Umbrella Man

There was a conspiracy theory going around that he was a cop looking to sow unrest after his "fellow police officers" killed George Floyd. Given the all black garb he donned, some also surmised he was a member of Antifa, a group which looks for any reason whatsoever to be violent.

Thankfully persistence has paid off in determining the real identity/motivation of "Umbrella Man."

A masked man who was seen in a viral video smashing the windows of a south Minneapolis auto parts store during the George Floyd protests, earning him the moniker "Umbrella Man," is suspected of ties with a white supremacist group and sought to incite racial tension, police said.

A Minneapolis police arson investigator said the act of vandalism at the AutoZone on E. Lake Street helped spark a chain reaction that led to days of looting and rioting. The store was among dozens of buildings across the city that burned to the ground in the days that followed.

"This was the first fire that set off a string of fires and looting throughout the precinct and the rest of the city," Sgt. Erika Christensen wrote in a search warrant affidavit filed in court this week. "Until the actions of the person your affiant has been calling 'Umbrella Man,' the protests had been relatively peaceful. The actions of this person created an atmosphere of hostility and tension. Your affiant believes that this individual's sole aim was to incite violence."

Police identified "Umbrella Man" thanks to a tip that came via e-mail last week, Christensen said.

Upon this news being revealed, some progs in my Facebook news feed issued verbal equivalencies to "WE TOLD YOU SO!!!!" This was in response to the incredulity expressed by some in late May over residents destroying their city in the name of justice. The retort to that was often "Oh, it's not people from here. It's probably some MAGA-ite white racists stirring up s--t." Of course that retort wasn't taken too seriously by any rational thinking person given that proggies typically chalk up instances of unrest to "white supremacy," often to find those assertions invalid. However, it appears in this case that the progs' proverbial Sasquatch has been sighted.

All that being said, the vandalizing of the AutoZone took place on Wednesday after Memorial Day, about 48 hours after Mr. Floyd died in police custody. Just the night before, vandalism had occurred at the Minneapolis Police Department's Third Precinct. There was then was the worst of the riots/looting the following Thursday and Friday. To suggest that "Umbrella Man" bares 100% of the responsibility for all four evenings of chaos is woefully disingenuous. During daylight hours that week, there was little (if any) tension among people walking the streets of Minneapolis. It was only when the sun started to set that the lunacy ensued.

As insidious as "Umbrella Man" is and as much as he deserves to prosecuted to the full extent of the law for his incitement that Wednesday evening, he's not responsible for what occurred Thursday and Friday nights. Those who have been arrested for such activities as arson are not going to be exonerated over the actions of "Umbrella Man." To try to spin this any other way is little more than an attempt to distract from city and state officials' dereliction of duty on stemming the tide of unrest.

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