MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Texas man who says he is affiliated with the Boogaloo Bois anti-government movement and is suspected of opening fire on a Minneapolis police station during a protest in May is facing riot charges, a federal prosecutor announced Friday.
Video shot on the night of May 28 shows a person later identified as Ivan Harrison Hunter firing 13 rounds from a semiautomatic assault-style rifle on the Third Precinct police station while people believed to be looters were inside.
U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald said Friday that she has charged the 26-year-old Hunter, of Boerne, Texas, with traveling across state lines to participate in a riot.
According to a criminal complaint, Hunter traveled from Texas to Minneapolis in late May to join in protests over George Floyd’s death. Floyd, who was Black, died on Memorial Day after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck for nearly eight minutes. The incident sparked protests against police racism and brutality across the country.
According to the complaint, Hunter claims to be a member of the Boogaloo Bois, a loosely-connected anti-government group, and he made statements on social media describing what he did in Minneapolis.
Police in Austin, Texas, stopped a pickup truck on June 3 in which Hunter was a passenger for multiple traffic violations. Hunter had six loaded magazines for a semiautomatic rifle in a tactical vest he was wearing. Officers also found multiple firearms in the truck.
Several days after the stop, federal suspected of opening fire on a Minneapolis police station during a protest in May agents learned of Hunter’s online affiliation with Boogaloo Bois member Steven Carrillo. Federal prosecutors have charged Carrillo in the death of a federal protective officer in Oakland, California, during a protest over Floyd’s death on the same night Hunter allegedly opened fire in Minneapolis.
MacDonald said Hunter made his initial court appearance Thursday in San Antonio, Texas. It’s unclear if he has an attorney. His case isn’t listed in online federal court records from both Minnesota and Texas.
