Right Wing Extremist Violence Thread

TDunk · June 18

21 hours ago, Pancho said:

A Guy Fawkes mask would fit perfectly there. Just shave her head. Then it's less V for vendetta, and more V for vagina here.

Homesickhorn · June 18

This clip has probably been posted before, but it's spot on. Gold Jerry!

I really don’t know how many people I’ve shown that clip. I saw his special when it came out, and when he did that bit, I thought I was gonna piss myself.

Pokoloco · June 18

On 6/12/2024 at 3:30 PM, Pancho said:

So.. almost violence?

Thread title is misleading.

Foosters · June 18

10 minutes ago, Pokoloco said:

So.. almost violence?

Thread title is misleading.

this is a bit, right?

Longhorn_Fan68 · June 18

21 minutes ago, Foosters said:

this is a bit, right?

no, he really is Bee Man

Pokoloco · June 18

28 minutes ago, Foosters said:

this is a bit, right?

I was finna say the same thing.

C-Man · July 1

Fun article from Texas Monthly: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-stand-your-ground-true-texas-project/

True Texas Project hosting seminars for Texans to let them know when it's legally OK to shoot (and kill) people in this state.

Quote

The middle-aged man, seated near the front of the room for a training on when he could use deadly force, expressed displeasure upon being told that doing so often was not legally advisable. He had driven to a suburban Fort Worth church to attend a seminar hosted by the True Texas Project, a prominent right-wing group. He asked what he could do if he returned to his home to find a squatter there—a “common problem” around the state, as he put it. Former police officer John Arenz, who volunteered to help lead the seminar, advised him there could very well be legal consequences for shooting someone who did not pose an immediate threat. “It doesn’t matter how indigent the person is, and it doesn’t matter how justified you are,” Arenz said, “you’re going to be sued.” He also mentioned the threat of criminal prosecution.

The man lamented the “system” that would allow such litigation. “With all due respect, I don’t care about the law,” he said. “If someone’s broken into my house, they’re a threat to my life, and they need to either leave immediately or get the consequence.”

Others in the audience pressed Arenz with follow-up nightmare scenarios, seeking clarity on when deadly force was acceptable: a man is running at me with a knife across my lawn, an elderly woman posed; a man is running at me in my house, but it’s dark, so I can’t tell if he has a weapon, hypothesized another elderly woman. (The crowd was largely gray-haired.) Arenz, who is not a lawyer, painted a grim (and questionable) picture of the civil suit that would inevitably follow a self-defense shooting. The court will immediately seize your assets and freeze your bank account, he said. Another older woman piped up. “Even if you shoot him in the kneecap?” Arenz replied matter-of-factly, “Even if you shoot him in the kneecap.”

The crowd’s concerns were understandable. The question of when one may shoot another person and escape legal consequences is newly top of mind. Daniel Perry, the openly racist Uber driver convicted of murder after killing another legally armed Texan at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, was pardoned by Governor Greg Abbott in May—but his conviction in 2023 remains a source of outrage for many on the far right. The few dozen folks who gathered in a meeting room of the House of Grace church, in North Richland Hills, had come seeking clarity about the law that had been central to the Perry case. They were supposed to get guidance from an instructor from the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, but he had failed to show up. So two audience members—Arenz and Dallas-area firearms instructor Jerah Hutchins—stepped in. Arenz, dressed head to toe in gray, apart from a “thin blue line” patch on his shirt, wore a handgun on his hip. Hutchins proudly informed the audience that she was concealing a gun somewhere under her breezy, summer-ready, off-the-shoulder dress.

Julie McCarty, founder of the True Texas Project, has publicly sympathized with the white supremacist gunman who, motivated by the racist conspiracy theory that Democrats are importing undocumented migrants to replace white Americans, killed 23 El Pasoans, most of them Hispanic, at a Walmart in 2019. (“I don’t condone the actions, but I certainly understand where they came from,” she said.) Just days after the stand-your-ground event, the True Texas Project became embroiled in a related controversy when the Texas Tribune reported on its upcoming fifteenth-anniversary conference, which will feature speakers promoting Christian nationalism, the “great replacement” theory, and “The War on White America.” McCarty blamed the ensuing outrage, and the subsequent cancellations of a few guest panelists, on “woke attacks.” She then cheerily announced that Kyle Rittenhouse, the baby-faced gun enthusiast who killed two men at a Wisconsin Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, would fill an opening and speak at the conference.

Rittenhouse, notably, was acquitted after claiming his right to self-defense under Wisconsin’s laws—but not before being subjected to a criminal trial many on the right saw as a form of persecution. During the training at the House of Grace church, instructors carefully reviewed exactly what constitutes self-defense in Texas. Every state’s penal code contains protections for those who kill or injure others in self-defense, but only in the past two decades did states begin systematizing the right to go on the attack immediately upon perceiving a threat, rather than requiring that those who are threatened first retreat, if that is an option. In 2007 Texas adopted a stand-your-ground law, which, Hutchins explained, outlines that deadly force may be used if you believe you or another person to be in immediate danger, you are allowed to be wherever the attack is taking place, and you are not committing a crime at the time of the attack. Thirty-four other states have embraced similar rules.

