Spitfire List Web site and blog of anti-fascist researcher and radio personality Dave Emory.

For The Record  

FTR #681 Specialized Knowledge and Abilities, Part II

MP3 (One 30-minute seg­ment)
NB: This stream con­tains FTRs 681 and 682 in sequence. Each is a 30-minute seg­ment.

Intro­duc­tion: Not­ing recent devel­op­ments with regard to Ger­man Nazi lawyer Jur­gen Rieger (who coined (pic­tured at right) the term “spe­cial­ized knowl­edge and abil­i­ties”), the pro­gram begins with his recent appoint­ment to become Vice-Pres­i­dent of the NPD, the top Ger­man neo-Nazi par­ty. Rieger advo­cat­ed that Nazis and fas­cists world­wide adopt the tac­tic of infil­trat­ing mil­i­tary and law-enforce­ment estab­lish­ments in order to acquire “spe­cial­ized knowl­edge and abil­i­ties” which they can apply to over­throw­ing their respec­tive gov­ern­ments. (This broad­cast is a fol­low-up to FTR #27.)

The bulk of the pro­gram is devot­ed to an arti­cle from Salon.com. Due to the over-exten­sion of the mil­i­tary result­ing from U.S. involve­ment in two wars, the armed ser­vices have been forced to low­er recruit­ing stan­dards, per­mit­ting white suprema­cists and neo-Nazis to suc­cess­ful­ly enlist and remain in the ranks.

Among the out­growths of this is a grow­ing pres­ence of mem­bers of the Nation­al Alliance, the orga­ni­za­tion whose pub­lish­ing arm issued Ser­pen­t’s Walk. In that book (con­sid­ered by Mr. Emory to be a man­i­festo for the future, rather than the “nov­el” it pur­ports to be), the descen­dants of the SS infil­trate the U.S. mil­i­tary and, after much of the coun­try is destroyed by weapons of mass destruc­tion result­ing in the dec­la­ra­tion of mar­tial law, the Nazis take over.

A num­ber of the white suprema­cist and Nazi infil­tra­tors in the mil­i­tary are quite explic­it about their enlist­ment being for the explic­it pur­pose of apply­ing their skills lat­er, to kill their self-per­ceived ene­mies and over­throw the gov­ern­ment that they see as con­trolled by those self-same “ene­mies.”

Of sig­nif­i­cance, also, are the attempts described below to pro­cure arms for their move­ment. Nazi and fas­cist ele­ments who have exit­ed the mil­i­tary net­work­ing with com­rades still in the ranks could gen­er­ate a tru­ly pow­er­ful Under­ground Reich Fifth Col­umn in this coun­try.

In that con­text, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that the Nation­al Alliance asso­ciate Bob Whitak­er held a key posi­tion with­in the Rea­gan White House, in which he assist­ed with staffing and secu­ri­ty clear­ances. Imag­ine the impli­ca­tions of peo­ple like Whitak­er net­work­ing with like-mind­ed peo­ple in the mil­i­tary and lawen­force­ment!

Pro­gram High­lights Include: The open advo­ca­cy by Nazi and white-suprema­cist lead­ers of the tac­tic of mil­i­tary infil­tra­tion by their mem­bers; review of Jur­gen Rieger’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Holo­caust Denial con­fer­ence in Iran in Decem­ber 2006.

NB: This analy­sis should in no size, shape, form or man­ner be con­strued as a blan­ket con­dem­na­tion or char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of the mil­i­tary as a whole. Mr. Emory views our men and women in uni­form as the finest ele­ment in Amer­i­ca.

1. Not­ing recent devel­op­ments with regard to Ger­man Nazi lawyer Jur­gen Rieger (who coined the term “spe­cial­ized knowl­edge and abil­i­ties”), the pro­gram high­lights his recent appoint­ment to become Vice-Pres­i­dent of the NPD, the top Ger­man neo-Nazi par­ty. Rieger advo­cat­ed that Nazis and fas­cists world­wide adopt the tac­tic of infil­trat­ing mil­i­tary and law-enforce­ment estab­lish­ments in order to acquire “spe­cial­ized knowl­edge and abil­i­ties” which they can apply to over­throw­ing their respec­tive gov­ern­ments. (This broad­cast is a fol­low-up to FTR #27.)

Ger­many’s main far-right group, the Nation­al Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NPD), embraced a lead­ing extrem­ist Sun­day, May 25 but avoid­ed explic­it expres­sions of neo-Nazi opin­ion which are pro­hib­it­ed under Ger­man law.

Juer­gen Rieger, a lawyer who has advised and defend­ed neo-Nazis, was appoint­ed one of the group’s three vice-pres­i­dents. Rieger has con­vic­tions for Holo­caust denial and assault.

Reporters sug­gest­ed that the overt­ly neo-Nazi fac­tion with­in the NPD was gain­ing a greater voice in the anti-for­eign­er par­ty, which has seats in two of Ger­many’s 16 state assem­blies but has nev­er won par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tion at fed­er­al lev­el.

A par­ty spokesman lat­er wel­comed Rieger’s appoint­ment, say­ing he would ener­gize the NPD.

Under par­ty leader Udo Voigt, the NPD has sought the sup­port of mil­i­tants who praise Adolf Hitler’s Nation­al-Social­ist or Nazi doc­trines, though Voigt insists that the NPD’s nation­al­ist views com­ply with Ger­many’s demo­c­ra­t­ic con­sti­tu­tion.

In a speech to del­e­gates, leader Voigt won applause as he said the par­ty’s pol­i­cy was both nation­al­ist and social­ist, but used Ger­man gram­mar to care­ful­ly sep­a­rate them into two words. He said this had no con­nec­tion what­ev­er to the Nazi era.

More than 2,000 peo­ple demon­strat­ed Sat­ur­day against the annu­al con­ven­tion of the NPD in the Bavar­i­an city of Bam­berg.

Kurt Beck, leader of Ger­many’s co-rul­ing Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty SPD, called in Leipzig for the NPD to be com­pul­so­ri­ly dis­solved.

“It ought not to be allowed,” he said. “A robust democ­ra­cy ought not to give state sup­port to peo­ple who want to abol­ish democ­ra­cy.”

“Far-Right NPD Appoints Holo­cause Denier as Vice-Pres­i­dent” [Deutsche Welle]; rickross.com; 5/25/2009.

2. The bulk of the pro­gram is devot­ed to an arti­cle from Salon.com. Due to the over-exten­sion of the mil­i­tary result­ing from U.S. involve­ment in two wars, the armed ser­vices have been forced to low­er recruit­ing stan­dards, per­mit­ting white suprema­cists and neo-Nazis to suc­cess­ful­ly enlist and remain in the ranks.

Among the out­growths of this is a grow­ing pres­ence of mem­bers of the Nation­al Alliance, the orga­ni­za­tion whose pub­lish­ing arm issued Ser­pen­t’s Walk. In that book (con­sid­ered by Mr. Emory to be a man­i­festo for the future, rather than the “nov­el” it pur­ports to be), the descen­dants of the SS infil­trate the U.S. mil­i­tary and, after much of the coun­try is destroyed by weapons of mass destruc­tion result­ing in the dec­la­ra­tion of mar­tial law, the Nazis take over.

A num­ber of the white suprema­cist and Nazi infil­tra­tors in the mil­i­tary are quite explic­it about their enlist­ment being for the explic­it pur­pose of apply­ing their skills lat­er, to kill their self-per­ceived ene­mies and over­throw the gov­ern­ment that they see as con­trolled by those self-same “ene­mies.”

Of sig­nif­i­cance, also, are the attempts described below to pro­cure arms for their move­ment. Nazi and fas­cist ele­ments who have exit­ed the mil­i­tary net­work­ing with com­rades still in the ranks could gen­er­ate a tru­ly pow­er­ful Under­ground Reich Fifth Col­umn in this coun­try.

On a mug­gy Flori­da evening in 2008, I meet Iraq War vet­er­an For­rest Fog­a­r­ty in the Wing­house, a lit­tle bar-restau­rant on the out­skirts of Tam­pa, his favorite hang­out. He told me on the phone I would rec­og­nize him by his skin­head. Sure enough, when I spot a white guy at a table by the door with a shaved head, white tank top and bulging mus­cles, I know it can only be him.

Over a plate of chick­en wings, he tells me about his path into the white-pow­er move­ment. “I was 14 when I decid­ed I want­ed to be a Nazi,” he says. At his first high school, near Los Ange­les, he was bul­lied by black and Lati­no kids. That’s when he first heard Skrew­driv­er, a band he calls “the god­fa­ther of the white pow­er move­ment.” “I became obsessed,” he says. He had an image from one of Skrew­driver’s album cov­ers — a Viking car­ry­ing a staff, an icon among white nation­al­ists — tat­tooed on his left fore­arm. Soon after he had a Celtic cross, an Irish sym­bol appro­pri­at­ed by neo-Nazis, embla­zoned on his stom­ach.

At 15, Fog­a­r­ty moved with his dad to Tam­pa, where he start­ed pick­ing fights with groups of black kids at his new high school. “On the first day, this bunch of nig­gers, they thought I was a racist, so they asked, ‘Are you in the KKK?’ ” he tells me. “I said, ‘Yeah,’ and it was on.” Soon enough, he was expelled.

For the next six years, Fog­a­r­ty flit­ted from land­scap­ing job to con­struc­tion job, nei­ther of which he’d ever want­ed to do. “I was just drink­ing and fight­ing,” he says. He start­ed his own Nazi rock group, Attack, and made friends in the Nation­al Alliance, at the time the biggest neo-Nazi group in the coun­try. It has called for a “a long-term eugen­ics pro­gram involv­ing at least the entire pop­u­la­tions of Europe and Amer­i­ca.”

But the mil­i­tary ran in Fog­a­r­ty’s fam­i­ly. His grand­fa­ther had served dur­ing World War II, Korea and Viet­nam, and his dad had been a Marine in Viet­nam. At 22, Fog­a­r­ty resolved to fol­low in their foot­steps. “I want­ed to serve my coun­try,” he says.

Army reg­u­la­tions pro­hib­it sol­diers from par­tic­i­pat­ing in racist groups, and recruiters are instruct­ed to keep an eye out for sus­pi­cious tat­toos. Before sign­ing on the dot­ted line, enlis­tees are required to explain any tat­toos. At a Tam­pa recruit­ment office, though, Fog­a­r­ty sailed right through the signup process. “They just told me to write an expla­na­tion of each tat­too, and I made up some stuff, and that was that,” he says. Soon he was post­ed to Fort Stew­art in Geor­gia, where he became part of the 3rd Infantry Divi­sion.

Fog­a­r­ty’s ex-girl­friend, intent on destroy­ing his new mil­i­tary career, sent a dossier of pho­tographs to Fort Stew­art. The pho­tos showed Fog­a­r­ty attend­ing white suprema­cist ral­lies and per­form­ing with his band, Attack. “They hauled me before some sort of com­mit­tee and showed me the pic­tures,” Fog­a­r­ty says. “I just denied them and said my girl­friend was a spite­ful bitch.” He adds: “They knew what I was about. But they let it go because I’m a great sol­dier.”

In 2003, Fog­a­r­ty was sent to Iraq. For two years he served in the mil­i­tary police, escort­ing offi­cers, includ­ing gen­er­als, around the hos­tile coun­try. He says he was grant­ed top-secret clear­ance and access to bat­tle plans. Fog­a­r­ty speaks with regret that he “nev­er had any kill counts.” But he says his time in Iraq increased his racist resolve.

“I hate Arabs more than any­body, for the sim­ple fact I’ve served over there and seen how they live,” he tells me. “They’re just a back­ward peo­ple. Them and the Jews are just dis­gust­ing peo­ple as far as I’m con­cerned. Their cus­toms, every­thing to do with the Mid­dle East, is just repug­nant to me.”

Because of his tat­toos and his racist com­ments, most of his bud­dies and his com­mand­ing offi­cers were aware of his Nazism. “They all knew in my unit,” he says. “They would always kid around and say, ‘Hey, you’re that skin­head!’ ” But no one sound­ed an alarm to high­er-ups. “I would vol­un­teer for all the hard­est mis­sions, and they were like, ‘Let Fog­a­r­ty go.’ They did­n’t want to get rid of me.”

Fog­a­r­ty left the Army in 2005 with an hon­or­able dis­charge. He says he was asked to reen­list. He declined. He was sick of the sys­tem.

Since the launch of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. mil­i­tary has strug­gled to recruit and reen­list troops. As the con­flicts have dragged on, the mil­i­tary has loos­ened reg­u­la­tions, issu­ing “moral waivers” in many cas­es, allow­ing even those with crim­i­nal records to join up. Vet­er­ans suf­fer­ing post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der have been ordered back to the Mid­dle East for sec­ond and third tours of duty.

The lax reg­u­la­tions have also opened the mil­i­tary’s doors to neo-Nazis, white suprema­cists and gang mem­bers — with dras­tic con­se­quences. Some neo-Nazis have been charged with crimes inside the mil­i­tary, and oth­ers have been linked to recruit­ment efforts for the white right. A recent Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty report, “Rightwing Extrem­ism: Cur­rent Eco­nom­ic and Polit­i­cal Cli­mate Fuel­ing Resur­gence in Rad­i­cal­iza­tion and Recruit­ment,” stat­ed: “The will­ing­ness of a small per­cent­age of mil­i­tary per­son­nel to join extrem­ist groups dur­ing the 1990s because they were dis­grun­tled, dis­il­lu­sioned, or suf­fer­ing from the psy­cho­log­i­cal effects of war is being repli­cat­ed today.” Many white suprema­cists join the Army to secure train­ing for, as they see it, a future domes­tic race war. Oth­ers claim to be shoot­ing Iraqis not to pur­sue the mil­i­tary’s strate­gic goals but because killing “hajjis” is their duty as white mil­i­tants.

Sol­diers’ asso­ci­a­tions with extrem­ist groups, and their racist actions, con­tra­vene a host of mil­i­tary statutes insti­tut­ed in the past three decades. But dur­ing the “war on ter­ror,” U.S. armed forces have turned a blind eye on their own reg­u­la­tions. A 2005 Depart­ment of Defense report states, “Effec­tive­ly, the mil­i­tary has a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ pol­i­cy per­tain­ing to extrem­ism. If indi­vid­u­als can per­form sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly, with­out mak­ing their extrem­ist opin­ions overt … they are like­ly to be able to com­plete their con­tracts.”

Carter F. Smith is a for­mer mil­i­tary inves­ti­ga­tor who worked with the U.S. Army Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion Com­mand from 2004 to 2006, when he helped to root out gang vio­lence in troops. “When you need more sol­diers, you low­er the stan­dards, whether you say so or not,” he says. “The increase in gangs and extrem­ists is an indi­ca­tor of this.” Mil­i­tary inves­ti­ga­tors may be con­cerned about white suprema­cists, he says. “But they have a war to fight, and they don’t have incen­tive to slow down.”

Tom Met­zger is the for­mer grand wiz­ard of the Ku Klux Klan and cur­rent leader of the White Aryan Resis­tance. He tells me the mil­i­tary has nev­er been more tol­er­ant of racial extrem­ists. “Now they are let­ting every­body in,” he says.

The pres­ence of white suprema­cists in the mil­i­tary first trig­gered con­cern in 1976. At Camp Pendle­ton in Cal­i­for­nia, a group of black Marines attacked white Marines they mis­tak­en­ly believed to be in the KKK. The result­ing inves­ti­ga­tion uncov­ered a KKK chap­ter at the base and led to the jail­ing or trans­fer of 16 Klans­men. Reports of Klan activ­i­ty among sol­diers and Marines sur­faced again in the 1980s, spurring Pres­i­dent Rea­gan’s Defense Sec­re­tary, Cas­par Wein­berg­er, to con­demn mil­i­tary par­tic­i­pa­tion in white suprema­cist orga­ni­za­tions.

Then, in 1995, a black cou­ple was mur­dered by two neo-Nazi para­troop­ers around Fort Bragg in North Car­oli­na. The mur­der inves­ti­ga­tion turned up evi­dence that 22 sol­diers at Fort Bragg were known to be extrem­ists. That year, lan­guage was added to a Depart­ment of Defense direc­tive, explic­it­ly pro­hibit­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in “orga­ni­za­tions that espouse suprema­cist caus­es” or “advo­cate the use of force or vio­lence.”

Today a com­plete ban on mem­ber­ship in racist orga­ni­za­tions appears to have been lift­ed — though the pro­lif­er­a­tion of white suprema­cists in the mil­i­tary is dif­fi­cult to gauge. The mil­i­tary does not track them as a dis­crete cat­e­go­ry, cou­pling them with gang mem­bers. But one indi­ca­tion of the scope comes from the FBI.

Fol­low­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion of white suprema­cist groups, a 2008 FBI report declared: “Mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence — rang­ing from fail­ure at basic train­ing to suc­cess in spe­cial oper­a­tions forces — is found through­out the white suprema­cist extrem­ist move­ment.” In white suprema­cist inci­dents from 2001 to 2008, the FBI iden­ti­fied 203 vet­er­ans. Most of them were asso­ci­at­ed with the Nation­al Alliance and the Nation­al Social­ist Move­ment, which pro­mote anti-Semi­tism and the over­throw of the U.S. gov­ern­ment, and assort­ed skin­head groups.

Because the FBI focused only on report­ed cas­es, its num­bers don’t include the many extrem­ist sol­diers who have man­aged to stay off the radar. But its report does pin­point why the white suprema­cist move­ments seek to recruit vet­er­ans — they “may exploit their access­es to restrict­ed areas and intel­li­gence or apply spe­cial­ized train­ing in weapons, tac­tics, and orga­ni­za­tion­al skills to ben­e­fit the extrem­ist move­ment.”

In fact, since the move­men­t’s incep­tion, its lead­ers have encour­aged mem­bers to enlist in the U.S. mil­i­tary as a way to receive state-of-the-art com­bat train­ing, cour­tesy of the U.S. tax­pay­er, in prepa­ra­tion for a domes­tic race war. The con­cept of a race war is cen­tral to extrem­ist groups, whose adher­ents imag­ine an erup­tion of vio­lence that pits races against each oth­er and the gov­ern­ment.

That goal comes up often in the chat­ter on white suprema­cist Web sites. On the neo-Nazi Web site Blood and Hon­our, a user called 88Soldier88, wrote in 2008 that he is an active duty sol­dier work­ing in a detainee hold­ing area in Iraq. He com­plained about “how ‘nice’ we have to treat these fuck­ing peo­ple … bet­ter than our own troops.” Then he added, “Hope­ful­ly the train­ing will pre­pare me for what I hope is to come.” Anoth­er poster, AMERICANARYAN.88Soldier88, wrote, “I have the train­ing I need and will pass it on to oth­ers when I get out.”

On NewSaxon.org, a social net­work­ing group for neo-Nazis, a group called White Mil­i­tary Men hosts numer­ous con­trib­u­tors. It was begun by “Fight­ing­for­Whites,” who iden­ti­fied him­self at one point as Lance Cpl. Bur­ton of the 2nd Bat­tal­ion Fox Com­pa­ny, but then removed the infor­ma­tion. The group calls for “All men with mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence, retired or active/reserve” to “join this group to see how many men have expe­ri­ence to build an army. We want to win a war, we need sol­diers.” Fight­ing­for­Whites — whose tagline is “White Suprema­cy will pre­vail! US Mil­i­tary lead­ing the way!” — goes on to write, “I am with an infantry bat­tal­ion in the Marine Corps, I have had the plea­sure of killing four ene­mies that tried to kill me. I have the best train­ing to kill peo­ple.” On his wall, a friend wrote: “THANKS BROTHER!!!! kill a cou­ple tow­el heads for me ok!”

Such atti­tudes come straight from the move­men­t’s lead­ers. “We do encour­age them to sign up for the mil­i­tary,” says Charles Wil­son, spokesman for the Nation­al Social­ist Move­ment. “We can use the train­ing to secure the resis­tance to our gov­ern­ment.” Bil­ly Rop­er, of White Rev­o­lu­tion, says skin­heads join the mil­i­tary for the usu­al rea­sons, such as access to high­er edu­ca­tion, but also “to secure the future for white chil­dren.” “Amer­i­ca began in bloody rev­o­lu­tion,” he reminds me, “and it might end that way.”

When it comes to screen­ing out racists at recruit­ment cen­ters, mil­i­tary reg­u­la­tions appear to have col­lapsed. “We don’t exclude peo­ple from the army based on their thoughts,” says S. Dou­glas Smith, an Army pub­lic affairs offi­cer. “We exclude based on behav­ior.” He says an “offen­sive” or “extrem­ist” tat­too “might be a rea­son for them not to be in the mil­i­tary.” Or it might not. “We try to edu­cate recruiters on extrem­ist tat­toos,” he says, but “the tat­too is a rel­a­tive­ly sub­jec­tive deci­sion” and should­n’t in itself bar enlist­ment.

What about some­thing as obvi­ous as a swasti­ka? “A swasti­ka would trig­ger ques­tions,” Smith says. “But again, if the gen­tle­men said, ‘I like the way the swasti­ka looked,’ and had clean crim­i­nal record, it’s pos­si­ble we would allow that per­son in.” “There are First Amend­ment rights,” he adds.

In the spring, I tele­phoned at ran­dom five Army recruit­ment cen­ters across the coun­try. I said I was inter­est­ed in join­ing up and men­tioned that I had a pair of “SS bolts” tat­tooed on my arm. A 2000 mil­i­tary brochure stat­ed that SS bolts were a tat­too image that should raise sus­pi­cions. But none of the recruiters react­ed neg­a­tive­ly, and when pressed direct­ly about the tat­too, not one said it would be an out­right prob­lem. A recruiter in Hous­ton was typ­i­cal; he said he’d nev­er heard of SS bolts and just encour­aged me to come on in.

It’s in the inter­est of recruiters to inter­pret recruit­ing stan­dards loose­ly. If they fail to meet tar­gets, based on the num­ber of sol­diers they enlist, they may have to attend a puni­tive coun­sel­ing ses­sion, and it could hurt any chance for pro­mo­tion. When, in 2005, the Army relaxed reg­u­la­tions on non-extrem­ist tat­toos, such as body art cov­er­ing the hands, neck and face, this cut recruiters even more slack.

Even the edu­ca­tion of recruiters about how to iden­ti­fy extrem­ists seems to have fall­en by the way­side. The 2005 Depart­ment of Defense report con­clud­ed that recruit­ing per­son­nel “were not aware of hav­ing received sys­tem­at­ic train­ing on rec­og­niz­ing and respond­ing to pos­si­ble ter­ror­ists” — a des­ig­na­tion that includes white suprema­cists — “who try to enlist.” Par­tic­i­pa­tion on white suprema­cist Web sites would be an easy way to screen out extrem­ist recruits, but the report found that the mil­i­tary had not clar­i­fied which Web forums were gath­er­ing places for extrem­ists.

Once white suprema­cists are in the mil­i­tary, it is easy to stay there. An Army Com­mand Pol­i­cy man­u­al devotes more than 100 pages to root­ing them out. But no offi­cer appears to be read­ing it.

Hunter Glass was a para­troop­er in the 1980s and became a gang cop in 1999 in Fayet­teville, North Car­oli­na, near Fort Bragg. “In the ear­ly 1990s, the mil­i­tary was hard on them. They could pick and choose,” he recalls. “They were look­ing for swastikas. They were look­ing for any­thing.” But the reg­u­la­tions on racist extrem­ists got jet­ti­soned with the war on ter­ror.

Glass says white suprema­cists now enjoy an open cul­ture of impuni­ty in the armed forces. “We’re see­ing guys with tat­toos all the time,” he says. “As far as hunt­ing them down, I don’t see it. I’m see­ing the oppo­site, where if a white suprema­cist has com­mit­ted a crime, the mil­i­tary stance will be, ‘He did­n’t com­mit a race-relat­ed crime.’ ”

In fact, a 2006 report by the Army’s Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion Com­mand shows that mil­i­tary brass con­sis­tent­ly ignored evi­dence of extrem­ism. One case, at Fort Hood, reveals that a sol­dier was mak­ing Inter­net post­ings on the white suprema­cist site Stormfront.org. But the inves­ti­ga­tor was unable to locate the sol­dier in ques­tion. In a brief sum­ma­ry of the case, an inves­ti­ga­tor writes that due to “poor doc­u­men­ta­tion,” “attempts to locate with min­i­mal infor­ma­tion met with neg­a­tive results.” “I’m not doing my job here,” the inves­ti­ga­tor notes. “Needs to get fixed.”

In anoth­er case, inves­ti­ga­tors found that a Fort Hood sol­dier belonged to the neo-Nazi group Ham­mer­skins and was “close­ly asso­ci­at­ed with” the Celtic Knights of Austin, Texas, anoth­er extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion, a sit­u­a­tion bad enough to mer­it a joint inves­ti­ga­tion by the FBI and the Army’s Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion Com­mand. The Army sum­ma­ry states that there was “prob­a­ble cause” to believe the sol­dier had par­tic­i­pat­ed in at least one white extrem­ist meet­ing and had “pro­vid­ed a mil­i­tary tech­ni­cal man­u­al … to the leader of a white extrem­ist group in order to assist in the plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of future attacks on var­i­ous tar­gets.”

Our of four pre­lim­i­nary probes into white suprema­cists, the Crim­i­nal Inves­ti­ga­tion Com­mand car­ried through on only this one. The probe revealed that “a larg­er sin­gle attack was planned for the San Anto­nio, TX after a con­sid­er­able amount of media atten­tion was giv­en to ille­gal immi­grants. The attack was not com­plet­ed due to the inabil­i­ty of the orga­ni­za­tion to obtain explo­sives.” Despite these threats, the sub­ject was inter­viewed only once, in 2006, and the inves­ti­ga­tion was ter­mi­nat­ed the fol­low­ing year.

White suprema­cists may be doing more than avoid­ing expul­sion. They may be using their mil­i­tary sta­tus to help build the white right. The FBI found that two Army pri­vates in the 82nd Air­borne Divi­sion at Fort Bragg had attempt­ed in 2007 to sell stolen prop­er­ty from the mil­i­tary — includ­ing bal­lis­tic vests, a com­bat hel­met and pain med­ica­tions such as mor­phine — to an under­cov­er FBI agent they believed was involved with the white suprema­cist move­ment. (They were con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to six years.) It found mul­ti­ple exam­ples of white suprema­cist recruit­ment among active mil­i­tary, includ­ing a peri­od in 2003 when six active duty sol­diers at Fort Riley, mem­bers of the Aryan Nation, were recruit­ing their Army col­leagues and even serv­ing as the Aryan Nation’s point of con­tact for the state of Kansas.

One white suprema­cist sol­dier, James Dou­glas Ross, a mil­i­tary intel­li­gence offi­cer sta­tioned at Fort Bragg, was giv­en a bad con­duct dis­charge from the Army when he was caught try­ing to mail a sub­ma­chine gun from Iraq to his father’s home in Spokane, Wash. Mil­i­tary police found a cache of white suprema­cist para­pher­na­lia and sev­er­al weapons hid­den behind ceil­ing tiles in Ross’ mil­i­tary quar­ters. After his dis­charge, a Spokane Coun­ty deputy sher­iff saw Ross pass­ing out fliers for the neo-Nazi Nation­al Alliance.

Root­ing out extrem­ists is dif­fi­cult because racism per­vades the mil­i­tary, accord­ing to sol­diers. They say troops through­out the Mid­dle East use deroga­to­ry terms like “hajji” or “sand nig­ger” to define Arab insur­gents and often the Arab pop­u­la­tion itself.

“Racism was ram­pant,” recalls vet Michael Prys­ner, who served in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 as part of the 173rd Air­borne Brigade. “All of com­mand, every­where, it was com­plete­ly ingrained in the con­scious­ness of every sol­dier. I’ve heard top gen­er­als refer to the Iraq peo­ple as ‘hajjis.’ The anti-Arab racism came from the brass. It came from the top. And every­thing was jus­ti­fied because they weren’t con­sid­ered peo­ple.”

Anoth­er vet, Michael Tot­ten, who served in Iraq with the 101st Air­borne in 2003 and 2004, says, “It would­n’t stand out if you said ‘sand nig­gers,’ even if you aren’t a neo-Nazi.” Tot­ten says his per­spec­tive has changed in the inter­ven­ing years, but “at the time, I used the words ‘sand nig­ger.’ I did­n’t con­sid­er ‘hajji’ to be deroga­to­ry.”

Geof­frey Mil­lard, an orga­niz­er for Iraq Vet­er­ans Against the War, served in Iraq for 13 months, begin­ning in 2004, as part of the 42nd Infantry Divi­sion. He recalls Gen. George Casey, who served as the com­man­der in Iraq from 2004 to 2007, address­ing a brief­ing he attend­ed in the sum­mer of 2005 at For­ward Oper­at­ing Base, out­side Tikrit. “As he walked past, he was talk­ing about some inci­dent that had just hap­pened, and he was talk­ing about how ‘these stu­pid fuck­ing hajjis could­n’t fig­ure shit out.’ And I’m just like, Are you kid­ding me? This is Gen. Casey, the high­est-rank­ing guy in Iraq, refer­ring to the Iraqi peo­ple as ‘fuck­ing hajjis.’ ” (A spokesper­son for Casey, now the Army Chief of Staff, said the gen­er­al “did not make this state­ment.”)

“The mil­i­tary is attrac­tive to white suprema­cists,” Mil­lard says, “because the war itself is racist.”

The U.S. Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on the Armed Forces has long been con­sid­ered one of Con­gress’ most pow­er­ful groups. It gov­erns leg­is­la­tion affect­ing the Pen­ta­gon, defense bud­get, mil­i­tary strate­gies and oper­a­tions. Today it is led by the influ­en­tial Sens. Carl Levin and John McCain. An inves­ti­ga­tion by the com­mit­tee into how white suprema­cists per­me­ate the mil­i­tary in plain vio­la­tion of U.S. law could result in sub­stan­tive changes. I con­tact­ed the com­mit­tee but staffers would not agree to be inter­viewed. Instead, a spokesper­son respond­ed that white suprema­cy in the mil­i­tary has nev­er arisen as a con­cern. In an e‑mail, the spokesper­son said, “The Com­mit­tee does­n’t have any infor­ma­tion that would indi­cate this is a par­tic­u­lar prob­lem.”

“Neo-Nazis are in the Army Now” by Matt Kenard; Salon.com; 6/15/2009.

Discussion

42 comments for “FTR #681 Specialized Knowledge and Abilities, Part II”

  1. Any­one inter­est­ed in the Red-Brown alliance ought to inves­ti­gate the odyssey of Nick Camero­ta, for­mer­ly Pierce’s num­ber two man at the Nation­al Youth Alliance/National Alliance, now cur­rent­ly a mem­ber of Work­ers World Party/International Action Cen­ter. I’m sure he has a very inter­est­ing sto­ry to tell, if you can get him to talk.

    Posted by Markus | February 16, 2010, 1:44 pm
  2. Here’s an update on gang infil­tra­tion of the mil­i­tary: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011–10-22/news/30309693_1_gang-members-law-enforcement-weapons

    The FBI Announces Gangs Have Infil­trat­ed Every Branch Of The Mil­i­tary
    Robert Johnson|October 22, 2011

    The FBI has released a new gang assess­ment announc­ing that there are 1.4 mil­lion gang mem­bers in the US, a 40 per­cent increase since 2009, and that many of these mem­bers are get­ting inside the mil­i­tary (via Stars and Stripes).

    The report says the mil­i­tary has seen mem­bers from 53 gangs and 100 regions in the U.S. enlist in every branch of the armed forces. Mem­bers of every major street gang, some prison gangs, and out­law motor­cy­cle gangs (OMGs) have been report­ed on both U.S. and inter­na­tion­al mil­i­tary instal­la­tions.

    From the report:

    Through trans­fers and deploy­ments, mil­i­tary-affil­i­at­ed gang mem­bers expand their cul­ture and oper­a­tions to new regions nation­wide and world­wide, under­min­ing secu­ri­ty and law enforce­ment efforts to com­bat crime. Gang mem­bers with mil­i­tary train­ing pose a unique threat to law enforce­ment per­son­nel because of their dis­tinc­tive weapons and com­bat train­ing skills and their abil­i­ty to trans­fer these skills to fel­low gang mem­bers.

    The report notes that while gang mem­bers have been report­ed in every branch of ser­vice, they are con­cen­trat­ed in the U.S. Army, Army Reserves, and the Army Nation­al Guard.

    Many street gang mem­bers join the mil­i­tary to escape the gang lifestyle or as an alter­na­tive to incar­cer­a­tion, but often revert back to their gang asso­ci­a­tions once they encounter oth­er gang mem­bers in the mil­i­tary. Oth­er gangs tar­get the U.S. mil­i­tary and defense sys­tems to expand their ter­ri­to­ry, facil­i­tate crim­i­nal activ­i­ty such as weapons and drug traf­fick­ing, or to receive weapons and com­bat train­ing that they may trans­fer back to their gang. Inci­dents of weapons theft and traf­fick­ing may have a neg­a­tive impact on pub­lic safe­ty or pose a threat to law enforce­ment offi­cials.

    The FBI points out that many gangs, espe­cial­ly the bik­ers, active­ly recruit mem­bers with mil­i­tary train­ing and advise young mem­bers with no crim­i­nal record to join the ser­vice for weapon access and com­bat expe­ri­ence.

    ....

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | October 26, 2011, 1:06 pm
  3. @Pterrafractyl: Scary shit if that report hap­pens to be even part­ly accurate...and frankly, I think it most like­ly is!

    Posted by Steven | October 27, 2011, 2:40 am
  4. on a tan­gen­tial­ly-relat­ed top­ic of spe­cial­ized knowl­edge and abilities...it looks like TEPCO has a pro­cliv­i­ty towards hir­ing yakuza to work the dirt­i­est jobs at their pow­er plants. That’s sounds like some use­ful spe­cial­ized skills: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/06/tepco-will-someone-turn-lights/39364/

    TEPCO: Will Some­one Turn Off the Lights?
    The Atlantic
    Jake Adel­stein and Stephanie Naka­ji­ma
    Jun 28, 2011

    ...
    After an expose in the week­ly mag­a­zine Shukan Bun­shun, last week TEPCO admit­ted that 69 of its plant work­ers can’t be locat­ed for radi­a­tion checks—30 of them were found not even to have had their names record­ed. This rais­es ques­tions about how these work­ers were recruit­ed, paid, mon­i­tored for radi­a­tion expo­sure, or vet­ted before enter­ing the site of the nuclear dis­as­ter. For­mer and cur­rent work­ers with­in the plant tes­ti­fy that many of the hired hands are yakuza or ex-yakuza mem­bers. One com­pa­ny sup­ply­ing the firm with con­tract work­ers is a known Japan­ese mafia front com­pa­ny. TEPCO when ques­tioned would only say, “We don’t have knowl­edge of who is ulti­mate­ly sup­ply­ing the labor at the end of the out­sourc­ing. We do not have orga­nized crime exclu­sion­ary claus­es in our stan­dard con­tracts but are con­sid­er­ing it.” The Nuclear and Indus­tri­al Safe­ty Agency (NISA) has asked the com­pa­ny to “sub­mit a report” on the mat­ter.
    ....

    Sugao­ka also says he saw signs of yakuza ties among his col­leagues at the facil­i­ty. “When we’d enter the plant, we’d all change clothes first. The cleanup crews were staffed with guys cov­ered with typ­i­cal yakuza tat­toos, a rough bunch,” he says. Police sources con­firm that one of the com­pa­nies cur­rent­ly sup­ply­ing the plant with work­ers, M‑Kogyo, head­quar­tered in Fukuo­ka Pre­fec­ture is a front com­pa­ny for the Kudo-kai, a des­ig­nat­ed orga­nized crime group. A for­mer yakuza boss notes, “we’ve always been involved in recruit­ing labor­ers for TEPCO. It’s dirty, dan­ger­ous work and the only peo­ple who will do it are home­less, yakuza, ban­ished yakuza, or peo­ple so bad­ly in debt that they see no oth­er way to pay it off.” The reg­u­lar employ­ees were giv­en bet­ter radi­a­tion suits than the often une­d­u­cat­ed yakuza recruits, although it was the more legal­ly vul­ner­a­ble yakuza and day labor­ers who typ­i­cal­ly per­formed the most dan­ger­ous work.

    A TEPCO exec­u­tive, speak­ing on con­di­tions of anonymi­ty, described the TEPCO work­ing hierarchy:staff employ­ees work­ing at the nuclear reac­tors enjoy spe­cial ben­e­fits, safer con­di­tions, and more strin­gent radi­a­tion lev­el checks, while hired work­ers at the pow­er plants were con­sid­ered sub-human. “If you voice con­cerns about the wel­fare of tem­po­rary work­ers at the plants, you’re labeled a trou­ble­mak­er, or a poten­tial lia­bil­i­ty. It’s a taboo to even dis­cuss it.
    ....

    So if I’m inter­pret­ing this cor­rect­ly, the Fukushi­ma cleanup crew may con­sist of a large of num­ber of now-radi­ac­tive Yakuza mem­bers? I’m sure there’s noth­ing to wor­ry about...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | October 28, 2011, 6:13 pm
  5. Just FYI to all the White Suprema­cists: in case you were won­der­ing why every­one thinks you’re a bunch of vio­lent morons, here’s an exam­ple:

    Sikh tem­ple shoot­er iden­ti­fied as Wade Michael Page, white suprema­cist

    Page was a ‘frus­trat­ed neo-Nazi’ who led a racist white suprema­cist band, the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter said Mon­day.

    By Dinesh Ramde and Todd Rich­mond, Asso­ci­at­ed Press / August 6, 2012

    OAK CREEK, Wis.

    A 40-year-old Army vet­er­an, iden­ti­fied by a civ­il rights group as the one-time leader of a white suprema­cist band, was the gun­man who killed six peo­ple inside a Sikh tem­ple in Wis­con­sin, offi­cials said Mon­day.

    First Assis­tant U.S. Greg Haanstad in Mil­wau­kee iden­ti­fied the shoot­er as Wade Michael Page. Page joined the Army in 1992 and was dis­charged in 1998, accord­ing to a defense offi­cial who spoke to The Asso­ci­at­ed Press on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because he was not autho­rized to release infor­ma­tion yet about the sus­pect.

    Offi­cials and wit­ness­es said the gun­man walked into the Sikh Tem­ple of Wis­con­sin in sub­ur­ban Mil­wau­kee and opened fire as sev­er­al dozen peo­ple pre­pared for Sun­day ser­vices. When the shoot­ing final­ly end­ed, sev­en peo­ple lay dead, includ­ing Page, who was shot to death by police. Three oth­ers were crit­i­cal­ly wound­ed in what police called an act of domes­tic ter­ror­ism.

    Page was a “frus­trat­ed neo-Nazi” who led a racist white suprema­cist band, the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter said Mon­day. Page told a white suprema­cist web­site in an inter­view in 2010 that he had been part of the white-pow­er music scene since 2000 when he left his native Col­orado and start­ed the band, End Apa­thy, in 2005, the non­prof­it civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tion said.

    He told the web­site his “inspi­ra­tion was based on frus­tra­tion that we have the poten­tial to accom­plish so much more as indi­vid­u­als and a soci­ety in whole,” accord­ing to the SPLC. He did not men­tion vio­lence in the web­site inter­view.

    Page joined the mil­i­tary in Mil­wau­kee in 1992 and was a repair­man for the Hawk mis­sile sys­tem before switch­ing jobs to become one of the Army’s psy­cho­log­i­cal oper­a­tions spe­cial­ists, accord­ing to the defense offi­cial.

    So-called “Psy-Ops” spe­cial­ists are respon­si­ble for the analy­sis, devel­op­ment and dis­tri­b­u­tion of intel­li­gence used for infor­ma­tion and psy­cho­log­i­cal effect; they research and ana­lyze meth­ods of influ­enc­ing for­eign pop­u­la­tions.

    Fort Bragg, N.C., was among the bases where Page served.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 6, 2012, 7:42 am
  6. Wis­con­sin Sikh Tem­ple Shoot­er: Reput­ed Nazi back­ground + Report­ed to be “for­mer” psy­cho­log­i­cal oper­a­tions spe­cial­ist from Fort Bragg

    http://www.salon.com/2012/08/06/temple_shooters_hateful_past/

    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/temple-shooting-suspect-was-former-army-psychological-operations-specialist/article4464677/

    Not much is being made (in the media) of the impli­ca­tions of his spe­cial­iza­tion and for­mer milieu (Fort Bragg).

    Posted by R. Wilson | August 6, 2012, 7:57 pm
  7. It’s also worth not­ing that page was an active White Suprema­cist dur­ing his time in the mil­i­tary:

    Wash­ing­ton Post
    Wade Michael Page: Exces­sive drink­ing cost Sikh tem­ple shoot­er his mil­i­tary career, civil­ian job

    By Michael Laris, Car­ol D. Leon­nig and Sand­hya Somashekhar, Updat­ed: Tues­day, August 7, 10:09 AM

    OAK CREEK, Wis. —Wade Michael Page, the gun­man in Sunday’s Sikh tem­ple shoot­ing, had a his­to­ry of prob­lems with alco­hol, which led to him los­ing his mil­i­tary career and, more recent­ly, a job as a truck­er.

    Page, 40, was shot to death by a Wis­con­sin police offi­cer after he killed six Sikh wor­shipers at a tem­ple here and shot anoth­er offi­cer. He was dis­charged from the Army in 1998 because he had been found drunk dur­ing mil­i­tary exer­cis­es, accord­ing to law enforce­ment author­i­ties. He was con­vict­ed of dri­ving under the influ­ence a year lat­er in Col­orado. And a truck­ing com­pa­ny con­firmed Tues­day morn­ing that it fired Page two years ago after he was pulled over in North Car­oli­na for dri­ving while impaired.

    Christo­pher Robil­lard, of Ore­gon, who described Page as “my clos­est friend” in the ser­vice more than a decade ago, said Page was pushed out of the mil­i­tary for show­ing up to for­ma­tion drunk.

    In an inter­view with CNN, he described Page as “a very kind, very smart indi­vid­ual — loved his friends. One of those guys with a soft spot.” But even then, Robil­lard said, Page “was involved with white suprema­cy.”

    “He would talk about the racial holy war, like he want­ed it to come,” Robil­lard said. “But to me, he didn’t seem like the type of per­son to go out and hurt peo­ple.”

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 7, 2012, 9:37 am
  8. @Pterrafractyl: I heard about the shoot­ing lat­er that afternoon.....that is just so trag­ic, man.....may the vic­tims rest in peace. =(

    I also won­der if there may be some­thing more to this, espe­cial­ly giv­en some of the infor­ma­tion that’s been post­ed from the C.S. Mon­i­tor, like the fact he served at Fort Bragg, and the fact that he became a psy-ops specialist.......definitely some­thing to think about there.

    Posted by Steven L. | August 7, 2012, 11:30 am
  9. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/12/missouri-national-guardsman-gave-combat-training-to-white-supremacists/

    Mis­souri Nation­al Guards­man gave com­bat train­ing to white suprema­cists

    Sun­day, August 12, 2012

    A doc­u­ment released in a Flori­da court pro­ceed­ing against a white suprema­cist group reveals that its mem­bers received train­ing last year from a mem­ber of the Mis­souri Nation­al Guard who had for­mer­ly served with the U.S. Army in Iraq.

    The South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter and the Anti-Defama­tion League both iden­ti­fy the Amer­i­can Front as a hate group whose mem­bers believe they are prepar­ing for an inevitable race war. Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, the 28-year-old guards­man trav­eled to Flori­da in July 2011 to train the group’s mem­bers in fight­ing tech­niques and the use of the use of the AK-47 assault rifle and was giv­en a patch as a sign that he had become a full-fledged mem­ber.

    Mem­bers of the group were charged this May with hate crimes, con­spir­a­cy, and para­mil­i­tary train­ing in fur­ther­ance of a civ­il dis­or­der. How­ev­er, the guards­man has not been charged in the case, and for that rea­son, the AP is not reveal­ing his name. Court doc­u­ments sug­gest that he has been coop­er­at­ing with author­i­ties, hand­ing over emails and a cell­phone with text mes­sages.

    Accord­ing to court doc­u­ments, the guards­man told inves­ti­ga­tors that he “became inter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing the White race” while serv­ing in Iraq in 2008. He began post­ing on skin­head blogs and exchanged mes­sages with Mar­cus Fael­la, the leader of Amer­i­can Front. He then remained in con­tact with Fael­la after return­ing to the Unit­ed States in 2010, which led to the invi­ta­tion to con­duct the train­ing.

    The guards­man now claims that he was already start­ing to have sec­ond thoughts about being asso­ci­at­ed with Amer­i­can Front, but he con­tin­ued send­ing Fael­la advice on firearms. He says that he is not cur­rent­ly affil­i­at­ed with any racist skin­head group but he con­sid­ers him­self a “lone wolf” and still believes in their ide­ol­o­gy.

    This lat­est rev­e­la­tion comes in the wake of the mass shoot­ing at a Sikh tem­ple by anoth­er Army vet­er­an turned racist skin­head, Wade Michael Page, who has also been described as hav­ing adopt­ed white suprema­cist views while in the mil­i­tary.

    The South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter has been fol­low­ing the Amer­i­can Front case close­ly. When sev­en mem­bers of the group — which was found­ed in Cal­i­for­nia but now appears to be cen­tered in Flori­da — were arrest­ed in May, a source indi­cat­ed that this was only the sec­ond round in a “major, ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion.” Court doc­u­ments charge that Fael­la was attempt­ing to turn his heav­i­ly for­ti­fied com­pound near St. Cloud, Flori­da into an “Aryan com­pound where all the AF mem­bers could live when the Unit­ed States Gov­ern­ment fails.”

    The Nation­al Guardman’s enlist­ment end­ed this May, and a Nation­al Guard spokesper­son told the AP that an inves­ti­ga­tion had been con­duct­ed but its results were not being made pub­lic.

    The AP notes, how­ev­er, that anoth­er Mis­souri Nation­al Guards­man was fired from a state mil­i­tary hon­or guard last March, after co-work­ers described him as a self-pro­claimed neo-Nazi who had tried to recruit them to the cause.

    Posted by R. Wilson | August 12, 2012, 6:28 pm
  10. I’ve always been curi­ous about just what phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals guys like this were tak­ing in the run up to these hor­rif­ic events. Clear­ly alco­hol has tak­en its toll on the shoot­er. I won­der what else?

    Posted by Vanfield | August 12, 2012, 7:58 pm
  11. Ugh:

    Wis­con­sin gun­man’s Army base had white suprema­cists
    August 08, 2012|By Tom Cohen, CNN

    When Wis­con­sin tem­ple gun­man Wade Michael Page arrived at Fort Bragg in 1995, the sprawl­ing Army base in North Car­oli­na already was home to a small num­ber of white suprema­cists includ­ing three sol­diers lat­er con­vict­ed in the mur­der of an African-Amer­i­can cou­ple.

    The killings launched a mil­i­tary inves­ti­ga­tion that tight­ened reg­u­la­tions against extrem­ist activ­i­ty, but some say such influ­ences per­sist in today’s armed forces.

    “Out­side every major mil­i­tary instal­la­tion, you will have at least two or three active neo-Nazi orga­ni­za­tions active­ly try­ing to recruit on-duty per­son­nel,” said T.J. Ley­den, a for­mer white pow­er skin­head in the U.S. Marines who now con­ducts anti-extrem­ism train­ing.

    ...

    With that in mind, note that the neo-Nazi white peo­ple’s rights leader fea­tured in this lat­est sto­ry also served at Fort Bragg. Plus, he was recent­ly elect­ed to a 4‑year term on the Repub­li­can par­ty com­mit­tee for Luzerne Coun­ty, PA. No rest for the wicked:

    citypaper.net
    Fri­day, August 10, 2012
    Dai­ly News and Scran­ton Times-Tri­bune refer to white suprema­cists as white peo­ple’s rights group

    A wire sto­ry in today’s Philadel­phia Dai­ly News refers to an orga­ni­za­tion led by Penn­syl­va­nia white suprema­cist Steve Smith as a “white peo­ple’s rights group” and does not dis­cuss Smith’s long his­to­ry with the neo-Nazi move­ment.

    The arti­cle, about a dis­pute over an event per­mit, was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in the Scran­ton Times-Tri­bune and picked up by the Asso­ci­at­ed Press.

    The orig­i­nal sin cer­tain­ly lies with the Times-Tri­bune, but why did the phrase “white peo­ple’s rights group” make it past edi­tors at the Dai­ly News?

    “I sug­gest you call AP and the Scran­ton Times-Tri­bune,” says Dai­ly News city edi­tor Gar Joseph.

    The Times-Tri­bune did not respond to a request for com­ment, but the AP claims that it scrubbed its ver­sion of the “white peo­ple’s rights” lan­guage and was just 93-words. But they refused to pro­vide City Paper with a copy of their sto­ry.

    “What pos­si­ble pur­pose would there be for me to send you this sto­ry when you’re try­ing to cause trou­ble for how it was writ­ten?” said an angry Karen Tes­ta, East Region Edi­tor at the AP. Before hang­ing up, she added: “That’s a good way to build a jour­nal­ism career.”

    What exact­ly did these edi­tors think a “white peo­ple’s rights group” is? And just a week after a skin­head white suprema­cist mas­sa­cred Sikhs at a Wis­con­sin tem­ple?

    Smith, recruit­ed into the neo-Nazi move­ment while sta­tioned at Fort Bragg, co-found­ed Key­stone Unit­ed (for­mer­ly Key­stone State Skin­heads) and is prob­a­bly Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s most promi­nent white suprema­cist. In 2003, he and two oth­er skin­heads were arrest­ed after attack­ing a black man in Scran­ton.

    It is trou­bling that main­stream news out­lets would describe Smith’s new out­fit, the Euro­pean Amer­i­can Action Coali­tion, as a “white peo­ple’s rights group,” pre­cise­ly the sort of lan­guage that white suprema­cists want to use in their attempt to broad­en their appeal beyond the fringe.

    And Smith, who has called Tea Par­ty events “fer­tile grounds for our activists,” is cer­tain­ly try­ing to make that appeal and lever­age Tea Par­ty fer­vor and anti-immi­grant hys­te­ria into polit­i­cal cred­i­bil­i­ty.

    In April, Smith used a sin­gle write in vote to elect him­self to the Luzerne Coun­ty Repub­li­can Com­mit­tee, prompt­ing par­ty offi­cials to seek his ouster.

    ...

    The neo-nazi won by a sin­gle vote. His own. And it was the only vote in the race. The state of our democ­ra­cy is just awe­some.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 13, 2012, 2:22 pm
  12. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/21/us-usa-wisconsin-shooting-army-idUSBRE87K04Y20120821

    U.S. Army bat­tling racists with­in its own ranks

    By Daniel Trot­ta
    FAYETTEVILLE, North Car­oli­na | Tue Aug 21, 2012
    9:56am EDT

    (Reuters) — They call it “rahowa” — short for racial holy war — and they are prepar­ing for it by join­ing the ranks of the world’s fiercest fight­ing machine, the U.S. mil­i­tary.

    White suprema­cists, neo-Nazis and skin­head groups encour­age fol­low­ers to enlist in the Army and Marine Corps to acquire the skills to over­throw what some call the ZOG — the Zion­ist Occu­pa­tion Gov­ern­ment. Get in, get trained and get out to brace for the com­ing race war.

    If this sce­nario seems like fan­ta­sy or blus­ter, civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tions take it as dead­ly seri­ous, espe­cial­ly giv­en recent events. For­mer U.S. Army sol­dier Wade Page opened fire with a 9mm hand­gun at a Sikh tem­ple in Wis­con­sin on August 5, mur­der­ing six peo­ple and crit­i­cal­ly wound­ing three before killing him­self dur­ing a shootout with police.

    The U.S. Defense Depart­ment as well has stepped up efforts to purge vio­lent racists from its ranks, earn­ing praise from orga­ni­za­tions such as the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter, which has tracked and exposed hate groups since the 1970s.

    Page, who was 40, was well known in the white suprema­cist music scene. In the ear­ly 2000s he told aca­d­e­m­ic researcher Pete Simi that he became a neo-Nazi after join­ing the mil­i­tary in 1992. Fred Lucas, who served with him, said Page open­ly espoused his racist views until 1998, when he was demot­ed from sergeant to spe­cial­ist, dis­charged and barred from re-enlist­ment.

    While at Fort Bragg, in North Car­oli­na, Page told Simi, he made the acquain­tance of James Burmeis­ter, a skin­head para­troop­er who in 1995 killed a black Fayet­teville cou­ple in a racial­ly moti­vat­ed shoot­ing. Burmeis­ter was sen­tenced to life in prison and died in 2007.

    No one knows how many white suprema­cists have served since then. A 2008 report com­mis­sioned by the Jus­tice Depart­ment found half of all right-wing extrem­ists in the Unit­ed States had mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence.

    “We don’t real­ly think this is a huge prob­lem, at Bragg, and across the Army,” said Colonel Kevin Ara­ta, a spokesman for Fort Bragg.

    “In my 26 years in the Army, I’ve nev­er seen it,” the for­mer com­pa­ny com­man­der said.

    Experts have iden­ti­fied the pres­ence of street gang mem­bers as a more wide­spread prob­lem. Even so, the Pen­ta­gon has launched three major push­es in recent decades to crack down on racist extrem­ists. The first direc­tive was issued in 1986, when Defense Sec­re­tary Casper Wein­berg­er ordered mil­i­tary per­son­nel to reject suprema­cist orga­ni­za­tions.

    That failed to stop for­mer Marine T.J. Ley­den, with two-inch SS bolts tat­tooed above his col­lar, from serv­ing from 1988 to 1991 while open­ly sup­port­ing neo-Nazi caus­es. A mem­ber of the Ham­mer­skin Nation, a skin­head group, he said he hung a swasti­ka from his lock­er, tak­ing it down only when his com­man­der polite­ly asked him to ahead of inspec­tions by the com­mand­ing gen­er­al.

    “I went into the Marine Corps for one spe­cif­ic rea­son: I would learn how shoot,” Ley­den told Reuters. “I also learned how to use C‑4 (explo­sives), blow things up. I took all my mil­i­tary skills and said I could use these to train oth­er peo­ple,” said Ley­den, 46, who has since renounced the white pow­er move­ment and is a con­sul­tant for the anti-Nazi Simon Wiesen­thal Cen­ter.

    RATTLED BY OKLAHOMA BLAST

    In 1995, eight months before the Fort Bragg mur­ders, two for­mer Army sol­diers bombed the Okla­homa City fed­er­al build­ing, killing 168 peo­ple. With a grow­ing aware­ness of the spread­ing mili­tia move­ment, the Pen­ta­gon in 1996 banned mil­i­tary per­son­nel from par­tic­i­pat­ing in suprema­cist caus­es and autho­rized com­man­ders to cashier per­son­nel for ral­ly­ing, recruit­ing or train­ing racists.

    “What’s scary about Page is that he served in the 1990s when puta­tive­ly this was being treat­ed quite seri­ous­ly by the mil­i­tary. There’s plen­ty of oth­er Pages who served dur­ing the war on ter­ror, and we don’t know what they’re going to be doing over the next decade or so,” said Matt Ken­nard, author of the forth­com­ing book “Irreg­u­lar Army: How the U.S. Mil­i­tary Recruit­ed Neo-Nazis, Gang Mem­bers and Crim­i­nals to Fight the War on Ter­ror.”

    Ken­nard argues the U.S. mil­i­tary was so des­per­ate for troops while fight­ing simul­ta­ne­ous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that it allowed extrem­ists, felons and gang mem­bers into the armed forces.

    The mil­i­tary can grant a “moral waiv­er” to allow a con­vict­ed crim­i­nal or oth­er­wise inel­i­gi­ble per­son into the armed forces, and the per­cent­age of recruits grant­ed such waivers grew from 16.7 per­cent in 2003 to 19.6 per­cent in 2006, accord­ing to Pen­ta­gon data obtained by the Palm Cen­ter in a 2007 Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act request. But the Pen­ta­gon says no waiv­er exists for par­tic­i­pa­tion in extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tions.

    “Our stan­dards have not changed; par­tic­i­pa­tion in extrem­ist activ­i­ties has nev­er been tol­er­at­ed and is pun­ish­able under the Uni­formed Code of Mil­i­tary Jus­tice,” said Eileen Lainez, a Defense Depart­ment spokes­woman.

    The Pen­tagon’s third direc­tive against white suprema­cists was issued in 2009 after a Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty report expressed con­cern that right-wing extrem­ists were recruit­ing vet­er­ans return­ing from wars over­seas.

    The Pen­tagon’s 2009 instruc­tion, updat­ed in Feb­ru­ary 2012, directs com­man­ders to remain alert for signs of racist activ­i­ty and to inter­vene when they see it. It bans sol­diers from blog­ging or chat­ting on racist web­sites while on duty.

    “This is the best we’ve ever seen,” said Hei­di Beirich, leader of the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter’s intel­li­gence project, refer­ring to the Pen­tagon’s atti­tude. “It was real­ly dis­heart­en­ing under the Bush admin­is­tra­tion how light­ly they took it, so this is a major advance.”

    Her group mon­i­tors online chat­ter among self-described active-duty war­riors serv­ing over­seas and reports it to mil­i­tary offi­cials. It also receives reg­u­lar calls from mil­i­tary inves­ti­ga­tors ask­ing about racists in the ser­vice.

    The South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter and the Anti-Defama­tion League (ADL), anoth­er civ­il rights mon­i­tor, have helped train offi­cers on how to spot extrem­ists, although Mark Pit­cav­age, direc­tor of inves­tiga­tive research at the ADL, says the mil­i­tary lacks com­pre­hen­sive train­ing for recruiters and com­man­ders. He called the mil­i­tary’s reac­tion when alert­ed to white suprema­cists “patchy.”

    “We’ve dis­cov­ered a great range of response, from get­ting a phone call the next day say­ing, ‘He’s already out,’ to not doing any­thing at all,” Pit­cav­age said.

    THE TATTOO MATRIX

    The Army showed Reuters a one-hour pre­sen­ta­tion it says was designed to edu­cate sol­diers and Army lead­ers about its extrem­ism pol­i­cy and how to respond, includ­ing to white suprema­cy groups. Penal­ties for extrem­ist ide­ol­o­gy may include being removed from the mil­i­tary, hav­ing secu­ri­ty clear­ances yanked or being demot­ed.

    “The stan­dard hate­ful mes­sage has not been replaced, just pack­aged dif­fer­ent­ly with issues like free­dom of speech, anti-gun con­trol themes, tax reform and oppres­sion,” the pre­sen­ta­tion says, not­ing that recruit­ment may be dif­fi­cult to detect, occur­ring qui­et­ly “in bars and break areas” on bases.
    The pre­sen­ta­tion instructs Army lead­ers to look out for tat­tooed sym­bols of light­ning bolts, skulls, swastikas, eagles and Nordic war­riors. Skin­heads may have tat­toos show­ing barbed wire, hob­nailed boots and ham­mers.

    In a detailed flow­chart called a “Tat­too Deci­sion Sup­port Matrix,” Army lead­ers are shown how to respond to var­i­ous tat­toos. At the time of pub­li­ca­tion, the Army was unable to iden­ti­fy the loca­tions where this course was being taught.

    SCREENING OUT ROGUES

    “We’re very strict on the tat­too pol­i­cy here with­in this recruit­ing sta­tion,” said Sergeant Aaron Isk­ender­ian, head of the Army recruit­ing office in Fayet­teville, the Army town next to Fort Bragg.

    With the Unit­ed States with­drawn from Iraq, wind­ing down from Afghanistan and unem­ploy­ment stuck above 8 per­cent, recruiters can be choosy again.
    Isk­ender­ian cit­ed the exam­ple of a young man who came in recent­ly with a tat­too of the Con­fed­er­ate flag.

    “We’re in the South here. It’s con­sid­ered South­ern her­itage. It’s on the Gen­er­al Lee,” Isk­ender­ian said, refer­ring to the car from the tele­vi­sion show “The Dukes of Haz­zard.”

    “Is it racist? I asked him, ‘What does it mean to you?’ and he said, ‘South­ern pride.’ ”

    The poten­tial recruit also told Isk­ender­ian he had a black girl­friend. Isk­ender­ian sent the issue up the chain of com­mand, and the young man was reject­ed.

    Aca­d­e­mics who study white suprema­cists say pro­po­nents of the “infil­tra­tion strat­e­gy” of join­ing the U.S. mil­i­tary have adapt­ed, telling skin­heads to deceive mil­i­tary recruiters by let­ting their hair grow, avoid­ing or cov­er­ing tat­toos, and sup­press­ing their racist views.

    “You have to dif­fer­en­ti­ate between some of the grandiose fan­tasies of some of the lead­ers of the move­ment and what actu­al­ly is going on,” cau­tioned the ADL’s Pit­cav­age.

    For neo-Nazis who get past the screen­ers, as with the gang mem­bers, the mil­i­tary needs a com­pre­hen­sive strat­e­gy, said Carter F. Smith, a for­mer mil­i­tary inves­ti­ga­tor who is now a pro­fes­sor of crim­i­nal jus­tice at Austin Peay State Uni­ver­si­ty in Ten­nessee.

    “They are some of the most dis­ci­plined sol­diers we have. They real­ly want to learn to shoot those weapons,” Smith said. “The prob­lem was­n’t just that we were open­ing the flood­gates to let them in. We let them out after pros­e­cu­tion or when their time was up and we did­n’t let the police know.”

    Posted by R. Wilson | August 21, 2012, 7:33 pm
  13. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SOLDIERS_CHARGED_PLOT

    Aug 27, 2012 5:59 PM EDT

    Pros­e­cu­tor: Ga. mur­der case uncov­ers plot to kill Oba­ma, “over­throw gov­ern­ment”

    By RUSS BYNUM
    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    LUDOWICI, Ga. (AP) — Four Army sol­diers based in south­east Geor­gia killed a for­mer com­rade and his girl­friend to pro­tect an anar­chist mili­tia group they formed that stock­piled assault weapons and plot­ted a range of anti-gov­ern­ment attacks, pros­e­cu­tors told a judge Mon­day.

    Pros­e­cu­tors in rur­al Long Coun­ty, near the sprawl­ing Army post Fort Stew­art, said the mili­tia group of active and for­mer U.S. mil­i­tary mem­bers spent at least $87,000 buy­ing guns and bomb com­po­nents. They allege the group was seri­ous enough to kill two peo­ple — for­mer sol­dier Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girl­friend, Tiffany York — by shoot­ing them in the woods last Decem­ber in order to keep its plans secret.

    “This domes­tic ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion did not sim­ply plan and talk,” pros­e­cu­tor Isabel Pauley told a Supe­ri­or Court judge. “Pri­or to the mur­ders in this case, the group took action. Evi­dence shows the group pos­sessed the knowl­edge, means and motive to car­ry out their plans.”

    One of the Fort Stew­art sol­diers charged in the case, Pfc. Michael Bur­nett, also gave tes­ti­mo­ny that backed up many of the asser­tions made by pros­e­cu­tors. The 26-year-old sol­dier plead­ed guilty Mon­day to manslaugh­ter, ille­gal gang activ­i­ty and oth­er charges. He made a deal to coop­er­ate with pros­e­cu­tors against the three oth­er sol­diers.

    Pros­e­cu­tors said the group called itself F.E.A.R., short for For­ev­er Endur­ing Always Ready. Pauley said author­i­ties don’t know how many mem­bers it had.

    Bur­nett, 26, said he knew the group’s lead­ers from serv­ing with them at Fort Stew­art. He agreed to tes­ti­fy against fel­low sol­diers Pvt. Isaac Aguigui, iden­ti­fied by pros­e­cu­tors as the mili­ti­a’s founder and leader, and Sgt. Antho­ny Peden and Pvt. Christo­pher Salmon.

    All are charged by state author­i­ties with mal­ice mur­der, felony mur­der, crim­i­nal gang activ­i­ty, aggra­vat­ed assault and using a firearm while com­mit­ting a felony. A hear­ing for the three sol­diers was sched­uled Thurs­day.

    Pros­e­cu­tors say Roark, 19, served with the four defen­dants in the 4th Brigade Com­bat Team of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Divi­sion and became involved with the mili­tia. Pauley said the group believed it had been betrayed by Roark, who left the Army two days before he was killed, and decid­ed the ex-sol­dier and his girl­friend need­ed to be silenced.

    Bur­nett tes­ti­fied that on the night of Dec. 4, he and the three oth­er sol­diers lured Roark and York to some woods a short dis­tance from the Army post under the guise that they were going tar­get shoot­ing. He said Peden shot Roark’s girl­friend in the head while she was try­ing to get out of her car. Salmon, he said, made Roark get on his knees and shot him twice in the head. Bur­nett said Aguigui ordered the killings.

    “A ‘loose end’ is the way Isaac put it,” Bur­nett said.

    Aguigu­i’s attor­ney, Dav­eniya Fish­er, did not imme­di­ate­ly return a phone call from The Asso­ci­at­ed Press. Attor­neys for Peden and Salmon both declined to com­ment Mon­day.

    Also charged in the killings is Salmon’s wife, Heather Salmon. Her attor­ney, Charles Nester, did not imme­di­ate­ly return a call seek­ing com­ment.

    Pauley said Aguigui fund­ed the mili­tia using $500,000 in insur­ance and ben­e­fit pay­ments from the death of his preg­nant wife a year ago. Aguigui was not charged in his wife’s death, but Pauley told the judge her death was “high­ly sus­pi­cious.”

    She said Aguigui used the mon­ey to buy $87,000 worth of semi­au­to­mat­ic assault rifles, oth­er guns and bomb com­po­nents that were recov­ered from the accused sol­diers’ homes and from a stor­age lock­er. He also used the insur­ance pay­ments to buy land for his mili­tia group in Wash­ing­ton state, Pauley said.

    In a video­taped inter­view with mil­i­tary inves­ti­ga­tors, Pauley said, Aguigui called him­self “the nicest cold-blood­ed mur­der­er you will ever meet.” He used the Army to recruit mili­tia mem­bers, who wore dis­tinc­tive tat­toos that resem­ble an anar­chy sym­bol, she said. Pros­e­cu­tors say they have no idea how many mem­bers belong to the group.

    “All mem­bers of the group were on active-duty or were for­mer mem­bers of the mil­i­tary,” Pauley said. “He tar­get­ed sol­diers who were in trou­ble or dis­il­lu­sioned.”

    **The pros­e­cu­tor said the mili­tia group had big plans. It plot­ted to take over Fort Stew­art by seiz­ing its ammu­ni­tion con­trol point and talked of bomb­ing the Forsyth Park foun­tain in near­by Savan­nah, she said. In Wash­ing­ton state, she added, the group plot­ted to bomb a dam and poi­son the state’s apple crop. Ulti­mate­ly, pros­e­cu­tors said, the mili­ti­a’s goal was to over­throw the gov­ern­ment and assas­si­nate the pres­i­dent.**

    Fort Stew­art spokesman Kevin Lar­son said the Army has dropped its own charges against the four sol­diers in the slay­ings of Roark and York. The Mil­i­tary author­i­ties filed their charges in March but nev­er act­ed on them. Fort Stew­art offi­cials Mon­day refused to iden­ti­fy the units the accused sol­diers served in and their jobs with­in those units.

    “Fort Stew­art-Hunter Army Air­field does not have a gang or mili­tia prob­lem,” Lar­son said in a pre­pared state­ment, though he said Army inves­ti­ga­tors still have an open inves­ti­ga­tion in the case.

    “How­ev­er, we don’t believe there are any unknown sub­jects,” he said.

    Dis­trict Attor­ney Tom Dur­den said his office has been shar­ing infor­ma­tion with fed­er­al author­i­ties, but no charges have been filed in fed­er­al court. Jim Durham, an assis­tant U.S. attor­ney for the South­ern Dis­trict of Geor­gia, would not com­ment on whether a case is pend­ing.

    Posted by R. Wilson | August 27, 2012, 8:58 pm
  14. A white-suprema­cist US sol­dier just got bust­ed by the FBI try­ing to sell info to an agent pos­ing as a Russ­ian spy. This includ­ed info about the F22 and a US jam­ming sys­tem used to sweep for road­side bombs. That’s alarm­ing:

    Alas­ka-based sol­dier gets 16 years for sell­ing secrets to FBI agent pos­ing as Russ­ian spy

    By Asso­ci­at­ed Press, Pub­lished: April 15 | Updat­ed: Tues­day, April 16, 1:19 AM

    JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alas­ka — An Alas­ka-based mil­i­tary police­man will serve 16 years in prison and will be dis­hon­or­ably dis­charged for sell­ing secrets to an FBI under­cov­er agent who he believed was a Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial, a pan­el of eight mil­i­tary mem­bers decid­ed Mon­day.

    Spec. William Colton Mil­lay, 24, plead­ed guilty last month to attempt­ed espi­onage and oth­er counts.

    Mil­i­tary pros­e­cu­tors paint­ed him as a white suprema­cist who was fed up with the Army and the Unit­ed States, and was will­ing to sell secrets to an ene­my agent, even if that would cost fel­low sol­diers their lives.

    Defense attor­neys said Mil­lay was emo­tion­al­ly stunt­ed, was only seek­ing atten­tion and was a can­di­date for reha­bil­i­ta­tion.

    Monday’s pro­ceed­ings were like a mini-tri­al con­duct­ed in front of the sen­tenc­ing pan­el, with both sides call­ing two wit­ness­es.

    FBI Spe­cial Agent Der­rick Chriswell said Mil­lay came to their atten­tion in the sum­mer of 2011 through an anony­mous tip after Mil­lay sent an email to a Russ­ian pub­li­ca­tion seek­ing infor­ma­tion about the mil­i­tary and made sev­er­al calls to the Russ­ian embassy.

    “That’s a con­cern for nation­al secu­ri­ty,” Chriswell said.

    The FBI, work­ing with mil­i­tary intel­li­gence agen­cies, con­duct­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion. On Sept. 13, 2011, an FBI under­cov­er agent called Mil­lay and set up a meet­ing the next day at an Anchor­age hotel-restau­rant.

    Chriswell tes­ti­fied that dur­ing the first meet­ing with the agent, Mil­lay “expressed his dis­gust with the U.S. mil­i­tary.” They then moved to the agent’s hotel room, where audio and video record­ing devices were in place.

    Mil­lay said he’d work for the Russ­ian gov­ern­ment, and if they made it worth his while, he’d re-enlist for a sec­ond five-year stint. He also said he had con­fi­den­tial infor­ma­tion on the War­lock Duke jam­ming sys­tem the U.S. mil­i­tary uses to sweep road­side bombs.

    Two days after that meet­ing, Mil­lay report­ed to his com­man­der that he had been con­tact­ed by a Russ­ian agent. He was lat­er inter­ro­gat­ed by mil­i­tary intel­li­gence offi­cers and the FBI, but pros­e­cu­tors say Mil­lay was mere­ly try­ing to throw off sus­pi­cion.

    Chriswell said Mil­lay, dur­ing the inter­ro­ga­tion, with­held infor­ma­tion that offi­cials already knew from the record­ings. That includ­ed a claim that he didn’t know why a Russ­ian agent would con­tact him, his claim to the agent that he had access to Social Secu­ri­ty num­bers of peo­ple on base because of his police job and that he had sent her an ear­li­er text claim­ing he had more infor­ma­tion on the jam­ming sys­tem.

    Lat­er, after he came off a month­long leave, he told the agent he was will­ing to sell infor­ma­tion using a con­fi­den­tial drop at a park.

    On Oct. 21, 2011, he dropped off a white enve­lope with infor­ma­tion about the F‑22s and the jam­ming sys­tem in a garbage can. That enve­lope was lat­er col­lect­ed by the FBI.

    Mil­lay was told to dri­ve to a hotel, where he col­lect­ed $3,000 and a dis­pos­able cell­phone from a pick­up.

    After­ward, the agent con­tact­ed Mil­lay to com­plain her supe­ri­ors want­ed infor­ma­tion that wasn’t on the Inter­net. Mil­lay assured her that the infor­ma­tion on the jam­ming sys­tem — about a paragraph’s worth — wasn’t avail­able. That was lat­er con­firmed by mil­i­tary per­son­nel.

    He was arrest­ed Oct. 28. A search of his bar­racks found two hand­guns, detailed instruc­tions on how to use a Russ­ian Inter­net phone ser­vice and lit­er­a­ture from the white suprema­cist orga­ni­za­tion, the Nation­al Social­ists Move­ment.

    Chriswell also tes­ti­fied that Mil­lay has two Nazi SS thun­der­bolt tat­toos under his biceps and spi­der web tat­toos, which he said was com­mon among racists in prison.

    ...

    Hyderkhan said jail­house record­ings show Mil­lay threat­ens to con­tin­ue to divulge secrets.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 15, 2013, 11:04 pm
  15. Ah, won­der­ful, the Air Force just stripped 17 offi­cers of their nuclear mis­sile launch codes. There appears to be some sort of ther­monu­clear dis­ci­pli­nary rot:

    AP
    Air Force Stripped 17 Offi­cers Of Abil­i­ty To Launch Nuclear Mis­siles Due To Inter­nal ‘Rot’
    ROBERT BURNS May 8, 2013, 9:00 AM

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force stripped an unprece­dent­ed 17 offi­cers of their author­i­ty to con­trol — and, if nec­es­sary, launch — nuclear mis­siles after a string of unpub­li­cized fail­ings, includ­ing a remark­ably dim review of their unit’s launch skills. The group’s deputy com­man­der said it is suf­fer­ing “rot” with­in its ranks.

    “We are, in fact, in a cri­sis right now,” the com­man­der, Lt. Col. Jay Folds, wrote in an inter­nal email obtained by The Asso­ci­at­ed Press and con­firmed by the Air Force.

    The tip-off to trou­ble was a March inspec­tion of the 91st Mis­sile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., which earned the equiv­a­lent of a “D” grade when test­ed on its mas­tery of Min­ute­man III mis­sile launch oper­a­tions. In oth­er areas, the offi­cers test­ed much bet­ter, but the group’s over­all fit­ness was deemed so ten­u­ous that senior offi­cers at Minot decid­ed, after prob­ing fur­ther, that an imme­di­ate crack­down was called for.

    The Air Force pub­licly called the inspec­tion a “suc­cess.”

    But in April it qui­et­ly removed 17 offi­cers at Minot from the high­ly sen­si­tive duty of stand­ing 24-hour watch over the Air Force’s most pow­er­ful nuclear mis­siles, the inter­con­ti­nen­tal bal­lis­tic mis­siles that can strike tar­gets across the globe. Inside each under­ground launch con­trol cap­sule, two offi­cers stand “alert” at all times, ready to launch an ICBM upon pres­i­den­tial order.

