#DOJ files federal charges against 53 protesters in nationwide riots

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Protesters set the Minneapolis Police 3rd precinct ablaze
Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register-

The Department of Justice filed charges against 53 protesters for their alleged roles in riots that have broken out across the country in wake of George Floyd’s death.

The federal charges cover a variety of alleged criminal behavior — including impersonating a US Marshal in Florida, aiming a laser at a police aircraft in Wisconsin and inciting a riot in Illinois that caused damage to more than 50 businesses, according to a DOJ document obtained by Fox News.

About 40 of the arrests were for violent acts, including tossing Molotov cocktails, setting fires or looting stores.

Brandon Wolfe was arrested for swiping items from the Minneapolis Police Department’s Third Precinct on June 3. Cops found him with “body armor, a police-issue duty belt with handcuffs, an earphone piece, baton, and knife” and his name “handwritten in duct tape on the back of the body armor.”

Wolfe, 23, also had a “riot helmet, 9mm pistol magazine, police radio, and police issue overdose kit” and allegedly confessed to tossing a barrel into the fire at the precinct.

Shamar Betts, 19, allegedly posted Facebook Live video showing him and dozens of others looting a mall in Champaign, Illinois on May 31.

“We gotta put Champaign/Urbana on the map – expletive – gone hear and fear us too. Slide let’s get busy. Justice for George – expletive,” Betts said on the video, according to the DOJ.

More than 50 businesses including Kohls and a TJ Maxx were vandalized.

John Wesley Mobley Jr. was busted for allegedly flashing “what appeared to be a law enforcement badge” at protesters in Orlando on May 31 and threatening them, “Do you want to get arrested? Do you want to go to jail?”

One protester apparently responded, “He’s a Marshal!”

Mobley, 36, was also allegedly in possession of a BB gun replica of a Glock pistol, handcuffs and a silver badge reading “United States Marshal.”

He’s been convicted twice before for impersonating law enforcement.

The laser beam incidents occurred between May 31 and June 7 when the green lights were shot at FBI and Wisconsin National Guard aircraft. One man, Jeremiah Belen, of Milwaukee, was arrested.

Three men affiliated with the so-called boogaloo movement, whose followers prosecutors say believe in an impending civil war, were also charged by the feds. The trio are accused of plotting to set off explosives in Las Vegas in hopes of spurring a riot.

With Post Wires