Extremist group stages protest in US state of Virginia over seizure of friends' firearms

By Salih Okuroglu

Armed members of an anti-government extremist group known as the Boogaloo Boys staged a protest on the weekend in the US state of Virginia over the arrest of four of their friends for carrying firearms, which were confiscated.

The group converged on the Thomas Calhoun Walker Education Center in Gloucester County, where the sheriff's department arrested the four men last month after they showed up at a school board meeting carrying handguns, according to the local WAVY TV television station.

Mike Dunn, who led the group, said the confiscation of his friends' weapons was a violation of their constitutional rights.

"To the officers that are watching this, you violated the Constitution of the United States. Some day you will answer for these violations, if not before man, you will answer to it before God," Dunn said.

The members of the group also held an armed prayer ceremony to criticize a Virginia law that in some cases makes it a misdemeanor to carry a firearm in a house of worship.

No police were present during the protest.