Just being edgy or on the edge of massacre?
Violent plot or just big talk, Texas suspect’s hate posts test the limits of free speech
Benjamin Joost Bogard of New Braunfels could be the average all-American kid.
In a photo included in his high school graduation video, he appears to be 5 or 6 years old, dressed in a red-and-black soccer uniform, amid a sea of bluebonnets, holding a few of them in his hand while flashing an innocent grin.
On his Facebook page, one of his photos shows him in a neat JROTC uniform standing proudly beside Old Glory at a high school football game.
But in another video posted on social media, an older he holds a shotgun in front of a white van. He’s wearing a white-and-black skull mask covering the lower half of his face. He pumps and points the firearm and spews obscenities about minorities.
“What you gotta do is, pull out your shotgun, get to the side of the road, pump that (expletive) open, point it at them and pull that trigger,” he says on the video. “The only right they deserve is the right of lead.”
The video ends with him saying “Heil Hitler!” as he gives a Nazi salute.
The images stand in stark contrast, capturing two worlds that collided last year.
To hear FBI agents tell it, Bogard was preparing to lash out at the world. The 20-year-old had dropped out of college and bought a van to live as a nomad. He purchased a shotgun and was posting “disturbing” comments online about shooting up minorities, churches, schools and the Texas state capitol.
He appeared to be “mobilizing to mass violence,” one FBI agent testified.
So after getting a tip about his online posts from FBI counterparts in Albany, N.Y., agents in San Antonio opened a domestic terrorism investigation. In January, they searched his home, and found images of child pornography on his cellphone that enabled agents to immediately take him off the street.
In May, Bogard pleaded guilty in federal court to a lesser charge of child exploitation. He will be sentenced Aug. 5 and faces a prison term of up to 20 years.
It is an odd turn for a kid who once liked dirt bikes, was a Boy Scout and became an Eagle Scout, and appeared destined to follow his father into the U.S. Air Force.
“That is very shocking,” said Clesson Allman, who graduated from Ramstein High School in Germany with Bogard and said he never saw him show animosity toward minorities or any group. “He seemed like a highcharacter guy. He’s never showed any of that.”
A quiet guy
Bogard is the only child of Robbie Bogard, who served more than 30 years on active duty and as a civilian in the Air Force, and his wife, Caroline, a homemaker. His parents declined to comment for this article. So did others who knew him well, including his former Scoutmaster, who said Benjamin Bogard’s lawyer asked him not to speak to the media.
In a short letter to the ExpressNews, Benjamin Bogard denied the accusations that he was planning mass violence.
“At this point, I’m willing to explain why those around me didn’t know much; the reason being that I’ve spent a large amount of time living in Europe, and have not been in Texas long,” he wrote. “As for the allegations, they are simply that, nothing more.”
Interviews with some of his former classmates, neighbors and a review of public records and social media posts show Bogard moved around frequently, as most military children do. His father worked in occupational safety in the Air Force. Benjamin Bogard lived in Cibolo, a city northeast of San Antonio, for kindergarten and first grade. He played soccer in the Soccer Association for Youth of San Antonio.
The family left Texas when his father was reassigned to Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, N.M., and returned to Cibolo when he was in seventh grade. They stayed until his family moved to Europe after his sophomore year.
While he was growing up, Bogard was in the Boy Scouts, but he had little contact with neighbors, save for knocking on doors during fundraising drives. He preferred to play video games, ex-neighbors said.
As a freshman and sophomore, he lived in a subdivision where kids his age gathered to play basketball, soccer or football in a vacant field next to his house.
“He never joined in any of that,” said one former neighbor, who asked not to be identified. “I guess he was more of an introvert. Never saw him out much.”
Even when kids came looking to befriend Bogard, he chose solitude.
“One time I went to ask if he wanted to hang out, and his mom came out, and said, ‘No, he’s going to stay inside,’ ” recalled a 20year-old ex-neighbor.
In 2015, Robbie Bogard’s job took him to Ramstein AFB in Germany. Benjamin Bogard attended his final two years of high school there, and he was in the JROTC color guard.
“He was a quiet guy, pretty reserved,” said fellow graduate Allman, who knew him briefly from JROTC. “Every time I talked to him, he was a nice guy.
“He always struck me as smart enough, but not over the top.”
As more than 200 graduates walked the Ramstein stage in 2016, an emcee read their parting statements. Some of the statements quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson; others thanked parents and families.
Bogard’s seemed less nostalgic.
“I’m happy for high school to be over and for this ceremony to end,” the emcee recited as Bogard walked across the stage to collect his diploma. “For everyone watching, I’ll see you on the other side.”
Back in the U.S.
By June 2017, the Bogards had returned stateside, and Benjamin Bogard had enrolled at Texas State University, where he studied engineering. He lived on his own briefly in San Marcos, but later moved back in with his parents, who bought a large home in May 2018 on the western outskirts of New Braunfels and offered him board so long as he was in school or working.
