Minneapolis 'Umbrella Man' who smashed windows during George Floyd protests was a white supremacist trying to incite riots, police say
- Minneapolis police suspect that the infamous "Umbrella Man" who was seen in a video in late May smashing windows during peaceful protests is a white supremacist who was trying to incite riots, the Star Tribune reported on Tuesday.
- A tipster told the police last week that the man had ties to the Hells Angels biker gang and was seeking to escalate racial tensions in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing, the Star Tribune reported.
- The man, who wasn't identified in the Star Tribune report, has not been charged with a crime.
Photos and videos taken in Minneapolis on the night of May 27 showed a person dressed in all black, wearing a gas mask and carrying an umbrella, smashing the windows of an AutoZone with a hammer.
As the videos went viral, many people speculated that the person wasn't an anti-racism protester but an outside agitator who intended to turn peaceful protests violent.
Two months later, Minneapolis police say they suspect that's the case.
The Star Tribune reported on Tuesday that the police had identified the "Umbrella Man" as a white supremacist with ties to the Hells Angels biker gang who attended the protests in an effort to escalate racial tensions in the aftermath of George Floyd's killing on May 25.
After the man smashed the AutoZone's windows, it was set on fire, leading to days of looting and rioting that caused about $500 million in damages and killed two people, the Star Tribune report said.
"This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city," an arson investigator, Sgt. Erika Christensen, wrote in a search-warrant affidavit seen by the Star Tribune. "Until the actions of the person your affiant has been calling 'Umbrella man,' the protests had been relatively peaceful. The actions of this person created an atmosphere of hostility and tension. Your affiant believes that this individual's sole aim was to incite violence."
In the videos, protesters can be heard trying to stop the man. "Those cops will come for you if you're pulling that crap," a man said while recording one video. "That's garbage, pulling that s---."
Another video on social media shows a man in a pink T-shirt chasing the man away.
"Guy just came with a hammer and smashed the windows," the woman recording says. "Are you a f---ing cop?" someone else can be heard asking the man.
People online speculated at the time that the man was a St. Paul police officer, which the department was quick to reject.
Christensen said the police were able to identify a 32-year-old man as the suspect because of a tip emailed last week, the Star Tribune reported.
An investigation found that he was associated with the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood, "a small white supremacist prison and street gang based primarily in Minnesota and Kentucky" and linked to Hells Angels, the report said.
The police also connected the man to an incident last month in Stillwater where a group of men wearing white supremacist clothing confronted a Muslim woman, the Star Tribune reported.
He has not been charged with a crime, the report said.