The law was at the heart of the defense of Perry, a white former U.S. Army sergeant. He and his lawyers argued that he shot Black Lives Matter protester Garrett Foster, a white U.S. Air Force veteran, in self-defense, arguing that Foster had raised the rifle he was legally carrying. Witnesses contradicted that claim, as did Perry’s initial statement to the police the night of the murder. A jury of Perry’s peers was not swayed by his defense. But Abbott, always sensitive to issues that animate the right wing of his party, issued a full pardon to Perry, at the recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, all of whose members he appointed. “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense,” Abbott said, “that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.”

Most in the True Texas Project crowd seemed certain that their interpretations of Texas law were correct, but they expressed worry about those progressive district attorneys and juries—perhaps even more than about the threat of civil litigation. The speakers pointed to the Perry case as evidence that liberals are trying to trample on Texans’ liberties. “I don’t care how justified the use of force is going to be, down in Austin—the Travis County district attorney, he’s going to indict you no matter what, I guarantee that,” said Arenz, apparently unaware that indictments are issued not by DAs but by grand juries populated by registered voters. “A lot of Texas counties—Travis, Harris, Dallas—have very liberal district attorneys. They don’t believe people should have guns. They don’t believe people should use guns to defend themselves.”

After the event, I chatted with Arenz as we walked to the parking lot. He spoke about the need for women of my “stature” to carry a handgun—as if by simply not having a firearm, I was a potential victim anywhere I went. If a large man attacked me, he noted, it wouldn’t be like in Charlie’s Angels, a campy fantasy in which a small woman could beat a hulking opponent in hand-to-hand combat. He recommended I buy a Sig Sauer P226, .40 caliber. He walked me to my car and offered to open my door.

The next night, in nearby Rockwall, the True Texas Project hosted a second gun seminar. This time, Stacey Elfarr, an instructor with the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, explained to a crowd of some thirty gun enthusiasts that her group would help audience members if they faced legal troubles or needed bail money after shooting someone. USCCA offers “self-defense liability insurance” for this purpose. (One man at the event in North Richland Hills said he’d purchased such insurance to fend off lawsuits.)

Elfarr—tan and muscular, with long, honey-colored hair extensions—told audience members that they might be prosecuted for the use of deadly force even if it did not result in death. She stopped midsentence to note that she was about to broach a topic she was particularly passionate about, then warned the crowd: “You are only as safe as the DA prosecutor that is looking at your case.” She too referenced the Perry conviction. “What about the Uber driver? Are y’all familiar with that case? He was pardoned by Abbott, but he spent almost four years in prison first.” (Perry spent one year in state prison following his conviction.) “He was a veteran—that really made me angry. He didn’t do anything wrong, in my opinion.”

Though warm and receptive when I approached to ask her about Perry, Elfarr had only a cursory familiarity with his trial. “I don’t know a lot about the case,” she admitted. “But I do know he had a gun pointed at his head”—an assertion unsupported by any evidence presented at Perry’s trial. She offered repeated clarifications that Perry had not been a USCCA member and emphasized that the association did not get involved in politics.

The specifics of Perry’s case, for Elfarr and others, were largely beside the point. Perry—a right-wing Army veteran who shot a Black Lives Matter protester in liberal Austin—represented the most harrowing possible version of the misfortune most feared by the folks who’d gathered. He was not only arrested and prosecuted, but indicted and then convicted. If it happened to him, it could happen to you, speakers warned. Abbott’s pardon, though welcome, didn’t eliminate the risk.

Dennis London, a former Republican primary candidate for a Rockwall-based Texas House district who attended Elfarr’s lecture, said he wasn’t surprised Perry was pardoned but that gun rights were “constantly under attack.” He insisted he wasn’t a far-right extremist, but rather a constitutional conservative who believed in the exchange of ideas, in adults engaging in civilized dialogue—politely. Then he parroted a common saying in Texas: “An armed society is a polite society.”

Biff Tannen · July 3

On 7/1/2024 at 2:34 PM, C-Man said:

He asked what he could do if he returned to his home to find a squatter there—a “common problem” around the state, as he put it.

Third sentence in and it's already devolved into right wing fever dreams.

TheStoicPaisano · July 3

Somehow this involves watching Roadhouse and beating off.

atomheartbevo · July 3

47 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Third sentence in and it's already devolved into right wing fever dreams.

