Militia group posted pictures of locals implying 'antifa' ties
Algernon D'Ammassa|Las Cruces Sun-News
LAS CRUCES - A civilian militia group called the New Mexico Civil Guard has established a large presence at political demonstrations around the state in the past month, including in Las Cruces.
The group's membershave come armed, often in military fatigues, presenting themselves as a politically neutral entity keeping the peace.
The group gained national notoriety after a June 15 shooting in Albuquerque during a protest in front of a statue ofJuan de Oñate. Police say Steven Ray Baca opened fire, critically wounding a man, shortly after cell phone videos caught him throwing a woman to the ground.
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Civil Guard members, saying Baca was not part of their group, surrounded him after the shooting until Albuquerque police arrived and detained all of the armed men.
No members of the New Mexico Civil Guard were charged. Baca was charged Wednesday withaggravated battery, two counts of battery and one count of unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon without a concealed carry permit.District Attorney RaúlTorrez indicated there might be additional charges asNew Mexico State Police continue their investigation.
Early in June, the group was present during a vigil in Las Cruces in honor of George Floyd, along with armed individuals who identified themselves as members of the "Boogaloo Bois." The boogaloo movement is a loosely organized movement espousing anti-government views — including promotion of armed conflict. Some members envision a new civil war.
While the June 1 Las Cruces vigil was peaceful, some of the armed onlookers told the Sun-News they were there to guard the vigil against out-of-town provocateurs.
The rumored instigators did not appear. But, on the following day,the Civil Guard engaged with several community members via Facebook, publicly marking them as "local antifa supporters" and declaring them to be threats.
'Watch your six y'all'
The group posted screenshots identifying Las Crucens Jamie Bronstein (identifying her as a professor at New Mexico State University), Lucas Herndon and Mark Milliorn, among others, in a post that declared "Watch your six y'all."
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Herndon also received menacing private messages from a Facebook user identified as "Corey Boog," who told Herndon he would "slap the f*** out of you when I see you."
A photograph of Milliorn, a retired NMSU professor, along with his wife was posted in the comments to that Facebook post after Milliorn wrote: "BecauseJamie Bronsteindares to exercise her first amendment rights while having a different opinion than yours, you cowardly troll her information while hiding behind your anonymous site. If you are going to include the name of everyone at the university who is both anti-fascist and supports free speech, please do not forget to include my name.”
Bryce Provance, one of the Civil Guard's leaders in Albuquerque, told the Sun-Newsthat the post was intended to warn other members about potentially dangerous people they might encounter at protests.
"'Watch your six' means watch your back," Provance said. "We've had death threats, we've been doxxed, we've had Antifa get violent with us at protests."
The individuals — some of whom declined interviews for this story out of concern for their safety, said they were the ones being doxxed — the common term for publishing personal information about an individual online in order to incite harassment or worse.
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Herndon, himself a gun-owner,interpreted the "watch your six" comment as a clear threat, and said he had "upped my preparedness" physically while also taking steps to protect his security online.
He also stepped back from social mediafor a while.
"I know enough about gun culture and online militarized movements to know that that phrase is, among military types — a phrase about perceiving an imminent threat or calling it out, and also from video game culture," Herndon said.
Additionally, Herndon said he reached out to local organizers of a Black Lives Matter demonstration before attending, in case his presence would prove a distraction or safety risk in the event that the Civil Guard showed up.
Seeking permission, he said, "is important for those of us who are trying to be allies to Black organizers who are doing such an incredible job right now."
Organizers invited Herndon to come and participate in their demonstration — unarmed.
'They're just strange people'
Milliorn said he has not attended a political demonstration since 1974.In contrast to Herndon, he didn't take the group's social media behavior seriously.
"They’re just strange people," he said.
After exchanging words with the group's Facebook account and comments with an individual account linked to Provance, Milliorn said he had not received subsequent communications from the group, but added that he is used to nasty online messages, and has even gotten death threatsover his personal blog.
“I usually grade my hate mail and return it," Milliorn said.
Although the self-appointed watch at the Las Cruces vigil did not culminate in negative interactions, Herndon said introducing weaponsand tactical gear to vigils and protests is intimidatingand dangerous.
"Bringing guns out into a peaceful space is inherently escalation and a form of violence in and of itself," he said, pointing toMonday's shooting in Albuquerque as a demonstration ofhow quickly a situation may deteriorate.
"They made that space available," he said."They encouraged anybody to come with guns and side with them. They made it about sort of an 'us versus them.'"
'We're there to protect everybody'
Provance argued that the group was not there to take any side or act as counter-demonstrators.
While claiming to hew to a "center path" in its politics, many of the group's Facebook posts express antagonism toward"lefties" and Antifa while repostingmemes and articles alluding to conspiracies about COVID-19 research and billionaire George Soros, a prominent villain in right-wing media culture.
Provance himself was named as a regional director on a neoconfederate organization's website as recently as last December, but he maintained the Civil Guard was not associated with any ideological movement.
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"We started this organization because we wanted to help with search and rescue, help with first aid, rapid local response to emergencies," Provance said, "and yes, we train with weapons as well. It's a Constitutional right and a fact of America right nowis that it's a scary place."
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller have denounced the organization, and Keller called for them to be designated as a hate group.
In a statement Tuesday, the governorsaid the armed men "were there for one reason: To menace protesters, to present an unsanctioned show of unregulated force."
Provance countered that "it is our duty to interpose ourselves between people with no training and people with training," claiming that the Civil Guard "has the same escalation of force as the police department — we are a very well-trained organization that is trained by former members of law enforcement and the military."
Yet it is violence by police officers, along with the deployment of military assets in civil spaces by police departments, that has been a major theme of protests where the group has enlarged its presence.
And Herndon argued that presence needs to be taken seriously.
"The inevitability of them being in these spaces was violence," he said. "It always was and it always will be."
Algernon D'Ammassa can be reached at 575-541-5451,adammassa@lcsun-news.comor @AlgernonWrites on Twitter.
