Military Personnel Are Quietly Joining Extremist Group “Boogaloo Bois”

The U.S. military is seeing an uptick in many of its members becoming “Boogaloo Bois,” a group of anti-government demonstrators who glorify civil war and violence against the government. Military personnel are not allowed to “actively advocate” or “actively participate” in supremacist, extremist or criminal gang doctrine, ideology, or causes under the Department of Defense policy.

Even more troubling is that a closer look into several of their largest private Facebook groups found that many members are self-identified as active-duty military on their personal profiles. Members from the Marine Corps, Army, Navy, and Air Force were all found frequenting the groups. They all held various positions, including army bus driver, medic, infantryman, mechanic, and “amphibious assault crewman.”

“I was not particularly surprised to see current and former military members involved in boogaloo groups online,” said Megan Squire, a professor of computer science at Elon University who tracks how extremist groups manuever online. “The question for me right now is whether military men are attracted to online groups or whether they are forming groups themselves. Which direction is the influence going?”

In recent weeks, the group has been regular fixtures at the Black Lives Matter protests and anti-lockdown protests, carrying military-style weapons. Intelligence officials are growing increasingly concerned with the public-safety risk associated with the movement. According to Politico, the Department of Homeland Security issued a warning to law enforcement across the country that “anarchist and militia extremists” could potentially attempt to exploit the protests against police brutality with the goal of sparking the “boogaloo,” which means civil war.

The FBI arrested three “Boogaloo Bois” earlier this month, all three being military personnel: an army reservist, a Navy veteran, and an Air Force veteran. The three were plotting to toss explosives into a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas.

On June 15th, authorities issued an intelligence assessment warning that “violent adherents of the boogaloo ideology” could target Washington D.C. due to the “significant presence of U.S. law enforcement entities.” The very next day, that warning was thrust into the spotlight when federal prosecutors announced charges against Air Force Staff Sgt. Steve Carrillostemming from a deadly ambush on federal security officers outside a courthouse in Oakland, California. Carrillo was already behind bars for the murder of a sheriff’s deputy. Authorities believe that he had ties to the Boogaloo movement. Investigators located explosives, firearms, and a tactical vest with a boogaloo patch on it inside his van as well as his blood that he had used to write slogans associated with the boogaloo movement on the hood of the vehicle.

Boogaloo communities have been thriving on Discord, the popular gaming platform. Members in the Discord communities have been discussing ways to co-opt protests against racism and police brutality to further their own extremist agenda. The current or former military personnel have lent their expertise to the cause by referring users to the best gas masks and military-grade firearms, according to screenshots provided to VICE News.

One military personnel joked in the group that he was torn between informing his commanding officer about the context of the boogaloo group and divulging military information to his fellow Boogaloo Bois.

“When [the Boogaloo Bois] say they want to bring about a civil war, a lot of people laugh that off because it seems like the kind of thing that would never happen,” said Kathleen Belew, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Chicago and author of ‘Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.’ “But people with those ideas have killed people. They’ve bombed people. They’ve killed scores if not hundreds of bystanders. So we have to take this seriously.”

Spokesmen Lt. Col Uriah Orland confirmed in an email to VICE News only that “The Department of Defense is aware of the boogaloo movement.”