    “You will be a bench warmer for at least 60 days,” Folds wrote.

    The 17 cas­es mark the Air Force’s most exten­sive sidelin­ing ever of launch crew mem­bers, accord­ing to Lt. Col. Ang­ie Blair, a spokes­woman for Air Force Glob­al Strike Com­mand, which over­sees the mis­sile units as well as nuclear-capa­ble bombers. The wing has 150 offi­cers assigned to mis­sile launch con­trol duty.

    The trou­ble at Minot is the lat­est in a series of set­backs for the Air Force’s nuclear mis­sion, high­light­ed by a 2008 Pen­ta­gon advi­so­ry group report that found a “dra­mat­ic and unac­cept­able decline” in the Air Force’s com­mit­ment to the mis­sion, which has its ori­gins in a Cold War stand­off with the for­mer Sovi­et Union.

    In 2008, then-Defense Sec­re­tary Robert Gates sacked the top civil­ian and mil­i­tary lead­ers of the Air Force after a series of blun­ders, includ­ing a bomber’s mis­tak­en flight across the coun­try armed with nuclear-tipped mis­siles. Since then the Air Force has tak­en numer­ous steps designed to improve its nuclear per­for­mance.

    The email obtained by the AP describes a cul­ture of indif­fer­ence, with at least one inten­tion­al vio­la­tion of mis­sile safe­ty rules and an appar­ent unwill­ing­ness among some to chal­lenge or report those who vio­late rules.

    In response to AP inquiries, the Air Force said the laps­es nev­er put the secu­ri­ty of the nuclear force at risk. It said the offi­cers who lost their cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to oper­ate ICBMs are now get­ting more train­ing with the expec­ta­tion that they will return to nor­mal duty with­in about two months. The mis­siles remain on their nor­mal war foot­ing, offi­cials said.

    Although sidelin­ing 17 launch offi­cers at once is unprece­dent­ed, the Air Force said strip­ping offi­cers of their author­i­ty to con­trol nuclear mis­siles hap­pens to “a small num­ber” of offi­cers every year for a vari­ety of rea­sons.

    In addi­tion to the 17, pos­si­ble dis­ci­pli­nary action is pend­ing against one oth­er offi­cer at Minot who inves­ti­ga­tors found had pur­pose­ful­ly bro­ken a mis­sile safe­ty rule in an unspec­i­fied act that could have com­pro­mised the secret codes that enable the launch­ing of mis­siles, which stand on high alert in under­ground silos in the nation’s mid­sec­tion. Offi­cials said there was no com­pro­mise of mis­sile safe­ty or secu­ri­ty.

    Folds is deputy com­man­der of the 91st Oper­a­tions Group, whose three squadrons are respon­si­ble for man­ning the wing’s 15 Min­ute­man III launch con­trol cen­ters.

    Advis­ing his troops on April 12 that they had “fall­en,” Folds wrote that dras­tic cor­rec­tive action was required because “we didn’t wake up” after an under­whelm­ing inspec­tion in March that he said amount­ed to a fail­ure, even though the unit’s over­all per­for­mance tech­ni­cal­ly was rat­ed “sat­is­fac­to­ry.” That is two notch­es below the high­est rat­ing.

    ...

    Expo­sure of short­com­ings with­in Vercher’s unit recalls an ear­li­er series of stun­ning mis­takes by oth­er ele­ments of the nuclear force, includ­ing the August 2007 inci­dent in which an Air Force B‑52 bomber flew from Minot to Barks­dale Air Force Base, La., with­out the crew real­iz­ing it was armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise mis­siles. One out­come of the inci­dent was the cre­ation of Glob­al Strike Com­mand in Jan­u­ary 2009 as a way of improv­ing man­age­ment of the nuclear enter­prise.

    ...

    If sto­ries about major dis­ci­pli­nary prob­lems amongst the indi­vid­u­als with nuclear mis­sile launch codes puts the fear of God in you don’t feel alone. God also fears sit­u­a­tions that might dis­rupt the US’s abil­i­ty to launch its mis­siles. Jesus loves nukes:

    The Tele­graph
    ‘Jesus loves nukes’: US Air Force taught the Chris­t­ian Just War The­o­ry
    To the men and women bur­dened with the ulti­mate respon­si­bil­i­ty of launch­ing America’s nuclear mis­siles it was known as the “Jesus loves nukes” les­son.

    By Nick Allen, Los Ange­les

    7:20PM BST 05 Aug 2011

    For 20 years the course on “Chris­t­ian Just War The­o­ry” was taught by chap­lains at Van­den­berg Air Force Base in Cal­i­for­nia to those who would turn the key should World War III break out.

    The train­ing, which used pas­sages from the Bible and reli­gious imagery to demon­strate the moral jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for atom­ic war­fare, has now been sus­pend­ed.

    The Air Force act­ed after receiv­ing an inquiry from Truthout, a news web­site which first broke the sto­ry.

    A Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion which was part of the course had con­sist­ed of 43 slides which includ­ed ref­er­ences to Bib­li­cal fig­ures like Abra­ham and John the Bap­tist, and paint­ings of the Visig­oths attack­ing Rome in AD410.

    Instruc­tors quot­ed St Augustine’s just cause for war, telling them it was right “to avenge or to avert evil, to pro­tect the inno­cent and restore moral and social order.”

    They also recount­ed how, in the Book of Gen­e­sis, Abra­ham had organ­ised an army to res­cue Lot, and how there were “Old Tes­ta­ment believ­ers who engaged in war in a right­eous way.” Offi­cers were also told that in Judges, God is “moti­vat­ing judges to fight and deliv­er Israel from for­eign oppres­sors,” and that there was “no paci­fistic sen­ti­ment in main­stream Jew­ish his­to­ry.”

    In the New Tes­ta­ment, they were told, Jesus used the Roman cen­tu­ri­on as a “pos­i­tive illus­tra­tion of faith.” One slide read: “Rev­e­la­tion 19:11 Jesus Christ is the mighty war­rior.”

    The course lit­er­a­ture also quot­ed Wern­er von Braun, the lead­ing Ger­man rock­et sci­en­tist who went on to work for the Unit­ed States after the Sec­ond World War, say­ing that it was a “moral deci­sion” to sur­ren­der his tech­nol­o­gy to the US.

    Von Braun said: “We felt that only by sur­ren­der­ing such a weapon to peo­ple who are guid­ed by the Bible could such an assur­ance to the world be best secured.”

    Before the the course was stopped 31 nuclear mis­sile launch offi­cers, includ­ing Protes­tants and Roman Catholics, had com­plained to the Mil­i­tary Reli­gious Free­dom Foun­da­tion, a group that cam­paigns for the sep­a­ra­tion of church and state.

    Its founder Mikey Wein­stein said the offi­cers were being told that “under fun­da­men­tal­ist Chris­t­ian doc­trine, war is a good thing”.

    He said the offi­cers found that “dis­gust­ing.” Mr Wein­stein said: “The Unit­ed States Air Force was pro­mot­ing a par­tic­u­lar brand of right wing fun­da­men­tal­ist Chris­tian­i­ty.

    “The main essence was that war is a nat­ur­al part of the human expe­ri­ence and it’s some­thing that is favoured by this par­tic­u­lar per­spec­tive of the New Tes­ta­ment.”

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | May 8, 2013, 10:49 am
  16. Umm­mm...WTF?

    Ter­ror­ism radi­a­tion plot uncov­ered in Albany
    Feds: Sus­pect promised to build “Hiroshi­ma on a light switch”

    By Bren­dan J. Lyons, with staff reports
    Updat­ed 1:32 pm, Wednes­day, June 19, 2013

    ALBANY, N.Y. — An indus­tri­al mechan­ic with Gen­er­al Elec­tric Co., who is also alleged­ly a mem­ber of the Ku Klux Klan, designed a dead­ly, mobile radi­a­tion device that he tried to sell to Jew­ish groups and then to a south­ern branch of the Ku Klux Klan, accord­ing to a fed­er­al com­plaint unsealed Wednes­day in Albany.

    The device was intend­ed to be a truck-mount­ed radi­a­tion par­ti­cle weapon that could be remote­ly con­trolled and capa­ble of silent­ly aim­ing a lethal beam of radioac­tiv­i­ty at its human tar­gets. The con­cept was that vic­tims would even­tu­al­ly die from radi­a­tion sick­ness.

    Glen­don Scott Craw­ford, 49, of Gal­way, is accused in a fed­er­al com­plaint of devel­op­ing “a radi­a­tion emit­ting device that could be placed in the back of a van to covert­ly emit ion­iz­ing radi­a­tion strong enough to bring about radi­a­tion sick­ness or death against Craw­ford’s ene­mies,” states the com­plaint attrib­uted to an FBI agent.

    Eric J. Feight, 54, of Hud­son, also is iden­ti­fied as a co-con­spir­a­tor and list­ed in the com­plaint as Craw­ford’s acquain­tance. Feight works for an elec­tron­ics com­pa­ny in Colum­bia Coun­ty. He is accused in a fed­er­al com­plaint of agree­ing to help Craw­ford con­struct the elec­tron­ic con­trols for the device.

    Craw­ford nev­er actu­al­ly obtained a radi­a­tion source. Dur­ing the past year, the com­plaint indi­cates he was deal­ing with an under­cov­er FBI agent pre­tend­ing to be a sup­pli­er of radi­a­tion equip­ment, such as x‑ray tubes used in con­struc­tion projects or med­ical devices. At one point, the under­cov­er agent sent an email to Craw­ford show­ing dif­fer­ent x‑ray sys­tems that could be sup­plied.

    The inves­ti­ga­tion broke open in April 2012 when Craw­ford alleged­ly went into an Albany syn­a­gogue and “asked to speak with a per­son who might be will­ing to help him with a type of tech­nol­o­gy that could be used by Israel to defeat its ene­mies, specif­i­cal­ly, by killing Israel’s ene­mies while they slept,” the com­plaint says. He referred to Mus­lims and ene­mies of the Unit­ed States as “med­ical waste,” accord­ing to court records.

    Lat­er that day, Craw­ford tele­phoned a sec­ond area syn­a­gogue, using his cell phone, and made a sim­i­lar offer, the com­plaint states. An FBI agen­t’s affi­davit indi­cates that some­one at the uniden­ti­fied syn­a­gogue con­tact­ed Albany police, who relayed the infor­ma­tion to the FBI. At that point a Joint Ter­ror­ism Task Force began an inves­ti­ga­tion.

    The FBI com­plaint states that on June 5, 2012, Craw­ford met with a con­fi­den­tial source for the FBI at a Sco­tia restau­rant and alleged­ly talked about his ene­mies and of being “tired of get­ting ‘raped,’ that there are peo­ple out there who have decid­ed that they don’t get their fair share in life, and that (Craw­ford) want­ed to stop these peo­ple.”

    In tele­phone calls record­ed by the FBI, Craw­ford iden­ti­fied him­self as “a mem­ber of the Ku Klux Klan, specif­i­cal­ly, the Unit­ed North­ern & South­ern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.”

    Dur­ing the meet­ing at the restau­rant a year ago, Craw­ford described his plan to pur­chase or con­struct a pow­er­ful indus­tri­al x‑ray machine that would be pow­ered by bat­ter­ies. The plan includ­ed an attempt by Craw­ford to find part-time work in a met­al shop where he would have access to x‑ray tubes, the com­plaint states.

    “Craw­ford also told the (source) that the tar­get of his radi­a­tion emit­ting device would be the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty,” the com­plaint states. “Craw­ford described the device’s capa­bil­i­ties as ‘Hiroshi­ma on a light switch’ and that ‘every­thing with res­pi­ra­tion would be dead by the morn­ing.’ ”

    Craw­ford end­ed the meet­ing by stat­ing “how much sweet­er could there be than a big stack of smelly bod­ies?”

    The FBI com­plaint charges Craw­ford and Feight with con­spir­a­cy to pro­vide mate­r­i­al sup­port to ter­ror­ists, includ­ing use of a weapon of mass destruc­tion.

    Accord­ing to fed­er­al author­i­ties, Craw­ford recruit­ed Feight, who worked for a man­u­fac­tur­er of elec­tron­ic con­trol devices in Hud­son, to assist him with the design and con­struc­tion of the device. Feight, as an out­side con­trac­tor, met Craw­ford last year through their asso­ci­a­tion at Gen­er­al Elec­tric Co., accord­ing to the com­plaint.

    FBI agents were able to get a “con­fi­den­tial human source” and an under­cov­er agent close to Craw­ford in May 2012, record­ing their con­ver­sa­tions and meet­ings. In Decem­ber, the FBI obtained a search war­rant that enabled them to mon­i­tor Craw­ford’s and Feight’s cell phone calls, emails and text mes­sages.

    Under the plot described by the FBI, Craw­ford con­cen­trat­ed on build­ing the radi­a­tion device while Feight was build­ing the elec­tron­ic con­trols. The two men met May 20 in Albany and Feight gave a remote-trans­mis­sion device to Craw­ford. They had planned a test to take place at an undis­closed hotel in the Albany area.

    The sus­pects had suc­cess­ful­ly test­ed the remote trig­ger­ing sys­tem that could work from a lit­tle less than a half mile away from the weapon, the com­plaint states. On June 12, they planned to have a din­ner where Craw­ford would be pro­vid­ed with the radi­a­tion sys­tem, which was not fin­ished. When the men were meet­ing, the FBI was mon­i­tor­ing their activ­i­ties, includ­ing using under­cov­er infor­mants who posed as mem­bers of a South Car­oli­na Ku Klux Klan group inter­est­ed in pur­chas­ing the device and financ­ing the project.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 19, 2013, 10:04 am
  17. Pret­ty creepy, whether or not they were “Watch­men of Amer­i­ca” mem­bers or just fans:

    Moth­er Jones
    Min­ing Com­pa­ny Deploys More Masked Mili­ti­a­men Against “Eco-Ter­ror­ists”
    Wel­come to the scary new world of min­ing in Scott Walk­er’s Wis­con­sin.

    —By Kate Shep­pard
    | Tue Jul. 16, 2013 3:00 AM PDT

    Debate over a pro­posed open-pit iron ore mine in north­ern Wis­con­sin went from heat­ed to out­right bizarre last week when masked guards bran­dish­ing assault rifles showed up at the site in the remote and scenic wilder­ness of Peno­kee Hills.

    Local activist Rob Gan­son, 56, first came upon three heav­i­ly armed guards while lead­ing a small group on a hike to view the min­ing site. (The drilling site is on pri­vate land, but the own­er has been giv­en a tax break in exchange for keep­ing it open to pub­lic use.) The guards, said Gan­son, car­ried semi-auto­mat­ic guns, were dressed in cam­ou­flage, and wore masks cov­er­ing their faces. “As you can imag­ine, it was quite a shock for five mid­dle-aged peo­ple out for a walk,” he said. Gan­son tried to engage the guards, but was “met with stony-faced silence.” He was alarmed but man­aged to grab a few pho­tos of the men. “I was think­ing if the worst sce­nario hap­pened, at least there would be pho­tos on my cam­era.”

    After they deter­mined that the guards worked for Ari­zona-based Bul­let­proof Secu­ri­ty, Gan­son and the oth­er activists post­ed their pho­tos of the guards online, draw­ing local and nation­al news cov­er­age of the mine, a pro­posed four-mile-long, 1,000-feet-deep open pit oper­a­tion in Ash­land and Iron coun­ties. In June, the com­pa­ny began explorato­ry drilling in the region for taconite, a type of iron ore used in steel.

    Last Wednes­day, the min­ing com­pa­ny, Goge­bic Taconite—G‑Tac for short—a sub­sidiary of the West Vir­ginia-based Cline Group, pulled the armed guards after find­ing that the secu­ri­ty firm lacked per­mits to work in the state. A spokesman for the com­pa­ny has said that the Bul­let­proof guards will be back once they’re prop­er­ly licensed.

    One of the activists in the area, how­ev­er, told Moth­er Jones on Mon­day that a new group of armed guards—includ­ing one whose shirt bore the insignia for Watch­men of Amer­i­ca, a mili­tia group active in at least 21 states—was on patrol last Thurs­day, the day after Goge­bic Taconite pulled the Bul­let­proof guards.* A spokesman for G‑Tac said that the guards are nec­es­sary to pro­tect its work­ers from “eco-ter­ror­ists.” The com­pa­ny point­ed to an inci­dent in June when pro­test­ers had a con­fronta­tion with work­ers; one of the pro­test­ers alleged­ly took a work­er’s cam­era. But most of the pro­test­ers’ actions around the mine have been peace­ful; local tribes have plant­ed a small gar­den near­by, and oth­ers are lead­ing edu­ca­tion­al tours on the ecol­o­gy of the region.

    Gov. Scott Walk­er signed sweep­ing changes to the state’s min­ing reg­u­la­tions into law in March, thus allow­ing the mine to move for­ward. The new law, which cre­ates a sep­a­rate set of laws for taconite min­ing, abbre­vi­ates the per­mit­ting process, reduces the num­ber of oppor­tu­ni­ties for pub­lic com­ment, and weak­ens rules on dump­ing mine waste into wet­lands and water­ways. It also real­lo­cates min­ing rev­enues that pre­vi­ous­ly went to local com­mu­ni­ties into the state’s Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion, a prob­lem-plagued pro­gram Walk­er cre­at­ed in 2011 to spur job growth in the state. G‑Tac worked close­ly with law­mak­ers to draft the leg­is­la­tion. Pro­po­nents of the law argue that it will gen­er­ate new jobs in the state.

    But envi­ron­men­tal groups argue that the law sets a bad prece­dent for envi­ron­men­tal reg­u­la­tions more broad­ly. “Basi­cal­ly almost every envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion and pub­lic health pro­tec­tion you could think of is elim­i­nat­ed under this bill,” Ker­ry Schu­mann, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Wis­con­sin League of Con­ser­va­tion Vot­ers.

    ...

    UPDATE: On Tues­day, Mike Free­byrd, CEO of Watch­men of Amer­i­ca, told Moth­er Jones that the new guards are not work­ing for his orga­ni­za­tion. “The Watch­men of Amer­i­ca is not a secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny that pro­vides com­mer­cial secu­ri­ty ser­vices and we are not involved in any way in the secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions with respect to GTAC min­ing oper­a­tion in Wis­con­sin, nor do we sanc­tion or approve of any of our mem­bers doing so while wear­ing our patch­es or logos,” said Free­byrd via email. “We sell many pro­mo­tion­al mate­ri­als includ­ing T‑shirts, stick­ers, patch­es, pens, etc. to our pub­lic sup­port­ers, there­fore we have no con­trol if a per­son wears our logos while con­duct­ing activ­i­ties which are not con­ducive to our true rep­re­sen­ta­tion.”

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 21, 2013, 9:24 pm
  18. You have to won­der why some­one that is con­vinced that soci­ety will inevitably col­lapse into race war would also want to work for DHS. Pre­sum­ably they aren’t expect­ed that gov­ern­ment pen­sion decades from now so what oth­er kinds of ben­e­fits would they be get­ting from that kind of posi­tion? With the Snow­den affair high­light­ing how much clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion low-lev­el ana­lysts have access to, it rais­es the ques­tion of just what kinds of spe­cial perks a black or white suprema­cist might find with this guy’s job:

    SPLC
    DHS Employ­ee Pro­motes Race War in Spare Time, Advo­cates Mass Mur­der of Whites
    Don Ter­ry on August 21, 2013, Post­ed in Anti-White

    By day, Ayo Kimathi works for the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) as a small busi­ness spe­cial­ist in a unit that buys such items as hand­cuffs, ammu­ni­tion and guns.

    Off-duty, he calls him­self “the Irri­tat­ed Genie.” He’s a gay-bash­ing, revenge-seek­ing black nation­al­ist who advo­cates on his web­site – War on the Hori­zon – the mass mur­der of whites and the “eth­nic cleans­ing” of “black-skinned Uncle Tom race trai­tors.”

    “War­fare is emi­nent,” the web­site declares, “and in order for Black peo­ple to sur­vive the 21st cen­tu­ry, we are going to have to kill a lot of whites – more than our Chris­t­ian hearts can pos­si­bly count.”

    A for­mer super­vi­sor of Kimathi’s at the DHS told Hate­watch, “Every­body in the office is afraid of him.”

    “This guy is filled with hate,” the super­vi­sor con­tin­ued. “Peo­ple are afraid he will come in with a gun some­day and go postal. I am astound­ed, he’s employed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, let alone Home­land Secu­ri­ty.”

    When reached by tele­phone today and asked by Hate­watch if he is the Irri­tat­ed Genie, Kimathi hung up. The night before, a woman answered the phone at his web­site, known as WOH, and refused to say whether the Irri­tat­ed Genie is Ayo Kimathi.

    “He just goes by the Irri­tat­ed Genie,” she said, promis­ing to pass along an inter­view request.

    The web­site has des­ig­nat­ed August as “Nat Turn­er Month” in hon­or of the slave who led a bloody rebel­lion in Vir­ginia in 1831. One of the ways in which WOH rec­om­mends Nat Turn­er be cel­e­brat­ed is for black peo­ple to “Plan every act of vengeance, retal­i­a­tion, protest, aggres­sion, etc. … for the month of August know­ing that the ances­tors, and espe­cial­ly Prophet Nat, Bouk­man Dut­ty, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, will be with you as you do your hunt­ing.”

    Kimathi’s for­mer super­vi­sor dis­cov­ered Kimathi’s hate­ful Inter­net pres­ence in mid-June. “When I saw the web­site, I was stunned,” she said. “To see the hate, to know that he is a fed­er­al employ­ee, it both­ered me”.

    Kimathi works for U.S. Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE), a divi­sion of Home­land Secu­ri­ty. Because it is a law enforce­ment agency, the super­vi­sor said, employ­ees are required to obtain offi­cial per­mis­sion in writ­ing for any out­side activ­i­ties, such as work­ing a sec­ond job at McDon­alds, run­ning the bin­go game at church, or vol­un­teer­ing at the Red Cross.

    Kimathi obtained offi­cial per­mis­sion but only by mis­rep­re­sent­ing the true nature of his endeav­or. He told man­age­ment that it was an enter­tain­ment web­site sell­ing videos of con­certs and lec­tures. He called it sim­ply WOH, nev­er say­ing that WOH stood for War on the Hori­zon.

    “If he had ade­quate­ly and truth­ful­ly described his group,” the super­vi­sor said, “I can’t imag­ine for a minute he would have been grant­ed per­mis­sion.”

    Kimathi also spreads his mes­sage of pend­ing race war and geno­cide and his dis­gust with “the small­hates (white so-called ‘jews’) and the white homos like Gay Edgar Hoover” in a series of videos and speech­es he gives around the coun­try.

    The ene­mies’ list on WOH rivals that of Pres­i­dent Richard Nixon’s in terms of length. It includes, among oth­ers, Rev. Al Sharp­ton, Lil Wayne, Oprah Win­frey, Whoopi Gold­berg, Con­doleez­za Rice, Col­in Pow­ell, who he calls “Colon,” and even Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, “a trea­so­nous mulat­to scum dweller … who will fight against repa­ra­tions for Black peo­ple in amerikkka, but in favor of fag rights for freaks in amerikkka and Afri­ka.”

    Kimathi’s for­mer super­vi­sor said among his duties at DHS and ICE is speak­ing at var­i­ous ven­dor events. He’s one of the agency’s pub­lic faces. It is his job to advo­cate for small busi­ness own­ers “white, black, his­tor­i­cal­ly dis­ad­van­taged, dis­abled vet­er­an-owned, every­body,” the super­vi­sor said.

    “He fights for the lit­tle guy,” the super­vi­sor said. “And he’s very good at it. He has a com­mand­ing pres­ence. He’s very suave. It’s almost as if he has a split per­son­al­i­ty.”

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 24, 2013, 6:15 pm
  19. If a band of mer­ce­nary elite snipers sounds kind if scary, imag­ine mer­ce­nary elite snipers that seem to engage in con­tract killing for the love of the work. And cocaine. Lots of cocaine:

    Team of con­tract killers led by ex-sol­dier ‘Ram­bo’ bust­ed, pros­e­cu­tors say

    By Tra­cy Con­nor, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A sharp-shoot­ing for­mer Army sergeant nick­named Ram­bo has been charged with recruit­ing ex-sol­diers as globe-trot­ting hit­men for drug traf­fick­ers in a scheme that pros­e­cu­tors said could have been “ripped from the pages of a Tom Clan­cy nov­el.”

    Three mem­bers of the gang were ready to assas­si­nate a fed­er­al agent for an $800,000 pay­off, and one of them boast­ed that mur­der-for-hire was “fun,” accord­ing to court papers out­lin­ing an elab­o­rate four-con­ti­nent sting oper­a­tion.

    “The charges tell a tale of an inter­na­tion­al band of mer­ce­nary marks­men who enlist­ed their elite mil­i­tary train­ing to serve as hired guns for evil ends,” said Man­hat­tan U.S. Attor­ney Preet Bharara.

    “Three of the defen­dants were ready, will­ing and eager to take cold hard cash to com­mit the cold-blood­ed mur­ders of a DEA agent and an infor­mant.”

    The accused ring­leader was Joseph “Ram­bo” Hunter, 48, whose fam­i­ly told NBC News he was mys­te­ri­ous about his inter­na­tion­al activ­i­ties and they had no idea he had been arrest­ed.

    Hunter was in the U.S. Army from 1983 to 2004, serv­ing as a sniper instruc­tor and senior drill sergeant, accord­ing to the indict­ment unsealed Fri­day.

    After leav­ing the mil­i­tary, he launched a new career as a con­tract killer who “has arranged for the mur­ders of mul­ti­ple peo­ple,” the court papers charge.

    “These were con­sum­mat­ed, com­plet­ed con­tract killings,” Bharara said at a Fri­day press con­fer­ence, with­out pro­vid­ing details of the killings, which occurred over­seas.

    “And because it was clear that Hunter was a threat to the pub­lic and to pub­lic safe­ty around the world, our part­ners at the [DEA] Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Divi­sion set out to stop him.”

    As the feds hatched an oper­a­tion to take down Hunter, he embarked on a twist­ed form of head-hunt­ing: col­lect­ing resumes over the Inter­net for a secu­ri­ty team that would do “the dirty work” of nar­cotics king­pins, Bharara said.

    Hunter alleged­ly recruit­ed four oth­er ex-sol­diers — one Amer­i­can, two from Ger­many and one from Poland — to sup­port what he thought was a mas­sive Colom­bian-based cocaine-smug­gling oper­a­tion.

    Inves­ti­ga­tors say Hunter’s Colom­bian con­tacts were actu­al­ly con­fi­den­tial fed­er­al sources, who record­ed the gang of five’s chill­ing chit-chat as they trav­eled the world for the crim­i­nal enter­prise.

    The cabal went to Thai­land in March, the African nation of Mau­ri­tius in April, and the Bahamas in June to per­form sur­veil­lance and soon signed on for a more nefar­i­ous under­tak­ing: the mur­der of a law-enforce­ment offi­cer, offi­cials said.

    Hunter enlist­ed two of the men, Ger­man sniper Den­nis “Nico” Gogel and U.S. Army vet­er­an Tim­o­thy “Tay” Vam­vakias for what he called a “bonus job” — a plot to mur­der a Drug Enforce­ment Admin­is­tra­tion agent and an infor­mant in Liberia for $800,000.

    Visas and plane tick­ets were obtained, a sub­ma­chine gun and .22-cal­iber pis­tols were ordered, and sophis­ti­cat­ed Hol­ly­wood-style latex face masks, which could make some­one appear to be of anoth­er race, were shipped to Africa.

    With Hunter “quar­ter­back­ing” the oper­a­tion from Thai­land, Gogel, 27, and Vamakias, 42, flew to Liberia ear­li­er this week with plans to car­ry out the twin assas­si­na­tions, Bharara said. By then, the DEA “had seen enough” and took them down, the pros­e­cu­tor said.

    The indict­ment por­trays the men as blood-thirsty, quot­ing from an email in which Hunter said of his team, “They also, real­ly want a bonus job after this next mis­sion, if avail­able.”

    Dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with one of the under­cov­er sources in June, two of the men swapped ideas about how best to kill the DEA agent and the infor­mant, includ­ing machine guns, cyanide or a grenade, author­i­ties said.

    Dur­ing one meet­ing, Gogel cheer­ful­ly offered him­self up for more “bonus jobs” in the future, the indict­ment says.

    “That’s fun, actu­al­ly for me, that’s fun,” he was quot­ed as say­ing in court papers. “I love this work.”

    Vam­vakias and Gogel were arrest­ed in Liberia and qui­et­ly brought to Man­hat­tan and pre­sent­ed in fed­er­al court on Thurs­day. Ger­man-trained sniper Michael “Paul” Fil­ter, 29, and Sla­womir “Ger­ald” Sobors­ki, 40, a Pol­ish coun­tert­er­ror­ism expert, were arrest­ed in Esto­nia this week and will be extra­dit­ed.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 27, 2013, 7:47 pm
  20. Any­one that hap­pened to serve with the 82nd Air­borne Divi­sion at Fort Bragg from 2009–2012 might want to check in with an iden­ti­ty pro­tec­tion ser­vice:

    Minn. Nat. Guard Mem­ber Charged with Steal­ing IDs for Mili­tia
    Amy For­lit­ti – Decem­ber 11, 2013, 11:58 PM EST

    MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A mem­ber of the Min­neso­ta Nation­al Guard and self-described com­man­der of a mili­tia group was charged Wednes­day with steal­ing names, Social Secu­ri­ty num­bers and secu­ri­ty clear­ance lev­els of rough­ly 400 mem­bers of his for­mer Army unit in Fort Bragg, N.C., so he could make fake IDs for his mili­tia mem­bers.

    Accord­ing to a fed­er­al com­plaint and affi­davit obtained Wednes­day by The Asso­ci­at­ed Press, Kei­th Michael Novak, 25, of Maple­wood, threat­ened to use vio­lence if author­i­ties came to arrest him.

    “I’ve my AK in my bed. If I hear that door kick, it’s going boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I’m just going to start putting them through the (exple­tive) wall,” he told an under­cov­er FBI employ­ee in July, accord­ing to the affi­davit unsealed Wednes­day.

    Novak was charged with com­mit­ting fraud in con­nec­tion with iden­ti­fi­ca­tion doc­u­ments. He was in fed­er­al cus­tody Wednes­day and unavail­able for com­ment. His father has an unlist­ed num­ber, and attempts to reach him were unsuc­cess­ful. The fed­er­al defend­er’s office has the case, but an attor­ney had not been select­ed to rep­re­sent him by Wednes­day evening.

    Accord­ing to an FBI affi­davit, Novak was an active duty sol­dier and intel­li­gence ana­lyst with the 82nd Air­borne Divi­sion at Fort Bragg from Feb. 26, 2009, to Sept. 3, 2012. He also served in active duty in Iraq in 2010. Novak is cur­rent­ly a human intel­li­gence ana­lyst with the Min­neso­ta Nation­al Guard.

    In late Jan­u­ary, he went to a train­ing camp in Utah and there met two under­cov­er FBI employ­ees who posed as mem­bers of a Utah-based mili­tia, accord­ing to the affi­davit. It also said Novak told the under­cov­er employ­ees that he took clas­si­fied mate­ri­als from Fort Bragg and that he would share the mate­ri­als with them.

    The under­cov­er employ­ees met Novak in Min­neso­ta in July, and he gave them an elec­tron­ic copy of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments and taught them how to encrypt files, the affi­davit said. He also said that he had a per­son­nel ros­ter — includ­ing names, birth­dates and Social Secu­ri­ty num­bers — of a “Bat­tal­ion’s-worth of peo­ple” from his for­mer unit.

    The under­cov­er employ­ees said they want­ed that infor­ma­tion and knew some­one who could make fake IDs, which Novak said he need­ed for his mili­tia. On Nov. 4, Novak sent the infor­ma­tion for 44 indi­vid­u­als to an under­cov­er FBI employ­ee. On Nov. 25, he accept­ed $2,000 and said he had addi­tion­al pages to sell, the affi­davit said.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 13, 2013, 1:07 pm
  21. Here’s a strange twist; won­der what hap­pens if these guys return to the U.S.—

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/03/03/two-l-a-gang-members-are-apparently-fighting-for-syrias-assad/

    Two L.A. gang mem­bers are appar­ent­ly fight­ing for Syria’s Assad
    By Liz Sly March 3 at 5:30 am

    Two Los Ange­les gang mem­bers appear to have joined the flow of for­eign­ers flock­ing to fight in Syr­ia – in this instance, on the side of Pres­i­dent Bashar al-Assad. In a video post­ed online, the two men boast that they are on the front lines and fire their guns in the direc­tion of what they call “the ene­mi­gos.”

    One of the men iden­ti­fies him­self as Creep­er from the Sur-13 or Surenos, a loose affil­i­a­tion of south­ern Cal­i­for­nia gangs linked to the Mex­i­can mafia. He rolls up his sleeves to show his gang tat­toos and greets fel­low gang mem­bers Capone‑E and Crazy Loco.

    The oth­er says he is called Wino, and belongs to a gang called West­side Armen­ian Pow­er. Mem­bers of the Armen­ian Chris­t­ian minor­i­ty in Syr­ia are known to be staunch sup­port­ers of Assad.

    The two men don’t reveal much about what they are doing or why they are fight­ing for Assad.

    “It’s Syr­ia, homie, we’re in Syr­ia, homie. ... Front­line, homie, front­line, homie,” says Wino.

    “In Mid­dle East, homie, in Syr­ia, still gang­bang­ing,” says Creep­er, in com­ments typ­i­cal of the 2 1/2‑minute video.

    Warn­ing: the video, post­ed here, con­tains strong lan­guage. This ver­sion is pro­vid­ed by the Mid­dle East Media Research Insti­tute, and con­tains sub­ti­tles.

    It was impos­si­ble to inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy the authen­tic­i­ty of the video or deter­mine where or when it was filmed. But the des­o­late scene in which the two men are fir­ing from a bombed build­ing looks like Syr­ia.

    The Mid­dle East Media Research Insti­tute, a pro-Israel group that mon­i­tors media in the region, said it had iden­ti­fied Wino as Ners­es Kila­jyan, whose Face­book page fea­tures mul­ti­ple pho­tographs of the man who calls him­self Wino, appar­ent­ly in the north­ern Syr­i­an city of Alep­po. In some, Wino is seen pos­ing with fight­ers from the Shi­ite Hezbol­lah mili­tia. In oth­ers, he is pic­tured with the man who calls him­self Creep­er. The dates on the pho­tographs sug­gest the pair have been in Syr­ia for about a year.

    It was also unclear whether they are U.S. cit­i­zens. So far, there have been no report­ed instances in which Amer­i­cans have vol­un­teered to fight in Syr­ia on behalf of Assad, though at least 50 U.S. cit­i­zens are believed to have trav­eled there to join the rebels, accord­ing to con­gres­sion­al tes­ti­mo­ny by Direc­tor of Nation­al Intel­li­gence James Clap­per last month. Thou­sands of Arabs, Euro­peans and Sun­ni Mus­lims of oth­er nation­al­i­ties who have flood­ed into Syr­ia, most of them join­ing rad­i­cal Islamist groups.

    Thou­sands of Iraqi and Lebanese Shi­ite Mus­lims are mean­while report­ed to be fight­ing on the side of Assad’s gov­ern­ment, as well as Ira­ni­ans, some Rus­sians and small­er num­bers of Afghans, Pak­ista­nis and oth­er Arabs, mak­ing this a tru­ly inter­na­tion­al war.

    Posted by Swamp | March 5, 2014, 9:35 am
  22. Return­ing troops help KKK build para­mil­i­tary force to ‘retake’ US in com­ing race war
    By Travis Get­tys

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/06/10/returning-troops-help-kkk-build-paramilitary-force-to-retake-us-in-coming-race-war/

    The Ku Klux Klan plans to begin mil­i­tary-style com­bat train­ing under the direc­tion of mil­i­tary troops return­ing home from over­seas deploy­ments, accord­ing to a Bar­croft Media report.

    The noto­ri­ous hate group has been attempt­ing to recruit new mem­bers – chil­dren, in par­tic­u­lar – in recent months, and the Loy­al White Knights fac­tion has begun prepa­ra­tions for a long-await­ed race war.

    “We’re going to do some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent for prob­a­bly the next cou­ple of years to try to get our men and women ready for the upcom­ing bat­tle that we’re about to take upon us, and this is some­thing that no Klan has ever done and we’re going to start it,” said one Klan leader dur­ing a ral­ly in Park­ers­burg, West Vir­ginia. “All our boys are final­ly com­ing back home from the mil­i­tary, which is good, and we’re get­ting a lot more mil­i­tary mem­bers to join.”

    Klan mem­bers have dropped leaflets and can­dy in neigh­bor­hoods across the Unit­ed States, and the group has also used social media in hopes of attract­ing teenage recruits.

    Oth­er young peo­ple are recruit­ed by their own par­ents to join the group.

    “I enjoy days like today, because I like being around peo­ple, not dis­gust­ing peo­ple, not drug addicts,” said one hood­ed boy whose par­ents brought him and his broth­er to the Park­ers­burg ral­ly – which drew about 40 peo­ple.

    The boy’s moth­er said she believes black and His­pan­ic stu­dents take drugs from their par­ents and sell them at her son’s school.

    “Their par­ents are so wor­ried about doing drugs than pro­vid­ing for their own chil­dren, that’s what I think,” said the woman, who was wear­ing full Klan regalia like her hus­band and two sons.

    Bar­croft report­ed that Klan lead­ers claim exist­ing mem­bers serv­ing in the mil­i­tary will begin train­ing oth­er mem­bers in armed com­bat, hand-to-hand com­bat, and sur­vival skills.

    The group, which has an esti­mat­ed 6,500 mem­bers, has nev­er before trained its mem­bers in com­bat tac­tics.

    “We got police offi­cers in the Klan, we got lawyers, we got doc­tors – your next-door neigh­bor could be in the Klan, and you’d nev­er know it,” said James Moore, grand drag­on for Vir­ginia.

    Klan expert Bri­an Levin said the biggest threat comes from indi­vid­ual mem­bers try­ing to make a name for them­selves, rather than an army affil­i­at­ed with the hate group.

    “This is some­thing we’ve seen through­out recent decades, where the Klan has gone through cycles, where they’ve armed them­selves, got­ten in trou­ble, then mel­lowed out and then armed them­selves again,” Levin said.

    He said Klan mem­bers hope to sig­nal their social rel­e­vance by arm­ing them­selves and warn­ing of racial unrest.

    “The ulti­mate goal for myself is to have our mem­ber­ship get to the point where we can affect change through the polit­i­cal sys­tem,” said one Klan offi­cial. “Right now, our num­bers aren’t quite good enough.”

    But mem­bers are con­fi­dent their mes­sage will attract new fol­low­ers.

    “Black peo­ple, white peo­ple, we’re all get­ting tired of the gov­ern­ment, and pret­ty soon you can see the gov­ern­ment col­lapse,” Moore said. “And when the gov­ern­ment keeps on send­ing their mon­ey over to Israel, and it final­ly col­laps­es, you can see the Klan take it back and make this nation the way it needs to be.”

    Posted by Swamp | June 10, 2014, 9:31 am
  23. https://www.splcenter.org/news/2016/08/03/intelligence-report-constitutional-sheriffs-movement-spreads-promotes-defiance-federal-laws

    Intel­li­gence Report: ‘Con­sti­tu­tion­al sher­iffs’ move­ment spreads, pro­motes defi­ance of fed­er­al laws

    The cov­er sto­ry, “Line in the Sand,” details the growth of this rad­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy since 2009. The move­ment, formed around an orga­ni­za­tion called the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Sher­iffs and Peace Offi­cers Asso­ci­a­tion (CSPOA), is a phe­nom­e­non rarely, if ever, seen in the Unit­ed States – a con­cert­ed, long-term effort to recruit law enforce­ment offi­cers into the antigov­ern­ment “Patri­ot” move­ment.

    “The phe­nom­e­non of the ‘con­sti­tu­tion­al sher­iffs’ move­ment is deeply trou­bling and prob­lem­at­ic,” said Mark Potok, senior fel­low at the SPLC and edi­tor of the Intel­li­gence Report. “These men and women are being told by extrem­ist lead­ers that they have the right to decide what laws they want to enforce and can keep fed­er­al law enforce­ment agents out of their coun­ties. That is utter­ly untrue, the very oppo­site of con­sti­tu­tion­al, and it in fact encour­ages sher­iffs and their deputies to defy the law of the land.”

    The Intel­li­gence Report inter­viewed dozens of sher­iffs who appeared on a list, com­piled by the CSPOA, of almost 500 sher­iffs who pur­port­ed­ly had “vowed to uphold and defend the Con­sti­tu­tion against Obama’s uncon­sti­tu­tion­al gun mea­sures.” Over­all, it appears the move­ment is suc­cess­ful­ly exploit­ing con­cerns about gun, envi­ron­men­tal and land-use reg­u­la­tions to bring law enforce­ment offi­cers into the fold.

    The report notes that the orga­niz­ing of these sher­iffs is occur­ring against the back­drop of the larg­er mili­tia move­ment and the occu­pa­tion at the Mal­heur Nation­al Wildlife Refuge in Ore­gon ear­ly this year by antigov­ern­ment extrem­ists.

    The threat of the antigov­ern­ment “Patri­ot” move­ment is also exam­ined in a train­ing DVD includ­ed in the law enforce­ment edi­tion of this issue of the Intel­li­gence Report. The video, a short film designed to be shown at roll call, focus­es on the ris­ing threat of antigov­ern­ment extrem­ists, espe­cial­ly in the wake of the occu­pa­tion in Ore­gon and a relat­ed 2014 armed stand­off with law enforce­ment offi­cials in Neva­da.

    Also in this issue of the Intel­li­gence Report:

    “White Lives Mat­ter” is a look at a counter-move­ment to Black Lives Mat­ter that has been built by rad­i­cal-right activists. The project, which has become increas­ing­ly pop­u­lar among neo-Nazis and oth­er white suprema­cists, appears to be large­ly the work of a 40-year-old woman in Ten­nessee.

    “Hate in the Race” is a month-by-month exam­i­na­tion of the polit­i­cal vit­ri­ol and extrem­ism that has char­ac­ter­ized the pres­i­den­tial race since last sum­mer – a del­uge of extrem­ist rhetoric com­ing pri­mar­i­ly from Don­ald Trump.
    “670 Days” reflects on the near­ly two years between Neva­da ranch­er Cliv­en Bundy’s first armed stand­off with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and his arrest in Feb­ru­ary – a peri­od that saw the antigov­ern­ment move­ment grow by leaps and bounds, in part because of Bundy’s appar­ent imper­vi­ous­ness to arrest.

    Posted by Roger Wilson | August 7, 2016, 1:57 pm
  24. Here’s a rather alarm­ing sto­ry about neo-Nazis in a group that was offi­cial­ly declared ille­gal in the UK last Decem­ber infil­trat­ing the UK mil­i­tary. It’s alarm­ing for the obvi­ous rea­sons (neo-Nazis infil­trat­ing mil­i­taries are inher­ent­ly alarm­ing) but it’s an extra alarm­ing due large­ly to how clear­ly unalarmed the UK is in gen­er­al about the threat posed by vio­lent far-right groups. Because it turns out when this neo-Nazi group, Nation­al Action, was added to the UK’s list of banned ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions back in Decem­ber it was the first far-right group in the UK added to the list (a list that had 70 oth­er orga­ni­za­tions already on it):

    BBC

    Neo-Nazi arrests: Nation­al Action sus­pects are in the Army

    5 Sep­tem­ber 2017

    Four serv­ing mem­bers of the Army have been arrest­ed under anti-ter­ror laws on sus­pi­cion of being mem­bers of banned neo-Nazi group Nation­al Action.

    The men are a 22-year-old from Birm­ing­ham, a 32-year-old from Powys, a 24-year-old from Ipswich and a 24-year-old from Northamp­ton.

    All four are being held at a West Mid­lands police sta­tion.

    The Army con­firmed the arrests, and said it had sup­port­ed the police-led oper­a­tion.

    An Army spokesper­son added: “This is now the sub­ject of a civil­ian police inves­ti­ga­tion and it would be inap­pro­pri­ate to com­ment fur­ther.”

    The BBC under­stands three of the sol­diers arrest­ed are from the Roy­al Anglian Reg­i­ment.

    Two of them were arrest­ed in Cyprus, and the oth­er two were detained in Ipswich and Bre­con.

    Police said the arrests were pre-planned and intel­li­gence-led, and there had been no threat to the pub­lic’s safe­ty.

    They said they were con­tin­u­ing to search sev­er­al prop­er­ties.

    The men are being held on sus­pi­cion of being con­cerned in the com­mis­sion, prepa­ra­tion and insti­ga­tion of acts of ter­ror­ism under Sec­tion 41 of the Ter­ror­ism Act 2000; name­ly on sus­pi­cion of being mem­bers of a pro­scribed organ­i­sa­tion.

    Who are Nation­al Action?

    By Dominic Cas­ciani, BBC home affairs cor­re­spon­dent

    Nation­al Action became the first British neo-Nazi group to be banned last Decem­ber after Home Sec­re­tary Amber Rudd said it was pro­mot­ing vio­lence and acts of ter­ror­ism.

    Mem­bers and sup­port­ers applaud­ed the mur­der of Jo Cox MP by a white suprema­cist — and the group had car­ried out a series of small, but con­fronta­tion­al, demon­stra­tions in towns and cities through­out Eng­land.

    One of its most noto­ri­ous events saw masked mem­bers — many of them very young men — gath­er­ing out­side York Min­ster to make Hitler salutes.

    Since it was banned, detec­tives have been car­ry­ing out more and more inves­ti­ga­tions into the group which, to all intents and pur­pos­es, has organ­ised itself in a sim­i­lar way to the banned al Muha­jiroun net­work — the extrem­ist Islamist youth move­ment.

    Both have used social media to tar­get young peo­ple, attract­ing them with a sim­plis­tic us-and-them mes­sage designed to make them angry.

    Being a mem­ber of — or invit­ing sup­port for — a pro­scribed organ­i­sa­tion is a crim­i­nal offence car­ry­ing a sen­tence of up to 10 years in prison.

    There are 71 such groups list­ed by the Home Office on its reg­is­ter.

    They include a range of inter­na­tion­al and nation­al groups, of which Nation­al Action was the first far-right group to be banned.

    It describes itself as a “Nation­al Social­ist youth organ­i­sa­tion” and says its move­ment is aimed at the “bro­ken right-wing”.

    The offi­cial reg­is­ter says it was estab­lished in 2013 and has branch­es across the UK which “con­duct provoca­tive street demon­stra­tions and stunts aimed at intim­i­dat­ing local com­mu­ni­ties”.

    Its online mate­r­i­al con­tains extreme­ly vio­lent imagery and lan­guage and it con­dones and glo­ri­fies those who have used extreme vio­lence for polit­i­cal or ide­o­log­i­cal ends, the Home Office says.

    That includ­ed tweets in 2016 about the mur­der of Labour MP Jo Cox, who was stabbed and shot by Thomas Mair. One such tweet said there were “only 649 MPs to go”.

    ...

    ———-

    “Neo-Nazi arrests: Nation­al Action sus­pects are in the Army”; BBC; 09/05/2017

    “Its online mate­r­i­al con­tains extreme­ly vio­lent imagery and lan­guage and it con­dones and glo­ri­fies those who have used extreme vio­lence for polit­i­cal or ide­o­log­i­cal ends, the Home Office says.”

    Yeah, if you’re going to ban groups based on their sup­port for vio­lence it sure sounds like Nation­al Action deserves to be on the list. And yet, amaz­ing­ly, it’s the only far-right group on the list that includes 71 such banned groups:

    ...
    There are 71 such groups list­ed by the Home Office on its reg­is­ter.

    They include a range of inter­na­tion­al and nation­al groups, of which Nation­al Action was the first far-right group to be banned.
    ...

    So yeah, the rel­a­tive lack of alarm is pret­ty alarm­ing. And note that when Nation­al Action was added to the list of banned orga­ni­za­tions last Decem­ber it’s not like there were hard­ly any oth­er vio­lent extrem­ists of a far-right nature that the counter-extrem­ism offi­cials were deal­ing with. It was clos­er to a quar­ter of counter-extrem­ist cas­es involv­ing the far-right:

    The Guardian

    Neo-Nazi group Nation­al Action banned by UK home sec­re­tary

    Sup­port for anti­se­mit­ic white supre­ma­tist group out­lawed under Amber Rudd move to pro­scribe it as a ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion
    Nation­al Action demon­stra­tion

    Jes­si­ca Elgot
    Mon­day 12 Decem­ber 2016 06.49 ES

    A neo-Nazi group that cel­e­brat­ed the mur­der of the Labour MP Jo Cox is to become the first far-right group to be pro­scribed as a ter­ror­ist organ­i­sa­tion by the home sec­re­tary.

    Sup­port or mem­ber­ship of Nation­al Action, an anti­se­mit­ic white suprema­cist group, will become a crim­i­nal offence under the Ter­ror­ism Act 2000, pend­ing approval from par­lia­ment.

    Nation­al Action has held demon­stra­tions in UK cities with ban­ners that say “Hitler was right”, and speak­ers have been filmed telling a small group of sup­port­ers about “the dis­ease of inter­na­tion­al Jew­ry” and that “when the time comes they’ll be in the cham­bers”.

    The group has also been filmed train­ing sup­port­ers in hand-to-hand com­bat, and putting up posters across Liv­er­pool and New­bury declar­ing them “white zones”. The slo­gan on its web­site is “Death to trai­tors, free­dom for Britain,” which was the only state­ment giv­en in court by Cox’s mur­der­er, Thomas Mair.

    After the order comes into force, arrang­ing meet­ings or wear­ing brand­ed cloth­ing from the group will also be ille­gal, with breach­es of the order car­ry­ing a pos­si­ble max­i­mum sen­tence of 10 years in prison or an unlim­it­ed fine.

    The home sec­re­tary, Amber Rudd, said the group had no place in British soci­ety. “I am clear that the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of our fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties and coun­try comes first,” she said. “So today I am tak­ing action to pro­scribe the neo-Nazi group Nation­al Action. This will mean that being a mem­ber of, or invit­ing sup­port for, this organ­i­sa­tion will be a crim­i­nal offence.

    “Nation­al Action is a racist, anti­se­mit­ic and homo­pho­bic organ­i­sa­tion which stirs up hatred, glo­ri­fies vio­lence and pro­motes a vile ide­ol­o­gy, and I will not stand for it. It has absolute­ly no place in a Britain that works for every­one.”

    ...

    The Home Office said the deci­sion had been tak­en by Rudd pri­or to the tri­al of Mair, a far-right extrem­ist who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced for the mur­der of Cox out­side her con­stituen­cy surgery short­ly before the EU ref­er­en­dum.

    How­ev­er, the debate could not be put before the House of Com­mons until after the tri­al had con­clud­ed in order not to affect the out­come.

    A spokesman for the Com­mu­ni­ty Secu­ri­ty Trust, an anti­semitism mon­i­tor­ing char­i­ty, said: “Nation­al Action is a vicious­ly anti­se­mit­ic neo-Nazi group that repeat­ed­ly incites hatred and vio­lence and whose sup­port­ers have been involved in hate crimes. We have raised our con­cerns about them with the gov­ern­ment and the police on many occa­sions over the past two years and we wel­come the news that they are to be pro­scribed.”

    Gideon Fal­ter, the chair­man of Cam­paign Against Anti­semitism, said: “In com­mon with oth­er ter­ror­ist groups, Nation­al Action rad­i­calis­es and indoc­tri­nates the young, teach­es them vio­lence, attacks the police and the pub­lic and demands the anni­hi­la­tion of Jews.

    “This deci­sion by the home sec­re­tary is some­thing we have long called for and sends a strong mes­sage that the far right is in the government’s sights and will not be per­mit­ted to con­tin­ue its incite­ment and vio­lence.”

    Rudd said last month that far-right groups were becom­ing increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed, and about a quar­ter of the cas­es being han­dled by the government’s counter-extrem­ism pro­gramme, Chan­nel, con­cerned rightwing rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion.

    ———-

    “Neo-Nazi group Nation­al Action banned by UK home sec­re­tary” by Jes­si­ca Elgot; The Guardian; 12/12/0216

    “Rudd said last month that far-right groups were becom­ing increas­ing­ly sophis­ti­cat­ed, and about a quar­ter of the cas­es being han­dled by the government’s counter-extrem­ism pro­gramme, Chan­nel, con­cerned rightwing rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion

    About a quar­ter of the cas­es being han­dled by the government’s counter-extrem­ism pro­gram involve rightwing rad­i­cal­iza­tion. And yet Nation­al Action was the only one added, just added late last year, and is report­ed­ly still oper­at­ing under dif­fer­ent names. Sounds like that list could use a few new entries.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 5, 2017, 1:27 pm
  25. Giv­en the ongo­ing ten­sions between police depart­ments and minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties over police shoot­ings in the US and the fail­ure to reach some sort of com­mon ground between the dif­fer­ent par­ties, here’s a very dis­turb­ing report that iron­i­cal­ly might present an oppor­tu­ni­ty to find that com­mon ground between com­mu­ni­ties and law enforce­ment: Accord­ing to a recent­ly leaked trove of inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions on white suprema­cist chat boards recent­ly obtained and pub­lished by Uni­corn Riot, the over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of the white suprema­cists on that board appear to believe that US law enforce­ment and the mil­i­tary are large­ly on the side of the white suprema­cists. Beyond that, these leaked com­mu­ni­ca­tions indi­cate that the white suprema­cists are still quite enthu­si­as­tic about their long-stand­ing dri­ve to drop the ‘skin­head’ look and instead infil­trate pub­lic insti­tu­tions under cov­er. The fact that Nazis are try­ing to infil­trat­ed law enforce­ment and the mil­i­tary isn’t a new find­ing. Calls for infil­tra­tion have been going on for years. But these leaked chats are a time­ly reminder that this infil­tra­tion effort con­tin­ues to this day. And that seems like the kind of find­ing that presents a very con­ve­nient oppor­tu­ni­ty for cre­at­ing com­mon ground between minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties and law enforce­ment: unit­ing around open­ly reject­ing the white suprema­cists and what they stand for and mak­ing it very clear that white suprema­cists aren’t wel­come in law enforce­ment. Espe­cial­ly mak­ing it very clear to the neo-Nazis:

    Rewire.news

    A Leaked Mes­sage Board Shows What White Suprema­cists Think of the Police

    A recent­ly leaked trove of inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions among white suprema­cists show that many believed mem­bers of the police and mil­i­tary are on their side.

    by Jack­son Lan­ders
    Mar 9, 2018, 10:20am

    The South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter in 2008 began issu­ing reports about mem­bers of white suprema­cist groups join­ing the mil­i­tary in large num­bers. The FBI in 2006 issued a heav­i­ly redact­ed report warn­ing of sys­tem­at­ic infil­tra­tion of law enforce­ment orga­ni­za­tions by white suprema­cists.

    More than a decade on, what results have those infil­tra­tion efforts gleaned and how do neo-Nazi groups talk about their rela­tions with the mil­i­tary and police offi­cers?

    A recent­ly leaked trove of inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­vides a win­dow into the think­ing of mem­bers of the mod­ern “alt-right” white suprema­cist move­ment. The edu­ca­tion­al non­prof­it media orga­ni­za­tion Uni­corn Riot obtained access to tens of thou­sands of mes­sages passed among hun­dreds of white suprema­cists on chat servers used to plan the August 12 Unite the Right ral­ly in Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia, where a white suprema­cist alleged­ly killed a counter pro­test­er, Heather Hey­er.

    Chat serv­er user Erwin Frey claimed to have spent years prepar­ing to enlist in the Navy before being turned away due to a nut aller­gy, but said in a post that he is now seek­ing a job as a police offi­cer.

    “Be me in my Crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion class. We’re doing intro­duc­tions and it gets to me. They ask me what kind of police offi­cer I want­ed to be and I respond­ed with ‘Riot Police Offi­cer,’” Frey wrote on the chat board. “They asked why and I instant­ly respond­ed with ‘I like curb stomp­ing pro­tes­tors who cause a riot.’ I think the pro­fes­sor likes me.”

    Dur­ing one online con­ver­sa­tion about what encoun­ters with police in Char­lottesville might be like, some white suprema­cist plan­ners expressed dis­sent­ing views, but the con­sen­sus seemed to be that they could expect some lev­el of sup­port from law enforce­ments. One user called Stan­nis­the­man­nis said the Vir­ginia State Police “will be focused on antifa [anti-fas­cists] not us … espe­cial­ly if we kiss some ass with a few blue lives mat­ter chants …. Be nice to cops and they will be nice to you.”

    “Ran­dom Reminder: Cops of all races are our nat­ur­al allies; we should keep it that way,” wrote anoth­er user known as Uil­liam Cionnaoith – MD.

    “I have sev­er­al cops in my fam­i­ly,” Stan­nis­the­man­nis wrote, “most white cops are sym­pa­thet­ic to us.” The online chat board user added “I’m not too wor­ried about the cops as long as we act like whites …. Get to know more cops [in real life] No one hates nig­gers more than white cops.”

    Archive search­es for ref­er­ences to “police,” “cops,” “law enforce­ment” and sim­i­lar ref­er­ences to uni­formed author­i­ty fig­ures revealed the gist of that con­ver­sa­tion. While a few users dis­liked or mis­trust­ed police offi­cers, most expressed belief that many mem­bers of the police and mil­i­tary are on the side of white suprema­cy.

    “Also of note is that most police and mil­i­tary picked that career because they want­ed to aid their com­mu­ni­ties or coun­try,” wrote a user named rflagg SC. “That’s the foun­da­tion of a col­lec­tivist fas­cist mind­set.”

    “I know so many mil­i­tary fas­cists,” Nathan TX wrote. “And many that are join­ing.”

    In the ear­ly 2000s, some white suprema­cist lead­ers exhort­ed their fol­low­ers to aban­don the clich­es of the skin­head lifestyle in order to infil­trate the worlds of busi­ness, gov­ern­ment, and the mil­i­tary. Chris­t­ian Pic­ci­oli­ni, a for­mer neo-Nazi skin­head leader from Chica­go who has since renounced white suprema­cism, said the strat­e­gy of infil­tra­tion has worked.

    “I do know very many peo­ple from the orga­ni­za­tion that I used to lead 30 years ago, the neo-Nazi group, that actu­al­ly did go on to become police offi­cers in Chica­go,” Pic­ci­oloni said in a radio inter­view with Democ­ra­cy Now. “Pro­ba­tion offi­cers, prison guards, and, you know, infil­trate that way, and espe­cial­ly the mil­i­tary. Many went into the mil­i­tary.”

    Dil­lon Ulysses Hop­per, the leader of white suprema­cist group Van­guard Amer­i­ca, is a for­mer Marine Corp recruiter. Mem­bers of Van­guard Amer­i­ca played a promi­nent role in the August 12 white suprema­cist ral­ly in Char­lottesville. James Alex Fields Jr., who is await­ing tri­al on a charge of first-degree mur­der after alleged­ly dri­ving a car into a crowd of counter-pro­test­ers, killing Hey­er, was dressed as a Van­guard Amer­i­ca mem­ber and car­ried a shield with their logo while in line with oth­er mem­bers.

    ...

    Pic­ci­oli­ni said that the doors between uni­formed ser­vices and white suprema­cists go both ways. Non-rad­i­cal police offi­cers and mil­i­tary per­son­nel are com­mon tar­gets for white suprema­cist recruiters.

    “Police offi­cers and law enforce­ment offi­cers and mil­i­tary peo­ple are con­stant­ly, every day, in dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions,” Pic­ci­oli­ni says. “And over time, peo­ple become jad­ed, espe­cial­ly after you’ve … worked in crime-rid­den neigh­bor­hoods for 20 years, and you’ve had to deal with some­times the worst of the worst peo­ple. Well, recruiters know this. Recruiters know that they become jad­ed, and they become prej­u­diced towards these peo­ple.

    The Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty in 2009 issued a report on the threat of right-wing extrem­ists infil­trat­ing the mil­i­tary. “Right wing extrem­ists have cap­i­tal­ized on the elec­tion of the first African-Amer­i­can pres­i­dent, and are focus­ing their efforts to recruit new mem­bers, mobi­lize exist­ing sup­port­ers, and broad­en their scope and appeal through pro­pa­gan­da,” the report said, “but they have not yet turned to attack plan­ning.”

    A month after the report was released, a flur­ry of angry respons­es from con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians and pun­dits result­ed in then-Sec­re­tary of Home­land Secu­ri­ty Janet Napoli­tano pulling the report from the DHS web­site.

    The U.S. mil­i­tary is aware of the efforts that white suprema­cists have made to infil­trate and recruit from their ranks. They have tak­en some steps to com­bat the prob­lem. Recruits with racist tat­toos or obvi­ous con­nec­tions to white suprema­cist groups are reject­ed. But mil­i­tary offi­cers and recruiters can­not read minds. The clean-cut, kha­ki-wear­ing racists of today are hard­er to iden­ti­fy than the skin­heads of the 1980s.

    That change in image and cul­ture from swasti­ka tat­toos to polo shirts was in part due to the suc­cess of online rad­i­cal­iza­tion of young men through the inter­net rather than among skin­head street gangs. Hordes of young racists came to white suprema­cy via memes and 4chan posts rather than through white pow­er hard­core con­certs. There was also a delib­er­ate deci­sion by white suprema­cist lead­ers to shed their old images to dis­guise them­selves.

    “We decid­ed at that point, 30 years ago, that we were not going to shave our heads,” Pic­ci­oli­ni said. “We were going to trade in our boots for suits. We were going to go enroll in col­lege and recruit on cam­pus­es. We would get jobs in law enforce­ment, go into the mil­i­tary to get train­ing and to be able to recruit there, and then even run for office. And here we are 30 years lat­er with that dream—or that nightmare—realized.”

    ———-

    “A Leaked Mes­sage Board Shows What White Suprema­cists Think of the Police” by Jack­son Lan­ders; Rewire.news; 03/09/2018

    “The South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter in 2008 began issu­ing reports about mem­bers of white suprema­cist groups join­ing the mil­i­tary in large num­bers. The FBI in 2006 issued a heav­i­ly redact­ed report warn­ing of sys­tem­at­ic infil­tra­tion of law enforce­ment orga­ni­za­tions by white suprema­cists.”

    Yep, this infil­tra­tion effort has been going on for years. And the longer it goes on, the hard­er it’s going to be to deal with.

    And as one of the mem­bers of the neo-Nazi chat board made clear was he described his expe­ri­ences dur­ing a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion class, these neo-Nazis are join­ing the police for the explic­it pur­pose of engag­ing in exact­ly the kind of abus­es of pow­er minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties are com­plain­ing about:

    ...
    More than a decade on, what results have those infil­tra­tion efforts gleaned and how do neo-Nazi groups talk about their rela­tions with the mil­i­tary and police offi­cers?

    A recent­ly leaked trove of inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­vides a win­dow into the think­ing of mem­bers of the mod­ern “alt-right” white suprema­cist move­ment. The edu­ca­tion­al non­prof­it media orga­ni­za­tion Uni­corn Riot obtained access to tens of thou­sands of mes­sages passed among hun­dreds of white suprema­cists on chat servers used to plan the August 12 Unite the Right ral­ly in Char­lottesville, Vir­ginia, where a white suprema­cist alleged­ly killed a counter pro­test­er, Heather Hey­er.

    Chat serv­er user Erwin Frey claimed to have spent years prepar­ing to enlist in the Navy before being turned away due to a nut aller­gy, but said in a post that he is now seek­ing a job as a police offi­cer.

    “Be me in my Crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion class. We’re doing intro­duc­tions and it gets to me. They ask me what kind of police offi­cer I want­ed to be and I respond­ed with ‘Riot Police Offi­cer,’” Frey wrote on the chat board. “They asked why and I instant­ly respond­ed with ‘I like curb stomp­ing pro­tes­tors who cause a riot.’ I think the pro­fes­sor likes me.”

    Dur­ing one online con­ver­sa­tion about what encoun­ters with police in Char­lottesville might be like, some white suprema­cist plan­ners expressed dis­sent­ing views, but the con­sen­sus seemed to be that they could expect some lev­el of sup­port from law enforce­ments. One user called Stan­nis­the­man­nis said the Vir­ginia State Police “will be focused on antifa [anti-fas­cists] not us … espe­cial­ly if we kiss some ass with a few blue lives mat­ter chants …. Be nice to cops and they will be nice to you.”

    “Ran­dom Reminder: Cops of all races are our nat­ur­al allies; we should keep it that way,” wrote anoth­er user known as Uil­liam Cionnaoith – MD.
    ...

    And as long as these white suprema­cists believe they will be wel­comed in the police force, or in the mil­i­tary, they’re going to be far more like­ly to join. Which, again, is rea­son why open­ly mak­ing it clear that white suprema­cists (or suprema­cists of any type) won’t be wel­come in the police force, and then enforc­ing that, could be a great way to not only avoid future offi­cers that ruin the rep­u­ta­tion of the entire force but also build greater trust with com­mu­ni­ties:

    ...
    Archive search­es for ref­er­ences to “police,” “cops,” “law enforce­ment” and sim­i­lar ref­er­ences to uni­formed author­i­ty fig­ures revealed the gist of that con­ver­sa­tion. While a few users dis­liked or mis­trust­ed police offi­cers, most expressed belief that many mem­bers of the police and mil­i­tary are on the side of white suprema­cy.

    “Also of note is that most police and mil­i­tary picked that career because they want­ed to aid their com­mu­ni­ties or coun­try,” wrote a user named rflagg SC. “That’s the foun­da­tion of a col­lec­tivist fas­cist mind­set.”

    “I know so many mil­i­tary fas­cists,” Nathan TX wrote. “And many that are join­ing.”

    In the ear­ly 2000s, some white suprema­cist lead­ers exhort­ed their fol­low­ers to aban­don the clich­es of the skin­head lifestyle in order to infil­trate the worlds of busi­ness, gov­ern­ment, and the mil­i­tary. Chris­t­ian Pic­ci­oli­ni, a for­mer neo-Nazi skin­head leader from Chica­go who has since renounced white suprema­cism, said the strat­e­gy of infil­tra­tion has worked.

    “I do know very many peo­ple from the orga­ni­za­tion that I used to lead 30 years ago, the neo-Nazi group, that actu­al­ly did go on to become police offi­cers in Chica­go,” Pic­ci­oloni said in a radio inter­view with Democ­ra­cy Now. “Pro­ba­tion offi­cers, prison guards, and, you know, infil­trate that way, and espe­cial­ly the mil­i­tary. Many went into the mil­i­tary.”
    ...

    “I do know very many peo­ple from the orga­ni­za­tion that I used to lead 30 years ago, the neo-Nazi group, that actu­al­ly did go on to become police offi­cers in Chica­go.”

    Those were the chill­ing words of for­mer neo-Nazi Chris­t­ian Pic­ci­oli­ni: he actu­al­ly knew about of neo-Nazis who did actu­al­ly become police offi­cers. It’s not just Nazi aspi­ra­tions. This is a real issue even if the scale of the issue remains an open ques­tion.

    And beyond the dan­ger infil­trat­ed Nazis rep­re­sent to the com­mu­ni­ties they police and the rep­u­ta­tion of their police forces, these Nazis are also going to pro­ceed to try and recruit from with­in the police force, exac­er­bat­ing the prob­lem:

    ...
    Pic­ci­oli­ni said that the doors between uni­formed ser­vices and white suprema­cists go both ways. Non-rad­i­cal police offi­cers and mil­i­tary per­son­nel are com­mon tar­gets for white suprema­cist recruiters.

    “Police offi­cers and law enforce­ment offi­cers and mil­i­tary peo­ple are con­stant­ly, every day, in dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions,” Pic­ci­oli­ni says. “And over time, peo­ple become jad­ed, espe­cial­ly after you’ve … worked in crime-rid­den neigh­bor­hoods for 20 years, and you’ve had to deal with some­times the worst of the worst peo­ple. Well, recruiters know this. Recruiters know that they become jad­ed, and they become prej­u­diced towards these peo­ple.
    ...

    Now, the last thing we want to do is cre­ate some sort of cryp­to-Nazi witch hunt with­in law enforce­ment since that would be guar­an­teed to back­fire and prob­lem enhance the stand­ing of the cryp­to-Nazis that are there. And you don’t want to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment where every offi­cer involved in a con­tro­ver­sial shoot­ing is assumed to be a neo-Nazi.

    But the more we learn neo-Nazis are active­ly encour­ag­ing each oth­er to join law enforce­ment agen­cies — or any pub­lic insti­tu­tions, for that mat­ter — the greater the risk that there real­ly is going to be a major prob­lem with this at some point, which just adds to the rea­sons why both police and com­mu­ni­ties should proac­tive­ly treat this like a “known unknown” sit­u­a­tion: we know neo-Nazis are doing this and we know they suc­ceed­ed in some cas­es. But we also know that it would be absurd to casu­al­ly assume every white police offi­cer is a white suprema­cist. So per­haps mak­ing it clear to the pub­lic, and espe­cial­ly mak­ing it clear to neo-Nazis, that law enforce­ment takes this seri­ous­ly and will make seri­ous attempts to iden­ti­fy and expel white suprema­cists (or any kind of rad­i­cal big­ots) could be a pro­duc­tive par­al­lel com­mu­ni­ty-rela­tions effort in the cur­rent envi­ron­ment where ten­sions between minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties and the police often run high. After all, police depart­ments across the coun­try are already engag­ing in a num­ber of active efforts to improve rela­tions with minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties. It seems like a pub­lic anti-cryp­to-Nazi effort could be a high­ly pro­duc­tive pro­gram to add to that list.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | March 30, 2018, 1:35 pm
  26. This next arti­cle shows that Ger­many is fac­ing mount­ing polit­i­cal pres­sure on its “prep­pers” which are their ver­sion of far-right wing sur­vival­ists who may be hav­ing some lev­el of infil­tra­tion into Ger­man intel­li­gence agen­cies.

    In the wake of the assas­si­na­tion of the pro-refugee politi­cian Wal­ter Lübcke and a white supremacist’s planned ter­ror attack on a syn­a­gogue in Halle, secu­ri­ty cir­cles have raised alarm about rightwing extrem­ist attempts to infil­trate the mil­i­tary and police. More mem­bers of the Chris­t­ian Demo­c­ra­t­ic Union were revealed to be mem­bers of a shad­owy mil­i­tary net­work with links to “prep­per” or sur­vival­ist cir­cles. Robert Möritz, con­firmed that he was a mem­ber of Uniter, a pri­vate sup­port net­work for active and for­mer sol­diers and secu­ri­ty per­son­nel.

    While Uniter remains a legal­ly reg­is­tered asso­ci­a­tion and is cur­rent­ly not on any of the intel­li­gence agen­cies’ offi­cial watch­lists, its founder André Schmitt is on tri­al for offences against Germany’s weapons and explo­sives act. Uniter’s founder also set up and admin­is­tered a com­plex com­mand chain of Telegram chat net­works, in whose sub­groups so-called prep­pers dis­cussed plans to build up par­al­lel infra­struc­tures in prepa­ra­tion for the antic­i­pat­ed col­lapse of the pre­vail­ing social order.
    One found­ing mem­ber of Uniter in its 2016 incar­na­tion, Ringo M, used to work for the domes­tic intel­li­gence agency in Baden-Würt­tem­berg, while one of Uniter’s four dis­trict lead­ers has been train­ing police at a police acad­e­my in Bran­den­burg.

    Armin Schus­ter, a CDU chair­man of the Bundestag’s com­mit­tee on inter­nal affairs, stat­ed “What we are see­ing is a num­ber of iso­lat­ed sus­pi­cious cas­es, and every sin­gle one of them is one too many for me,” Schus­ter told the Guardian. CDU par­ty leader Annegret Kramp-Kar­ren­bauer also assert­ed that “Every­one should be aware that any­one who is a mem­ber of Uniter and wears Uniter sym­bols will be sus­pect­ed of prox­im­i­ty of rightwing extrem­ist net­works and chats”.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/18/members-of-angela-merkels-party-found-to-have-far-right-links?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    More mem­bers of Angela Merkel’s par­ty found to have ‘prep­per’ links

    CDU crit­i­cised for alleged­ly fail­ing to guard against neo-Nazis and ‘prep­per’ infil­tra­tion

    Philip Olter­mann and Jan­i­na Find­eisen
    @philipoltermann
    Wed 18 Dec 2019 13.00 EST Last mod­i­fied on Thu 19 Dec 2019 03.35 EST

    • Hun­dreds of neo-Nazis demon­strate in Halle, Ger­many, in May 2011. Pho­to­graph: Dpa Pic­ture Alliance Archive/Alamy

    Pres­sure is mount­ing on the lead­er­ship of Angela Merkel’s con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty to for­ti­fy its “fire­wall against the far right”, as more mem­bers of the Chris­t­ian Demo­c­ra­t­ic Union were revealed to be mem­bers of a shad­owy mil­i­tary net­work with links to “prep­per” or sur­vival­ist cir­cles.

    Last week a mem­ber of the CDU’s exec­u­tive com­mit­tee in the dis­trict of Anhalt-Bit­ter­feld, Robert Möritz, con­firmed that he was a mem­ber of Uniter, a pri­vate sup­port net­work for active and for­mer sol­diers and secu­ri­ty per­son­nel.

    In the wake of the assas­si­na­tion of the pro-refugee politi­cian Wal­ter Lübcke and a white supremacist’s planned ter­ror attack on a syn­a­gogue in Halle, secu­ri­ty cir­cles have raised alarm about rightwing extrem­ist attempts to infil­trate the mil­i­tary and police.

    While Uniter remains a legal­ly reg­is­tered asso­ci­a­tion and is cur­rent­ly not on any of the intel­li­gence agen­cies’ offi­cial watch­lists, its founder André Schmitt is on tri­al for offences against Germany’s weapons and explo­sives act.
    Uniter’s founder also set up and admin­is­tered a com­plex com­mand chain of Telegram chat net­works, in whose sub­groups so-called prep­pers dis­cussed plans to build up par­al­lel infra­struc­tures in prepa­ra­tion for the antic­i­pat­ed col­lapse of the pre­vail­ing social order.

    Some of the chats, which were divid­ed into region­al dis­tricts, cov­ered the threat of Islamist ter­ror­ist attacks and how to respond to them by hoard­ing weapons, muni­tions and food sup­plies. Oth­er prep­per groups have been accused of com­pil­ing “death lists” of left­wing and pro-refugee tar­gets, as well as order­ing body bags and quick­lime to dis­pose of their vic­tims after a “Day X” dooms­day sce­nario.

