The 42-year-old from Columbus walked into the FBI’s safety station outdoors its Cincinnati workplaces Thursday morning carrying a nail gun and an AR-15, and opened hearth on the ballistic glass defending brokers inside with the nail gun, apparently out of the YouTube-fostered belief that such weapons are able to breaking bulletproof glass. After firing on the glass a number of occasions to no discernible impact aside from setting off alarms that despatched brokers working in his route, Shiffer fled the constructing and drove away in his automotive.
Shiffer was a prolific consumer of the Trump-sponsored social-media platform Reality Social. In some way, within the temporary time between when he attacked the FBI and when police caught up with him, he was capable of file one final publish, although it resulted in an incomplete sentence as if he had been interrupted. It learn:
Properly, I assumed I had a method via bulletproof glass, and I didn’t. If you happen to don’t hear from me, it’s true I attempted attacking the F.B.I., and it’ll imply both I used to be taken off the web, the F.B.I. received me, or they despatched the common cops whereas
About 20 minutes after the assault, Ohio Freeway Patrol officers discovered Shiffer parked in his Ford Crown Victoria at an Interstate 71 relaxation space. After they tried to confront him, he fled down the freeway, police in pursuit. Police say he fired photographs at them. He exited at state Route 73 and stopped shortly afterward close to a cornfield. Shiffer emerged from the automotive with a gun and commenced firing at officers from behind his automotive. Police then engaged him in negotiations that went on for practically two hours. When these talks broke down, police say they tried to seize him utilizing “much less deadly” weapons, however when he fired on officers, they returned the gunfire, and he was shot and killed.
Shiffer was a real MAGA loyalist who had traveled to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, and took part within the assault on the U.S. Capitol. The evening earlier than, he participated in a pro-Trump rally led by the Proud Boys at Washington’s Black Lives Matter Plaza that changed into a violent conflict with police, previewing the following day’s historic occasions. He additionally turns up in a variety of images and movies of the mob that attacked the Capitol.
On Twitter, he later urged readers to help the Proud Boys. “Save ammunition, get in contact with the Proud Boys, and find out how they did it within the Revolutionary Battle, as a result of submitting to tyranny whereas lawfully protesting was by no means the American method,” Shiffer wrote.
He additionally complained to Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene on Twitter concerning the 2020 election. “Congresswoman Greene, they received away with fixing elections in plain sight,” Shiffer wrote. “It’s over. The following step is the one we utilized in 1775.”
In newer weeks, his Reality Social posts had grow to be much more militant. “This nation has by no means had a worse enemy,” he posted on Aug 5. 1776 was for much much less, even World Battle II was for much less.”
“Save ammunition and be prepared and keen to hit the highway as quickly as you hear it has began,” he wrote the identical day in a publish preferred by 24 readers. “Somebody who wished to be a hero couldn’t have lived in a greater time interval.”
When the FBI served its warrant on Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, Shiffer went fully off the deep finish, becoming a member of the deluge of MAGA followers who instantly declared the search a case of political persecution by the “Deep State,” and proclaimed their need to wage “civil warfare” in opposition to Biden administration “tyranny.”
That day, Shiffer posted a declaration of sorts at Reality Social:
Individuals, that is it. I hope a name to arms comes from somebody higher certified, but when not, that is your name to arms from me. Go away work tomorrow as quickly because the gun store/Military-Navy retailer/pawn store opens, get no matter it’s good to be prepared for fight. We should not tolerate this one. They’ve been conditioning us to simply accept tyranny and suppose we are able to’t do something for two years. This time we should reply with drive. If you recognize of any protests or assaults, please publish right here.
An interlocutor requested him: “Are you proposing terrorism?” He answered:
Crucial query.
No, I’m proposing warfare. Be able to kill the enemy, not mass shootings the place leftists go, not lighting busses on hearth with transexuals in them, not discovering individuals with leftist indicators of their yards and beating them up. Violence just isn’t (all) terrorism. Kill the F.B.I. on sight, and be able to take down different lively enemies of the individuals and those that attempt to forestall you from doing it.
He additionally started reviewing his choices for motion and apparently thought-about heading to Florida so as to defend the ex-president from FBI perfidy:
I’m having bother getting info, however Viva Frei mentioned patriots are heading to Palm Seaside (the place Mar a Lago is). I like to recommend going, and being in Florida, I feel the feds gained’t break it up. In the event that they do, kill them.
