On Thursday night, four days before unnamed gunmen shot five people at a Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis, video surfaced of two men driving toward ongoing demonstrations around the police shooting of Jamar Clark, one of them carrying what appears to be a handgun. “We’re going to see what these fucking dindus are up to,” one of the men says near the beginning of the video. “And yes, we are locked and loaded.”

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis posted the video to Facebook on Friday after a supporter noticed it on Livestream and sent it to the organization, a spokesperson told me via email, and the original Livestream upload appears to have since been deleted. The men in the video, who identify themselves by the aliases SaigaMarine and BlackPowderRanger, have not been connected to Monday evening’s shooting. Miski Noor, a Black Lives Matter spokeswoman, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that the shooters were “a group of white supremacists,”and police said they are seeking three white men as suspects. One of those suspects, an unnamed 23-year-old white male, was arrested this afternoon in Bloomington, police stated via Twitter.

UPDATE (2:22 p.m.): A second suspect, an unnamed 32-year-old Hispanic male, was arrested in south Minneapolis this afternoon. Police are still searching for additinal suspects.

SaigaMarine and BlackPowderRanger identify themselves as white supremacists in the video, if not explicitly so. After repeated references to “dindus,” a racial slur for black people, SaigaMarine signs off by pointing to the camera and saying “stay white.” The men also make apparent references to /pol/, 4chan’s “politically incorrect” message board, where users discuss world news and politics with a white far-right, white nationalist bent.



SaigaMarine and BlackPowderRanger can also be seen at the scene of Thursday’s protest in an activist-shot video that was originally broadcast on Livestream. At one point, the two men approach the cameraperson, posing as demonstrators, and are interviewed. “All these folks here should get the justice and peace that they deserve. We need to reach out to our communities, especially our melanin-enriched communities,” BlackPowderRanger says with apparent sarcasm. The men are clearly trying to troll their interviewer, but they are not violent, and neither is visibly carrying a weapon.

[There was a video here]

On /pol/ and /k/, 4chan’s board for firearms enthusiasts, users have speculated in the hours since Monday’s shooting that the gunmen were fellow 4channers.

One anonymous post on /pol/ from this morning reads:

4chan in the news again. A bunch of /pol/lacks+/k/ommandos in Guy Fawkes masks just shot up a Black Lives Matter protest. Apparently the BLM protestors tried to assault them, the Anon’s ran off and when the BLM protestors chased after them the /k/ommandos shot them. 5 BLM supporters confirmed in the hospital. Media hasn’t mentioned 4chan by name yet but these guys were on /pol/ a few days ago telling everyone how they were trolling BLM by attending their protests and open carrying.

Another /pol/ thread expresses a similar sentiment:

>/k/ visits blm protest >angry niggers swarm them >/k/ valiantly holds off the zerg rush >as their back hits the wall /k/ reveals their secret weapon >shots fired, nogs go down >Nogs claim it was a coordinated attack by PO-LICE and white “supreemist”

Later in the thread, users speculate specifically about SaigaMarine. Most acknowledge that he was present on Thursday night but state that he was not involved in the shooting four days later. It should be reiterated that the videos of SaigaMarine and BlackPowderRanger appear to have been taken Thursday evening, and the shooting did not occur until Monday.

“One of the trips Saigamarine was there the first night, wasn’t there tonight. Don’t know about the others,” one 4channer wrote in the thread.

“/k/ claimed they were going back out monday i dont know who was supposed to go but it was not saigamarine according to /k/,” wrote a second.

However, a third cryptically argued otherwise. “Faulkner confirned that SaigaMarine pulled the trigger, dude,” he or she wrote.



All five victims of Monday’s shooting were hospitalized, and one required surgery this morning, the New York Times reported. The alleged shooters fled from the scene, according to police, who are still seeking the other two suspects.

