When the “protests” erupted after the death of George Floyd, there was much discussion about whether such protests were a spontaneous reaction or were the activities being guided and organized by a group. The fact that that were “protests” in dozens of cities across the country almost immediately suggested that there was an element of organization behind it. The media tried to play the narrative of people being fed up with police brutality. This led to large scale activism.
If one goes back to the Trayvon Martin death, the protests were very much spontaneous. They erupted at different times on different dates. There appeared to be little if any coordination. While there is no doubt that the video of George Floyd’s death was an enraging factor, evidence is now emerging that strongly suggests that this summer’s continuing violence is highly organized.
I am going to post two first-person accounts of what they saw and experienced. Draw your own conclusions about organized or not.
The first is from Portland. This looks like it could have been a KKK rally except there are no hoods. Perhaps the Nazis from the 1930’s could have taken lessons from these criminals.
These people are former elite military.
“Me and three of my buddies were in Portland this weekend, got attacked by Antifa. There’s a Twitter video with millions of views on it. They ended up on Hannity and Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro etc., of us getting beaten with bats and rocks the size of cantaloupes thrown at us, getting spit on etc. We were all carrying pistols as well. Opportunity, ability and jeopardy, we were in a deadly force situation and we could easily articulate the use of deadly force, but they had pepper sprayed us. They were using industrial strobe lights on us, etc. We couldn’t PID our target and what lied beyond it, They did a great job of taking our situational awareness away, it was fucking incredible.
Bro my perspective on this changed so much.The reason we were there wasn’t to counter protest or some shit, **** and *****, two of the guys with me, one of which is a bronze star and Purple Heart recipient. They’re both in the hiring process for the Portland Police Department. One is from Ohio and one is from Virginia. They both flew in that day just so they could come check out the city before they move their families across the nation.
Something else that I should make perfectly clear. We went to the Federal Courthouse first. There wasn’t a whole lot going on down there. We walked around and took some pictures. Bumped into a Sheriff at one point. Talked to him for a while. We asked him if the riots were over? He said fuck no, they’re trying to fuck a police station up right now on 47th and Burnside, We asked him if we could go, and he said yeah, it’s still a peaceful assembly, it hasn’t been declared a riot yet…. So, legit, we walked into this thing blind, in hindsight it was stupid on our part, I had no idea that they were like that. If it had been a full-blown riot we would not have gone. Bottom line, man, if you had ever given me a scenario like this and said hey, you’re sober, and you have a gun, and somebody is hitting you with a bat and throwing rocks at you that could kill you or put you in a coma, you try to get away but they cut you off with a convoy of vehicles and the assault starts again. They impede your movement and beat you with bats…
Would you shoot?I’d be like, yeah what fucking planet are you from?
But in all the training that I’ve been through my life, I’ve never been in one where in the first five seconds of the scenario you’re blinded with a strobe light and sprayed with pepper spray…. That changes everything. They were throwing these rocks from 15 feet back in the crowd, you couldn’t see who the fuck through it, etc. things like that…. It’s just a good talking point for guys that carry concealed, but you need to think through all these different scenarios.
It got way worse after that video ended, they chased us for 11 city blocks. They had a convoy of about 25 vehicles that cut us off at the next intersection, They had scouts on the corner with radios, they had a drone following us, they had a bull horn calling us Nazis, and the crowd was following a red strobe light that was up in the air on a stick, so they would announce Nazis and then people would follow the red strobe light, That video is just the beginning, I’ve got a fucking fractured hand from a baton, everyone of us has black and blue bruises up and down their legs and back, I had a guy spit in my face from 6 inches away, call me a pussy and a coward for not doing anything about it, and then tell me that he was going to find where I live, rape my mother, rape my children in front of me and then kill me.
I’ve never been more angry about something in my fucking life, the level of restraint that it took for us to not fight back in any capacity whether that was with a gun or fists is incredible. All of us have kids at home. The only thing going through all of our minds was we have to be able to justify deadly force if we’re going to go that route, there’s also hundreds of these people, we can’t see straight because of all the pepper spray, and it’s hard to PID exactly who is throwing these rocks and hitting us with batons, because they would hit you and fucking run and their buddy would run up and hit you. It was an incredibly stressful situation, they did a very good job tactically of taking away your situational awareness, and in my opinion complicating your legal defense when you split one of their faces open with a hollow point.
As we were running from the crowd after about the third block or so, we’re sprinting because the mob head caught back up to us and vehicles were trying to cut us off, I put my hand on the back strap on my appendix, And I heard somebody yell “Hey bro, whatever you’re reaching for, don’t reach, just keep running, they’re still 30 feet behind you. Keep running straight.”