    • Ger­man far-right group ‘used police data to com­pile death list’

    So far the CDU’s branch in Sax­ony-Anhalt has declined to expel the ex-Uniter mem­ber Möritz, in spite of him admit­ting to tak­ing part in a neo-Nazi ral­ly in 2011 and car­ry­ing a “black sun” tat­too on his right arm, a sym­bol which has been adopt­ed by neo-Nazis and occultists. The CDU’s dis­trict leader in Anhalt-Bit­ter­feld insist­ed the 29-year-old had “cred­i­bly” dis­tanced him­self from his rightwing extrem­ist past.
    Uniter’s enmesh­ment with the east­ern offices of Germany’s dom­i­nant polit­i­cal par­ty of the post­war era is more intri­cate than pre­vi­ous­ly known, how­ev­er. Kai Mehliss, a mem­ber of the CDU’s hard­line “con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cle” who also sits on the dis­trict branch in Anhalt-Bit­ter­feld, is list­ed on Uniter’s web­site as a mem­ber and organ­ised a round­table event for the net­work as recent­ly as last week. Like Möritz, he has since can­celled his mem­ber­ship.

    Anoth­er CDU mem­ber, a town coun­cil­lor in the munic­i­pal­i­ty of Sander­s­dorf-Brehna, was a found­ing mem­ber of Uniter in its orig­i­nal incar­na­tion in 2012, before the asso­ci­a­tion was found­ed anew in Stuttgart.

    The local politi­cian said on Wednes­day that he co-found­ed Uniter to help elite Ger­man sol­diers find employ­ment after they had been deployed abroad, and claimed not to know the oth­er two Uniter mem­bers in his par­ty per­son­al­ly. Since Sat­ur­day, his pro­file appears to have been removed from the CDU’s web­site.

    The rev­e­la­tions came on the eve of what is like­ly to be Angela Merkel’s last full year as Ger­man chan­cel­lor, and as the coun­try ner­vous­ly eyes her party’s polit­i­cal direc­tion in the post-Merkel era.

    While Merkel’s suc­ces­sor at the head of the CDU, Annegret Kramp-Kar­ren­bauer, is a politi­cian in the chancellor’s lib­er­al mould, con­ser­v­a­tive politi­cians in the east­ern states have agi­tat­ed for the par­ty to drop its cor­don san­i­taire against coali­tions with the rightwing pop­ulist Alter­na­tive für Deutsch­land.

    The gen­er­al sec­re­tary of Merkel’s junior coali­tion part­ner, the Social Demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty, on Wednes­day accused Kramp-Kar­ren­bauer of fail­ing to crack down on far-right ten­den­cies in her par­ty.

    “What we are see­ing in the CDU’s Sax­ony-Anhalt branch is a burst­ing of the dam against the far right,” Lars Kling­beil told Tagesspiegel news­pa­per. Social Demo­c­rat politi­cian Ralf Steg­n­er, mean­while, said events in Sax­ony-Anhalt showed “the fire­wall against the far right is crum­bling”.

    The vet­er­an con­ser­v­a­tive and for­mer finance min­is­ter Wolf­gang Schäu­ble said that “demo­c­ra­t­ic par­ties, and espe­cial­ly the par­ty of which I am a mem­ber, must not have any­thing to do with neo-Nazis”. But many senior fig­ures in the par­ty have stopped short of explic­it­ly call­ing for the expul­sion of mem­bers with a neo-Nazi past.

    The inte­ri­or min­is­ter, Horst See­hofer, of the CDU’s Bavar­i­an sis­ter par­ty, at the start of this week announced 600 new intel­li­gence posi­tions for weed­ing out poten­tial­ly vio­lent rightwing extrem­ists and their net­works. But oppo­si­tion politi­cians say the search will have to start at the door of Seehofer’s own agen­cies.

    One found­ing mem­ber of Uniter in its 2016 incar­na­tion, Ringo M, used to work for the domes­tic intel­li­gence agency in Baden-Würt­tem­berg, while one of Uniter’s four dis­trict lead­ers has been train­ing police at a police acad­e­my in Bran­den­burg.
    Armin Schus­ter, a CDU chair­man of the Bundestag’s com­mit­tee on inter­nal affairs, reject­ed claims that Ger­man secu­ri­ty had a “large-scale prob­lem” with the far right, but con­ced­ed some of the recent rev­e­la­tions had been trou­bling. “What we are see­ing is a num­ber of iso­lat­ed sus­pi­cious cas­es, and every sin­gle one of them is one too many for me,” Schus­ter told the Guardian.

    CDU par­ty leader Annegret Kramp-Kar­ren­bauer on Wednes­day night vowed to take “deci­sive and uncom­pro­mis­ing” action in tack­ling the issue in her par­ty. “Every­one should be aware that any­one who is a mem­ber of Uniter and wears Uniter sym­bols will be sus­pect­ed of prox­im­i­ty of rightwing extrem­ist net­works and chats”.

    Posted by Mary Benton | December 19, 2019, 2:57 pm
  27. This next arti­cles shows how at an Army-Navy Foot­ball games which was attend­ed by Pres­i­dent Trump. Some of the Cadets were flash­ing White Pow­er hand Sym­bols with the “OK” sign. The sym­bol­’s co-option by racists began as a joke on far-right mes­sag­ing site 4Chan — where users took an inno­cent ges­ture and pre­tend­ed there was a hid­den mean­ing behind it, hop­ing to trick left-lean­ing peo­ple into out­rage.  The joke esca­lat­ed and soon the sym­bol was being wide­ly used among far-right extrem­ists, lead­ing some peo­ple to con­clude it has changed its mean­ing. Con­ser­v­a­tive Vin­er Piz­za Par­ty Ben and the alt-right’s for­mer pin-up boy Milo Yiannopou­los began mak­ing the ges­ture at var­i­ous cam­paign events for Don­ald Trump in the lead up to the 2016 elec­tion.

    White suprema­cist Richard Spencer also flashed the sign on elec­tion night in 2016 in front of a Trump Hotel with the cap­tion ‘Tonight’s the night.’ The sym­bol has con­tin­ued to be used, includ­ing alleged­ly by White House intern Jack Breuer in 2017, pho­tographed mak­ing the OK sign in his class pho­to, who claimed he was copy­ing the pres­i­den­t’s ges­ture of touch­ing his index fin­ger and thumb while speak­ing. 

    The pop­u­lar emo­ji has been reg­is­tered as a hate sym­bol by the US-based Anti-Defama­tion League, but the group warned it is still ‘over­whelm­ing­ly’ used to show approval or that some­one is OK. 

    https://mol.im/a/7793965

    US mil­i­tary opens inves­ti­ga­tion after West Point cadets and Annapo­lis mid­ship­men appeared to flash white pow­er hand signs dur­ing the live broad­cast of the Army-Navy game
    • West Point and Annapo­lis are inves­ti­gat­ing the hand signs at Sat­ur­day’s game
    • Sev­er­al cadets and mid­ship­men were seen mak­ing the ‘OK’ hand sym­bol
    • Once innocu­ous, the hand sign has been appro­pri­at­ed by racist provo­ca­teurs 

    By KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
    PUBLISHED: 01:32 EST, 15 Decem­ber 2019 | UPDATED: 02:43 EST, 16 Decem­ber 2019 

    Offi­cials at West Point and the U.S. Naval Acad­e­my in Annapo­lis are inves­ti­gat­ing after sev­er­al cadets and mid­ship­men were seen flash­ing a hand sign some­times asso­ci­at­ed with ‘white pow­er’ at Sat­ur­day’s Army-Navy foot­ball game.

    Stu­dents at both ser­vice acad­e­mies were seen appear­ing to flash the con­tro­ver­sial hand sym­bol dur­ing a pregame side­line report from jour­nal­ist Rece Davis on an ESPN broad­cast.

    The hand sym­bol, once innocu­ous and typ­i­cal­ly mean­ing ‘OK’, was ini­tial­ly asso­ci­at­ed with ‘white pow­er’ as an online joke, but has since been adopt­ed by fringe racist fig­ures.

    Now, mil­i­tary offi­cials are inves­ti­gat­ing to see what the inten­tion of the cadets and mid­ship­men may have been in dis­play­ing the hand sym­bol.

    PHOTO: A cadet appears to flash a ‘white pow­er’ hand sign live on ESPN at the Army-Navy game dur­ing a pregame side­line report from jour­nal­ist Rece Davis

    PHOTO A mid­ship­man on the right side of the shot is shown extend­ing his arm and mak­ing the sym­bol

    TWEET

    Looky Yon­der
    @YonderLooky
     · Dec 14, 2019

    Reply­ing to @KwikWarren @WestPoint_USMA
    I have it on my DVR. His face is clear­ly vis­i­ble just a moment before. And one of his ass­hole class­mates one row up does the same hand sign. Not pho­to­shopped.

    Looky Yon­der
    @YonderLooky

    ‘We’re look­ing into it,’ Lt. Col. Chris Ophardt, a West Point spokesman, told the Wall Street Jour­nal. ‘I don’t know what their inten­tion is.’ 

    ‘We are aware and will be look­ing into it,’ said Annapo­lis spokes­woman Cmdr. Alana Garas.

    At least two cadets and one mid­ship­man were seen mak­ing the hand sym­bol. 
    The hand sign is formed by join­ing the the index fin­ger and thumb in a cir­cle while extend­ing the oth­er three fin­gers, as in the tra­di­tion­al ‘OK’ sym­bol.

    A sim­i­lar ges­ture is used in the so-called ‘cir­cle game,’ in which the per­son mak­ing the ges­ture tries to trick some­one into look­ing at it, and if suc­cess­ful gets to punch the onlook­er in the arm. 

    How­ev­er, the ambigu­ous nature of the ges­ture is part of the appeal to extrem­ists, accord­ing to the Anti-Defama­tion League. 

    PHOTO: Cadets were seen goof­ing off in the back­ground dur­ing the live TV shot, and some of them flashed the con­tro­ver­sial hand sym­bol

    U.S. Coast Guard lead­ers last year rep­ri­mand­ed an offi­cer who used a sim­i­lar hand sign dur­ing a tele­vi­sion broad­cast. 

    After the Army-Navy broad­cast, many spoke up say­ing that they were cer­tain the ges­ture was intend­ed as a brazen dis­play of racist white suprema­cy.

    ‘They did this because they ful­ly under­stand that most peo­ple in the dom­i­nant soci­ety share their views, and there will be no seri­ous pun­ish­ment against them,’ tweet­ed Tariq Nasheed, direc­tor of the film Hid­den Col­ors 4: The Reli­gion Of White Suprema­cy, and author of dat­ing advice book The Art Of Mackin’.
    ‘Any­one try­ing to deny that this is a white pow­er hand sig­nal, are most like­ly to be white suprema­cist them­selves,’ Nasheed added. 

    Sat­ur­day’s game was the 120th such match-up between the two ser­vice acad­e­mies, and part of a beloved tra­di­tion in both branch­es of the mil­i­tary as well as the world of col­lege sports. 

    PHOTO: Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump takes part in the cer­e­mo­ni­al coin toss before the start of the Army-Navy col­lege foot­ball game in Philadel­phia on Sat­ur­day

    The Philadel­phia game drew 68,075 fans and ESP­N’s ‘Col­lege Game­Day’ was on hand. 

    The cadets and mid­ship­men stood, salut­ed, bounced and cheered for the entire­ty of what’s billed as ‘Amer­i­ca’s Game.’ 

    Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump attend­ed the game for the sec­ond straight year. Trump also was at the 2016 game as pres­i­dent-elect.

    Trump wore a red ‘Keep Amer­i­ca Great’ hat for the tra­di­tion­al coin flip in misty con­di­tions, and was greet­ed by a roar­ing ova­tion. 

    Army called heads, the coin land­ed tails and the Mid­ship­men deferred pos­ses­sion. 

    The ref­er­ee said before the toss it was with ‘great pride, great hon­or, to wel­come our Com­man­der in Chief, our Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, Don­ald J. Trump. Mr. Pres­i­dent, thank you for all that you do.’
    Trump sat on the Army side of the field in the first half and crossed the field to the Navy side for the sec­ond half.

    In 2016, Army snapped Navy´s 14-game win­ning streak and has won three years in a row. But the Mid­ship­men rout­ed Army’s Black Knights 31–7 on Sat­ur­day. They had entered the game as a sig­nif­i­cant favorite. 

    How the ‘OK’ sign came to be asso­ci­at­ed with white suprema­cy:

    The his­toric hand sign for OK — touch­ing the fore­fin­ger to thumb with oth­er three fin­gers raised — is a for­mer­ly inno­cent sym­bol that has recent­ly been co-opt­ed by the far right. 

    The sym­bol­’s co-option by racists began as a joke on far-right mes­sag­ing site 4Chan — where users took an inno­cent ges­ture and pre­tend­ed there was a hid­den mean­ing behind it, hop­ing to trick left-lean­ing peo­ple into out­rage. 

    But the joke esca­lat­ed and soon the sym­bol was being wide­ly used among far-right extrem­ists, lead­ing some peo­ple to con­clude it has changed its mean­ing. 

    PHOTOS: The ‘OK’ hand ges­ture (left) is now some­times asso­ci­at­ed with white suprema­cy despite its usu­al­ly inno­cent mean­ing. Bren­ton Tar­rant, the Aus­tralian man arrest­ed for killing 51 peo­ple at mosques in New Zealand ear­li­er this year, is seen right mak­ing the ges­ture in court in March

    Con­ser­v­a­tive Vin­er Piz­za Par­ty Ben and the alt-right’s for­mer pin-up boy Milo Yiannopou­los began mak­ing the ges­ture at var­i­ous cam­paign events for Don­ald Trump in the lead up to the 2016 elec­tion.

    White suprema­cist Richard Spencer also flashed the sign on elec­tion night in 2016 in front of a Trump Hotel with the cap­tion ‘Tonight’s the night.’

    The sym­bol has con­tin­ued to be used, includ­ing alleged­ly by White House intern Jack Breuer in 2017, pho­tographed mak­ing the OK sign in his class pho­to, who claimed he was copy­ing the pres­i­den­t’s ges­ture of touch­ing his index fin­ger and thumb while speak­ing. 

    The pop­u­lar emo­ji has been reg­is­tered as a hate sym­bol by the US-based Anti-Defama­tion League, but the group warned it is still ‘over­whelm­ing­ly’ used to show approval or that some­one is OK. 

    Oth­ers use it as part of a ‘cir­cle game’ cre­at­ed on US TV show Mal­colm in the Mid­dle, which involves some­one mak­ing the ges­ture and hold­ing it below their waist. If some­one else looks at it, they get a punch in the arm.   

    ——————————————-
    This issue was also cov­ered in the Guardian which stat­ed: “The US army and navy acad­e­mies are inves­ti­gat­ing hand signs flashed by stu­dents that can be asso­ci­at­ed with “white pow­er” and were tele­vised dur­ing the Army-Navy foot­ball game on Sat­ur­day, school offi­cials said.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/15/army-navy-white-power-hand-signals?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    Posted by Mary Benton | December 19, 2019, 3:23 pm
  28. Here’s a set of arti­cles that under­score just how close we are to a sit­u­a­tion in the US where Pres­i­dent Trump real­ly does issue a gen­er­al call for open war­fare against ‘the left’ on the streets of Amer­i­ca. Like actu­al shoot­ing war­fare, although it would­n’t real­ly be ‘war’ so much as a gov­ern­ment-sanc­tioned one-sided slaugh­ter of left-lean­ing indi­vid­u­als jus­ti­fied by bad faith dirty trick­sters and car­ried out by Trump-loy­al­ist mili­tias (in oth­er words, the white nation­al­ist dream sce­nario):

    First, here’s an arti­cle about a leaked tele­con­fer­ence call between Trump and US gov­er­nors regard­ing the response to the nation­wide police bru­tal­i­ty protests that have erupt­ed in the wake of the killing of George Floyd. A call where Trump berates gov­er­nors for being ‘weak’ and calls for mass arrests and long jail sen­tences for pro­tes­tors:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    Trump slams gov­er­nors as ‘weak,’ urges crack­down on protests

    By JONATHAN LEMIRE, ZEKE MILLER and ALAN SUDERMAN
    06/01/2020 16:00:38 GMT ‑500 (Cen­tral Day­light Time)

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump on Mon­day derid­ed many gov­er­nors as “weak” and demand­ed tougher crack­downs on burn­ing and steal­ing among some demon­stra­tions in the after­math of vio­lent protests in dozens of Amer­i­can cities.

    Trump spoke to gov­er­nors on a video tele­con­fer­ence that also includ­ed law enforce­ment and nation­al secu­ri­ty offi­cials, telling the state lead­ers they “have to get much tougher.”

    “Most of you are weak,” Trump said. “You have to arrest peo­ple.”

    The days of protests were trig­gered by the death of George Floyd, a black man who died when a white Min­neapo­lis police offi­cer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for sev­er­al min­utes even after he stopped mov­ing and plead­ing for air. The demon­stra­tions turned vio­lent in sev­er­al cities, with peo­ple trash­ing stores, smash­ing and burn­ing police cars and ignit­ing fires in his­toric Lafayette Park across from the White House.

    The pres­i­dent urged the gov­er­nors to deploy the Nation­al Guard, which he cred­it­ed for help­ing calm the sit­u­a­tion Sun­day night in Min­neapo­lis. He demand­ed that sim­i­lar­ly tough mea­sures be tak­en in cities that also expe­ri­enced vio­lence, includ­ing New York, Philadel­phia and Los Ange­les.

    “You’ve got to arrest peo­ple, you have to track peo­ple, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll nev­er see this stuff again,” said Trump. “We’re doing it in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. We’re going to do some­thing that peo­ple haven’t seen before.”

    The pres­i­dent told the gov­er­nors they were mak­ing them­selves “look like fools” for not call­ing up more of the Nation­al Guard as a show for force on city streets.

    Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Barr, who was also on the call, told gov­er­nors that a joint ter­ror­ist task force would be used to track agi­ta­tors and urged local offi­cials to “dom­i­nate” the streets and con­trol, not react to crowds. He urged the gov­er­nors to “go after trou­ble­mak­ers.”

    Trump’s angry exhor­ta­tions at the nation’s gov­er­nors came after a Sun­day night of esca­lat­ing vio­lence, images of fires and loot­ing and clash­es with police fill­ing the nation’s air­waves and over­shad­ow­ing the large­ly peace­ful protests. The protests had grown so heat­ed Fri­day night that the Secret Ser­vice rushed the pres­i­dent to an under­ground bunker pre­vi­ous­ly used dur­ing ter­ror­ist attacks.

    On Mon­day, Trump also spoke of try­ing to crim­i­nal­ize flag-burn­ing. The Supreme Court has con­ser­v­a­tive new mem­bers since it last ruled on that issue, and Trump said that “I think it’s time to review that again.”

    He con­tin­ued his effort to project strength, using inflam­ma­to­ry tweets and deliv­er­ing par­ti­san attacks.

    As cities have burned night after night and images of vio­lence have dom­i­nat­ed tele­vi­sion cov­er­age, Trump’s advis­ers have dis­cussed the prospect of an Oval Office address in an attempt to ease ten­sions. The notion was quick­ly scrapped for lack of pol­i­cy pro­pos­als and the president’s own seem­ing dis­in­ter­est in deliv­er­ing a mes­sage of uni­ty.

    ...

    The demon­stra­tions in Wash­ing­ton appeared to catch offi­cers by sur­prise. They sparked one of the high­est alerts at the White House com­plex since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

    Trump has told advis­ers he wor­ries about his safe­ty, while both pri­vate­ly and pub­licly prais­ing the work of the Secret Ser­vice.

    Demon­stra­tors returned Sun­day after­noon, fac­ing off against police at Lafayette Park into the evening. Trump retweet­ed a mes­sage from a con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor encour­ag­ing author­i­ties to respond with greater force.

    “This isn’t going to stop until the good guys are will­ing to use over­whelm­ing force against the bad guys,” Buck Sex­ton wrote in a mes­sage ampli­fied by the pres­i­dent.

    In recent days secu­ri­ty at the White House has been rein­forced by the Nation­al Guard and addi­tion­al per­son­nel from the Secret Ser­vice and the U.S. Park Police.

    The Jus­tice Depart­ment deployed mem­bers of the U.S. Mar­shals Ser­vice and agents from the Drug Enforce­ment Admin­is­tra­tion to sup­ple­ment Nation­al Guard troops out­side the White House, accord­ing to a senior Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cial. The offi­cial could not dis­cuss the mat­ter pub­licly and spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

    ———–

    “Trump slams gov­er­nors as ‘weak,’ urges crack­down on protests” by JONATHAN LEMIRE, ZEKE MILLER and ALAN SUDERMAN; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 06/01/2020

    ““You’ve got to arrest peo­ple, you have to track peo­ple, you have to put them in jail for 10 years and you’ll nev­er see this stuff again,” said Trump. “We’re doing it in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. We’re going to do some­thing that peo­ple haven’t seen before.””

    “We’re doing it in Wash­ing­ton, D.C. We’re going to do some­thing that peo­ple haven’t seen before.” A pledge of some sort of crack­down that “peo­ple haven’t seen before” in DC and exhor­ta­tions that gov­er­nors fol­low suit. That’s the lead­er­ship com­ing out of the White House house dur­ing the call to gov­er­nors. But that mes­sage was­n’t lim­it­ed to a behind-the-scenes call. Trump was open­ly retweet­ing calls for the use of “over­whelm­ing force against the bad guys.” That sure sounds like a vari­ant of ‘when the loot­ing starts, the shoot­ing starts’. So we can clear­ly see that Trump real­ly would like to declared the left as ‘the bad guys’ and ene­mies of Amer­i­ca. He’s open­ly tweet­ing this:

    ...
    Demon­stra­tors returned Sun­day after­noon, fac­ing off against police at Lafayette Park into the evening. Trump retweet­ed a mes­sage from a con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tor encour­ag­ing author­i­ties to respond with greater force.

    “This isn’t going to stop until the good guys are will­ing to use over­whelm­ing force against the bad guys,” Buck Sex­ton wrote in a mes­sage ampli­fied by the pres­i­dent.
    ...

    But it was­n’t just Trump call­ing on gov­er­nors to be much more aggres­sive with pro­tes­tors. Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Barr was also call­ing on gov­er­nors to “dom­i­nate” the streets:

    ...
    The pres­i­dent told the gov­er­nors they were mak­ing them­selves “look like fools” for not call­ing up more of the Nation­al Guard as a show for force on city streets.

    Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Barr, who was also on the call, told gov­er­nors that a joint ter­ror­ist task force would be used to track agi­ta­tors and urged local offi­cials to “dom­i­nate” the streets and con­trol, not react to crowds. He urged the gov­er­nors to “go after trou­ble­mak­ers.”
    ...

    As as the fol­low­ing TPM piece omi­nous­ly describes, Bill Bar­r’s calls for the “dom­i­na­tion” of the streets was echoed by none oth­er than Sec­re­tary of Defense Mark Esper. As the arti­cle also notes, this chill­ing phone call took place a day after Trump threat­ened to issue an exec­u­tive order declar­ing Antifa a domes­tic ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. And while legal experts appear to dis­miss that threat as some­thing Trump does­n’t have the author­i­ty to car­ry out, it’s a sign of how keen the Trump admin­is­tra­tion is on using the loot­ing and chaos emerg­ing from uniden­ti­fied actors in the George Floyd protests to cre­ate a nation­al atmos­phere of ‘war on Antifa/the Left.’ Civ­il war/race war/Helter Skel­ter real­ly is his reelec­tion strat­e­gy and the Defense Sec­re­tary is enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly on board:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    News

    Defense Sec­re­tary Calls Tur­moil On America’s Streets A ‘Bat­tle­space’ To ‘Dom­i­nate’

    By Zoë Richards
    June 1, 2020 4:36 p.m.

    Defense Sec­re­tary Mark Esper described Amer­i­can streets, which have become the site of protests and riots over the death of unarmed black man George Floyd, as a “bat­tle­space” to “dom­i­nate” in a call on Mon­day.

    “I think the soon­er that you mass and dom­i­nate the bat­tle­space, the quick­er this dis­si­pates and we can get back to the right nor­mal,” Esper said in a White House call with gov­er­nors, accord­ing to audio obtained by the Wash­ing­ton Post.

    Here’s the audio of the US sec­re­tary of defense refer­ring to Amer­i­can streets as the “bat­tle space” pic.twitter.com/SmqynReHTC— John Hud­son (@John_Hudson) June 1, 2020

    Esper and oth­er allies of Pres­i­dent Trump are eager to reel in protests that have swept across the coun­try. Many of the protests have remained peace­ful, with calls for racial equal­i­ty and an end to police bru­tal­i­ty. But sev­er­al flash points have erupt­ed, with loot­ing, torch­ing of prop­er­ty and vio­lent exchanges with police.

    ...

    The president’s call to des­ig­nate “antifa” as a domes­tic ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion in a tweet Sun­day seems to have incit­ed some mem­bers of Con­gress to advo­cate the use of vio­lence and force against their fel­low Amer­i­cans. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑FL) tweet­ed his desire to “hunt them down” in the tra­di­tion of Amer­i­cans hunt­ing ter­ror­ists “in the Mid­dle East.”

    Now that we clear­ly see Antifa as ter­ror­ists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Mid­dle East?— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) June 1, 2020

    After a com­menter respond­ed with­in min­utes to Gaetz’s tweet sug­gest­ing that the tweet pro­mot­ed vio­lence, Gaetz shot back in a tone that echoed Trump’s rebuke of gov­er­nors that “weak­ness” incites vio­lence.

    ————

    “Defense Sec­re­tary Calls Tur­moil On America’s Streets A ‘Bat­tle­space’ To ‘Dom­i­nate’” by Zoë Richards; Talk­ing Points Memo; 06/01/2020

    ““I think the soon­er that you mass and dom­i­nate the bat­tle­space, the quick­er this dis­si­pates and we can get back to the right nor­mal,” Esper said in a White House call with gov­er­nors, accord­ing to audio obtained by the Wash­ing­ton Post.”

    Dom­i­nat­ing the bat­tle­space. That’s how the White House is encour­ag­ing gov­er­nors to think about this sit­u­a­tion. Dom­i­nat­ing a bat­tle­space where any­one who can be asso­ci­at­ed with Antifa is con­sid­ered a dan­ger­ous ter­ror­ist who should be hunt­ed down. That’s lit­er­al­ly what Trump-toady con­gress­man Matt Gaetz glee­ful­ly called for in response to the threat to des­ig­nate Antifa a domes­tic ter­ror­ist group: a wish to “hunt them down”:

    ...
    The president’s call to des­ig­nate “antifa” as a domes­tic ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion in a tweet Sun­day seems to have incit­ed some mem­bers of Con­gress to advo­cate the use of vio­lence and force against their fel­low Amer­i­cans. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R‑FL) tweet­ed his desire to “hunt them down” in the tra­di­tion of Amer­i­cans hunt­ing ter­ror­ists “in the Mid­dle East.”

    Now that we clear­ly see Antifa as ter­ror­ists, can we hunt them down like we do those in the Mid­dle East?— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) June 1, 2020

    After a com­menter respond­ed with­in min­utes to Gaetz’s tweet sug­gest­ing that the tweet pro­mot­ed vio­lence, Gaetz shot back in a tone that echoed Trump’s rebuke of gov­er­nors that “weak­ness” incites vio­lence.
    ...

    And Rep. Gaetz was­n’t the only Repub­li­can elect­ed offi­cial enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly back­ing Trump’s threat of using mil­i­tary force on pro­test­ers. Sen­a­tor Tom Cot­ton, a noto­ri­ous hawk when it comes to the us of US mil­i­tary force over­sees, demon­strat­ed his enthu­si­asm for using that force domes­ti­cal­ly when he tweet­ed out a call to do “what­ev­er it takes to restore order. No quar­ter for insur­rec­tion­ists, anar­chists, riot­ers, and loot­ers.” That’s where we are: calls for “no quar­ter” against the pro­test­ers. And yes, these calls are osten­si­bly only against large­ly fic­tion­al mil­i­tant antifa “bad guys”, but this is the kind of sit­u­a­tion where “bad guys” is a high­ly vague def­i­n­i­tion and could eas­i­ly encom­pass vir­tu­al­ly all of the pro­test­ers. After all, the pres­i­dent is threat­en­ing to make self-described antifas­cists domes­tic ter­ror­ists. It’s unclear who won’t be con­sid­ered a ‘bad guy’ under those def­i­n­i­tions:

    Talk­ing Points Memo

    Cot­ton Urges Trump To Deploy Mil­i­tary Forces Against ‘Anar­chist’ Pro­test­ers

    By Sum­mer Con­cep­cion
    June 1, 2020 12:14 p.m.

    Sen. Tom Cot­ton (R‑AR) echoed Pres­i­dent Trump’s threat to deploy the “unlim­it­ed pow­er” of the mil­i­tary amid mount­ing protests over the death of George Floyd, dur­ing an inter­view on “Fox and Friends” on Mon­day.

    After com­mend­ing the Pres­i­dent for say­ing that he will declare “ANTIFA” as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion, Cot­ton said that he finds the video of Floyd’s death “deeply dis­turb­ing.” The Arkansas sen­a­tor then called on the Jus­tice Depart­ment to inves­ti­gate Floyd’s death, insist­ing that “the anar­chy, riot­ing and loot­ing” needs to end tonight.

    Cot­ton went on to add that “the riots and the anar­chy” from recent protests “have noth­ing to do with” Floyd’s death. He urged the Pres­i­dent to deploy mil­i­tary police to quell the vio­lence that has emerged from the protests.

    “What the Pres­i­dent can do is say that jus­tice will be done in accor­dance with law for George Floyd and we will always respect the right of peace­ful protest as many of these cities saw in the day­time, but the riot­ing, the anar­chy and the loot­ing ends tonight,” Cot­ton said. “If local law enforce­ment is over­whelmed, if local politi­cians will not do their most basic job to pro­tect our cit­i­zens, let’s see how these anar­chists respond when the 101st air­borne is on the oth­er side of the street.”

    Cot­ton, who’s known to be a Trump ally, reit­er­at­ed his call to the Pres­i­dent in a Mon­day tweet say­ing that he should do “what­ev­er it takes to restore order.”

    And, if nec­es­sary, the 10th Moun­tain, 82nd Air­borne, 1st Cav, 3rd Infantry—whatever it takes to restore order. No quar­ter for insur­rec­tion­ists, anar­chists, riot­ers, and loot­ers. https://t.co/OnNJmnDrYM— Tom Cot­ton (@TomCottonAR) June 1, 2020

    ....

    ————

    “Cot­ton Urges Trump To Deploy Mil­i­tary Forces Against ‘Anar­chist’ Pro­test­ers” by Sum­mer Con­cep­cion; Talk­ing Points Memo; 06/01/2020

    ““What the Pres­i­dent can do is say that jus­tice will be done in accor­dance with law for George Floyd and we will always respect the right of peace­ful protest as many of these cities saw in the day­time, but the riot­ing, the anar­chy and the loot­ing ends tonight,” Cot­ton said. “If local law enforce­ment is over­whelmed, if local politi­cians will not do their most basic job to pro­tect our cit­i­zens, let’s see how these anar­chists respond when the 101st air­borne is on the oth­er side of the street.””

    That’s a pret­ty clear call for mar­tial law by Sen­a­tor Cot­ton. You have to won­der what Alex Jones has to say about this. Will he be only mild­ly sup­port­ive or super sup­port­ive? We’ll see, but relat­ed to that ques­tion of how the ‘patri­ot­ic’ wing of the far right will response to Trump’s threats of mar­tial law, here’s an arti­cle from Right Wing Watch about far right per­son­al­i­ty Bren­den putting out a video that basi­cal­ly pleads with Trump to call for the mili­tias to come out to the streets and start shoot­ing pro­test­ers. And Dil­ley puts it, there’s a legion of Trump sup­port­ers just wait­ing for Trump to give them “the green light” to go into the streets and start killing pro­test­ers:

    Right Wing Watch

    Bren­den Dil­ley Is Just Wait­ing Until Trump ‘Gives Us the Green Light’ to Start Gun­ning Down Pro­test­ers

    By Kyle Manty­la | June 1, 2020 3:21 pm

    MAGA “life coach” and proud­ly amoral right-wing broad­cast­er Bren­den Dil­ley said dur­ing his livestream pro­gram today that he and mil­lions of oth­er gun-lov­ing Amer­i­cans are just wait­ing until Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump “gives us the green light” to take to the streets and start gun­ning down activists who have been protest­ing all over the coun­try fol­low­ing the police killing of George Floyd.

    “Some­one should polite­ly explain to antifa [that] the most vio­lent Amer­i­cans, the most vio­lent and will­ing Amer­i­cans, haven’t even left the couch yet,” Dil­ley said. “The most vio­lent and ready to go, the most tac­ti­cal­ly trained, haven’t even got off the couch yet. So you bet­ter pray to God, and I mean this literally—or who­ev­er the fu ck it is you pray to—that Don­ald J. Trump, Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, and Attor­ney Gen­er­al Barr clean this up law­ful­ly.”

    “If for any rea­son the pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States feels that it’s not get­ting done the way it should and decides to put out the tweet that says, ‘My fel­low Amer­i­cans, my fel­low 2A-lov­ing Amer­i­cans, it’s time to take up arms against these ass­holes,’ you are all fu cked in under an hour,” he con­tin­ued. “[We’re] wait­ing for that one tweet, that one emer­gency text mes­sage from the fu cking pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States that gives us the green light to fin­ish this entire thing in under an hour.”

    “It will not be law enforce­ment. It will not be one of these slow, bureau­crat­ic, jus­tice sys­tem wheels of jus­tice turn­ing,” Dil­ley con­clud­ed. “It’ll be a group of peo­ple you didn’t even know fu cking exist­ed because we were at our hous­es, we got off work, we were with our fam­i­lies, but we were ready for that call. And if that call ever does come, you will be fu cked sev­en ways from Sun­day. So I sug­gest you back down.”

    ———-

    “Bren­den Dil­ley Is Just Wait­ing Until Trump ‘Gives Us the Green Light’ to Start Gun­ning Down Pro­test­ers” by Kyle Manty­la; Right Wing Watch; 06/01/2020

    ““If for any rea­son the pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States feels that it’s not get­ting done the way it should and decides to put out the tweet that says, ‘My fel­low Amer­i­cans, my fel­low 2A-lov­ing Amer­i­cans, it’s time to take up arms against these ass­holes,’ you are all fu cked in under an hour,” he con­tin­ued. “[We’re] wait­ing for that one tweet, that one emer­gency text mes­sage from the fu cking pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States that gives us the green light to fin­ish this entire thing in under an hour.”

    “[We’re] wait­ing for that one tweet, that one emer­gency text mes­sage from the fu cking pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States that gives us the green light to fin­ish this entire thing in under an hour.” That’s how volatile the sit­u­a­tion is: the mili­tias are wait­ing for Trump to tweet out per­mis­sion to go out and slaugh­ter the Left. This is a pres­i­dent that rou­tine­ly sends out vague­ly inter­pretable tweets on a near dai­ly basis. How long before he ‘acci­den­tal­ly’ tweets out some­thing that gets wide­ly inter­pret­ed as that ‘green light’?

    And note that, while many have crit­i­cized Trump’s threat to declare Antifa a domes­tic ter­ror group as non­sense in part because there isn’t actu­al­ly a for­mal Antifa group, that vague­ness just means it will be up to the peo­ple ‘hunt­ing down’ Antifa mem­bers to decide who is a mem­ber of Antifa. Are you a Trump loy­al­ist who sup­ports the mass round­ing up of Antifa mem­bers? No? Well then you are clear­ly an Antifa mem­ber. That’s the kind of dynam­ic we’re see­ing devel­op.

    Don’t for­get that the grand prize of the far right has long been com­ing up with a grand excuse for the future his­to­ry books for why they just had to vio­lent­ly sup­press the polit­i­cal left and lead a insur­rec­tion that bru­tal­ly sub­ju­gates any polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion. Phys­i­cal­ly and per­ma­nent­ly elim­i­nat­ing the left in a man­ner that does­n’t so moral­ly repulse the sur­vivors that it desta­bi­lizes the new far right regime: that’s the big chal­lenge that fig­ures like Steve Ban­non and right-wing media forces have been work­ing on for years which is why com­ing up with an excuse for why that kind of mass vio­lence has to hap­pen has been a top pri­or­i­ty in terms of right-wing rhetoric. It’s why right-wing rhetoric rou­tine­ly dehu­man­izes the left and por­trays it has an inhu­man plot against decent Amer­i­cans. It’s what the whole QAnon phe­nom­e­na is about: Con­vinc­ing a large num­ber of con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­cans that they have no choice but to vio­lent­ly sup­press the glob­al­ist Satan­ic pedophile left. And, lo and behold, we find that Trump retweet­ed a QAnon account on Sat­ur­day. Because of course he did. QAnon is ded­i­cat­ed to con­vinc­ing con­ser­v­a­tives that they real­ly are under some sort of exis­ten­tial threat from the left and the only solu­tion is civ­il war. Retweet­ing QAnon memes is com­plete­ly con­sis­tent with this broad­er strat­e­gy. A broad­er strat­e­gy that’s been an iron­ic source of sta­bil­i­ty amidst all of the chaos of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion: no mat­ter how chaot­ic he’s been, Trump has been con­sis­tent in his por­tray­al of the Amer­i­can left as a fun­da­men­tal­ly ille­git­i­mate force in Amer­i­ca that pos­es a threat to ‘real Amer­i­cans’ and will have to be ‘dealt with’ at some point in the future. It’s nev­er clear when that point will arrive where con­ser­v­a­tive Amer­i­ca has ‘had enough’ and ris­es up to ‘do some­thing’. We haven’t reached that point of open slaugh­ter of the left but we’re almost there. It’s always get­ting clos­er and clos­er. That’s been the con­sis­tent mes­sage com­ing from the Trump admin­is­tra­tion and with the attor­ney gen­er­al and sec­re­tary of defense now open­ly back­ing Trump’s calls for a mil­i­tary crack­down it’s look­ing like that point of open slaugh­ter of the left is about one inflam­ma­to­ry vague­ly inter­pretable pres­i­den­tial tweet away.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 1, 2020, 6:05 pm
  29. Are we see­ing the con­tours of a far right false flag mur­der plot to kill inflame ten­sions between pro­test­ers over the death of George Floyd and law enforce­ment? It’s start­ing to look like that with the FBI hav­ing announced that it’s inves­ti­gat­ing whether or not an Air Force sergeant who was just arrest­ed on Sat­ur­day over an ambush attack on Cal­i­for­nia sher­iffs is con­nect­ed to the May 29 ran­dom dri­ve-by mur­der of a fed­er­al secu­ri­ty guard near­by some of the protests.

    Here’s what we know so far: Steven Car­ril­lo — a 32 year old US Air Force sergeant assigned to the 60th Secu­ri­ty Forces Squadron based at Travis Air Force Base in Fair­field, Cal­i­for­nia — was involved in a shootout with three deputies in the San­ta Cruz Moun­tains on Sat­ur­day. The shootout appears to have been trig­gered by a 911 call about a sus­pi­cious ban in with guns and bomb-mak­ing mate­r­i­al inside that was parked off the road. The van pulled away right when deputies arrived. They fol­lowed it to Car­ril­lo’s house in Ben Lomond and when they approached the vehi­cle they were met with gun­fire and mul­ti­ple impro­vised explo­sives thrown at them. One deputy, Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, was killed and oth­ers were injured. Car­ril­lo was tak­en into cus­tody alive after being shot and wound­ed.

    Here’s the tie-in to a pre­vi­ous mur­der that sus­pi­cious took place near­by some of the George Floyd protests: on May 29th, Fed­er­al Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices Offi­cer Dave Patrick Under­wood was killed with stand­ing out­side guard­ing the Ronald V. Del­lums Fed­er­al Build­ing dur­ing protests. A white van with no license plates was seen speed­ing away from the crime scene. As we’ll see in the third arti­cle excerpt below, they have it nar­rowed down to a white 1997–2002 Ford E‑250 or E‑350, so it’s a more spe­cif­ic descrip­tion than just “a white van” and Car­ril­lo’s van pre­sum­ably match­es that descrip­tion. The descrip­tion of a mys­tery van that appeared to sense­less­ly mur­der a fed­er­al secu­ri­ty guard right near­by the George Floyd protests which is pre­cise­ly what we would expect from the ‘Booga­loo Bois’ and oth­er far right groups who have been open­ly talk­ing with each oth­er about stag­ing vio­lent attacks against law enforce­ment in the mid­dle of the protests in order to cre­ate chaos.

    So is there any­thing in Car­ril­lo’s back­ground or state­ments that would sug­gest a motive? Well, as we’ll see, Car­ril­lo, who is His­pan­ic, report­ed­ly expressed dis­gusts over police bru­tal­i­ty both on Face­book and after get­ting arrest­ed, telling offi­cers, “This is what I came here to fight. I’m sick of these god­damn police.” And yet as we’ll see, his Face­book page also indi­cates a Lib­er­tar­i­an ide­ol­o­gy and it turns out Car­ril­lo is essen­tial­ly an elite Air Force mil­i­tary police offi­cer. He’s a team leader in the elite Phoenix Raven unit, a group describes as pro­vid­ing “secu­ri­ty for Air Mobil­i­ty Com­mand air­craft tran­sit­ing high ter­ror­ist and crim­i­nal threat areas.” So a Lib­er­tar­i­an elite mil­i­tary police offi­cer ran­dom­ly mur­ders a secu­ri­ty guard for no appar­ent rea­son near­by the George Floyd protests and was dri­ving around with bomb-mak­ing mate­ri­als. And when he’s caught and arrest­ed after a dead­ly shootout he tells offi­cers he did it all over being upset over the police. Hmm­mm....:

    ABC News

    FBI probes pos­si­ble link between Air Force sergeant sus­pect­ed in ambush killing of CA deputy and offi­cer’s mur­der
    A fed­er­al offi­cer was shot to death dur­ing protests in Oak­land on May 29.

    By Bill Hutchin­son, Alex Stone, Josh Mar­golin and Eliz­a­beth McLaugh­lin
    June 7, 2020, 3:31 PM

    An active-duty U.S. Air Force sergeant sus­pect­ed of wield­ing a rifle and impro­vised explo­sives in the ambush killing of a 38-year-old North­ern Cal­i­for­nia sher­if­f’s deputy is also being inves­ti­gat­ed for a pos­si­ble con­nec­tion to the fatal shoot­ing last month of a fed­er­al offi­cer dur­ing a protest in Oak­land, mul­ti­ple sources told ABC News on Sun­day.

    The sus­pect, Steven Car­ril­lo, 32, was tak­en into cus­tody on Sat­ur­day after he was wound­ed in a shootout with law enforce­ment offi­cers in the San­ta Cruz Moun­tains, about 35 miles west of San Jose, offi­cials said.

    Car­ril­lo is alleged to have fatal­ly shot Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller and injured anoth­er deputy when he attacked them with a rifle and mul­ti­ple impro­vised explo­sives in Ben Lomond, Cal­i­for­nia, author­i­ties said. A Cal­i­for­nia High­way Patrol offi­cer was also wound­ed dur­ing a shootout that erupt­ed as offi­cers moved to take Car­ril­lo into cus­tody, offi­cials said.

    “In my 32-year career, this is my worst day I’ve ever expe­ri­enced,” San­ta Cruz Coun­ty Sher­iff Jim Hart said at a news con­fer­ence on Sat­ur­day evening. “Today we lost one of our own and he was a true hero.”

    Car­ril­lo is an active-duty sergeant assigned to the 60th Secu­ri­ty Forces Squadron based at Travis Air Force Base in Fair­field, Cal­i­for­nia, about 100 miles north­east of Ben Lomond, 2nd Lt. Mike Lon­go­ria, a spokesman for the base, told ABC News on Sun­day. Lon­go­ria referred all oth­er ques­tions about Car­ril­lo to the San­ta Cruz Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Office.

    Mul­ti­ple law enforce­ment sources told ABC News that the FBI is inves­ti­gat­ing a pos­si­ble link between the dead­ly ambush in San­ta Cruz Coun­ty and the May 29 killing of Fed­er­al Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices Offi­cer Dave Patrick Under­wood in Oak­land.

    Under­wood, 53, was guard­ing the Ronald V. Del­lums Fed­er­al Build­ing dur­ing protests that broke out in the Bay Area city over the police-involved killing of George Floyd in Min­neapo­lis, Min­neso­ta, when he was shot to death while stand­ing out­side the build­ing, offi­cials said.

    A white car­go van that appeared to not have license plates was spot­ted rac­ing from the scene of Under­wood’s slay­ing, accord­ing to the FBI, who released secu­ri­ty pho­tos of the vehi­cle last week. The FBI warned that the “occu­pants of the van should be con­sid­ered armed and dan­ger­ous.”

    The dead­ly attack on Sat­ur­day unfold­ed after a caller con­tact­ed a 911 dis­patch­er at 1:30 p.m. to report see­ing guns and bomb-mak­ing mate­r­i­al inside a sus­pi­cious van parked off the road in the San­ta Cruz Moun­tains, Hart said.

    Gutzwiller and oth­er sher­if­f’s deputies arrived at the scene just as the van was pulling away. They fol­lowed the van to a house in Ben Lomond and as they approached the vehi­cle gun­fire rang out.

    “As deputies began inves­ti­gat­ing, they were ambushed with gun­fire and mul­ti­ple impro­vised explo­sives,” Hart said.

    Anoth­er deputy was either shot or struck by bomb shrap­nel and was hit by a vehi­cle as the sus­pect drove out of the dri­ve­way of the home, he said.

    With­in min­utes after the attack, 911 dis­patch­ers received mul­ti­ple calls from peo­ple report­ing a car­jack­ing near­by and offi­cers from police agen­cies through­out San­ta Cruz Coun­ty raced to the scene, accord­ing to Hart.

    He said Car­ril­lo was arrest­ed after being shot and wound­ed. He said a Cal­i­for­nia High­way Patrol offi­cer was also shot in the hand dur­ing the ordeal.

    Car­ril­lo was tak­en to a local hos­pi­tal where he was treat­ed and released to the cus­tody of sher­if­f’s deputies.

    The FBI and the San­ta Cruz Dis­trict Attor­ney’s Office are inves­ti­gat­ing the inci­dent.

    Hart said Car­il­lo was arrest­ed on charges of mur­der, assault with a dead­ly weapon, car­jack­ing “and a myr­i­ad of oth­er charges.”

    “There’s a lot that we don’t know at this point. It’s still a very flu­id sit­u­a­tion,” Hart said. “I ask that the com­mu­ni­ty be patient as we go through this inves­ti­ga­tion and the griev­ing process.”

    ...

    An Air Force spokesper­son said Car­ril­lo arrived at Travis Air Force Base in June 2018 and was a team leader on the Phoenix Raven unit. That group is com­prised of “spe­cial­ly trained secu­ri­ty forces per­son­nel ded­i­cat­ed to pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty for Air Mobil­i­ty Com­mand air­craft tran­sit­ing high ter­ror­ist and crim­i­nal threat areas,” accord­ing to an Air Force web­site.

    ————

    “FBI probes pos­si­ble link between Air Force sergeant sus­pect­ed in ambush killing of CA deputy and offi­cer’s mur­der” by Bill Hutchin­son, Alex Stone, Josh Mar­golin and Eliz­a­beth McLaugh­lin; ABC News; 06/07/2020

    An Air Force spokesper­son said Car­ril­lo arrived at Travis Air Force Base in June 2018 and was a team leader on the Phoenix Raven unit. That group is com­prised of “spe­cial­ly trained secu­ri­ty forces per­son­nel ded­i­cat­ed to pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty for Air Mobil­i­ty Com­mand air­craft tran­sit­ing high ter­ror­ist and crim­i­nal threat areas,” accord­ing to an Air Force web­site.”

    Yep, this guy was a team leader on the Phoenix Raven unit. That’s lit­er­al­ly elite Air Force mil­i­tary police. And yet, as the fol­low­ing arti­cle describes, Car­ril­lo was quite open after get­ting arrest­ed with his motive: “This is what I came here to fight. I’m sick of these god­damn police.”

    And yet, as reporters dis­cov­ered, his friends from the Air Force were absolute­ly stunned that he would have done some­thing like this. While his Face­book page is already down jour­nal­ists cap­tures a pro­file pic­ture that lists him as a Lib­er­tar­i­an. But it also turns out he was post­ing on Face­book var­i­ous mes­sages sym­pa­thet­ic to the pro­test­ers. For exam­ple, on June 5th, he wrote, “Who need antifa to start riots when you have the police to do it for you...” And on May 31st he repost­ed a meme that said, “I’ll nev­er let racist white peo­ple make me for­get about the dope white peo­ple I know exist. I love y’all.” The post includes fist emo­jis of dif­fer­ent skin tones, and both of the “whites” in the meme were crossed out. Car­ril­lo wrote, “The only race that mat­ters, the human race.” That’s the ear­li­est exam­ple list­ed in the arti­cle of Car­ril­lo post­ing memes relat­ed to race rela­tions and police bru­tal­i­ty on his Face­book page. And what’s inter­est­ing about that is, of course, that all of these posts came after the shoot­ing of Dave Patrick Under­wood on May 29. So it would be inter­est­ing to know if these types of posts lit­er­al­ly only start­ed show­ing up on his Face­book page after May 29 or if there’s a longer-track record of this. Either way, the fact of the mat­ter is this was a Lib­er­tar­i­an mil­i­tary police offi­cer who appears to be behind this law enforce­ment killing spree alleged­ly moti­vat­ed by out­rage over police bru­tal­i­ty:

    ABC News7

    I‑TEAM: Air Force sergeant arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion for killing of deputy in San­ta Cruz Coun­ty

    By Dan Noyes
    Mon­day, June 8, 2020 1:21AM

    BEN LOMOND, Calif. (KGO) — The ABC7 I‑Team has new infor­ma­tion about the sus­pect in the death of 38-year-old San­ta Cruz Coun­ty Sher­if­f’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller.

    ...

    The FBI is inves­ti­gat­ing whether Car­ril­lo is also respon­si­ble for the shoot­ing at the Oak­land Fed­er­al Build­ing that killed secu­ri­ty offi­cer Pat Under­wood and injured his part­ner on May 29th. Secu­ri­ty cam­eras caught this white van as the side door opened and gun­fire erupt­ed.

    Sat­ur­day’s inci­dent began when some­one spot­ted Car­ril­lo in a white van with weapons and bomb-mak­ing mate­ri­als. Sher­if­f’s deputies fol­lowed the van back to his Ben Lomond house, where author­i­ties say he ambushed offi­cers, fir­ing on them and throw­ing explo­sives, killing Sgt. Gutzwiller. He bolt­ed in a white sedan, hit­ting anoth­er offi­cer. A female deputy was on the radio when that hap­pened; you can hear her scream.

    Short­ly after his arrest, Car­ril­lo may have revealed a motive for the attack.

    Dur­ing his arrest, Steven Car­ril­lo shout­ed at offi­cers, “This is what I came here to fight. I’m sick of these god­damn police.”

    He gets gar­bled, but then men­tions police “use of force”.

    Car­ril­lo yelled, “Lis­ten!”

    The I‑Team has con­firmed Car­ril­lo is an active duty mil­i­tary police offi­cer, a staff sergeant at Travis Air Force Base in Fair­field. His for­mer col­leagues are baf­fled that, in effect, a cop would tar­get cops.

    His friend, Justin Ehrhardt, is a retired Air Force mil­i­tary police offi­cer. “It just breaks my heart, the offi­cers who were impact­ed and their fam­i­lies, we’re sup­posed to be on the same side.”

    Ehrhardt told us he spoke with Car­ril­lo just a month ago, about his plans to retire from the ser­vice. “He was look­ing for­ward to get­ting out of Cal­i­for­nia, but there was noth­ing even brought up in a neg­a­tive light bout any­thing with police at all.”

    Car­ril­lo’s Face­book page has been tak­en down, but I cap­tured his pro­file pic­ture that lists him as Lib­er­tar­i­an, and his friends have been send­ing me screen­shots from the past month. It’s clear Car­ril­lo was grow­ing increas­ing­ly upset about police exces­sive force. June 5th, he wrote, “Who need antifa to start riots when you have the police to do it for you...”

    Just min­utes before yes­ter­day’s killing, he post­ed this from the Holo­caust Muse­um — “the ear­ly warn­ing signs of Fas­cism”.

    On his Face­book page on May 31, Car­ril­lo repost­ed a meme that said, “I’ll nev­er let racist white peo­ple make me for­get about the dope white peo­ple I know exist. I love y’all.” The post includes fist emo­jis of dif­fer­ent skin tones, and both of the “whites” in the meme were crossed out. Car­ril­lo wrote, “The only race that mat­ters, the human race.

    Justin Ehrhardt tells us, Car­ril­lo was also hav­ing a hard time with his wife’s sui­cide in 2018. She was an Air Force Air­man 1st Class, found dead in an off-base hotel in South Car­oli­na.

    “A lot of regret, I think was there and it was just chal­leng­ing for him. But even with all that none of us the peo­ple I talked to who were sta­tioned with him even once thought this would hap­pen at all.”

    ———–

    “I‑TEAM: Air Force sergeant arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion for killing of deputy in San­ta Cruz Coun­ty” by Dan Noyes; ABC News7; 06/08/2020

    “The I‑Team has con­firmed Car­ril­lo is an active duty mil­i­tary police offi­cer, a staff sergeant at Travis Air Force Base in Fair­field. His for­mer col­leagues are baf­fled that, in effect, a cop would tar­get cops.”

    A cop tar­get­ing cops. That’s the sit­u­a­tion here. And Car­ril­lo did­n’t hide this alleged motive. He yelled it at the police dur­ing his arrest:

    ...
    Short­ly after his arrest, Car­ril­lo may have revealed a motive for the attack.

    Dur­ing his arrest, Steven Car­ril­lo shout­ed at offi­cers, “This is what I came here to fight. I’m sick of these god­damn police.”

    He gets gar­bled, but then men­tions police “use of force”.

    Car­ril­lo yelled, “Lis­ten!”
    ...

    And yet his friends, like retired Air Force mil­i­tary police offi­cer Justin Ehrhardt, expressed shock that he would ever do this. Accord­ing to Ehrhardt, Car­ril­lo talked about retir­ing last month with him and yet “there was noth­ing even brought up in a neg­a­tive light bout any­thing with police at all.” Now, grant­ed, per­haps Car­ril­lo would­n’t be inclined to com­plain about the police to a retired mil­i­tary police offi­cer friend, but it’s inter­est­ing that all of the exam­ples giv­en of Car­ril­lo’s Face­book posts about the police came after the May 29th mur­der of Under­wood:

    ...
    His friend, Justin Ehrhardt, is a retired Air Force mil­i­tary police offi­cer. “It just breaks my heart, the offi­cers who were impact­ed and their fam­i­lies, we’re sup­posed to be on the same side.”

    Ehrhardt told us he spoke with Car­ril­lo just a month ago, about his plans to retire from the ser­vice. “He was look­ing for­ward to get­ting out of Cal­i­for­nia, but there was noth­ing even brought up in a neg­a­tive light bout any­thing with police at all.”

    Car­ril­lo’s Face­book page has been tak­en down, but I cap­tured his pro­file pic­ture that lists him as Lib­er­tar­i­an, and his friends have been send­ing me screen­shots from the past month. It’s clear Car­ril­lo was grow­ing increas­ing­ly upset about police exces­sive force. June 5th, he wrote, “Who need antifa to start riots when you have the police to do it for you...”

    Just min­utes before yes­ter­day’s killing, he post­ed this from the Holo­caust Muse­um — “the ear­ly warn­ing signs of Fas­cism”.

    On his Face­book page on May 31, Car­ril­lo repost­ed a meme that said, “I’ll nev­er let racist white peo­ple make me for­get about the dope white peo­ple I know exist. I love y’all.” The post includes fist emo­jis of dif­fer­ent skin tones, and both of the “whites” in the meme were crossed out. Car­ril­lo wrote, “The only race that mat­ters, the human race.
    ...

    So did Steven Car­ril­lo only recent­ly start express­ing con­cern about police bru­tal­i­ty fol­low­ing the out­break of the George Floyd protests or is this a long-stand­ing thing with him. In fair­ness, maybe he would­n’t have want­ed to express those kinds of sen­ti­ments while work­ing as the team leader of an elite mil­i­tary police offi­cer. But if we’re to believe he real­ly did go on this killing spree to express his out­rage over the death of George Floyd we would have to assume he’s held extreme­ly intense feel­ings about these mat­ters for a while.

    It’s also worth recall­ing that one of the fac­tors that was con­tribut­ing to the strange out­reach efforts between the far right ‘Booga­loo Bois’ move­ment and the pro­test­ers is the loathing of law enforce­ment felt by some, but not all, mem­bers of far right (espe­cial­ly the ‘accel­er­a­tionist’ neo-Nazis). So giv­en Car­ril­lo’s appar­ent lib­er­tar­i­an lean­ings it’s pos­si­ble he fell into one of those ‘lib­er­tar­i­an who hates the police’ groups. And yet this was an elite Air Force mil­i­tary police offi­cer. It’s all quite odd.

    Final­ly, here’s a short arti­cle from June 5th, the day before the shootout, about the FBI ask­ing for help to iden­ti­fy the white van involved with the May 29th shoot­ing. As the arti­cle points out, they have this van nar­rowed down to a 1997–2002 Ford E‑250 or E‑350:

    ABC7

    FBI seek­ing help iden­ti­fy­ing sus­pec­t’s van in Oak­land Fed­er­al Build­ing shoot­ing

    By Alix Mar­ti­choux
    Fri­day, June 5, 2020 4:30PM

    OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — The FBI is ask­ing for the pub­lic’s help iden­ti­fy­ing the white van dri­ven by the sus­pect or sus­pects who opened fired on the Fed­er­al Build­ing in down­town Oak­land Fri­day night.

    The shoot­er or shoot­ers hit and killed a secu­ri­ty offi­cer, Pat Under­wood. Anoth­er offi­cer was also injured.

    The FBI is look­ing for a white van that’s either a 1997–2002 Ford E‑250 or E‑350. They say the van did­n’t appear to have license plates attached at the time of the shoot­ing.

    The agency is ask­ing busi­ness own­ers and res­i­dents in the down­town area to check sur­veil­lance footage from the night of Fri­day, May 29 between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. for any sign of the van. The area they’re inter­est­ed is between Grand Avenue and 7th Street to the north and south, and Mar­ket and Web­ster streets to the west and east.

    They are also ask­ing any­one who may have infor­ma­tion on the firearms used in the attack to come for­ward.

    ...

    ———–

    “FBI seek­ing help iden­ti­fy­ing sus­pec­t’s van in Oak­land Fed­er­al Build­ing shoot­ing” by Alix Mar­ti­choux; ABC7; 06/05/2020

    “The FBI is look­ing for a white van that’s either a 1997–2002 Ford E‑250 or E‑350. They say the van did­n’t appear to have license plates attached at the time of the shoot­ing.”

    Is Steven Car­ril­lo a gen­uine­ly aggriev­ed lib­er­tar­i­an who anony­mous­ly attacked a fed­er­al build­ing right next to the protests, an act that almost seems designed to spark a broad­er con­flict between the pro­test­ers and law enforce­ment? Or was this elite mil­i­tary police offi­cer act­ing as a far right provo­ca­teur? He’s clear­ly anx­ious to play the role of the aggriev­ed pro­test­er as his admis­sions to the arrest­ing offi­cers made clear. So we’re going to see how this inves­ti­ga­tion plays out but it seems pret­ty clear that he had much more vio­lence in mind. Those IEDs in his van weren’t just for fun. He was a His­pan­ic man plan­ning on bomb­ing some­thing in the name of the pro­test­ers, which hap­pens to be the ‘Booga­loo Bois’ dream sce­nario and a pro­test­er night­mare sce­nario. A Booga­loo dream sce­nario that would have been the per­fect pre­text for send­ing mil­i­tary troops into the streets and por­trayed the pro­test­ers as a dan­ger­ous insur­gent army. Is it just a coin­ci­dence that the guy car­ry­ing out this Booga­loo dream sce­nario that would have jus­ti­fied the mil­i­tary tak­ing on domes­tic polic­ing pow­ers hap­pens to be a Lib­er­tar­i­an elite mil­i­tary pol­i­cy offi­cer? That’s what Steven Car­ril­lo would have us believe. It’s a reminder if that if there’s one major fac­tor in these protests that should uni­fy pro­test­ers with the police it’s the far right extrem­ists who are more than hap­py to get both of them killed.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 8, 2020, 1:59 pm
  30. Oh look at that: it turns out Steven Car­ril­lo — the Air Force elite mil­i­tary police team leader who killed a police offi­cer in Ben Lomond, Cal­i­for­nia, dur­ing a shootout that was trig­gered by reports of guns and bomb-mak­ing equip­ment in his van and who is sus­pect­ed of killing a fed­er­al secu­ri­ty guard near­by a police bru­tal­i­ty protest in Oak­land — hap­pened to write in blood var­i­ous ‘Booga­loo’ and Lib­er­tar­i­an slo­gans right being arrest­ed. So the guy who’s open­ing act of vio­lence was killing a fed­er­al secu­ri­ty guard David Patrick Under­wood — who hap­pened to be African Amer­i­can — appears to be a far right provo­ca­teur. Sur­prise!

    And as we’ll see in the arti­cle excerpts below, he was also using these far right slo­gans when talk­ing to var­i­ous bystanders before being appre­hend­ed. One of the phras­es he wrote in blood was sim­ply ‘boog’, a clear ‘boola­gloo’ ref­er­ence. Anoth­er was, “I become unrea­son­able”, which is a ref­er­ence to the Mar­vin Heemey­er. Heemey­er became a far right folk hero in 2004 after he lev­eled his town using a weaponized bull­doz­er — the “Kill­doz­er” — in revenge for being upset with the local zon­ing reg­u­la­tions and ref­er­ences to Heeymey and the “Kill­doz­er” are appar­ent­ly quite com­mon on ‘booga­loo’ cha­t­rooms and social media groups.

    Car­ril­lo also wrote “Stop the duop­oly”, a fre­quent slo­gan used by Lib­er­tar­i­an can­di­dates. For­mer Lib­er­tar­i­an pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Gary John­son launched a “Stop the Duop­oly” cam­paign to pro­mote third-par­ty can­di­dates in 2018. As we’ve seen, Car­ril­lo was an avowed Lib­er­tar­i­an based on his social media posts. As we’re going to see below, one of the peo­ple Car­ril­lo spoke to while flee­ing from the police before get­ting appre­hend­ed report­ed that Car­ril­lo told him, “I’m not a bad guy. I’m just sick of all the dual­i­ty bullsh*t.” He also had a his­to­ry of call­ing for the abo­li­tion of the Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobac­co, and Firearms (ATF).

    So the guy appears to have pret­ty clear anar­cho-far right lean­ings. And yet, as we’ve also seen, he start­ed post­ing anti-police bru­tal­i­ty con­tent on Face­book in the last few weeks. And now we learn that one of his last Face­book posts was a link to a group “A Gun Page for Poors Who Know They Are Poors,” a the now noto­ri­ous video of police in Buf­fa­lo shov­ing a 75 year old man to the group. And just min­utes before he waged his attack on the offi­cers in Ben Lomond he post­ed some sort of anti-fas­cist image on his Face­book page. So the pic­ture emerg­ing is one of Car­ril­lo one of being a long-time Lib­er­tar­i­an ide­o­logue who only recent­ly has been try­ing to asso­ciate him­self with the protest move­ment right before and dur­ing this anti-police killing spree. Which leaves the big ques­tion of whether or not this elite mil­i­tary police offi­cer’s attacks on the police for dri­ven from gen­uine anti-police beliefs or pure cyn­i­cism intend­ed to bring about the ‘booga­loo’ civ­il war:

    NBC News

    Man charged in deputy ambush scrawled extrem­ist ‘Booga­loo’ phras­es in blood
    Steven Car­ril­lo, accused of killing a sher­if­f’s deputy in San­ta Cruz Coun­ty, Cal­i­for­nia, wrote the words on the hood of a car, pros­e­cu­tors said

    By Brandy Zadrozny, Ben Collins and Andrew Blankstein
    June 11, 2020, 8:04 PM CDT

    Steven Car­ril­lo, a Cal­i­for­nia man who was charged with mur­der after he ambushed two San­ta Cruz Coun­ty deputies, scrawled phras­es tied to an online far-right extrem­ist move­ment in blood on a car short­ly before he was detained.

    Car­ril­lo killed Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, crit­i­cal­ly injured anoth­er deputy and threw pipe bombs at police on June 6th, San­ta Cruz Dis­trict Attor­ney Jef­frey S. Rosell alleged on Thurs­day.

    Before he was appre­hend­ed, Car­ril­lo scrawled the word “boog” and “I became unrea­son­able” in blood on the hood of a car. “Boog” is short for booga­loo, a far-right anti-gov­ern­ment move­ment that began on the extrem­ist site 4chan and aims to start a sec­ond Amer­i­can civ­il war.

    The phrase “I became unrea­son­able” has become a meme in pub­lic Booga­loo com­mu­ni­ties on Face­book, which dis­cuss weapons and fan­ta­size about a sec­ond civ­il war. One recent meme on Face­book shows a man hold­ing a Booga­loo flag at a protest, along with the phrase “Become unrea­son­able.”

    “I became unrea­son­able” is a ref­er­ence to a quote writ­ten by Mar­vin Heemey­er, an anti-gov­ern­ment extrem­ist who bull­dozed 13 build­ings in Gran­by, Col­orado, in ret­ri­bu­tion for a zon­ing dis­pute. Heemey­er killed him­self after the ram­page, which occurred on June 4, 2004, almost 16 years to the day of Carrillo’s attack.

    Heemey­er is known by the nick­name Kill­doz­er in extrem­ist groups online and is fre­quent­ly quot­ed in Booga­loo Dis­cord chats and Face­book groups.

    “Heemey­er is revered in Booga­loo groups,” said Megan Squire, a com­put­er sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Elon Uni­ver­si­ty who tracks online extrem­ism and is mon­i­tor­ing sev­er­al pri­vate Booga­loo groups online.

    Ref­er­enc­ing a nick­name for Heemey­er, Squire said, “Kill­doz­er rep­re­sents the inter­sec­tion between the lib­er­tar­i­an ide­al of small gov­ern­ment and the mil­i­tant fan­ta­sy of the Booga­loo. Heemey­er, as Kill­doz­er, metic­u­lous­ly planned a revenge fan­ta­sy on some local gov­ern­ment enti­ties that he blamed for exces­sive reg­u­la­tion of his busi­ness.”

    Car­ril­lo also wrote the phrase “Stop the duop­oly” in blood on the car hood. “Stop the duop­oly” is an oth­er­wise non­vi­o­lent polit­i­cal slo­gan fre­quent­ly pushed by third par­ty and lib­er­tar­i­an can­di­dates.

    Carrillo’s pres­ence on Face­book most­ly fea­tured sup­port for a lib­er­tar­i­an pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, anti-police sen­ti­ment and pro-gun caus­es. His pro­file pic­ture showed George Wash­ing­ton and oth­er Amer­i­can pres­i­dents hold­ing mod­ern weapons and tac­ti­cal gear.

    In one of his last posts on Face­book, Car­ril­lo post­ed a now infa­mous video of two Buf­fa­lo police offi­cers shov­ing a 75-year-old man to the ground in a group called “A Gun Page for Poors Who Know They Are Poors.”

    ...

    Online Booga­loo mes­sag­ing has grown “increas­ing­ly extreme” amid pan­dem­ic lock­downs and nation­wide protests over the killing of George Floyd, accord­ing to a recent report by the Net­work Con­ta­gion Research Insti­tute, an inde­pen­dent non­prof­it orga­ni­za­tion of sci­en­tists and engi­neers that tracks mis­in­for­ma­tion and hate speech across social media.

    “Ele­ments of The Booga­loo have evolved from a gath­er­ing of mili­tia enthu­si­asts and Sec­ond Amend­ment advo­cates into a full-fledged vio­lent extrem­ist group, which inspires lone wolf actors and cell-like actors alike,” said Joel Finkel­stein, direc­tor of the insti­tute.

    “Giv­en recent events and the inabil­i­ty of law enforce­ment to grasp and inter­cept this new mode of dis­trib­uted ter­ror, we think an increase in these kinds of vio­lent attacks against police are almost inevitable,” Finkel­stein said.

    Booga­loo groups are pub­lic and read­i­ly acces­si­ble on Face­book, but a com­pa­ny spokesper­son told NBC News last week that the social net­work is now “pre­vent­ing these Pages and groups from being rec­om­mend­ed on Face­book.”

    Face­book accounts tied to three men who were arrest­ed and charged with mul­ti­ple state and fed­er­al vio­la­tions of con­spir­a­cy to cause destruc­tion at protests in Las Vegas were pulled from the plat­form last week. At least one of the men, Stephen T. Par­shall, repeat­ed­ly post­ed to Booga­loo groups on Face­book, includ­ing the phrase “Start. Foment­ing. Insur­rec­tion.”

    ————-

    “Man charged in deputy ambush scrawled extrem­ist ‘Booga­loo’ phras­es in blood” by Brandy Zadrozny, Ben Collins and Andrew Blankstein; NBC News; 06/11/2020

    “Carrillo’s pres­ence on Face­book most­ly fea­tured sup­port for a lib­er­tar­i­an pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, anti-police sen­ti­ment and pro-gun caus­es. His pro­file pic­ture showed George Wash­ing­ton and oth­er Amer­i­can pres­i­dents hold­ing mod­ern weapons and tac­ti­cal gear.

    A pro­file pic with George Wash­ing­ton and oth­er Amer­i­can pres­i­dents hold­ing mod­ern weapons and tac­ti­cal gear. That sure does­n’t sound like some­one with left-wing sen­si­bil­i­ties. And yet one of his very last Face­book posts appeared to be an attempt to asso­ciate him­self with the protests, albeit in a gun-nut kind of way:

    ...
    In one of his last posts on Face­book, Car­ril­lo post­ed a now infa­mous video of two Buf­fa­lo police offi­cers shov­ing a 75-year-old man to the ground in a group called “A Gun Page for Poors Who Know They Are Poors.”
    0...

    But when he was about to final­ly get appre­hend­ed he appears to drop the act and starts writ­ing ‘booga­loo’ slo­gans in blood on the hood of a car:

    ...
    Before he was appre­hend­ed, Car­ril­lo scrawled the word “boog” and “I became unrea­son­able” in blood on the hood of a car. “Boog” is short for booga­loo, a far-right anti-gov­ern­ment move­ment that began on the extrem­ist site 4chan and aims to start a sec­ond Amer­i­can civ­il war.

    The phrase “I became unrea­son­able” has become a meme in pub­lic Booga­loo com­mu­ni­ties on Face­book, which dis­cuss weapons and fan­ta­size about a sec­ond civ­il war. One recent meme on Face­book shows a man hold­ing a Booga­loo flag at a protest, along with the phrase “Become unrea­son­able.”

    “I became unrea­son­able” is a ref­er­ence to a quote writ­ten by Mar­vin Heemey­er, an anti-gov­ern­ment extrem­ist who bull­dozed 13 build­ings in Gran­by, Col­orado, in ret­ri­bu­tion for a zon­ing dis­pute. Heemey­er killed him­self after the ram­page, which occurred on June 4, 2004, almost 16 years to the day of Carrillo’s attack.

    Heemey­er is known by the nick­name Kill­doz­er in extrem­ist groups online and is fre­quent­ly quot­ed in Booga­loo Dis­cord chats and Face­book groups.

    “Heemey­er is revered in Booga­loo groups,” said Megan Squire, a com­put­er sci­ence pro­fes­sor at Elon Uni­ver­si­ty who tracks online extrem­ism and is mon­i­tor­ing sev­er­al pri­vate Booga­loo groups online.

    Ref­er­enc­ing a nick­name for Heemey­er, Squire said, “Kill­doz­er rep­re­sents the inter­sec­tion between the lib­er­tar­i­an ide­al of small gov­ern­ment and the mil­i­tant fan­ta­sy of the Booga­loo. Heemey­er, as Kill­doz­er, metic­u­lous­ly planned a revenge fan­ta­sy on some local gov­ern­ment enti­ties that he blamed for exces­sive reg­u­la­tion of his busi­ness.”
    ...

    And then there’s the “Stop the duop­oly” phrase he also wrote on the hood of the car in blood:

    ...
    Car­ril­lo also wrote the phrase “Stop the duop­oly” in blood on the car hood. “Stop the duop­oly” is an oth­er­wise non­vi­o­lent polit­i­cal slo­gan fre­quent­ly pushed by third par­ty and lib­er­tar­i­an can­di­dates.
    ...

    So when he was about to be appre­hend­ed sud­den­ly the guy lets his inner ‘booga­loo’ Lib­er­tar­i­an out. But as the fol­low­ing arti­cle describes, he was­n’t just try­ing to con­vey these motives by writ­ing slo­gans in blood. He was telling them to var­i­ous bystanders, includ­ing the peo­ple he was try­ing to car­jack. Notably, he did­n’t shoot the peo­ple when they resist­ed. In fact, he apol­o­gized and left the car, telling a bystander “I’m not a bad guy. I’m just sick of all the dual­i­ty bullsh*t.” But accord­ing to his deceased wife’s par­ents, Car­ril­lo was a dom­i­neer­ing nar­cis­sist with “dead eyes” who direct­ly caused their daugh­ters’ sui­cide in 2018:

    Bay Area News Group

    San­ta Cruz deputy killing: Hero­ic cit­i­zen brought accused killer’s ram­page to an end

    Steve Car­ril­lo led elite anti-ter­ror­ist unit at Travis Air Force Base

    By JULIA PRODIS SULEK | jsulek@bayareanewsgroup.com, NATE GARTRELL | ngartrell@bayareanewsgroup.com and JOHN WOOLFOLK | jwoolfolk@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
    PUBLISHED: June 8, 2020 at 12:34 p.m. | UPDATED: June 9, 2020 at 5:32 a.m.

    BEN LOMOND — Call­ing it “remark­able” and “hero­ic,” San­ta Cruz Sher­iff Jim Hart on Mon­day laud­ed a hum­ble unarmed res­i­dent for out­smart­ing and tak­ing down the Air Force sergeant accused of ambush­ing two deputy sher­iffs in the San­ta Cruz moun­tains this week­end with bombs and an assault rifle, killing one offi­cer and hos­pi­tal­iz­ing the oth­er.

    The dra­mat­ic scene was cap­tured on a neighbor’s cell phone video Sat­ur­day, as a res­i­dent in a red T‑shirt and kha­ki shorts calm­ly pinned the sus­pect — 32-year-old Steven Car­ril­lo — on his grav­el dri­ve­way while anoth­er man and his dog loomed over them. “Hey, we are hold­ing him on the ground right here,” neigh­bors shout­ed as they fran­ti­cal­ly waved down offi­cers up the road. “There’s a gun … please!”

