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Today on Twitter, Trump has made a claim that a 75-year old man previously filmed being pushed and falling to the pavement by police might be an ANTIFA provocateur.

Buffalo protester shoved by Police could be an ANTIFA provocateur. 75 year old Martin Gugino was pushed away after appearing to scan police communications in order to black out the equipment. @OANN I watched, he fell harder than was pushed. Was aiming scanner. Could be a set up?

Several news sources have carried the story, but thus far the only source cited for the theory is OANN - which seems to show the man waving a cellphone-like device at the police.

Setting the man's affiliation with any groups aside - is there any credible supporting evidence that the man was attempting to instigate a confrontation, or that he was planning to 'set up' the police force?

Zibbobz
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2 Answers2

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is there any credible supporting evidence that the man was attempting to instigate a confrontation, or that he was planning to 'set up' the police force?

No.

Buzzfeed:

Trump's Tuesday morning tweet and Facebook post were inspired by an "absolutely insane" segment from little-watched cable channel One America News Network, which has aired false information in the past. The OAN report baselessly claims Gugino's injury was the result of a "false flag provocation by far-left group antifa," and said he appeared "to use a police tracker" on his phone. There is zero evidence linking Gugino to an antifa organization, and the claim that he tracked or scanned police is based only on the fact that Gugino was holding a mobile phone.

Statement of Gugino's attorney to to Law&Crime:

Thank you for following up regarding the President’s Tweet about my client, Martin Gugino. Martin is out of ICU but still hospitalized and truly needs to rest. Martin has always been a PEACEFUL protestor because he cares about today’s society. He is also a typical Western New Yorker who loves his family. No one from law enforcement has even suggested anything otherwise so we are at a loss to understand why the President of the United States would make such dark, dangerous, and untrue accusations against him.

Apparent information flow courtesy Daniel Dale, CNN:

Apparent information flow: - Some people on the Internet → - The website Conservative Treehouse → - A Russian state media veteran now working for One America News Network → - The president of the United States

Joe Passantino, Director of coverage, CNN Los Angeles:

The original article cited by OAN on the “Conservative Treehouse” website was written by an anonymous person who publishes under a pseudonym. The site is registered through a company that hides the identity and location of the owner of the website.

CBS:

Washington — President Trump suggested without evidence Tuesday morning that an elderly man who was hospitalized after being shoved to the ground by police in Buffalo, New York, was an "ANTIFA provocateur" who may have been trying to "set up" law enforcement.

A Fox News article about Trump's tweet says:

The OANN report Trump apparently was citing was based on a post from the site Conservative Treehouse saying that Gugino was an activist, which is true. But the report does not actually provide evidence that Gugino is associated with Antifa. Further, it claims, without evidence, that Gugino was attempting to use a "police tracker" on his phone to scan police communications and apparently black them out.

And mentions that "Media personalities on the left and right also ripped Trump's post" including:

"My God this is a bad tweet," Chuck Ross of the Daily Caller posted. "There’s no evidence to support this and the guy looked like he fell as hard as he was pushed."

Conservative radio host Erick Erickson simply tweeted "[p]lease stop."

Lag
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As the other answer states, the source of the initial claim can be traced back as follows:

The video shows Martin Gugino holding his phone below eyeline and facing it towards the faces of the police. Police have not described this cell phone activity as a provocation.

The Twitter thread is incoherent. It describes how an IMSI (International Mobile Subscriber Identity) number might be captured by standing outside a home and given to the police to help them obtain a warrant. This has nothing to do with waving a phone at police. According to the EFF, cell phone signals can only be tracked by cell towers, or by a "technically sophisticated organization" capable of simulating a cell tower, which would require at the very least a $30,000 device much larger than the cell phone the man was holding.

The video claims something even stranger, that he is capturing the phone's NFC (near-field communication) signal. This is a chip inside modern credit cards and cell phones used for touch-to-pay. The police have not claimed that this man was reading NFC data, and the phone would have to be much closer to obtain such data. Even if such data was captured through a hitherto unknown NFC spy app, it would be the equivalent of the police officer's credit card, not any secret police information.

Both of these technical allegations lack the supporting evidence to be the most plausible theory. The Occam's Razor explanation is that Martin Gugino was pointing his phone at the police because he was filming them; furthermore that the police knocked him over and that he was admitted to the hospital in critical condition, where he remains as of June 11, 2020.

(update) On June 12, 2020 it was announced that Gugino is conscious but has sustained permanent brain damage.

