Air Force Sergeant Accused Of Leading Anti-Police Militia, Killing Two Cops

An Air Force sergeant accused of killing two law enforcement officers in California last year has been deemed a trusted affiliate of a rightwing militia called the Grizzly Scouts that devise attacks against law enforcement, reports suggested on Monday.

Suspected gunman Air Force Sergeant Steven Carrillo has been charged with the separate murders of Federal Protective Service Officer Dave Patrick Underwood in Oakland and Santa Cruz Sheriff Sergeant Damon Gutzwiller in Ben Lomond. The accused has since pleaded not guilty to both the May 29, 2020, fatal shooting of Underwood and the June 6, 2020, ambush of Gutzwiller.

Court documents further reveal that Carrillo was not a lone actor in the murders but was part of the much larger anti-government group called the Grizzly Scouts, with roughly 25 members, that was staging an atrocious war against the police, Fox News reported.

The filings also detailed the group’s alleged activities in mid-2020 including firearms training in Turlock, the creation of a "Quick Reaction Force" or QRF, and plots to send a member to scout out a protest in Sacramento.

The Modesto Bee reported that Jessie Alexander Rush, 29, of Turlock, organized the Grizzly Scouts and established himself the major. He would allegedly conduct the training near his residence preceding the killings of the two cop victims, which led to Carrillo's arrest.

Rush, along with Simon Sage Ybarra, 23, of Los Gatos; Kenny Matthew Miksch, 21, of San Lorenzo; and Robert Jesus Blancas, 33, of Castro Valley, was indicted in April on federal charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice by destroying evidence related to these murder investigations.

Blancas, the only defendant who remains in jail, also faces a child enticement charge following alleged deplorable sexual conversations with a female minor that were unraveled during the probe, the Associated Press noted.

In a document titled "Operations Order," the Grizzly Scouts tagged police as "enemy forces." Militia group members would allegedly take turns in choosing which cop to take as prisoners and discuss the process of holding them captive, writing: "POWs will be searched for intel and gear, interrogated, stripped naked, blindfolded, driven away and released into the wilderness blindfolded with hands bound."

The group also purportedly plotted schemes to incite violence between Antifa groups and police.

Recent court filings revealed that most members of the Grizzly Scouts are still on the run, with the group identifying with a loosely affiliated, nationwide militia movement of the name “Boogaloo.”

The said group, whose followers strongly believe America is on the verge of a second civil war, favors Hawaiian shirts and violent rhetoric. However, the Scouts’ activities had a far more meticulous approach with their attacks appearing to be more carefully plotted, The Santa Cruz Sentinel reported.