Armed Man Who Stormed FBI Office Said He Wanted ‘War’ After Mar-a-Lago Raid
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The armed man who tried to storm the FBI’s Cincinnati office on Thursday, before getting into a shootout with cops that left him dead in an Ohio cornfield, appeared to be a conspiracy-addled Trump super-fan who told his followers on Truth Social that he was “ready for combat” after the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago on Monday.
The gunman was identified as 42-year-old Ricky Shiffer, The Daily Beast confirmed with the Ohio State Patrol.
Two days before Shiffer embarked on the failed breach, an account under the same name on Truth Social foreshadowed the attack, calling for followers to “kill the F.B.I. on sight” in the wake of the Trump raid. In his bio on TruthSocial, Shiffer identified himself as an electrician based in Columbus, Ohio, who had multiple social media firms lock his account.
“People, this is it,” the account posted . “I hope a call to arms comes from someone better qualified, but if not, this is your call to arms from me. Leave work tomorrow as soon as the gun shop/Army-Navy store/pawn shop opens, get whatever you need to be ready for combat. We must not tolerate this one.”
A post timestamped 9:29 a.m. Thursday, about 15 minutes after a man with a rifle tried to breach the visitor screening part of the FBI office, said, “Well, I thought I had a way through bullet proof glass, and I didn’t. If you don’t hear from me, it is true I tried attacking the F.B.I., and it’ll mean either I was taken off the internet, the F.B.I. got me, or they sent the regular cops while.”
Shiffer was shot dead in a rural Ohio cornfield around 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Ohio State Patrol Lt. Nathan Dennis said in a press conference. He said that hours of non-lethal tactics failed before the 42-year-old was gunned down.
“The suspect then did raise a firearm toward law enforcement and shots were fired by law enforcement officers on the scene,” Dennis said.
After announcing his “call to arms” Tuesday, a user asked Shiffer if he was “proposing terrorism?” Shiffer’s account replied, “No, I am proposing war.”
“Be ready to kill the enemy, not mass shootings where leftists go, not lighting busses on fire with transexuals in them, not finding people with lefist signs in their yards and beating them up,” the post said. “Violence is not (all) terrorism. Kill the F.B.I. on sight, and be ready to take down other active enemies of the people and those who try to prevent you from doing it.”
Sheffer was also active elsewhere on social media, despite his most recent posts being limited to Truth Social.
He appeared to feature in a video posted to Facebook on Jan. 5, 2021, of him at a pro-Trump rally in D.C. the night before the Capitol was overrun, The New York Times reported. Two law enforcement sources cited by the Times said investigators were looking at Shiffer’s links to extremist groups involved in the riot.
A Twitter account in Shiffer’s name follows just two people—one of which is Donald Trump Jr.—and posted a reply to a tweet in May that claimed he was at the Jan. 6 insurrection.
“I was there. We watched as your goons did that ,” he wrote, seemingly implying that Trump foes were responsible for the carnage. “When I told the ones trying to break back in that Trump tweeted be peaceful, one of them said, ‘Fuck Trump.’”
In another tweet, he name-checked the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group accused of conspiring to storm the Capitol.
Oh, the packing. The packing could be here. Save ammunition, get in touch with the Proud Boys and learn how they did it in the Revolutionary War, because submitting to tyranny while lawfully protesting was never the American way. LEXINGTON
— Ricky Shiffer (@RickyShiffer) May 8, 2022
In his first tweet on April 26, he wrote to Trump Jr.: “I’m just waiting for your Dad. I opened my account (first ever) at 12:25 today.”
He followed it up with a tweet storm of more than 40 posts on May 7 covering nearly every hot-button conservative conspiracy, from antifa being behind the Capitol riot, to the 2020 election being rigged, to COVID trutherism. His posts are often littered with threats of violence.
In a reply to a tweet from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-RA), who had written that she was getting “feeling 2016 vibes,” Schiffer wrote, “Congresswoman Greene, they got away with fixing elections in plain sight. It's over. The next step is the one we used in 1775.”
In reply to a post about COVID, he wrote, “Under no circumstances comply. We didn’t get this country through peaceful compliance-or peaceful protest.”
In another, he said he was ready for “war against the communists who chemically nueter prebuscent children and call it gender transitioning.” He ended the post: “Save ammunition.”
FBI Cincinnati said in a statement Thursday that an “armed subject” tried to breach the visitors’ screening area at about 9 :15 a.m., triggering an alarm and a response by FBI special agents. The man, now known to be Sheffer, fired a nail gun at personnel inside the building, NBC reported , before holding up an “AR-15 style rifle” as he fled.
Authorities say Shiffer then drove over 40 miles northeast with FBI agents and state troopers giving chase. Authorities say gunfire was exchanged between officers and Shiffer, who then took cover in a cornfield for more than five hours.
As cops chased the Shiffer through the rural community of Wilmington, the county’s emergency management agency told residents within a one-mile radius to stay inside, lock their doors, and “remain vigilant.” Shiffer was described as armed, wearing a gray shirt and body armor.
Interstate 71—an important artery that connects Cincinnati to the state’s capital, Columbus, where Shiffer lived, was closed for several hours before being reopened around 2:30 p.m. as local authorities confirmed the gunman was “contained.”
There has been an increased threat level for federal agents after the FBI searched former President Donald Trump’s Florida retreat, Mar-a-Lago, on Monday, which prompted calls to “ defund the FBI ” from Republican members of Congress. Others on the far right, however, have called for something far more sinister—a “ civil war .”
