Thursday my wife will be here so she can help me with this experiment. I’m sure that’s how she will want to spend her Thursday!
I have neither a balcony nor anywhere I can be nekkid outdoors in anything resembling privacy, or I’d join this experiment. Hmm… would observing dogs work? They fart outside all the damned time.
I for one can’t see any ethical problems there.