Not so fast my friend, I’ve been killed by illegal immigrants twice this week and a homeless man tried to pick up my house and move it to a public creek. Thankfully he didn’t have any massive hydraulic jacks or a crane or a couple of 18 wheelers, but we have to be careful these days!

YGIFS · July 3

I don't go to bars anymore and we kinda know each other, but I gotta better chance of being drowned by Nicole on Rainey Street than I do being harmed by an undocumented immigrant. There's a dozen of 'em on my street every single day doing the renovation on my neighbor's house and other chorin'. Never got a weird vibe from any of 'em. They driver more politely than my neighbors two doors over who think they're in fucking Formula 1

Meanwhile, on Sunday...ran into an old friend at the SEC kickoff deal. He's a right-wing guy, but usually very pragmatic...not MAGA/Qanon type. Shows me a phone pic of his "new arsenal" in case they replace Biden and Trump loses a rigged election. I tried to slink away, but he asks, "Hey where's your family at, I wanna say hello." And I just smiled and said, "Oh, they're probably getting cookies or something. I'm gonna go check on 'em and probably never talk to you again."

pacman · July 3

Sending death threats and shooting horses, Make America Deranged Again (taken from the gofundme for Stormy)

Edited July 3 by pacman

Biff Tannen · July 3

11 minutes ago, pacman said:

Sending death threats and shooting horses, Make America Deranged Again

Who?

SimonBolivar · July 3

11 hours ago, TheStoicPaisano said:

Somehow this involves watching Roadhouse and beating off.

More like waiting in line for 2 hours for the fine dining at Texas Roadhouse.

pacman · July 3

6 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Who?

That is from the gofundme for Stormy Daniels

Biff Tannen · July 3

6 minutes ago, pacman said:

That is from the gofundme for Stormy Daniels

Would like something more official than comments from a gofundme, but certainly sounds like something they would do.

YGIFS · July 3

They shoot horses, don’t they?

fucking simulation part II, amirite?

