Los Angeles and Tacoma announce new steps toward police reform – live

Men carrying guns and wearing Hawaiian-print shirts, a symbol of the “Boogaloo,” have showed up at protests over the police killing of George Floyd across the country, including in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Atlanta, and Philadelphia, the Washington Post reported.

Boogaloo rhetoric often identifies law enforcement officials, especially federal officials, as the enemy. The term “boogaloo” has also spread among a wide spectrum of pro-gun activists, including in the leadup to a massive protest this January against new gun control laws in Virginia.

“The Boogaloo movement is not a defined group,” an FBI agent noted in the affadavit supporting the criminal complaint against Steven Carrillo, who has been charged with murdering two law enforcement officers in Oakland.

“In general, followers of the Boogaloo ideology may identify as militia and share a narrative of inciting a violent uprising against perceived government tyranny.”

Law enforcement officials discovered a ballistic vest with a “Boogaloo” flag on it in a van they said Carrillo had used, and also alleged that Carrillo had written phrases associated with the movement in his own blood on the hood of a car he hijacked, according to the criminal complaint.

The phases in blood included “Boog,” short for “Boogaloo,” and “I became unreasonable,” a phrase associated with Marvin Heemeyer, an anti-government extremist from Colorado who is frequently cited in Boogaloo social media groups, NBC News reported.

Heemeyer’s attack happened on June 4, 2004, “almost 16 years to the day,” of Carrillo’s alleged attack on sheriff’s deputies in Santa Cruz, NBC News noted.