One other Reality Social consumer named Grizzly Mama was horrified: “Oh pricey we are able to’t resort to that! Not no longer right here.”
Shiffer replied: “Why not?” He later expanded on the purpose: “It gained’t matter if we don’t get violent. We see the courts are unfair and unconstitutional, all that’s left is drive.”
The assault was not a shock to anybody who had monitored the sorts of extremist rhetoric that flooded social media after the FBI served its warrant, a lot of it from ostensibly mainstream Republican political figures and right-wing media corresponding to Fox Information. FBI Director Christopher Wray addressed the rhetoric in discussing the assault with reporters.
“There was plenty of commentary concerning the FBI this week questioning our work and motives,” Wray mentioned. “A lot of it’s from critics and pundits on the skin who do not know what we all know and do not see what we see. What I do know—and what I see—is a corporation made up of women and men who’re dedicated to doing their jobs professionally and by the e-book on daily basis; this week isn’t any exception.”
As Laura Clawson has already explored, Shiffer’s actions had been virtually inevitable after weeks of radicalization amongst right-wing leaders about federal legislation enforcement, particularly associated to investigations of Trump, topped by their quick declarations that the Mar-a-Lago search was an illegitimate assault not simply on Trump however on all Individuals.
Naturally, only a few of those unhinged “thought” leaders had been keen to debate the assault on the FBI afterward. One of many solely right-wing figures to take action, Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA, naturally continued accountable the FBI, apparently for being attacked:
I’m positive this may now be the principle focus, although we have now mentioned repeatedly to stay peaceable and keep centered on constructive issues that we are able to do. They’re now going to attempt to play the sufferer after they occupied Donald Trump’s residence, a army occupation.
A handful of his fellow MAGA lovers later saluted Shiffer for his martyrdom. However on the boards corresponding to 4chan and the Trumpist website The Donald the place a lot of the identical conspiracist fearmongering that fueled Shiffer had been generated and amplified, the response was largely unanimous: It was all a part of a faux Deep State psyop operation, utilizing a “false flag” to smear Trump supporters.
As NBC reporter Ben Collins noted: “Each prime publish on TheDonald is claiming the Cincinnati FBI state of affairs is a false flag. They consistently agitate for these sorts of assaults and by no means, ever take credit score for them. It permits them a everlasting victimhood.”
The conversations at The Donald various little of their conspiracist self-assurance that they had been capable of pierce the media veil:
Just one, and he was apprehended eh?
How handy. It is both a false flag, or one if the “boohoo- no person’s doing nothing” commenters from this web site, taking part in proper into their arms
False flag. To lock it down additional. Everyone knows Trump supporters do not do that. Get up!
Its too unhealthy that it wasn’t precise actual and simply one other false flag by these faggot feds. They need so unhealthy for individuals to react however its not taking place so that they should make up these faux false flags.
Pretend. They staged an assault on themselves to play the sufferer. It will not work. Nobody feels unhealthy for these faggots.
See how they all the time attempt to tie the 2 collectively? Because of this why false flags happen, when they do not get the response they need from their commie raids, lets scape goat a “loopy White man with a Rifle” for additional narrative management. Typical bullshit.
Certainly one of The Donald commenters summed up the prevailing perspective—particularly, that it now not mattered whether or not the assault was actual or not, as a result of all of them may see the “reality”:
Precisely, I do not give a shit anymore. They fired the primary shot yesterday by attacking Trump. The road has been crossed, the sport has begun. The tyrannical left goes to cease any nothing to place us into slavery so fuck all of it.
The entire level of this rhetoric, as researcher Melissa Ryan instructed Insider, is to sow as a lot confusion and misunderstanding concerning the actions of the multitudes of far-right extremists who function inside Trumpworld. That’s particularly the case when the inspiration for right-wing violence like Shiffer’s comes from so lots of the similar sources now dismissing his actions as a “false flag.”
“These of us have been calling for civil warfare, violent terrorism, harassment of the choose who issued the warrant, doxxing FBI brokers,” Ryan mentioned. “After which the minute violence in opposition to the FBI occurs, they’re like, ‘Oh, not it, clearly it was a false flag, they’re attempting to make us look unhealthy.'”
As Columbus resident @almostdomi observed on Twitter: “Think about actually dying for Trump, however then all the MAGA motion simply calls it a false flag.”
