The Making of a Boogaloo Boi

i said i got my boys here in the hawaiian shirts you know [Music] and everybody knows what that means hey officers that means boogaloo [Music] a lot of people believe differently about the boogaloos but the core belief is the fact that we stand for freedom individual freedom of all and we're willing to defend anyone's rights to those freedoms how are you guys different from the more traditional militia groups like the three percenters like the host keepers we won't compromise so would you say that the boogaloo is like more extreme version of militia groups i think extremity is perspective i think someone saying that we're extreme or saying someone else's extreme is all based on whoever is going to watch this or listen to this they have to make their own decision [Music] mike dunn is a 19 year old gun rights activist and self-proclaimed boogaloo boy the boogaloo movement is a loose collection of hawaiian shirt-wearing anti-government insurgents who are preparing for a second civil war or as they call it what began as a meme made its way into the real world when heavily armed supporters started showing up to protest against lockdowns and police brutality we first met dunn in february before he went full boogaloo back then his group the virginia knights was coordinating local militias in counties across the state i state your name do you hereby solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign against all enemies foreign militia which guards my homeland my state and the constitution zero six separate taranis what will this militia or these militias do uh so the militia that we created today will work together to help out in the community as far as disaster relief goes and then if need be they'll provide support for the local sheriff if their oath is ever tested on whether they uphold the constitution of the united states or not in november 2019 democrats flipped virginia's state house blue for the first time since the 90s and immediately got to work on gun control this galvanized grassroots opposition especially in rural areas and militia activity fired up in at least 20 counties right now we're doing an inspection of arms to inspect what they have and make sure they're okay they know how to handle them they know how to clean them and so on you hold her up pretty good yeah i like it hey don't sir thank you for coming out like the gear yep oh yeah i see [Music] cleaner up a little bit i see that we might need to have a militia just defend our rights if we have to hopefully it never comes to that you guys are like in tactical gear are you worried that that could like give the wrong impression or scare people who might want to join off we're here to give the impression that we support the second amendment and i believe this is the best way to do that by gearing up and being armed any type of legislation is passed that allows for the confiscation of weapons or accessories the military units will stand by those people a lot of the gun legislation that was proposed made people realize hey they could actually do this and we've got to have a way of saying no we won't comply with it they want to make women not be able to arm themselves against would be sick rapists they want to make minorities not be able to arm themselves so the young people that are here today thank you for coming we need to get our youth involved they are our future they may be the ones that we have to fight one day and i don't want to see that but not everyone was sold on mike's vision for a militia some of the older generation expressed concern about the optics a lot of us don't want to be seen running around with ar-15s we want to not be seen as a bunch of gun nuts but we want to be seen as people we have to stay peaceful [Music] chris griffin is a farmer and fellow gun rights activist his focus is on protecting his livestock and he's worried that the growing militia movement in virginia could take things too far in terms of this movement to have legs and become what you want it to be which is this community guard and not a bunch of like paramilitary extremist guys running around and you know getting into standoffs with federal agents like how do you kind of make sure that it stays within your vision of things i think that we need to educate everybody we need to get people to slow down and see the real picture the police are restrained by a lot of laws they can't just shoot you and but if you show up with guns they can't shoot you so what's the point why why get into a firefight the minute anybody starts shooting we lose completely a few weeks after our trip to virginia the world turned upside down covert 19 hit the u.s governors imposed stay on home orders and armed men started appearing anti-lockdown and black lives matter protests some of them in hawaiian shirts a shadowy extremist group is allegedly using unrest across america to foment its own mission of deadly violence the group called boogaloo which is a fringe group that believes there's an impending civil war on its surface the movement itself seems like one big joke born out of far-right meme culture the boogaloo is a term taken from the title of a 1984 comedy it started as a meme among gun rights activists to refer to a popular uprising last year it picked up steam on sites like 4chan as code for a second civil war to get around social media crackdowns the boogaloo boy started using codes like big igloo or big luau hence the hawaiian shirts the meme gave mike dunn's grievances a language and a uniform we caught up with him again this summer the boogaloo movement can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people in the french revolution they took every person in government and cut their head off on a guillotine they cleansed government and they redid things reset things i'm not saying that's what this is about but i am saying that a lot of people don't believe it's time for cleansing of government dun is still recruiting for the virginia knights the militia he started before identifying as a boogaloo we've trained over 4 000 virginians this is what we do we teach the basics we're against big government we're tired of government overreach we've come to a point in this country where eventually for our rights peacefully protesting is not gonna be the answer and i want each and every one of you be able to be equipped uh with enough knowledge to defend yourself efficiently when that time comes while the virginia knights are inclusive the boogaloo boys as a group are hard to pin down ideologically take for example their presence at black lives matter protests the problem with the boogaloo boys is they're not a cohesive movement you can have boogaloo boys that are white supremacists and want to harm the george floyd protesters you can also have boogaloo boys and this is actually the larger group that are anti-police not racist and they are siding with the protesters some associated with the movement are being investigated for plotting or committing violence in las vegas three alleged boogaloos were arrested for conspiring to throw explosives into a black lives matter protest prosecutors said that they were trying to provoke a standoff with police and in california an air force sergeant named steven carrillo is accused of gunning down federal courthouse security guards in oakland killing one investigators found the word boog written in blood on his van all of these men have pleaded not guilty dunn disavows these boogaloo boys and says he's focused on government overreach and gun laws including virginia's new red flag law which went into effect on july 1st but on social media he talks more and more about a potential standoff with authorities some people see the boogaloo movement as a as a joke all the news to you it's no longer a joke we're here we're here to stay we stand for peace but we're also willing to go to war and if they kill me if they suicide me i want it to live on and i want people to know what we stand for and what we believe in a major turning point for the boogaloo boys was the death of 21 year old duncan lemp lemp was killed by maryland police in a no-knock grade police say they were there to confiscate weapons he illegally possessed and that lemp was armed with a rifle lemp's family says that he was killed in the sleep he has since become a martyr in boogaloo circles duncan lip did nothing i knew him a great dude and you murdered him montgomery county now officer who murdered duncan if you will i'll challenge you to a fight that's not a threat that's an offer i'm offering you i'm challenging you to a fight if you want to fight we can throw hands and then we'll see you go to prison because we're going to have our justice because we are dunking limp [Music] you guys can't gather right here blocked off areas on the other side this is blocked off i understand this is blocked off but this is where we could get emergency vehicles yes ma'am this is the state property right here this is our property that's our grounds if you're an american this is our property because this is not the governor's this is the people's are you worried about being branded as an extremist i've already been branded and extremist so i'm not sure there's much more to worry about currently there's like there's been some situations where like people who say that they're boogaloo boys like in the bubbly movement they've gone and shot up like federal security officer or they brought explosives like black lives matter tell me when somebody did that who claimed to be a boogaloo boy name one person who did that who was an actual boogaloo boy steve carrillo and he was a self-proclaimed boogaloo boy yes say it was a boogaloo boy and he had big blue boys backing him everybody knows that if boogaloo boys want to do something with a federal building it wouldn't be just one of us isn't there some some risk in joining a movement that is so wide-ranging because you know someone goes and does something really stupid and then you become branded as like an always gonna have somebody who infiltrates an organization and makes it full of themselves so obviously there's some risk there's some risk in everything you do i don't care about your politics the only thing that protects your right to vote is this right here that's right that second amendment's the only thing that can protect you is the equalizer we've seen the police officers gas and protesters well guess what if we all come together and we're all strapped and we're all armed yesterday you want a civil war no we want a revolution we want laws to be changed in this country that limit our rights how do you how do you go about that i'm taking a stand not being run over by the government um just like if one of these boys was red flagged tomorrow with this lawless governor's put in place and they placed a call and i could get there i would stand beside every one of them and i'd give the officers two choices one they can uphold their oath to the constitution and they can leave and go home to their families or two they can uh they can try to proceed it's that simple [Music]

