What Higby’s reporting and corroborating accounts reveal is a protest movement that has crossed a critical line: from organic outrage to structured, quasi-paramilitary organization. The use of encrypted apps, mapped patrol zones, SALUTE-style reporting, and detailed tracking of ICE-linked vehicles all point to a level of planning that mirrors intelligence or military operations more than civic activism. When you add in SIGINT chatter about EFPs, complex ambushes, and drills aimed at bypassing body armor, the stakes shift from political theater to potential domestic insurgency.
That doesn’t mean every protester shares these intentions, but it does mean the environment around them is being shaped by people who think in terms of targets, tactics, and escalation. The danger now is not only what they might do, but how unprepared local leaders and ordinary citizens are for what this could become. Minneapolis may be the test bed. The rest of the country may be next.