convicted by a federal jury<\/a> in New Mexico.<\/p>\nGregory Vandenberg purchased six mortar fireworks and 72 M-150 firecrackers with the intent of throwing them at officers during the protests scheduled for June 14, 2025, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say Vandenberg was traveling from El Paso to San Diego, but stopped at a New Mexico travel center on June 12 to purchase the fireworks.<\/p>\n
While at the center, Vandenberg “asked detailed questions about the amount of gunpowder in the fireworks, their explosive impact, and their ability to harm others,” according to prosecutors, who said Vandenberg also encouraged a store clerk to join him so they could throw the fireworks at law enforcement officials together in California.<\/p>\n
“Vandenberg emphasized that he was not interested in the color or display of the fireworks — only in their ability to cause explosions and harm law enforcement,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.<\/p>\n
Travel center employees contacted police and provided Vandenberg’s license plate number. He was arrested in Tucson, Arizona the following morning.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors allege that a search of his vehicle turned up the fireworks and clothing that displayed “antisemitic, anti-Israel, and extremist symbols — including a T-shirt with an image of the Al-Qaeda flag and a T-shirt calling for the destruction of Judea.”<\/p>\n
The U.S. Attorney’s Office also alleged that “violent and extremist content” was discovered following a search of his phone, in which he expressed his ire toward the U.S. government.<\/p>\n
Vandenberg was found guilty Friday of transportation of explosives with intent to kill, injure or intimidate and attempted transportation of prohibited fireworks into California.<\/p>\n
He faces up to 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal jury New Mexico convicted a former Navy SEAL for plotting to attack San Diego law enforcement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-237968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}