Timeline of incidents involving QAnon
Since the movement's emergence in 2017, adherents
2018
Tucson cement plant incident
In May 2018, Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer livestreamed a Facebook video from the site of a Tucson cement plant, asserting, "This is a child sex trafficking camp that no one wants to talk about, that no one wants to do nothing about." The video was viewed 650,000 times over the ensuing week. Tucson police inspected the plant without finding evidence of criminal activity. Meyer then occupied a tower on the property for nine days, until reaching agreement with police to leave. He later returned to the tower in July, whereupon he was arrested for trespassing. Meyer referenced QAnon and the #WWG1WGA hashtag on his Facebook page.Hoover Dam incident
On June 15, 2018, Matthew Phillip Wright of Henderson, Nevada, was arrested on terrorism and other charges for driving an armored truck, containing an AR-15 and handgun, to the Hoover Dam and blocking traffic for 90 minutes. He said he was on a mission involving QAnon: to demand that the Justice Department "release the OIG report" on the conduct of FBI agents during the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Since a copy of the Office of the Inspector General report had been released the day before, the man had been motivated by a Q "drop" which claimed the released version of the report had been heavily modified and that Trump possessed a more damning version but had declined to release it. In video recorded inside his armored truck, Wright expressed disappointment that Trump had not honored a "duty" to "lock certain people up", asking him to "uphold your oath".After blocking traffic, Wright drove towards the Arizona side of the bridge, where his tires were flattened by police spike strips. He then surrendered to police after becoming stuck on a dirt road. Nobody was injured during the incident. At trial, Wright was found guilty, and on December 17, 2020, he was sentenced to seven years on a terrorism charge and nine months for unlawful flight, to be served consecutively.
Targeting of Michael Avenatti
On July 29, 2018, Q posted a link to Stormy Daniels's attorney Michael Avenatti's website and photos of his Newport Beach, California, office building, along with the message, "Buckle up!" The anonymous poster then shared the picture of a still unidentified man, appearing to be holding a cellphone in one hand and a long, thin object in the other, standing in the street near Avenatti's office, adding that a message "had been sent". This sparked an investigation by the Newport Beach Police Department. On July 30, Avenatti asked his Twitter followers to contact the Newport Beach Police Department if they "have any details or observed" the man in the picture.Harassment of Jim Acosta
At a Trump rally in Tampa, Florida, on July 31, 2018, Trump supporters exhibited hostile behavior toward CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta. Exponents of QAnon-related theories were at the rally.The next day, David Martosko of the Daily Mail asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders whether the White House encouraged the support of "QAnon fringe groups". Sanders denounced "any group that would incite violence against another individual", without specifically responding to the QAnon mention. Sanders added that Trump "certainly doesn't support groups that would support that type of behavior".
2019
Murder of James Wolfe
On January 8, 2019, a 26-year-old Seattle man stabbed his brother James Wolfe in the head with a 4-foot-long sword before calling 911 and confessing to the murder, saying he believed his brother was a lizard. During interrogation the man told detectives he saw lizards in the room and claimed that the detectives themselves were turning into lizards. The suspect had frequently posted about QAnon and had also pledged himself to the Proud Boys, though they denied any affiliation with him. The perpetrator claimed to have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and a King County prosecutor described him as "severely mentally ill".Grass Valley Charter School fundraiser
The Blue Marble Jubilee fundraising event at Grass Valley Charter School in Grass Valley, California, scheduled for May 11, 2019, was canceled as a precaution after a tweet by former FBI head James Comey on April 27 using the hashtag #FiveJobsIveHad, in which the first letters of the jobs were GVCSF, was interpreted by QAnon followers as a veiled reference to the Grass Valley Charter School Foundation, suggesting that Comey planned to stage a "false flag" terror attack at the event; the hashtag was also interpreted by QAnon adherents as an anagram of "five jihads", and the time stamp on the post was related to the 9/11 attacks. The police and the FBI received warnings, in addition to the school, which decided not to take the risk of Internet vigilantes attending "to guard the place", as a police sergeant put it.Murder of Frank Cali
Anthony Comello of Staten Island, New York, was charged with the March 2019 murder of Gambino crime family underboss Frank Cali. According to his defense attorney, Comello had become obsessed with QAnon theories, believing Cali was a member of "deep state" and, "because of his self-perceived status in QAnon, Mr. Comello became certain that he was enjoying the protection of President Trump himself, and that he had the president's full support" to place Cali under citizen's arrest. Confronting Cali outside his home in Staten Island, Comello allegedly shot Cali ten times. At his first court appearance, Comello displayed QAnon symbols and phrases and "MAGA forever" scrawled on his hand in pen. Comello had also posted material on Instagram praising Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Jeanine Pirro. The reason why Cali was targeted was unclear, as the person behind QAnon's "drops" had not mentioned the Mafia.America's Stonehenge vandalism
In September 2019, the America's Stonehenge tourist attraction in Salem, New Hampshire was found vandalized, with police saying the rock formation appeared to have been damaged by a power tool. In 2021, a man from Swedesboro, New Jersey was charged with vandalizing the monument. Police said the man carved "WWG1WGA" and his Twitter username into the stone.Kidnapping incidents
In December 2019, Cynthia Abcug was arrested and charged in Colorado with conspiracy to commit second-degree kidnapping of one of her children who had been removed from her custody. Her other daughter reported to police that Abcug had been collaborating with an armed male who was "definitely part of this group QAnon", that her mother had gone to QAnon meetings and believed that the child had been taken by "evil Satan worshippers" and "pedophiles". Abcug pleaded not guilty to the charge in September 2020 and was tried in February 2021.Later
On March 20, 2020, Neely Petrie-Blanchard was arrested and charged with kidnapping and custodial interference after taking her two daughters who had been in the sole legal custody of their grandmother. Petrie-Blanchard had made multiple social media posts promoting QAnon including memes and pictures of her wearing QAnon shirts at Trump rallies. She also has taken actions connected with the sovereign citizen movement, and had become actively involved with E-Clause, a QAnon-affiliated sovereign citizen pseudolaw firm.In October 2020, Utah mother Emily Jolley abducted her son during a supervised visit, despite the fact that the boy's father had full custody of him. She had promoted QAnon conspiracy theories and was a member of a Facebook page for E-Clause.
