Man who attacked FBI office with nail gun was a transphobic Trump fanatic, social posts suggest
One of the last known pictures of Ricky Shiffer. (@TinTop7/Twitter)
A far-right conspiracy theorist shot dead after attacking an FBI office called trans people “communists who chemically neuter children”.
Ricky Shiffer was killed in a shootout on 11 August, hours after he attempted to raid a Cincinnati FBI office armed with an AR-15 and a nail gun.
He attempted to breach the preliminary screen area of the building, triggering an alarm which caused FBI agents to force him out. He was reportedly wearing body armour.
Shiffer was then spotted hours later at a rest stop on the Ohio highway by State Highway Patrol officers, leading to a car chase. He eventually abandoned his car to flee into a nearby cornfield, where he and several officers had an intense, hours-long standoff.
An emergency management agency told local residents in a one-mile radius to stay indoors and lock their doors, describing Shiffer as armed. A nearby interstate road was temporarily closed during the standoff.
Shiffer, 42, was eventually killed after unsuccessful attempts to negotiate with him, according to lieutenant Nathan Dennis of the Oho State Highway Patrol.
“At that point, law enforcement started to work toward moving in and taking the suspect into custody. Less-than-lethal tactics were utilised at that time. They were also unsuccessful,” Dennis said.
“The suspect then did raise a firearm toward law enforcement, and shots were fired by law enforcement officers.”
No further details have been revealed as to whether Shiffer fired on police during the final moments of the standoff.
According to posts found on right-wing social media site Truth Social, Shiffer appeared to believe in several far-right conspiracies and had also participated in the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol.
The latest post on a profile claiming to be Ricky Shiffer details the moment he attempted to raid the FBI offices, saying: “Well, I thought I had a way through bulletproof glass, and I didn’t. If you don’t hear from me, it is true I tried attacking the FBI, and it’ll mean either I was taken off the internet, the FBI got me, or they sent regular cops.”
The profile also includes several violently anti-LGBTQ+ posts.
Far-right conspiracy theorist Ricky Shiffer’s post on Truth Social calling for a war on “transexuals.” (Travis View/Twitter)
The account shared a conversation with another user who asked whether he was “proposing terrorism”, in reply to a post in which ‘Shiffer’ had proposed a “call to arms”. The page replied saying he was “proposing war”.
“Be ready to kill the enemy, not mass shootings where leftists go, not lighting busses on fire with transexuals in them, not finding people with leftist signs in their yard and beating them up,” a post continued.
“Violence is not [all] terrorism. Kill the FBI on sight, and be ready to take down other active enemies of the people and those who try to prevent you from doing it.”
Another post from the page apparently belonging to Shiffer called transgender people “communists who chemically neuter [prepubescent] children and call it gender transitioning”.
Other social media posts suggest Shiffer was fanatically pro-Trump, including a Facebook video posted on 5 January, 2021 as reported by The Daily Beast, which showed Shiffer at a right-wing rally.
In another post, in reply to notorious Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, he said: “Congresswoman Greene, they got away with fixing the election in plain sight. It’s over. The next step is the one we used in 1775,” referring to the American Revolutionary War.
While it is incredibly clear the account claiming to be Shiffer was radicalised by far-right movements on social media, authorities have not released definitive evidence for a motive behind the attempted FBI office breach.