    Inves­ti­ga­tors say Car­ril­lo ambushed the deputies with gun­fire and pipe bombs after they respond­ed to a call about a white van with guns and explo­sives inside. Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller was killed, leav­ing behind his preg­nant wife and their young child. The sec­ond offi­cer was struck by shrap­nel and by a vehi­cle as the gun­man fled.

    The ambush and fran­tic search trau­ma­tized this small moun­tain town, where wit­ness­es on Mon­day described how the Car­ril­lo alleged­ly leapt into at least two vehi­cles try­ing to steal them. At one point, when con­front­ed by a shop­keep­er while stand­ing behind a parked car, he said, “I’m not a bad guy. I’m just sick of all the dual­i­ty bullsh*t.”

    The tragedy also brought up painful mem­o­ries for the fam­i­ly of Carrillo’s late wife, Moni­ka, who killed her­self two years ago, leav­ing their two small chil­dren to be raised by her par­ents. The fam­i­ly has long blamed Car­ril­lo for dri­ving her to sui­cide, call­ing him nar­cis­sis­tic and dom­i­neer­ing.

    “He did a lot of dam­age to our fam­i­ly just by destroy­ing my niece,” Char­lotte Tol­liv­er-Lopes told the Bay Area News Group in a phone inter­view from her home in Ari­zona. “It dev­as­tat­ed my fam­i­ly.”

    The actions of the hero in the red T‑shirt brought spe­cial praise from Sher­iff Hart.

    “It was a remark­able, remark­able, hero­ic thing that that res­i­dent did,” Hart said. “He does not want to be named. He doesn’t want any recog­ni­tion. But at a lat­er date, if I have to per­son­al­ly dri­ve up there and see him, we will pro­vide him with a com­men­da­tion and a citizen’s medal because this guy could have done a lot more dam­age in our com­mu­ni­ty had that res­i­dent not tak­en the action that he did.”

    Car­ril­lo hid for per­haps 15 or 20 min­utes after the attempt­ed car­jack­ings before emerg­ing near­by in the grav­el yard of the man in the red T‑shirt, wit­ness­es said Mon­day.

    Armed with what Hart said was an AR-15 type rifle, Car­ril­lo demand­ed the resident’s car. The man went inside to grab a key, but when he hand­ed it to Car­ril­lo, he tack­led him and knocked away his rifle, Hart said.

    The sus­pect wasn’t done though. In a tense scuf­fle, Car­ril­lo pulled a pipe bomb from his pock­et and tried to ignite it before the res­i­dent knocked it away, Hart said. He then pulled a pis­tol from his waist­band, which the res­i­dent also swat­ted away as oth­ers rushed in to help him keep the sus­pect — who locals say was once a wrestler at San Loren­zo Val­ley High — pinned until deputy sher­iffs arrived.

    As four offi­cers sur­round­ed Car­ril­lo with their weapons drawn, he appeared to say some­thing in the video like: “Hey lis­ten every­body. This is what I’m sick of.”

    “He was dan­ger­ous, he was an angry man,” Hart said. “Just his actions alone up there said a lot about him. He used some very heavy weapon­ry to shoot at our deputies and then threw incen­di­ary devices at them.”

    Car­ril­lo was an active duty U.S. Air Force sergeant who served in a secu­ri­ty detail at Travis Air Force Base in Fair­field. He joined the U.S. Air Force in 2009, and was trans­ferred to Travis in 2018. He was a mem­ber of the 60th Secu­ri­ty Force Squadron and team leader of the Phoenix Ravens, a spe­cial­ly-trained secu­ri­ty force that pro­tects air­craft from ter­ror­ist and “crim­i­nal threats.”

    Fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tors are try­ing to deter­mine whether the Sat­ur­day attack is con­nect­ed with the killing of a fed­er­al secu­ri­ty offi­cer in Oak­land late last month. Both inci­dents involved a white van.

    But John Ben­nett, spe­cial agent in charge of the FBI San Fran­cis­co bureau, said Mon­day any con­nec­tion remains under inves­ti­ga­tion and would not com­ment fur­ther.

    When Car­ril­lo was still on the loose Sat­ur­day after­noon, police blocked off High­way 9, the main artery through Ben Lomond, caus­ing a traf­fic back­up. A few of the vehi­cles pulled into the park­ing lot of Red­wood Coast Dis­pen­sary to wait for the road to be reopened, includ­ing soft­ware engi­neer Troy Hunter in his green Porsche With the win­dows rolled down, he heard a man across the high­way call­ing out to him, “You’re going to tell my sto­ry.”

    Hunter dis­missed him as “an inter­est­ing moun­tain per­son,” until Car­ril­lo walked up to the pas­sen­ger win­dow and demand­ed he unlock the door. When Car­ril­lo reached inside, the spe­cial spin­ning lock pre­vent­ed him from open­ing the door. So Car­ril­lo, with his gun, man­aged to climb in through the win­dow.

    “He kept telling me he didn’t want to hurt me,” Hunter said. “I told him he could take my car. I turned it off and exit­ed the vehi­cle and took the keys as I left.” The igni­tion is on the left side of the steer­ing wheel.

    Moments lat­er, Mark Kowal­s­ki who works at the dis­pen­sary, came out­side and came eye to eye with Car­ril­lo, who was hid­ing behind a parked car.

    “He looked at me and I looked at him,” Kowal­s­ki said. When Car­ril­lo said he was “sick of the dual­i­ty,” Kowal­s­ki took it to mean the split between “the haves and the havenots.”

    Car­ril­lo, who was injured dur­ing the ram­page, remained hos­pi­tal­ized Mon­day and in cus­tody.

    Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence Mon­day, the sher­iff was pained to even say his name. He said the com­mu­ni­ty was show­ing an out­pour­ing of sup­port for his offi­cers and griev­ing for the fam­i­ly of Sgt. Gutzwiller, a 14-year vet­er­an. “He was a good man, a good police offi­cer and a friend,” Hart said. “Damon was a hero, some­body we’ll nev­er for­get.”

    Hart said the sec­ond deputy, who was iden­ti­fied as Alexan­der Spencer in a gofundme page Mon­day, was shot in the chest and saved by his bul­let-proof vest, but the pow­er­ful round still caused “sig­nif­i­cant inter­nal trau­ma.” He also suf­fered wounds from bomb frag­ments and being struck by the flee­ing suspect’s car.

    “He’s in good spir­its, he’s in sta­ble con­di­tion,” Hart said.

    Tol­liv­er-Lopes, the great aunt of Carrillo’s late wife, said that when she heard that Car­ril­lo was accused of ambush­ing the deputies, she said that “fits his per­son­al­i­ty.”

    “Sneak up behind you — that’s the way he would behave,” she said. “I don’t think he has the guts to face you. He’s the type who would do it around the cor­ner. He wouldn’t con­front any­one dead on — a woman, yeah, he feels supe­ri­or to them, but a man, no.”

    The cou­ple, who grew up in the neigh­bor­ing moun­tain towns of Ben Lomond and Boul­der Creek, were both in the Air Force and had two young chil­dren. The boy and girl have been liv­ing with Moni­ka Carrillo’s par­ents in Boul­der Creek since some­time after her death.

    Her great niece com­mit­ted sui­cide while in an Air Force train­ing pro­gram in late May 2018 in North or South Car­oli­na, she said. Car­ril­lo was in Cal­i­for­nia at the time, but Tol­liv­er-Lopes says her fam­i­ly has long blamed him for her death and com­plained to the Air Force about his behav­ior.

    While his wife was away, Tol­liv­er-Lopes said, Car­ril­lo appar­ent­ly was “kicked out” of their apart­ment and he and their two chil­dren lived briefly in a van.

    “Some­thing hap­pened on the tele­phone with him and it was right after that that she died,” Tol­liv­er-Lopes said. “She was nev­er good enough. She was stu­pid, she was fat, she was this, she was that. Noth­ing she did was ever good enough. So we lost a beau­ti­ful life in our fam­i­ly.”

    Tol­liv­er-Lopes said she always had a bad feel­ing about Car­ril­lo.

    “He had dead eyes,” she said. “He didn’t strike me as the type of man who had any empa­thy. He looked at you, but he didn’t see you for you. He just saw some­body beneath him.”

    ...

    ————-

    “San­ta Cruz deputy killing: Hero­ic cit­i­zen brought accused killer’s ram­page to an end” by JULIA PRODIS SULEK, NATE GARTRELL, and JOHN WOOLFOLK; Bay Area News Group; 06/08/2020

    “The ambush and fran­tic search trau­ma­tized this small moun­tain town, where wit­ness­es on Mon­day described how the Car­ril­lo alleged­ly leapt into at least two vehi­cles try­ing to steal them. At one point, when con­front­ed by a shop­keep­er while stand­ing behind a parked car, he said, “I’m not a bad guy. I’m just sick of all the dual­i­ty bullsh*t.”

    “I’m not a bad guy. I’m just sick of all the dual­i­ty bullsh*t.” That’s what Car­ril­lo was telling the ran­dom peo­ple he was encoun­ter­ing as he was flee­ing from the police. So he does­n’t appear to have been in the kind of mind­set where he was just ran­dom­ly killing peo­ple like a typ­i­cal spree shoot­er. But he was :

    ...
    When Car­ril­lo was still on the loose Sat­ur­day after­noon, police blocked off High­way 9, the main artery through Ben Lomond, caus­ing a traf­fic back­up. A few of the vehi­cles pulled into the park­ing lot of Red­wood Coast Dis­pen­sary to wait for the road to be reopened, includ­ing soft­ware engi­neer Troy Hunter in his green Porsche With the win­dows rolled down, he heard a man across the high­way call­ing out to him, “You’re going to tell my sto­ry.”

    Hunter dis­missed him as “an inter­est­ing moun­tain per­son,” until Car­ril­lo walked up to the pas­sen­ger win­dow and demand­ed he unlock the door. When Car­ril­lo reached inside, the spe­cial spin­ning lock pre­vent­ed him from open­ing the door. So Car­ril­lo, with his gun, man­aged to climb in through the win­dow.

    “He kept telling me he didn’t want to hurt me,” Hunter said. “I told him he could take my car. I turned it off and exit­ed the vehi­cle and took the keys as I left.” The igni­tion is on the left side of the steer­ing wheel.

    Moments lat­er, Mark Kowal­s­ki who works at the dis­pen­sary, came out­side and came eye to eye with Car­ril­lo, who was hid­ing behind a parked car.

    “He looked at me and I looked at him,” Kowal­s­ki said. When Car­ril­lo said he was “sick of the dual­i­ty,” Kowal­s­ki took it to mean the split between “the haves and the havenots.”
    ...

    At the same time, he also appeared to be will­ing to blow him­self up with one of his pipebombs, along with the man who ulti­mate­ly tack­led and appre­hend­ed him. And when the offi­cers arrive, he’s caught on video say­ing, “Hey lis­ten every­body. This is what I’m sick of.” So when he was arrest­ed he was try­ing to ensure every­one assumed his motive was pri­mar­i­ly a grudge against the police:

    ...
    Car­ril­lo hid for per­haps 15 or 20 min­utes after the attempt­ed car­jack­ings before emerg­ing near­by in the grav­el yard of the man in the red T‑shirt, wit­ness­es said Mon­day.

    Armed with what Hart said was an AR-15 type rifle, Car­ril­lo demand­ed the resident’s car. The man went inside to grab a key, but when he hand­ed it to Car­ril­lo, he tack­led him and knocked away his rifle, Hart said.

    The sus­pect wasn’t done though. In a tense scuf­fle, Car­ril­lo pulled a pipe bomb from his pock­et and tried to ignite it before the res­i­dent knocked it away, Hart said. He then pulled a pis­tol from his waist­band, which the res­i­dent also swat­ted away as oth­ers rushed in to help him keep the sus­pect — who locals say was once a wrestler at San Loren­zo Val­ley High — pinned until deputy sher­iffs arrived.

    As four offi­cers sur­round­ed Car­ril­lo with their weapons drawn, he appeared to say some­thing in the video like: “Hey lis­ten every­body. This is what I’m sick of.”
    ...

    It’s worth not­ing that being sub­dued by the man in the red shirt is prob­a­bly the act that saved Car­ril­lo’s life. After killing an offi­cer he was almost cer­tain­ly going to be shot and killed by police when they found him if he was­n’t already pinned to the ground by that man.

    Final­ly, note how the fam­i­ly of his wife, who com­mit­ted sui­cide in 2018, blames Car­ril­lo for her death and view him as a dan­ger­ous dom­i­neer­ing nar­cis­sist:

    ...
    The tragedy also brought up painful mem­o­ries for the fam­i­ly of Carrillo’s late wife, Moni­ka, who killed her­self two years ago, leav­ing their two small chil­dren to be raised by her par­ents. The fam­i­ly has long blamed Car­ril­lo for dri­ving her to sui­cide, call­ing him nar­cis­sis­tic and dom­i­neer­ing.

    “He did a lot of dam­age to our fam­i­ly just by destroy­ing my niece,” Char­lotte Tol­liv­er-Lopes told the Bay Area News Group in a phone inter­view from her home in Ari­zona. “It dev­as­tat­ed my fam­i­ly.”

    ...

    “Some­thing hap­pened on the tele­phone with him and it was right after that that she died,” Tol­liv­er-Lopes said. “She was nev­er good enough. She was stu­pid, she was fat, she was this, she was that. Noth­ing she did was ever good enough. So we lost a beau­ti­ful life in our fam­i­ly.”

    Tol­liv­er-Lopes said she always had a bad feel­ing about Car­ril­lo.

    “He had dead eyes,” she said. “He didn’t strike me as the type of man who had any empa­thy. He looked at you, but he didn’t see you for you. He just saw some­body beneath him.”
    ...

    So we have this odd mix of some­one who has been described by fam­i­ly mem­bers as being a dom­i­neer­ing nar­cis­sist who lacks empa­thy and drove his wife to sui­cide, a charge that’s not hard to believe giv­en his actions. And yet when he was try­ing to car­jack peo­ple after flee­ing the police he was clear­ly try­ing to con­vey to the ter­ri­fied strangers that he did­n’t want to hurt them and he’s not a “bad guy” but was just “sick of all the dual­i­ty bullsh*t.” It’s a weird mix.

    Next, here’s anoth­er arti­cle that gives a few more details on Car­ril­lo’s behav­ior dur­ing his car­jack­ing attempts. It sounds like after Car­ril­lo tried to car­jack the first car in the park­ing lot of the mar­i­jua­na dis­pen­sary he jumped into a sec­ond parked car but then left the car after the occu­pant screamed. So oth­er than his attempts to blow him­self up when he was wrestling with the man who ulti­mate­ly appre­hend­ed him it appears that Car­ril­lo was exclu­sive­ly focus­ing his vio­lence on police offi­cers.

    The arti­cle also includes more inter­views with his friend from the mil­i­tary, Justin Erhardt, who report­ed­ly has­n’t seen Car­ril­lo since 2014 but has been main­tain­ing con­tact with him over Face­book. Accord­ing to Ehrhardt, Car­ril­lo’s recent posts about police bru­tal­i­ty was out of char­ac­ter, some­thing not hard to believe giv­en his Face­book pro­file of heav­i­ly armed for­mer pres­i­dents and gen­er­al focus on Lib­er­tar­i­an­ism and gun rights:

    The San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle

    San­ta Cruz Coun­ty deputy’s sus­pect­ed killer post­ed crit­i­cism of police in hours before shoot­ing

    Matthias Gafni and Ale­jan­dro Ser­ra­no
    June 8, 2020 Updat­ed: June 9, 2020 9:51 a.m.

    In the 48 hours before Steven Car­ril­lo alleged­ly shot a San­ta Cruz Coun­ty sheriff’s deputy to death in an ambush, the Air Force staff sergeant who led an elite pro­tec­tion unit post­ed a flur­ry of Face­book posts that were crit­i­cal of police bru­tal­i­ty and law enforcement’s respons­es to the Black Lives Mat­ter protests.

    “Who needs antifa to start riots when you have the police to do it for you,” Car­ril­lo wrote Fri­day, shar­ing a post about tear gas fired at pro­test­ers in Rich­mond, Va.

    Car­ril­lo post­ed anoth­er meme before Saturday’s shootout with deputies in Ben Lomond, mock­ing the idea that tear gas kills the coro­n­avirus and com­ment­ing: “Unfor­tu­nate­ly it just kills peo­ple with asth­ma, RIP Sarah Gross­man.” Car­ril­lo was refer­ring to the Ohio woman who died after get­ting tear gassed by police at a protest in Colum­bus.

    San­ta Cruz Coun­ty Sher­iff Jim Hart said Mon­day it was too soon to say if Car­ril­lo had an ani­mus toward police, but he called him “dan­ger­ous” and offered addi­tion­al details about an attack that appeared to be pre­med­i­tat­ed and includ­ed mul­ti­ple impro­vised explo­sives.

    ...

    Law enforce­ment offi­cials said it was too soon to announce a motive for Carrillo’s alleged attack on Gutzwiller and anoth­er unnamed deputy who was wound­ed and in sta­ble con­di­tion Mon­day, but a fel­low air­man of Carrillo’s who served with him at Hill Air Force Base out­side of Salt Lake City called the suspect’s recent social media posts out of char­ac­ter.

    “Just crazy to think that a few min­utes before he does this he’s post­ing things on Face­book,” said Justin Ehrhardt, who met Car­ril­lo a decade ago.

    The two last saw each oth­er in per­son in 2014 but remained in com­mu­ni­ca­tion, exchang­ing com­ments and mes­sages on Face­book and talk­ing on the phone just few weeks ago.

    More recent­ly, Ehrhardt said, posts on Carrillo’s Face­book page, which appears to have been tak­en down, turned polit­i­cal as he start­ed post­ing about police bru­tal­i­ty. When anoth­er col­league sent a Face­book mes­sage to Ehrhardt about the shoot­ing, he thought, “There is no way this could be Car­ril­lo.”

    Posts about reform­ing police and hold­ing law enforce­ment offi­cials account­able were typ­i­cal for Car­ril­lo, but he nev­er con­doned vio­lence — on social media or in per­son, Ehrhardt said. He also shared an anti-fas­cism screed and gun rights arti­cle.

    “There was noth­ing ever to the extent of, ‘They should die,’ or doing any­thing like that,” Ehrhardt said. “It threw a lot of us off.”

    Ehrhardt took screen­shots of about a dozen recent posts, which he shared with The Chron­i­cle.

    It appears Car­ril­lo last post­ed at 1:22 p.m. Sat­ur­day, min­utes before his alleged attack on the deputies. That post shared an anti-fas­cism image.

    Ehrhardt said Car­il­lo has “lost every bit of respect” from his friends.

    “None of us are ever going to con­done what he did,” Ehrhardt said. “It’s not a reflec­tion of how we are in the mil­i­tary at all.”

    Car­ril­lo, 32, was active duty at Travis Air Force Base in Fair­field, serv­ing as the team leader for a spe­cial­ly trained secu­ri­ty group called the Phoenix Ravens, said Tech­ni­cal Sgt. Traci Keller.

    He arrived at the North­ern Cal­i­for­nia base in 2018, and led the team that is tasked with pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty for air­craft tran­si­tion­ing air fields where secu­ri­ty is unknown or addi­tion­al secu­ri­ty is deemed nec­es­sary.

    Car­ril­lo also per­formed recruit­ing duties in Brent­wood and served at Hill Air Force Base and Lack­land Air Force Base in Texas.

    ...

    Fed­er­al author­i­ties found pipe bombs, bomb-mak­ing equip­ment, a large amount of ammu­ni­tion and mul­ti­ple firearms at the scene, Hart said.

    Video of Carrillo’s arrest doesn’t appear to indi­cate an injury, but Hart said the alleged gun­man was shot at some point.

    Offi­cials said Car­ril­lo fled the shootout with deputies but made it only a short dis­tance to a small retail area along the two-lane High­way 9, where he alleged­ly attempt­ed to car­jack mul­ti­ple peo­ple.

    Two employ­ees of a mar­i­jua­na dis­pen­sary said they spoke to the armed Car­ril­lo in a park­ing lot and he asked them for their keys. After turn­ing him down, the pair said, Car­ril­lo entered the driver’s side of a parked car, only to imme­di­ate­ly exit after the pas­sen­ger screamed and he apol­o­gized.

    Car­ril­lo then walked about 50 feet to the unnamed resident’s house, where he final­ly would be sub­dued.

    ...

    ———-

    “San­ta Cruz Coun­ty deputy’s sus­pect­ed killer post­ed crit­i­cism of police in hours before shoot­ing” by Matthias Gafni and Ale­jan­dro Ser­ra­no; The San Fran­cis­co Chron­i­cle; 06/08/2020

    “Law enforce­ment offi­cials said it was too soon to announce a motive for Carrillo’s alleged attack on Gutzwiller and anoth­er unnamed deputy who was wound­ed and in sta­ble con­di­tion Mon­day, but a fel­low air­man of Carrillo’s who served with him at Hill Air Force Base out­side of Salt Lake City called the suspect’s recent social media posts out of char­ac­ter.”

    That’s how Justin Ehrhardt describes Car­ril­lo’s recent social media posts express­ing con­cerns about police bru­tal­i­ty: out of char­ac­ter. And this is com­ing from some­one who has pri­mar­i­ly been in con­tact with Car­ril­lo over Face­book since 2014 so he pre­sum­ably has a good sense of what Car­ril­lo posts about. And yet min­utes before police arrive at his res­i­dence and the shootout ensues, Car­ril­lo was shar­ing an anti-fas­cism image on social media:

    ...
    Car­ril­lo post­ed anoth­er meme before Saturday’s shootout with deputies in Ben Lomond, mock­ing the idea that tear gas kills the coro­n­avirus and com­ment­ing: “Unfor­tu­nate­ly it just kills peo­ple with asth­ma, RIP Sarah Gross­man.” Car­ril­lo was refer­ring to the Ohio woman who died after get­ting tear gassed by police at a protest in Colum­bus.

    ...

    “Just crazy to think that a few min­utes before he does this he’s post­ing things on Face­book,” said Justin Ehrhardt, who met Car­ril­lo a decade ago.

    The two last saw each oth­er in per­son in 2014 but remained in com­mu­ni­ca­tion, exchang­ing com­ments and mes­sages on Face­book and talk­ing on the phone just few weeks ago.

    More recent­ly, Ehrhardt said, posts on Carrillo’s Face­book page, which appears to have been tak­en down, turned polit­i­cal as he start­ed post­ing about police bru­tal­i­ty. When anoth­er col­league sent a Face­book mes­sage to Ehrhardt about the shoot­ing, he thought, “There is no way this could be Car­ril­lo.”

    Posts about reform­ing police and hold­ing law enforce­ment offi­cials account­able were typ­i­cal for Car­ril­lo, but he nev­er con­doned vio­lence — on social media or in per­son, Ehrhardt said. He also shared an anti-fas­cism screed and gun rights arti­cle.

    “There was noth­ing ever to the extent of, ‘They should die,’ or doing any­thing like that,” Ehrhardt said. “It threw a lot of us off.”

    Ehrhardt took screen­shots of about a dozen recent posts, which he shared with The Chron­i­cle.

    It appears Car­ril­lo last post­ed at 1:22 p.m. Sat­ur­day, min­utes before his alleged attack on the deputies. That post shared an anti-fas­cism image.
    ...

    And, again, note how he could have just shot peo­ple and tak­en their cars but he did­n’t. When he attempt­ed to car­jack as sec­ond per­son he fled and apol­o­gized after the occu­pant screamed:

    ...
    Offi­cials said Car­ril­lo fled the shootout with deputies but made it only a short dis­tance to a small retail area along the two-lane High­way 9, where he alleged­ly attempt­ed to car­jack mul­ti­ple peo­ple.

    Two employ­ees of a mar­i­jua­na dis­pen­sary said they spoke to the armed Car­ril­lo in a park­ing lot and he asked them for their keys. After turn­ing him down, the pair said, Car­ril­lo entered the driver’s side of a parked car, only to imme­di­ate­ly exit after the pas­sen­ger screamed and he apol­o­gized.

    Car­ril­lo then walked about 50 feet to the unnamed resident’s house, where he final­ly would be sub­dued.
    ...

    Part of what makes his unwill­ing­ness to just vio­lence take one of these cars by force is what it hints about his mind­set: unlike spree killers who shoot peo­ple seem­ing­ly at ran­dom because they are mad at ‘soci­ety’ and ready to die going down in a blaze of vio­lent ‘glo­ry’, Car­ril­lo seemed to gen­uine­ly want to escape. Oth­er than his attempts to light a pipebomb after get­ting sub­dued by the man in the red shirt he seemed to want to escape and live. It’s the kind of mind­set that again rais­es the ques­tion: did Car­ril­lo real­ly ‘snap’ because he just could­n’t stand police bru­tal­i­ty and the ‘dual­i­ty bullsh*t’ any­more? Because he does­n’t appear to have snapped to point where he was ready to die, some­thing that fur­ther sug­gests his orig­i­nal intent was stok­ing the ‘booga­loo’ dream sce­nario by killing fed­er­al offi­cers and hop­ing it would be blamed on the pro­test­ers.

    Final­ly, here’s anoth­er arti­cle with Justin Ehrhardt about his inter­ac­tions with Car­ril­lo. Ehrhardt, who now run a finan­cial plan­ning com­pa­ny, says he recent­ly spoke with Car­ril­lo about finan­cial plan­ning and noth­ing seemed off about it. Ehrhardt also appears to be speak­ing on behalf of the Raven Phoenix Unit to put dis­tance between Car­ril­lo and the elite Air Force unit. But when recount­ing his and oth­ers’ expe­ri­ences with Car­ril­lo, Ehrhardt described it as a shock to every­one. “Every sin­gle per­son is shocked by it. A lot of peo­ple are say­ing they are shocked, because he was one of the nicest guys they dealt with when they were sta­tioned with him.”:

    Good Times

    Offi­cer Who Served with Ben Lomond Gun­man Speaks Out

    Steven Car­ril­lo was U.S. Air Force’s ver­sion of a mil­i­tary police offi­cer

    By Todd Guild
    Post­ed on June 9, 2020

    As a mem­ber of the elite Air Mobil­i­ty Command’s 60th Secu­ri­ty Forces Squadron—a unit also known as the Phoenix Raven Team—Steven Car­ril­lo was the U.S. Air Force’s ver­sion of a mil­i­tary police offi­cer.

    For a time, one of Carrillo’s jobs was to issue weapons at the begin­ning of shifts to gate guards and patrol offi­cers, and to col­lect them at the end of shifts. That is accord­ing to Justin Erhardt, who served with Car­ril­lo in the secu­ri­ty forces.

    Car­ril­lo is sus­pect­ed of killing a San­ta Cruz Coun­ty Sheriff’s Deputy on Sat­ur­day, June 6, and injur­ing anoth­er deputy and police offi­cer dur­ing a short but vio­lent crime spree.

    As a mem­ber of the secu­ri­ty forces, Car­ril­lo received train­ing in hand-to-hand com­bat, anti-ter­ror­ism tech­niques and “ver­bal judo,” which is the art of using words to de-esca­late dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tions.

    Secu­ri­ty forces mem­bers also receive “exten­sive train­ing” in rec­og­niz­ing and han­dling impro­vised explo­sive devices, Erhardt said.

    ...

    Erhardt, who left the Air Force in 2014, said he was will­ing to speak to reporters as a way to dis­tance the pres­ti­gious unit from Carrillo’s actions.

    “He doesn’t reflect our secu­ri­ty forces com­mu­ni­ty,” Erhardt said. “Even though we’ve had great expe­ri­ences with him, as soon as he start­ed plan­ning these ambush­es and attacks he lost all bit of respect from us, obvi­ous­ly.”

    Erhardt, who runs his own finan­cial plan­ning com­pa­ny, said he kept in touch with Car­ril­lo via Face­book, and spoke with him recent­ly about his finan­cial future. He said that news of the attack came as a bomb­shell.

    While Car­ril­lo made his dis­dain for police bru­tal­i­ty known through Face­book posts over the past few weekshe is a self-pro­claimed Lib­er­tar­i­an who is against gov­ern­ment involve­ment and wants to abol­ish the Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobac­co and Firearms—there was no indi­ca­tion he was con­sid­er­ing a vio­lent attack, Erhardt said.

    “It just threw me off like it threw a lot of us off,” he said. “Every sin­gle per­son is shocked by it. A lot of peo­ple are say­ing they are shocked, because he was one of the nicest guys they dealt with when they were sta­tioned with him.”

    But in the end, that is irrel­e­vant, Erhardt said.

    “He doesn’t rep­re­sent our career field at all with his actions,” he said. “I just want to make sure the com­mu­ni­ty knows that, the type of per­son he is now, it doesn’t mat­ter how nice of a per­son he was in the past.”

    ————

    “Offi­cer Who Served with Ben Lomond Gun­man Speaks Out” by Todd Guild; Good Times; 06/10/2020

    “While Car­ril­lo made his dis­dain for police bru­tal­i­ty known through Face­book posts over the past few weekshe is a self-pro­claimed Lib­er­tar­i­an who is against gov­ern­ment involve­ment and wants to abol­ish the Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobac­co and Firearms—there was no indi­ca­tion he was con­sid­er­ing a vio­lent attack, Erhardt said.”

    A self-pro­claimed Lib­er­tar­i­an who is against gov­ern­ment involve­ment and wants to abol­ish the Bureau of Alco­hol, Tobac­co and Firearms. That’s how Erhardt described Car­ril­lo. But he also seemed to be vouch­ing for the oth­er peo­ple who inter­act­ed with Car­ril­lo in the mil­i­tary by empha­siz­ing that every sin­gle per­son who knew him from the mil­i­tary is shocked by these events because Car­ril­lo is one of the nicest peo­ple they’ve ever worked with:

    ...
    “He doesn’t reflect our secu­ri­ty forces com­mu­ni­ty,” Erhardt said. “Even though we’ve had great expe­ri­ences with him, as soon as he start­ed plan­ning these ambush­es and attacks he lost all bit of respect from us, obvi­ous­ly.”

    Erhardt, who runs his own finan­cial plan­ning com­pa­ny, said he kept in touch with Car­ril­lo via Face­book, and spoke with him recent­ly about his finan­cial future. He said that news of the attack came as a bomb­shell.

    ...

    “It just threw me off like it threw a lot of us off,” he said. “Every sin­gle per­son is shocked by it. A lot of peo­ple are say­ing they are shocked, because he was one of the nicest guys they dealt with when they were sta­tioned with him.”

    But in the end, that is irrel­e­vant, Erhardt said.

    “He doesn’t rep­re­sent our career field at all with his actions,” he said. “I just want to make sure the com­mu­ni­ty knows that, the type of per­son he is now, it doesn’t mat­ter how nice of a per­son he was in the past.”
    ...

    All in all, we have quite a jum­ble of con­tra­dic­tions here: a self-pro­claimed Lib­er­tar­i­an elite mil­i­tary police offi­cer who is described as scary and lack­ing empa­thy by his wife’s fam­i­ly but described as the nicest per­son any­one has met by his for­mer mil­i­tary col­leagues sud­den­ly starts post­ing con­cerns about police bru­tal­i­ty right before he like­ly car­ried out an assas­si­na­tion of an African Amer­i­can fed­er­al secu­ri­ty guard near­by the police bru­tal­i­ty protests in Oak­land. Then, days lat­er, his van gets report­ed by some­one who saw what appeared to be bomb-mak­ing mate­ri­als in it. The police track the van down to his house where he ambush­es them, killing one offi­cer. Short­ly before that ambush he’s post­ing more anti-fas­cism memes on Face­book. And after flee­ing the police he pro­ceeds to attempt to car­jack two vehi­cles but is apolo­getic about it and refus­es to use force to actu­al­ly take the cars while explain­ing his actions with vague Lib­er­tar­i­an slo­gans. He’s then appre­hend­ed at a near­by house where the man in the red shirt knocks the AR-15 out of his hands and wres­tles him to the ground, at which point Car­ril­lo fails at attempt­ing to light a pipe bomb. And at some point dur­ing this time he man­ages to write “boog” and “I become unrea­son­able”, two far right slo­gans, in blood on the hood of a car. So the pic­ture that emerges is that Car­ril­lo start­ed off with the intent of depict­ing him­self as sym­pa­thet­ic to the pro­test­ers but as it became clear that he was like­ly about to die he start­ing telling peo­ple and leav­ing Lib­er­tar­i­an and ‘booga­loo’ slo­gans. It’s as if Car­ril­lo was try­ing to ensure he would become a ‘booga­loo’ folk hero after he was killed by the police. And that rais­es an inter­est­ing ques­tion: So is Car­ril­lo a ‘booga­loo’ hero yet?

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 12, 2020, 1:57 pm
  31. And there we have it: the FBI just for­mal­ly charged Steven Car­ril­lo in the dead­ly May 29 shoot­ing of fed­er­al secu­ri­ty guard David Patrick Under­wood out­side of the George Floyd protests in Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia. That was to be large­ly expect­ed.

    Here’s the unex­pect­ed twist: an accom­plice was just arrest­ed. Robert Alvin Jus­tus Jr., a white man of Mill­brae, Cal­i­for­nia, just turned him­self in to the FBI, although it sounds like he was already under sur­veil­lance in con­nec­tion to this case. Accord­ing to the FBI, both Jus­tus and Car­ril­lo trav­eled to Oak­land for the pur­pose of using the chaos of the protests to car­ry­ing out the assas­si­na­tion of law enforce­ment, with Jus­tus dri­ving the vehi­cle and Car­ril­lo fir­ing the gun. Elec­tron­ic mes­sages exchanged between the two indi­cate that the assas­si­na­tions were the intent of their trip. It sounds like Car­ril­lo used a pri­vate­ly-made machine gun with a silencer to car­ry out the attack.

    So while we don’t yet know the full pic­ture, at a min­i­mum we can say this was­n’t Steven Car­ril­lo sud­den­ly going off the deep end in response to police bru­tal­i­ty. Leav­ing the big ques­tion of whether or not this con­spir­a­cy was lim­it­ed to Car­ril­lo and Jus­tus or part of a larg­er ‘boogaloo’-backed oper­a­tion:

    ABC News7

    Fed­er­al offi­cer shoot­ing sus­pects Steven Car­ril­lo, Robert Jus­tus ‘came to Oak­land to kill cops,’ FBI says
    One of the sus­pects, Steven Car­ril­lo, has also been charged with killing San­ta Cruz Co. Sher­iff Deputy Damon Gutzwiller on June 6 in Ben Lomond.

    By Dan Noyes and Joce­lyn Fiset
    06/16/2020 Updat­ed

    OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — The FBI announced Tues­day that Air Force Staff Sgt. Steven Car­ril­lo has been fed­er­al­ly charged with mur­der and attempt­ed mur­der in the case of a fed­er­al secu­ri­ty offi­cer who was killed in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing on May 29 out­side the Fed­er­al Build­ing in Oak­land.

    Car­ril­lo is the sus­pect charged with killing San­ta Cruz Co. Sher­iff Deputy Damon Gutzwiller and wound­ing of four oth­er offi­cers in an ambush-style attack on June 6 in Ben Lomond.

    In addi­tion, the FBI has arrest­ed a sus­pect­ed accom­plice, Mill­brae res­i­dent Robert Alvin Jus­tus Jr. He is fed­er­al­ly charged with aid­ing and abet­ting in the mur­der of 53-year-old fed­er­al offi­cer Dave Patrick Under­wood and attempt­ed mur­der of a sec­ond secu­ri­ty offi­cer, who was crit­i­cal­ly injured in the Oak­land shoot­ing.

    The two con­tract secu­ri­ty offi­cers worked for Home­land Secu­ri­ty’s Fed­er­al Pro­tec­tive Ser­vice and had been mon­i­tor­ing a near­by protest over the death of George Floyd.

    The U.S. Attor­ney just said the van used in Oak­land Fed­er­al Build­ing shoot­ing was also used in the San­ta Cruz Co. attack. Author­i­ties say that Jus­tus is believed to have been the dri­ver of the van dur­ing the Oak­land attack while Car­ril­lo was the shoot­er.

    Author­i­ties say Car­ril­lo used a pri­vate­ly made machine gun with a silencer in the shoot­ing.

    John Ben­net, Spe­cial Agent in Charge of the FBI in San Fran­cis­co, said Car­ril­lo and Jus­tus used the protests on May 29 as a cov­er. “They came to Oak­land to kill cops.”

    “We believe Car­ril­lo and Jus­tice had cho­sen this date because the planned protest in Oak­land pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for them to tar­get mul­ti­ple law enforce­ment per­son­nel and avoid appre­hen­sion to the large crowds attend­ing the demon­stra­tions, as described in detail in the com­plaint,” Ben­nett said.

    Cor­rect­ing for spelling. FBI was sur­veilling Robert Jus­tus of Mill­brae when he rode with par­ents to turn him­self in at FBI. Com­plaint says this pho­to shows him check­ing out Oak­land Fed Bldg before Car­ril­lo shot Pat Under­wood. https://t.co/f7ZY9VYNtw pic.twitter.com/Thx41uQEPh— Dan Noyes (@dannoyes) June 16, 2020

    Mes­sages exchanged that day indi­cat­ed a plan to trav­el and attack fed­er­al law enforce­ment offi­cers.

    Car­ril­lo, accord­ing to author­i­ties, used “his own blood” to write phras­es in a car he alleged­ly car­jacked. The phras­es, the U.S. Attor­ney explained, are asso­ci­at­ed with the Booga­loo move­ment.

    “The booga­loo term is used by extrem­ists to ref­er­ence a vio­lent upris­ing or impend­ing war in the Unit­ed States,” Ander­son said.

    Jus­tus was arrest­ed by the FBI and tak­en into fed­er­al cus­tody on June 11.

    ...

    Read the full com­plaint against Car­ril­lo here and the com­plaint against Jus­tus here here.

    ————

    “Fed­er­al offi­cer shoot­ing sus­pects Steven Car­ril­lo, Robert Jus­tus ‘came to Oak­land to kill cops,’ FBI says” by Dan Noyes and Joce­lyn Fiset; ABC News7; 06/16/2020

    ““We believe Car­ril­lo and Jus­tice had cho­sen this date because the planned protest in Oak­land pro­vid­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for them to tar­get mul­ti­ple law enforce­ment per­son­nel and avoid appre­hen­sion to the large crowds attend­ing the demon­stra­tions, as described in detail in the com­plaint,” Ben­nett said.”

    Based on the infor­ma­tion they have, inves­ti­ga­tors believe Car­ril­lo and Jus­tus were plan­ning on using the crowds of the protests to hide them­selves while they killed law enforce­ment. In oth­er words, this is pre­cise­ly the plan ‘booga­loo’ mem­bers were caught talk­ing about on leaked encrypt­ed chat boards: infil­trat­ing the protests and killing law enforce­ment in the hopes of spark­ing a broad­er con­flict between the pro­test­ers and police. The exact plan. A plan that involved a silenced pri­vate­ly made machine gun with a silencer:

    ...
    Author­i­ties say Car­ril­lo used a pri­vate­ly made machine gun with a silencer in the shoot­ing.

    John Ben­net, Spe­cial Agent in Charge of the FBI in San Fran­cis­co, said Car­ril­lo and Jus­tus used the protests on May 29 as a cov­er. “They came to Oak­land to kill cops.”

    ...

    Mes­sages exchanged that day indi­cat­ed a plan to trav­el and attack fed­er­al law enforce­ment offi­cers.
    ...

    And while we haven’t yet heard about Jus­tus’s ide­o­log­i­cal affil­i­a­tions, Car­ril­lo’s deci­sion to write ‘booga­loo’ slo­gans in blood fol­low­ing his shootout with deputies in Ben Lomond give us a pret­ty good idea of what those moti­va­tions are going to be:

    ...
    Car­ril­lo, accord­ing to author­i­ties, used “his own blood” to write phras­es in a car he alleged­ly car­jacked. The phras­es, the U.S. Attor­ney explained, are asso­ci­at­ed with the Booga­loo move­ment.

    “The booga­loo term is used by extrem­ists to ref­er­ence a vio­lent upris­ing or impend­ing war in the Unit­ed States,” Ander­son said.

    Jus­tus was arrest­ed by the FBI and tak­en into fed­er­al cus­tody on June 11.
    ...

    So a big ques­tion remain­ing in this case is the ques­tion of whether or not this was a con­spir­a­cy of two or part of a broad­er ‘booga­loo’ oper­a­tion. But that leads to the much larg­er ques­tion relat­ed all of the arson, loot­ing, and any oth­er attacks on law enforce­ment that have tak­en place in the con­text of these weeks of nation­al police bru­tal­i­ty protests in cities around the US: how much of all of that destruc­tion and vio­lence was in real­i­ty a far right false flag oper­a­tion? It’s a ques­tion we had to ask all along. But now we have a pair of ‘boogaloo’-connected indi­vid­u­als — one of whom hap­pens to be a high­ly trained enlist­ed mil­i­tary offi­cer — who were caught trav­el­ing to a protest with a silenced machine gun for the pur­pose of mur­der­ing law enforce­ment and blam­ing it on the pro­test­ers. And they did it. They real­ly did mur­der a fed­er­al secu­ri­ty guard right next to a protest. This isn’t just talk on an encrypt­ed ‘booga­loo’ chat room. So how much oth­er ‘booga­loo’ talk is get­ting trans­lat­ed into action that we haven’t learned about yet? We have no idea, but we can be pret­ty con­fi­dent this was­n’t the last of it. And that’s part of what makes this sto­ry poten­tial­ly so big: It’s the kind of crime sto­ry where the biggest part of the sto­ry is all the oth­er sim­i­lar crimes we nev­er hear about.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 16, 2020, 2:19 pm
  32. The 2020 Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion is thank­ful­ly on its final day but the worst is clear­ly yet to come. Don­ald Trump still has to give his keynote speech. A speech that will no doubt extend the pre­vail­ing theme of the con­ven­tion thus far and paint a pic­ture of a nation under siege from far left fas­cist Antifa hordes roam­ing the coun­try look­ing for con­ser­v­a­tives to ter­ror­ize. And then, with the polit­i­cal con­ven­tions com­plete, the US will enter the final stretch of the 2020 elec­tion where the full force of the right-wing media com­plex will ham­mer away at that idea that aver­age Amer­i­cans are fac­ing a per­ilous far left threat. A final stretch that will undoubt­ed­ly include more inci­dents like the false flag attack by ‘Booga­loo’ mem­bers like Steven Car­ril­lo and Robert Alvin Jus­tus Jr. on David Patrick Under­wood, a fed­er­al offi­cer who was guard­ing a fed­er­al build­ing near­by an Oak­land police bru­tal­i­ty protest.

    And as the fol­low­ing pair of arti­cles remind us, if and when these false flag ‘Booga­loo’ attacks are revealed to be false flags, the GOP and right-wing media com­plex will con­tin­ue to duti­ful­ly ignore these rev­e­la­tions and con­tin­ue to try to exploit the attacks. Like Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence just did dur­ing his con­ven­tion speech last night:

    Vox

    The most shock­ing line in Vice Pres­i­dent Pence’s 2020 RNC speech
    Pence blames right-wing vio­lence on a vague left­ist ene­my.

    By Ian Mill­his­er
    Aug 27, 2020, 12:22am EDT

    Across all three nights of the Repub­li­can Nation­al Con­ven­tion so far, speak­ers returned to a sin­gle theme: In Amer­i­can cities, at least accord­ing to these speak­ers, pro­test­ers hos­tile to the police are riot­ing and crime is sky­rock­et­ing — and if Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Joe Biden is elect­ed, this will be the future.

    As Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence put it dur­ing his keynote speech on Wednes­day, “in the midst of this glob­al pan­dem­ic ... we’ve seen vio­lence and chaos in the streets of our major cities.”

    Pence’s speech high­light­ed a sin­gle law enforce­ment offi­cer, strong­ly imply­ing that this offi­cer was the vic­tim of left-wing rad­i­cals opposed to police offi­cers and to Pres­i­dent Trump: “Dave Patrick Under­wood was an offi­cer of the Depart­ment of Home­land Security’s Fed­er­al Pro­tec­tive Ser­vice, who was shot and killed dur­ing the riots in Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia,” said Pence, before acknowl­edg­ing Underwood’s sis­ter, who was in the audi­ence.

    Underwood’s death is trag­ic, but it has noth­ing to do with left-wing rad­i­cals.

    Under­wood was killed just blocks away from anti-police vio­lence protests in Oak­land, but fed­er­al author­i­ties say he was killed by Steven Car­ril­lo, an Air Force staff sergeant and a fol­low­er of the “booga­loo boys,” a right-wing extrem­ist move­ment that, accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Katie Shep­herd, “has sought to use peace­ful protests against police bru­tal­i­ty to spread fringe views and ignite a race war.”

    Car­ril­lo was tak­en into fed­er­al cus­tody, and he faces mur­der charges.

    The “booga­loo” move­ment, which emerged on the web­site 4chan, is a bizarre mix of in-jokes, con­ser­v­a­tive gun cul­ture, and Civ­il War nos­tal­gia. It derives its name from the 1984 break­danc­ing film Breakin’ 2: Elec­tric Booga­loo, a film that is some­times used as a sar­cas­tic short­hand for an unnec­es­sary sequel. The idea is that the Booga­loo move­ment hopes to bring about a sequel to the Civ­il War.

    As Vox’s Jane Coas­ton writes, the move­ment is “a loose­ly con­nect­ed anti-gov­ern­ment move­ment that has includ­ed some white nation­al­ists who believe in an ‘accel­er­a­tionist’ ide­ol­o­gy that encour­ages spurring civ­il dis­or­der to even­tu­al­ly foment the break­down of the polit­i­cal sys­tem entire­ly.”

    This right-wing extrem­ist move­ment is emphat­i­cal­ly not asso­ci­at­ed with Biden, the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, Black Lives Mat­ter, or any left-lean­ing protest move­ment seek­ing to pre­vent police vio­lence. Underwood’s death, as far as we know, is relat­ed to left-lean­ing protest move­ments only to the extent that the Booga­loo boys hope to exploit protests and advance goals that those pro­test­ers would like­ly find repug­nant.

    ...

    ————–

    “The most shock­ing line in Vice Pres­i­dent Pence’s 2020 RNC speech” by Ian Mill­his­er; Vox; 08/27/2020

    “Pence’s speech high­light­ed a sin­gle law enforce­ment offi­cer, strong­ly imply­ing that this offi­cer was the vic­tim of left-wing rad­i­cals opposed to police offi­cers and to Pres­i­dent Trump: “Dave Patrick Under­wood was an offi­cer of the Depart­ment of Home­land Security’s Fed­er­al Pro­tec­tive Ser­vice, who was shot and killed dur­ing the riots in Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia,” said Pence, before acknowl­edg­ing Underwood’s sis­ter, who was in the audi­ence.

    It was just one in a string of lies and half-truths that one would nor­mal­ly expect from a politi­cian like Mike Pence. But it was a par­tic­u­lar­ly omi­nous lie nonethe­less because it was an invi­ta­tion and shoutout to the ‘Booga­loo Bois’ to repeat it. Yes, the Vice Pres­i­dent essen­tial­ly sent a bare­ly cod­ed mes­sage to the ‘booga­loo’ domes­tic ter­ror­ism move­ment to car­ry out more false flag attacks. After all, if they get revealed to be a false flag the Trump admin­is­tra­tion will main­tain the lie any­way. Imag­ine what an incred­i­ble incen­tive it is to indi­vid­u­als who are con­sid­er­ing car­ry­ing out such attacks to have the vice pres­i­dent use his prime time con­ven­tion address to cov­er for the last exposed false flag attack.

    And as the fol­low­ing arti­cle from a few weeks ago makes clear, this kind of gross revi­sion­ism of a recent­ly exposed false flag attack isn’t lim­it­ed to the vice pres­i­dent. GOP­ers have been main­tain­ing the lie about Under­wood’s death all along:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    News

    GOP­ers Keep False­ly Imply­ing A Pro­test­er Killed A Fed­er­al Offi­cer In Oak­land
    In fact, the FBI alleged, the mur­der­er had no inten­tion of join­ing the protests: He “came to Oak­land to kill cops.”

    By Matt Shuham
    August 6, 2020 2:24 p.m.

    Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials and Repub­li­cans in Con­gress have for weeks played a rhetor­i­cal shell game with the Amer­i­can pub­lic.

    The Black Lives Mat­ter protests that have rocked the coun­try for months, they’ve implied, are dead­ly: Just look at the fed­er­al offi­cer who was mur­dered dur­ing a Black Lives Mat­ter Protest on May 29.

    But the mur­der of Fed­er­al Pro­tec­tive Ser­vice Offi­cer Dave Patrick Under­wood, who was 53 when he was killed in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing, was not com­mit­ted by a vio­lent pro­test­er or riot­er, accord­ing to author­i­ties.

    The alleged killer, Steven Car­ril­lo, wrote a ref­er­ence to the “booga­loo” move­ment in blood at the scene of his even­tu­al arrest and report­ed­ly voiced sup­port of a lib­er­tar­i­an pres­i­den­tial can­di­date online. But he did not join the Black Lives Mat­ter protest in Oak­land on the night of Underwood’s death.

    “There is no evi­dence that these men had any inten­tion to join the demon­stra­tion in Oak­land,” said John Ben­net, the agent in charge of the FBI’s San Fran­cis­co divi­sion, refer­ring to Car­ril­lo and the man charged with dri­ving the van used in the dri­ve-by shoot­ing. “They came to Oak­land to kill cops.”

    And yet, for months, Repub­li­cans and admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials have lumped Car­ril­lo in with the nation­wide protest move­ment.

    Sen. Ron John­son (R‑WI), chair of the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Home­land Secu­ri­ty and Gov­ern­men­tal Affairs, opened a hear­ing Thurs­day with the false impli­ca­tion that Car­ril­lo was par­tic­i­pat­ing in a protest.

    Under­wood, John­son said, was killed while guard­ing a fed­er­al build­ing “dur­ing a protest.”

    “News reports said the protest involv­ing approx­i­mate­ly 8,000 peo­ple turned chaot­ic and vio­lent, as demon­stra­tors smashed win­dows, loot­ed stores, and broke into a bank a few blocks from where Offi­cer Under­wood was on duty.”

    After incor­rect­ly say­ing that Car­ril­lo had killed a sheriff’s deputy “a few days before” — Carrillo’s sec­ond alleged killing, of San­ta Cruz Coun­ty Sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, was actu­al­ly a few days lat­er on June 6 — John­son said that the suspect’s “anti-police views drew him to Oak­land, where he saw the anti-police protest as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for more blood­shed.”

    While author­i­ties have doc­u­ment­ed what they allege are Car­ril­lo anti-police views, Johnson’s impli­ca­tions that Car­ril­lo was tied to the protest are mis­lead­ing. Though a protest did take place near­by the shoot­ing, a secu­ri­ty cam­era still tak­en sec­onds before­hand, and cit­ed in the fed­er­al crim­i­nal com­plaint against Car­ril­lo, shows the near-emp­ty street where the attack actu­al­ly took place:

    [see secu­ri­ty cam­era image show­ing streets next to Oak­land shoot­ing were emp­ty]

    In Face­book posts that the feds allege Car­ril­lo wrote before the shoot­ing, he laid out his plans to hijack the protest and use it for his own ends.

    “Go to the riots and sup­port our own cause,” he alleged­ly wrote. “Show them the real tar­gets. Use their anger to fuel our fire. Think out­side the box. We have mobs of angry peo­ple to use to our advan­tage.”

    ...

    Three Neva­da men, for exam­ple, were charged in June for alleged­ly plan­ning to use Molo­tov cock­tails at a Black Lives Mat­ter protest in an attempt to encour­age an anti-gov­ern­ment upris­ing. But before that, accord­ing to pros­e­cu­tors, they’d con­sid­ered iso­lat­ed gov­ern­ment build­ings as poten­tial tar­gets and recruit­ed peo­ple at a protest against COVID-19 orders.

    But Repub­li­cans have fre­quent­ly blurred the lines between the booga­loo sup­port­ers and the racial jus­tice protests. Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑TX) pulled a sim­i­lar rhetor­i­cal maneu­ver to Johnson’s at a hear­ing Wednes­day on “The Right of the Peo­ple Peace­ably to Assem­ble: Pro­tect­ing Speech by Stop­ping Anar­chist Vio­lence.”

    In a video mon­tage at the start of the hear­ing, Cruz put a news clip describ­ing Underwood’s mur­der next to oth­er clips of protest cov­er­age, imply­ing a con­nec­tion. Lat­er, Cruz point­ed out that Sen. Mazie Hirono (D‑HI) didn’t con­demn the vio­lence against law enforce­ment from “riot­ers.”

    “Not a word was said about the mur­der of fed­er­al law enforce­ment offi­cer Patrick Under­wood,” he said imme­di­ate­ly after­ward.

    ‘Dur­ing A Pret­ty Vio­lent Demon­stra­tion’

    The admin­is­tra­tion has also mud­died the waters around Underwood’s killing — seem­ing­ly seek­ing to char­ac­ter­ize Car­ril­lo as a vio­lent Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­er — for weeks.

    At Cruz’s hear­ing, Act­ing Deputy DHS sec­re­tary Ken Cuc­cinel­li said that Under­wood was killed “in the vio­lence fol­low­ing George Floyd’s trag­ic death.”

    Cuc­cinel­li then appeared to use Underwood’s death to attack Democ­rats, say­ing that he was dis­ap­point­ed “that select fed­er­al, state and local lead­ers pre­fer to demo­nize law enforce­ment while kow­tow­ing to vio­lent crim­i­nals who set fire to our cities, destroy local busi­ness­es and tar­get law enforce­ment offi­cers for harm or even death.”

    Six weeks ear­li­er, in a June 26 op-ed, Cuc­cinel­li wrote that while the nation was “appalled” by George Floyd’s death in Min­neapo­lis, “The may­hem that ensued, how­ev­er, can­not be excused or jus­ti­fied, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it caus­es the death of anoth­er.”

    “How do we pre­vent the death of anoth­er Patrick Under­wood? We don’t allow law­less­ness in our streets,” Cuc­cinel­li wrote.

    And dur­ing a July 21 press con­fer­ence large­ly focused on Port­land, the deputy direc­tor of the Fed­er­al Pro­tec­tive Ser­vice — for which Under­wood worked as a con­trac­tor — explic­it­ly tied his death to protests.

    “On May 29, at a fed­er­al facil­i­ty at Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia, dur­ing a pret­ty vio­lent demon­stra­tion, two of our pro­tec­tive secu­ri­ty offi­cers were shot in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing,” FPS Deputy Direc­tor Richard Cline said. “One of those Pro­tec­tive Ser­vice offi­cers, Pat Under­wood, died of his injuries.”

    At best, the admin­is­tra­tion has sought to equal­ize the booga­loo move­ment with “antifa,” a short­hand for anti-fas­cist demon­stra­tors, which it has lumped togeth­er under the ban­ner of vio­lent anti-gov­ern­ment extrem­ism.

    In late June, in a memo announc­ing the “Task Force on Vio­lent Anti-Gov­ern­ment Extrem­ists,” Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bill Barr wrote that “We have evi­dence that anti-gov­ern­ment vio­lent extrem­ists — includ­ing those who sup­port the ‘Booga­loo,’ who self-iden­ti­fy as Antifa, and oth­ers — will pose con­tin­u­ing threats of law­less­ness.”

    U.S. Attor­ney for the North­ern Dis­trict of Texas Erin Nealy Cox, who’s lead­ing that task force, opened her tes­ti­mo­ny Wednes­day by recount­ing a shoot­ing at a Dal­las cour­t­house last year by a gun­man with “anti-gov­ern­ment motives.” But the gun­man, Bri­an Isaac Clyde, made his views more explic­it than that in online posts before the shoot­ing.

    On his Face­book page, he described one of his weapons as “a mod­ern gla­d­ius to defend the mod­ern Repub­lic” and made his antipa­thy toward left-wing con­cerns about things like racism and trans­pho­bia clear.

    In April 2019, two months before the shoot­ing in which he was ulti­mate­ly killed by law enforce­ment, Clyde shared a meme refer­ring to an alliance between Lib­er­tar­i­ans and “Nat­Socs,” or Nazis — “on the bat­tle­field dur­ing the Booga­loo.”

    ————-

    “GOP­ers Keep False­ly Imply­ing A Pro­test­er Killed A Fed­er­al Offi­cer In Oak­land” by Matt Shuham; Talk­ing Points Memo; 08/06/2020

    “There is no evi­dence that these men had any inten­tion to join the demon­stra­tion in Oak­land,” said John Ben­net, the agent in charge of the FBI’s San Fran­cis­co divi­sion, refer­ring to Car­ril­lo and the man charged with dri­ving the van used in the dri­ve-by shoot­ing. “They came to Oak­land to kill cops.””

    As the FBI’s own inves­ti­ga­tors make clear, there’s no evi­dence at all that Car­ril­lo and Jus­tus intend­ed on join­ing the protests. They were there explic­it­ly to run a false flag oper­a­tion. Car­ril­lo admit­ted to it on his own Face­book posts. And yet for months Repub­li­can politi­cians and Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials have been open­ly try­ing to con­nect Car­ril­lo to the pro­tes­tors with impuni­ty. Keep in mind that it was abun­dant­ly clear that Car­ril­lo was a ‘Booga­loo’ false flag oper­a­tive by ear­ly June. And yet here we have Sen­a­tors Ron John­son and Ted Cruz going out their way to con­nect Car­ril­lo to the pro­tes­tors two months lat­er in August. They obvi­ous­ly know they are bla­tant­ly lying and are more than hap­py to con­tin­ue doing so, which, again, is a bla­tant shout out to oth­er ‘Booga­loo’ mem­bers to car­ry out their own false flag attacks:

    ...
    And yet, for months, Repub­li­cans and admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials have lumped Car­ril­lo in with the nation­wide protest move­ment.

    Sen. Ron John­son (R‑WI), chair of the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Home­land Secu­ri­ty and Gov­ern­men­tal Affairs, opened a hear­ing Thurs­day with the false impli­ca­tion that Car­ril­lo was par­tic­i­pat­ing in a protest.

    Under­wood, John­son said, was killed while guard­ing a fed­er­al build­ing “dur­ing a protest.”

    “News reports said the protest involv­ing approx­i­mate­ly 8,000 peo­ple turned chaot­ic and vio­lent, as demon­stra­tors smashed win­dows, loot­ed stores, and broke into a bank a few blocks from where Offi­cer Under­wood was on duty.”

    After incor­rect­ly say­ing that Car­ril­lo had killed a sheriff’s deputy “a few days before” — Carrillo’s sec­ond alleged killing, of San­ta Cruz Coun­ty Sheriff’s Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, was actu­al­ly a few days lat­er on June 6 — John­son said that the suspect’s “anti-police views drew him to Oak­land, where he saw the anti-police protest as an oppor­tu­ni­ty for more blood­shed.”

    ...

    But Repub­li­cans have fre­quent­ly blurred the lines between the booga­loo sup­port­ers and the racial jus­tice protests. Sen. Ted Cruz (R‑TX) pulled a sim­i­lar rhetor­i­cal maneu­ver to Johnson’s at a hear­ing Wednes­day on “The Right of the Peo­ple Peace­ably to Assem­ble: Pro­tect­ing Speech by Stop­ping Anar­chist Vio­lence.”

    In a video mon­tage at the start of the hear­ing, Cruz put a news clip describ­ing Underwood’s mur­der next to oth­er clips of protest cov­er­age, imply­ing a con­nec­tion. Lat­er, Cruz point­ed out that Sen. Mazie Hirono (D‑HI) didn’t con­demn the vio­lence against law enforce­ment from “riot­ers.”

    “Not a word was said about the mur­der of fed­er­al law enforce­ment offi­cer Patrick Under­wood,” he said imme­di­ate­ly after­ward.
    ...

    And then there’s the Trump admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials like Act­ing Deputy DHS sec­re­tary Ken Cuc­cinel­li who were more than hap­py to play along with Sen­a­tor Cruz dur­ing his hear­ing and butress­ing the same lie he him­self had been pro­mot­ing for weeks. Because Big Lies require coor­di­na­tion. Coor­di­na­tion between the kind of peo­ple hap­py to engage in a Big Lie:

    ...
    The admin­is­tra­tion has also mud­died the waters around Underwood’s killing — seem­ing­ly seek­ing to char­ac­ter­ize Car­ril­lo as a vio­lent Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­er — for weeks.

    At Cruz’s hear­ing, Act­ing Deputy DHS sec­re­tary Ken Cuc­cinel­li said that Under­wood was killed “in the vio­lence fol­low­ing George Floyd’s trag­ic death.”

    Cuc­cinel­li then appeared to use Underwood’s death to attack Democ­rats, say­ing that he was dis­ap­point­ed “that select fed­er­al, state and local lead­ers pre­fer to demo­nize law enforce­ment while kow­tow­ing to vio­lent crim­i­nals who set fire to our cities, destroy local busi­ness­es and tar­get law enforce­ment offi­cers for harm or even death.”

    Six weeks ear­li­er, in a June 26 op-ed, Cuc­cinel­li wrote that while the nation was “appalled” by George Floyd’s death in Min­neapo­lis, “The may­hem that ensued, how­ev­er, can­not be excused or jus­ti­fied, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it caus­es the death of anoth­er.”

    “How do we pre­vent the death of anoth­er Patrick Under­wood? We don’t allow law­less­ness in our streets,” Cuc­cinel­li wrote.

    And dur­ing a July 21 press con­fer­ence large­ly focused on Port­land, the deputy direc­tor of the Fed­er­al Pro­tec­tive Ser­vice — for which Under­wood worked as a con­trac­tor — explic­it­ly tied his death to protests.

    “On May 29, at a fed­er­al facil­i­ty at Oak­land, Cal­i­for­nia, dur­ing a pret­ty vio­lent demon­stra­tion, two of our pro­tec­tive secu­ri­ty offi­cers were shot in a dri­ve-by shoot­ing,” FPS Deputy Direc­tor Richard Cline said. “One of those Pro­tec­tive Ser­vice offi­cers, Pat Under­wood, died of his injuries.”
    ...

    And now we get to see whether or not Pres­i­dent Trump decide to drop a David Patrick Under­wood ref­er­ence in his con­ven­tion speech tonight. It’s clear­ly on the admin­is­tra­tion’s mind, as Mike Pence made clear. Under­stand­ably. After all, if there actu­al­ly was a wide­spread acknowl­edge­ment that David Patrick Under­wood was mur­dered in a ‘Booga­loo’ false flag attack that was intend­ed to paint the pro­tes­tors as vio­lent killers that’s the kind of fun fact that could do real dam­age to the nar­ra­tive of far left vio­lent hordes threat­en­ing the nation that the Trump cam­paign is clear­ly rely­ing on as one of its core cam­paign mes­sages.

    It also rais­es the ques­tion of why the Democ­rats haven’t pounced on the Car­ril­lo sto­ry yet. After all, imag­ine if this sto­ry and the polit­i­cal fight over whether or not Car­ril­lo was a false flag ‘Booga­loo’ mem­ber or an actu­al pro­tes­tor was the kind of sto­ry the Democ­rats were rou­tine­ly rais­ing and forc­ing the Repub­li­cans to com­ment on now that the GOP has dou­ble and tripled and quadru­pled down on a Big Lie nar­ra­tive. Repub­li­cans had a chance to back away from this sto­ry once it became clear who Car­ril­lo was but they could­n’t resist just lying like always and rely­ing on the pow­er of the right-wing media to back up the lie. As a result, the cam­paign com­mer­cials write them­selves at this point. Clips of one Repub­li­can after anoth­er spread­ing the Big Lie of Car­ril­lo jux­ta­posed to Car­ril­lo’s own words and deeds. In a cam­paign where that exact Big Lie — of vio­lent mobs of dan­ger­ous left-wing assas­si­na­tion squads com­ing for you in your homes — is at the heart of not just Trump reelec­tion cam­paign but the rest of the GOP at this point, it seems like the GOP’s ‘up-is-down black-is-white’ embrace of such an eas­i­ly debunk lie rep­re­sents a real oppor­tu­ni­ty. Sure, Big Lies are inher­ent­ly hard to counter, espe­cial­ly in the face of the con­tem­po­rary vast right-wing media dis­in­fo-tain­ment com­plex that dom­i­nates Amer­i­ca’s nation­al dia­logue. But this is an elec­tion year where bil­lions of dol­lars spent on ads from both sides.

    And, yes, attempt­ing to counter right-wing Big Lies has kind of become a fool’s errand in mod­ern day Amer­i­ca. But not as fool­ish as not try­ing to counter them.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 27, 2020, 11:51 am
  33. The more chaos and anar­chy and van­dal­ism and vio­lence reigns, the bet­ter it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on pub­lic safe­ty and law and order. That was the direct quote from White House advis­er Kellyanne Con­way a few day ago in what is being seen as a per­haps unin­ten­tion­al­ly hon­est descrip­tion of the White House­’s reelec­tion strat­e­gy. A strat­e­gy that could prob­a­bly be sum­ma­rized as a Hel­ter Skel­ter ‘Strat­e­gy of Ten­sion’ for the US:

    “The more chaos and anar­chy and van­dal­ism and vio­lence reigns, the bet­ter it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on pub­lic safe­ty and law and order” — Kellyanne Con­way makes a case that the killings of peace­ful pro­test­ers will ben­e­fit Trump polit­i­cal­ly pic.twitter.com/ClJ6ArrbkE— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 27, 2020

    A strat­e­gy of ten­sion that includes Pres­i­dent Trump and vir­tu­al­ly the entire Repub­li­can Par­ry and right-wing media turn­ing the 17-year old shoot­er at last week’s protests in Kenosha, Wis­con­sin, Kyle Rit­ten­house, into a right-wing folk hero. And a strat­e­gy that can be deployed with ease. All that’s required is a new egre­gious police shoot­ing inci­dent that gets caught on video. Protests will pre­dictable ensue. Some of the pro­test­ers — or right-wing plants — will engage in loot­ing, van­dal­ism, or arson and some sort of vio­lence between pro­tes­tors and counter-pro­tes­tors takes place. And then Trump and the right-wing media use that vio­lence to frame the protests as some­thing Trump can protest vot­ers from. It’s a dia­bol­i­cal­ly sim­ple strat­e­gy. All it requires to keep going is new egre­gious police bru­tal­i­ty inci­dents every few weeks to main­tain the ten­sion. Bla­tant­ly bad cops are good for Trump’s reelec­tion as long as they’re so bad they trig­ger a protest. That’s how the strat­e­gy works.

    And it’s that unfold­ing Trumpian Strat­e­gy of Ten­sion that makes a new report on the infil­tra­tion of police depart­ments by white suprema­cists in the US so dis­turbing­ly time­ly. The report was writ­ten by for­mer FBI agent Mike Ger­man and describes a nation­al sit­u­a­tion where there is basi­cal­ly no real over­sight to watch for white suprema­cist’s try­ing to infil­trate the police. Even more dis­turb­ing is that few police depart­ments even have a pol­i­cy against offi­cers being affil­i­tat­ed with white suprema­cist groups. It’s why the tim­ing of this report almost could­n’t be bet­ter. But it’s not just a report that should be of inter­est to anti-police bru­tal­i­ty pro­test­ers. Police them­selves should be keen­ly inter­est­ed in its con­tents right now. Why? Because the Trump admin­is­tra­tion isn’t just stok­ing vio­lence by pro-Trump/pro-police counter-pro­tes­tors. Trump is also implic­it­ly encour­ag­ing the kind of acts of extreme police vio­lence that’s start­ing these protests in the first place because the protests are part of his reelec­tion strat­e­gy. If you’re a clos­et neo-Nazi cop the unam­bigu­ous sig­nal that you have been get­ting from the White House this sum­mer is that these protests are great for Trump’s reelec­tion. And that’s an invi­ta­tion for more acts of pol­i­cy brutality...specifically acts of bru­tal­i­ty that get caught on cam­era and enrage swathes of the pub­lic. And that means every police depart­ment in the US should be extra wor­ried right now about its clos­et white suprema­cist cops decid­ing that the best way to help Trump get reelect­ed is to do some­thing that trig­gers an anti-police bru­tal­i­ty protest.

    Are some of these police killings or shoot­ings, like the obscene shoot­ing of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, being done by police with the hopes of trig­ger­ing a protest? That’s unclear at this point, but what is clear is that white suprema­cist infil­tra­tion of the police is an long-stand­ing phe­nom­e­na and almost no police depart­ments have been watch­ing out for it:

    The Guardian

    White suprema­cists and mili­tias have infil­trat­ed police across US, report says

    A for­mer FBI agent has doc­u­ment­ed links between serv­ing offi­cers and racist mil­i­tant activ­i­ties in more than a dozen states

    Sam Levin in Los Ange­les
    Thu 27 Aug 2020 10.13 EDT

    White suprema­cist groups have infil­trat­ed US law enforce­ment agen­cies in every region of the coun­try over the last two decades, accord­ing to a new report about the ties between police and far-right vig­i­lante groups.

    In a time­ly new analy­sis, Michael Ger­man, a for­mer FBI spe­cial agent who has writ­ten exten­sive­ly on the ways that US law enforce­ment have failed to respond to far-right domes­tic ter­ror threats, con­cludes that US law enforce­ment offi­cials have been tied to racist mil­i­tant activ­i­ties in more than a dozen states since 2000, and hun­dreds of police offi­cers have been caught post­ing racist and big­ot­ed social media con­tent.

    The report notes that over the years, police links to mili­tias and white suprema­cist groups have been uncov­ered in states includ­ing Alaba­ma, Cal­i­for­nia, Con­necti­cut, Flori­da, Illi­nois, Louisiana, Michi­gan, Nebras­ka, Okla­homa, Ore­gon, Texas, Vir­ginia, Wash­ing­ton and West Vir­ginia.

    Police in Sacra­men­to, Cal­i­for­nia, in 2018 worked with neo-Nazis to pur­sue charges against anti-racist activists, includ­ing some who had been stabbed, accord­ing to records.

    And just this sum­mer, Ger­man writes, an Orange coun­ty sheriff’s deputy and a Chica­go police­man were caught wear­ing far-right mili­tia logos; an Olympia, Wash­ing­ton, offi­cer was pho­tographed pos­ing with a mili­tia group; and Philadel­phia police offi­cers were filmed stand­ing by while armed mobs attacked pro­test­ers and jour­nal­ists.

    The exact scale of ties between law enforce­ment and mili­tias is hard to deter­mine, Ger­man told the Guardian. “Nobody is col­lect­ing the data and nobody is active­ly look­ing for these law enforce­ment offi­cers,” he said.

    Offi­cers’ racist activ­i­ties are often known with­in their depart­ments and gen­er­al­ly result in pun­ish­ment or ter­mi­na­tion fol­low­ing pub­lic scan­dals, the report notes. Few police agen­cies have explic­it poli­cies against affil­i­at­ing with white suprema­cist groups. If police offi­cers are dis­ci­plined, the mea­sures often lead to pro­tract­ed lit­i­ga­tion.

    Con­cerns about alleged rela­tions between far-right groups and law enforce­ment in the US have inten­si­fied since the start of the protest move­ment sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. Police in states includ­ing Cal­i­for­nia, Ore­gon, Illi­nois and Wash­ing­ton are now fac­ing inves­ti­ga­tions for their alleged affin­i­ty to far-right groups oppos­ing Black Lives Mat­ter, accord­ing to the report.

    This week, police in Kenosha, Wis­con­sin, faced intense scruti­ny over their response to armed white men and mili­tia groups gath­ered in the city amid demon­stra­tions by Black Lives Mat­ter activists and oth­ers over the police shoot­ing of Jacob Blake, a Black father of three who was left par­a­lyzed after being shot in the back. On Wednes­day, Kyle Rit­ten­house, a 17-year-old who appeared to con­sid­er him­self a mili­tia mem­ber and had post­ed “blue lives mat­ter” con­tent, was arrest­ed on sus­pi­cion of mur­der after the fatal shoot­ing of two pro­test­ers.

    Activists in Kenosha say police there have respond­ed aggres­sive­ly and vio­lent­ly to Black Lives Mat­ter demon­stra­tors, while doing lit­tle to stop armed white vig­i­lantes. Sup­port­ing their claims is at least one video tak­en before the shoot­ing that showed police toss­ing bot­tled water to what appeared to be armed civil­ians, includ­ing one who appeared to be the shoot­er, the AP not­ed: “We appre­ci­ate you being here,” an offi­cer said on loud­speak­er.

    Police also report­ed­ly let the gun­man walk past them with a rifle as the crowd yelled for him to be arrest­ed because he had shot peo­ple, accord­ing to wit­ness­es and video reviewed by the news agency.

    The Kenosha sher­iff, David Beth, has said the inci­dent was chaot­ic and stress­ful.

    Ger­man told the Guardian on Wednes­day: “Far-right mil­i­tants are allowed to engage in vio­lence and walk away while pro­test­ers are met with vio­lent police actions.” This “neg­li­gent response”, he added, empow­ers vio­lent groups in dan­ger­ous and poten­tial­ly lethal ways: “The most vio­lent ele­ments with­in these far-right mil­i­tant groups believe that their con­duct is sanc­tioned by the gov­ern­ment. And there­fore they’re much more will­ing to come out and engage in acts of vio­lence against pro­test­ers.”

    There is grow­ing aware­ness in some parts of the gov­ern­ment about the inten­si­fy­ing threat of white suprema­cy. The FBI and the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) have direct­ly iden­ti­fied white suprema­cists as the most lethal domes­tic ter­ror­ist threat in the coun­try. Accord­ing to German’s report, the FBI’s own inter­nal doc­u­ments have direct­ly warned that the mili­tia groups the agency is inves­ti­gat­ing often have “active links” to law enforce­ment.

    And yet US agen­cies lack a nation­al strat­e­gy to iden­ti­fy white suprema­cist police and root out this prob­lem, Ger­man warned. Mean­while, pop­u­lar police reform efforts to address “implic­it bias” have done noth­ing to con­front explic­it racism.

    ...

    As the calls to defund police have grown in recent months, law enforce­ment align­ment with vio­lent and racist groups only adds fur­ther fuel to the move­ment, Ger­man said. “In a time when the effort to defund police is get­ting some salience, the police are behav­ing in such a way as to jus­ti­fy that argu­ment.”

    ————

    “White suprema­cists and mili­tias have infil­trat­ed police across US, report says” by Sam Levin; The Guardian; 08/27/2020

    “The exact scale of ties between law enforce­ment and mili­tias is hard to deter­mine, Ger­man told the Guardian. “Nobody is col­lect­ing the data and nobody is active­ly look­ing for these law enforce­ment offi­cers,” he said.”

