07-30-2020, 12:10 PM
Minneapolis police say 'Umbrella Man' was a white supremacist trying to incite George Floyd rioting
A masked man who was seen in a viral video smashing the windows of a south Minneapolis auto parts store during the George Floyd protests, earning him the moniker "Umbrella Man," is suspected of ties with a white supremacist group and sought to incite racial tension, police said.
A Minneapolis police arson investigator said the act of vandalism at the AutoZone on E. Lake Street helped spark a chain reaction that led to days of looting and rioting. The store was among dozens of buildings across the city that burned to the ground in the days that followed.
"This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city," Sgt. Erika Christensen wrote in a search warrant affidavit filed in court this week. "Until the actions of the person your affiant has been calling 'Umbrella Man,' the protests had been relatively peaceful. The actions of this person created an atmosphere of hostility and tension. Your affiant believes that this individual's sole aim was to incite violence."
Police identified "Umbrella Man" thanks to a tip that came via e-mail last week, Christensen said.
A widely shared livestream video from May 27 — two days after Floyd's death — showed the man walking casually along the front of the former site of AutoZone at E. Lake Street and Minnehaha, breaking out its windows with a 4-pound sledgehammer, prompting some protesters to confront him and demand that he stop. Before that, police say, the man, clad head to toe in black and carrying a black umbrella, had spray-painted "free [expletive] for everyone zone" on the double front doors.
At the time, activists seized on the footage as proof that outside "provocateurs" were trying to derail what had been a mostly peaceful demonstration. But others on social media pointed out that at least some looting had gone on before the video surfaced.
Christensen wrote in the affidavit that she watched "innumerable hours" of videos on social media platforms to try to identify "Umbrella Man," to no avail. Investigators finally caught a break when a tipster e-mailed the MPD identifying him as a member of the Hells Angels biker gang who "wanted to sow discord and racial unrest by breaking out the windows and writing what he did on the double red doors," she wrote.
Police have also connected the 32-year-old man to a widely publicized incident in Stillwater late last month, in which a Muslim woman was confronted by men wearing white supremacist garb.
A subsequent investigation revealed the man was also an associate of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood, a small white supremacist prison and street gang based primarily in Minnesota and Kentucky. Several of its members were also present at the Stillwater incident.
Andy Shoemaker, a former St. Paul police officer who has investigated criminal motorcycle gangs, said the Aryan Cowboys are relatively new with loyalties to the Hells Angels, who operate across the state.
"They're another group that's basically a farm system, a minor league for the Hells Angels," he said, adding the Angels occasionally recruit members from some of these offshoot clubs.
The weeks that followed Floyd's death brought dozens of reports of racially motivated assaults against minorities and minority-owned businesses.
Leaked intelligence briefings show that federal authorities were monitoring the movements and online activity of white nationalists and other extremist groups that descended on the city during the riots. The president of the Hells Angels summoned 75 members of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood to the help protect the club's headquarters in north Minneapolis, according to an intelligence memo, which surfaced in June as part of a massive trove of leaked law enforcement documents dubbed "Blue Leaks." A club member later posted a warning to protesters on Facebook saying that while the Angels agreed with the anti-law enforcement message, any protests that reached the clubhouse or "any of our neighborhoods" would be "met with a very unfriendly welcome party."
Another leaked memo suggested that local biker gangs were taking advantage of the unrest to step up their drug trafficking in the metro area, and that bikers "associated with white racially motivated violent extremists" had discussed inciting riots while posing as members of the anti-fascist group Antifa. It wasn't immediately clear from the leaked materials whether any of these threats materialized.
https://www.startribune.com/police-umbre...571932272/
A masked man who was seen in a viral video smashing the windows of a south Minneapolis auto parts store during the George Floyd protests, earning him the moniker "Umbrella Man," is suspected of ties with a white supremacist group and sought to incite racial tension, police said.
A Minneapolis police arson investigator said the act of vandalism at the AutoZone on E. Lake Street helped spark a chain reaction that led to days of looting and rioting. The store was among dozens of buildings across the city that burned to the ground in the days that followed.
"This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city," Sgt. Erika Christensen wrote in a search warrant affidavit filed in court this week. "Until the actions of the person your affiant has been calling 'Umbrella Man,' the protests had been relatively peaceful. The actions of this person created an atmosphere of hostility and tension. Your affiant believes that this individual's sole aim was to incite violence."
Police identified "Umbrella Man" thanks to a tip that came via e-mail last week, Christensen said.
A widely shared livestream video from May 27 — two days after Floyd's death — showed the man walking casually along the front of the former site of AutoZone at E. Lake Street and Minnehaha, breaking out its windows with a 4-pound sledgehammer, prompting some protesters to confront him and demand that he stop. Before that, police say, the man, clad head to toe in black and carrying a black umbrella, had spray-painted "free [expletive] for everyone zone" on the double front doors.
At the time, activists seized on the footage as proof that outside "provocateurs" were trying to derail what had been a mostly peaceful demonstration. But others on social media pointed out that at least some looting had gone on before the video surfaced.
Christensen wrote in the affidavit that she watched "innumerable hours" of videos on social media platforms to try to identify "Umbrella Man," to no avail. Investigators finally caught a break when a tipster e-mailed the MPD identifying him as a member of the Hells Angels biker gang who "wanted to sow discord and racial unrest by breaking out the windows and writing what he did on the double red doors," she wrote.
Police have also connected the 32-year-old man to a widely publicized incident in Stillwater late last month, in which a Muslim woman was confronted by men wearing white supremacist garb.
A subsequent investigation revealed the man was also an associate of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood, a small white supremacist prison and street gang based primarily in Minnesota and Kentucky. Several of its members were also present at the Stillwater incident.
Andy Shoemaker, a former St. Paul police officer who has investigated criminal motorcycle gangs, said the Aryan Cowboys are relatively new with loyalties to the Hells Angels, who operate across the state.
"They're another group that's basically a farm system, a minor league for the Hells Angels," he said, adding the Angels occasionally recruit members from some of these offshoot clubs.
The weeks that followed Floyd's death brought dozens of reports of racially motivated assaults against minorities and minority-owned businesses.
Leaked intelligence briefings show that federal authorities were monitoring the movements and online activity of white nationalists and other extremist groups that descended on the city during the riots. The president of the Hells Angels summoned 75 members of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood to the help protect the club's headquarters in north Minneapolis, according to an intelligence memo, which surfaced in June as part of a massive trove of leaked law enforcement documents dubbed "Blue Leaks." A club member later posted a warning to protesters on Facebook saying that while the Angels agreed with the anti-law enforcement message, any protests that reached the clubhouse or "any of our neighborhoods" would be "met with a very unfriendly welcome party."
Another leaked memo suggested that local biker gangs were taking advantage of the unrest to step up their drug trafficking in the metro area, and that bikers "associated with white racially motivated violent extremists" had discussed inciting riots while posing as members of the anti-fascist group Antifa. It wasn't immediately clear from the leaked materials whether any of these threats materialized.
https://www.startribune.com/police-umbre...571932272/
![[Image: faa134a97228231f141ed0833e314fb2]](https://content.api.news/v3/images/bin/faa134a97228231f141ed0833e314fb2)
