Police Suspect Antifa, Anarchists Involved In Increasing Violent Activities

Law enforcement authorities and President Donald Trump have started to suspect the anti-fascist group called antifa and the anarchist groups for the increasingly violent activities aimed toward the police force and the destruction of property amidst the nationwide protests in America.

NBC News reported that the U.S. police officials said that they are examining both local and out-of-state actors who were keen on “creating damage and inciting violent confrontations with police” (and probably other protesters) for the anarchist and antifa causes.

It has been observed that some of these actors especially target wealthier areas or those that are perceived to more affluent such as New York’s SOHO and Union Square neighborhoods, Los Angeles’ Fairfax District, Chicago’s The Loop and Philadelphia’s Center City neighborhood.

In the same report, Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence Counterterrorism and New York’s top terrorism cop, John Miller, revealed details on Sunday on his office’s analysis on why the protests in New York City have become so violent and damaging.

“Number one, before the protests began, organizers of certain anarchist groups set out to raise bail money and people who would be responsible to be raising bail money, they set out to recruit medics and medical teams with gear to deploy in anticipation of violent interactions with police,” Miller said.

He added that these people were prepared to damage property and were instructing followers to target wealthier areas or high-end establishment run by corporate entities.

“And they developed a complex network of bicycle scouts to move ahead of demonstrators in different directions of where police were and where police were not for purposes of being able to direct groups from the larger groups to places where thy could commit acts of vandalism including the torching of police vehicle and Molotov cocktails where they thought officers would not be,” he continued.

Fox News reported that, on Sunday (May 31), President Trump had to be taken to a bunker when a mob broke into a riot near the White House and started setting fire on the property.

In the same report, many members of the Secret Service were injured and the authorities were searching for car bombs.

According to Miller, upon reviewing the 686 arrests since Thursday, they reportedly discovered that one out of seven were from outside New York City, including Iowa, Nevada, Texas and a handful of other states.

Miller said that they believe that the people who came from outside of New York City, the advanced preparations, the use of scouts and encrypted information, using resupply routes for gasoline, accelerants, rocks and bottles, the raising of bail and the employment of medics show that the people behind the scenes plan to “act with disorder, property damage, violence and violent encounters with police before the first demonstration and or before the first arrest”.

In an NBC News interview on Saturday, NYPD Commissioner Demrot Shea said that the group’s modus operandi of “hit and run” makes it difficult for the police to identify them and make arrests.

Despite giving details on the groups’ tactics, Shea refused to identify the groups by name when he was asked.

Officials reportedly found that there were out-state-actors among the non-violent local community protested who were later taken into custody for violent activities and committing damage to property and they are yet to discover whether these people belong to organizations who facilitate and fund them.

The LAPD stated that most of these crimes associated with the protests on Saturday (May 30) involved local actors.

Shea said that the 20 per cent of those arrested on Friday (May 29) came from out of town and speculated that that number could increase since they suspected that false addresses were initially given to the police when the arrests were made.

NBC reported that many senior law enforcement officers noted on the dwindling number of police departments who monitor and track the movements of anti-fascist and anarchist groups and this has severely limited the ability of department to understand how these groups work, especially their interaction with protests.

Law enforcement officials further commented on the country’s redirection of terrorism threats to foreign countries and thus reduced the impact of local antifa and anarchist groups.

The antifa and the anarchist groups were also reportedly involved during a “free speech” rally of the “Unite The Right” protest in 2017 which led to the incident in Charlottesville, Virginia where then-Police Commissioner William Evans reported that his officers were hit with bags of urine and other projectiles.

At the time, Boston Police officers noted the groups’ penchant to aggravate officers and to damage property.

New York City law enforcement agencies had looked out for the groups since 2017 when they would hijack protests at right-wing extremist events.