We get 11 blocks down the road and this black Chevy Impala is ghosting us down the street, he’s kind of been in our shadow since block two or three He rolls his window down and starts asking us a bunch of questions. Why are we here, what are we doing, telling us we need to get the fuck out of here, asking us where our car is etc., we pretty much told him to get the fuck away from us because we didn’t know who he was. I finally asked him at one point, Who the fuck are you, man, you need to leave us alone, and he was like I’m the fucking police, bro, who are you? So he pulled his car over and he and his partner talked to us. He was one of the special programs guys, either with SWAT or SRT or whatever. He was the one that yelled at me not to reach, and tried to help us out. He said he knew that we’ve been pepper sprayed and we’re having trouble seeing, I kind of snapped at him, Like hey motherfucker, You’ve been watching this whole thing fucking unfold and you didn’t intervene at all or light the crowd up or something? He started laughing and he was like, Man, if I got out and tried to help you guys, my fucking car would be on fire right now, and I’d be running next to you.
Bottom line: don’t go to an Antifa protest where you can put yourself in that situation. And if you find yourself in that situation, expect them to employ tactics that take away your situational awareness, and complicate the use of force continuum.”
For the second account, a person called “J. D.” went to a number of Antifa riots. He/she conducted surveillance and provides a report on what was learned. Most of what was observed took place in Michigan.
Over the last few weeks, as protests and riots have continued, I decided to stop blindly accepting the media’s reporting and to get out and see what was actually going on at the rampant protests.
Let me start by saying that I don’t advocate everyone doing this…I’m a trained professional with over 20 years of investigations experience. I do want to share the interesting findings and make a few recommendations to everyone, though.
The narrative being presented was that these protests were not centrally organized and that they were grass-roots protests just springing up in response to social issues. My time inside the protests verified that this just isn’t true; they are very organized and are being planned by someone.
I began by gathering a list of local protests and making a schedule, attending the ones closest to home, to assess my local level of risk, and then branching out to other areas, and eventually even attending a very large one in Lansing, at the state Capitol. According to the event organizers, these were all protests by different groups….that’s important, later. Sources for finding local protests include Google, Facebook, and Twitter. Remember though, as Sam Culper at Forward Observerteaches, we should always farm social media for data, and never plant any data. Guard your information online.
ANTIFA “SECURITY”
The first one I attended was on the University of Michigan campus. The protest was rather large, about 1,500 people. What I found interesting was that the first speaker pointed out that “allies from RevCom/ANTIFA” were present, just to provide “logistical support” including medical and security teams. The local RevCom leader got up and explained how to find the medics (Large red or green crosses) and explained that security was “circulating among the crowd” for safety. That was an ominous statement, as I’ll point out later.
I began moving through the crowd and quickly spotted several security team members, obviously watching the crowd for anyone who wasn’t clapping or cheering along. It’s important to note that these protests require 100% ideological agreement or they will approach you and become confrontational, so I made sure I was chanting along. I noticed almost immediately that despite the man who said he was the RevCom leader, a young man named Ethan, that I would later have many interactions with, was actually in charge. He is a security team leader within the ANTIFA organization.
The biggest observation from the first protest was that despite the claims that they aren’t organized, they are highly organized by a central organization. Ethan and his security/medical team have beenat every protest I’ve attended in Michigan, including one at the Capitol an hour away. They use the ubiquitous BaoFeng Handi-talkie radios to communicate.
Ethan himself most frequently wears Interceptor Body Armor and a Guy Fawkes mask, while dressing in black and red. When he is not personally actually leading the march, he wears the full face Guy Fawkes mask to try and prevent being identified.
Next, I attended a smaller protest that was scheduled in Canton Township, Michigan, a small Detroit suburb. I arrived an hour early, and lo & behold, Ethan and his crew were already in place. The protest met in a local grocery store lot and Ethan’s team was patrolling the lot, checking cars for people who appeared to be watching the protest.
OVERT COUNTER-SURVEILLANCE
Counter-Surveillance is a huge piece of the ANTIFA/RevCom program. They recorded license plate numbers of vehicles they deemed “suspicious”. At one point, when Ethan saw a man (not me) outside the protest taking photos, he tried to get the police to make the man leave. Imagine, protesting against the police, yet asking them to help you. The police told Ethan that Ethan and his group had no legal standing to ask anyone to leave, since they didn’t own the parking lot and were technically trespassing.