    Nobody is col­lect­ing the data and nobody is active­ly look­ing for white suprema­cists in the police force. As a result, we don’t know the true scale of ties between law enforce­ment and far right groups likes mili­tias. It’s the kind of ambi­gu­i­ty that should leave us pret­ty sure those ties are deep­er than we sus­pect. And when those ties between police and mili­tias result in the kind of cod­dling like we saw with the Kenosha police depart­men­t’s treat­ment of Kyle Rit­ten­house — allow­ing him to leave with­out being arrest­ed after shoot­ing and killing mul­ti­ple peo­ple — the mili­tias are even more incen­tivized to come out to the protests and com­mit more acts of vio­lence:

    ...
    Offi­cers’ racist activ­i­ties are often known with­in their depart­ments and gen­er­al­ly result in pun­ish­ment or ter­mi­na­tion fol­low­ing pub­lic scan­dals, the report notes. Few police agen­cies have explic­it poli­cies against affil­i­at­ing with white suprema­cist groups. If police offi­cers are dis­ci­plined, the mea­sures often lead to pro­tract­ed lit­i­ga­tion.

    ...

    Activists in Kenosha say police there have respond­ed aggres­sive­ly and vio­lent­ly to Black Lives Mat­ter demon­stra­tors, while doing lit­tle to stop armed white vig­i­lantes. Sup­port­ing their claims is at least one video tak­en before the shoot­ing that showed police toss­ing bot­tled water to what appeared to be armed civil­ians, includ­ing one who appeared to be the shoot­er, the AP not­ed: “We appre­ci­ate you being here,” an offi­cer said on loud­speak­er.

    Police also report­ed­ly let the gun­man walk past them with a rifle as the crowd yelled for him to be arrest­ed because he had shot peo­ple, accord­ing to wit­ness­es and video reviewed by the news agency.

    ...

    Ger­man told the Guardian on Wednes­day: “Far-right mil­i­tants are allowed to engage in vio­lence and walk away while pro­test­ers are met with vio­lent police actions.” This “neg­li­gent response”, he added, empow­ers vio­lent groups in dan­ger­ous and poten­tial­ly lethal ways: “The most vio­lent ele­ments with­in these far-right mil­i­tant groups believe that their con­duct is sanc­tioned by the gov­ern­ment. And there­fore they’re much more will­ing to come out and engage in acts of vio­lence against pro­test­ers.”

    There is grow­ing aware­ness in some parts of the gov­ern­ment about the inten­si­fy­ing threat of white suprema­cy. The FBI and the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty (DHS) have direct­ly iden­ti­fied white suprema­cists as the most lethal domes­tic ter­ror­ist threat in the coun­try. Accord­ing to German’s report, the FBI’s own inter­nal doc­u­ments have direct­ly warned that the mili­tia groups the agency is inves­ti­gat­ing often have “active links” to law enforce­ment.
    ...

    With­out the protests Trump’s cur­rent reelec­tion strat­e­gy crum­bles. And you can’t have anti-police bru­tal­i­ty protest with police bru­tal­i­ty. So are any of these inci­dents being inten­tion­al­ly cre­at­ed by white suprema­cist cops who are aware of this Hel­ter Skel­ter-style strat­e­gy of ten­sion reelec­tion cam­paign? Well, if the White House was to send out any qui­et requests for more high-pro­fil­ing police killings there’s pret­ty clear­ly going to be a recep­tive audi­ence. We just don’t know how big of an audi­ence because we don’t know how many white suprema­cist cops there are at all because no one is look­ing.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | August 31, 2020, 4:13 pm
  34. Here’s an update on Michael For­est Rei­noehl, the sus­pect in the shoot­ing of Aaron “Jay” Daniel­son, a far right Patri­ot Prayer mem­ber in Port­land last week­end. Recall how one of the curi­ous things about Rei­noehl is how his pub­lic social media posts indi­cat­ed basi­cal­ly no inter­est in pol­i­tics until June 3rd of this year when he has a post about a “New Per­spec­tive” on the need for rad­i­cal change. And it was a cou­ple weeks after that ‘New Per­spec­tive’ post that he claimed on social media to be “100% ANTIFA all the way”. So the osten­si­ble left­ist who killed the first far right indi­vid­ual this year appeared to be “100% ANTIFA” for a cou­ple of months or so before this killing. A killing that’s pre­dictably being por­trayed by groups like Oath Keep­ers as being the first shot fired in Civ­il War 2.0.

    And now here’s the update: Rei­noehl was shot dead by law enforce­ment hours after Vice New pub­lished an inter­view with Rein­hoehl. It’s unclear at this point why exact­ly pre­cip­i­tat­ed the shoot­ing but based on eye­wit­ness reports it sounds like Rein­hoehl was leav­ing an apart­ment that hap­pened to be under sur­veil­lance to go to his car. Once he got into his car two unmarked SUV raced up to the car. At that point Rei­noehl got out of the car with what looked like an assault rifle and began to fire at the SUV. The offi­cers opened fire and killed Rei­noehl. No offi­cers were injured. So it def­i­nite­ly has the feel of an ‘arrest’ that Rei­noehl nev­er intend­ed to sur­vive.

    Dur­ing the Vice inter­view pub­lished hours ear­li­er, Rei­noehl admit­ted to the shoot­ing and jus­ti­fied it by sug­gest­ing that Daniel­son was threat­en­ing “a dear and close friend of mine in the move­ment” with mace or knife. It would be inter­est­ing to know how long he’s known this “dear and clos­er friend in the move­ment”. Is this some­one he just met fol­low­ing his “New Per­spec­tive” in June or some­one he’s known for years? Rei­noehl claims he felt like he or his friend were going to be stabbed if they took one step clos­er to Daniel­son. Keep in mind there’s grainy video of the actu­al shoot­ing and the Rein­hoehl does­n’t appear to be with­in stab­bing dis­tance of Daniel­son.

    Rei­noehl also claimed in the inter­view that the police in Port­land were inten­tion­al encour­ag­ing vio­lent con­flicts between far left and far right pro­test­ers by leav­ing these areas unpo­liced for hours at a time while clash­es are under­way. As we’ll see in the fourth arti­cle excerpt below, the recent report put out by for­mer FBI agent Mike Ger­man about links between law enforce­ment and far right groups has a sec­tion ded­i­cat­ed to the his­to­ry of Port­land’s police depart­ment with far right groups. The arti­cle also dis­cuss­es inci­dents over this sum­mer where large street bat­tles were allowed to go on for hours with­out police inter­ven­tion. So those claims of Rei­noehl in the inter­view seem pret­ty plau­si­ble. He also explained that the rea­son he was on the run from the police is because he was con­vinced they were work­ing with the mili­tias and had no plans on pro­tect­ing him or his fam­i­ly.

    The Vice inter­view ends with Rei­noehl mak­ing the kind of state­ment that, again, should raise ques­tions about whether or not he’s was enter­ing the protest move­ment with the goal of stok­ing con­flicts: He feels like the shots he fired felt like the begin­ning of a a civ­il war, echo groups like the Oath Keep­ers. So whether or not the guy was a gen­uine left-wing activist or a plant he was def­i­nite­ly play­ing into that far right nar­ra­tive. He played a star­ring role in fact:

    ...
    “I feel that they’re try­ing to, you know, put oth­er charges on me. They’ll find anoth­er way to keep me in,” Rei­noehl said when asked why he didn’t tell his sto­ry to the police. “Hon­est­ly, I hate to say it, but I see a civ­il war right around the cor­ner,” he said. “That that shot felt like the begin­ning of a war.”
    ...

    And at the end of this all we still know almost noth­ing about Rei­noehl. He was ex-mil­i­tary, a pro­fes­sion snow­board­er, and work­ing as a handy­man con­trac­tor. That’s all we know about this fig­ure who sud­den­ly became “100% ANTIFA” just months ago and is now the poster boy in far right’s quest to spark a civ­il war

    Ok, first, here’s an arti­cle describ­ing his killing police in Wash­ing­ton state and the eye­wit­ness­es who saw Rei­noehl take an assault rifle out of his car and start fir­ing it at the SUVs that just swarmed him:

    The Olympian

    Port­land shoot­ing sus­pect fatal­ly shot by US Mar­shals task force near Lacey

    BY SARA GENTZLER, ROLF BOONE, AND BRANDON BLOCK
    SEPTEMBER 03, 2020 08:21 PM , UPDATED

    The sus­pect in the fatal shoot­ing of a right-wing sup­port­er in Port­land was shot and killed by a U.S. Mar­shals task force near Lacey Thurs­day evening.

    The shoot­ing occurred in the 7600 block of 3rd Way South­east in Tan­glewil­de about 7 p.m.

    The US Mar­shals Ser­vice con­firmed the man killed is 48-year-old Michael For­est Rei­noehl, the sus­pect in last weekend’s fatal shoot­ing. The Port­land Police Bureau had issued a war­rant for Reinoehl’s arrest ear­li­er Thurs­day and asked the U.S. Mar­shals to find and appre­hend him, accord­ing to an emailed state­ment from USMS spokesper­son Dave Oney.

    Thurston Coun­ty sheriff’s Lt. Ray Brady said the Pierce Coun­ty sheriff’s fugi­tive appre­hen­sion team, work­ing as part of the U.S. Mar­shals Ser­vice Pacif­ic North­west Vio­lent Offend­er Task Force, was in the area look­ing for a want­ed homi­cide sus­pect when they saw the sus­pect come out of an apart­ment, to a vehi­cle. They said he appeared to be armed.

    “The sus­pect came out to the car,” Troy­er said. “They attempt­ed to put him into cus­tody and shots were fired.”

    There was “a con­fronta­tion” between the offi­cers on scene and the man, Brady said. Offi­cers fired shots into the vehi­cle and the sus­pect ran from the car, Brady con­firmed, then offi­cers fired more shots.

    As of 10 p.m., Brady had not yet con­firmed whether the sus­pect fired a weapon at law enforce­ment offi­cers.

    Rei­noehl was pro­nounced dead at the scene.

    Brady con­firmed that four offi­cers fired their weapons. The offi­cers were from the state Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions, Pierce Coun­ty Sheriff’s Depart­ment and Lake­wood Police Depart­ment. All offi­cers on the scene were act­ing in U.S. Mar­shal capac­i­ty Thurs­day, accord­ing to Brady.

    No offi­cers were injured in the con­fronta­tion, Brady said.

    The five-coun­ty Region 3 Crit­i­cal Inci­dent Inves­ti­ga­tion Team is inves­ti­gat­ing the shoot­ing, led by Thurston Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office. No offi­cers from the depart­ments on the inves­tiga­tive team were at the scene at the time of the shoot­ing, accord­ing to Brady.

    It’s a U.S. Mar­shals Ser­vice pol­i­cy not to release the names of deputy mar­shals involved in shoot­ings until the inves­ti­ga­tion is com­plete, accord­ing to the pre­pared USMS state­ment.

    Chad Smith and Chase Cut­ler, who were work­ing on cars near­by Thurs­day, said an unmarked SUV had been parked on School Street for a while when that SUV and anoth­er con­verged on a man in a vehi­cle at the apart­ment com­plex. Smith and Cut­ler moved onto a grassy area about 50 yards away to watch what was hap­pen­ing.

    The man got out of his vehi­cle and began to fire what they believe was an assault rifle at the SUVs. They said they heard 40 or 50 shots, then offi­cers returned fire, hit­ting the man.

    “It remind­ed me of a video game,” Cut­ler said.

    ...

    ———–

    “Port­land shoot­ing sus­pect fatal­ly shot by US Mar­shals task force near Lacey” BY SARA GENTZLER, ROLF BOONE, AND BRANDON BLOCK; The Olympian; 09/03/2020

    “The man got out of his vehi­cle and began to fire what they believe was an assault rifle at the SUVs. They said they heard 40 or 50 shots, then offi­cers returned fire, hit­ting the man.”

    That def­i­nite­ly sounds like a “sui­cide by cop” sce­nario. And this all took place hours after the Vice inter­view was pub­lished where Rei­noehl express­es a sense that he had just fired the first shots of a new civ­il war:

    Vice News

    Man Linked to Killing at a Port­land Protest Says He Act­ed in Self-Defense
    “I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of col­or. But I was­n’t going to do that.”

    by VICE News
    Sep­tem­ber 3, 2020, 3:47pm

    Ever since a mem­ber of the right-wing “Patri­ot Prayer” group was shot and killed dur­ing a vio­lent ral­ly in down­town Port­land August 29, the police inves­ti­ga­tion has report­ed­ly focused on 48-year-old Michael For­est Rei­noehl, an Army vet­er­an and father of two who has pro­vid­ed what he called “secu­ri­ty” at Black Lives Mat­ter protests.

    Rei­noehl has not been charged or arrest­ed, and Port­land police declined to say if he is the tar­get of its inves­ti­ga­tion. How­ev­er, The Wall Steet Jour­nal report­ed that Rei­noehl is a per­son of inter­est in the killing of Aaron “Jay” Daniel­son, who was tak­ing part in a mas­sive pro-Trump car­a­van that began in Clacka­mas ear­li­er in the day.

    In a con­ver­sa­tion with free­lance jour­nal­ist Dono­van Far­ley shared with VICE News, Rei­noehl said he believed he and a friend were about to be stabbed, and that he act­ed in self defense. VICE News has not been able to inde­pen­dent­ly ver­i­fy details of his sto­ry.

    “You know, lots of lawyers sug­gest that I should­n’t even be say­ing any­thing, but I feel it’s impor­tant that the world at least gets a lit­tle bit of what’s real­ly going on,” Rei­noehl said. “I had no choice. I mean, I, I had a choice. I could have sat there and watched them kill a friend of mine of col­or. But I was­n’t going to do that.”

    Port­land has been a flash­point for protests since the 2016 elec­tion, but after the death of George Floyd in May, protests have got­ten messier and increas­ing­ly dan­ger­ous. In August, a right-wing pro­test­er was arrest­ed for fir­ing into a crowd of Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­ers. Proud Boy Alan Swin­ney bran­dished a gun and point­ed it at pro­test­ers, and a group of report­ed­ly left-aligned pro­test­ers were seen on video drag­ging a truck dri­ver out of his vehi­cle and beat­ing him up.

    The killing of Daniel­son is the first linked to an antifacist pro­test­er in recent years. It hap­pened one week after 17-year-old pro-Trump pro­test­er Kyle Rit­ten­house alleged­ly shot three pro­test­ers at a march in Kenosha, Wis­con­sin, killing two. Rittenhouse’s lawyer is claim­ing he act­ed in self defense.

    Rei­noehl has been a night­ly pres­ence at Black Lives Mat­ter protests in Port­land for months. In ear­ly July, he was arrest­ed for car­ry­ing a loaded hand­gun at a protest and resist­ing arrest. The WSJ reports that the case remains open. Lat­er that month, he was shot in the arm while attempt­ing to wres­tle a gun away from a right-wing pro­test­er dur­ing a skir­mish.

    Rei­noehl said he became aware of the pro-Trump truck parade when he saw what he described as “hun­dreds of trucks with flags on them,” while dri­ving around Port­land ear­li­er in the day with his teenage son.

    “I noti­fied my friends of what I had seen and fin­ished what I was doing with my son, got home and then received a phone call that it might be a good idea to come down there,” he said. “Secu­ri­ty may be need­ed not know­ing what that would entail. I had no idea what I was get­ting into.”

    “I’m see­ing all these vehi­cles with hatred, peo­ple in the backs of the trucks yelling and scream­ing and swing­ing bats and sticks at pro­test­ers that are just stand­ing there yelling at them,” he said.

    At 8:45 p.m., Rei­noehl said he went to the aid of a friend sur­round­ed by trucks laden with armed pro-Trump pro­test­ers. “I saw some­one that is a dear and close friend of mine in the move­ment by him­self basi­cal­ly con­fronting all these vehi­cles,” Rein­hoel told Far­ley. “And so I let him know that I’m here, parked my vehi­cle and joined up with him, found myself in the inter­sec­tion in front of the food trucks sur­round­ed by trucks and cars that had weapons.”

    Rein­doehl stressed that peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro-Trump car­a­van were heav­i­ly armed in those trucks, and that they car­ried “not just paint­ball guns,” as report­ed in the press.

    He found him­self in a con­fronta­tion with a man who he says threat­ened him and anoth­er pro­test­er with a knife. “Had I stepped for­ward, he would have maced or stabbed me,” Rei­noehl said.

    Bystander video from mul­ti­ple angles show a man who resem­bles Rei­noehl and appears to have the same neck tat­too fire two shots at Daniel­son and then walk away. “I was con­fi­dent that I did not hit any­one inno­cent and I made my exit,” he said.

    Since the shoot­ing, Rei­noehl said he’s gone into hid­ing, and moved his chil­dren to a safe place after shots were fired into his house just hours after the inci­dent. “They’re out hunt­ing me,” he said. “There’s night­ly posts of the hunt and where they’re going to be hunt­ing. They made a post say­ing the deer are going to feel lucky this year because it’s open sea­son on Michael right now.”

    He has not turned him­self in, he said, because he believes right-wing pro­test­ers are col­lab­o­rat­ing with police, who will not pro­tect him or his fam­i­ly.

    He said at the time of the con­fronta­tion and the shoot­ing, there were no police present to help. “There was def­i­nite­ly nobody in sight, no police offi­cer, nobody at all that could inter­vene. It was a free-for-all. And the police were let­ting it hap­pen,” he said.

    Two weeks lat­er, he said, he has no regrets about his actions. “If the life of any­body I care about is in dan­ger, and there’s some­thing I can do to pre­vent it … I think that any good human being would do the same thing,” he said.

    Rei­noehl said he’s spo­ken to attor­neys who say “I’ve got a viable case for self defense and pro­tec­tion because there’s a def­i­nite threat to my life.”

    ...

    “I feel that they’re try­ing to, you know, put oth­er charges on me. They’ll find anoth­er way to keep me in,” Rei­noehl said when asked why he didn’t tell his sto­ry to the police. “Hon­est­ly, I hate to say it, but I see a civ­il war right around the cor­ner,” he said. “That that shot felt like the begin­ning of a war.”

    ———–

    “Man Linked to Killing at a Port­land Protest Says He Act­ed in Self-Defense” by VICE News; Vice News; 09/02/2020

    ““I feel that they’re try­ing to, you know, put oth­er charges on me. They’ll find anoth­er way to keep me in,” Rei­noehl said when asked why he didn’t tell his sto­ry to the police. “Hon­est­ly, I hate to say it, but I see a civ­il war right around the cor­ner,” he said. “That that shot felt like the begin­ning of a war.”

    “That that shot felt like the begin­ning of a war.” It’s like he’s read­ing a script writ­ten by the Oath Keep­ers. As Rei­noehl describes it, he had no choice but to shoot Daniel­son. It was either he shoot Daniel­son or Daniel­son stabs his “dear and close friend of mine in the move­ment”. Video of shoot­ing does­n’t appear to show Rei­noehl being even close to Daniel­son when the shoot­ing took place, although its not clear in the video how close his friend was to Daniel­son and whether or not Daniel­son had a knife out:

    ...
    Rei­noehl said he became aware of the pro-Trump truck parade when he saw what he described as “hun­dreds of trucks with flags on them,” while dri­ving around Port­land ear­li­er in the day with his teenage son.

    “I noti­fied my friends of what I had seen and fin­ished what I was doing with my son, got home and then received a phone call that it might be a good idea to come down there,” he said. “Secu­ri­ty may be need­ed not know­ing what that would entail. I had no idea what I was get­ting into.”

    “I’m see­ing all these vehi­cles with hatred, peo­ple in the backs of the trucks yelling and scream­ing and swing­ing bats and sticks at pro­test­ers that are just stand­ing there yelling at them,” he said.

    At 8:45 p.m., Rei­noehl said he went to the aid of a friend sur­round­ed by trucks laden with armed pro-Trump pro­test­ers. “I saw some­one that is a dear and close friend of mine in the move­ment by him­self basi­cal­ly con­fronting all these vehi­cles,” Rein­hoel told Far­ley. “And so I let him know that I’m here, parked my vehi­cle and joined up with him, found myself in the inter­sec­tion in front of the food trucks sur­round­ed by trucks and cars that had weapons.”

    Rein­doehl stressed that peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in the pro-Trump car­a­van were heav­i­ly armed in those trucks, and that they car­ried “not just paint­ball guns,” as report­ed in the press.

    He found him­self in a con­fronta­tion with a man who he says threat­ened him and anoth­er pro­test­er with a knife. “Had I stepped for­ward, he would have maced or stabbed me,” Rei­noehl said.

    Bystander video from mul­ti­ple angles show a man who resem­bles Rei­noehl and appears to have the same neck tat­too fire two shots at Daniel­son and then walk away. “I was con­fi­dent that I did not hit any­one inno­cent and I made my exit,” he said.
    ...

    Next, here’s an Ore­gon Pub­lic Broad­cast­ing arti­cle that makes an impor­tant obser­va­tion regard­ing Rei­noehl’s his­to­ry of activism that’s more impor­tant now that Rei­noehl’s social media accounts have been delet­ed fol­low­ing his death: It was only in June of this year that his Insta­gram account took a rad­i­cal shift, from snow­board­ing post to almost exclu­sive­ly posts about the Port­land protests:

    OPB

    Racial jus­tice pro­test­er sus­pect­ed in Port­land shoot­ing death killed by law enforce­ment

    By Con­rad Wil­son (OPB) and Kim­ber­ley Fre­da (OPB)
    Sept. 3, 2020 7:11 p.m. Updat­ed: Sept. 4, 2020 10:42 a.m.

    Michael For­est Reinoehl’s death came as VICE News aired an inter­view in which he said he shot a Patri­ot Prayer sup­port­er in what he believed was self defense.

    Just hours after an inter­view was post­ed online in which Michael For­est Rei­noehl took respon­si­bil­i­ty for the fatal shoot­ing of a Patri­ot Prayer sup­port­er in down­town Port­land, Rei­noehl was killed in an attempt­ed arrest in Lacey, Wash­ing­ton, near Olympia.

    A Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty Cir­cuit Court judge autho­rized a war­rant Thurs­day for Reinoehl’s arrest in the Aug. 29 shoot­ing on a charge of mur­der. Just before 7 p.m., mem­bers of the Pacif­ic North­west Vio­lent Offend­er Task Force were wait­ing out­side an apart­ment where they believe Rei­noehl was stay­ing.

    ...

    A shift on social media

    It’s not clear whether Rei­noehl and Daniel­son knew each oth­er or had inter­act­ed at oth­er polit­i­cal ral­lies dur­ing Portland’s sum­mer of racial jus­tice demon­stra­tions before they crossed paths Aug. 29.

    Rei­noehl, a 48-year-old for­mer pro­fes­sion­al snow­board­er, appears to have attend­ed many of the night­ly protests, accord­ing to posts on his Insta­gram account.

    His social media account depicts a dra­mat­ic shift at the end of May, coin­cid­ing with the killing of George Floyd by Min­neapo­lis police.

    Pri­or Insta­gram posts depict Rei­noehl snow­board­ing at Ski Bowl near Mount Hood, pho­tos of his chil­dren, a video of a hike on Rocky Butte, pic­tures with his husky, a pho­to from the top of Portland’s Mount Tabor Park, as well as art­ful scenes of sun ris­es, sun­sets, trees and nature.

    But start­ing May 30, Reinoehl’s posts are almost exclu­sive­ly scenes from Portland’s protests.

    “He’s the kind of per­son who should have stayed as far away from the protests as pos­si­ble, because he’s not the kind of per­son who could ratio­nal­ly work through that intense envi­ron­ment,” his sis­ter said.

    The Oregonian/OregonLive first report­ed that Rei­noehl was a per­son of inter­est police were inves­ti­gat­ing in con­nec­tion with Sat­ur­day night’s shoot­ing.

    ...

    Oth­er inter­ac­tions with law enforce­ment

    Michael Rei­noehl has had sev­er­al recent run-ins with law enforce­ment.

    On June 8, court records show he was stopped by Ore­gon State Police on Inter­state 84 in Union Coun­ty at 12:47 a.m.

    He’s accused of rac­ing against his 17-year-old son.

    The two vehi­cles were trav­el­ing at 111 miles per hour when Rei­noehl was pulled over, accord­ing to state police records. A state troop­er found uniden­ti­fied pre­scrip­tion pills inside the 2005 Cadil­lac STS Rei­noehl was dri­ving, an unspec­i­fied amount of cannabis, and a con­cealed and loaded Glock pis­tol. Rei­noehl didn’t have a con­cealed hand­gun license, accord­ing to state police.

    Rei­noehl was charged with dri­ving under the influ­ence of intox­i­cants, unlaw­ful pos­ses­sion of a firearm, reck­less­ly endan­ger­ing anoth­er per­son — his 11-year-old daugh­ter was in the car with him — and reck­less dri­ving, accord­ing to court records. In addi­tion to his daugh­ter, a kit­ten and a large dog were inside the car.

    The inci­dent was first report­ed in June by the Bak­er City Her­ald.

    A month lat­er, at 2:10 a.m. on July 5, Rei­noehl was cit­ed down­town by Port­land police for resist­ing arrest, inter­fer­ing with an offi­cer and pos­ses­sion of a loaded firearm in a pub­lic place.

    That case remains an on-going inves­ti­ga­tion with the Mult­nom­ah Coun­ty dis­trict attorney’s office and the Port­land Police Bureau, accord­ing to a spokesman for the DA’s office.

    Reinoehl’s Insta­gram feed from the sum­mer show he reg­u­lar­ly attend­ed the down­town Port­land protests.

    A pho­to he post­ed on June 3 on Insta­gram shows pro­test­ers and law enforce­ment on oppo­site sides of a met­al fence.

    “It might be time to take A New Per­spec­tive on things,” Rei­noehl wrote. “Things are bad right now and they can only get worse. But that is how a rad­i­cal change comes about. Hope­ful­ly, if we do it right the peo­ple will pre­vail and in turn Com­mon Sense will save our plan­et.”

    On June 16, Rei­noehl wrote on Insta­gram that he was among the many pro­test­ers who he said didn’t know where their actions would lead.

    “I am 100% ANTIFA all the way! I am will­ing to fight for my broth­ers and sis­ters!” he wrote. “We do not want vio­lence but we will not run from it either.”

    In that same Insta­gram post, Rei­noehl wrote that there was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to “fix every­thing.”

    “But it will be like a fight like no oth­er! It will be a war and like all wars, there will be casu­al­ties,” he said. “I was in the army and I hat­ed it.”

    While Reinoehl’s sis­ter said she had a vague rec­ol­lec­tion of her broth­er being in the ser­vice, a U.S. Army spokesper­son was unable to find any records con­nect­ed to Rei­noehl in an Army data­base. Records lat­er pro­vid­ed to OPB show Rei­noehl served in the Army from March 1992 to June 1993.

    “I did not feel like fight­ing for them would ever be a good cause,” Rei­noehl wrote. “Today’s pro­test­ers and antifa are my broth­ers in arms. This is a Cause to fight for [sic] This tru­ly is fight­ing for my coun­try!”
    ...

    ———–

    “Racial jus­tice pro­test­er sus­pect­ed in Port­land shoot­ing death killed by law enforce­ment” by Con­rad Wil­son and Kim­ber­ley Fre­da; OPB; 09/03/2020

    “His social media account depicts a dra­mat­ic shift at the end of May, coin­cid­ing with the killing of George Floyd by Min­neapo­lis police.”

    Again, all indi­ca­tions are that Rei­noehl only sud­den­ly became polit­i­cal­ly active right when the George Floyd protests broke out. At that point his posts almost exclu­sive­ly were about Port­land area protests. So the guy went from no appar­ent activism to a sin­gu­lar focus on activism. But the kind of activism that he him­self saw is pre­cip­i­tat­ing a more vio­lent con­flict

    ...
    Pri­or Insta­gram posts depict Rei­noehl snow­board­ing at Ski Bowl near Mount Hood, pho­tos of his chil­dren, a video of a hike on Rocky Butte, pic­tures with his husky, a pho­to from the top of Portland’s Mount Tabor Park, as well as art­ful scenes of sun ris­es, sun­sets, trees and nature.

    But start­ing May 30, Reinoehl’s posts are almost exclu­sive­ly scenes from Portland’s protests.

    ...

    Reinoehl’s Insta­gram feed from the sum­mer show he reg­u­lar­ly attend­ed the down­town Port­land protests.

    A pho­to he post­ed on June 3 on Insta­gram shows pro­test­ers and law enforce­ment on oppo­site sides of a met­al fence.

    “It might be time to take A New Per­spec­tive on things,” Rei­noehl wrote. “Things are bad right now and they can only get worse. But that is how a rad­i­cal change comes about. Hope­ful­ly, if we do it right the peo­ple will pre­vail and in turn Com­mon Sense will save our plan­et.”

    On June 16, Rei­noehl wrote on Insta­gram that he was among the many pro­test­ers who he said didn’t know where their actions would lead.

    “I am 100% ANTIFA all the way! I am will­ing to fight for my broth­ers and sis­ters!” he wrote. “We do not want vio­lence but we will not run from it either.”

    In that same Insta­gram post, Rei­noehl wrote that there was an oppor­tu­ni­ty to “fix every­thing.”

    “But it will be like a fight like no oth­er! It will be a war and like all wars, there will be casu­al­ties,” he said. “I was in the army and I hat­ed it.”
    ...

    “But it will be like a fight like no oth­er! It will be a war and like all wars, there will be casu­al­ties.” That’s how he was fram­ing these protests from the very begin­ning of his activism in June. It will be a war with casu­al­ties.

    Final­ly, here’s an arti­cle about the recent report put out by Mike Ger­man on the ties between far right groups and law enforce­ment and how that relates to charges that Port­land’s police are inten­tion­al­ly pro­mot­ing the vio­lence between pro­tes­tors and counter-pro­test­ers

    Yahoo News

    Port­land police miss­ing in action against mili­tias

    Caitlin Dick­son and Melis­sa Rossi
    Sep­tem­ber 2, 2020

    In Pres­i­dent Trump’s ros­ter of crime-rid­den, out-of-con­trol Demo­c­ra­t­ic cities, Port­land, Ore., occu­pies a spe­cial place. Even meet­ing with local offi­cials in Kenosha, Wis, on Tues­day, Trump devot­ed a good chunk of his remarks to the dystopia halfway across the coun­try, where, he said, “I see it, every night it’s on the news, it’s burn­ing.” The city of more than 650,000 has, indeed seen almost night­ly protests, some peace­ful and some vio­lent, for more than three months, but until last week­end, no one had been killed in clash­es among mobs from both sides of the spec­trum, police and the fed­er­al law enforce­ment offi­cers who were deployed there for sev­er­al weeks in July to pro­tect gov­ern­ment prop­er­ty.

    That changed on Sat­ur­day night, with the shoot­ing death of a 39-year-old Port­land man, Aaron J. Daniel­son — by a still-uniden­ti­fied sus­pect who remains at large — sig­ni­fy­ing an even dark­er turn in the con­flict, as the city has seem­ing­ly become a mag­net for armed right-wing mili­tias and left-wing agi­ta­tors.

    Trump him­self was quick to blame his new go-to tar­get, antifa “thugs,” a per­cep­tion grow­ing out of reports that the vic­tim was a mem­ber or sym­pa­thiz­er of a Wash­ing­ton-based right-wing group known as Patri­ot Prayer, which par­tic­i­pat­ed in Sat­ur­day night’s noisy car­a­van of pick­up trucks billed the “Trump 2020 Cruise Ral­ly in Port­land.” Reporters at the scene described see­ing vehi­cles with out-of-state license plates, or plates cov­ered with duct tape or removed alto­geth­er — while police stood by watch­ing and direct­ing traf­fic. That sup­ports the con­clu­sion by Michael Ger­man, a for­mer FBI agent who spe­cial­ized in domes­tic ter­ror­ism cas­es, that “the sto­ry that isn’t being told is the esca­la­tion of vio­lence from out-of-town­ers who come to Port­land to wreak hav­oc and then go home, with­out police inter­fer­ence.”

    Ger­man, now a fel­low at Lib­er­ty & Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Pro­gram of the Bren­nan Cen­ter for Jus­tice, recent­ly pub­lished a report on con­nec­tions between law enforce­ment and white suprema­cist and far-right mil­i­tant groups. The report high­lights the his­to­ry of Port­land police offi­cers with ties to white suprema­cists and racist groups. It con­cludes that the department’s fail­ure to ade­quate­ly address ear­li­er alle­ga­tions of white suprema­cist activ­i­ty set the stage for the pub­lic to believe offi­cers failed to do enough to con­trol a series of vio­lent ral­lies insti­gat­ed by far-right mil­i­tants and white suprema­cist groups start­ing in 2016.

    Saturday’s ral­ly for Trump was just the lat­est in a series of gath­er­ings over the past month that have result­ed in vio­lent clash­es between far-right activists and armed mil­i­tants on one side, and Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­ers and antifas­cist activists on the oth­er.

    The events, which have attract­ed many of the same far-right groups and indi­vid­ual activists that have been engaged in vio­lent brawls in Port­land in recent years, have renewed ques­tions about the Port­land Police’s appar­ent­ly hands-off and even friend­ly approach to these groups — par­tic­u­lar­ly con­trast­ed to the treat­ment of par­tic­i­pants in protests demand­ing police account­abil­i­ty, which have con­sis­tent­ly been declared riots (a for­mal des­ig­na­tion in Port­land police pro­to­col) and unlaw­ful assem­blies.

    “Although those events have involved sig­nif­i­cant prop­er­ty dam­age at times, they have not involved firearms or ram­pant brawl­ing among demon­stra­tors,” the Wash­ing­ton Post not­ed in a report from Aug. 22 on vio­lent clash­es between left­ist pro­test­ers and far-right par­tic­i­pants in a “Back the Blue” ral­ly, who came to Port­land “armed with paint­ball guns, met­al rods, alu­minum bats, fire­works, pep­per spray, rifles and hand­guns.”

    In that instance, police report­ed­ly remained at a dis­tance while “the two groups sparred for more than two hours, as peo­ple exchanged blows, fired paint­balls at each oth­er and blast­ed chem­i­cals indis­crim­i­nate­ly into the crowd,” accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post. “Peo­ple lobbed fire­works back and forth. At least one per­son was hit in the abdomen with a device that flashed and explod­ed, caus­ing bleed­ing.”

    In a state­ment, the Port­land Police Bureau offered a num­ber of expla­na­tions for why they chose not to inter­vene in the vio­lence, even though the event had met the cri­te­ria for a riot: the short­age of offi­cers avail­able to respond to the clash­es, the dan­ger to offi­cers, and the fact that “each skir­mish appeared to involve will­ing par­tic­i­pants and the events were not endur­ing in time.”

    Ger­man called that find­ing “aston­ish­ing” and said it showed both that police rec­og­nized “that their tac­tics esca­late vio­lence,” and a dou­ble stan­dard for deal­ing with vio­lence. The police, he said, are “acknowl­edg­ing who is dan­ger­ous and using that as an excuse not to take action.”

    “It’s not like they’re not known peo­ple,” he con­tin­ued, point­ing to the fact that many of the same peo­ple have been seen at far-right gath­er­ings in the recent past, despite, in some cas­es, hav­ing “out­stand­ing charges for pre­vi­ous protest vio­lence.”

    Ger­man said that by fail­ing to pre­vent these vio­lent inci­dents from occur­ring, “or at least enforce the law after the assaults appear on social media,” police in Port­land have essen­tial­ly grant­ed per­mis­sion for such vio­lence to con­tin­ue.

    “If they are allowed to shoot pel­lets, bear spray and guns and ram their trucks into peo­ple they are only going to attract more vio­lent peo­ple,” Ger­man said, pre­dict­ing that “as long as the police don’t inter­vene, the Port­land vic­tims will begin to pro­tect them­selves.”

    Lau­ra Jedeed, a free­lance reporter who has cov­ered protests in Port­land over the last four years, agrees that police are inflam­ing the sit­u­a­tion.

    “I’ve nev­er wit­nessed the lev­el and sys­temic amount of police bru­tal­i­ty against pro­test­ers as I have in the past three months,” Jedeed told Yahoo News. She added that “There seems to be a real dou­ble stan­dard” in who police are tar­get­ing.

    “I don’t think they under­stand how angry this town is.”

    Jedeed was one of the first Port­landers to sound the alarm on her Twit­ter account about the Sat­ur­day ral­ly, when she came across a Face­book post­ing about the event, warn­ing that it had the poten­tial to be explo­sive. The rea­son for her con­cern: Over the past sev­er­al weeks, right-wing groups have been appear­ing at the night­ly BLM protests, bring­ing a new lev­el of feroc­i­ty and vio­lence to the demon­stra­tions, which in ear­ly July had appeared to be fad­ing away, with num­bers dwin­dling to a hun­dred or so a night.

    But lat­er that month, when fed­er­al agents, with­out iden­ti­fy­ing uni­forms or badges, began throw­ing pro­test­ers into unmarked cars and whisk­ing them off to jail, the demon­stra­tions “came roar­ing back to life,” she said. As fed­er­al agents have with­drawn from the city, right-wing groups began show­ing up — “some Proud Boys, some QAnon,” as well as Patri­ot Prayer mem­bers, and oth­ers from anoth­er local con­ser­v­a­tive group called Portland’s Lib­er­a­tion. The right-wing demon­stra­tors were mask­less, some dressed in blue, oth­ers wear­ing logos say­ing “Blue Lives Mat­ter.” In Jedeed’s obser­va­tion, they were afford­ed much gen­tler treat­ment than the Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­ers. “It became increas­ing­ly clear that the police were tak­ing a side in the protests,” she said — the side of the right-wing groups.

    Jedeed said she wit­nessed right-wing coun­ter­pro­test­ers beat­ing the left-wing pro­test­ers with batons, throw­ing fire­crack­ers at them and spray­ing them with bear mace. (It was easy, she said, to tell the groups apart by masks alone: The left-wing groups she says almost always wore them, but the right-wing groups were typ­i­cal­ly mask­less — as were most of the police.)

    On Sat­ur­day, the day of the pro-Trump ral­ly, at around 4:30 she wit­nessed hun­dreds and hun­dreds of vehi­cles at their meet­ing point, the park­ing lot of the Clacka­mas Town Cen­ter, rough­ly 10 miles south­east of Port­land. Most of the vehi­cles were trucks, “fly­ing all man­ner of flags, includ­ing some Con­fed­er­ate flags,” revving their engines and cre­at­ing a cloud of oily black smoke. The pro­posed route shown on the Face­book event page was to cir­cle down­town, but when they start­ed off for the ral­ly on wheels, severe grid­lock ensued in the park­ing lot — ulti­mate­ly less­ened by the arrival of police who direct­ed them toward 82nd Ave. Jedeed found it odd that the police didn’t stop the many vehi­cles with no license plates, or with num­bers that had been obscured.

    Oth­er Port­landers sim­i­lar­ly sus­pect out­siders are involved in the recent­ly ris­ing ten­sions in the city. “Sud­den­ly I’m see­ing license plates from Ken­tucky, Texas and Ari­zona,” said Joan Hess, a retired cor­rec­tions offi­cer. “They didn’t come for the beer.” Oth­ers says the right-wing groups are com­ing from the more con­ser­v­a­tive towns else­where in Ore­gon, or from Seat­tle or Van­cou­ver, Wash.

    Jim Red­den, a reporter for the Port­land Tri­bune, a twice-week­ly, free local paper, said he also sees the shoot­ing as part of a dan­ger­ous dynam­ic that’s been play­ing out in the city since Trump was elect­ed, an event that trig­gered fre­quent demon­stra­tions and led to brawls between right-wingers and left-wingers in down­town Port­land that went on for months. But he puts much of the blame on Portland’s own “self-pro­fessed anar­chists, who just want to protest every­thing.”

    “When­ev­er there’s anoth­er protest going on, they hang around and break win­dows and stuff like that,” Red­den told Yahoo News. “Now they’ve rebrand­ed them­selves as antifa — but it’s the same group just call­ing them­selves a dif­fer­ent name.”

    While Red­den not­ed that the reap­pear­ance of right-wing groups like Patri­ot Prayer in Port­land dur­ing demon­stra­tions in August exac­er­bat­ed the clash­es with left-wing pro­test­ers, he said, “It was pret­ty out of con­trol even before they came back. After George Floyd’s killing there were huge protests that went on for two months with a lot of riot­ing and destruc­tion.”

    Asked to respond to charges from some that Port­land Police offi­cers have enabled the recent esca­la­tion of vio­lence insti­gat­ed by right-wing groups in the city by not inter­ven­ing in recent clash­es, Port­land Police pub­lic infor­ma­tion offi­cer Sgt. Kevin Allen referred Yahoo News to the department’s ear­li­er state­ment that “clear­ly spelled out why we did not step in to the event on Aug. 22.

    “And it was dis­cussed at length by the may­or and police chief at a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day,” Allen wrote in an email to Yahoo News, along with a link to a YouTube video from a press con­fer­ence held Sun­day in response to the shoot­ing.

    As for how the Port­land Police Bureau plans to pre­vent such vio­lence going for­ward, Allen wrote: “We will not dis­cuss any spe­cif­ic tac­ti­cal plans going for­ward, how­ev­er [we] will con­tin­ue to uti­lize the resources we have to address crim­i­nal behav­ior while we employ de-esca­la­tion strate­gies where appro­pri­ate.”

    “We do not take into account polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy,” he con­tin­ued. “We ful­ly sup­port free speech rights.”

    At a press con­fer­ence on Sun­day, May­or Ted Wheel­er con­demned the fatal shoot­ing over the week­end, and urged peo­ple from both sides of the polit­i­cal spec­trum to come togeth­er to help “stop the vio­lence.”

    “For those of you say­ing on Twit­ter this morn­ing that you plan to come to Port­land to seek ret­ri­bu­tion, I’m call­ing on you to stay away,” Wheel­er said. “You of course have a con­sti­tu­tion­al right to be here, but we’re ask­ing you to stay away and work with us to de-esca­late this sit­u­a­tion.”

    The shoot­ing in Port­land came less than a week after 17-year-old Kyle Rit­ten­house was arrest­ed and charged with shoot­ing three peo­ple, killing two, amid unrest in Kenosha, Wis. Evi­dence from Rittenhouse’s social media pres­ence indi­cates that the teenag­er was an aspir­ing police offi­cer and Trump sup­port­er who even appeared in the front row at one of the president’s ral­lies in Iowa ear­li­er this year.

    Trump has spo­ken in defense of Rit­ten­house, while express­ing sym­pa­thy for the vic­tim in Port­land and sharp crit­i­cisms of the city’s may­or.

    Against the wish­es of both Kenosha May­or John Antarami­an and Wis­con­sin Gov. Tony Evers, Trump trav­eled to the embat­tled Wis­con­sin city on Tues­day, where he con­demned vio­lence and prop­er­ty dam­age result­ing from some recent protests as acts of “domes­tic ter­ror” and ques­tioned the exis­tence of sys­temic racism with­in law enforce­ment, which has been the core issue dri­ving recent protests.

    He also con­tin­ued to take cred­it for Evers’s deci­sion to acti­vate Wisconsin’s Nation­al Guard in response to the unrest that unfold­ed in Kenosha after video cir­cu­lat­ed of the 29-year-old Blake being shot sev­en times in the back by a Kenosha police offi­cer.

    “I strong­ly sup­port the use of the Nation­al Guard in oth­er cities,” Trump said, insist­ing that his admin­is­tra­tion is “ready, will­ing, and able to send in” fed­er­al forces to cities such as Port­land, an offer that city’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic May­or Ted Wheel­er for­mal­ly declined in a recent let­ter to pres­i­dent Trump.

    ...

    ————

    “Port­land police miss­ing in action against mili­tias” by Caitlin Dick­son and Melis­sa Rossi; Yahoo News; 09/02/2020

    “Ger­man, now a fel­low at Lib­er­ty & Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Pro­gram of the Bren­nan Cen­ter for Jus­tice, recent­ly pub­lished a report on con­nec­tions between law enforce­ment and white suprema­cist and far-right mil­i­tant groups. The report high­lights the his­to­ry of Port­land police offi­cers with ties to white suprema­cists and racist groups. It con­cludes that the department’s fail­ure to ade­quate­ly address ear­li­er alle­ga­tions of white suprema­cist activ­i­ty set the stage for the pub­lic to believe offi­cers failed to do enough to con­trol a series of vio­lent ral­lies insti­gat­ed by far-right mil­i­tants and white suprema­cist groups start­ing in 2016.

    As we can see, Ger­man’s report includes the his­to­ry of Port­land police offi­cers with ties to white suprema­cists. A his­to­ry that includes some rel­a­tive­ly recent his­to­ry back in 2016. It’s that recent his­to­ry that activists are point­ing to when they decry recent events where pro­test­ers were bat­tling in the streets for hours while police remained at a dis­tance:

    ...
    “Although those events have involved sig­nif­i­cant prop­er­ty dam­age at times, they have not involved firearms or ram­pant brawl­ing among demon­stra­tors,” the Wash­ing­ton Post not­ed in a report from Aug. 22 on vio­lent clash­es between left­ist pro­test­ers and far-right par­tic­i­pants in a “Back the Blue” ral­ly, who came to Port­land “armed with paint­ball guns, met­al rods, alu­minum bats, fire­works, pep­per spray, rifles and hand­guns.”

    In that instance, police report­ed­ly remained at a dis­tance while “the two groups sparred for more than two hours, as peo­ple exchanged blows, fired paint­balls at each oth­er and blast­ed chem­i­cals indis­crim­i­nate­ly into the crowd,” accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post. “Peo­ple lobbed fire­works back and forth. At least one per­son was hit in the abdomen with a device that flashed and explod­ed, caus­ing bleed­ing.”

    In a state­ment, the Port­land Police Bureau offered a num­ber of expla­na­tions for why they chose not to inter­vene in the vio­lence, even though the event had met the cri­te­ria for a riot: the short­age of offi­cers avail­able to respond to the clash­es, the dan­ger to offi­cers, and the fact that “each skir­mish appeared to involve will­ing par­tic­i­pants and the events were not endur­ing in time.”

    Ger­man called that find­ing “aston­ish­ing” and said it showed both that police rec­og­nized “that their tac­tics esca­late vio­lence,” and a dou­ble stan­dard for deal­ing with vio­lence. The police, he said, are “acknowl­edg­ing who is dan­ger­ous and using that as an excuse not to take action.”

    “It’s not like they’re not known peo­ple,” he con­tin­ued, point­ing to the fact that many of the same peo­ple have been seen at far-right gath­er­ings in the recent past, despite, in some cas­es, hav­ing “out­stand­ing charges for pre­vi­ous protest vio­lence.”

    Ger­man said that by fail­ing to pre­vent these vio­lent inci­dents from occur­ring, “or at least enforce the law after the assaults appear on social media,” police in Port­land have essen­tial­ly grant­ed per­mis­sion for such vio­lence to con­tin­ue.

    “If they are allowed to shoot pel­lets, bear spray and guns and ram their trucks into peo­ple they are only going to attract more vio­lent peo­ple,” Ger­man said, pre­dict­ing that “as long as the police don’t inter­vene, the Port­land vic­tims will begin to pro­tect them­selves.”
    ...

    As Ger­man describes it, the Port­land police essen­tial­ly have a pol­i­cy of con­don­ing fights between pro­tes­tors and counter-pro­test­ers and that’s a pol­i­cy that’s ask­ing for a lot more vio­lence. All of the ingre­di­ents are there for an esca­la­tion. The far right is active­ly pin­ing for vio­lence and a civ­il war while Port­land’s Police are hap­py to stand by and allow that vio­lence to hap­pen. All that’s required is an osten­si­ble left­ist will­ing to play the role of left-wing vil­lain can be used to jus­ti­fy an esca­la­tion and they found one in Michael Rei­noehl, a guy who went from seem­ing­ly apo­lit­i­cal to “100% ANTIFA” and pre­dict­ing civ­il war less than three months ago.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 4, 2020, 2:36 pm
  35. Here’s a series of arti­cles that high­lights how the pro-Trump mili­tias that are get­ting increas­ing­ly agi­tat­ing as the elec­tion approach­es are not just get­ting more mil­i­tant but also increas­ing­ly veer­ing into domes­tic ter­ror­ism ter­ri­to­ry. The arti­cles also describe how these groups will be able to rely on a grow­ing num­ber of vet­er­an and active duty mem­bers of the mil­i­tary who have the skills to car­ry out a pro-Trump domes­tic ter­ror cam­paign if they choose to do so:

    First, here’s an update on the vio­lence between pro­tes­tors and far right pro-Trump counter-pro­tes­tors in Port­land. Recall how Michael Rei­noehl, some­one with no appar­ent polit­i­cal back­ground who sud­den­ly declared him­self “100% ANTIFA” over the sum­mer, shot and killed Aaron “Jay” Daniel­son, a mem­ber of the far right Patri­ot Prayer group, in Port­land last month. Rei­noehl was killed by fed­er­al offi­cers days lat­er in a hail of bul­lets just hours after he gave an inter­view to Vice. We’re now learn­ing more about the mind­set of the pro-Trump mili­tia groups oper­at­ing in Port­land at that time. A mind­set of inten­tion­al­ly start­ing vio­lence and even con­sid­er­ing the polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tion of Port­land’s may­or. This is what was just revealed in the last instance of leaked far right chat logs. In this case it was logs obtained by Eugene Antifa — one of the few long-stand­ing estab­lished “Antifa” groups that actu­al­ly exists — of chats on the GroupMe app between mem­bers of Patri­ots Coali­tion, a mili­tia umbrel­la group. And as the chats show, the group’s dis­cus­sion includ­ed talk of freez­ing paint­balls for max­i­mum dam­age and the need to bring guns and pre­pare for shoot­ing. The leader of one of mem­ber mili­tias, Mark Melchi, claims to have been a cap­tain in the US Army. Melchi’s advice includ­ed ignor­ing weapons stat­ues and that, “We must be ready to defend with lethal response… Sug­gest wear­ing mask and noth­ing to iden­ti­fy you on Camera…to pre­vent any future pros­e­cu­tion.” Accord­ing to the report, the group mem­bers, not just the lead­ers, are con­stant­ly fan­ta­siz­ing about mass vio­lence, includ­ing fan­tasies that Trump will ask them to fight on his behalf. As one user put it ahead of an August 22 ral­ly, “I’m wait­ing for the pres­i­den­tial go to start open fir­ing”. Melchi responds with, “Well Sat­ur­day may be that go lol”:

    The Guardian

    Revealed: pro-Trump activists plot­ted vio­lence ahead of Port­land ral­lies

    Patri­ots Coali­tion mem­bers sug­gest­ed polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions and said ‘laws will be bro­ken, peo­ple will get hurt’, leaked chats show

    Jason Wil­son and Robert Evans
    Wed 23 Sep 2020 15.00 EDT
    Last mod­i­fied on Wed 23 Sep 2020 15.49 EDT

    Leaked chat logs show Port­land-area pro-Trump activists plan­ning and train­ing for vio­lence, sourc­ing arms and ammu­ni­tion and even sug­gest­ing polit­i­cal assas­si­na­tions ahead of a series of con­tentious ral­lies in the Ore­gon city, includ­ing one sched­uled for this week­end.

    The chats on the GroupMe app, shared with the Guardian by the antifas­cist group Eugene Antifa, show con­ver­sa­tions between Ore­gon mem­bers of the Patri­ots Coali­tion grow­ing more extreme as they dis­cuss armed con­fronta­tions with left­wing Port­land activists, and con­sume a steady diet of online dis­in­for­ma­tion about protests and wild­fires.

    At times, rightwing activists dis­cuss acts of vio­lence at recent, con­tentious protests, which in some cas­es they were record­ed car­ry­ing out. At one point, David Willis, a felon cur­rent­ly being sued for his alleged role in an ear­li­er episode of polit­i­cal vio­lence, joins a dis­cus­sion about the use of paint­balls.

    Where oth­er mem­bers had pre­vi­ous­ly sug­gest­ed freez­ing the paint­balls for max­i­mum dam­age, Willis wrote: “They make glass break­er balls that are rub­ber coat­ed met­al. They also have pep­per balls but they are about 3 dol­lars a ball. Don’t freeze paint­balls it makes them wild­ly inac­cu­rate” [sic.]

    ...

    Anoth­er pro­lif­ic poster is Mark Melchi, a 41-year-old Dal­las, Ore­gon-based car restor­er who claims to have served as a cap­tain in the US army.

    Melchi has been record­ed lead­ing an armed pro-Trump mili­tia, “1776 2.0” into down­town con­fronta­tions in Port­land, includ­ing on 22 August. At sev­er­al points in the chat he pro­pos­es vio­lence in advance of those con­fronta­tions, and appears to con­fess to pri­or acts com­mit­ted in the com­pa­ny of his para­mil­i­tary group.

    In advance of the 22 August protest, Melchi wrote: “It’s going to be bloody and most like­ly shoot­ing, they’re def­i­nite­ly armed… so let’s make sure we have an orga­nized direc­tion of move­ment and direc­tion of clear­ing or oth­er Patri­ots will be caught in the pos­si­ble cross fire. When shit hits the fan.”

    He advised oth­er mem­bers to ignore weapons statutes, writ­ing, “I saw some­one say bats, mace, and stun guns are ille­gal down­town. If you’re going to play by the books tomor­row night, we already lost. We are here to make a change, laws will be bro­ken, peo­ple will get hurt… It’s law­less­ness down­town, and peo­ple need to be pre­pared for bad things.”

    Fol­low­ing these com­ments, sev­er­al rightwing demon­stra­tors were record­ed using gas and bats on 22 August, where Melchi and his mili­tia were also present.

    In oth­er remarks ahead of the day, Melchi draws on what he claims is his group’s his­to­ry of trav­el­ing to mul­ti­ple states to engage in vio­lence at protests.

    “My Group 1776 2.0. Has been fight­ing Antifa in Seat­tle, Port­land, for months”, Melchi writes, adding “this won’t be a sim­ple fist fight. Peo­ple will get shot, stabbed and beat.”

    He also claims police coop­er­a­tion in inter­state vio­lence, writ­ing “Yes, going after them at night is the solu­tion… Like we do in oth­er states, tac­ti­cal ambush­es at night while back­ing up the police are key. You get the lead­ers and the vio­lent ones and the police are hap­py to shut their mouths and cam­eras.”

    Melchi nev­er­the­less rec­om­mends that mem­bers dis­guise them­selves to avoid the con­se­quences of homi­cide.

    “We must be ready to defend with lethal response… Sug­gest wear­ing mask and noth­ing to iden­ti­fy you on Camera…to pre­vent any future pros­e­cu­tion.”

    In response to detailed ques­tions about these con­tri­bu­tions, Melchi respond­ed with an email that false­ly sug­gest­ed his com­ments might have been pho­to­shopped, and con­clud­ed with direct threats.

    Melchi wrote: “I sug­gest you don’t threat­en com­bat vet­er­ans sweet­heart, might get a lit­tle uncom­fort­able for ya big guy!”

    Melchi’s sen­ti­ments in the chat logs were in keep­ing with fan­tasies of, and plans for, vio­lence, which are con­stant­ly dis­cussed by group mem­bers.

    Although some mem­bers are con­nect­ed with extrem­ist groups or mili­tias, on the whole they describe them­selves as “patri­ots”, and they express no clear ide­ol­o­gy beyond a hatred of the left, and a pre­pared­ness to use vio­lence. The shared alle­giances expressed in the group are most­ly to the police, the Unit­ed States and Don­ald Trump, a per­son whom some say they are pre­pared to kill for.

    Ahead of 22 August, a user “Paige” says “I’m wait­ing for the pres­i­den­tial go to start open fir­ing”.

    Melchi, the mili­tia leader, responds, “Well Sat­ur­day may be that go lol”.

    Alex New­house, the dig­i­tal research lead at the Cen­ter for Ter­ror­ism, Extrem­ism, and Coun­tert­er­ror­ism at the Mid­dle­bury Insti­tute, said of the group that “the main mech­a­nism that makes these com­mu­ni­ties so dan­ger­ous is the inces­sant desen­si­ti­za­tion to the idea of polit­i­cal vio­lence”.

    New­house said that the ideas expressed in the group were entrenched in “extreme nation­al­ism – that a few strong men with guns can togeth­er take out an evil that is at once imag­ined as an exis­ten­tial threat, and pathet­i­cal­ly weak”. New­house added that the group’s dis­cus­sions “fit with­in a broad­er trend of rightwing extrem­ists becom­ing more accel­er­a­tionist over time”.

    The chat­logs became frac­tious at the peak of Oregon’s recent wild­fire emer­gency. While some mem­bers said they had gone to rur­al areas to “hunt” imag­ined antifa arson­ists, oth­ers became con­cerned about the dan­gers.

    As ear­ly as 9 Sep­tem­ber, the base­less idea that the fires were a coor­di­nat­ed arson attack was treat­ed as set­tled fact, with Melchi writ­ing: “Peo­ple have offi­cial­ly died from these Antifa Fires. I’d shoot them on site” [sic], and anoth­er user, Dub, respond­ing: “Yes sir if I see them they are get­ting dropped where they stand.”

    When adverse con­se­quences of vig­i­lan­tism became evi­dent, lead­er­ship attempt­ed to bring the group back under con­trol. After a mem­ber of the group report­ed that an asso­ciate had been arrest­ed in Lane coun­ty for “hold­ing [some­one] at gun­point”, the group’s admin­is­tra­tor, who used the user name Patri­ot Coali­tion, wrote “STOP HOLDING PEOPLE AT GUN POINT- STOP PULLING YOUR WEAPONS… VIDEO- TAKE PICTURES AND CALL 911.”

    Mary McCord is the legal direc­tor of the Insti­tute for Con­sti­tu­tion­al Advo­ca­cy and Pro­tec­tion at George­town Law School, which on Wednes­day released a series of fact sheets on anti-para­mil­i­tary laws in all 50 states.

    Giv­en details of the con­tent of the chats, McCord said that “this is the kind of thing that might allow author­i­ties to take action”, and that mem­bers of the group may “already be in vio­la­tion of Oregon’s anti-para­mil­i­tary laws”.

    The group also talked about coor­di­nat­ing at the ral­ly with the Proud Boys, an extreme rightwing group. One user, iden­ti­fied as Bravo91 and a part of the group’s lead­er­ship, spoke of phone calls with the Proud Boys.

    Along with antifas­cist demon­stra­tors, Demo­c­ra­t­ic politi­cians are also the tar­get of vio­lent fan­tasies in the chats. In par­tic­u­lar, Portland’s may­or, Ted Wheel­er, is demo­nized and nom­i­nat­ed as a pos­si­ble tar­get for assas­si­na­tion by the group.

    On 24 August, a user iden­ti­fied as “Trent-Med­ford” writes, “Fu ck wheel­er… guess what soon as we are done with these punks. He’s next freakin cow­ard !!!!!!”

    User T Dur­den went fur­ther. In response to news that an alleged arson­ist had been released on bail, and with­out encoun­ter­ing dis­agree­ment, they wrote: “Maybe we need to start tak­ing care of the jus­tice our­selves!”, adding, “Start with jus­tice on our DA and then move on to the gov­er­nor. Maybe by the time we get to the first judge, they will have changed their tunes.”

    ————–

    “Revealed: pro-Trump activists plot­ted vio­lence ahead of Port­land ral­lies” by Jason Wil­son and Robert Evans; The Guardian; 12/23/2020

    “New­house said that the ideas expressed in the group were entrenched in “extreme nation­al­ism – that a few strong men with guns can togeth­er take out an evil that is at once imag­ined as an exis­ten­tial threat, and pathet­i­cal­ly weak”. New­house added that the group’s dis­cus­sions “fit with­in a broad­er trend of rightwing extrem­ists becom­ing more accel­er­a­tionist over time”.”

    As these chat logs remind us, the “accel­er­a­tionist” trend on the far right is accel­er­at­ing. They’ve gone from con­stant­ly fan­ta­siz­ing about vio­lence to using the nation­wide protests of 2020 to live the dream:

    ...
    Melchi has been record­ed lead­ing an armed pro-Trump mili­tia, “1776 2.0” into down­town con­fronta­tions in Port­land, includ­ing on 22 August. At sev­er­al points in the chat he pro­pos­es vio­lence in advance of those con­fronta­tions, and appears to con­fess to pri­or acts com­mit­ted in the com­pa­ny of his para­mil­i­tary group.

    In advance of the 22 August protest, Melchi wrote: “It’s going to be bloody and most like­ly shoot­ing, they’re def­i­nite­ly armed… so let’s make sure we have an orga­nized direc­tion of move­ment and direc­tion of clear­ing or oth­er Patri­ots will be caught in the pos­si­ble cross fire. When shit hits the fan.”

    He advised oth­er mem­bers to ignore weapons statutes, writ­ing, “I saw some­one say bats, mace, and stun guns are ille­gal down­town. If you’re going to play by the books tomor­row night, we already lost. We are here to make a change, laws will be bro­ken, peo­ple will get hurt… It’s law­less­ness down­town, and peo­ple need to be pre­pared for bad things.”

    Fol­low­ing these com­ments, sev­er­al rightwing demon­stra­tors were record­ed using gas and bats on 22 August, where Melchi and his mili­tia were also present.

    ...

    He also claims police coop­er­a­tion in inter­state vio­lence, writ­ing “Yes, going after them at night is the solu­tion… Like we do in oth­er states, tac­ti­cal ambush­es at night while back­ing up the police are key. You get the lead­ers and the vio­lent ones and the police are hap­py to shut their mouths and cam­eras.”

    Melchi nev­er­the­less rec­om­mends that mem­bers dis­guise them­selves to avoid the con­se­quences of homi­cide.

    “We must be ready to defend with lethal response… Sug­gest wear­ing mask and noth­ing to iden­ti­fy you on Camera…to pre­vent any future pros­e­cu­tion.”

    ...

    Melchi’s sen­ti­ments in the chat logs were in keep­ing with fan­tasies of, and plans for, vio­lence, which are con­stant­ly dis­cussed by group mem­bers.

    ...

    Along with antifas­cist demon­stra­tors, Demo­c­ra­t­ic politi­cians are also the tar­get of vio­lent fan­tasies in the chats. In par­tic­u­lar, Portland’s may­or, Ted Wheel­er, is demo­nized and nom­i­nat­ed as a pos­si­ble tar­get for assas­si­na­tion by the group.

    On 24 August, a user iden­ti­fied as “Trent-Med­ford” writes, “Fu ck wheel­er… guess what soon as we are done with these punks. He’s next freakin cow­ard !!!!!!”

    User T Dur­den went fur­ther. In response to news that an alleged arson­ist had been released on bail, and with­out encoun­ter­ing dis­agree­ment, they wrote: “Maybe we need to start tak­ing care of the jus­tice our­selves!”, adding, “Start with jus­tice on our DA and then move on to the gov­er­nor. Maybe by the time we get to the first judge, they will have changed their tunes.”

    ...

    And the per­son many of these mili­tia groups look to as their de fac­to leader is of course Don­ald Trump. They aren’t just will­ing to kill for him but eager­ly antic­i­pat­ing Trump’s com­mand to do so:

    ...
    Although some mem­bers are con­nect­ed with extrem­ist groups or mili­tias, on the whole they describe them­selves as “patri­ots”, and they express no clear ide­ol­o­gy beyond a hatred of the left, and a pre­pared­ness to use vio­lence. The shared alle­giances expressed in the group are most­ly to the police, the Unit­ed States and Don­ald Trump, a per­son whom some say they are pre­pared to kill for.

    Ahead of 22 August, a user “Paige” says “I’m wait­ing for the pres­i­den­tial go to start open fir­ing”.

    Melchi, the mili­tia leader, responds, “Well Sat­ur­day may be that go lol”.
    ...

    Ok, now here’s a New York Times piece that reminds us of some­thing we’ve known for a long time: the growth of the mili­tias that began surg­ing in 2009 with the elec­tion of Barack Oba­ma is surg­ing once again, thanks in part to Pres­i­dent Trump’s calls for law and order. Experts esti­mate that vet­er­ans and active duty mem­bers of the mil­i­tary make up at least 25 per­cent of mili­tia ros­ters, with 15,000–20,000 active mili­tia mem­bers in total across 300 groups. So there’s around 4,000–5,000 vet­er­an and active duty mili­tia mem­bers oper­a­tion in mili­tias today accord­ing to these esti­mates and they are increas­ing­ly will­ing to kill for Trump:

    The New York Times

    Vet­er­ans For­ti­fy the Ranks of Mili­tias Aligned With Trump’s Views

    The vast major­i­ty of vet­er­ans do not join mili­tias, but some fast-grow­ing mili­tias have many vet­er­ans among their ranks.

    By Jen­nifer Stein­hauer
    Pub­lished Sept. 11, 2020
    Updat­ed Sept. 25, 2020

    WASHINGTON — Embold­ened by Pres­i­dent Trump’s cam­paign plat­form of law and order, mili­tia groups have bol­stered their strength before Elec­tion Day by attract­ing mil­i­tary vet­er­ans who bring weapons and tac­ti­cal skills viewed as impor­tant to the orga­ni­za­tions.

    The role of vet­er­ans in the new­ly pro­lif­er­at­ing mili­tia groups — which some­times are steeped in racism and oth­er times steeped sim­ply in antigov­ern­ment zealotry — has increased over the last decade, said a dozen experts on law enforce­ment, domes­tic ter­ror­ism and extrem­ist groups.

    Although only a small frac­tion of the nation’s 20 mil­lion vet­er­ans joins mili­tia groups, experts in domes­tic ter­ror­ism and law enforce­ment ana­lysts esti­mate that vet­er­ans and active-duty mem­bers of the mil­i­tary may now make up at least 25 per­cent of mili­tia ros­ters. These experts esti­mate that there are some 15,000 to 20,000 active mili­tia mem­bers in around 300 groups.

    But gaug­ing the size of these groups is dif­fi­cult and impre­cise, because much of their mem­ber­ship is lim­it­ed to online par­tic­i­pa­tion. The esti­mates are based on sam­plings of mili­tia mem­ber data gleaned from social media pro­files, blogs, online forums, mili­tia pub­li­ca­tions, inter­views, assess­ments from watch­dog groups and news reports.

    At least four recent­ly formed vio­lent orga­ni­za­tions were found­ed by mil­i­tary vet­er­ans, and many high-pro­file episodes stem­ming from mili­tia groups — the killing of a fed­er­al secu­ri­ty offi­cer in May in Oak­land, Calif., a thwart­ed plan to incite vio­lence at a recent demon­stra­tion in Las Vegas and the vio­lence dur­ing a 2017 protest in Char­lottesville, Va. — involved vet­er­ans.

    Under­scor­ing how the threat of vio­lent domes­tic groups is ris­ing with lim­it­ed offi­cial over­sight, the top lead­ers of the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty direct­ed agency ana­lysts to play down threats from white suprema­cist groups, accord­ing to a whis­tle-blow­er com­plaint released on Wednes­day.

    While mili­tias and oth­er para­mil­i­tary groups have been his­tor­i­cal­ly hos­tile toward the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment regard­less of the par­ty in pow­er, many have turned their ani­mus in recent months toward Black Lives Mat­ter activists as well as local lead­ers who enforced restric­tions to com­bat the coro­n­avirus. A notable exam­ple was in Michi­gan, where pro­test­ers, some armed, stormed the state­house this spring in oppo­si­tion to pan­dem­ic rules. Some have begun adopt­ing the lan­guage Mr. Trump uses to pre­emp­tive­ly cast doubt on the out­come of an elec­tion.

    Mili­tias have his­tor­i­cal­ly risen after peri­ods of war, said Kath­leen Belew, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor of his­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go and author of “Bring the War Home: The White Pow­er Move­ment and Para­mil­i­tary Amer­i­ca.”

    “We have seen vet­er­ans and active-duty mem­bers being recruit­ed because they have oper­a­tional skills that are use­ful,” Ms. Belew said. She described the esti­mates of how many vet­er­ans had been drawn to the move­ment as “deeply con­cern­ing.”

    It is an issue that fed­er­al agen­cies have large­ly avoid­ed. “The V.A. has no author­i­ty to enact or enforce poli­cies regard­ing vet­er­ans’ mem­ber­ships in any orga­ni­za­tions,” said Christi­na Noel, a spokes­woman for the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs.

    One of the larg­er groups, the Oath Keep­ers, makes recruit­ing vet­er­ans and law enforce­ment offi­cers cen­tral to its mis­sion.

    “As a coun­try we have spent so long at war over­seas that a small per­cent­age of vet­er­ans, but a per­cent­age nonethe­less, has warmed them to the idea that the way to deal with polit­i­cal con­flict is to engage in armed strug­gle,” said Devin Burghart, the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Insti­tute for Research and Edu­ca­tion on Human Rights, a Seat­tle-based research cen­ter on far-right groups. “This is a dan­ger­ous indi­ca­tor of where things may go.”

    From the years after the Viet­nam War to the mid-1990s, a small flur­ry of mili­tia groups cropped up around the Unit­ed States.

    Fra­zier Glenn Miller, a for­mer Army mas­ter sergeant who served two tours in Viet­nam, cre­at­ed the White Patri­ot Par­ty in the 1980s. Decades lat­er, he was sen­tenced to death for killing three peo­ple out­side a Jew­ish com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter in Over­land Park, Kan. In 1995, Tim­o­thy J. McVeigh, a for­mer Army sol­dier who belonged to a right-wing sur­vival­ist group based in Michi­gan, blew up a fed­er­al build­ing in Okla­homa City, killing 168 peo­ple, includ­ing 19 chil­dren. Mr. McVeigh pro­mot­ed the works of William Pierce, who ran a white suprema­cist group that once post­ed a recruit­ing notice on a bill­board out­side Fort Bragg, N.C.

    But begin­ning in 2009, antag­o­nism toward the pres­i­den­cy of Barack Oba­ma, com­bined with a new crop of post-Sept. 11 vet­er­ans, fueled expo­nen­tial growth in mili­tia groups.

    While the mil­i­tary strict­ly for­bids its active-duty per­son­nel from par­tic­i­pat­ing in hate groups, it is silent on mili­tias and the role of vet­er­ans who have left ser­vice.

    ...

    In 2009, the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty released an intel­li­gence assess­ment warn­ing that return­ing vet­er­ans who faced trou­ble rein­te­grat­ing could “lead to the poten­tial emer­gence of ter­ror­ist groups or lone wolf extrem­ists capa­ble of car­ry­ing out vio­lent attacks.”

    The report led to such an out­cry from con­ser­v­a­tives and one promi­nent vet­er­ans orga­ni­za­tion that the depart­ment deep-sixed it. “We used the term ‘dis­grun­tled’ so that ter­mi­nol­o­gy was insen­si­tive,” said Mr. John­son, who helped pre­pare the report. “We were try­ing to show they were sus­cep­ti­ble to recruit­ment because of skills they learned. That is a glar­ing truth no mat­ter who is offend­ed.”

    That same year, the F.B.I. did its own inves­ti­ga­tion of extrem­ist groups with a focus on vet­er­ans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

    The Oba­ma years were a growth peri­od for these groups, many of them loose­ly tied to the Tea Par­ty move­ment. Most notable was the Oath Keep­ers, formed in 2009 with a core notion that its mem­bers should con­tin­ue to hon­or the oaths they took in the mil­i­tary and law enforce­ment agen­cies to defend the coun­try, via their efforts in a mili­tia.

    Stew­art Rhodes, a for­mer Army para­troop­er who served as a staff mem­ber for Ron Paul, then a Repub­li­can rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Texas, “formed the group to encour­age cur­rent and for­mer mil­i­tary and law enforce­ment mem­bers to hon­or their oath against tyran­ny,” said Sam Jack­son, an assis­tant pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty at Albany who has writ­ten a book on the group. “But the focus of threats has changed to be antifa and Black Lives Mat­ter and oth­ers on the left.”

    The move­ment has accel­er­at­ed dur­ing Mr. Trump’s time in office. In 2015, Bran­don Rus­sell, a mem­ber of the Flori­da Army Nation­al Guard, formed the Atom­waf­fen Divi­sion, a neo-Nazi group. One of its mem­bers, Vasil­lios Pis­to­lis, a pri­vate at the time, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the “Unite the Right” ral­ly in Char­lottesville, brag­ging on social media about injur­ing peo­ple. (He was lat­er kicked out of the Marines.)

    After that ral­ly in 2017, Jof­fre Cross III, a for­mer pri­vate in the 82nd Air­borne Divi­sion at Fort Bragg and a mem­ber of the new­ly formed Patri­ot Front, was charged with mul­ti­ple weapons felonies.

    The “booga­loo” move­ment, a loose net­work of right-lean­ing, antigov­ern­ment groups that seeks to bring about a sec­ond civ­il war to over­throw the gov­ern­ment, has been around since 2012, when it was large­ly an online move­ment.

    In June, Daniel Austin Dunn, a for­mer Marine, was indict­ed in Texas for mak­ing vio­lent threats toward police offi­cers on Face­book and Twit­ter posts, in which he asso­ci­at­ed him­self with booga­loos. The author­i­ties found a cache of weapons at his house. This year, the F.B.I. arrest­ed an Army reservist and two vet­er­ans with ties to the move­ment for plan­ning to incite vio­lence at a Las Vegas protest. An active-duty air­man affil­i­at­ed with the group was also charged with killing a fed­er­al offi­cer in Oak­land.

    A small num­ber of vet­er­ans have joined ranks with left-lean­ing groups or groups not asso­ci­at­ed with the polit­i­cal right. A sniper who shot a dozen Dal­las police offi­cers in 2016, killing five, was an Army vet­er­an.

    The man law enforce­ment offi­cials believe shot and killed a right-wing activist in Port­land, Ore., last month was an antifa sup­port­er and a vet­er­an; he was killed last week by the police. But vet­er­ans with far-left views are small in num­ber and tend to act out­side any orga­nized force — the antifa move­ment, for exam­ple, lacks the struc­ture and lead­er­ship of a mili­tia — accord­ing to experts in the field.

    Many groups have pro­claimed them­selves as enforcers of Trump admin­is­tra­tion poli­cies, and more recent­ly, as pro­tec­tors of busi­ness­es in cities with protests, often antag­o­niz­ing those pro­test­ers. The con­fronta­tions with pro­test­ers have also dove­tailed with actions to protest coro­n­avirus con­tain­ment mea­sures, often with a side of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries to gen­er­ate new mem­ber inter­est.

    A well-known group, the Three Per­centers, focus­es on anti-immi­grant activ­i­ties and tar­gets left­ists like mem­bers of antifa. A leader of a chap­ter in Geor­gia, Chris Hill, is a Marine vet­er­an who leads reg­u­lar field train­ing exer­cis­es.

    The Unit­ed Con­sti­tu­tion­al Patri­ots, a mili­tia that patrols the south­west­ern bor­der with Mex­i­co, has also attract­ed vet­er­ans.

