This week, the 24-year-old Marine became the first active duty service member convicted of taking part in the Capitol riot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The FBI had tracked his movements minute by minute using security footage, which showed Coomer and his two friends moving from room to room and using their phones to take photos, videos and answer phone calls. At one point, they placed a red MAGA hat atop a statue and took photos with it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coomer later posted photos from inside the Capitol on Instagram \u2015 posts that became FBI evidence against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEverything in this country is corrupt,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe honestly need a fresh restart. I\u2019m waiting for the boogaloo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBoogaloo\u201d is a term referencing a future civil war. When asked to explain the word by the person he was Instagram-messaging, Coomer responded, \u201cCivil war 2.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Wednesday, Coomer pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one misdemeanor count of illegally parading or demonstrating in the Capitol. His attorney, Phillip Stackhouse, did not respond to request for comment following the hearing. Judge Ana C. Reyes set his sentencing for Aug. 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As part of Coomer\u2019s plea agreement, he agreed to pay $500 in restitution to the Architect of the Capitol for damages he may have caused. An estimated $2.8 million worth of damage was done to the Capitol and grounds during the riot. He also agreed to cooperate with investigators who are still probing the Jan. 6 attack, answering their questions and giving them access to his social media accounts, according to the plea documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four other active-duty troops, including Coomer\u2019s two friends, also have been charged in the siege. <\/b>Dozens more rioters with military backgrounds<\/a> were charged \u2014 and some convicted \u2014 in the years since the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of Thursday, Coomer remained on active duty and was assigned to Camp Pendleton in California, where he works as an intelligence surveillance reconnaissance system engineer, according to information provided to Military Times by the Pentagon\u2019s Marine Corps public affairs office. <\/b>He enlisted in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Police arrested Coomer in January, along with Sgt. Joshua Abate and Sgt. Dodge Dale Hellonen. All three Marines work in intelligence-gathering. This occurrence of anti-government sentiments infiltrating the intelligence community is \u201cdangerous,\u201d said Tom O\u2019Connor, a retired FBI agent <\/a>who focused on domestic extremism for 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis guy mentioned \u2018boogaloo,\u2019 and he mentioned the second Civil War \u2014 that\u2019s a dangerous thing to have within our U.S. government because it\u2019s completely anti-government,\u201d O\u2019Connor said. \u201cTo have somebody like that in there, he\u2019s a danger to the public and to people who are working within that government entity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He pointed to the recent harm caused in the case of Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guard member who leaked highly classified military documents about top national security issues<\/a> on the social media platform Discord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of Thursday, Abate was still assigned to National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade in Maryland, where he works as part of the Marine Cryptologic Support Battalion. Abate enlisted in the Marine Corps in 2018 and was interviewed in 2022 as part of his security clearance for the NSA job. During the interview, he discussed entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the FBI\u2019s complaint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abate told the interviewer that he entered the Capitol with two buddies, one of whom smoked a cigarette while they \u201cwalked around and tried not to get hit with tear gas.\u201d Like Coomer, Abate was charged with a misdemeanor count of illegally parading or demonstrating in the Capitol. A district court hearing for Abate has not yet been scheduled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hellonen, who enlisted in 2017, was working as a special communications signals analyst at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina as of Thursday. He was charged with the same misdemeanor as Abate and Coomer. His case was assigned to Judge Reyes, and a hearing hasn\u2019t been scheduled for his charge yet, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All three Marines are recipients of the Navy and Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the National Defense Service Medal, according to their service records.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the Marine Corps provided information about the Marines\u2019 current assignments, officials didn\u2019t expound on the nature of their job duties while their criminal trials progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI hope they\u2019ve been put in positions where they have no access [to intelligence], and the military is letting the investigations continue before going after their security clearances,\u201d O\u2019Connor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n FBI agents used security footage, social media and the help of three other Marines who worked with Coomer, Abate and Hellonen to identify the men and track their movements on Jan. 6. Meta, which owns Instagram, granted access to the FBI to view Coomer\u2019s Instagram messages. The messages revealed Coomer\u2019s anti-government feelings and his belief that the 2020 presidential election wasn\u2019t legitimate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Footage showed Hellonen carrying the Gadsden flag inside the Capitol. The flag depicts a coiled snake over the phrase, \u201cDon\u2019t tread on me,\u201d against a yellow background. It was first flown in 1776 in protest against British rule and later became a symbol of libertarianism. More recently, it\u2019s been used by anti-government groups to promote the fear of government overreach, according to George Washington University<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The symbols and language used by the Marines align with the creed of the Boogaloo Movement<\/a>, O\u2019Connor said. Boogaloo is an anti-government, anti-authority and anti-police extremist movement that began on the website 4chan over a decade ago. The group\u2019s in-person activities increased since 2020 and have included rallies around gun rights, pandemic restrictions and police-related killings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not uncommon to see service members join the Boogaloo Movement. According to the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, known as START, a handful of other people with military backgrounds who participated in the Jan. 6 attack were forthcoming about their affiliation with the Boogaloos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n START, which keeps database of veterans and service members charged with extremist crimes, said that 25 of the 628 people in the repository were part of the Boogaloo Movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People with military backgrounds were over-represented on Jan. 6. Of the rioters, 17% were veterans, Harvard University found<\/a>. In addition to the three Marines, two other active-duty service members were charged: Marine Corps Maj. Christopher Warnagiris<\/a> and Navy sailor David Elizalde<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to the Boogaloo Movement, participants with military backgrounds were representing other extremist groups that day, including the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and Aryan Nations, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mollie Saltskog, a senior intelligence analyst at The Soufan Group, a global intelligence and security consultancy, said the cases of Coomer, Abate and Hellonen highlight the need to bolster educational resources given to service members about false or misleading narratives they may find online \u2014 for the sake of national security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cForeign entities pushing polarizing and anti-government disinformation narratives to active or former service members is concerning, as these individuals may have had or currently have access to classified information that could be attractive to foreign entities seeking to harm the United States,\u201d Saltskog said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We The Veterans, a pro-democracy nonprofit created by veterans and military families in 2021, said that service members themselves are the best people to combat these types of extremist sentiments among the military community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFellow military members and military family members are often the closest people to an active duty member who has been targeted with misinformation or expresses extreme anti-democratic views,\u201d said Ellen Gustafson, a co-founder of the group. \u201cWe the Veterans is working to bolster civic knowledge and patriotic engagement among veterans and military family members so they are prepared to push back against this targeting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This story was produced in partnership with <\/i>Military Veterans in Journalism<\/i><\/a>. Please send tips to <\/i>MVJ-Tips@militarytimes.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Marine Corps Cpl. Micah Coomer is the first active-duty service member to be convicted of participating in the Capitol riot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":64674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":8,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[8,23,93],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3402],"class_list":["post-31865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flashpoints","category-home","category-middle-column"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"DO64SVKMGRET7IQNCIQP7CKO4Y","arc_canonical_url":"\/flashpoints\/extremism-disinformation\/2023\/05\/18\/marine-who-embraced-boogaloo-beliefs-pleads-guilty-in-jan-6-case\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/FBI-Screenshot.png.png\")
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