The Ohio Arsenal — What the Charging Records Reveal.

On June 14, 2026, the Ultimate Fighting Championship staged UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House — a cage-fight spectacle for the 250th anniversary of American independence, watched cage-side by President Donald Trump. According to a federal criminal complaint, a 19-year-old from rural Ohio had spent months allegedly assembling the firepower to turn that event into a massacre.

Prosecutors say Tycen C. Proper, of Danville, Ohio, allegedly built a war kit in his bedroom — an AR-15, a flag-painted combat shotgun, body armor rated to stop rifle rounds, 13 loaded magazines, and more than a thousand rounds of ammunition — and told investigators the plan was to “jump-start a revolution.” He is one of seven men now charged across five states.

The case is unresolved and every defendant is presumed innocent. What follows tracks only what the charging documents and the Department of Justice have laid out — the arsenal, the alleged drone-and-sniper plan, the network behind it, and the single phone call from a worried mother that, the government says, stopped it cold.

• 4 federal charges — filed against Tycen Proper in the Southern District of Ohio — conspiracy, attempted murder of a federal officer, and two firearms felonies · Source: DOJ / U.S. Attorney's Office, S.D. Ohio
• Up to life — maximum exposure on the firearm-in-furtherance count alone (5-year mandatory minimum); the attempted-murder count carries up to 20 years · Source: DOJ press release
• $3,000 — in high-school graduation money Proper allegedly spent assembling the arsenal, per the criminal complaint · Source: Fox News; Knox Pages
• 1,000+ rounds — of 5.56 ammunition seized alongside an AR-15, a flag-painted 12-gauge shotgun, three rifle-rated plate carriers, and 13 loaded magazines · Source: Fox News (court records)
• 7 defendants — charged across Ohio, California, Missouri, Nebraska and Washington; investigators flagged a network of roughly two dozen people · Source: DOJ; NPR; ABC News
• Mom's June 10 tip — Proper's mother contacted Ohio police about his gun purchases and online chats four days before the event — the lead that unraveled the plot · Source: Knox Pages; FBI affidavit

The case did not begin with a federal wiretap or an informant. It began, according to the FBI affidavit and local Ohio reporting, with a mother. On June 10, 2026 — four days before UFC Freedom 250 — Tycen Proper’s mother contacted the Danville Police Department and the Knox County Sheriff’s Office, alarmed by her son’s recent firearms purchases and the people he was communicating with online. The family, the government says, had already pulled the guns and ammunition out of his room.

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Deputies photographed equipment at the residence, and a search warrant executed the next day, June 11, turned up “a large quantity of boxes of spent ammunition, fired cartridge casings and tactical clothing,” according to the complaint. During an interview that same day, prosecutors say Proper admitted to planning a coordinated attack on the U.S. government designed to “jump-start a revolution.” The FBI says it first learned of the broader plot on June 10 and raced to round up suspects across the country before the South Lawn event began.

The detail that gives the case its weight is the inventory. According to court records reviewed by Fox News, Proper allegedly assembled a kit far beyond a hobbyist’s gun collection: a 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun painted with an American flag and fitted with a red-dot optic (purchased June 5), and an AR-15 in 5.56 caliber with a red-dot sight and magnifier (purchased in January). Around the guns, the government says, sat a full battle load-out.

The list, as documented in the records: three plate carriers with .308-rated ballistic plates, a tactical bump helmet, a battle belt with loaded ammunition pouches, 13 loaded AR-15 magazines, more than 1,000 rounds of 5.56 ammunition, multiple 12-gauge shells in buckshot and rifled slug, fixed and folding blades, a hatchet, two tactical headsets, chemical lights, a compass, and a full medical-trauma kit — tourniquets, emergency bandages, wound seals and gauze. Prosecutors say he funded it with roughly $3,000 of his high-school graduation money.

The arsenal was one piece of what prosecutors describe as a two-stage mass-casualty plan. According to the charging documents, the conspirators allegedly intended to fly drones armed with explosives over the UFC event to force a panicked evacuation, then position snipers along the crowd’s escape routes to fire on “high value targets” as people fled. Proper allegedly told investigators his own role was drone bombings over the north side of the arena; co-conspirators would take sniper positions over the southern evacuation routes.

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The intended targets, prosecutors say, included U.S. politicians — multiple members of Congress among them. The FBI says it seized a journal from Proper’s room containing a list of approximately 46 names, a mix of celebrities and political figures. Investigators describe an ideological stew of grievances, including hostility toward officials the group identified with Israeli interests and references tied to the Jeffrey Epstein case. Court papers indicate the group also discussed a backup target: the FIFA World Cup in Kansas City.

Proper was not alone. The Justice Department says the group coalesced around March 2026 in an online space called “Vanguard of the Old,” coordinating across encrypted platforms including Signal, SimpleX and Telegram. Five men were charged first: Tycen C. Proper, 19, of Danville, Ohio; Bryan Omar Roa, 24, of Calimesa, California; Michael Alan Thomas, 32, of Pinon Hills, California; Daniel K. Eskridge, 32, of Kidder, Missouri; and Abraham Hermosillo Alvarez, 31, of Omaha, Nebraska — whom the DOJ identified as the alleged organizer using the name “Shepherd,” and whom DHS says was in the country illegally.

The count later rose to seven. Prosecutors charged Jordan Rincker of Missouri — accused of taking $1,200in cash from Alvarez, handing over a pump-action shotgun, and discussing 3D-printing drone parts — and William Lee Falkner of Washington, who allegedly discussed rigging drones with 155mm artillery shells and claimed he could fly up to 40 at once. Separately, a Chicago man, Alexander Iniguez Mercado, 20, was charged with obstruction of justice as an administrator of one of the Signal groups. Investigators have flagged roughly two dozen people in the network.

In a criminal complaint unsealed in the Southern District of Ohio, Proper is charged with four federal offenses: conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States; attempted murder of an officer or employee of the United States; possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence; and receipt or transfer of a firearm to be used to commit a felony. He is presumed innocent, and the case has not been tried.

The penalties are steep. Conspiracy carries up to 5 years; attempted murder of a federal official up to 20 years; the firearm-in-furtherance count carries a 5-year mandatory minimum and a maximum of life; and the firearm-transfer count up to 15 years. The Justice Department brought the case through the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio, with FBI Director Kash Patel publicly announcing the disruption of the plot.

“Multiple individuals are now in custody and allegedly planned attacks were stopped cold.”

FBI Director Kash Patel, announcing the arrests

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UFC Freedom 250 took place as scheduled on June 14, headlined by a lightweight title bout between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje, with President Trump watching cage-side. It went off without incident. The plot, the government says, had already been dismantled in the days before — though FBI Director Patel’s decision to publicize the arrests on June 16, while agents were still rounding up suspects, drew private frustration from some law enforcement officials who worried it would tip off others in the encrypted network.

Strip away the spectacle and the case rests on documents: a criminal complaint, a search-warrant inventory, and a journal of names. According to those records, a 19-year-old in rural Ohio allegedly spent his graduation money building a rifle-and-armor kit, joined an online cell plotting to bomb and shoot attendees at a presidential event, and was stopped only because a family member picked up the phone. None of it has been proven in court, and all seven defendants are presumed innocent. But the alleged scale — the arsenal, the drone-and-sniper plan, the 46-name target list — is exactly why the government moved before the cage door ever opened. We’ll track the indictments, the pleas, and what the trials ultimately establish.

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Last updated June 26, 2026