Earlier this week, Navy veteran Ervin Lee Bolling rammed his SUV into a barrier outside the FBI headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. The alleged perpetrator of the attack's motivation have not yet been publicly revealed, but a deep dive into his social media history suggests he was a strong believer in numerous far-right fringe conspiracy theories.
On Wednesday, tech publication Wired reported that, according to research conducted by nonprofit organization Advance Democracy, Bolling was a believer the QAnon conspiracy theory. Adherents of QAnon believe that an anonymous official within former President Donald Trump's administration named "Q" was routinely sharing updates about the ex-president's secret battle against a cabal of pedophiles entrenched in the highest levels of government and elite society.
Advance Democracy found a Facebook account believed to be Bolling's, along with an account on X (formerly Twitter) with the handle @alohatiger11. While the X account is locked, Advance Democracy was able to see multiple posts from the account when running it through the internet archive's Wayback Machine. The "tiger" is a reference to the Clemson University Tigers, which Bolling publicly supported on his Facebook page. The avatar on the X account is reportedly similar to the profile photo on the Facebook account in question. Similar handles were also found on Telegram and Cash App.
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Researchers found that those social media accounts repeatedly amplified QAnon-related content, with one posting the phrase "release the Kraken." The "Kraken" phrase is famously attributed to former Trump attorney Sidney Powell, who first uttered it in response to supposed evidence that Georgia's presidential election was rigged (she has yet to produce any evidence backing up her claims).
The Facebook profile that appears to be Bolling's shared anti-Covid vaccine memes on multiple occasions. And in one Twitter reply under a December 2020 post by Trump (prior to his suspension from the platform after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol) baselessly alleging the presidential election was illegitimate, the account believed to be Bolling's wrote, "I love you."
FBI agent Matthew Upshaw said in a sworn affidavit on Tuesday that Bolling drove a burnt orange SUV with South Carolina plates into the front gate of the FBI's complex in Atlanta, and then tried to walk out of his vehicle and follow an FBI employee into the bureau's secure parking lot. Bolling then reportedly refused orders to sit on the curb and resisted arrest when apprehended by agents. He was charged with destruction of government property. Wired reported that he has not yet retained legal counsel, and his spouse as identified on his Facebook page has not yet made any public statements.
If Bolling's attack on the FBI headquarters was indeed politically motivated, it would be merely the latest example of the growing trend of far-right domestic terrorism targeting law enforcement. In 2022, 42-year-old Ricky Shiffer — who was believed to have been a participant in the January 6 insurrection — attempted to force his way into an FBI building in Cincinnati, Ohio. After an armed standoff with local police, he was eventually killed.
Shiffer's attack on Cincinnati's FBI headquarters came just days after FBI agents raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of its probe into the ex-president's alleged mishandling of classified documents.
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