    “The mili­tia move­ment tra­di­tion­al­ly hat­ed the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment,” said Hei­di Beirich, a co-founder of the Glob­al Project Against Hate and Extrem­ism. “This has com­plete­ly changed with Trump.”

    As they have insert­ed them­selves in cities with large protests, the groups have found them­selves some­times wel­comed by local law enforce­ment. “We have mili­tia groups that are insert­ing them­selves into cities to, from their per­spec­tive, to fill a vac­u­um of law enforce­ment,” said Seth G. Jones, a senior advis­er at the Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies. “But they are doing things out­side of the law to take law and order into their own hands.”

    Mike Mar­tinez, the police chief of Arroyo Grande, Calif., said the mili­tias were a con­cern. “Many mili­tias have their own ide­ol­o­gy,” he said. “Some are not pro-law enforce­ment, so it is always impor­tant for us to be aware.”

    The end of the Trump era would not spell the end to mili­tias, the experts agreed. “In the imme­di­ate after­math of an elec­tion, I don’t see this ebbing,” Mr. Jones said. “In fact my con­cern is there will be a range of orga­ni­za­tions that don’t sup­port the legit­i­ma­cy of a Biden pres­i­dent and that admin­is­tra­tion will have to think about how to dis­arm mili­tias. That will be a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion.”

    ———–

    “Vet­er­ans For­ti­fy the Ranks of Mili­tias Aligned With Trump’s Views” by Jen­nifer Stein­hauer; The New York Times; 09/11/2020

    “Although only a small frac­tion of the nation’s 20 mil­lion vet­er­ans joins mili­tia groups, experts in domes­tic ter­ror­ism and law enforce­ment ana­lysts esti­mate that vet­er­ans and active-duty mem­bers of the mil­i­tary may now make up at least 25 per­cent of mili­tia ros­ters. These experts esti­mate that there are some 15,000 to 20,000 active mili­tia mem­bers in around 300 groups.

    It’s Trump’s pri­vate army. 15,000–20,000 mem­bers with a core of 4–5k vet­er­ans and active duty mem­bers. Might Trump call upon his mili­tia to deal with upcom­ing elec­tion dis­putes? If so, they’re ready to answer his call, espe­cial­ly if it’s a call for polit­i­cal vio­lence against the left:

    ...
    Many groups have pro­claimed them­selves as enforcers of Trump admin­is­tra­tion poli­cies, and more recent­ly, as pro­tec­tors of busi­ness­es in cities with protests, often antag­o­niz­ing those pro­test­ers. The con­fronta­tions with pro­test­ers have also dove­tailed with actions to protest coro­n­avirus con­tain­ment mea­sures, often with a side of con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries to gen­er­ate new mem­ber inter­est.

    A well-known group, the Three Per­centers, focus­es on anti-immi­grant activ­i­ties and tar­gets left­ists like mem­bers of antifa. A leader of a chap­ter in Geor­gia, Chris Hill, is a Marine vet­er­an who leads reg­u­lar field train­ing exer­cis­es.

    The Unit­ed Con­sti­tu­tion­al Patri­ots, a mili­tia that patrols the south­west­ern bor­der with Mex­i­co, has also attract­ed vet­er­ans.

    “The mili­tia move­ment tra­di­tion­al­ly hat­ed the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment,” said Hei­di Beirich, a co-founder of the Glob­al Project Against Hate and Extrem­ism. “This has com­plete­ly changed with Trump.”

    ...

    The end of the Trump era would not spell the end to mili­tias, the experts agreed. “In the imme­di­ate after­math of an elec­tion, I don’t see this ebbing,” Mr. Jones said. “In fact my con­cern is there will be a range of orga­ni­za­tions that don’t sup­port the legit­i­ma­cy of a Biden pres­i­dent and that admin­is­tra­tion will have to think about how to dis­arm mili­tias. That will be a dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion.”
    ...

    The groups are clear­ly ready and will­ing to answer Trump’s call to arms should he make it. If he asks, there’s thou­sands of mili­tia mem­bers ready to swarm major cities and there’s no rea­son to believe they won’t do so. They’re already doing it.

    But, of course, there are alter­na­tive forms of mil­i­tan­cy than the kind of open mil­i­tan­cy the mili­tias are engag­ing in at the street protests. Alter­na­tive forms that what Tim­o­thy McVeigh car­ried out in Okla­homa City when he used his explo­sives-mak­ing skills he acquired in the mil­i­tary to build a giant bomb and blow up a fed­er­al build­ing. Should we be con­cerned about these kinds of events if Trump is forced to leave office while refus­ing to con­cede? Of course we should be. Which is why the fol­low­ing report about the leader of the neo-Nazi accel­er­a­tionist ter­ror group, The Base, is so chill­ing: it turns out the founder and leader of the group, 47-year-old New Jer­sey native Rinal­do Naz­zaro, was a Pen­ta­gon con­trac­tor who in 2014 worked with Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Com­mand (SOCOM) on anti-ter­ror oper­a­tions like ISIS and al Qae­da. And yes, the name “al Qae­da” trans­lates as “The Base”:

    Vice
    Moth­er­board

    Neo-Nazi Ter­ror Leader Said to Have Worked With U.S. Spe­cial Forces
    The leader of The Base, Rinal­do Naz­zaro, worked as a pri­vate mil­i­tary con­trac­tor for the Pen­ta­gon in 2014, which includ­ed brief­ing spe­cial forces.

    by Ben Makuch
    by Mack Lam­oureux
    Sep­tem­ber 24, 2020, 2:09pm

    The leader of one of the most vio­lent neo-Nazi ter­ror groups in decades was paid by the Pen­ta­gon and worked with U.S. spe­cial forces on tar­get­ing and coun­tert­er­ror­ism, accord­ing to new infor­ma­tion.

    VICE News has learned that the leader of The Base, 47-year-old New Jer­sey native Rinal­do Naz­zaro, was a Pen­ta­gon con­trac­tor who in 2014 worked with Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Com­mand (SOCOM), one of the most secre­tive ele­ments of the U.S. mil­i­tary and the tip of the spear in the war against jihadist ter­ror groups like ISIS and al-Qae­da.

    A per­son famil­iar with the mat­ter said Naz­zaro, who had at least a top secret secu­ri­ty clear­ance for a time, was among a group that briefed spe­cial forces offi­cers on mil­i­tary tar­get­ing and coun­tert­er­ror­ism efforts in the Mid­dle East in 2014. (Pre­vi­ous­ly, the BBC report­ed that Naz­zaro was an FBI ana­lyst and a Pen­ta­gon con­trac­tor.)

    This infor­ma­tion match­es up with details of his ser­vice that Naz­zaro shared with oth­er mem­bers of The Base in encrypt­ed chats obtained by VICE News.

    “[I did] mul­ti­ple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan over five years,” said Naz­zaro in May 2019. Naz­zaro said he “was a tar­ge­teer” and a “con­trac­tor,” and added that he was at Vic­to­ry Base Com­plex, a clus­ter of mil­i­tary bases and oper­a­tional build­ings sur­round­ing the Bagh­dad air­port, and Camp Spe­ich­er in north­ern Iraq.

    ...

    An inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ist leader who was once a spe­cial­ist in com­bat­ting jihadist ter­ror­ism turn­ing his exper­tise around and aim­ing it at the U.S. gov­ern­ment speaks to the grow­ing pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion of the far right as it trans­forms into a dan­ger­ous nation­al secu­ri­ty threat on Amer­i­can soil.

    Naz­zaro was the founder and leader of The Base, which author­i­ties say intend­ed to incite a “race war” through ter­ror plots across the coun­try. But a series of nation­wide FBI raids in Jan­u­ary, result­ing in the arrest of sev­en of its mem­bers, nar­row­ly thwart­ed chill­ing plots as wide rang­ing as an assas­si­na­tion, ghost-gun mak­ing, train derail­ments, and a mass shoot­ing.

    VICE News reached Naz­zaro via an encrypt­ed email address.

    “I can nei­ther con­firm nor deny my work expe­ri­ence,” he said. “I have no fur­ther com­ments at this time.”

    When asked about Nazzaro’s con­tract deal­ings with the depart­ment, a spokesman for the Pen­ta­gon said, “we can­not com­ment on ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions,” and referred VICE News to the FBI. The FBI declined to com­ment.

    Ken McGraw, a pub­lic affairs offi­cer with SOCOM, said he couldn’t find evi­dence of Nazzaro’s name among the many brief­in­gs from 2014, but stopped short of say­ing it didn’t exist.

    “We were unable to find any infor­ma­tion about a con­trac­tor named Rinal­do Naz­zaro brief­ing any senior Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Forces lead­ers on coun­tert­er­ror­ism in [2014],” he said in an emailed state­ment. Though he couldn’t account for the Pen­ta­gon as a whole, McGraw said SOCOM specif­i­cal­ly had no con­tracts with Nazzaro’s com­pa­ny, Omega Solu­tions.

    Unmasked in Jan­u­ary by the Guardian, Naz­zaro had for years oper­at­ed under the alias­es “Nor­man Spear” and “Roman Wolf” as he inten­tion­al­ly designed and grew his secre­tive ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion for a future insur­gency against the very gov­ern­ment he once worked with.

    The name of The Base has always been the focus of much scruti­ny, giv­en that it is a lit­er­al trans­la­tion of al-Qae­da. Some coun­tert­er­ror­ism watch­ers believed it was a too-on-the-nose ref­er­ence to be true, and while it nev­er has been set­tled whether or not Naz­zaro named his orga­ni­za­tion as an allu­sion to the infa­mous jihadist group, he had a his­to­ry of nam­ing things with a like­ly par­al­lel.

    Nazzaro’s com­pa­ny Omega Solu­tions, which was cleared by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment for defense con­tract­ing, adver­tised as an enti­ty with exper­tise gleaned from deploy­ments to Iraq and Afghanistan. But the name is also a pos­si­ble allu­sion to some­thing else: The “Omega Pro­gram” was the code name for a joint task force between intel­li­gence agen­cies and spe­cial forces oper­at­ing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and oth­er the­aters of the glob­al War On Ter­ror, where­in spies locat­ed “high val­ue tar­gets” (usu­al­ly senior lead­ers of the Tal­iban, ISIS, or al-Qae­da) and units like Seal Team 6 or armed drones elim­i­nat­ed them.

    Naz­zaro left traces of his ambi­tious long-term plans to trans­form his orga­ni­za­tion into a full-scale insur­gent cam­paign against his native gov­ern­ment. In Octo­ber 2018, Naz­zaro told oth­er mem­bers how The Base would slow­ly devel­op into a para­mil­i­tary group capa­ble of major ter­ror attacks.

    “In the cur­rent phase we need to be as covert as pos­si­ble. But as things accel­er­ate we can become clan­des­tine and then fur­ther down the road just right out in the open ide­al­ly,” Spear said in an encrypt­ed chat room. “For now we need non-attrib­ut­able actions but that will still send a mes­sage and/or add to accel­er­a­tion as much as pos­si­ble.”

    Joshua Fish­er-Birch, a researcher at the U.S. based ter­ror­ism watch­dog Counter-Extrem­ism Project, said the rev­e­la­tion shows the scale of the pub­lic safe­ty threat the neo-Nazi ter­ror move­ment has become with the influx of mil­i­tary skills among its adher­ents.

    “It is extreme­ly alarm­ing that an indi­vid­ual who worked in a sen­si­tive capac­i­ty con­tract­ing with the Depart­ment of Defense lat­er cre­at­ed a neo-Nazi group that aspired to com­mit acts of vio­lence with­in the [U.S.]” he said. “It rais­es ques­tions regard­ing what skills Naz­zaro taught mem­bers of The Base both in the U.S. and inter­na­tion­al­ly. This fol­lows oth­er promi­nent his­tor­i­cal exam­ples of indi­vid­u­als who have used skills from their mil­i­tary ser­vice or their asso­ci­a­tion with the armed forces to either build extreme right groups and net­works, or to com­mit acts of vio­lence.”

    ———–

    “Neo-Nazi Ter­ror Leader Said to Have Worked With U.S. Spe­cial Forces” by Ben Makuch and Mack Lam­oureux; Vice Moth­er­board; 09/24/2020

    “An inter­na­tion­al ter­ror­ist leader who was once a spe­cial­ist in com­bat­ting jihadist ter­ror­ism turn­ing his exper­tise around and aim­ing it at the U.S. gov­ern­ment speaks to the grow­ing pro­fes­sion­al­iza­tion of the far right as it trans­forms into a dan­ger­ous nation­al secu­ri­ty threat on Amer­i­can soil.”

    They aren’t just play­ing sol­dier. These move­ments are increas­ing­ly filled with high­ly trained indi­vid­u­als, some like Nazarro who had access to top secret clear­ances. And that rais­es the ques­tion of how exten­sive­ly are these spe­cial skills being taught and pro­lif­er­at­ing through these under­ground net­works. Any­thing that can be taught over a chat room can be spread with ease thanks to encrypt­ed chat tools. While we don’t know the extent that this is hap­pen­ing, we know it’s hap­pen­ing:

    ...
    VICE News has learned that the leader of The Base, 47-year-old New Jer­sey native Rinal­do Naz­zaro, was a Pen­ta­gon con­trac­tor who in 2014 worked with Spe­cial Oper­a­tions Com­mand (SOCOM), one of the most secre­tive ele­ments of the U.S. mil­i­tary and the tip of the spear in the war against jihadist ter­ror groups like ISIS and al-Qae­da.

    A per­son famil­iar with the mat­ter said Naz­zaro, who had at least a top secret secu­ri­ty clear­ance for a time, was among a group that briefed spe­cial forces offi­cers on mil­i­tary tar­get­ing and coun­tert­er­ror­ism efforts in the Mid­dle East in 2014. (Pre­vi­ous­ly, the BBC report­ed that Naz­zaro was an FBI ana­lyst and a Pen­ta­gon con­trac­tor.)

    ...

    Naz­zaro left traces of his ambi­tious long-term plans to trans­form his orga­ni­za­tion into a full-scale insur­gent cam­paign against his native gov­ern­ment. In Octo­ber 2018, Naz­zaro told oth­er mem­bers how The Base would slow­ly devel­op into a para­mil­i­tary group capa­ble of major ter­ror attacks.

    “In the cur­rent phase we need to be as covert as pos­si­ble. But as things accel­er­ate we can become clan­des­tine and then fur­ther down the road just right out in the open ide­al­ly,” Spear said in an encrypt­ed chat room. “For now we need non-attrib­ut­able actions but that will still send a mes­sage and/or add to accel­er­a­tion as much as pos­si­ble.”

    Joshua Fish­er-Birch, a researcher at the U.S. based ter­ror­ism watch­dog Counter-Extrem­ism Project, said the rev­e­la­tion shows the scale of the pub­lic safe­ty threat the neo-Nazi ter­ror move­ment has become with the influx of mil­i­tary skills among its adher­ents.

    “It is extreme­ly alarm­ing that an indi­vid­ual who worked in a sen­si­tive capac­i­ty con­tract­ing with the Depart­ment of Defense lat­er cre­at­ed a neo-Nazi group that aspired to com­mit acts of vio­lence with­in the [U.S.]” he said. “It rais­es ques­tions regard­ing what skills Naz­zaro taught mem­bers of The Base both in the U.S. and inter­na­tion­al­ly. This fol­lows oth­er promi­nent his­tor­i­cal exam­ples of indi­vid­u­als who have used skills from their mil­i­tary ser­vice or their asso­ci­a­tion with the armed forces to either build extreme right groups and net­works, or to com­mit acts of vio­lence.”
    ...

    It’s also worth keep­ing in mind the recent sto­ry of Ethan Melz­er, the US Army pri­vate who was a mem­ber of the Satan­ic neo-Nazi group “Order of the Nine Angles” and who was send­ing infor­ma­tion to a pur­port­ed mem­ber of al Qae­da with troop move­ment infor­ma­tion about his own unit with the hopes that an al Qae­da attack on his unit would pro­voke a fur­ther region­al war. Giv­en that both “The Base” and “Order of the Nine Angles” over­lap heav­i­ly with Atom­waf­fen’s accel­er­a­tionist neo-Nazi goals, it rais­es the ques­tion of whether or not Naz­zaro’s expe­ri­ence with mil­i­tary oper­a­tions tar­get­ing groups like al Qae­da and ISIS are the kinds of expe­ri­ences that might make him inclined to reach out to these groups and coor­di­nate attacks. Either way, it’s a reminder that when we’re talk­ing the dan­ger of pro-Trump mili­tia groups car­ry­ing out acts of polit­i­cal vio­lence dur­ing and after the upcom­ing elec­tion we’re implic­it­ly talk­ing about pos­si­bly includ­ing the kinds of accel­er­a­tionist ter­ror groups like Atom­waf­fen and The Basethat are ide­o­log­i­cal affil­i­ates of al Qae­da and ISIS. If Trump makes the call to arms these are the axis of groups who will answer that call. Birds of a feath­er...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 29, 2020, 3:59 pm
  36. A reelec­tion cam­paign run­ning against the elec­tion. That’s the theme that emerged on the night of the first pres­i­den­tial debate between Pres­i­dent Trump and Joe Biden. First, as expect­ed, Trump con­tin­ued to push the idea that mas­sive mail-in vote fraud is tak­ing place and pre­dict­ed the elec­tion will be bogged down for months with lit­i­ga­tion. He also acknowl­edged that one of the rea­sons he thinks Amy coney Bar­rett needs to be appoint­ed to the Supreme Court is so she can help resolve the upcom­ing cas­es involve mail-in bal­lots, pre­dict­ing, “But you know what? We might not know for months because these bal­lots are going to be all over.”:

    Talk­ing Points Memo
    News

    Trump Can’t Do Any­thing But Amp Up Threats Of Elec­tion And Tran­si­tion Chaos

    By Tier­ney Sneed
    Sep­tem­ber 29, 2020 11:57 p.m.

    When Pres­i­dent Trump could have thrown the small­est of bones towards the ideas under­pin­ning a sta­ble democ­ra­cy, he tripled down on the idea that he owed no such thing to the coun­try.

    In a relent­less and head-spin­ning rant, the Pres­i­dent at Tuesday’s debate refused to promise a peace­ful tran­si­tion in the event of his defeat, he threw out some of his most sen­sa­tion­al­ly bogus claims about mail-in vot­ing yet, and he made clear that he’s count­ing on the Supreme Court to take a “look” at the bal­lots.

    The tirade was shock­ing but not sur­pris­ing for a Pres­i­dent who claimed false­ly that the 2016 elec­tion that he won was nonethe­less marred by “mil­lions” of fraud­u­lent vot­ers that explained his defeat in the pop­u­lar vote.

    On Tues­day, he pre­dict­ed base­less­ly that the 2020 elec­tion will fea­ture “fraud like you have nev­er seen.” He con­jured bizarre images of bal­lots of “found in creeks,” “dumped in rivers” and “sold” by “mail­men.”

    The dia­tribe was kicked off by sim­ple ques­tion from debate mod­er­a­tor Chris Wal­lace: What would each can­di­date do in the next month and a half to assure the Amer­i­can pub­lic that the next pres­i­dent was the legit­i­mate win­ner of November’s elec­tion.

    ...

    When Trump’s turn was up, he jumped imme­di­ate­ly into the base­less idea that he was some­how denied a “peace­ful tran­si­tion,” reit­er­at­ing his fre­quent yet ridicu­lous claims that the Rus­sia probe was an attempt­ed “coup” on his pres­i­den­cy.

    “So don’t tell me about a free tran­si­tion,” he sniped at Biden.

    “As far as the bal­lots are con­cerned, it’s a dis­as­ter,” Trump con­tin­ued. He tried to walk through some of the over­hyped claims of elec­tion irreg­u­lar­i­ties that have been sen­sa­tion­al­ized by his allies, includ­ing his own Jus­tice Department’s odd han­dling of an admin­is­tra­tive error in Penn­syl­va­nia that affect­ed a hand­ful of mil­i­tary bal­lots. He then land­ed on what appears to be the focal point of his efforts to dele­git­imize the elec­tion by sug­gest­ing that any elec­tion that takes longer than Elec­tion Day night to report is some­how sus­pect.

    “It’s nice, on Nov. 3 you’re watch­ing and you see who won the elec­tion, and I think we’re going to do well,” Trump pre­dict­ed. “But you know what? We might not know for months because these bal­lots are going to be all over.”

    Wal­lace jumped in to pin down Trump on whether he was expect­ing the Supreme Court — includ­ing his nom­i­nee Judge Amy Coney Bar­rett — to set­tle any dis­putes that arise from the elec­tion.

    “I think I’m count­ing on them to look at the bal­lots, def­i­nite­ly. I hope we don’t need them, in terms of the elec­tion itself, but for the bal­lots, I think so,” Trump said, before he piv­ot­ed back to his claims of mail-in vot­ing being a “hor­ri­ble thing for this coun­try.”

    “This is not going to end well,” he pre­dict­ed.

    ————

    “Trump Can’t Do Any­thing But Amp Up Threats Of Elec­tion And Tran­si­tion Chaos” by Tier­ney Sneed; Talk­ing Points Memo; 09/29/2020

    ““This is not going to end well,” he pre­dict­ed.”

    Well, that’s one bit of hon­esty from Trump dur­ing the debate. This is not going to end well. That’s lit­er­al­ly Trump’s reelec­tion strat­e­gy. Ensur­ing this ends so hor­ri­bly it breaks the sys­tem in a man­ner that some­how allows him to stay in pow­er or breaks the coun­try entire­ly.

    But while his fear mon­ger­ing about the mail-in bal­lots was entire­ly expect­ed, in a some­what unex­pect­ed replay of his infa­mous “good peo­ple on both sides” Char­lottesville moment, Trump was once again pressed to blunt­ly con­demn white nation­al­ist groups and once again could­n’t bring him­self to do so. Trump first bum­bled about ask­ing for a spe­cif­ic group to con­demn. He then blurts out, “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I’ll tell you what, some­body’s got to do some­thing about antifa and the left.” Yep, in response to calls to con­demn white nation­al­ist groups he called on the Proud Boys to “stand by” (as if they’re a part of his pri­vate army) and warned that some­body’s got to do “some­thing” about “antifa and the left”, a bare­ly cloaked call for polit­i­cal vio­lence. It was an unex­pect­ed moment that, in ret­ro­spect, should prob­a­bly have been com­plet­ed expect­ed in the con­text of a reelec­tion cam­paign strat­e­gy that is focused on run­ning against the idea of that a valid elec­tion is pos­si­ble. Because when you’re run­ning against the idea that a valid elec­tion is even pos­si­ble, you don’t need votes. You need pri­vate armies:

    The Hill

    Proud Boys cel­e­brate online after Trump’s debate ‘stand back and stand by’ com­ment

    By Brooke Seipel
    09/29/2020 11:49 PM EDT

    The far-right group the Proud Boys cel­e­brat­ed Tues­day night after Pres­i­dent Trump refused to denounce white suprema­cy and men­tioned them dur­ing the first pres­i­den­tial debate.

    When asked by debate mod­er­a­tor Chris Wal­lace if he’d denounce the vio­lence from white suprema­cist groups, Trump replied: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by! But I’ll tell you what, some­body’s got to do some­thing about antifa and the left.”.

    The Proud Boys imme­di­ate­ly shared a new logo online that includ­ed the phrase “stand back and stand by.”

    Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee Joe Biden respond­ed on Twit­ter, shar­ing an image of Proud Boys prais­ing the pres­i­den­t’s remarks as well with the cap­tion: “This. This is Don­ald Trump’s Amer­i­ca.”

    “Stand­ing by sir.” https://t.co/YVWtUC4qlC— Vera Bergen­gru­en (@VeraMBergen) Sep­tem­ber 30, 2020

    This. This is Don­ald Trump’s Amer­i­ca. https://t.co/wld2mmGTwe— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) Sep­tem­ber 30, 2020

    ...

    ————-

    “Proud Boys cel­e­brate online after Trump’s debate ‘stand back and stand by’ com­ment” by Brooke Seipel; The Hill; 09/29/2020

    “The Proud Boys imme­di­ate­ly shared a new logo online that includ­ed the phrase “stand back and stand by.””

    Mes­sage received. The Proud Boys are stand­ing by, along with the hun­dreds of oth­er pro-Trump mili­tias that have sprung up in recent years.

    But since win­ning the elec­tion through ‘oth­er means’, includ­ing mil­i­tary means, is clear­ly part of Trump’s reelec­tion strat­e­gy, it’s worth keep­ing in mind that the far right’s abil­i­ty to help Trump steal the elec­tion isn’t lim­it­ed to their abil­i­ty to intim­i­date the pub­lic and poten­tial­ly fight a civ­il war on Trump’s behalf. Domes­tic ter­ror cam­paigns intend­ed to sow con­fu­sion and mis­di­rec­tion are also an option. And that espe­cial­ly includes domes­tic ter­ror cam­paigns that appear to be tar­get­ing Trump him­self. That’s part of what makes the fol­low­ing arti­cle so dis­turb­ing because it appears to be about a pair of Amer­i­cans who joined ISIS and plot­ted a the kind of gory ter­ror cam­paign that would earn them a Net­flix spe­cial. Their tar­gets ranged from shop­ping malls filled with chil­dren to Wall Street to Trump Tow­er. And if you had to think of an event that would help Trump earn votes at this point in the elec­tion cycle it’s hard to think of some­thing more effec­tive than an ISIS attack on Trump Tow­er. It’s anoth­er rea­son the long-stand­ing far right alliance between Nazi and Islamist jihadist — as evi­denced by the recent case of the Satan­ic mem­ber of Atom­waf­fen work­ing al Qae­da to get his army unit attacked to pro­voke a wider region­al war — is vital for under­stand­ing the con­tem­po­rary world. Because right now that Nazi-Islamist alliance — and the increased prospects of a jihadist attack direct­ed at Trump — could be his best shot at win­ning the elec­tion with an actu­al major­i­ty of the vote

    Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Times

    FBI Arrests Two ISIS Sym­pa­thiz­ers Plot­ting ‘Net­flix Wor­thy’ Ter­ror Attack on White House, Wall Street
    Ali Jibreel is alleged­ly the orig­i­na­tor of the plot, while Abdur Rahim began com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Jibreel on how to train with an AK-47.

    By R. Ghosh
    Sep­tem­ber 26, 2020 14:10 +08

    The Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion (FBI) has arrest­ed and charged two men for alleged­ly plot­ting a ‘Net­flix-wor­thy’ series of ISIS-inspired ter­ror­ist attacks includ­ing bomb­ings on the White House, Trump Tow­er and the New York Stock Exchange.

    FBI agents arrest­ed Kristo­pher Sean Matthews, also known as ‘Ali Jibreel’ and his alleged accom­plice, Jay­lyn Christo­pher Moli­na, alias ‘Abdur Rahim’, ear­li­er this week and are fac­ing mul­ti­ple charges.

    Accord­ing to court doc­u­ments, the duo was arrest­ed after the FBI inter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion where­in the two were plot­ting an attack in the name of Islam­ic state. The two had short­list­ed a host of gov­ern­ment cen­ters as part of their planned attack.

    Wag­ing War Against the Nation

    Ali Jibreel was arrest­ed in Ten­nessee on Mon­day, while Abdur Rahim was detained in Texas the same day. An affi­davit lay­ing out the charges against them was filed in the US Dis­trict Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Texas. Accord­ing to a 14-page crim­i­nal com­plaint filed in US Dis­trict Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Texas in San Anto­nio, Ali Jibreel and Abdur Rahim are accused of con­spir­ing with oth­er ISIS sup­port­ers over a peri­od of months to blow up impor­tant gov­ern­ment cen­ters such as the Trump Tow­er and the New York Stock Exchange.

    Accord­ing to reports, it was Jibreel’s plan to attack gov­ern­ment cen­ters instead of places “like malls where inno­cent chil­dren are,” court doc­u­ments show. “We need to stick togeth­er, we need to defeat them, we need to take a lot of casu­al­ties, a lot of num­bers,” Rahim alleged­ly wrote in a secre­tive chat group where FBI inves­ti­ga­tors said they pledged their loy­al­ty to ISIS.

    In fact, Jibreel had said he thought a series of attacks across the Unit­ed States ‘could be Net­flix wor­thy.’ The duo is also alleged to have con­spired to pro­vide mate­r­i­al assis­tance to Islam­ic State or ISIS and dis­cussed plans to recruit and rad­i­cal­ize oth­ers to join the ter­ror­ist group.

    Major Ter­ror Attack Avoid­ed

    Accord­ing to the court doc­u­ments, Jibreel is alleged­ly the orig­i­na­tor of the plot. Last year, he used an encrypt­ed chat ser­vice to find an ISIS sup­port­er out­side the Unit­ed States who would help him trav­el to Syr­ia and recruit addi­tion­al ISIS sup­port­ers. Rahim alleged­ly joined the chat in April, and began com­mu­ni­cat­ing with Jibreel, soon post­ing a man­u­al on how to train with an AK-47.

    In late May, Jibreel sug­gest­ed that they tar­get state and Social Secu­ri­ty build­ings, as well as the stock mar­ket or Trump Tow­er in New York or the White House by shoot­ing it from the out­side. As few as four indi­vid­u­als “could be enough” to car­ry out the attacks, Rahim replied, although he sug­gest­ed any such oper­a­tion should have up to eight accom­plices, the com­plaint states.

    ...

    Luck­i­ly, the FBI was suc­cess­ful in infil­trat­ing the chat room using con­fi­den­tial infor­mants and tracked down Jibreel and Rahim. They are now fac­ing mul­ti­ple charges includ­ing plot­ting ter­ror­ist attack and wag­ing war against the nation. If con­vict­ed, they face up to 20 years in prison.

    ————-

    “FBI Arrests Two ISIS Sym­pa­thiz­ers Plot­ting ‘Net­flix Wor­thy’ Ter­ror Attack on White House, Wall Street” by R. Ghosh; Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness Times; 09/26/2020

    “Ali Jibreel was arrest­ed in Ten­nessee on Mon­day, while Abdur Rahim was detained in Texas the same day. An affi­davit lay­ing out the charges against them was filed in the US Dis­trict Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Texas. Accord­ing to a 14-page crim­i­nal com­plaint filed in US Dis­trict Court for the West­ern Dis­trict of Texas in San Anto­nio, Ali Jibreel and Abdur Rahim are accused of con­spir­ing with oth­er ISIS sup­port­ers over a peri­od of months to blow up impor­tant gov­ern­ment cen­ters such as the Trump Tow­er and the New York Stock Exchange.

    It’s quite an ISIS conun­drum: should the group sup­port an attack tar­get­ing Trump since doing so would inevitably give Trump a major boost in the polls? On the one hand, see­ing Trump get reelect­ed would prob­a­bly be the death blow for the US. But on the oth­er hand, Trump is far more like­ly to pro­pel the US into a civ­il war if he los­es the pop­u­lar and elec­toral vote and is forced to claim mas­sive vot­er fraud to hold onto pow­er.

    It’s a sign of the times that not car­ry­ing out a ter­ror attack is prob­a­bly a lot more dev­as­tat­ing. Just step aside and let Trump do the dirty work. Well, Trump and his pri­vate army.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | September 30, 2020, 3:46 pm
  37. There’s a new piece in The Atlantic explor­ing the his­to­ry and evo­lu­tion of the Oath Keep­ers. It’s a piece that took on a dis­turb­ing new lev­el of rel­e­vance fol­low­ing Pres­i­dent Trump’s shout-out to the Proud Boys dur­ing the first pres­i­den­tial debate this week when he called on the group to “stand back and stand by” while claim­ing some­one needs to do some­thing about “antifa and the left”.

    The Atlantic piece is based on a data­base of Oath Keep­er mem­bers that was obtained by the reporter and includes a num­ber of inter­views that review the types of issues moti­vat­ing the kind of peo­ple who are join­ing the group. And as we should expect, the inter­views reveal an Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment that appears to be gen­uine­ly con­vinced that there real­ly is this vast armed and orga­nized vio­lent left­ist move­ment cen­tered around Black Lives Mat­ter and antifa that real­ly is plot­ting a Marx­ist rev­o­lu­tion that’s just around the cor­ner. Armies of antifa and BLM activists were going to invade their com­mu­ni­ties and burn them down. In oth­er words, they binge-drank the far right Kool-Aid and are now in a Kool-Aid induced state of extreme para­noia. Far right Kool-Aid that’s not just the domain of Alt Right pod­casts or InfoWars but is instead the main nar­ra­tive that’s been pushed by Fox News and oth­er main­stream con­ser­v­a­tive media for years. And as a result of these years of main­stream pro­pa­gan­diz­ing, Stew­art Rhodes has been able to suc­cess­ful­ly shift from sell­ing the idea of fight­ing a civ­il war to stop a tyran­ni­cal fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to sell­ing the idea of civ­il war to stop the vio­lent insur­rec­tion­ist left from over­throw­ing Pres­i­dent Trump in a coup:

    The Atlantic

    A Pro-Trump Mil­i­tant Group Has Recruit­ed Thou­sands of Police, Sol­diers, and Vet­er­ans
    An Atlantic inves­ti­ga­tion reveals who they are and what they might do on Elec­tion Day.

    Sto­ry by Mike Giglio
    NOVEMBER 2020 ISSUE

    Editor’s Note: After this sto­ry was sent to press for the Novem­ber issue of The Atlantic, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump was asked in the Sep­tem­ber 29 debate whether he would “con­demn white suprema­cists and mili­tia groups and say that they need to stand down.” The pres­i­dent said “Sure,” and then said that the Proud Boys, a mil­i­tant nativist group, should “stand back and stand by” as the elec­tion approach­es. Sub­scribers to the print mag­a­zine can expect to receive the issue in mid-Octo­ber.

    Stew­art Rhodes was liv­ing his vision of the future. On tele­vi­sion, Amer­i­can cities were burn­ing, while on the inter­net, rumors warned that antifa bands were com­ing to ter­ror­ize the sub­urbs. Rhodes was dri­ving around South Texas, get­ting ready for them. He answered his phone. “Let’s not fu ck around,” he said. “We’ve descend­ed into civ­il war.”

    It was a Fri­day evening in June. Rhodes, 55, is a stocky man with a gray buzz cut, a wardrobe of tac­ti­cal-casu­al attire, and a black eye patch. With him in his pick­up were a pis­tol and a dusty black hat with the gold logo of the Oath Keep­ers, a mil­i­tant group that has drawn in thou­sands of peo­ple from the mil­i­tary and law-enforce­ment com­mu­ni­ties.

    Rhodes had been talk­ing about civ­il war since he found­ed the Oath Keep­ers, in 2009. But now more peo­ple were lis­ten­ing. And where­as Rhodes had once cast him­self as a rev­o­lu­tion­ary in wait­ing, he now saw his role as defend­ing the pres­i­dent. He had put out a call for his fol­low­ers to pro­tect the coun­try against what he was call­ing an “insur­rec­tion.” The unrest, he told me, was the lat­est attempt to under­mine Don­ald Trump.

    Over the sum­mer, Rhodes’s warn­ings of con­flict only grew loud­er. In August, when a teenag­er was charged with shoot­ing and killing two peo­ple at protests over police bru­tal­i­ty in Kenosha, Wis­con­sin, Rhodes called him “a Hero, a Patri­ot” on Twit­ter. And when a Trump sup­port­er was killed lat­er that week in Port­land, Ore­gon, Rhodes declared that there was no going back. “Civ­il war is here, right now,” he wrote, before being banned from the plat­form for incit­ing vio­lence.

    By then, I’d spent months inter­view­ing cur­rent and for­mer Oath Keep­ers, attempt­ing to deter­mine whether they would real­ly take part in vio­lence. Many of their worst fears had been real­ized in quick suc­ces­sion: gov­ern­ment lock­downs, riots, a move­ment to abol­ish police, and left­ist groups arm­ing them­selves and seiz­ing part of a city. They saw all of it as a pre­cur­sor to the 2020 elec­tion.

    As Trump spent the year warn­ing about vot­er fraud, the Oath Keep­ers were lis­ten­ing. What would hap­pen, I won­dered, if Trump lost, said the elec­tion had been stolen, and refused to con­cede? Or the flip side: What if he won and his oppo­nents poured into the streets in protest? The U.S. was already see­ing a surge in polit­i­cal vio­lence, and in August the FBI put out a bul­letin that warned of a pos­si­ble esca­la­tion head­ing into the elec­tion. How much worse would things get if trained pro­fes­sion­als took up arms?

    I’d been ask­ing a ver­sion of these ques­tions since 2017, when I met a researcher from the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter who told me about Rhodes and the Oath Keep­ers. She’d received a leaked data­base with infor­ma­tion about the group, and she said it might con­tain some answers.

    Rhodes was a lit­tle-known lib­er­tar­i­an blog­ger when he launched the Oath Keep­ers in ear­ly 2009. It was a moment of anx­i­ety on the Amer­i­can right: As the Great Reces­sion raged, pro­test­ers met the new pres­i­dent with accu­sa­tions of social­ism and tyran­ny. “The great­est threats to our lib­er­ty do not come from with­out,” Rhodes wrote online, “but from with­in.” Repub­li­cans had spent eight years amass­ing pow­er in an exec­u­tive branch now occu­pied by Barack Oba­ma. The time for pol­i­tics was end­ing. “Our would-be slave mas­ters are great­ly under­es­ti­mat­ing the resolve and mil­i­tary capa­bil­i­ty of the peo­ple,” Rhodes wrote.

    Rhodes had joined the mil­i­tary just out of high school, hop­ing to become a Green Beret, but his career was cut short when he frac­tured his spine dur­ing a para­chute train­ing jump. After his dis­charge, he worked as a firearms instruc­tor and parked cars as a valet. In 1993, he dropped a loaded hand­gun and it shot him in the face, blind­ing him in his left eye. The brush with death inspired him, at 28, to enroll in com­mu­ni­ty col­lege. He went on to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Neva­da at Las Vegas, where he grad­u­at­ed sum­ma cum laude, and then to Yale Law School, where he won a prize for a paper argu­ing that the Bush administration’s ene­my-com­bat­ant doc­trine vio­lat­ed the Con­sti­tu­tion.

    He mar­ried a fel­low lib­er­tar­i­an, start­ed a fam­i­ly, and hung out a shin­gle as a lawyer in Montana—“Ivy League qual­i­ty … with­out Ivy League expense,” read a clas­si­fied ad in 2008. He vol­un­teered for Ron Paul’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign that year. But after the elec­tion, he veered from pol­i­tics toward some­thing dark­er.

    His blog post was both a man­i­festo and a recruit­ing pitch. He based it on the oath that sol­diers take when they enlist—minimizing the vow to obey the pres­i­dent and focus­ing on the one that comes before it, to “sup­port and defend the Con­sti­tu­tion against all ene­mies, for­eign and domes­tic.” Law-enforce­ment offi­cers swear a sim­i­lar oath, and Rhodes wrote that both groups could refuse orders, includ­ing those relat­ed to gun con­trol, that would enable tyran­ny. And, if nec­es­sary, they could fight.

    Respons­es poured in, and Rhodes pub­lished them on his blog:

    “Your mes­sage is spread­ing and I will make sure it gets to more Marines.”

    “Not only will I refuse any unlaw­ful order that vio­lates the Con­sti­tu­tion I will fight the tyrants that give the orders. Rest assured that me and my broth­ers in Law Enforce­ment talk about this sub­ject on a reg­u­lar basis.”

    “I ful­ly sup­port you and what you stand for and I do talk about these things with some of my sub­or­di­nates,” an Air Force offi­cer wrote. “Those who I trust that is.”

    Rhodes kept the nature of the Oath Keep­ers ambiguous—the group was offi­cial­ly non­par­ti­san and was not, as a lat­er post on the blog put it, a mili­tia “per se.” Even so, he cau­tioned that its mem­bers would be paint­ed as extrem­ists and said they could remain anony­mous. “We don’t ask cur­rent-serv­ing law enforce­ment and mil­i­tary to sign up on any kind of mem­ber­ship list,” he said in a radio inter­view. “We think that’d be fool­ish.”

    But even­tu­al­ly he did cre­ate such a list. It col­lect­ed mem­bers’ names, home and email address­es, phone num­bers, and ser­vice his­to­ries, along with answers to a ques­tion about how they could help the Oath Keep­ers. Last year, the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter passed the entries for near­ly 25,000 peo­ple along to me.

    On April 19, 2009, Rhodes trav­eled to Lex­ing­ton Green, in Mass­a­chu­setts, for the anniver­sary of the first shots of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion. Stand­ing before a crowd of new mem­bers, he led a reaf­fir­ma­tion of their oaths. With him were two heroes of the mil­i­tant right: Richard Mack, who pop­u­lar­ized the idea that coun­ty sher­iffs are the high­est law in the land, and Mike Van­der­boegh, the founder of the Three Per­centers, an umbrel­la mili­tia based on the myth that it took just 3 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion to fight and win the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War.

    With his Ivy League law degree, Rhodes’s back­ground was unusu­al. One of the first cas­es he’d tak­en on after law school was help­ing with the pro bono defense of a mili­tia leader jailed for mak­ing machine guns. His ear­ly writ­ings on his blog, and on a web forum where he used the han­dle Stew­art the Yalie, reveal a fix­a­tion on the rise of the hun­dreds of mili­tia groups that, in the ear­ly 1990s, loose­ly coa­lesced under the ban­ner of the Patri­ot move­ment.

    Rhodes was deeply affect­ed by the 1993 gov­ern­ment siege out­side Waco, Texas, which end­ed in the deaths of more than 70 mem­bers of an armed Chris­t­ian sect, which to him showed the dan­ger of gov­ern­ment pow­er. But the Patri­ot move­ment became noto­ri­ous for its con­nec­tions to white nationalists—and it fell apart after Tim­o­thy McVeigh, who’d attend­ed mili­tia meet­ings, bombed a fed­er­al build­ing in Okla­homa City in 1995.

    Rhodes want­ed to avoid repeat­ing these ear­li­er groups’ mis­takes, and he showed a tal­ent for giv­ing fringe ideas more main­stream appeal. His refusal to call the Oath Keep­ers a mili­tia helped, as did the fact that he put a dis­avow­al of racism on his blog and warned mem­bers not to make overt threats of vio­lence. He insist­ed that the Oath Keep­ers would fight only as a last resort.

    Rhodes believed that the mili­tia groups of the past had been too secre­tive, which made the pub­lic sus­pi­cious and gave author­i­ties more lee­way to crack down. He estab­lished the Oath Keep­ers as a reg­is­tered non­prof­it with a board of direc­tors; mem­bers did relief work after hur­ri­canes and spoke at local Repub­li­can events. They could walk into police sta­tions or stand out­side mil­i­tary bases with leaflets; they could meet with sher­iffs and peti­tion law­mak­ers.

    Rhodes wrote a creed list­ing 10 types of orders that mem­bers vow to resist. Gun-con­trol laws are first among them. Then come lib­er­tar­i­an con­cerns such as sub­ject­ing Amer­i­can cit­i­zens to mil­i­tary tri­bunals and war­rant­less search and seizure. After those come more con­spir­a­to­r­i­al fears—blockades of cities, for­eign troops on U.S. soil, putting Amer­i­cans in deten­tion camps. Here Rhodes was draw­ing from the “New World Order” the­o­ry, a world­view that is cen­tral to the Patri­ot movement—and that can be traced back to what the his­to­ri­an Richard Hof­s­tadter, writ­ing in the 1960s, called the para­noid style in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. It linked fears of glob­al­ism, a deep dis­trust of elites, and the idea that a bal­loon­ing fed­er­al gov­ern­ment could become tyran­ni­cal.

    Rhodes appeared on Hard­ball and The O’Reilly Fac­tor, where his ideas were called dan­ger­ous; on con­ser­v­a­tive talk radio, where they were met more favor­ably; and on The Alex Jones Show, where he was fea­tured so often that he and Jones became friends. He kept the Oath Keep­ers at the van­guard of the Patri­ot move­ment, which was see­ing a resur­gence, and trad­ed his blog for a web­site that sold brand­ed body armor and a Face­book page that reached half a mil­lion fol­low­ers before it was shut down in August.

    In 2014, Rhodes and the Oath Keep­ers joined an armed stand­off between Patri­ot groups and fed­er­al author­i­ties in Neva­da on behalf of the cat­tle ranch­er Cliv­en Bundy. The next year, they led anoth­er stand­off, at the Sug­ar Pine Mine in Josephine Coun­ty, Ore­gon. Both times, what start­ed as a dis­pute over land-use issues became a ral­ly­ing cry on the mil­i­tant right. Both times, the author­i­ties backed down. In 2014, Rhodes sent teams to Fer­gu­son, Mis­souri, to pro­tect busi­ness­es dur­ing the unrest over police bru­tal­i­ty after Michael Brown’s killing. Images of Oath Keep­ers stand­ing guard on rooftops with semi­au­to­mat­ic rifles became sym­bols of an Amer­i­ca begin­ning to turn on itself.

    In Trump, the Patri­ot move­ment believed it had an ally in the White House for the first time. In 2016, when Trump had warned of elec­tion fraud, Rhodes put out a call for mem­bers to qui­et­ly mon­i­tor polling sta­tions. When Trump warned of an inva­sion by undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants, Rhodes trav­eled to the south­ern bor­der with an Oath Keep­ers patrol. He sent mem­bers to “pro­tect” Trump sup­port­ers from the pro­test­ers at his ral­lies and appeared in the VIP sec­tion at one of them, stand­ing in the front row in a black Oath Keep­ers shirt. When Trump warned of the poten­tial for civ­il war at the start of the impeach­ment inquiry last fall, Rhodes voiced his assent on Twit­ter. “This is the truth,” he wrote. “This is where we are.”

    Even while he court­ed pub­lic­i­ty, Rhodes main­tained secre­cy around his rank and file. Mon­i­tor­ing groups couldn’t say for sure how many mem­bers the Oath Keep­ers had or what kind of peo­ple were join­ing.

    But the leaked data­base laid every­thing out. It had been com­piled by Rhodes’s deputies as new mem­bers signed up at recruit­ing events or on the Oath Keep­ers web­site. They hailed from every state. About two-thirds had a back­ground in the mil­i­tary or law enforce­ment. About 10 per­cent of these mem­bers were active-duty. There was a sher­iff in Col­orado, a SWAT-team mem­ber in Indi­ana, a police patrol­man in Mia­mi, the chief of a small police depart­ment in Illi­nois. There were mem­bers of the Spe­cial Forces, pri­vate mil­i­tary con­trac­tors, an Army psy­ops sergeant major, a cav­al­ry scout instruc­tor in Texas, a grunt in Afghanistan. There were Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment offi­cers, a 20-year spe­cial agent in the Secret Ser­vice, and two peo­ple who said they were in the FBI.

    “I will not go qui­et­ly into this dark night that is fac­ing MY beloved Amer­i­ca,” a Marine vet­er­an from Wis­con­sin wrote; an offi­cer in the Los Ange­les Police Depart­ment said he’d enlist his col­leagues “to fight the tyran­ny our coun­try is fac­ing.” Sim­i­lar pledges came from a police cap­tain in Texas, an Army recruiter in Ore­gon, and a Bor­der Patrol agent in Ari­zona, among many oth­ers. “Fun­ny sto­ry,” wrote a police sergeant in a St. Louis sub­urb. “I stopped a speed­ing truck dri­ver, who had your decal on the side of his truck, I asked about it, he went on and on, I said, ‘Damn I’m all about this.’?” He list­ed skills as a firearms and tac­ti­cal instruc­tor and said he would for­ward the mem­ber­ship appli­ca­tion to his fel­low offi­cers. A spe­cial agent in the New York City Police Department’s intel­li­gence bureau recalled that he’d been head­ing to work one day when he saw a win­dow decal with the Oath Keep­ers logo and jot­ted down the name on his hand. He vowed to be ready “if the bal­loon ever goes up.”

    Many answers to the ques­tion of how new mem­bers could help the Oath Keep­ers were innocu­ous: “I make videos!” and “Not much but my big mouth! Too old for much else!” Peo­ple offered to show up at protests, hand out fly­ers, and post on Face­book. Oth­ers pro­vid­ed résumés with skills suit­ed for con­flict. A sol­dier with a U.S. Army email address detailed a back­ground in bat­tle­field intel­li­gence, writ­ing, “I am will­ing to use any skills you iden­ti­fy as help­ful,” and an Iraq War vet­er­an pledged “any tal­ents avail­able to a for­mer infantry team leader.” Still oth­ers list­ed skills in marks­man­ship, SWAT tac­tics, inter­ro­ga­tion. A Texas busi­ness­man offered his ranch “for train­ing or defen­sive pur­pos­es,” and a Michi­gan cop, retired from the Spe­cial Forces, vol­un­teered as a “tactical/political leader when occa­sion arrives in near future.”

    As I pored through the entries, I began to see them as a win­dow into some­thing much larg­er than the Oath Keep­ers. Mem­ber­ship in the group was often fleeting—some peo­ple had signed up on a whim and for­got­ten about it. The Oath Keep­ers did not have 25,000 sol­diers at the ready. But the files showed that Rhodes had tapped into a deep cur­rent of anx­i­ety, one that could cause a sur­pris­ing­ly large con­tin­gent of peo­ple with real police and mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence to con­sid­er armed polit­i­cal vio­lence. He was like a fish­er­man who sinks a bea­con into the sea at night, draw­ing his catch toward the light.

    The entries dat­ed from 2009 until 2015, not long before the start of Trump’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. I used them as a start­ing point for con­ver­sa­tions with dozens of cur­rent and for­mer mem­bers. The dom­i­nant mood was fore­bod­ing. I found peo­ple far along in delib­er­a­tions about the prospect of civ­il con­flict, brac­ing for it and afflict­ed by the sense that they were being pushed toward it by forces out­side their con­trol. Many said they didn’t want to fight but feared they’d have no choice.

    The first per­son I con­tact­ed, in Jan­u­ary, was David Solomi­ta, an Iraq War vet­er­an in Flori­da whose entry said that a police offi­cer had recruit­ed him to the Oath Keep­ers while he was out to din­ner with his wife. I didn’t men­tion civ­il war when I emailed, yet he replied, “I want to make this clear, I am a lib­er­tar­i­an and was in Iraq when it became a civ­il war, I want no part of one.”

    Lat­er, Solomi­ta said that he’d been an Oath Keep­er for a year before leav­ing because Rhodes “want­ed to be at the cen­ter of the cir­cus when [civ­il war] kicked off.” America’s polit­i­cal break­down, he added, remind­ed him too much of what he’d seen over­seas.

    On Mar­tin Luther King day, I walked into down­town Rich­mond, Vir­ginia, behind a group of white men in jeans with rifles on their shoul­ders and pis­tols at their waists. A moth­er pulled her tod­dler away, whis­per­ing, “Those men have guns.” Semi­trucks parad­ed down the street, fly­ing Trump flags. They blared their horns, and the men cheered. Soon I was at the state capi­tol, sur­round­ed by 22,000 peo­ple, many of them car­ry­ing AR-15s and polit­i­cal signs. OPPOSE TYRANNY. GUNS SAVE LIVES. TRUMP 2020.

    In Vir­ginia, the hol­i­day is the occa­sion for an annu­al event called Lob­by Day, when cit­i­zens peti­tion law­mak­ers about any issue they like. This year, the atmos­phere was charged. The state leg­is­la­ture had just sworn in its first Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty in two decades, and law­mak­ers had advanced a raft of gun-con­trol mea­sures. Rur­al coun­ties were declar­ing them­selves “Sec­ond Amend­ment sanc­tu­ar­ies” as sher­iffs vowed not to enforce new gun laws. Vir­ginia is an open-car­ry state, and armed pro­test­ers from across the coun­try had turned the day into a ral­ly for gun rights.

    Rhodes was there, along with some oth­er Oath Keep­ers. On a Face­book page called “The Mili­tias March on Rich­mond,” an orga­niz­er of the event declared that he’d sworn an oath to defend the Con­sti­tu­tion against ene­mies for­eign and domes­tic when he joined the mil­i­tary and the police—and now a mili­tia. He called Vir­ginia the scene of “a great awak­en­ing.”

    ...

    David Hines, a con­ser­v­a­tive writer, has called guns the right’s most suc­cess­ful orga­niz­ing plat­form. The issue demands local involve­ment, to close­ly track not just fed­er­al but state and munic­i­pal laws and pol­i­tics. Guns are also social. To shoot them, you’ll like­ly head to a range, and to buy them, you’ll like­ly vis­it a store or a gun show where you’ll find peo­ple who share your mind­set. “Guns,” Hines writes, “are onramps to activism.”

    I couldn’t find Rhodes or any oth­er Oath Keep­ers as I squeezed through the crowd. Instead I met pro­test­ers like Daniel McClure, a 23-year-old work­ing as a con­trac­tor for the Ten­nessee Val­ley Author­i­ty, who stood with his dad near the capi­tol lawn. He was pleased by the turnout, he told me, but also will­ing to aban­don peace­ful protest if democ­ra­cy stopped work­ing. His idea of respon­si­ble cit­i­zen­ship meant keep­ing the prospect of insur­rec­tion in reserve. He repeat­ed a max­im I heard often: Gun rights are the rights that pro­tect all the rest. “If speak­ing soft­ly won’t work,” he said, lift­ing the butt of his rifle, “the stick will come.”

    Before the ral­ly, the FBI had arrest­ed alleged white suprema­cists who planned to fire on the crowd to incite a wider con­flict, accord­ing to pros­e­cu­tors, and social media had been filled with not-so-veiled threats against Virginia’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers. I was struck by how com­mon­place talk of vio­lence had become. Lib­er­als had been invok­ing it, too. “Your lit­tle AR-15 isn’t going to do shit to pro­tect you from the government—who has tanks and nuclear weapons. That is a pathet­ic fan­ta­sy,” the top aide to a Vir­ginia law­mak­er had writ­ten in a viral tweet a few months ear­li­er.

    In the crowd, I noticed men mut­ter­ing into walkie-talkies, their eyes hid­den behind wrap­around shades. To me they had the aspect of chil­dren play­ing at war, only their guns were real. There was a loud bang, and I whirled around as hands moved toward trig­gers. But some­one had only knocked a met­al sign onto the pave­ment.

    The ral­ly end­ed peace­ful­ly. Pro­test­ers picked up trash as the men with walkie-talkies fad­ed into the city.

    “That’s a nice tran­si­tion, ISIS to us,” Rhodes said when I first called him, in Feb­ru­ary, and told him what had led me to the Oath Keep­ers. It wasn’t just the mem­ber­ship files. In 2016, I’d been report­ing on the fall of the Islam­ic State in Mosul when I noticed that Amer­i­cans were threat­en­ing civ­il con­flict at home and won­dered if any of them were real­ly seri­ous.

    I told him there’s noth­ing worse than civ­il war. “I beg to dif­fer,” he replied. He ticked off dic­ta­tors: Stal­in, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao. “I think what was done by them was far worse,” he said. “If you’re going to slide into a night­mare like that, you need to fight.” He ref­er­enced a pas­sage from The Gulag Arch­i­pel­ago, by the Russ­ian dis­si­dent Alek­san­dr Solzhen­it­syn:

    And how we burned in the camps lat­er, think­ing: What would things have been like if every Secu­ri­ty oper­a­tive, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncer­tain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his fam­i­ly?

    Peo­ple on the mil­i­tant right often cite these lines or a sim­i­lar pas­sage from an acclaimed 1955 book about Germany’s descent into Nazism, They Thought They Were Free:

    Each act, each occa­sion, is worse than the last, but only a lit­tle worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shock­ing occa­sion, think­ing that oth­ers, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resist­ing some­how … But the one great shock­ing occa­sion, when tens or hun­dreds or thou­sands will join with you, nev­er comes.

    For peo­ple like Rhodes, the mes­sage of both pas­sages is the same. Amer­i­cans are sleep­walk­ing toward an abyss. Patri­ots need to wake up and resist.

    “It’s not just about guns,” Rhodes said. But guns were at the heart of it. Trump was stok­ing the idea that con­ser­v­a­tives are a minor­i­ty threat­ened by a demo­graph­ic tide that will let lib­er­al cities dic­tate the terms for the rest of the coun­try. When I asked Rhodes and oth­er peo­ple on the mil­i­tant right to name con­cerns beyond gun rights, they men­tioned how his­to­ry is taught in schools, or how the Green New Deal would threat­en land use, agri­cul­ture, sin­gle-fam­i­ly homes. They stressed that Amer­i­ca is a repub­lic, not a democ­ra­cy. Lib­er­als, Rhodes told me, want to see “a nar­row major­i­ty tram­pling on our rights. The only way to do that is to dis­arm us first.”

    I asked whether the Oath Keep­ers were white nation­al­ists. The group had par­tic­i­pat­ed in events with the Proud Boys, a group of self-described “West­ern chau­vin­ists,” and pro­vid­ed secu­ri­ty at a so-called free-speech ral­ly head­lined by the alt-right activist Kyle Chap­man. “We’re not fu cking white nation­al­ists,” Rhodes said, point­ing out that the Oath Keep­ers have dis­avowed the Proud Boys and that their vice pres­i­dent is Black. “That’s the new smear. Every­body on the right is a white nation­al­ist. And when you have that drum­beat of demo­niza­tion, then what are we sup­posed to think?”

    Like Trump, Rhodes relent­less­ly demo­nizes Black Lives Mat­ter activists as “Marxists”—a for­eign ene­my. And he dwells on imag­ined threats from undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants and Mus­lims that fit his ideas about a glob­al­ist push to under­mine West­ern val­ues. His moth­er is from a fam­i­ly of Mex­i­can migrant labor­ers; as a child, he spent sum­mers pick­ing fruit and veg­eta­bles along­side them. But he told me that his rel­a­tives were con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians and that they—the key word—“assimilated.”

    Rhodes said I should inves­ti­gate mil­i­tant groups on the left such as the John Brown Gun Club, and seemed obsessed with antifa, which he said the Oath Keep­ers had faced down while pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty at right-wing ral­lies. “If Trump wins, guess who’s going to show up,” he said. “The left will be in the streets riot­ing.”

    He added that he’d been using lib­er­als’ “drum­beat of anti-cop sen­ti­ment” in his out­reach to police. “That’s what we tell them: ‘Come on, guys. They hate your guts.’?”

    The most famous Oath Keep­er after Rhodes is John Kar­ri­man, a pas­tor and for­mer police train­er from Mis­souri who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Fer­gu­son oper­a­tion. Crit­ics saw the Oath Keep­ers’ pres­ence in Fer­gu­son as inflam­ma­to­ry, an attempt to intim­i­date pro­test­ers. But to Kar­ri­man, the oper­a­tion was a suc­cess: They’d helped pro­tect the com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing a Black-owned busi­ness, and left with­out rais­ing their weapons. It was an exam­ple of what he want­ed the Oath Keep­ers to be—a group that could “keep our coun­try free and keep our fel­low trav­el­ers hon­est and not step a foot over the line,” he told me. “I had high hopes that the Oath Keep­ers could be the brand that oth­er groups could ral­ly around.”

    But behind the scenes, Kar­ri­man and oth­ers who were close to Rhodes told me, the Oath Keep­ers were plagued by dys­func­tion. Rhodes would dis­ap­pear for long stretch­es and stall on initiatives—such as a nation­al pro­gram to offer com­mu­ni­ty train­ing in firearm safe­ty, first aid, and dis­as­ter relief—that would have been a boon to recruit­ing. Wealthy donors offered mon­ey, Kar­ri­man said, but when they asked to see the group’s books, Rhodes declined. In 2017, a blog­ger pub­lished alle­ga­tions of embez­zle­ment by the group’s IT admin­is­tra­tor and accused Rhodes of cov­er­ing it up, cit­ing doc­u­ments and record­ings. Kar­ri­man demand­ed reforms but was ulti­mate­ly pushed out. Oth­er board mem­bers resigned, chap­ters dis­solved, and the mem­ber­ship files were leaked to the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter. (Rhodes denies these accu­sa­tions and attrib­ut­es them to a “coup attempt” by peo­ple with whom he has ide­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences.)

    Sev­er­al for­mer deputies to Rhodes told me his behav­ior had grown errat­ic. At the Bundy-ranch stand­off in 2014, he’d claimed to have intel­li­gence that the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion was plan­ning a drone strike on the Patri­ot encamp­ment. The Oath Keep­ers pulled back as mili­ti­a­men from oth­er groups accused them of deser­tion. The next year, he said in a speech that John McCain should be tried and hanged for trea­son because he sup­port­ed the indef­i­nite deten­tion of Amer­i­can cit­i­zens sus­pect­ed of ter­ror­ism. After­ward, he told me, he began fac­ing height­ened scruti­ny at air­ports. In 2015, he was dis­barred. In 2018, his wife peti­tioned for an order of pro­tec­tion dur­ing divorce pro­ceed­ings, alleg­ing that Rhodes had once grabbed their daugh­ter by the throat and had a habit, dur­ing mar­i­tal argu­ments, of wav­ing a pis­tol in the air before point­ing it at his head. (Rhodes denies these alle­ga­tions. The peti­tion was not grant­ed.)

    He was also push­ing the Oath Keep­ers in a direc­tion that clashed with the qui­eter mode some of his mem­bers favored. In the files, I found a note append­ed to the entry of an Air Force offi­cer ask­ing that his name be strick­en from the rolls. The offi­cer “will still be with us,” the note read, but he want­ed to pro­tect his 15-year career in the mil­i­tary. The note was from Steve Homan, a Viet­nam vet­er­an from Nebras­ka and a for­mer vice pres­i­dent of the Oath Keep­ers. When I called him, he recount­ed how he’d focused on recruit­ing peo­ple with mil­i­tary skills while try­ing not to draw too much atten­tion. He weed­ed out the “wild hats.” He want­ed peo­ple will­ing and able to “slug back” against the gov­ern­ment if nec­es­sary but lev­el­head­ed enough not to start the fight. He referred to them as “qui­et patri­ots,” his ver­sion of the mil­i­tant right’s Gray Man trope, a silent major­i­ty that will come to his side in a con­flict.

    This descrip­tion fit a Spe­cial Oper­a­tions sol­dier I found in the files who told me he’d nev­er appeared at an event but was ready to step in if need­ed. He has an Oath Keep­ers bumper stick­er on his vehi­cle at the base, so that oth­er sol­diers will ask him about it. The ques­tion of vio­lence, he said, “def­i­nite­ly comes up, and my response is that it absolute­ly could include armed con­flict. I like to use the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War as an exam­ple. The mili­tias were there, well armed and orga­nized, not look­ing to pick a fight but ready when it hap­pened.”

    Homan’s approach required sub­tle­ty, and gath­er­ing a band of gray men in the shad­ows was dif­fi­cult when Oath Keep­ers were tot­ing weapons on the nation­al news. Append­ed to sev­er­al entries, I found let­ters of res­ig­na­tion in which peo­ple com­plained that the group was becom­ing too mili­tia­like. But I also not­ed spikes in new members—each pay­ing a $50 annu­al fee—when Rhodes made head­lines. “The pub­lic­i­ty and the mon­ey, it was feed­ing him,” Homan recalled. Even­tu­al­ly he resigned.

    One Marine vet­er­an told me that when he signed up in 2013, he’d recent­ly retired after sev­en years as a mil­i­tary con­trac­tor, dur­ing which he’d trained indige­nous forces in Afghanistan. Senior Oath Keep­ers asked him to pro­vide mem­bers with para­mil­i­tary train­ing. He warned Rhodes that train­ing the wrong peo­ple could lead to trou­ble; they might even turn on him. But he agreed after Rhodes said he could do the vet­ting him­self.

    He kept a look­out for peo­ple who dis­played red flags such as talk­ing about mak­ing explo­sives or silencers. “There were guys who want­ed to go full-blown mili­tia. And there were peo­ple like myself who just want­ed to sup­port the com­mu­ni­ty in case of a break­down in order,” he said. Even­tu­al­ly he felt that Rhodes was adopt­ing an “offen­sive mindset”—almost push­ing for a fight, espe­cial­ly after the Bundy stand­off. He resigned, became a sheriff’s deputy, and is now train­ing as a priest.

    In April, a group called the Michi­gan Lib­er­ty Mili­tia appeared with semi­au­to­mat­ic rifles at a ral­ly in the state capi­tol, where pro­test­ers were demand­ing an end to coro­n­avirus lock­downs and call­ing the gov­er­nor a Nazi. The mili­ti­a­men looked down from a sec­ond-floor bal­cony as law­mak­ers wear­ing body armor pushed through the crowd below. Images of the scene went viral. After­ward, I called one of the militia’s lead­ers, Phil Robin­son, at his home in a small town west of Lans­ing. “I’m not going to lie to you, man,” he told me. “I feel like a movie star.”

    Rhodes, mean­while, was strug­gling to find his place in the anti-lock­down move­ment. He ini­tial­ly wor­ried about the pan­dem­ic, and wrote an ear­ly post urg­ing shut­down mea­sures before fac­ing a back­lash; one promi­nent Oath Keep­er accused him of being “con­trolled oppo­si­tion” and resigned. Soon Rhodes was in the unmasked crowds him­self, echo­ing Trump’s claims that the hys­te­ria about the virus was part of a plot against him.

    But the ideas that Rhodes had helped pop­u­lar­ize were spread­ing. Robin­son told me he’d nev­er been in the police or military—then not­ed that join­ing his group meant swear­ing an oath to pro­tect the Con­sti­tu­tion against all ene­mies, for­eign and domes­tic. Oth­er mili­tias sim­ply past­ed Rhodes’s 10 orders on their web­sites with­out attri­bu­tion. Videos cir­cu­lat­ed of uni­formed police offi­cers call­ing the lock­down mea­sures tyran­ni­cal, empha­siz­ing their oaths, and telling their fel­low offi­cers to wake up.

    Then the Black Lives Mat­ter protests erupt­ed. Armed men sur­faced amid the unrest, car­ry­ing out Fer­gu­son-style oper­a­tions. Rhodes tried to orga­nize vig­i­lante teams of his own on the social-net­work­ing site Dis­cord, but he made lit­tle progress before the forum he cre­at­ed was shut down and the par­tic­i­pants banned.

    New­er groups were call­ing open­ly for civ­il war, say­ing they want­ed to get on with it already. Mem­bers of the so-called booga­loo move­ment wore alo­ha shirts when they appeared in the crowds with semi­au­to­mat­ic weapons, sug­gest­ing that they saw the out­break of vio­lence as some­thing like a par­ty. Many in the new gen­er­a­tion dis­missed old­er lead­ers like Rhodes as too tame. On gun rights and oth­er issues, they resent­ed their fore­bears for giv­ing up so much already.

    The moment lacked the clar­i­ty of the era in which Rhodes had gained promi­nence, when Patri­ot groups posi­tioned them­selves against Oba­ma and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Some “boog bois” were white suprema­cists. Yet when police tried to sep­a­rate the pro­test­ers into oppos­ing sides, some of the young men in alo­ha shirts insist­ed on stand­ing with Black Lives Mat­ter. There were alleged shoot­ings by white suprema­cists and also by peo­ple who’d come out to protest against police bru­tal­i­ty. Patri­ot groups became obsessed with a new Black mili­tia called the Not Fu cking Around Coali­tion; the two sides con­front­ed each oth­er at a march hon­or­ing Bre­on­na Tay­lor, and police had to inter­vene. Sales of guns and ammo were surg­ing.

    One after­noon, I received an email from an Army vet­er­an and for­mer Oath Keep­er named Adam Boyle, who said he’d been pro­tect­ing a shop­ping cen­ter in Mis­souri with a for­mer Marine spe­cial oper­a­tor named Nick. Boyle’s sto­ry had the dream­like log­ic of non­lin­ear con­flict. “Myself and Nick estab­lished a defen­sive secu­ri­ty posi­tion in front of Pep­per­oni Bill’s Piz­za,” he wrote, and then pro­test­ers arrived. The duo braced them­selves, detect­ing an agi­ta­tor among the pro­test­ers, who appeared to have a knife, but the pro­test­ers drove him away. Boyle and his friend began talk­ing with the pro­test­ers and real­ized that they shared some com­mon ground.

    Then a new ene­my emerged: Two white men drove up, and Nick saw that they had a pis­tol in the car. When two Black women tried to leave, the men in the car chased after them. “Nick jumped into my truck, armed him­self at a low-ready with his AR-15, and we aggres­sive­ly pur­sued the men,” Boyle wrote. The men retreat­ed, and the vig­i­lantes embraced the rally’s orga­niz­er. “We had bridged a polit­i­cal gap and come togeth­er for a com­mon cause of peace,” Boyle wrote. I not­ed the almost des­per­ate attempt to reestab­lish goodwill—and the myr­i­ad ways the night could have turned into a cat­a­stro­phe. While Rhodes was invok­ing the glo­ry of Lex­ing­ton Green, a grim real­i­ty could have played out in the con­fu­sion at Pep­per­oni Bill’s.

    One evening in July, I walked into a VFW hall out­side Nashville, past a bar crowd­ed with mask­less patrons and into a win­dow­less room with a dance floor. A cou­ple dozen peo­ple sat at tables on one side. Next to the door was a sign-in sheet that asked for the same infor­ma­tion that appeared in the leaked files: name and con­tact infor­ma­tion, what skills peo­ple could offer.

    Rhodes had called the meet­ing as part of a new orga­niz­ing push. He’d been dri­ving around the South—attending a mili­tia ral­ly in Vir­ginia one day, vis­it­ing mem­bers in North Car­oli­na another—and agreed to let me join him in Ten­nessee. He was late. Some Three Per­centers sat in one cor­ner, look­ing impa­tient. I sat with a pair of Oath Keep­ers in anoth­er.

    One was an old­er man in an Aus­tralian-out­back hat. The oth­er was an Iraq War com­bat vet­er­an who had recent­ly joined the Oath Keep­ers. He began talk­ing about his expe­ri­ence over­seas, and how in the chaos of war, U.S. sol­diers had faced the hor­ri­ble prospect of killing chil­dren, who might charge at them strapped with IEDs. “I pre­fer that to the alter­na­tive,” the man in the hat said, “of being splat­tered against the wall.”

    Final­ly Rhodes walked in and put his dusty Oath Keep­ers hat on a table. “Why are you all sit­ting so far apart?” he asked. “Let’s get every­one togeth­er.”

    Rhodes spoke like an errant pro­fes­sor, intent on explain­ing an idea: that it’s the peo­ple them­selves, not any one group, who are the real mili­tia. This, he said, was what the Founders had had in mind. He sug­gest­ed that the atten­dees orga­nize local­ly. The Oath Keep­ers would act like the Spe­cial Forces do over­seas, train­ing peo­ple and serv­ing as a force mul­ti­pli­er. “Don’t call your­selves Oath Keep­ers or Three Per­centers,” he said. “Call your­selves the mili­tia of Ruther­ford Coun­ty.”

    As Rhodes told the peo­ple in the crowd to be ready for war, I sized them up. Some looked hard­ened, but many more did not. One man rest­ed a hand on a cane. When Rhodes asked what their con­cerns were, sev­er­al said they feared that riot­ers would show up in their neigh­bor­hoods.

    His com­ments became more inflam­ma­to­ry as he began to warn about antifa and pro­test­ers. “They are insur­rec­tion­ists, and we have to sup­press that insur­rec­tion,” he said. “Even­tu­al­ly they’re going to be using IEDs.”

    “Us old vets and younger ones are going to end up hav­ing to kill these young kids,” he con­clud­ed. “And they’re going to die believ­ing they were fight­ing Nazis.”

    After­ward, Rhodes trav­eled through Ken­tucky, meet­ing Oath Keep­ers at their homes, where the con­ver­sa­tions stretched for hours, always wind­ing around the same question—what if?—and always com­ing back to the elec­tion. A man named James, a new mem­ber, told me peo­ple would accept the result—“as long as we believe the vote was fair. And if both sides can’t come to an agree­ment, then you’re going to have a con­flict.”

    It could start with a protest gone wrong, he said, or shots from a provo­ca­teur. Some­one men­tioned a young moth­er in Indi­ana who’d been shot and killed after report­ed­ly shout­ing “All lives mat­ter” dur­ing an argu­ment with strangers.

    “We talk about being attacked,” anoth­er man said. “Now, I have a ques­tion. What if you’re attacked in sub­tle and con­sis­tent ways over a peri­od of time?”

    I drove from Ken­tucky into the moun­tains of Car­roll Coun­ty, Vir­ginia, and, in a field along a wind­ing road, parked at the end of a long row of pick­up trucks and SUVs. A hun­dred peo­ple, most of them armed, were look­ing up at a man giv­ing a speech from the back of a flatbed truck that was paint­ed in cam­ou­flage. Between the crowd and me were two young men with semi­au­to­mat­ic rifles. They stopped me in a manner—neither friend­ly nor unfriendly—that I’d encoun­tered at check­points in oth­er parts of the world.

    So-called mili­tia musters like this one had been qui­et­ly hap­pen­ing all over the state. The leg­is­la­ture was still push­ing ahead with gun-con­trol mea­sures, and peo­ple were prepar­ing for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of more riots, and for the elec­tion. Rhodes was sched­uled to give remarks but, as usu­al, he was late.

    One of the young men said some­thing into a walkie-talkie, and a mus­cu­lar Iraq War vet­er­an named Will joined me and explained the rea­son for the guards and the men post­ed in the woods on the far side of the field. They weren’t wor­ried about law enforcement—a deputy from the sheriff’s depart­ment stood not far from me, lean­ing against his cruis­er. It was left­ists, antifa, who might record your license plate, dox you, show up at your home.

    This was a dif­fer­ent kind of crowd than Rhodes had drawn to the VFW hall. Many were in their 20s and 30s and had come in uniforms—some Three Per­centers wore black T‑shirts and cam­ou­flage pants, and mem­bers of anoth­er group stood togeth­er in match­ing wood­land fatigues. From the lat­ter, a man climbed onto the flatbed and intro­duced him­self as Joe Klemm, the leader of a new mili­tia called the Ridge Run­ners.

    He was a 29-year-old for­mer marine and spoke with a boom that brought the crowd to atten­tion. “I’ve seen this com­ing since I was in the mil­i­tary,” he said. “For far too long, we’ve giv­en a lit­tle bit here and there in the inter­est of peace. But I will tell you that peace is not that sweet. Life is not that dear. I’d rather die than not live free.”

    “Hoo-ah,” some peo­ple cheered.

    “It’s going to change in Novem­ber,” Klemm con­tin­ued. “I fol­low the Con­sti­tu­tion. We demand that the rest of you do the same. We demand that our police offi­cers do the same. We’re going to make these peo­ple fear us again. We should have been shoot­ing a long time ago instead of stand­ing off to the side.

    “Are you will­ing to lose your lives?” he asked. “Are you will­ing to lose the lives of your loved ones—maybe see one of your loved ones ripped apart right next to you?”

