by PAUL SACCA
Photojournalist Jeremy Lee Quinn was furloughed this year, so he set out to document the protests and the riots that beset cities across the U.S. following the death of George Floyd. Quinn expected to discover white supremacists caused havoc and violence at riots, but what he actually found shocked him — violent left-wing anarchists who were extremely organized.
On May 31, Quinn covered a Black Lives Matter protest in Santa Monica, California, where “suburban moms” were kneeling. Then he was alerted to a shoe store being looted about a mile away.
“He arrived to find young people pouring out of the store, shoeboxes under their arms. But there was something odd about the scene,” Farah Stockman wrote in the New York Times. “A group of men, dressed entirely in black, milled around nearby, like supervisors. One wore a creepy rubber Halloween mask.”
The next day, Quinn went to another protest, and another store was being looted. A white man wearing all black smashed the window of the store with a crowbar, but he walked away without stealing anything.
Quinn started pouring over footage of looting that was happening across the country. Once again, he noticed that white men dressed in black were often the culprits of the looting.
The Video Man. Here. you know, when the Black guys are saying "This is not what it is." But the white guys are taking over. #minneapolisriots #BLMprotest #BLM #3rdprecinct pic.twitter.com/kt4N4h38Ih
— Jeremy Lee Quinn (@jeremyreporter) October 1, 2020
Quinn believed that the caucasian men causing damage were white supremacist supporters of President Donald Trump, who were attempting to make Black Lives Matter protests appear in a negative light. In an effort to expose the alleged racist Trump supporters, Quinn went undercover and infiltrated the groups. Instead, he found that these destructive forces were “true believers in insurrectionary anarchism.”
Over the next four months, Quinn marched along with “black bloc anarchists in half a dozen cities across the country.” He was in Washington D.C., where militant agitators harassed diners, and in Portland where rioters launched fireworks at the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.
“He says he respects the idealistic goal of a hierarchy-free society that anarchists embrace, but grew increasingly uncomfortable with the tactics used by some anarchists, which he feared would set off a backlash that could help get President Trump re-elected.”
Quinn told the New York Times that the far-left anarchists were not “a spontaneous eruption of anger at racial injustice,” like much of the mainstream media categorized the violence as. “It was strategically planned, facilitated and advertised on social media by anarchists who believed that their actions advanced the cause of racial justice.”
Quinn cautioned that the violent militants in Washington, Portland, and Seattle generated a “cultlike energy.”
Quinn saw something else he did not expect to see during the protests, Black Lives Matter protesters praying together with Trump supporters in Tulsa.
Quinn detailed his experience during protests and riots on his website, Public Report, where he warned how dangerous far-left anarchist groups could be
He could have asked some of us. We could have told him what he’d find without him risking his life.
Who will deprogram them from their cult of destruction? Most so far have not felt any negative consequences they riot, and either no bail or are bailed out quickly and riot some more with the bonafide medal of being arrested or better yet getting someone who defends themselves or others arrested.
Laughable as they think insurance covers their mayhem, not one ever dealt with an insurance company.