A few days later, I was attending a BLM protest in downtown Detroit. This one was different. The organizers, while they accepted the RevCom/ANTIFA medical assistance, refused the offer to assist with security and had their own provided by the local Masons club. Ethan was not to be stumped…despite their claims to refuse outside assistance to prevent “agitators”, I quickly found Ethan and his entire security team hidden among the crowd, still using radios, and conducting serious counter-surveillance, including snapping a few photos of me. Now, what they got were photos of a man wearing a ball cap, sunglasses, a face mask pulled up under my sunglasses, and a hoodie. I’m sure they were thrilled when they reviewed the photos and noticed that my middle finger was discreetly displayed in every photo they took. I quickly went around a corner and applied gray man tactics, switching my hoodie, ball cap, and face mask, and taking off the sunglasses. I tested it and they appeared to have no clue that I was the same person.
At all of these protests, I conducted map tracking using my BattleBoard Scout, a great tool. It’s essentially a notebook that also has a clear window that you can write on using dry-erase or wet-erase markers. I prefer wet-erase, so that the tracking isn’t accidentally taken off. I use it to document where incidents occur and where protest activity took place in order to have a more solid picture of the situation on the ground.
The next few protests were more of the same, with Ethan and his team following and intimidating anyone who didn’t appear to belong. They followed people to their vehicles and recorded license plate numbers. It’s important to note that they were very obvious about recording the numbers, in an attempt to intimidate anyone who might oppose their viewpoint.
THEY’RE STEPPING UP TO INTIMIDATION
At the Capitol protest, the game changed significantly. Ethan and his team met up with other RevCom/ANTIFA and BLM security teams from around the state and all were openly carrying arms, including long guns. Many of the ANTIFA people who showed up all in black were wearing helmets and soft armor, so they were ready for violence. They actively harassed and intimidated anyone they deemed as “Militia”. My point in mentioning that is that if you show up to track one of these protests dressed in your “tacti-cool” gear, they’ll make you and drive you off long before you get there. Blend in, go gray.
Another point about social media is to never broadcast live from inside a protest. They have people monitoring. Video podcaster and commentator Steven Crowder sent a team into CHAZ or CHOP for a live stream and they were quickly chased out.
Intelligence gathering is best done in secret and should remain secret.
I WAS TARGETED
I fell victim to their counter-surveillance again because the Militia folks had heightened their awareness with several attempts to enter the Capitol grounds, and apparently one of them observed me take a photo. They immediately began following me, including off the Capitol grounds to try and get my license plate, maybe even confront me, but since I had done a thorough map study and recon (again using my trusty BattleBoard Scout as a guide), I was able to lead them on a longer chase than they wanted to go on and they gave up. I was able to successfully change profile and re-enter the crowd.
It’s important to note that they had no authority to drive people off the Capitol grounds, but the State Police allowed them too, and never intervened when the BLM/ANTIFA crowd forced someone out.
When returning to my vehicle after each of these protests, I was very careful to conduct a Surveillance Detection Route (or SDR). This outwardly looks like a random walking pattern, allowing you to check and make sure that you aren’t being followed and to effectively shake or identify any followers.
SOME LESSONS LEARNED
So what are the lessons for patriots?
- The protests are organized by a central organization.
- They have trained and professional security teams.
- They actively conduct counter-surveillance.
- Park sufficiently far enough distance away to discourage anyone following, and walk in.
- They are completely willing to use arms and force.
- The presence of body armor indicates a willingness to use violence.
- Blending in is far better than direct confrontation.
- Have a fully stocked and ready first aid kit, such as a BearFAK.
Do I believe there will be a time when confrontation is needed? Absolutely.
However, let’s be smart and gather intelligence slowly and carefully first.
CONTRIVED ESCALATION
As a follow-up, after I observed one protest in Detroit, my friend Ethan came out of the shadows and made a Twitter post that the Detroit Police had tried to run him over, complete with video. I was there. They surrounded the police cars and began beating on them, trying to force the police to use deadly force or hit them with the cars. The entire situation was a set-up designed to produce a new incident to create more tension and protests.
Be prepared for many more of these protests as the election nears.
This article can be found here.
These are just two reports of this nature. Many more exist. The tactical awareness of the rioters (Antifa, BLM, etc.) indicates training. Who is providing the training? Who is funding it? This is not a cheap deal.
No doubt, the FBI has been quite busy. Reports on the ground in Portland indicate that significant numbers of rioters have been arrested. These are undoubtedly low-level types. Hopefully the FBI will be able to chew their way up the ladder to the leaders. I suspect that there is a lot of overtime being put in at the DOJ right now.