TonHis papers are so scruffy and formal, they resemble the minutes of the annual meeting of the Institute of Tax Accountants. Its index lists sections on ‘targets’ and ‘rules of engagement’, with an ‘appendix’ offering advice for hotels and car parks.
On the cover, two words allude to the notoriety of the group that made it: “MAGA” and “WARNING.” That and date: January 5, 2021, the day before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Unmentioned on the cover and barely mentioned on the 23 pages is one of the most violent political gangs in America, the work of the far-right street fighters Donald Trump told them to “stand back and stand by”: Proud boy.
The document, first published by The Guardian, offers a rare insight into the carefully planned activities of far-right clubs.
The Proud Boys have been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, allegedly the main organizer of the violent attack on the Capitol.
The New York march mentioned in the document was canceled after Jan. 6, which was linked to the nine deaths, and a strategy so well-crafted was never implemented. But the document remains starkly revealing.
It shows the length of the Proud Boys preparing for a potentially violent encounter and then covering up their trail — something prosecutors have emphasized but never seen in the group’s own words. It exposes the militaristic structures and language employed by the Proud Boys and their desire to become frontline vigilantes in Trump-led America.
It also provides clues about how the group continues to spread its tentacles across the United States, even as many of the group’s top leaders, including its president, Enrique Tario, await trial on charges of inciting conspiracy.
The purpose of the document is to provide a “Strategic Security Plan” and call for action to convene members of the Proud Boys for a pro-Trump Maga march scheduled for January 10, 2021 in New York City. That’s when Congress was set to prove Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election — an occasion that would be the target of a deadly uprising.
The document was obtained by extremist journalist Andy Campbell from a Proud Boys member while researching his new book, We Are Proud Boys: How Right-Wing Street Gangs Ushered in a New Era of Extremism in America. The book will be published on Tuesday. Campbell shared the document with the Guardian.
The author of the document is Randy Ireland, president of the organization’s New York chapter, Hell’s Gate Bridge, and one of the most famous Proud Boys in the Northeast. The paper spread to at least nine other chapters in New York and beyond via Telegram, an encrypted chat app widely used by the Proud Boys as an organizational tool.
Campbell told the Guardian that the group’s decentralized structure, which it claims has 157 active chapters in all but three states, is one of the Proud Boys’ biggest strengths, as reflected in the New York-planned plan. on autonomy.
“Chapter leaders like Randy can create their own campaigns that run independently of each other,” Campbell said. “Enrique Tario and other leaders are in jail, but these people will continue what they are doing.”
“We will not disappoint”
The language in the planning documents is blatant militarism. Ireland calls himself “General Security Detail” and his subordinates in the chain of command are “Vice Presidents” for “Recruiting”, “Reconnaissance Security” and “Team Lead”.
The plan is to divide the 60 or so Proud Boys into seven “tactical groups” of five to eight men (all of them men because of the group’s most important values) at an event in Manhattan on January 10. One is misogyny). Members are told to bring protective gear, including “knife/stab protection, helmets, gloves, boots, etc.” and communicate with each other using radio channels, walkie-talkies or telegrams.
They will be united and under no circumstances will allow “Normies” — ordinary Trump supporters who are not Proud Boys — or “women” into their ranks.
“Their presence will jeopardize the health and safety of all security-related and simply cannot be allowed to happen!” Ireland wrote.
A map reproduced on the back of the document shows the positions “scouts” and “tactical teams” should take at key points along the route of the march, which was planned to start at Columbus Circle and pass through Trump Tower.
“This place is understood in a very public way as having special meaning to us,” the paper said, referring to Trump’s Fifth Avenue home. “We won’t be disappointed!”
Campbell has been covering the Proud Boys since he began appearing at Trump rallies in early 2017, describing them as the most notorious political fight club in America. In planning documents, he considers fantasy and danger to be equal.
“These people see themselves as super soldiers, like some kind of military equipment,” he said. “In a way, it’s interesting because in fact nothing is going to go the way they say it is. But at another level, it’s worrying because it shows how much thought they put into these things. .”
In We Are Proud Boys, Campbell traces the group’s core roles from its inception in 2015-16 to January 6, when one member, Dominic Pezzola, became the first to break through the U.S. Capitol. At least 30 Proud Boys have been charged in connection with the uprising, including Tario and four others charged with incitement conspiracy — one of the most serious indictments to date.
The group was invented by British-born Vice magazine founder Gavin McInnes, who described himself as a “Western chauvinist” and peddled bigotry. In May 2016, McInnes mentioned the Proud Boys by name on his online chat show, introduced them as “gangs” and invented a uniform, a black Fred Perry polo shirt with yellow trim.
McGinnis was careful to label his creation as Harmless Pleasure, a patriotic drinking club that satirized men, and later associated himself with everything Trump. But Campbell believes there has been political violence from the start.
A Proud Boy was an organizer of a 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which an anti-fascist protester was murdered. The group staged a violent rally in Portland, Oregon. Outside a 2018 Republican event in New York, several members were arrested and charged with felonies.
“Street Violence”
Membership in the Proud Boys is divided into four levels, called “degrees,” which, as McInnes himself explains, are awarded once you’re “arrested or engaged in a serious violent struggle for a cause.” In an interview with Campbell for the book, McGinnis denied advocating violence and insisted the Proud Boys never took the initiative to attack, only responding to left-wing attacks.
Documents published by The Guardian reiterated this official line. Ireland is careful to paint the Proud Boys as a defensive group.
He wrote: “All Proud Boys should respond immediately if there is any violence – simply by removing and ending the threat to them or others. VERY IMPORTANT: Once the threat is removed, we stop!”
But there is an apparent contradiction: Ireland describes its chapter as a nonviolent organization, yet it seeks violence. He assigned the group the role of a vigilante force uninvited.
“We were there as the first line of defense for all event attendees,” he wrote, before paradoxically stating that the Proud Boys’ only role was to play a “backup role” for law enforcement and “force them to do their jobs.” .
This says a lot. It suggested that if the police didn’t attack anti-fascist protesters, the Proud Boys would.
“I’ve reported at the Proud Boys event, when police threw tear gas and other ammunition into the crowd opposing protesters, they stepped back and relaxed,” Campbell said. “Then the proud boys don’t have to be like Randy Ireland does what Randy Ireland implies here – steps in and fights himself.”
For Campbell, the most disturbing aspect of the document is that, because of its soft-camera double talk and contradictory implications, it falls into arguably the Proud Boys’ main ambition: the normalization of political violence. Despite so many leaders behind bars, the group is still thriving.
As the new chapter emerges, Americans are becoming more and more accustomed to setting up heavily armed gangs in public spaces. The Proud Boys have appeared as “security details” at anti-abortion rallies, anti-vaccination demonstrations, pro-gun protests, and of course, Trump’s rallies.
“The street violence that the Proud Boys helped create is now being carried out by ordinary people,” Campbell said. “You see it on January 6, you see it at Planned Parenthood and LGBTQ+ events, people are being harassed and attacked by everyday Americans.”