According to Latimes
When sheriff’s deputies searched a white van on June 6 in a wooded hamlet in Santa Cruz County, they found ammunition, firearms, bomb-making equipment — and a ballistic vest with a curious patch.
The patch contained an igloo and Hawaiian-style print, markings associated with a growing, extremist, anti-government movement aimed at fomenting unrest and civil war.
On Tuesday, federal law enforcement officials announced that they were charging Air Force Sgt. Steven Carrillo, 32, the alleged owner of that vest, and suspected accomplice Robert A. Justus Jr., 30, of Millbrae in the May 29 shooting death of a federal security officer in Oakland.
Officials said Carrillo, who also faces state charges in the June 6 killing of a Santa Cruz sheriff’s deputy, was a follower of the “boogaloo” movement, which a federal complaint said is not a fixed group but includes people who identify themselves as militia and target perceived government tyranny.
Justus’ social media posts also show support for boogaloo memes. One post reviewed by the Times names people who have been killed by law enforcement, including Oscar Grant, shot by transit police at Oakland’s Fruitvale station in 2009, and Vicki Weaver, wife of white supremacist Randy Weaver, killed by an FBI sniper during the 1992 Ruby Ridge siege in Idaho.
The federal government charged Carrillo with killing federal security officer David Patrick Underwood, 53, a resident of the small East Bay city of Pinole, and the attempted murder of Underwood’s partner. The charges qualify for the death penalty, but officials said no decision has yet been made on whether to seek it. Justus is charged with aiding Carrillo in the killing and attempted killing.
The security officers were shot while guarding a federal building in downtown Oakland during a protest over the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The pair used the protest as a cover for their plans to attack law enforcement, said FBI Special Agent In Charge Jack Bennett.
“There is no evidence that these men had any intention to join the demonstration in Oakland,” Bennett said at a Tuesday news conference. “They came to Oakland to kill cops.”
Federal officials said Carrillo fired the shots and Justus drove him around in a white van. Surveilance video showed that Carrillo slid open the van’s side door to fire his weapon, officials said, and Justus acted at the getaway driver.
The two men were linked through cellphone records, officials said. Carrillo used a privately made, unmarked machine gun — a so-called ghost gun — with a silencer to kill Underwood, Bennett said. The federal complaint against Carrillo said law enforcement found similarities in fired cartridge cases at the shootings in both Oakland and Santa Cruz.
The Oakland killing sparked an eight-day manhunt that led to Carrillo’s arrest after someone reported a white van containing firearms and bomb-making equipment in the small, mountainous Santa Cruz County community of Ben Lomond.
Evidence in the van led authorities to Carrillo’s Ben Lomond home. There, in the early afternoon, Carrillo allegedly opened fire on the deputies, killing Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller and injuring another deputy. An explosion rocked the property, the Sheriff’s Office said.