The Daily Beast fabricated claim that armed rioter pretended to be BLM supporter

The Daily Beast quietly retracted a headline about an alleged “Boogaloo” member after baselessly reporting that he had admitted to “posing as BLM supporter white shooting up Minneapolis cop station.”

24-year-old Ivan Harrison Hunter, of Boerne, Texas, admitted to firing 13 rounds from an "AK-47 style rifle" at the Third Precinct police building in Minneapolis during a BLM riot in May 2020. He pleaded guilty but court documents do not substantiate Daily Beast reporter Rachel Olding’s original claim that he admitted to a false flag operation.

The “boogaloo” movement is inaccurately described by many left-wing journalists and news sites as a white supremacist far-right group, but the Department of Homeland security has clarified that the movement are made up of “simply violent extremists from both ends of the ideological spectrum.” Indeed, the decentralized movement is made up of anarchist or libertarian anarchists who believe in accelerating the downfall of the U.S. government. Many boogaloo followers, known for wearing Hawaiian shirts, supported the BLM-Antifa riots and protests in 2020 by acting as armed security.

"The headline has been updated to reflect that Hunter pleaded guilty to shooting at the police station and did not make any statements about BLM," The Daily Beast admitted in an update in its report.

In the federal affidavit against Hunter written by an FBI agent, there’s nothing said to indicate that he was pretending to be a BLM supporter. Instead what’s mentioned is how Hunter shouted in support of George Floyd, was given a high-five by a fellow rioter, and had attender another BLM protest in Austin, Texas the following month in June 2020.

The criminal complaint also details how Hunter had corresponded with Benjamin Teeter, an alleged fellow “boogaloo” member. Teeter pleaded guilty in December 2020 for conspiring to provide material support to Palestinian jihadist group, Hamas. In an earlier interview with CNN, Teeter said he was a “left anarchist” and member of the LGBT community who travelled to Minneapolis to “protect protesters from police abuse and white supremacists, whom he deplores.”