A deranged ex-Navy SEAL who intended to kill police at a “No King’s Day” protest in California has been sentenced to 16 months in federal prison.
Gregory Vandenberg, a 49-year-old former Navy SEAL, set off from El Paso ahead of a June 14, 2025 protest in San Diego but first stopped in Lordsburg, New Mexico, where he reportedly purchased six mortar-style fireworks and 72 M-150 firecrackers, according to El Paso station KFOX.
While at the store, he told a clerk/cashier that he intended to throw the fireworks at the police during the upcoming “No Kings” protest.
“Vandenberg then asked detailed questions about the amount of gunpowder in the fireworks, their explosive impact, and their ability to harm others, and discussed taping multiple fireworks together to increase their explosiveness,” according to KFOX.
“Furthermore, Vandenberg tried to convince the clerk to join him at the protests and discussed giving fireworks to others at the event and noted that he would not get hurt because he knew what he was doing,” the station reported.
His strange remarks alarmed the clerk enough that they recorded his license plate and called the authorities after he left. Federal agents subsequently tracked Vandenberg to Tucson, Arizona, where they found him asleep in his car at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base the next morning.
Though he was unemployed, he first tried to claim that he was traveling for work before changing his story and claiming he was just visiting friends.
When federal authorities searched his car, they found the fireworks, in addition to “clothes with antisemitic, anti-Israel, and extremist symbols—including a t-shirt with an image of the Al-Qaeda flag, [and] another t-shirt calling for the destruction of Judea,” according to KFOX.
A federal jury convicted a former U.S. Navy SEAL, Gregory Vandenberg, 49, of intending to use explosives against law enforcement officers at the “No Kings Day” protest in California last year, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office with the Western District of Texas. (KTSM) pic.twitter.com/mePSQzdwSZ
— NTC Report (@NTC_Report) January 14, 2026
The authorities also noticed that his t-shirt spelled out “AMALEK,” a term that reportedly means “destroyer of Jews,” and that his phone was full of even more extremist content.
The Department of Justice noted in a press release that the content included “internet searches and messages expressing hostility toward Jews and Israel,” as well as “messages indicating that Vandenberg viewed the United States government as being controlled by Israel and Jewish people.”
The DOJ has alleged that these beliefs “motivated his desire to target law enforcement officers at the protests.”
Vandenberg was eventually convicted on Jan. 12 of this year of transporting explosives from Texas to Cali with the intent to kill.
“People in this country are free to hold their own beliefs and to express them peacefully,” Acting U.S. Attorney Ryan Ellison said in a statement following Vandenberg’s conviction. “What they are not free to do is use explosives to threaten or terrorize others.”
“Vandenberg intended to turn explosives into a tool of intimidation, and this verdict sends the message that attempts to substitute violence for expressing one’s opinion has no place in our communities and will be met with federal consequences,” he added.
Former U.S. Navy SEAL Sentenced for Transporting Explosives to Throw at Law Enforcement at California Protests https://t.co/iMXYC3xzqz
— Johnette Cruz (@thejohnettecruz) July 27, 2026
Vandenberg’s views appeared to be mainly anti-Jewish, which fits into a broader pattern of antisemitic hate and conspiracy theories that have been rocking both the political left and right. He’s been described by some as a possible “neo-Nazi.”
“Antisemitic incidents and attacks worldwide have surged to historic highs since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, in which more than 1,200 civilians were massacred, hundreds more brutalized, and 251 people were taken hostage,” according to Homeland Security Today (HST).
“That date has since been repeatedly invoked online to spread and normalize antisemitic content, and watchdog groups say the elevated rate of incidents has not meaningfully receded in the nearly three years since,” HST notes.
