Washington — Federal law enforcement officials said Monday that four members of a far-left anti-government group have been arrested and face charges for allegedly planning a series of bomb attacks across Southern California on New Year’s Eve.
Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on X that the Justice Department and FBI “prevented what would have been a massive and horrific terror plot in the Central District of California,” which encompasses Los Angeles and Orange County.
FBI Director Kash Patel said that the four people who face charges for the alleged plot in California are members of a group known as the Turtle Island Liberation Front. Bondi described the Turtle Island Liberation Front as a “far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group.”
Bill Essayli, who leads the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, said at a press conference that the four individuals were arrested Friday in San Bernardino County, where they gathered to construct and detonate test explosive devices in the Mojave Desert. He said the suspects allegedly crafted a “detailed, coordinated plot” to bomb two U.S. companies on New Year’s Eve, with the devices simultaneously exploding at midnight. Essayli did not name the companies but said they were “logistics centers.”
“This case is another reminder about the dangers that radicalized antifa-like groups pose to people, public safety and the rule of law,” he said.
The defendants are identified in court papers as Audrey Carroll, Zachary Page, Dante Gaffield and Tina Lai.
Officials played a video that they said showed defendants gathering in the desert to test the bombs. The footage was taken by a surveillance plane, according to Essayli, and FBI agents arrested the defendants soon after. An affidavit from the FBI said that the co-conspirators unloaded bomb-making materials from cars and started to assemble the materials in a table under a tent while they were in the Mojave Desert. The FBI intervened before the four defendants could finish assembling a functional bomb, according to the court filings.
Justice Department
All four of the defendants are from the Los Angeles-area and have been charged with conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device. Additional charges could be filed in the coming weeks, according to Essayli. He described the suspects as “radical, anti-government members” of the Turtle Island Liberation Front.
A fifth person, Micah James Legnon, was arrested in Louisiana and charged with one count of making threats in interstate commerce. A FBI agent said in an affidavit that Legnon appears to be a member of the Turtle Island Liberation Front and “intended to travel to New Orleans to carry out an attack by means of weapons.” Legnon, who served in the U.S. Marines, was stopped by law enforcement on a highway in Louisiana on Friday and had an assault rifle, pistol, gas canister, and body armor in his car, according to court papers.
The Turtle Island Liberation Front describes itself on Facebook as a political organization that seeks “liberation of occupied Turtle Island and liberation of all colonized people across the world.” Turtle Island is the name used by some Indigenous peoples for North America.
The group has expressed pro-Palestinian messages on social media and has said it is fighting against “fascist colonizers.” It has urged followers to bring Palestinian flags to protests.
An Instagram account for the group’s Los Angeles chapter says it advocates for “liberation through decolonization and tribal sovereignty.” The group does not appear to be particularly well-known: its Instagram account had fewer than 900 followers as of Monday morning, and its Facebook page was followed by just 32 users.
Mr. Trump has targeted far-left groups and movements as leading domestic terrorism threats. In September, the president signed a memorandum calling for the creation of a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence,” as well as investigations into organizations that he believes engage in political violence. He claimed that violent conduct is animated by “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity” views.
Mr. Trump also signed an executive order labeling antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization,” even though antifa is a political movement with no official leadership or organization structure.
Michael Kenney, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who researches high-risk activism and political violence, said the Turtle Island Liberation Front appears to be part of the larger ecosystem of groups that the Trump administration is focusing on, with a far-left, anarchist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist ideology.
“The individuals that were involved in this alleged plot appear to be a splinter group or an offshoot of the larger Turtle Island Liberation Front,” he said. “In other words, I believe that there are members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front that had nothing to do with this plot, and what we appear to be seeing is several individuals that have decided to escalate their activism to actual political violence.”
Kenney said the group appears to be small, but active in terms of digital and offline activism.
“This is a group that has an ideology, they have a set of political ideas that they follow, that they are trying to implement,” he said. “What they’re trying to do here is bring attention to those ideas and their beliefs.”
Federal officials said one of the defendants, Carroll, 30, created a “detailed bombing plot” in November and provided it to a FBI source. She allegedly worked with Page, 32, to obtain and build the bombs, and to recruit participants for the plan. Essayli said Carroll’s “bomb plot was explicit,” and included instructions for building the devices and targets across Orange County and Los Angeles.
“These bombs were to blow up at the same time, on midnight this New Year’s Eve,” said Akil Davis, FBI assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “The plan stated that the IEDs would be complex pipe bombs. It included instructions on how to manufacture the bombs and contained guidance on how to avoid leaving evidence behind that can be traced back to them.”
Carroll and Page also allegedly discussed plans to target federal immigration agents and vehicles with pipe bombs after the bombings, according to Essayli.