    After he fin­ished, Rhodes rolled up in his rent­ed Dodge Ram and parked in the grass beside me. He walked to the flatbed but didn’t climb it. Then he turned and faced the crowd. His speech mean­dered back to rev­o­lu­tion­ary times, evok­ing the tra­di­tions of a coun­try found­ed in blood­shed. He urged them to build a mili­tia for their com­mu­ni­ty.

    Rhodes stayed at the muster long after most peo­ple had left, meet­ing every last per­son, his his­to­ry lessons stretch­ing on and on. Even­tu­al­ly the con­ver­sa­tion turned to the prob­lems in the area—the drug over­dos­es and men­tal-health crises and the des­per­ate state of the local econ­o­my. The peo­ple there seemed to believe that tak­ing up arms would some­how stave off the country’s unrav­el­ing rather than speed it along.

    When the protests erupt­ed in Kenosha a month lat­er, many of the demon­stra­tors brought guns, and vig­i­lante groups quick­ly formed on the oth­er side. They called them­selves the Kenosha Guard. There was a con­fronta­tion near a gas sta­tion like the one at Pep­per­oni Bill’s, and a teenag­er alleged­ly opened fire and killed two peo­ple. A man affil­i­at­ed with antifa alleged­ly gunned down a Trump sup­port­er in Port­land lat­er that week, and Rhodes declared that “the first shot has been fired.”

    By then, some writ­ers pop­u­lar on the mil­i­tant right had been warn­ing that wars don’t always start with a clear, deci­sive event—an attack, a coup, an invasion—and that you might not real­ize you’re in one until it’s under way. Civ­il con­flict is grad­ual. The path to it, I thought, might begin with brood­ing over it. It could start with open­ing your mind.

    ————-

    “A Pro-Trump Mil­i­tant Group Has Recruit­ed Thou­sands of Police, Sol­diers, and Vet­er­ans” by Mike Giglio; The Atlantic; 11/2020 Issue

    “By then, some writ­ers pop­u­lar on the mil­i­tant right had been warn­ing that wars don’t always start with a clear, deci­sive event—an attack, a coup, an invasion—and that you might not real­ize you’re in one until it’s under way. Civ­il con­flict is grad­ual. The path to it, I thought, might begin with brood­ing over it. It could start with open­ing your mind.

    That path to a civ­il war starts with open minds to its pos­si­bil­i­ty. At least that’s the path Stew­art Rhodes has cho­sen in what appears to be a per­son­al quest to spark a civ­il con­flict that he’s been pur­su­ing from the very begin­ning of the Oath Keep­ers. It’s a devi­ous­ly sim­ple strat­e­gy: He just trav­els the Unit­ed States talk­ing up the idea of civ­il war. Dur­ing the Oba­ma year it would have been war against the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment but these days it’s the alleged threat of a left­ist “insur­rec­tion”. The exact same nar­ra­tive the GOP and main­stream right-wing media has been aggres­sive­ly push­ing for months:

    ...
    Rhodes had been talk­ing about civ­il war since he found­ed the Oath Keep­ers, in 2009. But now more peo­ple were lis­ten­ing. And where­as Rhodes had once cast him­self as a rev­o­lu­tion­ary in wait­ing, he now saw his role as defend­ing the pres­i­dent. He had put out a call for his fol­low­ers to pro­tect the coun­try against what he was call­ing an “insur­rec­tion.” The unrest, he told me, was the lat­est attempt to under­mine Don­ald Trump.
    ...

    It’s a nar­ra­tive that Rhodes has been devel­op­ing and push­ing from the very begin­ning of the Oath Keep­er’s found­ing in 2009. It’s a reminder that the con­tem­po­rary main­stream­ing of the “insur­rec­tion­ist left” meme is an adop­tion of a meme that fig­ures like Rhodes have been push­ing for years:

    ...
    As I pored through the entries, I began to see them as a win­dow into some­thing much larg­er than the Oath Keep­ers. Mem­ber­ship in the group was often fleeting—some peo­ple had signed up on a whim and for­got­ten about it. The Oath Keep­ers did not have 25,000 sol­diers at the ready. But the files showed that Rhodes had tapped into a deep cur­rent of anx­i­ety, one that could cause a sur­pris­ing­ly large con­tin­gent of peo­ple with real police and mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence to con­sid­er armed polit­i­cal vio­lence. He was like a fish­er­man who sinks a bea­con into the sea at night, draw­ing his catch toward the light.

    The entries dat­ed from 2009 until 2015, not long before the start of Trump’s pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. I used them as a start­ing point for con­ver­sa­tions with dozens of cur­rent and for­mer mem­bers. The dom­i­nant mood was fore­bod­ing. I found peo­ple far along in delib­er­a­tions about the prospect of civ­il con­flict, brac­ing for it and afflict­ed by the sense that they were being pushed toward it by forces out­side their con­trol. Many said they didn’t want to fight but feared they’d have no choice.

    The first per­son I con­tact­ed, in Jan­u­ary, was David Solomi­ta, an Iraq War vet­er­an in Flori­da whose entry said that a police offi­cer had recruit­ed him to the Oath Keep­ers while he was out to din­ner with his wife. I didn’t men­tion civ­il war when I emailed, yet he replied, “I want to make this clear, I am a lib­er­tar­i­an and was in Iraq when it became a civ­il war, I want no part of one.”

    Lat­er, Solomi­ta said that he’d been an Oath Keep­er for a year before leav­ing because Rhodes “want­ed to be at the cen­ter of the cir­cus when [civ­il war] kicked off.” America’s polit­i­cal break­down, he added, remind­ed him too much of what he’d seen over­seas.

    ...

    “It’s not just about guns,” Rhodes said. But guns were at the heart of it. Trump was stok­ing the idea that con­ser­v­a­tives are a minor­i­ty threat­ened by a demo­graph­ic tide that will let lib­er­al cities dic­tate the terms for the rest of the coun­try. When I asked Rhodes and oth­er peo­ple on the mil­i­tant right to name con­cerns beyond gun rights, they men­tioned how his­to­ry is taught in schools, or how the Green New Deal would threat­en land use, agri­cul­ture, sin­gle-fam­i­ly homes. They stressed that Amer­i­ca is a repub­lic, not a democ­ra­cy. Lib­er­als, Rhodes told me, want to see “a nar­row major­i­ty tram­pling on our rights. The only way to do that is to dis­arm us first.”

    I asked whether the Oath Keep­ers were white nation­al­ists. The group had par­tic­i­pat­ed in events with the Proud Boys, a group of self-described “West­ern chau­vin­ists,” and pro­vid­ed secu­ri­ty at a so-called free-speech ral­ly head­lined by the alt-right activist Kyle Chap­man. “We’re not fu cking white nation­al­ists,” Rhodes said, point­ing out that the Oath Keep­ers have dis­avowed the Proud Boys and that their vice pres­i­dent is Black. “That’s the new smear. Every­body on the right is a white nation­al­ist. And when you have that drum­beat of demo­niza­tion, then what are we sup­posed to think?”

    Like Trump, Rhodes relent­less­ly demo­nizes Black Lives Mat­ter activists as “Marxists”—a for­eign ene­my. And he dwells on imag­ined threats from undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants and Mus­lims that fit his ideas about a glob­al­ist push to under­mine West­ern val­ues. His moth­er is from a fam­i­ly of Mex­i­can migrant labor­ers; as a child, he spent sum­mers pick­ing fruit and veg­eta­bles along­side them. But he told me that his rel­a­tives were con­ser­v­a­tive Chris­tians and that they—the key word—“assimilated.”

    Rhodes said I should inves­ti­gate mil­i­tant groups on the left such as the John Brown Gun Club, and seemed obsessed with antifa, which he said the Oath Keep­ers had faced down while pro­vid­ing secu­ri­ty at right-wing ral­lies. “If Trump wins, guess who’s going to show up,” he said. “The left will be in the streets riot­ing.”

    He added that he’d been using lib­er­als’ “drum­beat of anti-cop sen­ti­ment” in his out­reach to police. “That’s what we tell them: ‘Come on, guys. They hate your guts.’?”

    ...

    As Rhodes told the peo­ple in the crowd to be ready for war, I sized them up. Some looked hard­ened, but many more did not. One man rest­ed a hand on a cane. When Rhodes asked what their con­cerns were, sev­er­al said they feared that riot­ers would show up in their neigh­bor­hoods.

    His com­ments became more inflam­ma­to­ry as he began to warn about antifa and pro­test­ers. “They are insur­rec­tion­ists, and we have to sup­press that insur­rec­tion,” he said. “Even­tu­al­ly they’re going to be using IEDs.”

    “Us old vets and younger ones are going to end up hav­ing to kill these young kids,” he con­clud­ed. “And they’re going to die believ­ing they were fight­ing Nazis.”
    ...

    But the threat posed by this move­ment isn’t lim­it­ed to the Oath Keep­ers itself. As a para­mil­i­tary group it acts as fuel to the flames plen­ty of oth­er groups are just as inter­est­ing in fan­ning. As the arti­cle reminds us, three white suprema­cists were arrest­ed days before a Mar­tin Luther King day event in Vir­ginia this year for plot­ting a ter­ror attack intend­ed to pro­voke a civ­il war. Recall how it was mem­bers of the “accel­er­a­tionst” neo-Nazi domes­tic ter­ror group, The Base, who plot­ted the attack. And they new they would be attack­ing both the left wing and heav­i­ly armed far right mem­bers at the protest in the hopes it would spark a broad­er shoot­ing con­flict. It’s a reminder that the mem­bers of the Oath Keep­ers can simul­ta­ne­ous­ly be plot­ters hop­ing to stoke a civ­il war at the same time they’re posi­tion­ing them­selves to be dupes in the plots of oth­er far right groups like The Base:

    ...
    On Mar­tin Luther King day, I walked into down­town Rich­mond, Vir­ginia, behind a group of white men in jeans with rifles on their shoul­ders and pis­tols at their waists. A moth­er pulled her tod­dler away, whis­per­ing, “Those men have guns.” Semi­trucks parad­ed down the street, fly­ing Trump flags. They blared their horns, and the men cheered. Soon I was at the state capi­tol, sur­round­ed by 22,000 peo­ple, many of them car­ry­ing AR-15s and polit­i­cal signs. OPPOSE TYRANNY. GUNS SAVE LIVES. TRUMP 2020.

    In Vir­ginia, the hol­i­day is the occa­sion for an annu­al event called Lob­by Day, when cit­i­zens peti­tion law­mak­ers about any issue they like. This year, the atmos­phere was charged. The state leg­is­la­ture had just sworn in its first Demo­c­ra­t­ic major­i­ty in two decades, and law­mak­ers had advanced a raft of gun-con­trol mea­sures. Rur­al coun­ties were declar­ing them­selves “Sec­ond Amend­ment sanc­tu­ar­ies” as sher­iffs vowed not to enforce new gun laws. Vir­ginia is an open-car­ry state, and armed pro­test­ers from across the coun­try had turned the day into a ral­ly for gun rights.

    Rhodes was there, along with some oth­er Oath Keep­ers. On a Face­book page called “The Mili­tias March on Rich­mond,” an orga­niz­er of the event declared that he’d sworn an oath to defend the Con­sti­tu­tion against ene­mies for­eign and domes­tic when he joined the mil­i­tary and the police—and now a mili­tia. He called Vir­ginia the scene of “a great awak­en­ing.”

    ...

    Before the ral­ly, the FBI had arrest­ed alleged white suprema­cists who planned to fire on the crowd to incite a wider con­flict, accord­ing to pros­e­cu­tors, and social media had been filled with not-so-veiled threats against Virginia’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic law­mak­ers. I was struck by how com­mon­place talk of vio­lence had become. Lib­er­als had been invok­ing it, too. “Your lit­tle AR-15 isn’t going to do shit to pro­tect you from the government—who has tanks and nuclear weapons. That is a pathet­ic fan­ta­sy,” the top aide to a Vir­ginia law­mak­er had writ­ten in a viral tweet a few months ear­li­er.
    ...

    And while the list of 25,000 mem­bers isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly up to date, if and when Rhodes issues his call to arms there’s going to be thou­sands of vet­er­ans and active duty mem­bers answer­ing that call. He’s like an aspir­ing Amer­i­can war­lord with a pri­vate secret army wait­ing for his order:

    ...
    Rhodes kept the nature of the Oath Keep­ers ambiguous—the group was offi­cial­ly non­par­ti­san and was not, as a lat­er post on the blog put it, a mili­tia “per se.” Even so, he cau­tioned that its mem­bers would be paint­ed as extrem­ists and said they could remain anony­mous. “We don’t ask cur­rent-serv­ing law enforce­ment and mil­i­tary to sign up on any kind of mem­ber­ship list,” he said in a radio inter­view. “We think that’d be fool­ish.”

    But even­tu­al­ly he did cre­ate such a list. It col­lect­ed mem­bers’ names, home and email address­es, phone num­bers, and ser­vice his­to­ries, along with answers to a ques­tion about how they could help the Oath Keep­ers. Last year, the South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter passed the entries for near­ly 25,000 peo­ple along to me.

    ...

    Even while he court­ed pub­lic­i­ty, Rhodes main­tained secre­cy around his rank and file. Mon­i­tor­ing groups couldn’t say for sure how many mem­bers the Oath Keep­ers had or what kind of peo­ple were join­ing.

    But the leaked data­base laid every­thing out. It had been com­piled by Rhodes’s deputies as new mem­bers signed up at recruit­ing events or on the Oath Keep­ers web­site. They hailed from every state. About two-thirds had a back­ground in the mil­i­tary or law enforce­ment. About 10 per­cent of these mem­bers were active-duty. There was a sher­iff in Col­orado, a SWAT-team mem­ber in Indi­ana, a police patrol­man in Mia­mi, the chief of a small police depart­ment in Illi­nois. There were mem­bers of the Spe­cial Forces, pri­vate mil­i­tary con­trac­tors, an Army psy­ops sergeant major, a cav­al­ry scout instruc­tor in Texas, a grunt in Afghanistan. There were Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment offi­cers, a 20-year spe­cial agent in the Secret Ser­vice, and two peo­ple who said they were in the FBI.
    ...

    As as that thwart­ed ter­ror attack reminds us, the many oth­er groups also pin­ing for civ­il war may not wait for Rhodes to issue that call to arms. In oth­er words, in the realm of US groups open­ly advo­cat­ing for civ­il war the Oath Keep­ers have a lot more com­pe­ti­tion than they used to:

    ...
    Rhodes, mean­while, was strug­gling to find his place in the anti-lock­down move­ment. He ini­tial­ly wor­ried about the pan­dem­ic, and wrote an ear­ly post urg­ing shut­down mea­sures before fac­ing a back­lash; one promi­nent Oath Keep­er accused him of being “con­trolled oppo­si­tion” and resigned. Soon Rhodes was in the unmasked crowds him­self, echo­ing Trump’s claims that the hys­te­ria about the virus was part of a plot against him.

    But the ideas that Rhodes had helped pop­u­lar­ize were spread­ing. Robin­son told me he’d nev­er been in the police or military—then not­ed that join­ing his group meant swear­ing an oath to pro­tect the Con­sti­tu­tion against all ene­mies, for­eign and domes­tic. Oth­er mili­tias sim­ply past­ed Rhodes’s 10 orders on their web­sites with­out attri­bu­tion. Videos cir­cu­lat­ed of uni­formed police offi­cers call­ing the lock­down mea­sures tyran­ni­cal, empha­siz­ing their oaths, and telling their fel­low offi­cers to wake up.

    Then the Black Lives Mat­ter protests erupt­ed. Armed men sur­faced amid the unrest, car­ry­ing out Fer­gu­son-style oper­a­tions. Rhodes tried to orga­nize vig­i­lante teams of his own on the social-net­work­ing site Dis­cord, but he made lit­tle progress before the forum he cre­at­ed was shut down and the par­tic­i­pants banned.

    New­er groups were call­ing open­ly for civ­il war, say­ing they want­ed to get on with it already. Mem­bers of the so-called booga­loo move­ment wore alo­ha shirts when they appeared in the crowds with semi­au­to­mat­ic weapons, sug­gest­ing that they saw the out­break of vio­lence as some­thing like a par­ty. Many in the new gen­er­a­tion dis­missed old­er lead­ers like Rhodes as too tame. On gun rights and oth­er issues, they resent­ed their fore­bears for giv­ing up so much already.
    ...

    It’s a sign of Rhodes’s wild suc­cess: the Oath Keep­ers have done such a great job of sell­ing the idea of civ­il war that the group is at risk of being sup­plant­ed by the new­er pro-civ­il war start ups. Of course, the Oath Keep­ers did­n’t accom­plish this all them­selves. They had help. Lots of help. Help in the form of Fox News, right-wing talk radio, Pres­i­dent Trump, and what remains of the Repub­li­can Par­ty. If civ­il war does return to Amer­i­ca it will clear­ly be a group effort. A group effort that almost exclu­sive­ly came from a main­streamed far right.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | October 3, 2020, 3:58 pm
  38. This Jan­u­ary 17, 2021 Guardian UK arti­cle by Jason Wil­son “How US police failed to stop the rise of the far right and the Capi­tol attack” illus­trates that the laws involv­ing right wing ter­ror is uneven­ly enforced includ­ing mem­bers of law enforce­ment. The wor­ry is that the laws will become more repres­sive despite exist­ing ones not being prop­er­ly applied. If there is ever a coup those laws will be used against law abid­ing cit­i­zens who are the coup plot­ters polit­i­cal ene­mies.

    Snip­pets from the arti­cle include:

    - “law enforce­ment has become politi­cized since 9/11, and even more so under the Trump admin­is­tra­tion”.

    - While the incom­ing Biden admin­is­tra­tion has raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of new anti-ter­ror laws to deal with the threat of far-right vio­lence, Bren­nan argues that they should instead, through the jus­tice depart­ment, ensure that cur­rent laws are con­sis­tent­ly applied to far-right mil­i­tants, includ­ing those in uni­form.

    - “This isn’t new”, he says. “We shouldn’t treat it as if it has come out of nowhere”.

    - He points out that some of those involved in the Capi­tol riot have been involved in sim­i­lar inci­dents over months or years, and because they have been repeat­ed­ly caught on tape, “we know their names, we know their crim­i­nal his­to­ries”.

    - “They’ve been doing it because the police have been let­ting them do it. They’ve been doing it because the FBI have been let­ting them do it”, he said

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/17/us-police-far-right-capitol-attack?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

    How US police failed to stop the rise of the far right and the Capi­tol attack

    Jason Wil­son
    Tear­gas is released into a pro-Trump mob dur­ing clash­es with Capi­tol police, 6 Jan­u­ary 2020.
    Tear­gas is released into a pro-Trump mob dur­ing clash­es with Capi­tol police on 6 Jan­u­ary. Pho­to­graph: Shan­non Stapleton/Reuters
    Off-duty offi­cers, fire­fight­ers and cor­rec­tions work­ers from agen­cies around the US took part in the Capi­tol riot

    @jason_a_w
    Sun 17 Jan 2021 05.00 EST
    Last mod­i­fied on Mon 18 Jan 2021 10.23 EST

    The alleged com­plic­i­ty of some police offi­cers in the attack on the US Capi­tol has led to fresh ques­tions about how law enforce­ment and oth­er pub­lic agen­cies around the US have approached a surg­ing far-right street protest move­ment dur­ing the life of the Trump admin­is­tra­tion.

    The pres­ence of off-duty offi­cers, fire­fight­ers and cor­rec­tions offi­cers from oth­er agen­cies around the coun­try in the protest crowd was a reminder of how mem­bers of a law­less move­ment have been able to find a place in their ranks.

    Since the vio­lent inva­sion of the Capi­tol by pro-Trump extrem­ists seek­ing to over­turn the elec­tion of Joe Biden, at least two Capi­tol police offi­cers have been sus­pend­ed, and at least 12 more are report­ed­ly under inves­ti­ga­tion for dere­lic­tion of duty, or direct­ly aid­ing the riot­ers.

    Some offi­cers were filmed offer­ing appar­ent assis­tance or encour­age­ment to the mob – whether by pos­ing for self­ies with con­fed­er­ate flag-wav­ing pro­test­ers, or direct­ing pro­test­ers around the build­ing while sport­ing a Maga cap.

    They did this at the same time that col­leagues in the DC met­ro­pol­i­tan police, a sis­ter agency, say that they were maced, Tasered, stripped of their badges and ammu­ni­tion and beat­en by the angry crowd.

    Mike Ger­man, a for­mer FBI agent and fel­low at the Bren­nan Cen­ter for Jus­tice, said he saw the fail­ure of police to pro­tect the build­ing as fol­low­ing the pat­tern where­by “mil­i­tant far-right groups have been giv­en impuni­ty” through­out the Trump era.

    In what he called a “mul­ti­fac­eted fail­ure” in Wash­ing­ton, Ger­man said the cen­tral prob­lem was a “fail­ure to rec­og­nize a threat for what it was”. Far-right groups, he said, “have been engag­ing in mil­i­tan­cy for months”.

    Point­ing to sim­i­lar attacks on state capi­tols in Vir­ginia, Michi­gan, Ida­ho, Geor­gia and Ore­gon in 2020, Ger­man asked: “How many times do they have to storm a capi­tol before it’s tak­en seri­ous­ly?”

    In the wake of the riot – and near miss­es for elect­ed offi­cials who the mob had in its sights – for­mer Capi­tol police offi­cers who have been involved in law­suits over decades alleg­ing employ­ment dis­crim­i­na­tion against black offi­cers, have claimed that their sus­tained and repeat­ed warn­ings about racism in the depart­ment were ignored.

    Mean­while, agen­cies around the coun­try have announced inves­ti­ga­tions into their own offi­cers who were present at the Capi­tol riot.

    In Hous­ton, an 18-year-vet­er­an offi­cer resigned after the Hous­ton police depart­ment announced an inves­ti­ga­tion into his alleged actions at the ral­ly. In Vir­ginia, two offi­cers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the riot, and one who posed for self­ies in front of a stat­ue of the rev­o­lu­tion­ary gen­er­al John Stark, are now fac­ing crim­i­nal charges.

    The actions of a serv­ing offi­cer in Boston are under inves­ti­ga­tion, while in Cal­i­for­nia, the Los Ange­les police depart­ment has launched a joint inves­ti­ga­tion with the FBI to deter­mine whether or not any of its offi­cers attend­ed.

    It’s not just rank-and-file offi­cers who are hav­ing to answer dif­fi­cult ques­tions. In Okla­homa, Cana­di­an county’s pro-Trump sher­iff, Chris West, last Fri­day denied that he had par­tic­i­pat­ed in the riot fol­low­ing the ral­ly, which he said he attend­ed as a “patri­ot­ic cit­i­zen”, despite social media posts claim­ing to iden­ti­fy him in the crowd inside the Capi­tol.

    West lat­er refused to answer ques­tions from local jour­nal­ists about delet­ed Face­book posts in which anoth­er Face­book user said that he and West had pushed past Capi­tol police to enter the build­ing, and in which West him­self alleged­ly aired con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries about elec­tion fraud, and appeared to con­tem­plate a vio­lent response.

    Else­where, Butch Con­way, the recent­ly retired 24-year sher­iff of Gwin­nett coun­ty, Geor­gia, attend­ed the ral­ly but claims not to have par­tic­i­pat­ed in storm­ing the Capi­tol.

    Oth­er cur­rent and for­mer pub­lic safe­ty offi­cers were part of the melee. A retired fire­fight­er was arrest­ed for alleged­ly throw­ing a fire extin­guish­er at Capi­tol police and in Mary­land, a cor­rec­tions offi­cer is being inves­ti­gat­ed by the Charles coun­ty sheriff’s depart­ment for their actions at the ral­ly.

    Some police offi­cers who did not attend the ral­ly have nev­er­the­less expressed sup­port for the crowd’s actions, or pro­mot­ed the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries that spurred them on. In Maine, the chief of that state’s own capi­tol police, report­ed­ly shared coro­n­avirus- and Black Lives Mat­ter-relat­ed con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries on his Face­book page in recent months.

    In Pinal coun­ty, Ari­zona, the pro-Trump “con­sti­tu­tion­al sher­iff” Mark Lamb made a speech on 6 Jan­u­ary that con­tained vague alle­ga­tions of crim­i­nal con­duct by Hillary Clin­ton, and urged his lis­ten­ers to “fight for the con­sti­tu­tion”. Last August, near the height of 2020 elec­tion­eer­ing, Lamb assert­ed in a speech to the Ari­zona Police Asso­ci­a­tion that “the con­sti­tu­tion is hang­ing by a thread”.

    The large num­ber of police and oth­er sworn offi­cers who either par­tic­i­pat­ed in, or sym­pa­thized with a large scale act of pub­lic dis­or­der once again high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of serv­ing police offi­cers who were dis­cov­ered to have been rad­i­cal­ized, or even to be mem­bers of extrem­ist groups dur­ing the peri­od in which Trump has dom­i­nat­ed US pol­i­tics.

    Between 2015 and 2020, police offi­cers were revealed as hav­ing ties to far-right groups such as the Proud Boys, the Three Per­centers, and the League of the South – all three of which had mem­bers on the ground at the Unite the Right ral­ly in Char­lottesville. In Texas, Flori­da, Louisiana and Michi­gan dur­ing that time, some offi­cers were even revealed to have been recruit­ed to the Ku Klux Klan.

    In 2019, Reveal report­ed that dozens of serv­ing police offi­cers around the coun­try were mem­bers of extrem­ist groups on Face­book.

    This isn’t new ... We shouldn’t treat it as if it has come out of nowhere
    US author­i­ties have repeat­ed­ly high­light­ed the pres­ence of extrem­ists in law enforce­ment agen­cies as a nation­al secu­ri­ty issue. In 2015, the agency not­ed that var­i­ous extrem­ist groups had “active links to law enforce­ment offi­cers”.

    Ger­man, the Bren­nan Cen­ter fel­low, pub­lished a report last August on the ongo­ing prob­lem of far-right mil­i­tan­cy among law enforce­ment offi­cers. He said “law enforce­ment has become politi­cized since 9/11, and even more so under the Trump admin­is­tra­tion”.

    While the incom­ing Biden admin­is­tra­tion has raised the pos­si­bil­i­ty of new anti-ter­ror laws to deal with the threat of far-right vio­lence, Bren­nan argued that they should instead, through the jus­tice depart­ment, ensure that cur­rent laws are con­sis­tent­ly applied to far-right mil­i­tants, includ­ing those in uni­form.

    “This isn’t new,” he said. “We shouldn’t treat it as if it has come out of nowhere”.

    He points out that some of those involved in the Capi­tol riot have been involved in sim­i­lar inci­dents over months or years, and because they have been repeat­ed­ly caught on tape, “we know their names, we know their crim­i­nal his­to­ries”.

    “They’ve been doing it because the police have been let­ting them do it. They’ve been doing it because the FBI have been let­ting them do it,” he said.

    © 2021 Guardian News & Media Lim­it­ed or its affil­i­at­ed com­pa­nies. All rights reserved. (mod­ern)

    Posted by Mary Benton | January 21, 2021, 3:25 pm
  39. Here’s a sto­ry to keep in mind in the con­text of the recent­ly announced moves by the US mil­i­tary to purge the mil­i­tary of white suprema­cists:

    It’s nev­er a good sign when “we lost the C‑4” is the best case sce­nario. But that’s the sit­u­a­tion that’s unfold­ing at Twen­ty­nine Palms Marine Corps Base, where 10 pounds of C‑4 have gone miss­ing dur­ing a long train­ing exer­cise two weeks ago and inves­ti­ga­tors aren’t rul­ing out the pos­si­bil­i­ty it was stolen. So let’s hope there’s ten pounds of C‑4 acci­den­tal­ly lay­ing around some­where on that base because oth­er­wise it’s inten­tion­al­ly sit­ting in the hands of the peo­ple who stole it:

    ABC 10News

    Sources: High-pow­ered explo­sives miss­ing, pos­si­bly stolen from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia mil­i­tary base

    By: Jen­nifer Kast­ner
    Post­ed at 10:56 AM, Feb 04, 2021
    and last updat­ed 8:17 PM, Feb 04, 2021

    SAN DIEGO, Calif. (KGTV) — Mil­i­tary offi­cials are work­ing to recov­er high pow­ered explo­sives that van­ished from a South­ern Cal­i­for­nia instal­la­tion, accord­ing to ABC 10News’ sources with close mil­i­tary ties.

    The explo­sives dis­ap­peared from the Twen­ty­nine Palms Marine Corps Base, and now a reward is being offered for their dis­cov­ery, sources told ABC 10News.

    Sources report that approx­i­mate­ly 10 pounds of Com­po­si­tion C‑4 dis­ap­peared dur­ing a long train­ing exer­cise two weeks ago. They also believe the man­u­fac­tured plas­tic explo­sives may have been stolen.

    The unit’s com­mand­ing offi­cer is con­sid­er­ing extend­ing the train­ing exer­cise until the explo­sives are found, sources said. They also con­firm the com­mand­ing offi­cer mes­saged sub­or­di­nate com­mands about a mon­e­tary reward for any infor­ma­tion lead­ing to the dis­cov­ery of the C‑4.

    The base would not con­firm any details with ABC 10News. Capt. Zachary Colvin, with the Marine Air Ground Task Force Train­ing Com­mand, told this sta­tion that “the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into this inci­dent is being han­dled by NCIS and the affect­ed units.”

    A spokesper­son for NCIS Pub­lic Affairs wrote to ABC 10News, “Out of respect for the inves­tiga­tive process, NCIS does not com­ment on or con­firm details relat­ing to ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tions.”

    ...

    ————

    “Sources: High-pow­ered explo­sives miss­ing, pos­si­bly stolen from South­ern Cal­i­for­nia mil­i­tary base” by Jen­nifer Kast­ner; ABC 10News; 02/04/2021

    “Sources report that approx­i­mate­ly 10 pounds of Com­po­si­tion C‑4 dis­ap­peared dur­ing a long train­ing exer­cise two weeks ago. They also believe the man­u­fac­tured plas­tic explo­sives may have been stolen.

    A sto­ry about miss­ing C‑4 explo­sives would have been a dis­turb­ing sto­ry regard­less of the year. But in 2021, when con­cerns of far right Trump­ist ter­ror are high­er than ever fol­low­ing the storm­ing of the Capi­tol and a surge in pro-Trump mili­tia recruit­ment, this sto­ry is more or less the worst kind sto­ry because it’s the kind of sto­ry that hints at a grow­ing ter­ror move­ment and more attacks on the US gov­ern­ment to come. It’s a sign of an exis­ten­tial­ly bad sit­u­a­tion get­ting worse.

    Then again, maybe the C‑4 real­ly was mere­ly lost dur­ing a train­ing exer­cise. That pre­sum­ably hap­pens in the mil­i­tary. But, again, that’s the best case sce­nario. A best case sce­nario that increas­ing­ly feels like wish­ful think­ing as an insur­rec­tionary spir­it takes hold of the GOP. This is the era of the QAnon/Trump Repub­li­can Par­ty and the myth of the stolen elec­tion. It’s prob­a­bly pru­dent to assume that the miss­ing high explo­sives aren’t just lay­ing under a pile of coats on the base some­where.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | February 5, 2021, 4:10 pm
  40. A col­lec­tive sigh of relief could be felt in cities across the US after a Min­neapo­lis jury con­vict­ed Min­neapo­lis police offi­cer Derek Chau­vin on all charges over the death of George Floyd. Relief over a sense that jus­tice was final­ly served but also relief in a feel­ing that ‘fierce urgency of now’ became at least a lit­tle less imme­di­ate­ly urgent. The waves of despair-induced protests and out­rage in the face of an acquit­tal did­n’t have to hap­pen.

    So it’s worth not­ing a PBS Front­line sto­ry that came out while the tri­al of Derek Chau­vin was play­ing out that address­es anoth­er aspect of this sit­u­a­tion that we should prob­a­bly be breath­ing a sigh of relief over: The first inter­view of Steven Car­ril­lo just took place. Recall how Car­ril­lo was the for­mer elite Air Force Phoenix Raven Team Leader who ambushed and killed mul­ti­ple mem­bers of law enforce­ment as part of a ‘Booga­loo’ plot to frame the attacks on the George Floyd pro­tes­tors. Also recall how Car­ril­lo was­n’t work­ing alone. A fel­low ‘Booga­loo’ mem­ber who Car­ril­lo met over Face­book, Robert Jus­tus, was dri­ving the van when Car­ril­lo first attacked a pair of fed­er­al offi­cers near­by an Oak­land area George Floyd protest. So we know there was a far right ‘Booga­loo’ con­spir­a­cy to pin vio­lence on the George Floyd pro­tes­tors but we nev­er real­ly had a sense of how large this con­spir­a­cy reached. We have a bet­ter idea now.

    It appears that Car­ril­lo and Jus­tus were far from work­ing alone. For exam­ple, the inves­ti­ga­tion found at least 15 oth­er active-duty mem­bers of the US Air Force who have been open­ly pro­mot­ing Booga­loo con­tent on social media. Car­ril­lo was well known to the ‘Booga­loo’ lead­er­ship and joined up with a larg­er North­ern Cal­i­for­nia-based group called the Griz­zly Scouts. There was exten­sive com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­in this net­work includ­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion about killing law enforce­ment and fram­ing it on the protests. In fact, hours after Car­ril­lo and Jus­tus shot two fed­er­al offi­cers, one of the Booga­loo lead­ers texted him and told him to attack a police sta­tion. Car­ril­lo even plead­ed with his fel­low ‘Booga­loo’ mem­bers to come save him from the police as he was on the run.

    So about a week before this his­toric rul­ing over the death of George Floyd we learn that the far right Booga­loo plot to attack law enforce­ment and frame it on the George Floyd pro­tes­tors was far larg­er and more orga­nized than pre­vi­ous­ly rec­og­nized. It’s one of the chap­ters of the broad­er sto­ry about the reper­cus­sions of the killing of George Floyd. A large­ly unread chap­ter that only grows in dan­ger the longer it remains unread:

    PBS Front­line

    “I Felt Hate More Than Any­thing”: How an Active Duty Air­man Tried to Start a Civ­il War

    by Gisela Pérez de Acha, Kathryn Hurd, and Ellie Light­foot
    April 13, 2021

    This sto­ry is part of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between FRONTLINE, ProP­ub­li­ca and Berke­ley Journalism’s Inves­tiga­tive Report­ing Pro­gram that includes the doc­u­men­tary Amer­i­can Insur­rec­tion, air­ing 10 p.m. East­ern on April 13 on PBS.

    It was 2:20 p.m. on June 6, 2020, and Steven Car­ril­lo, a 32-year-old Air Force sergeant who belonged to the anti-gov­ern­ment Booga­loo Bois move­ment, was on the run in the tiny moun­tain town of Ben Lomond, Cal­i­for­nia.

    With deputy sher­iffs clos­ing in, Car­ril­lo texted his broth­er, Evan, ask­ing him to tell his chil­dren he loved them and instruct­ing him to give $50,000 to his fiancée. “I love you bro,” Car­ril­lo signed off. Think­ing the text mes­sage was a sui­cide note from a broth­er with a his­to­ry of men­tal health trou­bles, Evan Car­ril­lo quick­ly texted back: “think about the ones you love.”

    In fact, Steven Car­ril­lo had a dif­fer­ent objec­tive, a goal he had writ­ten about on Face­book, dis­cussed with oth­er Booga­loo Bois and even scrawled out in his own blood as he hid from police that day. He want­ed to incite a sec­ond civ­il war in the Unit­ed States by killing police offi­cers he viewed as enforcers of a cor­rupt and tyran­ni­cal polit­i­cal order — offi­cers he described as “domes­tic ene­mies” of the Con­sti­tu­tion he pro­fessed to revere.

    Now, as he texted with his broth­er and watched deputies assem­ble so close to him that he could hear their con­ver­sa­tions, Car­ril­lo sent an urgent appeal to his fel­low Booga­loo Bois. “Kit up and get here,” he wrote in a What­sApp mes­sage that pros­e­cu­tors say he sent to mem­bers of a heav­i­ly armed Booga­loo mili­tia fac­tion he had recent­ly joined. The police, he texted, were after him.

    “Take them out when theyre com­ing in,” the text read, accord­ing to court doc­u­ments.

    Min­utes lat­er, pros­e­cu­tors allege, Car­ril­lo ambushed three deputy sher­iffs, open­ing fire with a silenced auto­mat­ic rifle and hurl­ing a home­made pipe bomb from a con­cealed posi­tion on a steep embank­ment some 40 feet from the deputies. One deputy was shot dead, and a sec­ond was bad­ly wound­ed by bomb shrap­nel to his face and neck. When two Cal­i­for­nia High­way Patrol offi­cers arrived, Car­ril­lo opened fire on them, too, police say, wound­ing one.

    “The police are the guard dogs, ready to attack when­ev­er the own­er says, ‘Hey, sic ’em, boy,’” Car­ril­lo said in an inter­view, the first time he has spo­ken pub­licly since he was charged with mur­der­ing both the deputy sher­iff in Ben Lomond and, a week ear­li­er, a fed­er­al pro­tec­tive secu­ri­ty offi­cer at the Ronald V. Del­lums Fed­er­al Build­ing and U.S. Cour­t­house in Oak­land.

    When Car­ril­lo was final­ly sub­dued on June 6, cell­phone footage cap­tured him shout­ing at deputies as they led him away, “This is what I came to fight. I’m sick of these god­damn police.”

    For Car­ril­lo, that final fren­zied expres­sion of rage marked the cul­mi­na­tion of a long slide into extrem­ism, a jour­ney that had begun a decade ear­li­er with his embrace of the tea par­ty move­ment, lib­er­tar­i­an­ism and Sec­ond Amend­ment gun rights, before evolv­ing into an ever-deep­en­ing involve­ment with para­mil­i­tary ele­ments of the Booga­loo Bois. The mil­i­tant group is known for the dis­tinc­tive Hawai­ian shirts its mem­bers wear at protests, often while bran­dish­ing AR-15s and agi­tat­ing for the “Boog” — the group’s short­hand for civ­il war.

    Carrillo’s arrest was also an omen of some­thing larg­er and even more omi­nous: the rise of a vio­lent insur­rec­tion move­ment across Amer­i­ca led by increas­ing­ly extreme and aggres­sive mili­tias that seek out oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­front and even attack the gov­ern­ment. Exam­ples of this broad­er insur­rec­tion abound, from October’s foiled plot to abduct Michi­gan Gov. Gretchen Whit­mer to the lead­ing role mili­tia groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath­keep­ers played in the vio­lent takeover of the U.S. Capi­tol on Jan. 6.

    While mili­tias have long been active in the Unit­ed States, groups track­ing extrem­ist vio­lence have report­ed notable increas­es in para­mil­i­tary activ­i­ty over the past year, and the FBI, the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty and the direc­tor of nation­al intel­li­gence have all issued stark warn­ings in recent months about an ele­vat­ed threat of vio­lence from domes­tic extrem­ist groups.

    ProP­ub­li­ca, FRONTLINE and Berke­ley Journalism’s Inves­tiga­tive Report­ing Pro­gram also uncov­ered new evi­dence that some mil­i­tary ser­vice mem­bers have embraced extrem­ist ide­ol­o­gy. The news orga­ni­za­tions iden­ti­fied 15 active-duty mem­bers of the Air Force who, like Car­ril­lo, open­ly pro­mot­ed Booga­loo memes and mes­sages on Face­book. On Fri­day, the Pen­ta­gon announced new mea­sures to com­bat extrem­ism inside the mil­i­tary. The Biden admin­is­tra­tion, mean­while, is increas­ing fund­ing for pre­vent­ing attacks by mili­tias, white suprema­cists and oth­er anti-gov­ern­ment groups, The New York Times report­ed this month.

    “These groups want to be insti­ga­tors, the front­line of the civ­il war that is going to hap­pen in this coun­try,” said John Ben­nett, who was the spe­cial agent in charge of the FBI’s San Fran­cis­co Divi­sion at the time of Carrillo’s arrest.

    “The scary thing,” he added, “is a lot of peo­ple in these groups that we’re see­ing now are your neigh­bors.”

    An exam­i­na­tion of Carrillo’s life and his path to rad­i­cal­iza­tion, based on exten­sive inter­views with him, his fam­i­ly, his friends and his fiancée, along with a review of hun­dreds of pages of court records, pre­vi­ous­ly undis­closed text mes­sages and inter­nal mili­tia doc­u­ments, revealed star­tling new details about the threat posed by the Booga­loo Bois.

    Experts in extrem­ist mili­tia groups have long regard­ed the Booga­loo Bois as hav­ing no real hier­ar­chy or lead­er­ship struc­ture. But in piec­ing togeth­er Carrillo’s activ­i­ties and mili­tia con­tacts, law enforce­ment offi­cials were stunned to dis­cov­er the extent of coor­di­na­tion, plan­ning and com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­in the group.

    Not only was Car­ril­lo in reg­u­lar con­tact with a wide range of promi­nent Booga­loo Boi fig­ures around the coun­try, records and inter­views show, but two months before his arrest Car­ril­lo had joined up with a heav­i­ly armed, high­ly orga­nized and extreme­ly secre­tive Booga­loo mili­tia group in Cal­i­for­nia that called itself the “Griz­zly Scouts.”

    “This group was dif­fer­ent,” Jim Hart, the sher­iff of San­ta Cruz Coun­ty, where Ben Lomond is locat­ed, said in an inter­view. “There was a def­i­nite chain of com­mand and a line of lead­er­ship with­in this group.”

    In a fed­er­al indict­ment unsealed on Fri­day, pros­e­cu­tors said Car­ril­lo and four mem­bers of the Griz­zly Scouts, includ­ing its leader, “dis­cussed tac­tics involv­ing killing of police offi­cers and oth­er law enforce­ment.” The indict­ment also alleges that the same four Griz­zly Scouts tried to thwart a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into their activ­i­ties by destroy­ing evi­dence of their com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Car­ril­lo and each oth­er.

    In near­ly two hours of inter­views con­duct­ed in Span­ish and Eng­lish, as well as in a let­ter dic­tat­ed to his fiancée from San­ta Rita Jail, east of Oak­land, Car­ril­lo talked about the evo­lu­tion of his anti-gov­ern­ment ide­ol­o­gy. While he would not dis­cuss any of the crim­i­nal charges against him, Car­ril­lo spoke at length about his con­tin­u­ing alle­giance to the Booga­loo Bois and patient­ly explained how the movement’s “rev­o­lu­tion­ary thought” could offer a ratio­nale for attacks against law enforce­ment offi­cers whom he or any oth­er Booga­loo Boi thinks are vio­lat­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion. “I pledged to defend the Con­sti­tu­tion against all ene­mies, for­eign and domes­tic,” he said.

    Not once did Car­ril­lo express pity or remorse over the deaths of Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, the deputy sher­iff, whose wife was preg­nant with their sec­ond child, or David Patrick Under­wood, the secu­ri­ty offi­cer at the Oak­land fed­er­al build­ing, who made a habit of donat­ing to local base­ball youth orga­ni­za­tions.

    Becom­ing a Boog

    Born in Los Ange­les in 1988, Car­ril­lo had an ear­ly child­hood marked by episodes of domes­tic vio­lence. Accord­ing to fam­i­ly mem­bers, his father, an undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grant from Mex­i­co who worked as a tree trim­mer, repeat­ed­ly assault­ed his moth­er, who was from Bur­bank, Cal­i­for­nia. Giv­en up by his par­ents as a tod­dler, Car­ril­lo and Evan, his old­er broth­er, were tak­en in by oth­er mem­bers of their fam­i­ly, and at age 5 he was sent with his broth­er to a tiny rur­al vil­lage in Jalis­co, Mex­i­co, where they lived on their grand­par­ents’ farm. A cou­ple of years lat­er, the Car­ril­lo boys returned to Cal­i­for­nia to live with their father, even­tu­al­ly set­tling in Ben Lomond, a remote two-stop­light town in the San­ta Cruz Moun­tains. After grad­u­at­ing from San Loren­zo Val­ley High School, Car­ril­lo said he joined the Air Force in 2009, the same year he mar­ried his child­hood sweet­heart. In an inter­view, Carrillo’s father denied the family’s alle­ga­tions of domes­tic vio­lence but oth­er­wise declined to com­ment. Carrillo’s moth­er would not speak on the record for this arti­cle.

    Accord­ing to Car­ril­lo, his ideas about pol­i­tics and the role of gov­ern­ment began to take shape in the Air Force. “Before, I was con­fined to a lit­tle bub­ble,” he said in an inter­view, refer­ring to his upbring­ing in Ben Lomond, pop­u­la­tion 7,000. Once he joined the Air Force and met oth­ers from around the world, “talk­ing to peo­ple changed my whole views,” he said. He fol­lowed a well-worn path that began with a fierce attach­ment to gun rights, which in turn led him to lib­er­tar­i­an­ism, and then an enthu­si­as­tic embrace of the tea par­ty move­ment.

    By 2012, Car­ril­lo was a reg­is­tered Repub­li­can who sup­port­ed Gary John­son, the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date of the Lib­er­tar­i­an Par­ty, and Ron Paul. He attend­ed Sec­ond Amend­ment ral­lies and advo­cat­ed for expand­ed gun rights on a Face­book page set up for a group of self-described Chris­t­ian “patri­ots.”

    In 2015, while sta­tioned at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, Car­ril­lo was in a car acci­dent that left him hos­pi­tal­ized with a con­cus­sion and head lac­er­a­tions. Fam­i­ly and friends said the crash affect­ed his men­tal health. “He wasn’t him­self,” Evan Car­ril­lo said in an inter­view. “He was usu­al­ly very talk­a­tive, very social. I was the qui­et one. And now it was like talk­ing to a wall.”

    At the time, Car­ril­lo was a secu­ri­ty forces offi­cer in the Air Force. Accord­ing to his sib­lings, his men­tal health issues were seri­ous enough that the Air Force took Carrillo’s gun away for sev­er­al months. (The Air Force said it could not imme­di­ate­ly locate the records it need­ed to com­ment about this inci­dent.)

    He became even more with­drawn, fam­i­ly mem­bers said, after his wife com­mit­ted sui­cide in 2018, short­ly after he con­fessed to cheat­ing on her yet again. He spoke of want­i­ng to kill him­self and start­ed liv­ing out of a van, leav­ing it to his in-laws to look after his two young chil­dren. “He was just in com­plete dis­con­nect of how peo­ple should live and who he was,” said his sis­ter, Ruby.

    And yet months after his wife’s sui­cide, Air Force records show, Car­ril­lo was serv­ing as an appren­tice in Phoenix Raven, an elite Air Force secu­ri­ty unit that is dis­patched to pro­tect air­craft and air crews in glob­al hotspots. At the time, Car­ril­lo was sta­tioned at Travis Air Force Base in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, but his appren­tice­ship with the Ravens also gave him spe­cial train­ing in com­bat tech­niques, explo­sives and advanced firearms pro­fi­cien­cy at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lake­hurst near Tren­ton, New Jer­sey.

    Accord­ing to the Air Force, Car­ril­lo com­plet­ed the 24-day Phoenix Raven qual­i­fi­ca­tion course in New Jer­sey in late 2018 then returned to Travis Air Force Base to become “ful­ly mis­sion qual­i­fied as a Raven.” From July to Novem­ber 2019, Car­ril­lo served as a Phoenix Raven Team Leader in Kuwait and oth­er coun­tries in the region, the Air Force said.

    In an inter­view, Car­ril­lo said he was intro­duced to the polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy of the Booga­loo Bois through friends in the Air Force and on the inter­net. The 15 active-duty air­men iden­ti­fied by the news orga­ni­za­tions as open­ly pro­mot­ing Booga­loo con­tent on Face­book worked at bases around the world, includ­ing eight who, like Car­ril­lo, served in the Air Force secu­ri­ty branch.

    When asked about these active-duty air­men, the Air Force said in a state­ment that per­son­nel who par­tic­i­pate in extrem­ist groups are in “direct vio­la­tion” of Defense Depart­ment reg­u­la­tions. “Sup­port­ing extrem­ist ide­ol­o­gy, espe­cial­ly that which calls for vio­lence or the depri­va­tion of civ­il lib­er­ties of cer­tain mem­bers of soci­ety, vio­lates the oath every ser­vice mem­ber takes to sup­port and defend the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Unit­ed States,” the Air Force state­ment said.

    On Fri­day, Defense Sec­re­tary Lloyd Austin ordered the Pen­ta­gon to take a series of imme­di­ate steps to counter extrem­ism in the mil­i­tary.

    It is unclear pre­cise­ly when Car­ril­lo began asso­ci­at­ing with the Booga­loo Bois, but accord­ing to a sworn state­ment from an FBI agent, he was in direct con­tact with promi­nent fig­ures in the group by Decem­ber 2019.

    The next month, pros­e­cu­tors allege, he bought a $15 device that con­verts AR-15 semi­au­to­mat­ic rifles into ful­ly auto­mat­ic machine guns, mak­ing the pur­chase through a web­site that adver­tised to Booga­loo Face­book groups and promised to donate some of its prof­its to the fam­i­ly of Dun­can Lemp, who became a Booga­loo mar­tyr after he was killed in a police raid. Car­ril­lo also began incor­po­rat­ing pop­u­lar mili­tia memes and imagery into his Face­book posts, and was in touch online with a grow­ing cir­cle of Booga­loo Bois. “A lot of peo­ple in the move­ment knew who Steve was,” Mike Dunn, the leader of a Booga­loo fac­tion in Vir­ginia that calls itself the Last Sons of Lib­er­ty, said in an inter­view.

    Carrillo’s girl­friend, Sil­via Amaya, said she noticed a dis­tinct shift in Carrillo’s behav­ior around this time. He strug­gled with insom­nia and was increas­ing­ly “shut off in his own world,” she said in an inter­view. He talked fre­quent­ly about how “a war would start soon,” echo­ing the core belief of Booga­loo fol­low­ers.

    The Griz­zly Scouts

    On March 14, 2020, pros­e­cu­tors allege in court fil­ings, Car­ril­lo received a text mes­sage from Ivan Hunter, a Booga­loo Bois leader in Texas. The mes­sage reads like an instruc­tion to get ready for action. “Start draft­ing that op,” Hunter wrote to Car­ril­lo. “The one we talked about in Decem­ber. I’ma green light some sh it.” In response, Car­ril­lo wrote, “Sounds good, bro!” Soon after, Car­ril­lo sought to join the Griz­zly Scouts, a new­ly formed Cal­i­for­nia mili­tia group that had pro­claimed its “affin­i­ty for Hawai­ian shirts,” the best-known sym­bol of the Booga­loo Bois, in its pro­file page on mymilitia.com.

    The Griz­zly Scouts, also known as the 1st Detach­ment of the 1st Cal­i­for­nia Scouts, are based in Tur­lock, a small city about 100 miles south­east of San Fran­cis­co. Accord­ing to fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors, the Griz­zly Scouts had a Face­book group called “/K/alifornia Kom­man­do” that pro­claimed their desire “to gath­er like mind­ed Cal­i­for­ni­ans who can net­work and estab­lish local goon squads.” (Among the Booga­loo Bois, the word “goon” refers to a sin­gle mem­ber.)

    On April 10, 2020, accord­ing to records obtained by the news orga­ni­za­tions, a mem­ber of the Griz­zly Scouts who goes by the alias BoojerBro1776 emailed Car­ril­lo an exten­sive pack­et of appli­ca­tion mate­ri­als, 31 pages in all. (“On board­ing,” read the email’s sub­ject line.) The doc­u­ments, nev­er before pub­licly dis­closed, are an odd blend of cor­po­rate instruc­tion man­u­al and chill­ing play­book for armed mil­i­tary action.

    New recruits were asked to abide by a social media pol­i­cy and to sign both a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment and a release of lia­bil­i­ty. The appli­ca­tion itself offered this bit of cor­po­rate boil­er­plate: “If this appli­ca­tion leads to employ­ment, I under­stand that false or mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion in my appli­ca­tion or inter­view may result in my release.”

    At the same time, the doc­u­ments make clear that the Griz­zly Scouts intend­ed to do more than sim­ply meet up in the woods for occa­sion­al tar­get prac­tice. A pol­i­cy on the Griz­zly Scouts’ dress code begins this way: “Since the time man real­ized we could kill each oth­er to gain some­thing, men have donned uni­forms and have gone to bat­tle.” The doc­u­ments, which describe the Griz­zly Scouts as an “armed Con­sti­tu­tion­al mili­tia,” go on to decree that black will be worn “while con­duct­ing covert/clandestine oper­a­tions” and stress the impor­tance of wear­ing approved Griz­zly Scout uni­forms “to mit­i­gate any poten­tial bat­tle­field con­fu­sion.”

    “Our Areas of Oper­a­tions can take us from the dirt to down­town in a blink of an eye,” the doc­u­ment states.

    Onboard­ing Doc­u­ments

    A pol­i­cy memo on the Griz­zly Scout dress code describes enforc­ing “dis­ci­pline with­in ranks” for war fronts “any­where you can think of.” A “Scout Selec­tion Assess­ment” scores can­di­dates on their train­ing in “unarmed com­bat,” “firearms,” “first aid” and “spe­cial­ties.”

    The doc­u­ments also make clear that Carrillo’s mil­i­tary back­ground, in par­tic­u­lar his advanced com­bat and weapons train­ing, pro­vid­ed exact­ly the qual­i­ties the Griz­zly Scouts want­ed in its recruits. The Griz­zly Scouts’ mem­bers — law enforce­ment offi­cials say the group had attract­ed 27 recruits — were giv­en mil­i­tary ranks and roles based on their lev­el of mil­i­tary train­ing and pri­or com­bat expe­ri­ence. Some Griz­zly Scouts were des­ig­nat­ed “snipers,” oth­ers were assigned to “clan­des­tine oper­a­tions,” and some were medics or dri­vers. What­ev­er their role, all were expect­ed to main­tain go kits that includ­ed “com­bat gauze” and both a “pri­ma­ry” and “sec­ondary” weapon.

    Two weeks after receiv­ing his appli­ca­tion mate­ri­als, Car­ril­lo joined the Griz­zly Scouts for a week­end of train­ing — or “church,” in the group’s ver­nac­u­lar. In keep­ing with the Griz­zly Scouts’ desire for secre­cy, Car­ril­lo was vague with Amaya, his girl­friend, about where he had been and whom he was with. Aware of his his­to­ry of cheat­ing, Amaya imag­ined the worst and insist­ed he take her along the next time he planned to meet with his mys­te­ri­ous new friends. “I was very angry and jeal­ous,” she said.

    On May 9, the cou­ple loaded their car with guns and bul­let­proof vests and head­ed toward a ranch in Mari­posa Coun­ty, not far from Yosemite Nation­al Park, to meet the Griz­zly Scouts for anoth­er train­ing ses­sion. Along the way they met up with Jessie Rush, the “detach­ment com­man­der” of the Griz­zly Scouts, whose LinkedIn pro­file says he is a U.S. Army vet­er­an now employed by a pri­vate secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny. Rush, also known as “Griz­zly Actu­al,” remind­ed them not to take pho­tos but oth­er­wise raised no objec­tions to Amaya’s pres­ence as the Griz­zly Scouts went through var­i­ous shoot­ing drills.

    ...

    When asked in an inter­view about his involve­ment with the Griz­zly Scouts, Car­ril­lo respond­ed eva­sive­ly. “How did you fig­ure that out?” he asked in Span­ish when first pressed about his ties to the group. Lat­er, Car­ril­lo pro­fessed lit­tle under­stand­ing of either the aims or activ­i­ties of the Griz­zly Scouts. “We were just get­ting to know each oth­er,” he said.

    Accord­ing to pros­e­cu­tors, how­ev­er, Car­ril­lo held the rank of “staff sergeant” in the Griz­zly Scouts, and, as with oth­er mem­bers of the group, he was giv­en an ani­mal nom de guerre: “Armadil­lo.”

    Com­bat Mode

    George Floyd’s death in Min­neapo­lis on May 25, 15 days after Carrillo’s last train­ing ses­sion with the Griz­zly Scouts, gal­va­nized the Booga­loo faith­ful. In online post­ings, they spoke of Floyd’s death not only as an exam­ple of egre­gious police mis­con­duct but as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to stoke chaos that could be blamed on the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment. The result­ing racial unrest, they hoped, would accel­er­ate the long-await­ed “Booga­loo” — the final con­flict, a sec­ond civ­il war.

    Two days after Floyd’s death, Carrillo’s Booga­loo friend Ivan Hunter drove from Texas to Min­neapo­lis. Armed with an AK-47-style semi­au­to­mat­ic rifle, Hunter fired off 13 rounds into an aban­doned Min­neapo­lis police precinct where hun­dreds of pro­test­ers had gath­ered, pros­e­cu­tors allege. Pros­e­cu­tors say Hunter yelled, “Jus­tice for Floyd!” before dis­ap­pear­ing into the night with sev­er­al oth­er Booga­loo Bois who had come to Min­neapo­lis to pro­voke civ­il strife. Hunter, even­tu­al­ly arrest­ed in San Anto­nio, was charged with par­tic­i­pat­ing in a riot and is being held with­out bail; his defense lawyer declined to com­ment.

    For Car­ril­lo, Floyd’s death con­firmed his view of the police as lit­tle more than will­ing instru­ments of a cor­rupt and tyran­ni­cal polit­i­cal order bent on destroy­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion. “I felt hate more than any­thing,” he said in an inter­view when asked about Floyd’s killing.

    “The Booga­loo rev­o­lu­tion is against the gov­ern­ment,” he explained, “but the police is basi­cal­ly the government’s dog on a leash.”

    Amaya said Floyd’s killing “unleashed the worst” in Car­ril­lo, who in the days that fol­lowed behaved, she recalled, like a man who was prepar­ing for bat­tle. “It’s a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to tar­get the spe­cial­ty soup bois,” Car­ril­lo wrote on his Face­book page on May 28, using Booga­loo slang for fed­er­al law enforce­ment agen­cies. That night he shocked Amaya by propos­ing mar­riage, pre­sent­ing her with a $25 turquoise blue sil­i­cone ring and promis­ing to replace it with a dia­mond ring lat­er.

    The next day, Car­ril­lo left Amaya’s house. Accord­ing to pros­e­cu­tors, he picked up anoth­er Booga­loo Boi, Robert Jus­tus Jr., and drove to down­town Oak­land. It was 9:15 p.m., and crowds had gath­ered on Oakland’s streets to protest and mourn Floyd’s death. Mean­while, blocks away, the two men drove a white Ford van around Oakland’s fed­er­al cour­t­house, where David Patrick Under­wood, a fed­er­al pro­tec­tive secu­ri­ty offi­cer, staffed a two-per­son guard hut. Pros­e­cu­tors say Car­ril­lo was in the back seat near the slid­ing door, car­ry­ing a short-bar­reled rifle: a “ghost weapon” with no ser­i­al num­ber, mak­ing it almost impos­si­ble to trace. Accord­ing to the FBI, it was an ille­gal machine gun opti­mized to fire bursts of shots auto­mat­i­cal­ly, with an added silencer.

    Hours before, Car­ril­lo had post­ed on Face­book that if “it’s not kick­ing off in your hood then start it.” Now, accord­ing to pros­e­cu­tors, Jus­tus drove toward the guard hut while Car­ril­lo slid the van’s door open and fired mul­ti­ple bursts, killing Under­wood and seri­ous­ly wound­ing a sec­ond guard. “Did you see how they fuc king fell?” Car­ril­lo said as the van drove off, accord­ing to an account Jus­tus gave inves­ti­ga­tors after turn­ing him­self in.

    “In his mind, Steven was on a mis­sion just like in the Air Force, except the ene­my was the police,” Amaya said.

    A lawyer for Jus­tus, who has been charged with aid­ing and abet­ting Underwood’s mur­der, declined to dis­cuss his client’s alleged involve­ment with the Booga­loo Bois. Instead he point­ed to court fil­ings that describe what Jus­tus told inves­ti­ga­tors. Accord­ing to those records, Jus­tus insist­ed to inves­ti­ga­tors that he felt he had to par­tic­i­pate because he was “trapped in the van.” He also claimed he told Car­ril­lo, “I am not cool with this,” and tried to think of ways to “talk Car­ril­lo out of his plan,” only for Car­ril­lo to respond by point­ing a rifle at him and ask­ing if he was “a cop or a rat.”

    The shoot­ing of both guards aligned neat­ly with Booga­loo ide­ol­o­gy. “Use their anger to fuel our fire,” Car­ril­lo had writ­ten on Face­book that morn­ing. “We have mobs of angry peo­ple to use to our advan­tage.” Sure enough, some con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tors rushed to blame Underwood’s mur­der on antifa and Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­ers.

    Four hours after Underwood’s death, Car­ril­lo received a text mes­sage from Hunter urg­ing him to attack police build­ings, court records show.

    Carrillo’s response: “I did bet­ter lol.”

    That week­end, when Car­ril­lo returned to Amaya’s house, he seemed “on edge and dis­tract­ed,” she recalled. He asked for a week’s leave at Travis Air Force base and sent $200 to Hunter, con­grat­u­lat­ing him for “doing good sh it out there.” Most of the time, she said, Car­ril­lo was glued to Face­book, fol­low­ing the news and com­ment­ing on viral videos of police clash­ing with pro­test­ers. “Who needs antifa to start riots when the police do it for you,” read one of his posts.

    In the days after the Oak­land shoot­ing, Car­ril­lo com­mu­ni­cat­ed reg­u­lar­ly with Rush and oth­er mem­bers of the Griz­zly Scouts on a What­sApp group they called “209 Goon HQ,” pros­e­cu­tors say. (The area code for Mari­posa Coun­ty, home turf of the Griz­zly Scouts, is 209.) Via What­sApp, they repeat­ed­ly made ref­er­ences to the “Boog” and “dis­cussed com­mit­ting acts of vio­lence against law enforce­ment,” pros­e­cu­tors allege.

    On Sat­ur­day, June 6, Car­ril­lo drove to his father’s house in Ben Lomond. It was about 2 p.m. when Gutzwiller, a sergeant in the San­ta Cruz Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office, and two more deputies arrived at the prop­er­ty, which was guard­ed by a dog wear­ing a bul­let­proof vest and mon­i­tored by secu­ri­ty cam­eras. They were respond­ing to a call from a passer­by who had spot­ted a sus­pi­cious white Ford van loaded with what appeared to be firearms and bomb-mak­ing mate­r­i­al. When the deputies learned the van was reg­is­tered to Carrillo’s father, they pulled up to his house to ques­tion him.

    The deputies did not real­ize Car­ril­lo was above them, perched just 40 feet away in a cov­ered, well-con­cealed posi­tion up a steep embank­ment, aim­ing the same “ghost” weapon that pros­e­cu­tors say he had used in Oak­land.

    Based on the What­sApp text mes­sages that pros­e­cu­tors say he sent at this time, Car­ril­lo appeared to be try­ing to guide his fel­low Griz­zly Scouts on how they could join forces with him in a coor­di­nat­ed attack on the law enforce­ment offi­cers gath­er­ing to search for him.

    “Theyre wait­ing for reen­force­ments,” he texted.

    And this: “Theres inly one road in/out. Take them out when theyre com­ing in.”

    Accord­ing to police, Car­ril­lo “sniped” Gutzwiller, killing him with a sin­gle shot to the chest. Anoth­er deputy was also shot in the chest but was saved by his bul­let­proof vest.

    Dur­ing the may­hem and blood­shed that fol­lowed, Car­ril­lo engaged in a run­ning gun bat­tle with law enforce­ment offi­cers, hurl­ing pipe bombs and hijack­ing vehi­cles. In his own blood, he scrawled “BOOG” and “I became unrea­son­able” and “Stop the Duop­oly” — all com­mon Booga­loo slo­gans — on the hood of a car he had stolen. And at some point, he sent one more What­sApp mes­sage to his fel­low Griz­zly Scouts: “Dudes i offed a fed.”

    For all of Carrillo’s urgent appeals for rein­force­ments, there is no indi­ca­tion any Griz­zly Scout tried to come to his aid. While ques­tion­ing Carrillo’s fiancée in August, Hen­ry Montes, an inves­ti­ga­tor for the San­ta Cruz Coun­ty Dis­trict Attorney’s Office, offered a pos­si­ble expla­na­tion. Some mem­bers of the Griz­zly Scouts, he said, had told inves­ti­ga­tors that Car­ril­lo was too extreme for them. “The things that he was say­ing made them think he wants to kill police­men,” Montes told Amaya, accord­ing to a record­ing of the inter­view obtained by the news orga­ni­za­tions.

    “We spoke with some peo­ple who were no longer part of that group because they were afraid of Steven,” Montes said.

    A Jail­house Wed­ding

    In inter­views, Carrillo’s sib­lings describe a broth­er who suf­fered from years of severe men­tal health prob­lems and didn’t get the sup­port and med­ical treat­ment he need­ed from the Air Force. “I could see his pain,” Carrillo’s sis­ter, Ruby, said.

    Over two hours of inter­views, Car­ril­lo him­self did not attribute any of his actions to men­tal ill­ness. Instead, he forth­right­ly pro­claimed his sup­port for the Booga­loo Bois and repeat­ed­ly chal­lenged what he views as mis­con­cep­tions about the group.

    “I just want to say, the Booga­loo move­ment, you know, there’s a lot in the paper that I feel like peo­ple don’t under­stand,” he said. “And that is the Booga­loo move­ment, it’s all inclu­sive. It includes every­one. It’s not a thing about race. It’s about peo­ple that love free­dom, lib­er­ty, and they’re unhap­py with the lev­el of con­trol that the gov­ern­ment takes over our lives. So it’s just a move­ment, it’s a thought about free­dom. It’s just a com­plete love for free­dom.”

    Mean­while, as Car­ril­lo sits in jail await­ing tri­al, his polit­i­cal evo­lu­tion con­tin­ues. In a let­ter he wrote to reporters in Octo­ber, he referred to Joe Biden as a man who “sniffs kids,” echo­ing QAnon, a pro-Trump con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry that false­ly accus­es the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of run­ning a Satan-wor­ship­ping child sex-traf­fick­ing ring.

    ...

    ———–

    ““I Felt Hate More Than Any­thing”: How an Active Duty Air­man Tried to Start a Civ­il War” by Gisela Pérez de Acha, Kathryn Hurd, and Ellie Light­foot; PBS Front­line; 04/13/2021

    “ProP­ub­li­ca, FRONTLINE and Berke­ley Journalism’s Inves­tiga­tive Report­ing Pro­gram also uncov­ered new evi­dence that some mil­i­tary ser­vice mem­bers have embraced extrem­ist ide­ol­o­gy. The news orga­ni­za­tions iden­ti­fied 15 active-duty mem­bers of the Air Force who, like Car­ril­lo, open­ly pro­mot­ed Booga­loo memes and mes­sages on Face­book. On Fri­day, the Pen­ta­gon announced new mea­sures to com­bat extrem­ism inside the mil­i­tary. The Biden admin­is­tra­tion, mean­while, is increas­ing fund­ing for pre­vent­ing attacks by mili­tias, white suprema­cists and oth­er anti-gov­ern­ment groups, The New York Times report­ed this month.”

    Steven Car­ril­lo may have been the guy who pulled the trig­ger but he clear­ly was­n’t a lone nut. Law enforce­ment has been stunned at the extent of coor­di­na­tion, plan­ning and com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­in the ‘Booga­loo’ move­ment, with the Griz­zly Scouts pos­sess­ing a chain of com­mand that includ­ed a leader. And that leader report­ed­ly “dis­cussed tac­tics involv­ing killing of police offi­cers and oth­er law enforce­ment,” with Car­ril­lo and oth­er mem­bers. Car­ril­lo’s mur­ders were a group effort:

    ...
    Experts in extrem­ist mili­tia groups have long regard­ed the Booga­loo Bois as hav­ing no real hier­ar­chy or lead­er­ship struc­ture. But in piec­ing togeth­er Carrillo’s activ­i­ties and mili­tia con­tacts, law enforce­ment offi­cials were stunned to dis­cov­er the extent of coor­di­na­tion, plan­ning and com­mu­ni­ca­tions with­in the group.

    Not only was Car­ril­lo in reg­u­lar con­tact with a wide range of promi­nent Booga­loo Boi fig­ures around the coun­try, records and inter­views show, but two months before his arrest Car­ril­lo had joined up with a heav­i­ly armed, high­ly orga­nized and extreme­ly secre­tive Booga­loo mili­tia group in Cal­i­for­nia that called itself the “Griz­zly Scouts.”

    “This group was dif­fer­ent,” Jim Hart, the sher­iff of San­ta Cruz Coun­ty, where Ben Lomond is locat­ed, said in an inter­view. “There was a def­i­nite chain of com­mand and a line of lead­er­ship with­in this group.”

    In a fed­er­al indict­ment unsealed on Fri­day, pros­e­cu­tors said Car­ril­lo and four mem­bers of the Griz­zly Scouts, includ­ing its leader, “dis­cussed tac­tics involv­ing killing of police offi­cers and oth­er law enforce­ment.” The indict­ment also alleges that the same four Griz­zly Scouts tried to thwart a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into their activ­i­ties by destroy­ing evi­dence of their com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Car­ril­lo and each oth­er.
    ...

    And while it’s unclear exact­ly when Car­ril­lo joined the Booga­loo move­ment, he was in direct con­tact with move­ment lead­ers by Decem­ber 2019 and in March of 2020, move­ment leader Ivan Hunter instruct­ed Car­ril­lo about ‘green­ing some sh*t’ and soon after Car­ril­lo joined the Griz­zly Scouts, which was adver­tis­ing on Face­book as the “/K/alifornia Kom­man­do” group (because of course Face­book allowed this). The coor­di­na­tion exten­sive enough that Hunter texted Car­ril­lo to attack a police sta­tion hours after Car­ril­lo had already shot two fed­er­al offi­cers:

    ...
    It is unclear pre­cise­ly when Car­ril­lo began asso­ci­at­ing with the Booga­loo Bois, but accord­ing to a sworn state­ment from an FBI agent, he was in direct con­tact with promi­nent fig­ures in the group by Decem­ber 2019.

    The next month, pros­e­cu­tors allege, he bought a $15 device that con­verts AR-15 semi­au­to­mat­ic rifles into ful­ly auto­mat­ic machine guns, mak­ing the pur­chase through a web­site that adver­tised to Booga­loo Face­book groups and promised to donate some of its prof­its to the fam­i­ly of Dun­can Lemp, who became a Booga­loo mar­tyr after he was killed in a police raid. Car­ril­lo also began incor­po­rat­ing pop­u­lar mili­tia memes and imagery into his Face­book posts, and was in touch online with a grow­ing cir­cle of Booga­loo Bois. “A lot of peo­ple in the move­ment knew who Steve was,” Mike Dunn, the leader of a Booga­loo fac­tion in Vir­ginia that calls itself the Last Sons of Lib­er­ty, said in an inter­view.

    ...

    On March 14, 2020, pros­e­cu­tors allege in court fil­ings, Car­ril­lo received a text mes­sage from Ivan Hunter, a Booga­loo Bois leader in Texas. The mes­sage reads like an instruc­tion to get ready for action. “Start draft­ing that op,” Hunter wrote to Car­ril­lo. “The one we talked about in Decem­ber. I’ma green light some sh it.” In response, Car­ril­lo wrote, “Sounds good, bro!” Soon after, Car­ril­lo sought to join the Griz­zly Scouts, a new­ly formed Cal­i­for­nia mili­tia group that had pro­claimed its “affin­i­ty for Hawai­ian shirts,” the best-known sym­bol of the Booga­loo Bois, in its pro­file page on mymilitia.com.

    The Griz­zly Scouts, also known as the 1st Detach­ment of the 1st Cal­i­for­nia Scouts, are based in Tur­lock, a small city about 100 miles south­east of San Fran­cis­co. Accord­ing to fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors, the Griz­zly Scouts had a Face­book group called “/K/alifornia Kom­man­do” that pro­claimed their desire “to gath­er like mind­ed Cal­i­for­ni­ans who can net­work and estab­lish local goon squads.” (Among the Booga­loo Bois, the word “goon” refers to a sin­gle mem­ber.)

    On April 10, 2020, accord­ing to records obtained by the news orga­ni­za­tions, a mem­ber of the Griz­zly Scouts who goes by the alias BoojerBro1776 emailed Car­ril­lo an exten­sive pack­et of appli­ca­tion mate­ri­als, 31 pages in all. (“On board­ing,” read the email’s sub­ject line.) The doc­u­ments, nev­er before pub­licly dis­closed, are an odd blend of cor­po­rate instruc­tion man­u­al and chill­ing play­book for armed mil­i­tary action.

    New recruits were asked to abide by a social media pol­i­cy and to sign both a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment and a release of lia­bil­i­ty. The appli­ca­tion itself offered this bit of cor­po­rate boil­er­plate: “If this appli­ca­tion leads to employ­ment, I under­stand that false or mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion in my appli­ca­tion or inter­view may result in my release.”

    ...

    The doc­u­ments also make clear that Carrillo’s mil­i­tary back­ground, in par­tic­u­lar his advanced com­bat and weapons train­ing, pro­vid­ed exact­ly the qual­i­ties the Griz­zly Scouts want­ed in its recruits. The Griz­zly Scouts’ mem­bers — law enforce­ment offi­cials say the group had attract­ed 27 recruits — were giv­en mil­i­tary ranks and roles based on their lev­el of mil­i­tary train­ing and pri­or com­bat expe­ri­ence. Some Griz­zly Scouts were des­ig­nat­ed “snipers,” oth­ers were assigned to “clan­des­tine oper­a­tions,” and some were medics or dri­vers. What­ev­er their role, all were expect­ed to main­tain go kits that includ­ed “com­bat gauze” and both a “pri­ma­ry” and “sec­ondary” weapon.

    ...

    Four hours after Underwood’s death, Car­ril­lo received a text mes­sage from Hunter urg­ing him to attack police build­ings, court records show.

    Carrillo’s response: “I did bet­ter lol.”

    ...

    In the days after the Oak­land shoot­ing, Car­ril­lo com­mu­ni­cat­ed reg­u­lar­ly with Rush and oth­er mem­bers of the Griz­zly Scouts on a What­sApp group they called “209 Goon HQ,” pros­e­cu­tors say. (The area code for Mari­posa Coun­ty, home turf of the Griz­zly Scouts, is 209.) Via What­sApp, they repeat­ed­ly made ref­er­ences to the “Boog” and “dis­cussed com­mit­ting acts of vio­lence against law enforce­ment,” pros­e­cu­tors allege.
    ...

