As unrest grew in Minneapolis, Matthew Lee Rupert, a 28-year old from Galesburg, Illinois, posted messages on social media on May 28, 2020, that he was going to Minneapolis "to riot". He recruited a 17-year old companion to join him on the trip. Rupert then livestreamed his actions in Minneapolis on social media, which included inciting violence against law enforcement officers and breaking into a boarded-up Sprint cellphone store on Nicollet Avenue on May 29, 2020, and lighting the building on fire. Rupert plead guilty on April 7, 2021, in U.S. District Court to one federal count of arson, in exchange for the federal investigators dropping civil disorder and riot charges against him. Rupert was sentenced on August 10, 2021, to an 8.5-year prison sentence and three years of supervised release.
