They haven’t released his name to the public yet, pending filing of charges, but believe the 32-year-old suspect is a member of Hell’s Angels and Aryan Cowboys, a white supremacist prison gang, and was “seeking to incite racial tension,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.
Meanwhile a Richmond, Virginia, TV station reported that riots in that city last weekend “were instigated by white supremacists under the guise of Black Lives Matter, according to law enforcement officials,” and that police “thanked the Black Lives Matter protesters” for trying to stop them.
These incidents point toward what many people have suspected: Rightwing extremists are infiltrating BLM protests and committing acts of violence in hopes of discrediting the movement.
In other cities, people opposed to BLM have driven cars into protesters, shot protesters, and counter-marched in ersatz combat gear prominently displaying guns, all of which seems intended to intimidate and discourage the demonstrations against racism and police brutality.
I think the Minneapolis police are off on a wild tangent. The man appears to be African American and responded to the woman in the video in her idiom. There are not any over very few black members of the Hells Angels. Still the man was properly decked out for the virus so no worries about him passing it on to anyone or catching it. Though that may have nothing to do with why he was wearing the gas mask. Could it have been to make identifying him difficult?