Responding police cruisers had their tires slashed by rioters who dumped nail-filled pool noodles on the street… the night before, rioters tried to b… - Andy Ngo

One glaring blind spot in the mainstream media coverage of CHAZ was how the space gave platform to violent extremist ideologies. Reports about CHAZ’s political agenda focused shallowly on ‘racial justice’ and ‘defunding the police’ rather than its explicit calls to kill cops and overthrow the government. Hundreds of graffiti messages and images lined the zone showing dead pigs wearing police hats.

In mid-July, the federal government put up a strong reinforced barrier around the courthouse. Other barriers previously put up were quickly torn apart. This one was made of thick steel, and it was reinforced by concrete blocks on the other side. The fence withstood for many days, but on the fifty-ninth night of rioting, hundreds gathered with tools and equipment to bring down the barrier. They used electric saws to cut into the fence, but the holes they made were too small for people to fit through. Next, they tied rope around strategic points of the fence, and hundreds of rioters participated in pulling it down.

As demonstrated with window breaking, it only takes a small group of people—even just one person—to set off a chain reaction. It makes sense that the overwhelming majority of those arrested at random are not aligned with antifa ideology. They don’t need to be in order to play a role in the riots. The smashing of businesses’ windows serves as an open invitation to opportunist looters and rioters to wreak havoc. That’s the genius of antifa’s riot strategy: they only have to light the match.