Henry Hoeft, who wanted to join the foreign legion of Ukraine, pitched the story to his local newspaper. The result was a PR coup for the 28 year-old: A glowing front-pageProfile in the Columbus Dispatch.
The article described him as appealingly in the following: “as a former infantryman in the U.S. Army and half-Ukrainian on his father’s side.”It allowed Hoeft, to be an important actor on the international stage. “We feel like if we can hold Putin for long enough,”Hoeft stated to the reporter “we can possibly stop a world war.”
Hoeft insists that he is committed to the cause. “I will be there for as long as it takes.”Then there’s the DispatchHe praised him for his sacrifices and said, “This is who I am.”The publicityHoeft helped raise at least $5,000To fund his overseas escapade, he used GiveSendGo (the Christian alternative to GoFundMe).
But the noble narrative about standing up to Russian aggression concealed a darker tale, as the true story of Hoeft’s identity is far more complicated, and far less pleasant. Hoeft has strong ties to the militant Boogaloo Bois group, which seeks out violent unrest. His now-infamous misadventure with Ukraine provides a warning tale about how Americans are being lionized for trying to put themselves in a war zone.
Henry Locke, the Boogaloo Bois’ alias for Hoeft, is the name of the revolutionary movement known as the Boogaloo Bois. This loosely organized and heavily armed group expresses their violent goals through an ironic filter. The 1980s movie sequel about breakdancing, which is often referred to as “Hughes”, gave the name. Breakin’: Electric Boogaloo. According to the Justice Department “The term ‘Boogaloo’ itself references an impending second civil war in the United States and is associated with violent uprisings against the government.”
Hoeft’s Well documented Boogaloo background isn’t the only strike against his character. Hoeft is not going to stay in Ukraine until the bitter end as he promised. It’s gone viralFor a video that announced his decision to run and cut. The clip features him making dire claims, including that his life had been threatened by leaving, and that he was forced to pretend to be an aid worker to get across the border into Poland. “We had to get the fuck out of there,”Hoeft says so in the video. “People need to stop fucking coming here. It’s a trap and they’re not letting you leave.”
Hoeft’s claims are already being circulated as propaganda for the Russian side; a prominent extremism researcher has The video was tracked across forums on Telegram and the Russian social media platform VK that use Hoeft’s claims to mock foreign fighters in Ukraine. The video was also called disinformation by one of his brothers in arms. “100 percent completely false” and the product of Hoeft’s bitterness at failing a vetting process to join the fight.
Hoeft was unable to reach him for this story. The TikTok account he’d been using to document his journey to Ukraine is now defunct. He has been suspended from @HenryLocke16 Twitter handle. An interview request via Facebook was not returned by him. A message was sent to a GoFundMeHe seems to have launched in 2021 even though he stated he was recuperating from a gunshot and was not returned.
Internet researchers have documented extremists. Tracked HoeftFor years, he has been pulling up alarming images from both his local and social media feeds. Police scanners. What was the story? Dispatch miss Hoeft’s extremism? According to a top editor, the paper’s due diligence, which included a criminal background check, simply failed to turn up his alias.
Ironically, the DispatchIt had been a gift from God. Photographed and quoted Hoeft — going by Henry Locke — at a heavily armed Boogaloo Bois “unity”In January 2021, a rally was held at the Ohio State Capitol in Columbus. This happened just days after the attack on the U.S. Capitol in which several Bois were taken into custody. Reportedly an organizer of the Columbus protest — which was countered by the presence of state police and the national guard — Hoeft sported an assault rifle, and a cache of high-capacity magazines.
The Boogaloo Bois’ flavor of libertarian, anti-law-enforcement anarchism can be hard to peg on the left-right political spectrum. Boogaloos are known for their extravagant Hawaiian floral prints, as if to increase cognitive dissonance. (Hoeft wore an floral covid mask to the protest at the statehouse. The movement’s goofy symbols belie dark beliefs. The Southern Poverty Law Center has mapped racist originsYou can find the “boogaloo” coinage — noting that the term “is regularly deployed by white nationalists and neo-Nazis who want to see society descend into chaos so that they can come to power and build a new fascist state” — though SPLC cautions that the wider Boogaloo Boy movement is “not exclusively premised on pursuing white supremacist ideas.”
The DispatchInconvenient Retconned its profile to weave in mentions of Hoeft’s Booglaoo links. And the piece continued to offer the militant the benefit of the doubt, quoting Hoeft as saying he’d distanced himself from the extremist movement. Lark-Marie Anton, a spokesperson for the newspaper’s parent company Gannet, said in a written statement: “We regret the error and immediately revised the story to reflect that Henry Hoeft previously used the name Henry Locke and has been associated with the far-right group known as the Boogaloo Bois in the past.”
