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An anti-government extremist in Ohio built homemade machine guns, stockpiled silencers and bomb-making materials, and acquired a rifle-mounted grenade launcher—which he later said he received in a trade along with some “primo cocaine”—as part of a scheme to kill as many government officials as possible before police killed him, according to a criminal complaint obtained first by The Daily Beast.
Sandusky resident Aron McKillips, 29, was arrested Tuesday by members of a task force from the FBI’s Cleveland Division. He is a “well-known member” of the Boogaloo Bois, a loosely affiliated militia group seeking to overthrow the government by touching off a second Civil War, states the complaint, which was unsealed Tuesday in Toledo federal court. McKillips is charged with unlawful possession of a machine gun and interstate communication of threats.
Investigators say McKillips spoke often to other members, some of whom turned out to be federal informants, about his violent plans—including his desire to “blow up the IRS,” destroy Facebook headquarters, and carry out a copycat attack modeled on the deadly 2017 mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music concert. More prosaically, McKillips threatened to detonate a pipe bomb at a local child support office last year over processing fees, the complaint states.