Tycen Proper’s mother could not take it any longer. On the night of Wednesday, June 7, the woman, who lives in Danville, Ohio, picked up the phone and called Knox County police to report that her son was planning something. The 19-year-old had spent several weeks buying numerous guns and ammunition. He spent long periods locked in his room and online. She was worried and alarmed by the content of some conversations she had seen in her son’s online communications, with messages about plans and attacks.
The next day, an FBI operation arrested Proper and four other men aged between 24 and 32 in four states (Ohio, California, Missouri, and Nebraska). They have been charged with conspiracy to commit murder, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said in a statement. The defendants allegedly planned attacks on officials and “high-value targets” who attended a UFC event held last Sunday on the South Lawn of the White House for President Donald Trump’s birthday.
According to the FBI account, those arrested were part of a group that allegedly intended to launch a drone attack against the north-facing side of the UFC octagon, forcing authorities and businesspeople to evacuate the venue. That would trigger the second phase of a plan that had been devised over weeks. Snipers positioned on rooftops in buildings surrounding the White House would then open fire on those targets.
After arresting Proper and seizing large quantities of ammunition, including magazines, explosives, and firearms, FBI investigators reviewed his communications with the group of conspirators on the encrypted messaging app Signal. During an interview with FBI agents on the day of his arrest, three days before the UFC fights that turned the White House, a symbol of the country’s democracy and freedoms, into the dressing room for a violent spectacle, Proper allegedly admitted the facts. He acknowledged that the group formed through interactions on the social network TikTok and that they were united by an ultra-religious, anti-government sentiment.
“This type of event brings out the crazies, that’s normal,” Dana White, the head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), said on Monday. White is a close friend of Trump. He organized the show on the White House South Lawn attended by about 4,500 guests, and tens of thousands more watched the fights on screens in a nearby public open space.
The event was sponsored by Trump, who helped organize the show for his 80th birthday and wanted to tie it to celebrations for the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence. Among the guests were senior U.S. officials such as Vice President J. D. Vance and prominent business figures including Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.
The FBI says the conspirators “had expressed complaints about government corruption, the handling of the Epstein files, data centers hoarding water in communities, and other government actions.”
The operation was revealed on Monday by FBI director Kash Patel in a social media post. Patel said the arrested men had been conspiring since March to plan and carry out a mass-casualty attack against U.S. officials present at the UFC Freedom 250 event.
In addition to Tycen C. Proper, 19, of Danville, Ohio, also arrested were Bryan Omar Roa, 24, of Calimesa, California; Michael Alan Thomas, 32, of Pinon Hills, California; Daniel K. Eskridge, 32, of Kidder, Missouri; and Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, 31, of Omaha, Nebraska. They all met through a TikTok group called Vanguard of the Old, where participants voiced concern about the country’s direction and expressed radical and antisemitic opinions in praise of Adolf Hitler and against the government.
According to the FBI investigation, Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, known by the alias “Shepherd,” was the ideologue and the one who planned the operation in detail. Alvarez asked his co-conspirators to stockpile drones. “As many as we can get and as lethal as possible,” he wrote in a Signal message, according to court documents.
The conspirators planned to meet before the alleged attack at an abandoned facility in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and, afterward, to flee separately and rendezvous in a safe area at a former church in Nebraska. Using the encrypted communication system, Alvarez told the others to travel on secondary roads or along paths parallel to the river. He also provided locations for drone launches and sniper positions.
Michael Alan Thomas, another of those arrested, was among those who allegedly urged buying the drones: “With $1,300 we get the drones and the chargers. Yes, we should all chip in and we need it as soon as possible…” In another group under an alias, Thomas described the different phases of the attack, for which they said they needed five teams of three people each.
Court documents say the attack had four phases: level 1 referred to operators on the ground; level 2 detailed the role of drivers and drone operators; level 3 contained information on logistical suppliers; and level 4 referred to social media influencers.
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