Three men with ties to right-wing extremism arrested for planning violence at Las Vegas protest, prosecutors say

An informant helped law enforcement track men as they assembled Molotov cocktails to bring to Black Lives Matter demonstration

Federal prosecutors have arrested three white men who reportedly plotted to incite violence at an anti-racism protest in Las Vegas – and who apparently identify themselves with a right-wing movement advocating a new civil war.

The three white men, all of whom have US military experience, are thought to have first hatched their plan in April, as protests to reopen businesses closed because of the coronavirus began to spread across the country.

More recently, prosecutors say, they sought to capitalise on protests over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis after a white officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes even as he pleaded for air and then stopped moving.

The three of them reportedly self-identified with the “boogaloo” movement, a loose network of various far-right groups and individuals who often express support for destroying the US government or wider society. The “boogaloo”, in their coded discourse, refers to the civil war or violent uprising that they aim to bring about.

A criminal complaint obtained by the Associated Press says that the three men – Stephen T. Parshall, 35, Andrew T. Lynam Jr., 23, and William L. Loomis, 40 – were arrested en route to a protest in downtown Las Vegas last weekend.

According to the complaint, the case began with an informant who met Mr Lynam and Mr Parshall at a reopening rally in April, where an armed Mr Lynam said that his group “was not for joking around”, and that it was “for people who wanted to violently overthrow the United States government”.

The complaint says that after Mr Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, the group began considering how to use the momentum from the riots occurring nationwide “to hopefully stir enough confusion and excitement, that others see the explosions and police presence and begin to riot in the streets out of anger”.

Their preparations were observed by both the informant and FBI agents, and it was on 30 May that the three men and the informant agreed to take part in a Black Lives Matter protest in Las Vegas. They were arrested en route that day, after filling cans of petrol in a parking lot and preparing several molotov cocktails.

Each of the three men currently faces two federal charges: possession of unregistered firearms, and conspiracy to damage and destroy by fire and explosive. In state court, they’ve been accused of felony conspiracy, terrorism and explosives possession.

The anti-government “boogaloo” movement emerged from a meme based on the 1984 movie “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo”. Many of its followers have shown up at Covid-19 lockdown protests armed with rifles and wearing tactical vests over Hawaiian shirts and leis, a nod to the “big luau” derivation of the movement’s name.

While some boogaloo promoters and followers insist they aren’t genuinely advocating violence, law-enforcement officials say they have foiled multiple bombing and shooting plots by people who have connections to the movement or at least used its terminology.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the term is used somewhat differently by different groups, with the militia movement and gun rights activists envisioning a war against the government or liberals while white supremacist groups use it to refer to a race war.

Some white supremacists described as “accelerationist” include it in their vision of a war to bring about the wholesale collapse of modern society and replace it with a new, fully white-dominated order.

The Southern Poverty Law Centre, which tracks hate groups in the US, said this week that right-wing extremists of all varieties, including boogaloo followers, have been seen at the past week’s protests around the country.

With Associated Press