2 Alleged 'Boogaloo' Members Arrested in 2 States

The FBI has arrested two alleged members of the far-right anti-government group the Boogaloo Boys, with authorities increasingly concerned about the potential for violence in the lead-up to next week's midterm elections. Timothy Teagan appeared Wednesday in federal court in Detroit on charges of being a drug user in possession of firearms and ammunition, and on giving a false statement in connection with the acquisition of a firearm, according to an unsealed federal complaint. Meanwhile, the FBI says in a criminal complaint filed Monday that there was enough evidence to charge Aron McKillips, of Sandusky, Ohio, with illegal possession of a machine gun and the interstate communication of threats, the AP reports.

The complaint says McKillips is a member of the Boogaloo Boys and is believed to be in a militia group called the Sons of Liberty. The FBI alleges he made multiple online threats, including one to kill a police officer and another to kill anyone he determined to be a federal informant. The FBI contends that McKillips provided other members of the Boogaloo Boys equipment to convert rifles into machine guns, as on a trip to Lansing, Mich., in April 2021. "I literally handed out machine guns in Michigan," McKillips said in a recording, the complaint states. McKillips frequently advocated for violence against police officers, federal agents, and government buildings, as well as big-box stores like Walmart and Target, and he even threatened to blow up Facebook's headquarters, the criminal complaint says.

During Teagan's hearing on Wednesday, a federal magistrate ordered him held pending a Friday bond hearing. Dressed in a colorful Hawaiian-style shirt—a uniform of sorts for adherents to the so-called boogaloo movement, which espouses that a second US civil war is coming—Teagan told the court that he might seek to retain his own attorney. Some boogaloo promoters insist they aren't genuinely advocating for violence. But the movement has been linked to a string of domestic terrorism plots. Teagan's arrest Tuesday came just days after three militia members were convicted of supplying "material support" for a terrorist act over a plot to kidnap Michigan's Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer. Prosecutors argued that the defendants supported the boogaloo movement. (More Boogaloo stories.)