The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Daniel Alan Baker, identified as an Antifa activist, on Friday for allegedly issuing a call to arms on Internet platforms against the Florida state Capitol.
Baker, who described himself as a “hardcore leftist,” took part in several anti-police protests around the country, including in Seattle’s CHOP/CHAZ zone.
He surrendered peacefully when arrested by the FBI, which was assisted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and Tallahassee Police Department.
Fox News wrote about the suspect’s violent history:
Baker, who prosecutors say was kicked out of the Army and was homeless for several years in the Tallahassee-area before choosing to fight alongside a U.S.-designated terrorist group in Syria, is now charged with violating a federal law that makes it a felony to “transmit in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person of another.”
In social media posts that have escalated over the past few months, Baker, 33, has attempted to recruit and train others to further his anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism ideology, has made multiple violent threats to those he claims are White supremacists, fascists, and U.S. citizens and allies with different ideologies than his, and has promoted the killing of U.S. military officers, according to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida.
More recently, he has posted that people should prepare for another civil war. Beneath a local news station article reporting on Tallahassee police preparations for Inauguration Day, Baker shared a flyer on Jan. 14 titled, “Call to Arms January 20!!” that instructed others to join him in encircling any protesters and confining them at the state Capitol complex in Tallahassee using firearms.
“This is an armed COUP and can only be stopped by an armed community!” a poster Baker made said, according to the criminal complaint. “If you’re afraid to die fighting the enemy, stay in bed and live.”
There are photos and YouTube videos that feature “anarchist-type monologues” and show Baker posing beside Antifa flags and a variety of firearms, including some with high-capacity magazines.
In the two days prior to his arrest, social media posts showed Baker trying to buy additional firearms, including an AK-47 and a pistol, prosecutors said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Saturday approved Tallahassee Mayor John Dailey’s request to have the National Guard deployed to help protect the state Capitol. The Tallahassee City Hall and the Leon County Courthouse will be closed early this week, officials said.
“Extremists intent on violence from either end of the political and social spectrums must be stopped, and they will be stopped,” U.S. Attorney Lawrence Keefe said in a statement.
“The diligent work in this case by the FBI and other public safety organizations has averted a crisis with this arrest, and we will not stop in our efforts to detect, deter, and disrupt anyone else planning to incite or commit violence,” Keefe said.
“While extremists who plan mayhem may skulk in the shadows, it’s important that we force them into the light and bring them to justice,” Keefe said. “This arrest serves as a message to anyone who intends to incite or commit violence in the Northern District of Florida: If you represent a threat to public safety, we will come for you, we will find you, and we will prosecute you.”
“There will be no faith in law enforcement until every single department is shut down and replaced by new faces,” Baker said in YouTube video posted on January 8. “Yall better hope the cops find you before we do cuz l believe in torturing prisoners for information. Yall better turn yourselves in cuz we don’t intend to involve the cops.”
“[Baker] claimed on social media that he was a trained sniper for the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and he can be seen in a documentary film fighting ISIS and Turkish militants,” Fox News reported a prosecutor said. “YPG is a sub-affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated by the United States government as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).”
Follow Penny Starr on Twitter or send news tips to pstarr@breitbart.com
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