Most of the protesters wore face masks due to the pandemic, making it difficult for police to identify them, but the FBI had a source on the inside: Rogers, the young detective who suggested that she was a sex worker named Chelsie. Michelle Malkin, a conspiracy theorist who lives in Colorado Springs, tweeted: “Nowhere is safe.” Other demonstrators recorded the encounter, and that and other footage from the protest circulated among far-right social media accounts as examples of the apparent dangers of racial justice and antifascist activists. Following the argument, Johnson allegedly swatted the driver’s phone out of his hands. A driver trying to pass through got into a verbal altercation with Charles Johnson, a Black activist and college student. They blocked the road through the neighborhood, and the protest escalated. “Alan Van’t Land, we are calling you a racist. “Alan Van’t Land, we are calling you an assassin,” the man with the bullhorn continued. “Murderer!” the other demonstrators repeated. “Alan Van’t Land, we are calling you a murderer,” a demonstrator yelled into a bullhorn. On August 3, 2020, as racial justice demonstrations roiled the nation, Colorado Springs activists organized a protest outside the suburban home of Alan Van’t Land, one of the officers involved in Bailey’s death. Activists there were angered not only by Floyd’s death, but also by the killing of a local man, De’Von Bailey, who was shot in the back by police officers in 2019. The murder of George Floyd sparked protests in Colorado Springs, as in cities across the nation in the summer of 2020. As federal agents investigated political activists there, they also launched, and promptly dropped, an investigation of a man running a neo-Nazi website - a decision that would have deadly consequences. The probe in Colorado Springs also raises questions about FBI priorities and the bureau’s perceptions of threats. “It is a clear abuse of authority for the FBI to use undercover agents, informants, and local law enforcement to spy on and entrap people engaged in peaceful First Amendment-protected activities without any evidence of criminal activity or violent intent.” “It’s disturbing, but not surprising, to learn the FBI’s reported targeting of racial justice activists in 2020 wasn’t limited to Denver,” Sen. This FBI investigation in Colorado Springs, 70 miles south of Denver, shows that federal law enforcement had embarked on a broad, and until now, secret strategy to spy on racial justice groups and try to entrap activists in crimes. The Colorado Springs Police Department declined to make her available for an interview. “I’ve been told to respond, ‘I respectfully decline to answer,’” Rogers said under oath. When called as a witness in a state court hearing, she testified that the Justice Department instructed her not to answer questions about the FBI investigation. The Colorado Springs Police Department also declined to comment, referring all questions to the FBI.įor her part, April Rogers won’t say anything. The FBI declined to be interviewed about the Colorado Springs investigation and refused to respond in writing to a list of questions. The FBI enlisted her to infiltrate and spy on racial justice groups during the summer of 2020. The young woman, whose real name is April Rogers, is a detective at the Colorado Springs Police Department. “I never questioned it.”īut Chelsie’s identity was as fake as her long pink hair. That makes sense,’” said Autum Carter-Wallace, an activist in Colorado Springs. “I think somebody else had told me that, and I just was like, ‘Oh, OK. “She implied over the course of getting to know her that she was a sex worker,” said Jon Christiansen, Samantha’s husband and another co-founder of the Chinook Center. She also dropped regular hints about her chosen profession. The pink-haired woman said her name was Chelsie. But no one among the activists found that unusual or alarming everyone has their own style. “She dressed in a way that was sort of noticeable,” said Samantha Christiansen, a co-founder of the Chinook Center. One day during the summer of 2020, she walked into the Chinook Center, a community space for left-wing activists in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and offered to volunteer. The young woman with long pink hair claimed to be from Washington state.
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