A group of BLM protesters was arrested in Washington and have been spotted in riots in Portland and Kenosha, police said on Monday, as they revealed they were looking into whether groups were being funded to travel to protest hot-spots.
Jeremy Vajko, 27, a Microsoft engineer, was arrested on Saturday night during violent clashes between police and protesters in the nation's capital.
The police report says he was driving recklessly near the Hay Adams hotel and drove 'into a crowd of over one hundred individuals'. He spent the night in jail and was released on Sunday. Prosecutors are not pursuing the case.
Police chief Peter Newsham was taking about Vajko's van and said it had also been spotted in Portland and Kenosha.
Vajko claimed he started in the autonomous zone in Seattle - that was known as CHAZ or CHOP - then started traveling around the country in his van.
According to NBCwashington
Outside agitators” wreaked havoc on D.C. streets over the past four days, the city’s mayor and police chief said Monday, describing protesters who set off fireworks toward police officers, pointed laser pointers into their eyes and threw balloons full of urine.
About 70% of people arrested at recent protests were not D.C. residents, Newsham said.
An investigation is underway into who may be organizing and funding the agitators. Local authorities have been in contact with federal law enforcement, the police chief said.
In one instance after midnight Sunday, a man drove a van into the intersection of 16th and K streets NW, near Black Lives Matter Plaza, where there were more than 100 people. No one was hurt.
Jeremy Vajko, 27, of Washington state, was arrested on a reckless driving charge. Video shows police broke his van’s driver’s side window.
D.C. police have “intelligence to suggest” the same van was at protests in Portland and Kenosha, Newsham said.