Authorities have not released a potential motive for the gunman’s attempted breach of the field office, despite his social media suggesting it was politically motivated.
The FBI did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
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Ricky was only trying to get his J-6 picnic basket back ... @!@
The dumbass would have been much better off buying a new one.
One wonders how many of the crazies are running around the US.
71 million at last count, but their numbers appear to be dwindling rapidly...
Just wait, November could be a total freak-out for them.
yup, that's why they keep telling us how the democrats are going down the exit ramp.
Ya got that ass backwards as usual
Projection, deflection, denial, hate, rage and ignorance at it's finest as their king of turds is going down.
law enforcement officials giving chase stated they weren't concerned about losing the perp in traffic...
My only thought when I see that, or anything like that is "What a faggot."
At least the nutjob didn't succeed and is now dead. With luck that will prevent a few others from also trying this. I don't agree with how the FBI handled the raid at Mar-a-Lago but attacking random FBI agents is not the way to fix the problem.
Yet the right wing is the ones calling for violence.
In this instance yes there are some in the right wing who are calling for violence. In other instances there are some from the left wing that call for violence. Neither side is pure.
But to continue to only blame one side is to insure that the issues of the partisan divide in this country cannot be changed and we might as well give up. I said it right at the beginning, this fucking nutjob didn't succeed and is now dead and hopefully a few others who were thinking of taking similar action will now back down and go away. But I won't blame an entire group for the actions of a few.
When you have right wing talking heads talking about war, taking the country back, etc, my opinion is justified.
I could go on. So yes I can and will blame a group of people.
The major problem we have in politics right now is that way too many people are willing to and do make excuses for Trump.
Until conservatives and "patriots" denounce Donald Trump and run him out of the Republican Party there is no hope and things will get worse.
Yep, you are right. Right wingers, conspiracy nuts and wackos want to say "both sides" are responsible. But so do some "moderates" who have helped to enable Trump for the past 7 years. A lot of moderates and independents never took him seriously until it was too late.
I get tired of that line. Well both sides do it. It is a cop out.
I don't see both sides calling for war or both sides trying to overthrow elections.
The same reichists that claim the attack on the Capitol was a normal tourist day.
I guess the mar-a-lago raid was just a self guided FBI tour then...
And try to put the blame on the other side.
Hope is a windsock.The usual scenario may well be that he is martyrized and others follow afoot.
Unfortunately, low IQ far right-wing fascists that Fox and Trump have raised to extreme violence will still have to be dealt with.
The sooner that Trump goes to prison the better.
I read somewhere else today that the average level of American education
is around the sixth grade currently.
Ricky, knowing his AR15 bullets would not be effective against bullet proof glass
wisely brought along a nail gun.
I guess that bears out the 6th grade theory.../s
I'm so sick of your 'both sides' shit. THAT IS NOT THE CASE HERE.
Why aren't these scum behind bars like trumpturd for inciting violence - Bannon, D'Souza Gorka - every fucking one of those neo-nazi alt right fucking scum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'm sick of it. Sick to death of it.
FUCK OFF
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Only have to look back to 9 years of the same BS of the R's trying to take down
Obama.
And now McCarthy promises to do the same to Biden or any Democrat when his party
rises to the majority.
Nope all the cockroach trumpturd supporters are crawling out of the woodwork even more now with all of their hate and rage and ignorance and threatening Federal agents for a legal search of his Mar-A-Lardo residence.
Oh it was so fucking unfair wasn't it?
You really take the freaking cake.
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I didn't know they released who it was yet.
He wanted war. He got war.
Too bad he won't be able to see any outcome...
The outcome is he went to war and died.
Another one of America's enemies is eliminated.
And here I thought that was what insane asylums were for.
Ronald Reagan shut them down so far right wingers could still vote and shoot.
And not a single Democratic President since then could change it?
Sounds like Democrats can't stop the GOP from doing whatever it wants and can not do what they want to do.
Why keep on voting for them if they are so damn ineffective?
Or just going to go back in time and place blame for everything on a Republican?
The start of the Immoral Majority
Were most of our asylums federal?
Nope, and all that is is just another crackpot theory espoused by leftists.
Seems weird to me that no Democratic President ever changed anything, especially in light of the amount of bitching coming from the left.
I suppose by doing nothing, they can still bitch about events from 40 years ago.
You got that right.
I have an old friend named Joe Walsh and he sure isn't a far right-wing fascist.
First met 'My' Joe Walsh back even before the early James Gang days.
"I have an old friend named Joe Walsh and he sure isn't a far right-wing fascist.
First met 'My' Joe Walsh back even before the early James Gang days."
That's so cool CJ. I really like Joe Walsh
He's been the musical guest on Stephen Colbert this week.
Did you meet him first in NJ, Kent State or Cleveland.
Joe reunites with the James Gang for what is billed as his final concert, 13 Nov in Columbus. Dave Grohl, Nine Inch Nails, the Black Keys and the Breeders are also performing.
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Crackpots come in all shapes and sizes. Some attack well armed agencies. Others shoot up defenseless softball games.
Agreed! I will defend myself when attacked but will never use ideology to attack others.
Yep, just like most Americans. Problem is we are boring and don’t sell advertising or get as many internet clicks.
Only far right wing fascists really care about that.
Independent liberals tend to avoid fights they can't win.
Very few "independent liberals". Most are loon leftists hell bent on the destruction of this country.