QAnon leader Michael Protzman dies at Mayo Clinic

(ABC 6 News) – The leader for the far conspiracy group QAnon has died at a hospital in Rochester.

Michael Protzman, was the leader of the group originated in 2017. It’s centered around fabricated claims by someone or a group known only as Q.

The Wabasha County Sheriff’s Office says Protzman crashed his dirt bike at the Meadow Valley Motocross track in Millville on June 23.

The 60-year-old was unconscious, but breathing. He was then flown to Mayo Clinic. The Southern Minnesota Regional Medical Examiner’s office says he died June 30 at Saint Marys Hospital from multiple blunt force injuries.

Protzman was known to his QAnon followers as “Negative 48.” He made national news in 2021 when he falsely led hundreds of his followers into believing former President John F. Kennedy would reappear at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, where JFK was shot and killed in 1963. Protzman said Kennedy, a Democrat, would reinstate Republican Donald Trump as president.

More recently, the United States House Select Committee on the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attack said QAnon also led members of the pro-Trump mob into the U.S. Capitol during the insurrection.

The New York Post reports a QAnon administrator on the online messaging service Telegram wrote they will remove all posts relating to Protzman’s death until they have “absolute verification.”