Who is umbrella man

Your affiant believes that this individual's sole aim was to incite violence. Previous attempts to identify 'Umbrella Man' failed.

He carried an umbrella and did not identify himself when confronted by peaceful protesters questioning what he was doing. Protesters and online sleuths began a furious search to try and identify him for weeks.

At one point, social media users misidentified him as a St. Paul police officer. The St. Paul Police Department quickly knocked down the allegation , saying the officer suspected was not even in Minneapolis at the time of the incident.

In the days following the fires and looting, both Gov. Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey mentioned the possible influence of outsiders and White supremacists who were on the streets to take advantage of heightened racial tensions. A tip helped uncover his identity, warrant says. Christensen said in the warrant that police recently received a tip regarding the identity of "Umbrella Man. The tipster told the investigator that the man "wanted to sow discord and racial unrest by breaking out the windows and writing what he did on the double red doors.

The warrant says "Umbrella Man" was present during "an incident in Stillwater Minnesota where a Muslim woman was racially harassed by a group of motorcycle club members wearing Aryan Cowboy leather vests. He was photographed with the group, according to the warrant. Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter, and three of his former colleagues also at the scene, J. At least two people died in the subsequent riots, which eventually spread as far as north Minneapolis and South St.

Authorities have since charged a handful of people with arson-related crimes. A widely shared livestream video from May 27 — two days after Floyd's death — showed the man walking casually along the front of the former site of AutoZone at E. Lake Street and Minnehaha, breaking out its windows with a 4-pound sledgehammer, prompting some protesters to confront him and demand that he stop. Before that, police say, the man, clad head to toe in black and carrying a black umbrella, had spray-painted "free [expletive] for everyone zone" on the double front doors.

At the time, activists seized on the footage as proof that outside "provocateurs" were trying to derail what had been a mostly peaceful demonstration. But others on social media pointed out that at least some looting had gone on before the video surfaced. Christensen wrote in the affidavit that she watched "innumerable hours" of videos on social media platforms to try to identify "Umbrella Man," to no avail. Investigators finally caught a break when a tipster e-mailed the MPD identifying him as a member of the Hells Angels biker gang who "wanted to sow discord and racial unrest by breaking out the windows and writing what he did on the double red doors," she wrote.

Police have also connected the year-old man to a widely publicized incident in Stillwater late last month, in which a Muslim woman was confronted by men wearing white supremacist garb. A subsequent investigation revealed the man was also an associate of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood, a small white supremacist prison and street gang based primarily in Minnesota and Kentucky.

Several of its members were also present at the Stillwater incident. Andy Shoemaker, a former St. Paul police officer who has investigated criminal motorcycle gangs, said the Aryan Cowboys are relatively new with loyalties to the Hells Angels, who operate across the state.

The weeks that followed Floyd's death brought dozens of reports of racially motivated assaults against minorities and minority-owned businesses. Leaked intelligence briefings show that federal authorities were monitoring the movements and online activity of white nationalists and other extremist groups that descended on the city during the riots.

The president of the Hells Angels summoned 75 members of the Aryan Cowboy Brotherhood to the help protect the club's headquarters in north Minneapolis, according to an intelligence memo, which surfaced in June as part of a massive trove of leaked law enforcement documents dubbed "Blue Leaks. Another leaked memo suggested that local biker gangs were taking advantage of the unrest to step up their drug trafficking in the metro area, and that bikers "associated with white racially motivated violent extremists" had discussed inciting riots while posing as members of the anti-fascist group Antifa.

It wasn't immediately clear from the leaked materials whether any of these threats materialized. After the protests began, footage of "Umbrella Man" roared around social media, prompting speculation about the man's identity. One persistent rumor argued "Umbrella Man" was an undercover St.

Paul police officer seeking to incite violence, a claim apparently based on a tweet citing information from a woman who claimed to have once been married to the officer. In response, St. Paul police released time-stamped surveillance videos showing that the officer was in St.

Paul at the time of the incident, and Police Chief Todd Axtell released a statement scolding social media users for spreading misinformation that could "jeopardize the officer's reputation and safety and chip away at the trust this police department has worked so hard to build with its community. In , Witt appeared in front of the House Assassinations Committee in an attempt to clear his name, and to share his experience at Dealey Plaza.

Witt presented his umbrella for examination, hoping to lay to rest two conspiracy theories that tied him to the murder of the President. Some theorized that he he provided a signal to the shooter, or that he fired a tranquilizer or other paralyzing weapon at Kennedy, which allowed the shooter to kill him more easily.

The car was moving along the normal route, and could be seen a minute or more before the assassination because the motorcade makes that turn, so it would have been visible to all various gunman teams long before the umbrella man would need to raise his umbrella. In regards to the idea of a paralyzing dart, Fagin thinks this is "an example of is not having all the facts. In the '60s, information about Kennedy's health was still secret.

An umbrella firing a dart became an "alternative explanation" as to why Kennedy appeared to sit still during the assassination. I sent him a couple of letters trying to talk with him, but he, I don't think, really ever spoke to anyone after testifying before the House Select Committee in the '70s.