But there’s reason to question Hoeft’s alleged turn away from extremism. Hoeft traveled to Eastern Europe with prominent leader of the Boogaloo Bois movement, Mike Dunn, a gun-rights militant from Virginia, whose habit of openly defying the state’s gun laws got him Vice. (Dunn didn’t respond to an interview request.
Dunn, who allegedly reported another extremist to Boogaloo, has been controversial in the Boogaloo movement. David PhillipsTo federal law enforcement. Dunn, however, was InterviewVideo taken by an independent journalist just before his departure to Ukraine. He insists that he would take up arms against the Russians. “is in the spirit of the Boogaloo movement and embodies those ideals.”
Dunn also said that he was proud of his fellow travellers. “the Boogaloo movement is going to be represented over there by individuals who have given more to the movement than anybody crying online has” — a dig at those he Boogaloos he said who aren’t “willing to give up their life for their rights, they’ve just been posting online.”
Hoeft found that the thrill of landing in Ukraine was soon ruined by the harsh reality of joining foreign fighters who are not well-funded. In his viral video Hoeft said he’d tried to hook up with Georgia National LegionA group of foreigners who are part of the Ukrainian side is largely composed of fighters from Georgia. But Hoeft said they didn’t have much to arm new recruits with: “They’re tying to send us to Kiev with no fucking weapons, no kit, no fucking plates,”He said. “The people who are lucky enough to get weapons are only getting magazines with like 10 fucking rounds.”
Hoeft claimed that his fighters refused to deploy when he was denied. “they told us we had to get the fuck out or they were going to shoot us in the back.”Hoeft claimed that he then “fucking hid in the back of an ambulance”To get a ride to the border. He claimed that Ukrainian authorities at crossing to Poland were intercepting fighting-aged men and were “cuttin’ up passports”And “sending you back to the front.”
Hoeft claims he was bailed by a humanitarian group, which helped him disguise himself as medical staff. “We got in, like, Red Cross vests and they had like fucking humanitiarian passes to get us through the Ukranian border,” he said, warning other’s not to come, because, “it’s a trap.”
It’s It is unclear what platform Hoeft originally used to post the video, but it was soon grabbed by Twitter accounts that saw Hoeft’s message as favorable to the Russian side:
“It’s a trap, they’re cutting up our passports and sending us to the front”.
American volunteer complains of mistreatment by Ukrainian forces – those he came to fight for – and claims losses suffered by foreign volunteers are being understated by Ukrainian authorities pic.twitter.com/Mz0Z8qMRCh
— 🇷🇸☦ Милош Обилић #1244 ☦🇷🇸 (@Milos1389Obilic) March 15, 2022
As Hoeft’s message spread, Dunn soon posted his own TikTok, blasting his Boogaloo brother’s “misinformation.”This TikTok account has gone dark but it is still available. Rolling Stone downloaded a copy of Dunn’s video.
In the clip, Dunn looks gloomy. “You have to excuse me, I’m pretty sick right now. But I am alive,”He said. “I’ve been in and out of Ukraine twice in the last three or four days…. I’m with a local militia unit. I’ve had no issues with my passport being torn up.”
Dunn said he also tried to hook up with the Georgian fighting unit, and insisted he’d never felt in danger. “The Georgia National Legion never threatened to kill me or harm me in any shape form or fashion,”He said. “I can’t illegitimitize [sic] Henry’s story 1,000 percent, but I can say from my own perspective that it didn’t happen to me.”
For his part, Dunn revealed that he’d been rejected from that unit. “They were not fond at all of people with an Internet existence,”Dunn said. “Obviously, I have an extensive Internet existence… and I left the Georgia Legion about two days before Henry did.”
Hoeft was harshly criticized by the Virginia militant “I will not call it cowardice, but I will say that none of the stuff he described in the video happened to me. Obviously, his (video) is going to be used as anti-Ukrainian propaganda, which I am not for.”Dunn, “I’m still here in Ukraine,”He clarified, however, that he expects to leave in less than a month.
Video wars are another source of confusion. Another American soldier on the ground in UkraineHarrison Jozefowicz is a former Chicago police officer who claims to be with “a humanitarian organization”Working directly with Georgian Legion, a pair were released Videos calling Hoeft’s claims “completely false.” He blamed Hoeft’s tale of cut up passports on “mass paranoia.”
“We have a vetting process,”He said. “Henry Locke… did not pass our vetting process.” Jozefowicz characterized Hoeft’s viral video as “direct retaliation”For “being rejected.”He refused to give up. “That’s exactly why we have a vetting process — to stop those kind of mindset people from getting here.”
Professionals who study extremism professionally will see that the misadventures by two Boogaloo Bois of Ukraine fit within a larger, more troubling framework in which international conflict zones attract precisely the wrong kind of people.
“Hoeft and Dunn underscore the problem of extremists joining the larger populations of volunteers,” WritesRita Katz Director, SITE Intelligence Group. “The world is pulling for Ukraine,”She adds: “but a free flow of unvetted extremist militants into a conflict always creates problems beyond one country.”