![]() ![]() The FBI says that another arrestee, Bryan Betancur, was wearing a Proud Boys cap at the rally. The evidence cited in affidavits includes Pezzola’s account on the shuttered conservative-friendly social media service, Parler, and videos posted online by other rioters. Meanwhile, Dominic Pezzola and William Pepe allegedly conspired with each other in a sequence of events which included Pezzola assaulting a Capitol police officer, stealing his riot shield, and then using it to smash in one of the Capitol’s windows. In an affidavit, an FBI special agent says that they determined that Ochs had been in the building from his own Twitter account. ![]() The cases against Biggs and Nordean turn what had been the Proud Boys’ greatest weapon – social media – against them as authorities have detailed their alleged misdeeds using material that they and others posted online.įor example, a grand jury indictment of a Texan, Nicholas Decarlo, and the founder of the group’s Hawaiian chapter, Nicholas Ochs, alleges that they together inscribed “Murder the media” on the front door of the Capitol before stealing a Capitol police officer’s handcuffs. Shannon Reid, an assistant professor in criminology at the University of North Carolina, said the strategy in these cases resembles the one prosecutors often use in pursuit of criminal enterprises, where the aim is to “pick up as many people as humanly possible and to hope that they just plead out”. The allegations of coordination between members of the group may hint at more charges to come.Īlex Newhouse, a researcher at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at the Middlebury Institute, said in a telephone conversation that it was likely that “more conspiracy charges being levied on some of these people in the future”. However, the affidavit supporting the charges also alleges Biggs was involved in extensive radio communications with other Proud Boys on the day. He is now charged with impeding Congress, unauthorized entry to the Capitol, and disorderly conduct. Photograph: Jim Urquhart/Reutersīiggs – a former employee of Alex Jones’s conspiracy-minded Infowars network – was central in organizing incursions into the city of Portland in 20, each of which drew Fred Perry-clad militants from around the country to confront antifascists and city authorities. Proud Boys members Enrique Tarrio, left, and Joe Biggs, in Washington DC on 12 December 2020. Those charged include leaders like the Florida combat veteran and conspiracy theorist Joe Biggs and Washington state’s Ethan Nordean, whose prominence rose in the group after he was caught on film attacking an antifascist during a 2018 riot in downtown Portland, Oregon. Law enforcement agencies have connected at least 10 Capitol arrestees with the Proud Boys in criminal complaints and affadavits. Since their foundation in 2016 by the far-right Canadian media personality and entrepreneur Gavin McInnes, the all-male group – who wear uniform clothing, enforce bizarre initiation rituals, eschew masturbation, and reward violence with higher degrees of membership – have been an outsized presence on the landscape of pro-Trump extremism, and successful in promoting themselves as the most militant part of his coalition.īut their role in the Capitol insurrection especially has brought far less welcome attention. The cumulative impact has experts wondering about the Proud Boys’ long-term future. ![]()
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