    And through­out it all, pin­ning the blame on the George Floyd pro­tes­tors was always one of the goals. Not the end goal. The end goal was civ­il war and a race war. Stok­ing con­flicts between law enforce­ment and the George Floyd pro­tes­tors was just a means to that end:

    ...
    George Floyd’s death in Min­neapo­lis on May 25, 15 days after Carrillo’s last train­ing ses­sion with the Griz­zly Scouts, gal­va­nized the Booga­loo faith­ful. In online post­ings, they spoke of Floyd’s death not only as an exam­ple of egre­gious police mis­con­duct but as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to stoke chaos that could be blamed on the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment. The result­ing racial unrest, they hoped, would accel­er­ate the long-await­ed “Booga­loo” — the final con­flict, a sec­ond civ­il war.

    Two days after Floyd’s death, Carrillo’s Booga­loo friend Ivan Hunter drove from Texas to Min­neapo­lis. Armed with an AK-47-style semi­au­to­mat­ic rifle, Hunter fired off 13 rounds into an aban­doned Min­neapo­lis police precinct where hun­dreds of pro­test­ers had gath­ered, pros­e­cu­tors allege. Pros­e­cu­tors say Hunter yelled, “Jus­tice for Floyd!” before dis­ap­pear­ing into the night with sev­er­al oth­er Booga­loo Bois who had come to Min­neapo­lis to pro­voke civ­il strife. Hunter, even­tu­al­ly arrest­ed in San Anto­nio, was charged with par­tic­i­pat­ing in a riot and is being held with­out bail; his defense lawyer declined to com­ment.

    For Car­ril­lo, Floyd’s death con­firmed his view of the police as lit­tle more than will­ing instru­ments of a cor­rupt and tyran­ni­cal polit­i­cal order bent on destroy­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion. “I felt hate more than any­thing,” he said in an inter­view when asked about Floyd’s killing.

    ...

    The shoot­ing of both guards aligned neat­ly with Booga­loo ide­ol­o­gy. “Use their anger to fuel our fire,” Car­ril­lo had writ­ten on Face­book that morn­ing. “We have mobs of angry peo­ple to use to our advan­tage.” Sure enough, some con­ser­v­a­tive com­men­ta­tors rushed to blame Underwood’s mur­der on antifa and Black Lives Mat­ter pro­test­ers.

    ...

    And per­haps the most alarm­ing aspect of this whole sto­ry is the fact that Car­ril­lo appears to have been rad­i­cal­ized from with­in the Air Force. How many more Steven Car­ril­lo’s are there get­ting train­ing they’re plan­ning on using to foment a civ­il war? A lot more, based to this report:

    ...
    In near­ly two hours of inter­views con­duct­ed in Span­ish and Eng­lish, as well as in a let­ter dic­tat­ed to his fiancée from San­ta Rita Jail, east of Oak­land, Car­ril­lo talked about the evo­lu­tion of his anti-gov­ern­ment ide­ol­o­gy. While he would not dis­cuss any of the crim­i­nal charges against him, Car­ril­lo spoke at length about his con­tin­u­ing alle­giance to the Booga­loo Bois and patient­ly explained how the movement’s “rev­o­lu­tion­ary thought” could offer a ratio­nale for attacks against law enforce­ment offi­cers whom he or any oth­er Booga­loo Boi thinks are vio­lat­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion. “I pledged to defend the Con­sti­tu­tion against all ene­mies, for­eign and domes­tic,” he said.

    Not once did Car­ril­lo express pity or remorse over the deaths of Sgt. Damon Gutzwiller, the deputy sher­iff, whose wife was preg­nant with their sec­ond child, or David Patrick Under­wood, the secu­ri­ty offi­cer at the Oak­land fed­er­al build­ing, who made a habit of donat­ing to local base­ball youth orga­ni­za­tions.

    ...

    Accord­ing to Car­ril­lo, his ideas about pol­i­tics and the role of gov­ern­ment began to take shape in the Air Force. “Before, I was con­fined to a lit­tle bub­ble,” he said in an inter­view, refer­ring to his upbring­ing in Ben Lomond, pop­u­la­tion 7,000. Once he joined the Air Force and met oth­ers from around the world, “talk­ing to peo­ple changed my whole views,” he said. He fol­lowed a well-worn path that began with a fierce attach­ment to gun rights, which in turn led him to lib­er­tar­i­an­ism, and then an enthu­si­as­tic embrace of the tea par­ty move­ment.

    By 2012, Car­ril­lo was a reg­is­tered Repub­li­can who sup­port­ed Gary John­son, the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date of the Lib­er­tar­i­an Par­ty, and Ron Paul. He attend­ed Sec­ond Amend­ment ral­lies and advo­cat­ed for expand­ed gun rights on a Face­book page set up for a group of self-described Chris­t­ian “patri­ots.”

    ...

    In an inter­view, Car­ril­lo said he was intro­duced to the polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy of the Booga­loo Bois through friends in the Air Force and on the inter­net. The 15 active-duty air­men iden­ti­fied by the news orga­ni­za­tions as open­ly pro­mot­ing Booga­loo con­tent on Face­book worked at bases around the world, includ­ing eight who, like Car­ril­lo, served in the Air Force secu­ri­ty branch.
    ...

    Yes, of the 15 Air Force mem­bers found by this inves­ti­ga­tion who were open­ly pro­mot­ing Booga­loo con­tent on Face­book, 8 of them work for the Air Force secu­ri­ty branch like Car­ril­lo’s elite Phoenix Ravens unit. And this is just the open mem­bers of Booga­loo. How many hid­den mem­bers are there? We don’t know. But if there were 15 mem­bers of the Air Force this inves­ti­ga­tion was able to find open­ly pro­mot­ing Booga­loo con­tent online, we can be pret­ty con­fi­dent there’s A LOT more hid­den mem­bers. Secret­ly coor­di­nat­ing with each oth­er and wait­ing for an oppor­tu­ni­ty to com­mit acts of vio­lence to be pinned on pro­tes­tors. And now delet­ing all their past com­mu­ni­ca­tions with Steven Car­ril­lo about these plans.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | April 22, 2021, 4:49 pm
  41. Here’s a pair of sto­ries under­scor­ing the endur­ing threat of extrem­ist infil­tra­tion of law enforce­ment agen­cies. A threat that’s only grown since the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion:

    First, here’s an emerg­ing sto­ry that’s worth keep­ing an eye on. A for­mer under­cov­er infor­mant who spent a decade infil­trat­ing the KKK in a hunt for secret law enforce­ment mem­bers has just come for­ward with an Asso­ci­at­ed Press inter­view where he rais­es the alarm about a much larg­er prob­lem with KKK infil­tra­tion of law enforce­ment agen­cies than those agen­cies want to admit. That’s the mes­sage from Joseph Moore, a for­mer army sniper who was first recruit­ed by the FBI back in 2007 to infil­trate a klan group called the Unit­ed North­ern and South­ern Knights of the KKK in rur­al north Flori­da. Moore claims he came across dozens of police offi­cers, prison guards, sher­iff deputies and oth­er law enforce­ment offi­cers who were involved with the klan and out­law motor­cy­cle clubs. Moore con­tin­ue to help with the FBI over the next decade. But after going into hid­ing and chang­ing their names, his fam­i­ly appears to be active­ly harassed by klan asso­ciates and Moore has con­clud­ed that going pub­lic with his sto­ry is the best way to keep his fam­i­ly safe. He’s also warn­ing that Flori­da’s law enforce­ment agen­cies failed to address the prob­lem and a sys­temwide review is required because the prob­lem is out of con­trol:

    Asso­ci­at­ed Press

    He wore a wire, risked his life to expose who was in the KKK

    By JASON DEAREN
    Decem­ber 23, 2021

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — For near­ly 10 years, Joseph Moore lived a secret dou­ble life.

    At times the U.S. Army vet­er­an donned a white robe and hood as a hit man for the Ku Klux Klan in North Flori­da. He attend­ed clan­des­tine meet­ings and par­tic­i­pat­ed in cross burn­ings. He even helped plan the mur­der of a Black man.

    How­ev­er, Moore wore some­thing else dur­ing his years in the klan – a wire for the FBI. He record­ed his con­ver­sa­tions with his fel­low klans­men, some­times even cap­tured video, and shared what he learned with fed­er­al agents try­ing to crack down on white suprema­cists in Flori­da law enforce­ment.

    ...

    Before such meet­ings, he would sit alone in his truck, his diaphragm heav­ing with the deep breath­ing tech­niques he learned as an Army-trained sniper.

    The mar­ried father of four would help the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment foil at least two mur­der plots, accord­ing to court records from the crim­i­nal tri­al for two of the klans­men. He was also an active infor­mant when the FBI exposed klan mem­bers work­ing as law enforce­ment offi­cers in Flori­da at the city, coun­ty and state lev­els..

    Today, he and his fam­i­ly live under new names in a Flori­da sub­di­vi­sion of man­i­cured lawns where his kids play in the street. Geese wan­der slow­ly between man-made lakes. Apart from tes­ti­fy­ing in court, the 50-year-old has nev­er dis­cussed his under­cov­er work in the KKK pub­licly. But he reached out to a reporter after The Asso­ci­at­ed Press pub­lished a series of sto­ries about white suprema­cists work­ing in Florida’s pris­ons that were based, in part, on records and record­ings detail­ing his work with the FBI.

    “The FBI want­ed me to gath­er as much infor­ma­tion about these indi­vid­u­als and con­firm their iden­ti­ties,” Moore said of law enforce­ment offi­cers who were active mem­bers of or work­ing with the klan.

    “From where I sat, with the intel­li­gence laid out, I can tell you that none of these agen­cies have any con­trol over any of it. It is more preva­lent and con­se­quen­tial than any of them are will­ing to admit.”

    The FBI first asked Moore to infil­trate a klan group called the Unit­ed North­ern and South­ern Knights of the KKK in rur­al north Flori­da in 2007. At klan gath­er­ings, Moore not­ed license plate num­bers and oth­er iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion of sus­pect­ed law enforce­ment offi­cers who were mem­bers.

    Moore said he not­ed con­nec­tions between the hate group and law enforce­ment in Flori­da and Geor­gia. He said he came across dozens of police offi­cers, prison guards, sher­iff deputies and oth­er law enforce­ment offi­cers who were involved with the klan and out­law motor­cy­cle clubs.

    While oper­at­ing inside this first klan group, Moore alert­ed the feds to a plot to mur­der a His­pan­ic truck dri­ver. Then, he says, he point­ed the FBI toward a deputy with the Alachua Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office, Wayne Ker­schn­er, who was a mem­ber of the same group.

    Dur­ing Moore’s years in the Unit­ed North­ern and South­ern Knights, the FBI also iden­ti­fied a mem­ber of the klan cell work­ing for the Fruit­land Park, Flori­da, police depart­ment. Moore said he’d pro­vid­ed iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion that was use­ful in that case.

    His years as an infor­mant occurred dur­ing a crit­i­cal time for the nation’s domes­tic ter­ror­ism efforts. In 2006, the FBI had cir­cu­lat­ed an intel­li­gence assess­ment about the klan and oth­er groups try­ing to infil­trate law enforce­ment ranks.

    “White suprema­cist groups have his­tor­i­cal­ly engaged in strate­gic efforts to infil­trate and recruit from law enforce­ment,” the FBI wrote. The assess­ment said some in law enforce­ment were vol­un­teer­ing “pro­fes­sion­al resources to white suprema­cist caus­es with which they sym­pa­thize.”

    ...

    CREATING A CHARACTER

    Moore was not a klans­man before work­ing for the FBI, he said. He said he joined because the gov­ern­ment approached him, and asked for his help. As a vet­er­an and Army-trained sniper, he said he felt that if his coun­try asked him to pro­tect the pub­lic from domes­tic ter­ror­ists, he had a duty to do so. He saw him­self, he said, as a safe­ty net between the vio­lent extrem­ists and the pub­lic.

    He said he nev­er adopt­ed their racist ide­ol­o­gy. To keep a life­line to his true char­ac­ter, Moore claims to have nev­er used racial slurs while in char­ac­ter — even as his klan brethren tossed them around casu­al­ly. On FBI record­ings reviewed by the AP, he was nev­er heard using racial slurs like his for­mer klan broth­ers.

    But he also acknowl­edges that suc­cess­ful under­cov­er work required him to change into a whol­ly dif­fer­ent per­son so that he could con­vince his klan broth­ers that he was one of them.

    “I laid out a char­ac­ter that had been over­seas. That had received medals in com­bat. That was proven. That had spe­cial oper­a­tions expe­ri­ence — more expe­ri­ence than I had. But some­one that they would feel con­fi­dent would be a use­ful asset to the orga­ni­za­tion at a much high­er lev­el,” Moore said.

    It worked, and Moore was giv­en high-lev­el access and trust.

    “If you’re not cred­i­ble, if you’re not engaged on all lev­els, you don’t get to go home to your fam­i­ly. So you have to jump all in in order to keep you and your fam­i­ly safe,” he said.

    It also required Moore to lie — to his wife, to her par­ents, to every­one. Nobody could know what he was doing. But even­tu­al­ly, Moore’s wife became sus­pi­cious of his activ­i­ties, and he cracked. He told her and her par­ents what he was doing.

    “You can’t tell them. And they con­tin­ue to probe because they want to know what’s going on in your life. So there’s this con­cern that you have to lie to your own fam­i­ly and I didn’t want to be lying to my fam­i­ly,” he said.

    Moore was also being treat­ed for bipo­lar dis­or­der and severe anx­i­ety, which he’d got­ten under con­trol with med­ica­tions. But giv­en his strug­gles with men­tal ill­ness, his wife didn’t imme­di­ate­ly believe him. He’d even­tu­al­ly take her with him to a few klan gath­er­ings, a deci­sion he regrets because it put her at risk.

    When the FBI agents with whom he worked dis­cov­ered that his wife knew, they end­ed the rela­tion­ship with the agency, and Moore sought addi­tion­al men­tal and phys­i­cal health treat­ment through the Depart­ment of Vet­er­ans Affairs.

    Still, after some time away, the FBI would come back to him and recruit him for his sec­ond mis­sion.

    THE GRAND KNIGHT HAWK

    In 2013, an FBI agent who’d worked with Moore dur­ing his first stint as an infor­mant recruit­ed him again. This time he was asked to infil­trate the Flori­da chap­ter of a nation­al group called the Tra­di­tion­al­ist Amer­i­can Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

    With­in a year of becom­ing “nat­u­ral­ized,” he’d become a Grand Knight Hawk of the “klav­ern” based in rur­al north cen­tral Flori­da. He was in charge of secu­ri­ty and inter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tions, and because of his mil­i­tary back­ground, he was the go-to guy for vio­lence.

    It was at a cross-burn­ing cer­e­mo­ny in Decem­ber 2014 that Charles New­comb, the “Exalt­ed Cyclops” of the chap­ter, pulled him aside to dis­cuss a scheme to kill a Black man. War­ren Williams was a for­mer inmate who’d got­ten into a fight with one of their klan broth­ers, a cor­rec­tion­al offi­cer named Thomas Dri­ver. Dri­ver, cor­rec­tions Sgt. David Moran and New­comb want­ed Williams dead.

    Moore alert­ed the FBI and was approved to make secret record­ings over the next few months. By this time, he’d become enmeshed in Newcomb’s life: They drank togeth­er, hung out at bar­be­cues, and talked about life’s prob­lems. This allowed Moore to get close enough to record the three cur­rent and for­mer Flori­da cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers as they planned Williams’ mur­der. He cap­tured dis­cus­sions of the mur­der plot that would lead to crim­i­nal con­vic­tions for the three klans­men.

    “And this wasn’t the only per­son that they want­ed to tar­get,” said Moore. “There were oth­er peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty that they want­ed to tar­get. But this was the one that we could build a case on.”

    Over his decade inside, Moore said his list of oth­er law enforce­ment offi­cers tied to the klan grew. The links, he said, were com­mon­place in Flori­da and Geor­gia, and eas­i­er to iden­ti­fy once he was inside.

    “I was on track to uncov­er more activ­i­ty in law enforce­ment, but the imme­di­ate threat to the pub­lic with the mur­der plot was a pri­or­i­ty,” Moore said. “And I was only one per­son. There was only so much I could do.”

    Moore said the three cur­rent and for­mer prison guards impli­cat­ed in the mur­der plot case oper­at­ed among a group of oth­er offi­cer-klan mem­bers at the Recep­tion and Med­ical Cen­ter in Lake But­ler, Flori­da, a prison where new inmates are processed and giv­en health checks. He said the offi­cers he knew were active­ly recruit­ing at the prison.

    Florida’s Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions said that’s not true.

    “Every day more than 18,000 cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers through­out the state work as pub­lic ser­vants, com­mit­ted to the safe­ty of Florida’s com­mu­ni­ties. They should not be defamed by the iso­lat­ed actions of three indi­vid­u­als who com­mit­ted abhor­rent and ille­gal acts sev­er­al years pri­or,” the depart­ment said in an emailed state­ment.

    Spokes­woman Michelle Glady has told the AP the agency found no evi­dence of a wider mem­ber­ship by extrem­ist white suprema­cist groups, or a sys­temic prob­lem. She said every alle­ga­tion of wrong­do­ing is inves­ti­gat­ed by the department’s inspec­tor gen­er­al.

    “That state­ment by the state is not accu­rate based on the facts,” said Moore, who asserts he saw evi­dence of a more per­va­sive prob­lem than the state is pub­licly acknowl­edg­ing. He said he gave the FBI infor­ma­tion about oth­er active white suprema­cists who were work­ing as state prison guards and at oth­er law enforce­ment agen­cies. He said he also pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion about klans­men apply­ing to be state prison guards.

    After tes­ti­fy­ing in the mur­der con­spir­a­cy case against the klans­men he’d spent years work­ing with, Moore’s work with the FBI end­ed. He’d been pub­licly iden­ti­fied, and in 2018 he began life under a new name.

    By then the work had tak­en an enor­mous toll on his men­tal and phys­i­cal health. He says the char­ac­ter of Joe Moore, Grand Knight Hawk of the KKK, had to devel­op a kin­ship and almost famil­ial rela­tions with those he was inves­ti­gat­ing in order to make it out alive.

    But he lost close friends, he said, who were angry that he had claimed fraud­u­lent mil­i­tary hon­ors as part of his alter ego.

    Today Moore is wor­ried that the men he helped put into prison know where he is and are look­ing for revenge. They’re all due out in a few years.

    Moore has installed motion-detect­ing sur­veil­lance cam­eras out­side the home that allow him to mon­i­tor any activ­i­ty, and car­ries a gun every­where he goes.

    He said, at this point, he believes com­ing out of the shad­ows and pub­licly dis­cussing his sto­ry is the best way to pro­tect him­self and his fam­i­ly.

    “We have had to change our names. We have tried to move, we have had our address placed in con­fi­den­tial­i­ty. How­ev­er, there are peo­ple that have inves­tiga­tive capac­i­ties that have tracked us, they’ve uncov­ered our names,” Moore said. In recent months, peo­ple con­nect­ed to the klan have appeared at his house, he said. Moore alert­ed the FBI and filed a report with the local sheriff’s office.

    Moore also does not want his work, and those of oth­er con­fi­den­tial infor­mants who put their lives on the line to help expose domes­tic extrem­ists, to have been in vain.

    He said he wants Florida’s cor­rec­tions and law enforce­ment lead­ers to con­duct sys­temwide inves­ti­ga­tions to root out white suprema­cists and oth­er vio­lent extrem­ists.

    “If you want to know why peo­ple don’t trust the police, it’s because they have a rel­a­tive or friend that they wit­ness being tar­get­ed by an extrem­ist who hap­pens to have a badge and a gun. And I know as a fact that this has occurred. I stopped a mur­der plot of law enforce­ment offi­cers,” said Moore.

    ———–

    “He wore a wire, risked his life to expose who was in the KKK” by JASON DEAREN; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 12/23/2021

    ““From where I sat, with the intel­li­gence laid out, I can tell you that none of these agen­cies have any con­trol over any of it. It is more preva­lent and con­se­quen­tial than any of them are will­ing to admit.””

    Infil­tra­tion by white suprema­cists is more preva­lent and con­se­quen­tial than any of Flori­da’s law enforce­ment agen­cies are are will­ing to admit. That’s the mes­sage from this for­mer under­cov­er infor­mant, who appears to be going pub­lic now in part to raise an alarm about what is appar­ent­ly an unchecked prob­lem that these agen­cies are unwill­ing or unable to con­trol. Sys­temwide inves­ti­ga­tions are nec­es­sary, accord­ing to Moore:

    ...
    The mar­ried father of four would help the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment foil at least two mur­der plots, accord­ing to court records from the crim­i­nal tri­al for two of the klans­men. He was also an active infor­mant when the FBI exposed klan mem­bers work­ing as law enforce­ment offi­cers in Flori­da at the city, coun­ty and state lev­els..

    Today, he and his fam­i­ly live under new names in a Flori­da sub­di­vi­sion of man­i­cured lawns where his kids play in the street. Geese wan­der slow­ly between man-made lakes. Apart from tes­ti­fy­ing in court, the 50-year-old has nev­er dis­cussed his under­cov­er work in the KKK pub­licly. But he reached out to a reporter after The Asso­ci­at­ed Press pub­lished a series of sto­ries about white suprema­cists work­ing in Florida’s pris­ons that were based, in part, on records and record­ings detail­ing his work with the FBI.

    ...

    The FBI first asked Moore to infil­trate a klan group called the Unit­ed North­ern and South­ern Knights of the KKK in rur­al north Flori­da in 2007. At klan gath­er­ings, Moore not­ed license plate num­bers and oth­er iden­ti­fy­ing infor­ma­tion of sus­pect­ed law enforce­ment offi­cers who were mem­bers.

    Moore said he not­ed con­nec­tions between the hate group and law enforce­ment in Flori­da and Geor­gia. He said he came across dozens of police offi­cers, prison guards, sher­iff deputies and oth­er law enforce­ment offi­cers who were involved with the klan and out­law motor­cy­cle clubs.

    ...

    Over his decade inside, Moore said his list of oth­er law enforce­ment offi­cers tied to the klan grew. The links, he said, were com­mon­place in Flori­da and Geor­gia, and eas­i­er to iden­ti­fy once he was inside.

    “I was on track to uncov­er more activ­i­ty in law enforce­ment, but the imme­di­ate threat to the pub­lic with the mur­der plot was a pri­or­i­ty,” Moore said. “And I was only one per­son. There was only so much I could do.”

    Moore said the three cur­rent and for­mer prison guards impli­cat­ed in the mur­der plot case oper­at­ed among a group of oth­er offi­cer-klan mem­bers at the Recep­tion and Med­ical Cen­ter in Lake But­ler, Flori­da, a prison where new inmates are processed and giv­en health checks. He said the offi­cers he knew were active­ly recruit­ing at the prison.

    ...

    Moore also does not want his work, and those of oth­er con­fi­den­tial infor­mants who put their lives on the line to help expose domes­tic extrem­ists, to have been in vain.

    He said he wants Florida’s cor­rec­tions and law enforce­ment lead­ers to con­duct sys­temwide inves­ti­ga­tions to root out white suprema­cists and oth­er vio­lent extrem­ists.

    “If you want to know why peo­ple don’t trust the police, it’s because they have a rel­a­tive or friend that they wit­ness being tar­get­ed by an extrem­ist who hap­pens to have a badge and a gun. And I know as a fact that this has occurred. I stopped a mur­der plot of law enforce­ment offi­cers,” said Moore.
    ...

    Also note how Moore and his fam­i­ly appear to have been threat­ened in recent months by klan-con­nect­ed peo­ple. In oth­er words, Moore went pub­lic in part because he felt like his life is increas­ing­ly at risk and going pub­lic might con­fer a degree of pro­tec­tion. It’s a dis­turb­ing move in part because it rais­es the ques­tion of whether or not Moore has lost faith in the abil­i­ty or will­ing­ness of law enforce­ment to keep Moor and his fam­i­ly pro­tect­ed:

    ...
    Today Moore is wor­ried that the men he helped put into prison know where he is and are look­ing for revenge. They’re all due out in a few years.

    Moore has installed motion-detect­ing sur­veil­lance cam­eras out­side the home that allow him to mon­i­tor any activ­i­ty, and car­ries a gun every­where he goes.

    He said, at this point, he believes com­ing out of the shad­ows and pub­licly dis­cussing his sto­ry is the best way to pro­tect him­self and his fam­i­ly.

    “We have had to change our names. We have tried to move, we have had our address placed in con­fi­den­tial­i­ty. How­ev­er, there are peo­ple that have inves­tiga­tive capac­i­ties that have tracked us, they’ve uncov­ered our names,” Moore said. In recent months, peo­ple con­nect­ed to the klan have appeared at his house, he said. Moore alert­ed the FBI and filed a report with the local sheriff’s office.
    ...

    But what is per­haps the most dis­turb­ing part of this sto­ry is the response from the Flori­da Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tion. A response that came in the form of a denial that there’s any prob­lem with white suprema­cist net­works at all. No evi­dence of a sys­temic prob­lem. It’s the kind of response that would under­stand­ably give Moore night­mares and prompt him to go pub­lic:

    ...
    Florida’s Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions said that’s not true.

    “Every day more than 18,000 cor­rec­tion­al offi­cers through­out the state work as pub­lic ser­vants, com­mit­ted to the safe­ty of Florida’s com­mu­ni­ties. They should not be defamed by the iso­lat­ed actions of three indi­vid­u­als who com­mit­ted abhor­rent and ille­gal acts sev­er­al years pri­or,” the depart­ment said in an emailed state­ment.

    Spokes­woman Michelle Glady has told the AP the agency found no evi­dence of a wider mem­ber­ship by extrem­ist white suprema­cist groups, or a sys­temic prob­lem. She said every alle­ga­tion of wrong­do­ing is inves­ti­gat­ed by the department’s inspec­tor gen­er­al.

    “That state­ment by the state is not accu­rate based on the facts,” said Moore, who asserts he saw evi­dence of a more per­va­sive prob­lem than the state is pub­licly acknowl­edg­ing. He said he gave the FBI infor­ma­tion about oth­er active white suprema­cists who were work­ing as state prison guards and at oth­er law enforce­ment agen­cies. He said he also pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion about klans­men apply­ing to be state prison guards.
    ...

    Will going pub­lic keep Moore and his fam­i­ly safe? Let’s hope so. It sounds like his warn­ings are very much still need­ed, in large part because they aren’t being heed­ed. Hence the appeal to the pub­lic.

    And as the fol­low­ing arti­cle from back in July reminds us, it’s not just the KKK doing the infil­tra­tion. Far more ‘main­stream’ extrem­ist white nation­al groups are also a con­cern. Groups like the the Oath Keep­ers and Proud Boys. And as Cen­tral Flori­da law enforce­ment learned after the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion, these groups aren’t just recruit­ing mem­bers of law enforce­ment. They’re also poten­tial­ly ask­ing these mem­bers to par­tic­i­pate in mass actions like the insur­rec­tion and pre­sum­ably already work­ing on prepa­ra­tions for the next insur­rec­tion :

    Orlan­do Sen­tinel

    Ex-Cen­tral Flori­da cops’ Capi­tol riot arrests under­score extrem­ists’ inroads among police, experts say

    By Monivette Cordeiro and Desiree Sten­nett
    Jul 23, 2021 at 10:35 AM

    Experts say the arrests of two for­mer Cen­tral Flori­da police offi­cers accused of storm­ing the U.S. Capi­tol dur­ing January’s riot along­side mem­bers of the Proud Boys under­score the alarm­ing ties emerg­ing between law enforce­ment and far-right extrem­ist groups.

    At least four local agen­cies now have ties to Capi­tol riot­ers, after the indict­ment of Kevin Tuck, a Win­der­mere Police Depart­ment offi­cer until he resigned on the day of his arrest, and his son Nathaniel Tuck, a for­mer Apop­ka Police Depart­ment offi­cer who is mar­ried to an active offi­cer for the Long­wood Police Depart­ment.

    Both were indict­ed as co-defen­dants of two Proud Boys, includ­ing Arthur Jack­man, vice pres­i­dent of the far-right nation­al­ist group’s Orlan­do chap­ter and hus­band of an Orange Coun­ty deputy sher­iff.

    The indict­ment does not indi­cate if either Tuck is a Proud Boys mem­ber, but pros­e­cu­tors say Jack­man infil­trat­ed the Capi­tol along­side Joseph Big­gs, an Ormond Beach orga­niz­er of the extrem­ist group. Big­gs is accused of help­ing to plan the Jan. 6 attack, dur­ing which a mob sup­port­ing then-Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s false elec­tion fraud claims over­ran the Capi­tol in an attempt to stop Con­gress from cer­ti­fy­ing the elec­tion of Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

    Court fil­ings show both Tucks are being rep­re­sent­ed by John Pierce, a Cal­i­for­nia attor­ney known for hav­ing rep­re­sent­ed Kenosha shoot­er Kyle Rit­ten­house and whose cur­rent clients include oth­er Proud Boys mem­bers accused of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Capi­tol riot.

    ...

    The FBI warned in a 2006 report that white suprema­cist and anti-gov­ern­ment groups were “infil­trat­ing” law enforce­ment and the mil­i­tary, but experts say it can be near­ly impos­si­ble to fire police offi­cers who express extrem­ist views but have not act­ed on them. They say depart­ments across the coun­ty also have done lit­tle to improve screen­ing prac­tices.

    Nation­wide, dozens of cur­rent and for­mer police offi­cers, oth­er first-respon­ders and mil­i­tary vet­er­ans have been among those arrest­ed in the Capi­tol riot. But Cen­tral Flori­da law enforce­ment lead­ers pro­vid­ed few details when asked how they com­bat poten­tial extrem­ism with­in their ranks.

    Jim Pas­co, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Nation­al Fra­ter­nal Order of Police, said the arrests are “dis­grace­ful,” but there’s “no sig­nif­i­cant evi­dence” of a large num­ber of law enforce­ment offi­cers hold­ing white suprema­cist or extrem­ist views.

    “That’s gen­er­al­ly true of all pro­fes­sions, whether it’s report­ing or teach­ing or being elect­ed to Con­gress,” he said.

    Vida John­son, a George­town Uni­ver­si­ty law pro­fes­sor who stud­ies white suprema­cists in police depart­ments, said extrem­ism among law enforce­ment now rep­re­sents a “threat to our nation­al secu­ri­ty.”

    “If you have peo­ple who hold a lot of pow­er and have access to infor­ma­tion — and who hold these beliefs — there’s a lot they can get away with,” she said. “I think we can see from Jan. 6 … there real­ly is no big­ger threat to our democ­ra­cy than some­thing like that.”

    Expert: Extrem­ism in police ranks has ‘destruc­tive impact’

    Mem­bers of the Proud Boys attend­ed the dead­ly, white suprema­cist-led Unite the Right ral­ly in Char­lottesville in 2017, and recent­ly, a leader of the group plead­ed guilty to burn­ing a Black Lives Mat­ter ban­ner stolen from a his­tor­i­cal­ly Black church in Wash­ing­ton D.C. The group is also known for open­ly court­ing vio­lence at its ral­lies, accord­ing to Cassie Miller, a senior research ana­lyst with the South­ern Pover­ty Law Center’s Intel­li­gence Report.

    “We’ve seen the law enforce­ment agen­cies in those places fail to take the threat seri­ous­ly because they seem to have some sym­pa­thies with these groups,” she said.

    Miller said links between law enforce­ment and far-right extrem­ists can have a “destruc­tive impact” on the rela­tion­ship between police and com­mu­ni­ties of col­or.

    “These are com­mu­ni­ties that are already dis­crim­i­nat­ed against and over-policed,” she said. “When the insti­tu­tions that are sup­posed to be pro­tect­ing them are tol­er­at­ing peo­ple who have ties to racist and extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tions in their ranks, that cre­ates a real­ly fright­en­ing sit­u­a­tion for peo­ple.”

    The Orlan­do Sen­tinel request­ed inter­views with the heads of the four local agen­cies linked to the Tucks and Jack­man — Win­der­mere PD, Apop­ka PD, Long­wood PD and the Orange Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office — to find out what efforts those agen­cies are under­tak­ing to com­bat extrem­ism in their ranks. None were made avail­able to speak.

    Win­der­mere Police Chief David Ogden did not respond to a request for com­ment, though he pre­vi­ous­ly said the agency was “dis­heart­ened” by the arrest of Kevin Tuck. The depart­ment con­tact­ed the FBI about Kevin Tuck’s alleged involve­ment in the Capi­tol riot after anoth­er offi­cer raised con­cerns, the police chief said in a state­ment.

    ...

    In Long­wood, where both Kevin and Nathaniel Tuck were once offi­cers, Police Chief David Dow­da was not avail­able to com­ment on the top­ic, accord­ing to spokesper­son Lt. Adam Bryant.

    Bryant said Long­wood offi­cers go through exten­sive back­ground inves­ti­ga­tions dur­ing hir­ing, includ­ing a psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­file, drug test, crim­i­nal his­to­ry check and inter­views with fam­i­ly, friends, for­mer employ­ers and neigh­bors. The agency nev­er saw any indi­ca­tion the Tucks were or had been extrem­ists, nor did it receive any com­plaints indi­cat­ing they were, he said.

    At the Orange Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office, agency spokes­woman Michelle Gui­do said there’s “no evi­dence” that any deputies have extrem­ist views or belong to extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tions.

    “[Sher­iff John Mina] is cur­rent­ly research­ing best prac­tices and does plan to put mea­sures in place to help iden­ti­fy any trou­bling pat­terns of behav­ior among any [OCSO] employ­ees,” Gui­do said.

    OCSO inves­ti­gat­ed Deputy Sarah Jack­man after her husband’s arrest and cleared her of wrong­do­ing, though the probe revealed she knew about her husband’s role in the local Proud Boys chap­ter and thought the extrem­ist group was “pro Amer­i­can, pro-fam­i­ly, and very patri­ot­ic.”

    It’s dif­fi­cult for agen­cies to dis­ci­pline offi­cers who express favor­able views of an extrem­ist group but haven’t joined the orga­ni­za­tion or com­mit­ted a crime, said Michael Jensen, senior researcher at the Nation­al Con­sor­tium for the Study of Ter­ror­ism and Respons­es to Ter­ror­ism at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land.

    “That sheriff’s depart­ment is in a very dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion,” Jensen said. “On the one hand, how do you ensure pub­lic trust in the sheriff’s depart­ment when you have an offi­cer out there with these affil­i­a­tions as police in the street? But then at the same time, are you pre­pared to fight that legal bat­tle in court, which you’re prob­a­bly going to lose in many of these cas­es?”

    That active offi­cers like Kevin Tuck felt com­fort­able par­tic­i­pat­ing in an anti-gov­ern­ment riot — dur­ing which many in the mob, includ­ing Nathaniel Tuck, are accused of strik­ing on-duty Capi­tol police — shows “how insu­lat­ed police offi­cers are from any con­se­quences at their job,” John­son said.

    “It illus­trates how some police offi­cers feel that they can get away with any­thing,” she added. “That’s chill­ing.”

    Nathaniel Tuck, who worked at LPD from 2012 to 2018, resigned in good stand­ing, Bryant said. His wife, Gabriela Tuck, still works at the depart­ment and is not cur­rent­ly under inves­ti­ga­tion for vio­lat­ing any laws or depart­ment poli­cies, which require all Long­wood police employ­ees to “report all crim­i­nal activ­i­ty or sus­pect­ed activ­i­ty.”

    Dur­ing a hear­ing last week, a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor alleged both Tucks sent mes­sages to fam­i­ly mem­bers as they stormed the Capi­tol.

    “If actu­al mis­con­duct comes to light on her part, we will then inves­ti­gate,” Bryant said.

    Com­bat train­ing appeals to far-right groups

    Far-right extrem­ist groups seek to recruit law enforce­ment offi­cers and mil­i­tary pro­fes­sion­als pri­mar­i­ly because they have weapons and tac­ti­cal train­ing, which they can teach to oth­er recruits in prepa­ra­tion for “a com­ing con­flict” that many extrem­ist groups believe is on the hori­zon, Jensen said.

    “It’s some­thing that you real­ly can’t get on your own with­out access to some­body who’s been through that pro­fes­sion­al mil­i­tary [or] pro­fes­sion­al law enforce­ment train­ing,” he said.

    Fire­fight­ers and oth­er first respon­ders are tar­get­ed by groups to some extent but are not as well rep­re­sent­ed, he said.

    The oath that police and mil­i­tary mem­bers take to pro­tect the pub­lic and uphold the Con­sti­tu­tion can be per­vert­ed to jus­ti­fy extrem­ist beliefs and behav­iors, Jensen said. Extrem­ist lead­ers claim tra­di­tion­al means for pro­tect­ing the nation’s ideals have failed and “it’s up to the cit­i­zens now to stand up,” he said.

    “They sell the [extrem­ist] group as an exten­sion of that oath,” Jensen said.

    In the late ‘80s, far-right extrem­ist lead­ers began push­ing poten­tial fol­low­ers away from join­ing orga­nized groups after the failed 1988 pres­i­den­tial run of David Duke, a for­mer Ku Klux Klan grand wiz­ard, said Paul Beck­er, a Uni­ver­si­ty of Day­ton soci­ol­o­gy pro­fes­sor who research­es extrem­ism.

    “You start­ed to see extrem­ist lead­ers [say] … that David Duke could have been pres­i­dent if there weren’t pic­tures of him in Klan robes,” Beck­er said. “Instead, join the mil­i­tary, join the police, because then you’ll be in a posi­tion to help the move­ment when the race war comes about that they were pre­dict­ing.”

    Few police depart­ments go after offi­cers who express white suprema­cist or extrem­ist views because of pow­er­ful police unions, which fight fir­ings or sus­pen­sions for such behav­ior on free speech grounds, Beck­er said.

    Pas­co said unions are legal­ly required to defend mem­bers and ensure they get due process rights.

    “We do not seek to keep indi­vid­u­als who have bro­ken any law or are unfit to be police offi­cers on the force,” he said. “ … Police offi­cers have the same First Amend­ment rights as any oth­er human being in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.”

    He added the FOP has been vocal about the short­com­ings of agen­cies in screen­ing poten­tial offi­cers, a process in which the union has “no role.”

    Police depart­ments haven’t sig­nif­i­cant­ly changed their screen­ing prac­tices since the FBI’s 2006 report, Beck­er said.

    “We need to look at that screen­ing process and lis­ten to the advice that we’ve been get­ting for years on these con­nec­tions between extrem­ist groups and law enforce­ment and set­ting up a way where we can iden­ti­fy them,” he said. “ … A lot of the research is say­ing that these are the groups that we have to be the most con­cerned with when it comes to domes­tic ter­ror­ism.”

    Experts sug­gest­ed sev­er­al changes police depart­ments could make to com­bat extrem­ism, includ­ing focus­ing on train­ing to iden­ti­fy the recruit­ment tac­tics of extrem­ist groups, cre­at­ing a data­base of fired police offi­cers with extrem­ist ties, increas­ing pro­tec­tions for whistle­blow­ers who report their col­leagues and mon­i­tor­ing offi­cers’ emails, social media and body-worn cam­era footage.

    “We already have prob­lems with sig­nif­i­cant parts of our coun­try not hav­ing trust in our police depart­ments,” said John­son, the George­town pro­fes­sor who stud­ies white suprema­cists. “If I was a police chief, this would be my top con­cern.”

    ———–

    “Ex-Cen­tral Flori­da cops’ Capi­tol riot arrests under­score extrem­ists’ inroads among police, experts say” by Monivette Cordeiro and Desiree Sten­nett; Orlan­do Sen­tinel; 07/23/2021

    “Nation­wide, dozens of cur­rent and for­mer police offi­cers, oth­er first-respon­ders and mil­i­tary vet­er­ans have been among those arrest­ed in the Capi­tol riot. But Cen­tral Flori­da law enforce­ment lead­ers pro­vid­ed few details when asked how they com­bat poten­tial extrem­ism with­in their ranks.

    Father and son duo Kevin and Nathan Tuck weren’t the only Cen­tral Flori­da mem­bers of law enforce­ment who played a role in the Jan­u­ary 6 Capi­tol insur­rec­tion. Arthur Jack­man, the vice pres­i­dent of the Proud Boys Orlan­do chap­ter was there too, along with his wife Sarah who hap­pens to be an Organge Coun­ty deputy sher­iff. Sarah Jack­man has already been cleared of wrong­do­ing. And it also turns out Nathan Tuck­’s wife, Gabriela Tuck, still works for the Long­wood PD and is not cur­rent­ly under any inves­ti­ga­tion:

    ...
    At least four local agen­cies now have ties to Capi­tol riot­ers, after the indict­ment of Kevin Tuck, a Win­der­mere Police Depart­ment offi­cer until he resigned on the day of his arrest, and his son Nathaniel Tuck, a for­mer Apop­ka Police Depart­ment offi­cer who is mar­ried to an active offi­cer for the Long­wood Police Depart­ment.

    Both were indict­ed as co-defen­dants of two Proud Boys, includ­ing Arthur Jack­man, vice pres­i­dent of the far-right nation­al­ist group’s Orlan­do chap­ter and hus­band of an Orange Coun­ty deputy sher­iff.

    The indict­ment does not indi­cate if either Tuck is a Proud Boys mem­ber, but pros­e­cu­tors say Jack­man infil­trat­ed the Capi­tol along­side Joseph Big­gs, an Ormond Beach orga­niz­er of the extrem­ist group. Big­gs is accused of help­ing to plan the Jan. 6 attack, dur­ing which a mob sup­port­ing then-Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s false elec­tion fraud claims over­ran the Capi­tol in an attempt to stop Con­gress from cer­ti­fy­ing the elec­tion of Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

    Court fil­ings show both Tucks are being rep­re­sent­ed by John Pierce, a Cal­i­for­nia attor­ney known for hav­ing rep­re­sent­ed Kenosha shoot­er Kyle Rit­ten­house and whose cur­rent clients include oth­er Proud Boys mem­bers accused of par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Capi­tol riot.

    ...

    OCSO inves­ti­gat­ed Deputy Sarah Jack­man after her husband’s arrest and cleared her of wrong­do­ing, though the probe revealed she knew about her husband’s role in the local Proud Boys chap­ter and thought the extrem­ist group was “pro Amer­i­can, pro-fam­i­ly, and very patri­ot­ic.”

    ...

    Nathaniel Tuck, who worked at LPD from 2012 to 2018, resigned in good stand­ing, Bryant said. His wife, Gabriela Tuck, still works at the depart­ment and is not cur­rent­ly under inves­ti­ga­tion for vio­lat­ing any laws or depart­ment poli­cies, which require all Long­wood police employ­ees to “report all crim­i­nal activ­i­ty or sus­pect­ed activ­i­ty.”

    Dur­ing a hear­ing last week, a fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor alleged both Tucks sent mes­sages to fam­i­ly mem­bers as they stormed the Capi­tol.

    “If actu­al mis­con­duct comes to light on her part, we will then inves­ti­gate,” Bryant said.
    ...

    It’s just one small glimpse into the patch­work of rela­tions con­nect­ing the groups direct­ly involved with the plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of Capi­tol insur­rec­tion with law enforce­ment agen­cies around the US. This is just the sto­ry of Cen­tral Flori­da’s law enforce­ment ties to the extrem­ist groups behind that attack. There’s pre­sum­ably sim­i­lar sto­ries from com­mu­ni­ties all over the US. With sim­i­lar end­ings in the form of min­i­mal inves­ti­ga­tions that ulti­mate­ly fiz­zled out.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | December 27, 2021, 5:47 pm
  42. What is Ron DeSan­tis plan­ning on doing with his new state mili­tia? That’s one of the many dis­turb­ing ques­tions raised by the fol­low­ing Mia­mi Her­ald report on the trou­bles fac­ing the new Flori­da State Guard, start­ed last year as a kind of state ver­sion of Nation­al Guard to assist with state emer­gen­cies. Or, at least, that was ini­tial plan. Plans change. And as we’re going to see, the changes have all been in one direc­tion: turn­ing the Flori­da State Guard into the gov­er­nor’s armed mili­tia.

    Ini­tial­ly, the 2022 law cre­at­ing the State Guard (tech­ni­cal­ly, it was ‘reac­ti­vat­ing the guard after it was deac­ti­vat­ed in 1947) lim­it­ed the guard’s activ­i­ties to emer­gen­cies inside the state. That lim­i­ta­tion was lat­er dropped. Then, in March, law­mak­ers and DeSan­tis revealed that they want­ed the Guard to pur­chase $89 mil­lion in boats, planes, and heli­copters and cre­ate a new armed spe­cial­ized unit with police pow­ers. They also grew the tar­get size of unit from 400 to 1500 mem­bers.

    So just on paper, the scope of this new State Guard has got­ten a more mil­i­taris­tic since its incep­tion. And then there’s the sto­ries we’re get­ting from the actu­al recruits. Includ­ing Bri­an New­house, a retired 20-year Navy vet­er­an who was cho­sen to lead one of the State Guard’s three divi­sions. As New­house put it, “The pro­gram got hijacked and turned into some­thing that we were try­ing to stay away from: a mili­tia.”

    As we’re also going to see, it appears to be a mili­tia with some train­ing issues. That’s accord­ing to var­i­ous vet­er­ans who report­ed phys­i­cal abuse at the hands of the pro­grams drill sergeants. It also sounds like the qual­i­ty of the train­ing is sub-par, with no actu­al­ly writ­ten tests or any ver­i­fi­ca­tion that you’ve learned any­thing.

    There also appears to be lead­er­ship issues, with the ini­tial leader of the Guard com­mit­ting sui­cide in Octo­ber. Luis Sol­er was select­ed as a replace­ment. Inter­est­ing­ly, Sol­er did­n’t attend the June 30th grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny for the first class and end­ed up resign­ing for “per­son­al rea­sons” a week lat­er. At this point his replace­ment has yet to be announced. Keep in mind that Sol­er assumed that lead­er­ship posi­tion before it became clear that this is going to be a mili­tia. So while it’s unclear why exact­ly Sol­er resigned, it’s not hard to imag­ine the sur­prise mil­i­ta­riza­tion of this new enti­ty had a lot to do with it. And, pre­sum­ably, con­cerns over how this new gov­er­nors’ mili­tia will actu­al­ly be used.

    Keep in mind that this is all hap­pen­ing in the con­text of a 2024 GOP pri­ma­ry where Ron DeSan­tis has clear­ly adopt­ed a strat­e­gy of being even more ‘hard core’ than Don­ald Trump. It’s not hard to imag­ine how a new mili­tia might play into that polit­i­cal dynam­ic:

    The Mia­mi Her­ald

    Vet­er­ans quit as train­ing, mis­sion for DeSan­tis’ State Guard turn mil­i­taris­tic

    By Lawrence Mow­er, Emma Rose Brown, and Ana Cebal­los
    Herald/Times Tal­la­has­see Bureau

    This sto­ry was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished July 14, 2023, 2:41 PM.
    Updat­ed July 14, 2023 4:11 PM

    TALLAHASSEE When the first recruit­ing class of Gov. Ron DeSan­tis’ new Flori­da State Guard showed up for train­ing last month, they had var­ied expe­ri­ences and expec­ta­tions.

    Over 30 days in June, teenagers out of high school and retired mil­i­tary vet­er­ans came to Camp Bland­ing, the Nation­al Guard base near Jack­sonville.

    Many were told they would vol­un­teer for a revived State Guard with a non-mil­i­tary mis­sion: help Florid­i­ans in times of need or dis­as­ter.

    Instead, the state’s Nation­al Guard trained the vol­un­teers for com­bat. Khakis and polos were replaced by cam­ou­flaged uni­forms. Vol­un­teers assured they could keep their facial hair were ordered to shave. And they were drilled on how to rap­pel with ropes, nav­i­gate through the woods and respond to inci­dents under mil­i­tary com­mand.

    When DeSan­tis announced in 2021 he want­ed to revive the long-dor­mant State Guard, he vowed it would help Florid­i­ans dur­ing emer­gen­cies. But in the year since its launch, key per­son­nel and a defined mis­sion remain elu­sive. The state is look­ing for the program’s third leader in eight months. Accord­ing to records reviewed by the Herald/Times and inter­views with pro­gram vol­un­teers, a num­ber of recruits quit after the first train­ing class last month because they feared it was becom­ing too mil­i­taris­tic.

    Weeks into that inau­gur­al June train­ing, one vol­un­teer, a dis­abled retired Marine Corps cap­tain, called the local sheriff’s office to report he was bat­tered by Flori­da Nation­al Guard instruc­tors when they forcibly shoved him into a van after he ques­tioned the pro­gram and its lead­er­ship.

    DeSan­tis’ office referred ques­tions to Major Gen­er­al John D. Haas, Florida’s adju­tant gen­er­al over­see­ing the Flori­da Nation­al Guard.

    In a state­ment, Haas said the State Guard was a “mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion” that will be used not just for emer­gen­cies but for “aid­ing law enforce­ment with riots and ille­gal immi­gra­tion.”

    “We are aware that some trainees who were removed are dis­sat­is­fied,” Haas said. “This is to be expect­ed with any course that demands rig­or and dis­ci­pline.”

    Cho­sen as a leader, this vet quit on Day 1

    Three for­mer mem­bers told the Herald/Times the pro­gram veered from its orig­i­nal mis­sion.

    “The pro­gram got hijacked and turned into some­thing that we were try­ing to stay away from: a mili­tia,” said Bri­an New­house, a retired 20-year Navy vet­er­an who was cho­sen to lead one of the State Guard’s three divi­sions.

    The orig­i­nal lead­er­ship team envi­sioned a dis­as­ter response team of vet­er­ans and civil­ians with a vari­ety of prac­ti­cal skills, accord­ing to New­house. Two oth­er for­mer mil­i­tary vet­er­ans, who asked not to be named for fear of poten­tial con­se­quences and lat­er quit, expressed sim­i­lar con­cerns over a change in the State Guard’s mis­sion.

    On the first day of train­ing, New­house said he was escort­ed off the base after lodg­ing sev­er­al com­plaints, includ­ing that the Nation­al Guard’s sched­ule required train­ing on Sun­days, instead of allow­ing mem­bers to use those days for reli­gious ser­vices and per­son­al time, as was the orig­i­nal plan.

    He said he had pre­vi­ous­ly com­plained that the Nation­al Guard didn’t have medics avail­able dur­ing train­ing.

    ...

    Governor’s vision for the State Guard

    The revival of Florida’s State Guard start­ed off mod­est­ly. DeSan­tis pro­posed bring­ing back the World War II-era force to sup­ple­ment the over­worked and under­staffed Flori­da Nation­al Guard. Although some Democ­rats were crit­i­cal of hand­ing DeSan­tis more pow­er, state law­mak­ers last year gave the gov­er­nor twice the vol­un­teers than he request­ed: 400 mem­bers and a $10 mil­lion bud­get.

    Unlike the Nation­al Guard, State Guard mem­bers can’t be deployed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. They answer only to the gov­er­nor.

    Law­mak­ers in 2022 added stip­u­la­tions say­ing that mem­bers could only be called up in an emer­gency and couldn’t oper­ate out­side the state. Those require­ments were dropped a year lat­er.

    The pro­gram, open to Florid­i­ans ages 18 to 60, received thou­sands of appli­ca­tions, accord­ing to DeSan­tis.

    In June last year, DeSan­tis named a dec­o­rat­ed Marine and Pur­ple Heart recip­i­ent from Mia­mi as direc­tor of the State Guard. He died by sui­cide in Octo­ber, with post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der a con­tribut­ing fac­tor, accord­ing to a police report. In Jan­u­ary, DeSan­tis named the program’s deputy direc­tor, Luis Sol­er, to lead the force, earn­ing a $165,000 salary.

    Sol­er, a cap­tain in the Unit­ed States Navy Reserve, began recruit­ing. New­house and oth­ers were asked to criss­cross the state, inter­view State Guard recruits and seek peo­ple with a vari­ety of skills. Vol­un­teers are sup­posed to get $200 stipends for the days they’re called to work.

    New­house said he and Sol­er viewed the pro­gram as more of a Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency response team than a Nation­al Guard unit, shun­ning ranks and cam­ou­flaged uni­forms. He said he saw the State Guard as a resume-builder for col­lege stu­dents and a way for vet­er­ans and oth­ers to con­tin­ue to serve their com­mu­ni­ties.

    By March, how­ev­er, the state’s vision began to change.

    That month, state law­mak­ers and the gov­er­nor revealed that they want­ed to assign the State Guard $89 mil­lion to buy boats, planes and heli­copters. They want­ed a spe­cial­ized unit with­in the guard to have police pow­ers and the abil­i­ty to car­ry weapons.

    And they want­ed to boost the State Guard to 1,500 mem­bers. Instead of being acti­vat­ed only dur­ing emer­gen­cies with­in Flori­da, they could be sent to any state to “pro­tect and defend the peo­ple of Flori­da from threats to pub­lic safe­ty.”

    While near­ly half of states have vol­un­teer state guards, usu­al­ly with mil­i­tary struc­tures, few, if any, appear to have equiv­a­lent pow­ers. Texas, for exam­ple, has deployed its State Guard to the U.S.-Mexico bor­der, but mem­bers can’t car­ry guns or make arrests and don’t have air­craft.

    DeSan­tis, a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, has sent Flori­da Nation­al Guard mem­bers and state law enforce­ment offi­cers to the Texas bor­der, and has said he is will­ing to work with like-mind­ed Repub­li­can gov­er­nors and sher­iffs to do more state-led efforts at the south­ern bor­der.

    “I think states need to be more aggres­sive,” DeSan­tis said in terms of tak­ing action on fed­er­al immi­gra­tion enforce­ment.

    Dis­abled vet­er­an report­ed abuse

    The program’s first vol­un­teers arrived in June at the Nation­al Guard’s train­ing cen­ter at Camp Bland­ing.

    Atten­dees told the Herald/Times that the train­ing wasn’t led by Sol­er, the program’s direc­tor. Instead, it was led by Flori­da Nation­al Guard Lt. Col. Peter Jen­ni­son, a pilot, lawyer and train­ing offi­cer who com­pos­es music on the side, and by the State Guard’s new chief of staff, Ben Fair­broth­er, a for­mer polit­i­cal oper­a­tive who has since worked for state agen­cies includ­ing the Divi­sion of Emer­gency Man­age­ment.

    The agen­da includ­ed Red Cross shel­ter train­ing, CPR and water safe­ty and res­cue, accord­ing to cal­en­dars obtained by the Herald/Times. It was referred to as a Basic Ori­en­ta­tion and Oper­a­tions Train­ing, or BOOT camp, with mil­i­tary drill instruc­tors and a “bat­tle rhythm” that had vol­un­teers up at 6 a.m. and lights out by 10 p.m.

    Mem­bers were taught to oper­ate in a mil­i­tary hier­ar­chy and had to meet cer­tain phys­i­cal require­ments depend­ing on their age groups. Some were also taught de-esca­la­tion and defen­sive tac­tics, “engage­ment skills train­ing” and how to fire weapons with­out live rounds dur­ing a video-game-like set­ting, records show.

    The train­ing only loose­ly resem­bled a mil­i­tary boot camp, how­ev­er, accord­ing to New­house and two oth­er vol­un­teers who togeth­er spent decades in the mil­i­tary. They described the Nation­al Guard train­ers as inex­pe­ri­enced and the train­ing as slap­dash.

    Unlike a mil­i­tary boot camp, State Guard vol­un­teers were giv­en almost no writ­ten train­ing mate­ri­als, and they weren’t test­ed on what they learned. Despite hav­ing to meet phys­i­cal fit­ness tests, no doc­tor issued them phys­i­cal exams to deter­mine their lev­el of health.

    Some mil­i­tary vet­er­ans found them­selves being barked at by Nation­al Guard mem­bers who were much younger — and had much less expe­ri­ence.

    Two oth­er vol­un­teers, who com­plet­ed the train­ing and spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty because they were not autho­rized to speak to reporters, said the pro­gram did change from when they first signed up. Recruits and train­ers often remarked that they were “fly­ing the plane as we are build­ing it,” the two vol­un­teers said, but that was expect­ed.

    A Clay Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office inci­dent report reveals that ten­sions sim­mered dur­ing train­ing.

    On the morn­ing of June 23, a vol­un­teer who was a retired Marine Corps cap­tain stopped Jen­ni­son in the bar­racks to ask ques­tions about the train­ing that he felt “had not been answered,” the report states.

    “So you’re the leader of the group!” Jen­ni­son respond­ed, accord­ing to the report, point­ing at the for­mer Marine, whose name is redact­ed.

    Jen­ni­son was “appar­ent­ly ref­er­enc­ing one or more mem­bers who were crit­i­ciz­ing the new orga­ni­za­tion,” the sheriff’s deputy wrote.

    After ask­ing ques­tions, the two shook hands, and the retired Marine took the bus to the chow hall. But once there, he said he was pulled out of line by two Nation­al Guard sergeants and ordered to do push-ups.

    “He refused, say­ing, ‘No, I can’t!’ because he is 100% dis­abled and was in pain from a phys­i­cal fit­ness test the day before,” the deputy’s report states.

    “Then you need to leave and go home!” the sergeants yelled at him, he claimed.

    He final­ly agreed, and a white van pulled up. Not feel­ing safe, he refused to get in, and he said he would walk to his car some dis­tance away, accord­ing to the report.

    As a retired offi­cer, he was allowed to use the base. But the sergeants “grabbed him and pushed him into the van.”

    “He protest­ed that they were assault­ing an offi­cer as he tried to exit the van and was told he is not an offi­cer, only a recruit,” the report states.

    When police inquired, a Nation­al Guard lieu­tenant told a deputy that the retired Marine “had been ques­tion­ing the pro­gram since he entered into it and was argu­men­ta­tive with lead­er­ship.”

    Anoth­er vol­un­teer, a retired 30-year Marine, wit­nessed the inci­dent and gave a state­ment to police, say­ing the sergeants act­ed “rather harsh­ly,” and that they told the alleged vic­tim that “they didn’t care he was a retired [U.S. Marine Corps] Cap­tain, that he was only a recruit.”

    The sheriff’s deputy closed the case, deter­min­ing that the retired Marine cap­tain was not assault­ed or false­ly impris­oned.

    The for­mer cap­tain quit the State Guard that day. So did the wit­ness.

    Drill instruc­tors are large­ly for­bid­den under Army train­ing and doc­trine from touch­ing trainees except in rare sit­u­a­tions, such as help­ing them up an obsta­cle, accord­ing to retired Com­mand Sgt. Major Tere­sa King, the first woman to lead the Army’s Drill Sergeant School in South Car­oli­na.

    King read the report and said the Nation­al Guard train­ers were “in the wrong” and should have brought the retired Marine in for coun­sel­ing instead.

    “Out of respect for that per­son who’s train­ing, you nev­er, ever touch a sol­dier. Ever,” she said.

    Pro­gram now lead­er­less

    New­house said he has been talk­ing to oth­er for­mer State Guard vol­un­teers, and they all want to see the pro­gram suc­ceed.

    “We’re not here to tear the pro­gram down,” New­house said. “We’re here to right a wrong.”

    Haas, in a state­ment, said it was “unfor­tu­nate that some of these indi­vid­u­als resort­ed to com­plaints to the media.”

    ...

    Nei­ther Haas nor the governor’s office answered ques­tions about the retired Marine captain’s com­plaint. They also didn’t answer ques­tions about why vol­un­teers received weapons train­ing.

    Flori­da Nation­al Guard spokesper­son Lt. Col. Miran­da L. Gahn said the mem­bers who trained the State Guard vol­un­teers were called up from day jobs “based on their unique skillset and exper­tise.”

    “The inves­ti­ga­tion into the case you men­tioned found no offense was com­mit­ted, and the case was closed,” Gahn said in a state­ment.

    On June 30, the State Guard grad­u­at­ed its first class, 120 recruits, far below the 1,500 mem­bers state law­mak­ers approved this year.

    Jen­ni­son and Fair­broth­er spoke at the grad­u­a­tion. Sol­er did not attend. Nei­ther did DeSan­tis, who was in Philadel­phia speak­ing to the con­ser­v­a­tive par­ents’ rights group Moms for Lib­er­ty that day. His office sent a news release con­grat­u­lat­ing the grad­u­at­ing State Guard “sol­diers.”

    A week lat­er, DeSan­tis’ office announced, via the con­ser­v­a­tive news out­let Flori­da Stan­dard, that Sol­er was step­ping down for “per­son­al rea­sons.” Sol­er couldn’t be reached for com­ment.

    The pro­gram now finds itself lead­er­less for the sec­ond time in less than a year. Most of the orig­i­nal lead­er­ship Sol­er appoint­ed have quit.

    Among the mem­bers of the State Guard’s first grad­u­at­ing class was state Rep. Tom Fabri­cio, R‑Miami Lakes, a lawyer with no appar­ent pri­or mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence. Future Flori­da House Speak­er Sam Gar­ri­son attend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny, tweet­ing a pho­to with Fabri­cio in his cam­ou­flage uni­form.

    Respond­ing to ques­tions only in writ­ing, Fabri­cio said the train­ing was what he expect­ed.

    “It was no sur­prise to me that FSG boot camp was a mil­i­taris­tic boot camp,” Fabri­cio wrote. “This is main­ly because, to put it plain­ly, it’s called ‘boot camp’ and it was on a mil­i­tary train­ing base.”

    ———-

    “Vet­er­ans quit as train­ing, mis­sion for DeSan­tis’ State Guard turn mil­i­taris­tic” By Lawrence Mow­er, Emma Rose Brown, and Ana Cebal­los; The Mia­mi Her­ald; 07/14/2023

    “When DeSan­tis announced in 2021 he want­ed to revive the long-dor­mant State Guard, he vowed it would help Florid­i­ans dur­ing emer­gen­cies. But in the year since its launch, key per­son­nel and a defined mis­sion remain elu­sive. The state is look­ing for the program’s third leader in eight months. Accord­ing to records reviewed by the Herald/Times and inter­views with pro­gram vol­un­teers, a num­ber of recruits quit after the first train­ing class last month because they feared it was becom­ing too mil­i­taris­tic.

    Vet­er­ans are quit­ting the new Flori­da State Guard over con­cerns it’s becom­ing over­ly mil­i­taris­tic, includ­ing weapons and com­bat train­ing. Some­thing few, if any, state guards have sim­i­lar kinds of pow­ers. That seems like a red flag. Espe­cial­ly since these vol­un­teer vet­er­ans were appar­ent­ly giv­en the impres­sion that this was­n’t going to be a mil­i­taris­tic enti­ty when they ini­tial­ly signed up. It’s like a mili­tia-build­ing bait-and-switch:

    ...
    Many were told they would vol­un­teer for a revived State Guard with a non-mil­i­tary mis­sion: help Florid­i­ans in times of need or dis­as­ter.

    Instead, the state’s Nation­al Guard trained the vol­un­teers for com­bat. Khakis and polos were replaced by cam­ou­flaged uni­forms. Vol­un­teers assured they could keep their facial hair were ordered to shave. And they were drilled on how to rap­pel with ropes, nav­i­gate through the woods and respond to inci­dents under mil­i­tary com­mand.

    ...

    DeSan­tis’ office referred ques­tions to Major Gen­er­al John D. Haas, Florida’s adju­tant gen­er­al over­see­ing the Flori­da Nation­al Guard.

    In a state­ment, Haas said the State Guard was a “mil­i­tary orga­ni­za­tion” that will be used not just for emer­gen­cies but for “aid­ing law enforce­ment with riots and ille­gal immi­gra­tion.”

    ...

    Unlike the Nation­al Guard, State Guard mem­bers can’t be deployed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. They answer only to the gov­er­nor.

    Law­mak­ers in 2022 added stip­u­la­tions say­ing that mem­bers could only be called up in an emer­gency and couldn’t oper­ate out­side the state. Those require­ments were dropped a year lat­er.

    ...

    While near­ly half of states have vol­un­teer state guards, usu­al­ly with mil­i­tary struc­tures, few, if any, appear to have equiv­a­lent pow­ers. Texas, for exam­ple, has deployed its State Guard to the U.S.-Mexico bor­der, but mem­bers can’t car­ry guns or make arrests and don’t have air­craft.

    DeSan­tis, a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, has sent Flori­da Nation­al Guard mem­bers and state law enforce­ment offi­cers to the Texas bor­der, and has said he is will­ing to work with like-mind­ed Repub­li­can gov­er­nors and sher­iffs to do more state-led efforts at the south­ern bor­der.

    “I think states need to be more aggres­sive,” DeSan­tis said in terms of tak­ing action on fed­er­al immi­gra­tion enforce­ment.
    ...

    Or as Bri­an New­house, a retired 20-year Navy vet­er­an who was cho­sen to lead one of the State Guard’s three divi­sions, put it, “The pro­gram got hijacked and turned into some­thing that we were try­ing to stay away from: a mili­tia.” Ron DeSan­tis is build­ing a mili­tia:

    ...
    Weeks into that inau­gur­al June train­ing, one vol­un­teer, a dis­abled retired Marine Corps cap­tain, called the local sheriff’s office to report he was bat­tered by Flori­da Nation­al Guard instruc­tors when they forcibly shoved him into a van after he ques­tioned the pro­gram and its lead­er­ship.

    ...

    Three for­mer mem­bers told the Herald/Times the pro­gram veered from its orig­i­nal mis­sion.

    “The pro­gram got hijacked and turned into some­thing that we were try­ing to stay away from: a mili­tia,” said Bri­an New­house, a retired 20-year Navy vet­er­an who was cho­sen to lead one of the State Guard’s three divi­sions.

    The orig­i­nal lead­er­ship team envi­sioned a dis­as­ter response team of vet­er­ans and civil­ians with a vari­ety of prac­ti­cal skills, accord­ing to New­house. Two oth­er for­mer mil­i­tary vet­er­ans, who asked not to be named for fear of poten­tial con­se­quences and lat­er quit, expressed sim­i­lar con­cerns over a change in the State Guard’s mis­sion.
    ...

    Adding to the trou­bling track record of this pro­gram is the fact that the first direc­tor died by sui­cide back in Octo­ber. Luis Sol­er was named as his replace­ment. And accord­ing to New­house, both he and Sol­er viewed this new pro­gram as more like a FEMA-like ini­tia­tive to help dur­ing emer­gen­cies. But in March of this year, state law­mak­ers and DeSan­tis revealed that they want­ed the State Guard to buy boats, planes, heli­copters, and estab­lish a spe­cial armed unit with police pow­ers. That sounds like an extreme­ly well armed mili­tia:

    ...
    In June last year, DeSan­tis named a dec­o­rat­ed Marine and Pur­ple Heart recip­i­ent from Mia­mi as direc­tor of the State Guard. He died by sui­cide in Octo­ber, with post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der a con­tribut­ing fac­tor, accord­ing to a police report. In Jan­u­ary, DeSan­tis named the program’s deputy direc­tor, Luis Sol­er, to lead the force, earn­ing a $165,000 salary.

    Sol­er, a cap­tain in the Unit­ed States Navy Reserve, began recruit­ing. New­house and oth­ers were asked to criss­cross the state, inter­view State Guard recruits and seek peo­ple with a vari­ety of skills. Vol­un­teers are sup­posed to get $200 stipends for the days they’re called to work.

    New­house said he and Sol­er viewed the pro­gram as more of a Fed­er­al Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency response team than a Nation­al Guard unit, shun­ning ranks and cam­ou­flaged uni­forms. He said he saw the State Guard as a resume-builder for col­lege stu­dents and a way for vet­er­ans and oth­ers to con­tin­ue to serve their com­mu­ni­ties.

    By March, how­ev­er, the state’s vision began to change.

    That month, state law­mak­ers and the gov­er­nor revealed that they want­ed to assign the State Guard $89 mil­lion to buy boats, planes and heli­copters. They want­ed a spe­cial­ized unit with­in the guard to have police pow­ers and the abil­i­ty to car­ry weapons.

    And they want­ed to boost the State Guard to 1,500 mem­bers. Instead of being acti­vat­ed only dur­ing emer­gen­cies with­in Flori­da, they could be sent to any state to “pro­tect and defend the peo­ple of Flori­da from threats to pub­lic safe­ty.”
    ...

    And while Luis Sol­er was tapped to lead the pro­gram, it does­n’t sound like he was tech­ni­cal­ly lead­ing its train­ing pro­gram. That respon­si­bil­i­ty fell on Flori­da Nation­al Guard Lt. Col. Peter Jen­ni­son and for­mer polit­i­cal oper­a­tive Ben Fair­broth­er. But while cre­ation of a mili­tia-like enti­ty appears to be their goal, it does­n’t sounds like Jen­ni­son and Fair­broth­er designed a ‘boot camp’ expe­ri­ence that actu­al­ly pro­vides a mean­ing­ful train­ing expe­ri­ence. So this isn’t just a new armed mili­tia but a par­tic­u­lar­ly unpro­fes­sion­al one at that. Which seems like anoth­er red flag:

    ...
    Atten­dees told the Herald/Times that the train­ing wasn’t led by Sol­er, the program’s direc­tor. Instead, it was led by Flori­da Nation­al Guard Lt. Col. Peter Jen­ni­son, a pilot, lawyer and train­ing offi­cer who com­pos­es music on the side, and by the State Guard’s new chief of staff, Ben Fair­broth­er, a for­mer polit­i­cal oper­a­tive who has since worked for state agen­cies includ­ing the Divi­sion of Emer­gency Man­age­ment.

    ...

    The train­ing only loose­ly resem­bled a mil­i­tary boot camp, how­ev­er, accord­ing to New­house and two oth­er vol­un­teers who togeth­er spent decades in the mil­i­tary. They described the Nation­al Guard train­ers as inex­pe­ri­enced and the train­ing as slap­dash.

    Unlike a mil­i­tary boot camp, State Guard vol­un­teers were giv­en almost no writ­ten train­ing mate­ri­als, and they weren’t test­ed on what they learned. Despite hav­ing to meet phys­i­cal fit­ness tests, no doc­tor issued them phys­i­cal exams to deter­mine their lev­el of health.
    ...

    And it’s that lack of pro­fes­sion­al­ism in the train­ing of these recruits that brings us to an inci­dent that hints at the kind of cul­ture that’s being cul­ti­vate inside this new enti­ty: a retired marine cap­tain who dared ask ques­tions was­n’t just kicked out of the pro­gram but lit­er­al­ly grabbed and pushed into a white van by the pro­grams drill sergeants, result­ing in a police inves­ti­ga­tion:

    ...
    On the morn­ing of June 23, a vol­un­teer who was a retired Marine Corps cap­tain stopped Jen­ni­son in the bar­racks to ask ques­tions about the train­ing that he felt “had not been answered,” the report states.

    “So you’re the leader of the group!” Jen­ni­son respond­ed, accord­ing to the report, point­ing at the for­mer Marine, whose name is redact­ed.

    Jen­ni­son was “appar­ent­ly ref­er­enc­ing one or more mem­bers who were crit­i­ciz­ing the new orga­ni­za­tion,” the sheriff’s deputy wrote.

    After ask­ing ques­tions, the two shook hands, and the retired Marine took the bus to the chow hall. But once there, he said he was pulled out of line by two Nation­al Guard sergeants and ordered to do push-ups.

    “He refused, say­ing, ‘No, I can’t!’ because he is 100% dis­abled and was in pain from a phys­i­cal fit­ness test the day before,” the deputy’s report states.

    “Then you need to leave and go home!” the sergeants yelled at him, he claimed.

    He final­ly agreed, and a white van pulled up. Not feel­ing safe, he refused to get in, and he said he would walk to his car some dis­tance away, accord­ing to the report.

    As a retired offi­cer, he was allowed to use the base. But the sergeants “grabbed him and pushed him into the van.”

    “He protest­ed that they were assault­ing an offi­cer as he tried to exit the van and was told he is not an offi­cer, only a recruit,” the report states.

    ...

    Anoth­er vol­un­teer, a retired 30-year Marine, wit­nessed the inci­dent and gave a state­ment to police, say­ing the sergeants act­ed “rather harsh­ly,” and that they told the alleged vic­tim that “they didn’t care he was a retired [U.S. Marine Corps] Cap­tain, that he was only a recruit.”

    The sheriff’s deputy closed the case, deter­min­ing that the retired Marine cap­tain was not assault­ed or false­ly impris­oned.

    The for­mer cap­tain quit the State Guard that day. So did the wit­ness.

    ...

    Nei­ther Haas nor the governor’s office answered ques­tions about the retired Marine captain’s com­plaint. They also didn’t answer ques­tions about why vol­un­teers received weapons train­ing.
    ...

    Flash for­ward to the June 30, and the pro­gram is grad­u­at­ing its first class of 120 recruits, includ­ing state Rep. Tom Fabri­cio. It rais­es the dis­turb­ing prospects of serv­ing in DeSan­tis’s mili­tia becom­ing a kind of polit­i­cal boon. Inter­est­ing­ly, Luis Sol­er did­n’t attend the grad­u­at­ing cer­e­mo­ny and stepped down for “per­son­al rea­sons” a week lat­er:

    ...
    On June 30, the State Guard grad­u­at­ed its first class, 120 recruits, far below the 1,500 mem­bers state law­mak­ers approved this year.

    Jen­ni­son and Fair­broth­er spoke at the grad­u­a­tion. Sol­er did not attend. Nei­ther did DeSan­tis, who was in Philadel­phia speak­ing to the con­ser­v­a­tive par­ents’ rights group Moms for Lib­er­ty that day. His office sent a news release con­grat­u­lat­ing the grad­u­at­ing State Guard “sol­diers.”

    A week lat­er, DeSan­tis’ office announced, via the con­ser­v­a­tive news out­let Flori­da Stan­dard, that Sol­er was step­ping down for “per­son­al rea­sons.” Sol­er couldn’t be reached for com­ment.

    The pro­gram now finds itself lead­er­less for the sec­ond time in less than a year. Most of the orig­i­nal lead­er­ship Sol­er appoint­ed have quit.

    Among the mem­bers of the State Guard’s first grad­u­at­ing class was state Rep. Tom Fabri­cio, R‑Miami Lakes, a lawyer with no appar­ent pri­or mil­i­tary expe­ri­ence. Future Flori­da House Speak­er Sam Gar­ri­son attend­ed the cer­e­mo­ny, tweet­ing a pho­to with Fabri­cio in his cam­ou­flage uni­form.
    ...

    It’s going to be grim­ly inter­est­ing to see who DeSan­tis finds to replace Sol­er. Who­ev­er it is will obvi­ous­ly be on board with the Flori­da GOP’s mili­tia-like vision for new enti­ty.

    But it’s going to be more grim­ly inter­est­ing to see who the polit­i­cal­ly con­ve­nient tar­gets of the unit will ulti­mate­ly be. Undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants? Black felons who vot­ed? Trans­gen­dered chil­dren and drag queens? The sky is the lim­it. Less so with all those planes and heli­copters.

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | July 15, 2023, 4:50 pm

Post a comment