On April 13, 2021, a French group influenced by QAnon theories and by a local version of sovereign citizen ideology helped a non-custodial mother abduct her eight-year-old child from the child's grandmother, who had been awarded custody due to concerns over the mother's mental stability and extreme conspiratorial beliefs. The investigation about the people involved in the kidnapping eventually led to the uncovering of an alleged terrorist conspiracy.
Trump's 2020 campaign
QAnon supporters claim that they were asked to cover up their "Q" identifiers and other QAnon-related symbols at a Trump campaign rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, on August 15, 2019. Although one person who was asked to turn his "Q" shirt inside out when he entered the rally identified the person who asked him to do so as a Secret Service agent, the agency denied this, saying in an email to The Washington Post, "The U.S. Secret Service did not request, or require, attendees to change their clothing at an event in New Hampshire." QAnon supporters also claimed that their visibility at Trump rallies had been suppressed for months.In August 2019, a video posted online by "Women for Trump" late in July was reported to include "Q"s on two campaign signs. The first sign, which said "Make America Great Again", had a "Q" taped to it in the corner. The other side, "Women for Trump" had the "O"s in "Women" and "for" pasted over with "Q"s. The images which included the altered signs were clearly taken at a Trump campaign rally, which have increasingly attracted adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory, so it is unknown if those particular signs were selected for inclusion deliberately or not. The video has since been taken down.
2020 and later
In July 2020, Business Insider reported that according to Media Matters for America, Trump's reelection campaign relied on a network of QAnon-related accounts to spread disinformation and propaganda on social media, especially Twitter. An analysis of 380,000 tweets sent between early April and the end of May 2020, and another of the most popular words used by 1,000 accounts, showed that the QAnon network "is playing a key role in generating and spreading Trump's propaganda".The Washington Post reported at the beginning of August 2020 that adverts for Trump's campaign had shown images of supporters with prominent QAnon merchandise. Thousands of comments on YouTube saw these details as signs of victory.
The New York Times wrote that QAnon adherents had been shaken by Trump's defeat in the 2020 presidential elections, following years of reassurance that Trump would win by a landslide. Some followers repeated unsubstantiated claims that there had been widespread voter fraud and that Trump had actually been reelected, while others began to accept Biden's victory. On the day of Biden's inauguration, participants on 8kun differed in their views on the future of their cause. Ron Watkins, a former 8kun administrator and major figure in spreading QAnon, suggested it was time to "go back to our lives as best we are able" and "as we enter into the next administration please remember all the friends and happy memories we made together over the past few years." A board moderator deleted the Q message history and was threatened with death after the content was restored by others. Some suggested that Biden was "part of the plan".
In February 2021, Media Matters published analysis finding that QAnon adherents were praising the recent 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, in which the military overthrew the democratically elected government, and advocating a similar coup in the United States. In May 2021, a conference called "For God & Country: Patriot Roundup" was organized in Dallas, Texas by influencer John Sabal and his girlfriend.
Though Sabal claimed that it was not a "QAnon conference", multiple high-profile QAnon figures took part in the event, including lawyers L. Lin Wood and Sidney Powell – both of whom had been involved in Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 election – and General Michael Flynn. When an audience member said, "I want to know why what happened in Myanmar can't happen here", Flynn responded, "No reason. I mean, it should happen here. No reason. That's right." After his words were reported, Flynn asserted he had "not at any time called for any action of that sort" and accused the press of "boldface fabrication based on twisted reporting". He had suggested in December 2020 that Trump should suspend the Constitution, silence the press, and hold a new election under military authority.
At the same conference, Powell falsely asserted that Trump "can simply be reinstated, that a new Inauguration Day is set", eliciting cheers from the crowd. Two days after Powell's remarks, Maggie Haberman of The New York Times tweeted that Trump "has been telling a number of people he's in contact with that he expects he will get reinstated by August."