The groups behind one of the DNC’s most violent protests

CHICAGO — The Instagram message posted by “Behind Enemy Lines,” a little-known anarchist group, on Tuesday afternoon was clear.

“If you believe that a message was sent to the DNC by the city-approved and peace-policed march, than stay home tonight,” the group said, referring to the relatively peaceful first day of protests at the Democratic National Convention. “If you think the people of Palestine require more, be at the Israeli consulate tonight. 7pm.”

A group of roughly 200 people showed up at the rally organized by Behind Enemy Lines and Samidoun, an organization that praised Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and that Germany and Israel have banned over alleged ties to terrorist groups. 

Speeches were short in what quickly became one of the most violent protests at this week’s Democratic National Convention. “These are the enemy of the people and we must move on these motherf——,” a masked man said over a microphone. 

The masked leader screamed profanity about Israel and imperialism into a megaphone, and called police officers “pigs.” He repeatedly ignored police orders to disperse and led demonstrators down an improvised route, flooding a street. Protesters hurled signs and water bottles at officers. At one point, they engulfed a taxi cab with passengers inside. 

In all, police arrested 56 people. At least four individuals suffered minor injuries, including two protesters and two police officers. Chicago police said 22 of those arrested were from outside the city — many from the West Coast. 

Among them was a longtime anarchist hacker who had served time in federal prison named Jeremy Hammond. A 39-year-old Chicago native, Hammond has a prior federal arrest and conviction for participating in a hack that gave information from a private company to WikiLeaks. He was also associated with several high-profile hacks of federal and local law enforcement agencies, according to court filings. 

Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling said that although officers look at the affiliations of those arrested, investigators focus more on who is committing violent acts.

“What we’re looking at are actions, because you may have people who show up here who are affiliated with particular groups, who just talk,” Snelling said. “We plan for those who show up here to cause destruction, chaos, criminal activity, violence, and that’s what we’ve trained for.”

Former FBI officials said that some protest groups, under the guise of free speech, try to incite violence. They added that federal law restricts law enforcement from formally investigating groups who simply express support for terrorism but do not engage in or are planning violence. 

“Samidoun appears not to be planning violence, but rather celebrating it,” said Frank Figliuzzi, a former assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI and an NBC News contributor. “The problem is you must have them advocating, planning, instructing, engaging in, pick one of the above, violence for a political cause. And they have yet, to my knowledge, to do it.”

A veteran hacker

The date of birth of the Jeremy Hammond arrested in Chicago matches that of the Jeremy Hammond from Chicago who was charged and convicted in two separate cases by the Justice Department, according to three senior officials briefed on the matter. 

Hammond was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2015 by a federal judge in New York City after he pleaded guilty to hacking Strategic Forecasting Inc. (Stratfor) — and some of the materials from that hack eventually found its way into the hands of WikiLeaks. 

Hammond admitted to being a part of an off-shoot of “Anonymous” — a group of computer hackers — and being involved in a coordinated effort to hack multiple companies and agencies in 2011 and 2022.

Some of the aliases he went by include “Anarchaos,” “burn,” “crediblethreat,” “sup_g,” and “anarchacker.” 

Federal prosecutors said that he was also involved in the intrusions into the FBI’s Virtual Academy, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association, and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama. 

“Hammond’s aim was to break into victims’ computer systems, steal data, deface websites, destroy files and dump online the sensitive personal and financial information of thousands of individuals,” federal prosecutors said in a court filing. “All with the object of creating, in Hammond’s own words, maximum ‘mayhem.’” 

He was released from jail in March 2021 and placed on supervised release, which ended in 2022. It was not clear what relationship, if any, Hammond had to Behind Enemy Lines. The attorney representing him could not be immediately reached for comment.

Michael Boyte, one of the co-founders of the group, describes himself as focused on anti-imperialist struggles, and as a college dropout and an unemployed barista, according to an online bio. Boyle did not respond to a request for comment.

In an April interview with The Progressive Magazine, Boyte explained the genesis of the organization. During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, Boyte saw that new activists weren’t focused on international issues including how Israel was treating Palestinians. He started Behind Enemy Lines to show that the U.S. is an oppressive, imperialist force around the world.

Christopher O’Leary, a former senior FBI counterterrorism official, said that extreme protest groups try to conduct high-profile demonstrations that attract national attention. “It’s intended to create sympathies and movements and grow attention to a cause,” said O’Leary, now a senior vice president at The Soufan Group, a security consultancy.

Banned in Israel and Germany

Of the two groups, Samidoun has the higher profile. Samidoun, the Arabic word for “steadfast,” says it champions the rights of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli detention facilities. But an NBC News review of Samidoun’s online posts and videos found several examples of its leaders praising violent attacks against Israel. 

“The heroic Palestinian operation on the seventh of October shook the foundations of Zionism and imperialism in the region,” Charlotte Kates said in a January YouTube video, speaking after representatives of Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the U.S. government has designated terrorist organizations.

A month later, Kates appeared in a video with Dr. Basem Naim, a senior official with Hamas, which the U.S. has also designated a terror organization.

Kates, who is from New Jersey and attended Rutgers University, helps to run Samidoun out of Vancouver, British Columbia, where it is registered as a nonprofit organization, Canadian records show. Kates did not respond to a request for comment.

In May, police in Vancouver arrested Kates and charged her with willful promotion of hatred after she praised the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel during a demonstration.

Jewish groups and conservative politicians across Canada have been pushing the government to ban Samidoun. Germany shut down its chapter in November after it praised the Oct. 7 attack. 

Israel, in 2021, declared it a terror organization, arguing its members used to be part of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, which several countries including the U.S. say is a terrorist group.

Biden administration officials told NBC News earlier this year that Samidoun’s rhetoric, videos and sponsoring of protests does not rise to the level of being designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

Federal officials said hate speech alone is not enough to trigger a designation. Investigators would need to find evidence of specific threats of violence or clear acts of terror being planned.

When asked if federal law enforcement officials in Chicago were aware that some of the protest groups have ties to terror organizations, an FBI spokesperson said that the agency can’t comment on specific groups, but that it has spent the last year working on a safety plan for the Democratic National Convention.

“Facts are analyzed and used to prevent terrorist activity,” the spokesperson said.

Oren Segal, vice president at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, criticized Samidoun’s open support of terror groups and its on-campus training sessions with college students that have gone on for years.