Duncan Socrates Lemp aka YungQuant on Instagram fatally shot by police during what family say was an illegal morning raid in execution of warrant. Militia movement advocate in search of revolution?
A Maryland man who harbored designs of revolution — fatally shot by police during an early morning raid was asleep in his bed when cops opened fire, a lawyer for the victim’s family contends.
Montgomery County police officers said they shot Duncan Socrates Lemp, 21, only after he ‘confronted’ officers while attempting to serve a ‘high risk’ warrant Thursday around 4:15 a.m. The man’s girlfriend who was in bed asleep with Duncan Lemp was also wounded in the incident.
But Rene Sandler, who is representing Lemp’s relatives calls the police account ‘completely contrary’ to eyewitness reports which occurred at Lemp’s parent’s Potomac house.
‘The facts as I understand them from eyewitnesses are incredibly concerning,’ Sandler said according to a report via AP.
Detectives at the time were following up on a tip from the public that Lemp, who is prohibited from possessing firearms, was in possession of several guns.
Three rifles and two handguns were ultimately recovered.
Lemp’s family argued their son was ‘murdered’ by police, who allegedly unleashed several rounds of gunfire from outside the home, including through Lemp’s bedroom window, while he and his girlfriend were sleeping. Nobody in the residence heard any warning or commands before police opened fire.
Authorities did not use a flashbang or other projectile before shooting, they added.
‘We believe that the body camera footage and other forensic evidence from this event will support what Duncan’s family already knows, that he was murdered,’ Sandler said.
Sandler said police had ‘absolutely no justification’ for shooting Lemp, who worked as a software designer, based on what she has heard about the incident so far.
Sandler also noted the high risk warrant — which typically means officers don’t knock — obtained by authorities ‘makes no mention of an imminent threat to law enforcement or the community.’
According to the family statement, no one in the house, where Lemp lives with his parents and 19-year-old brother, had a criminal record.
‘Any attempt by police to shift responsibility onto Duncan or his family, who were sleeping when the police fired shots into the home, is not supported by facts,’ Sandler said.
Unclear is how Lemp who allegedly had no criminal record was prohibited from owning legally acquired weapons.
Anti government revolutionary trying to raise more than a million dollars:
Tsolmondorj Natsagdorj, 24, of Fairfax, Virginia, said he met Lemp in 2016 and bonded with him over their shared interest in cryptocurrency. They also talked about politics. He described Lemp as a libertarian who frequented the 4chan and Reddit message boards.
‘Duncan was a young guy with a bright future as an entrepreneur,’ Natsagdorj said the guardian reports. ‘He was working on things to change the world.’
Of note, according to friends and co workers, Lemp was trying to raise money for a startup company. A post on Instagram 21 weeks ago referenced Lamp posting ‘need to find $1m in LA.’
On social media accounts that friends said belonged to him, Lemp’s username was ‘YungQuant’. On an internet forum called ‘My Militia’, someone who identified himself as Duncan Lemp, of Potomac, and posted under the username ‘yungquant’ said he was ‘an active III%’r and looking for local members & recruits’.
That was an apparent reference to the Three Percenters, a wing of the militia movement. The group’s logo, the Roman numeral III, has become popular with anti-government extremists, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
As per wikipedia, the Three Percenters (also styled 3 Percenters, 3%ers and III%ers) are an American far-right militia movement and paramilitary group. The group advocates gun ownership rights and resistance to the U.S. federal government’s involvement in local affairs.
The group’s name derives from the disputed claim that only three percent of American colonists took up arms against the Kingdom of Great Britain during the American Revolution.
The Southern Poverty Law Center categorizes the Three Percenters as an “anti-government” group.
Welcome to the revolution!
On his Instagram account, Lemp recently posted a photograph that depicted two people holding up rifles under the banner, ‘welcome to the revolution’ and included the term ‘boogaloo’, slang used by militia members and other extremists to describe a future civil war in the US.
Friends said they never heard Lemp espouse any anti-government rhetoric. Sandler said Lemp was not a part of any anti-government or militia-type group.
“He was pro-America and supported wholeheartedly all the protections of the constitution,” she said.
In a statement, police department officials said prosecutors from nearby Howard County reviewing the ‘facts and circumstances of the encounter.’
‘An established agreement…stipulates that when an officer-involved shooting involving injury or death occurs in one county, the other county’s State’s Attorney’s Office will review the event,’ they said.
The officer who shot and killed Lemp, who is Caucasian, has not been identified.
