A central Minnesota man pleaded guilty Thursday to breaching a fence that enclosed the Third Precinct police headquarters in Minneapolis and helping light the building on fire during civil unrest that followed the police killing of George Floyd this summer.

Bryce Michael Williams, 26, of Staples, was indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to commit arson. According to the indictment, on May 28, Williams was among the hundreds of people who'd gathered around the police precinct in south Minneapolis. The crowd chanted "Burn it down! Burn it down!" as several of its members tore down a fence meant to keep people away from the building.

Williams and several others trampled over the fence and toward the building. Williams helped light a Molotov cocktail, which another man brought into the building and used it to set a fire, according to the charges.

Williams later threw a box on a fire burning just outside the precinct's entry doors, according to the charges.

The burning of the Third Precinct has become one of the most prominent visual symbols of the protests and riots that erupted in response to a Minneapolis police officer pinning Floyd, an unarmed Black man, to the ground while Floyd and onlookers begged for his life. The four officers who have been charged in relation to Floyd's death all worked out of the Third Precinct.

The siege and burning of a police precinct has no precedent in modern American history, and the event led the governor to call in the Minnesota National Guard in the nights that followed to quell the unrest. The precinct building is among 150 Twin Cities properties damaged in the aftermath of Floyd's death. Dozens of buildings burned to the ground.

Star Tribune file, Star Tribune
The Minneapolis Third Police Precinct was set on fire during a third night of protests following the death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody, on May 28, 2020.

Several people, of seemingly different motivations, have been charged with lighting the precinct building on fire. Williams is charged with three alleged co-conspirators who crossed the fence and assisted in setting fires around the same time, according to the indictment. They are Dylan Robinson, of Brainerd; Davon De-Andre Turner, of St. Paul; and Brandon Michael Wolfe, also of St. Paul.

Williams is the only one to plead guilty so far.

The charges say Turner helped Williams light the Molotov cocktail and carried it into the precinct. Robinson also threw an incendiary device into the building, and Wolfe rolled a barrel into the flames "with the intent to accelerate the existing fire," according to the indictment.

A member of the Boogaloo Bois, a right-wing group intent on capitalizing on chaos and starting the next American civil war, has also been charged with assisting in the damage to the precinct that night. Ivan Harrison Hunter, a 26-year-old from Boerne, Texas, is accused of shooting 13 rounds from an AK-47-style rifle into the precinct while people were inside the building.

Hunter also bragged on Facebook that "I helped the community burn down that police station" and "I didn't' [sic] protest peacefully," according to the charges.

Andy Mannix • 612-673-4036