Avery
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    NFC, as is part of the name, needs to be *near* to work. If you've ever tried to use tap-to-pay with your phone, you probably know how finnicky it can be to find just the right placement on the terminal for it to actually be recognized. You can actually use a phone to read NFC data, it just has to be within millimeters of the target. – TheWanderer Jun 10 '20 at 14:36
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    Phones absolutely can read NFC signals _(they have to, in order to use it to communicate)_. But it's not like cell-phones are just constantly transmitting credit card information to anyone nearby. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jun 10 '20 at 15:25
  • Thanks, and my apologies for rushing through this answer -- I had a limited timeframe. I welcome anyone with cell phone engineering knowledge to make further corrections – Avery Jun 10 '20 at 15:52
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    "simulating a cell tower[...] would certainly require a lot of electricity" Not as much as you might be thinking. Harris Corporation makes the (in)famous Stingray cell site simulator for use in vehicles, and also has a person-portable version called Kingfish. https://theintercept.com/surveillance-catalogue/kingfish/ Granted, both are considerably larger than a cell phone and are inarguably NOT what Gugino was holding. Further, anyone using these would not need to be anywhere near that close to employ either device. Per Harris, these devices collect IMSI but prevent calls etc. from connecting. – Kromey Jun 10 '20 at 17:02
  • I'm not sure what you are basing that chain of citations on. It omits at least one well reported source, the mayor of buffalo, who described him as a provocateur. Also I don't think your "occam's razor" explanation makes much sense. I see at least two swipes with the cell phone hand to an officer's midsection or even beltline area, which seems to me like a good way to commit suicide, and in any event looks nothing like the act of filming. – Hasse1987 Jun 10 '20 at 22:26
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    Shorter, clearer answer: **No, the man did not provoke police.** Claims made to the contrary provide no supporting evidence and rely upon technical allegations are are _just plain impossible_. – aroth Jun 11 '20 at 06:38
  • @aroth This answer is good too because it goes over the evidence that *has* been provided, and provides the context behind it as well, which in doing so makes a clear picture of the strength of that evidence (or in this case, the lack thereof). I accepted this one for those reasons - but the other answer that provides a through list of sources citing the lack of evidence is *also* a good answer. – Zibbobz Jun 11 '20 at 12:40
  • It would be really helpful to cite what news organizations say about the claim, especially the ones that are normally Trump-supportive. – DJClayworth Jun 11 '20 at 14:47
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    Love that the computer-voice narration (that so many conspiracy videos seem to have) on the video mentioned even had a Russian accent. – PoloHoleSet Jun 11 '20 at 14:50
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    @Hasse1987 - It seems like you are conflating a general characterization of being a provocateur with claims of actual actions that provoked a reaction. That's kind of like the defense that Eric Garner had a long track record of illegally selling cigarettes which "provoked" his being choked to death, even though no one has brought forward any claims or evidence that he was doing so before his fatal encounter with the police. If I accumulate several speeding tickets over the past year, that doesn't mean the police can ticket me any other time when I'm not speeding, you know? – PoloHoleSet Jun 11 '20 at 14:53
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    @Hasse1987 - I also like the claim that someone moving their hands while they talk are making "swipes" at the police. Seems like the person claiming that's somehow menacing has used "hand swipes" as a defense/proof of benign intent in the past. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsaB3ynIZH4 – PoloHoleSet Jun 11 '20 at 14:55
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    @Hasse1987 "It omits at least one well reported source, the mayor of buffalo, who described him as a provocateur. " - I don't think the mayor said that. The mayor did say a different protester at a different time and place was an "agitator" and "major instigator" and he was misreported by the media who said the mayor was referring to Gugino. https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/06/09/trump-gugino-tweet/ https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/501500-buffalo-mayor-says-protester-tackled-by-state-police – Lag Jun 11 '20 at 16:59
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    "which would require at the very least a $30,000 device much larger than the cell phone the man was holding." This is wrong and that's not what the EFF said. They said the police or a technically-sophisticated organization could do it, not that _only_ they could do it. Your cost estimate is off by a factor of approximately 1000. [Here's an article where it was done with $30 worth of hardware **in 2013**](https://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for-thirty-dollars/). Yes, a Stingray can do that, but you don't need a Stingray. – reirab Jun 11 '20 at 19:27
  • @ BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft By your logic a phone can cook hamburgers, if you tape it to a Hibachi. NFC is nothing to do with the phone functionality, indeed the *near* part would make it pretty useless for making calls. – Bloke Down The Pub Jun 11 '20 at 21:06
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    I cant believe people are seriously discussing whether this old man had a mystical device that noone seems to be able to provide evidence has ever existed. He was clutching a phone - claiming anything else is simply playing to Trumps fantasies. – Moo Jun 12 '20 at 02:32
  • @BlokeDownThePub nobody is suggesting that anyone is using NFC for making phone calls. – phoog Jun 12 '20 at 05:26
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    An entire (now deleted) answer was dedicated to correcting a comment above. When @BlueRaja-DannyPflughoeft says phones need NFC to communicate that is strictly limited to communicating via NFC. – Oddthinking Jun 12 '20 at 11:19
  • @somebody_other since i have sufficient reputation i can read your deleted answer and this is precisely why I am not going to change this answer too hastily, but people are welcome to offer corrections if they can provide good sources – Avery Jun 12 '20 at 16:16
  • @BlokeDownThePub: This answer used to say _"cell phones cannot read NFC signals"_. I was just pointing out that this is false - any phone that supports NFC _must_ be able to both read and output a signal, in order to communicate with another phone over NFC. – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft Jun 12 '20 at 18:33