Channel: VICE News

Views: 800,293

Rating: 4.4498806 out of 5

Keywords: boogaloo, The Making of a Boogaloo Boi, bogaloo boi, boogaloo bois, VICE News, VICE News Tonight, VICE on HBO, news, vice video, vice news 2020, militia movement, mike dunn, white supremacy, second amendment, richmond virginia, black lives matter protests, oathkeepers, 3 percenters, civil war, second civil war, pepe the frog, anti-lockdown protests, tess owen, tess owen vice, trump 2020, Black lives matter, antifa explained

Id: qPOpVG4kHaI

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/FunDepartment7]

Hey, boogaloos, I'm kind of on board with your cause, but I'm not completely sold. You think you could go with a little more more gritting your teeth and a little more tacticool swagger? Right now, it's not cutting it for me. I know you're trying, but what I'm saying is I need MORE. Also, at 2:40 there's a weapons inspection. I'm only willing to sign up if you can guarantee that I'll have the opportunity for a pudgy 19 year old memester to be critical of my gear so that I know winning his approval is something I have to earn.

[u/AliasUndercover]

"My LARP group gets to carry live weapons!"

[u/MaxSupernova]

Dammit.

I love wearing hawaiian shirts, and I play airsoft.

Now I look like an asshole domestic terrorist instead of a mid-life-crisising Gen Xer.