“He’s a good kid, a good son, has always done what we wanted him to, has done well in school,” Robbie Bogard testified during his son’s bond hearing in U.S. District Court in February.
In the summer of 2018, Benjamin Bogard helped the city of New Braunfels open Das Rec, the city’s new recreation center. He worked there part-time as a lifeguard for two months, then left voluntarily, city officials said. He had a second job working at Texas State, but since it was contingent on his attending class, he lost it when he decided not to go back to school for the fall 2018 semester.
He told FBI agents that college bored him, so he planned to join the Air Force. But his enlistment was delayed, his father testified, because Benjamin Bogard has a “mild case of scoliosis” and was waiting for Air Force medics to clear him.
In October, he abruptly removed his parents’ names from his bank account, took the Volvo they had loaned him and vanished. After he didn’t answer his parents’ calls or texts, his father filed a missing persons report with the Comal County Sheriff’s Office and hired a private investigator, who tracked Benjamin Bogard to Dallas.
Bogard had left the Volvo in Dallas, where he’d bought a Chevy van for $1,000 and a shotgun, both of which he found through online ads.
Once Bogard was found, he reconnected with his parents and returned home to New Braunfels. He had been gone three days.
When Bogard and his father went to cancel the missing persons report, the young man told police he had “needed some time to clear his head,” according to the officers’ report. “Benjamin advised he was not a victim of any crime and was not forced against his will.”
Radical or edgelord?
Federal agents began looking at his online posts in November, when a tipster pointed the FBI to a video on an Instagram account.
In it, Bogard claimed to be a member of the Atomwaffen Division, wore a skull mask and was seen shooting in a wooded area. That led agents to explore more of his social media accounts and messaging apps, including Snapchat, Twitter, Steam and Telegram.
One of his social media identities was BasedSeaRemover. In that profile, he described himself as a “former wanted criminal with two arrest warrants...and future mass shooter.”
In response to a Twitter user’s question about his favorite gun part, BasedSeaRemover said: “the part that kills 30 babies per trigger pull,” federal agents testified.
Atomwaffen Division is a newer neo-Nazi group. It made news in San Antonio in 2016 when member Steven Billingsley appeared at a prayer vigil held in the city for the victims of the mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Billingsley wore a skull mask, gave Nazi salutes and carried a bullhorn and a sign that read “God Hates F- - -,” with swastikas on the back.
FBI agents testified they had no solid evidence Bogard was a member of the group or had committed any crime of violence, but were concerned enough about his postings that they argued — successfully — to keep him held without bond on the child exploitation charge.
Atomwaffen Division means “Atomic Weapons Division” in German, and the organization embraces Third Reich iconography, including swastikas and SS lightning bolts. The group often makes YouTube videos featuring masked Atomwaffen members hiking through the woods and firing weapons. They’ve filmed themselves burning the U.S. Constitution and setting fire to the American flag.
In one video discovered on his phone, Bogard burned what he claimed was a copy of the Constitution near his parent’s home, according to agents and federal prosecutor Tracy Thompson.
But Bogard’s lawyer, Michael Morris, minimized Bogard’s online activity and videos. Morris, in court, echoed Bogard’s claim that he was an “edgelord,” someone who posts shocking content just to get attention.
“Benjamin explained to us that this was all an online persona, and that he had no intent to plot, plan or effect any mass violence,” one FBI counterterrorism agent testified at Bogard’s bond hearing. “He received a lot of ‘likes’ because of these posts. And he continued with multiple accounts and multiple graphic images because it drew attention.”
Dimitrios Kalantzis, director of communications for Life After Hate, a Chicago nonprofit made up of former white supremacists, said some people gravitate to radical groups because they seek a sense of belonging.
“What we found is people who are drawn to radicalization are drawn to this ideology for reasons other than the ideology,” Kalantzis said. “What we’ve found is they are likely feeling marginalized, excluded, alienated, and when they come across an online community — even if they’re spewing hatred — they now feel included.
“The reason the internet is a powerful tool is because radicalization is a game of small percentages,” Kalantzis said. “Most people are not going to commit a crime, but the recruiter is banking on just one person. The internet puts them in touch with millions. That’s what makes these forums so potent.”
For law enforcement officials, he noted, the challenge is great because they have to distinguish juvenile rhetoric from genuine threats while respecting the right to free speech.
“These posts should be a cause for concern, especially any that threaten violence,” said Dena Marks, a spokeswoman for the Anti-Defamation League’s regional offices in Texas. “The AntiDefamation League is a strong supporter of the First Amendment, but it’s important to monitor this type of speech . ... Anybody can be vulnerable to recruitment. Parents need to be watchful of what their children are posting.”
“The reason the internet is a powerful tool is because radicalization is a game of small percentages. Most people are not going to commit a crime, but the recruiter is banking on just one person. The internet puts them in touch with millions. That’s what makes these forums so potent.” Dimitrios Kalantzis, director of communications for Life After Hate