Chicago Inspector General reopens probe into Chicago Police officer who wore militia logo
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The Chicago Office of the Inspector General is reopening an investigation into a Chicago Police officer who was photographed wearing the logo of a right-wing extremist militia.
CBS 2 first broke the story of the investigation into Officer Kyle Mingari.
In June 2020, video showed Mingari wearing a face mask bearing the logo of the anti-government group the Three Percenters during racial justice protests downtown.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which studies extremist groups, the Three Percenters is a militia group that first appeared around 2009. Their log "has become very popular among anti-government extremists," the ADL told us in 2020.
The term "three percenters" refers to what the ADL called an "erroneous" belief that only three percent of colonists fought the British during the revolutionary war but won freedom for America as a whole. The Three Percenters believe they are "modern day versions of those revolutionaries, fighting against a tyrannical U.S. government rather than the British," according to the ADL.
At the time, Chicago Police promised their own investigation into Mingari's wearing the logo, and said the symbols were "not representative of the department."
At least two members of the Three Percenters are now serving prison time for their role into the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