Nivek · July 3

Fun article from Texas Monthly: https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-stand-your-ground-true-texas-project/
True Texas Project hosting seminars for Texans to let them know when it's legally OK to shoot (and kill) people in this state.
The middle-aged man, seated near the front of the room for a training on when he could use deadly force, expressed displeasure upon being told that doing so often was not legally advisable. He had driven to a suburban Fort Worth church to attend a seminar hosted by the True Texas Project, a prominent right-wing group. He asked what he could do if he returned to his home to find a squatter there—a “common problem” around the state, as he put it. Former police officer John Arenz, who volunteered to help lead the seminar, advised him there could very well be legal consequences for shooting someone who did not pose an immediate threat. “It doesn’t matter how indigent the person is, and it doesn’t matter how justified you are,” Arenz said, “you’re going to be sued.” He also mentioned the threat of criminal prosecution.
The man lamented the “system” that would allow such litigation. “With all due respect, I don’t care about the law,” he said. “If someone’s broken into my house, they’re a threat to my life, and they need to either leave immediately or get the consequence.”
Others in the audience pressed Arenz with follow-up nightmare scenarios, seeking clarity on when deadly force was acceptable: a man is running at me with a knife across my lawn, an elderly woman posed; a man is running at me in my house, but it’s dark, so I can’t tell if he has a weapon, hypothesized another elderly woman. (The crowd was largely gray-haired.) Arenz, who is not a lawyer, painted a grim (and questionable) picture of the civil suit that would inevitably follow a self-defense shooting. The court will immediately seize your assets and freeze your bank account, he said. Another older woman piped up. “Even if you shoot him in the kneecap?” Arenz replied matter-of-factly, “Even if you shoot him in the kneecap.”
The crowd’s concerns were understandable. The question of when one may shoot another person and escape legal consequences is newly top of mind. Daniel Perry, the openly racist Uber driver convicted of murder after killing another legally armed Texan at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, was pardoned by Governor Greg Abbott in May—but his conviction in 2023 remains a source of outrage for many on the far right. The few dozen folks who gathered in a meeting room of the House of Grace church, in North Richland Hills, had come seeking clarity about the law that had been central to the Perry case. They were supposed to get guidance from an instructor from the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, but he had failed to show up. So two audience members—Arenz and Dallas-area firearms instructor Jerah Hutchins—stepped in. Arenz, dressed head to toe in gray, apart from a “thin blue line” patch on his shirt, wore a handgun on his hip. Hutchins proudly informed the audience that she was concealing a gun somewhere under her breezy, summer-ready, off-the-shoulder dress.
Julie McCarty, founder of the True Texas Project, has publicly sympathized with the white supremacist gunman who, motivated by the racist conspiracy theory that Democrats are importing undocumented migrants to replace white Americans, killed 23 El Pasoans, most of them Hispanic, at a Walmart in 2019. (“I don’t condone the actions, but I certainly understand where they came from,” she said.) Just days after the stand-your-ground event, the True Texas Project became embroiled in a related controversy when the Texas Tribune reported on its upcoming fifteenth-anniversary conference, which will feature speakers promoting Christian nationalism, the “great replacement” theory, and “The War on White America.” McCarty blamed the ensuing outrage, and the subsequent cancellations of a few guest panelists, on “woke attacks.” She then cheerily announced that Kyle Rittenhouse, the baby-faced gun enthusiast who killed two men at a Wisconsin Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, would fill an opening and speak at the conference.
Rittenhouse, notably, was acquitted after claiming his right to self-defense under Wisconsin’s laws—but not before being subjected to a criminal trial many on the right saw as a form of persecution. During the training at the House of Grace church, instructors carefully reviewed exactly what constitutes self-defense in Texas. Every state’s penal code contains protections for those who kill or injure others in self-defense, but only in the past two decades did states begin systematizing the right to go on the attack immediately upon perceiving a threat, rather than requiring that those who are threatened first retreat, if that is an option. In 2007 Texas adopted a stand-your-ground law, which, Hutchins explained, outlines that deadly force may be used if you believe you or another person to be in immediate danger, you are allowed to be wherever the attack is taking place, and you are not committing a crime at the time of the attack. Thirty-four other states have embraced similar rules.
The law was at the heart of the defense of Perry, a white former U.S. Army sergeant. He and his lawyers argued that he shot Black Lives Matter protester Garrett Foster, a white U.S. Air Force veteran, in self-defense, arguing that Foster had raised the rifle he was legally carrying. Witnesses contradicted that claim, as did Perry’s initial statement to the police the night of the murder. A jury of Perry’s peers was not swayed by his defense. But Abbott, always sensitive to issues that animate the right wing of his party, issued a full pardon to Perry, at the recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, all of whose members he appointed. “Texas has one of the strongest ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws of self-defense,” Abbott said, “that cannot be nullified by a jury or a progressive District Attorney.”
Most in the True Texas Project crowd seemed certain that their interpretations of Texas law were correct, but they expressed worry about those progressive district attorneys and juries—perhaps even more than about the threat of civil litigation. The speakers pointed to the Perry case as evidence that liberals are trying to trample on Texans’ liberties. “I don’t care how justified the use of force is going to be, down in Austin—the Travis County district attorney, he’s going to indict you no matter what, I guarantee that,” said Arenz, apparently unaware that indictments are issued not by DAs but by grand juries populated by registered voters. “A lot of Texas counties—Travis, Harris, Dallas—have very liberal district attorneys. They don’t believe people should have guns. They don’t believe people should use guns to defend themselves.”
After the event, I chatted with Arenz as we walked to the parking lot. He spoke about the need for women of my “stature” to carry a handgun—as if by simply not having a firearm, I was a potential victim anywhere I went. If a large man attacked me, he noted, it wouldn’t be like in Charlie’s Angels, a campy fantasy in which a small woman could beat a hulking opponent in hand-to-hand combat. He recommended I buy a Sig Sauer P226, .40 caliber. He walked me to my car and offered to open my door.
The next night, in nearby Rockwall, the True Texas Project hosted a second gun seminar. This time, Stacey Elfarr, an instructor with the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, explained to a crowd of some thirty gun enthusiasts that her group would help audience members if they faced legal troubles or needed bail money after shooting someone. USCCA offers “self-defense liability insurance” for this purpose. (One man at the event in North Richland Hills said he’d purchased such insurance to fend off lawsuits.)
Elfarr—tan and muscular, with long, honey-colored hair extensions—told audience members that they might be prosecuted for the use of deadly force even if it did not result in death. She stopped midsentence to note that she was about to broach a topic she was particularly passionate about, then warned the crowd: “You are only as safe as the DA prosecutor that is looking at your case.” She too referenced the Perry conviction. “What about the Uber driver? Are y’all familiar with that case? He was pardoned by Abbott, but he spent almost four years in prison first.” (Perry spent one year in state prison following his conviction.) “He was a veteran—that really made me angry. He didn’t do anything wrong, in my opinion.”
Though warm and receptive when I approached to ask her about Perry, Elfarr had only a cursory familiarity with his trial. “I don’t know a lot about the case,” she admitted. “But I do know he had a gun pointed at his head”—an assertion unsupported by any evidence presented at Perry’s trial. She offered repeated clarifications that Perry had not been a USCCA member and emphasized that the association did not get involved in politics.
The specifics of Perry’s case, for Elfarr and others, were largely beside the point. Perry—a right-wing Army veteran who shot a Black Lives Matter protester in liberal Austin—represented the most harrowing possible version of the misfortune most feared by the folks who’d gathered. He was not only arrested and prosecuted, but indicted and then convicted. If it happened to him, it could happen to you, speakers warned. Abbott’s pardon, though welcome, didn’t eliminate the risk.
Dennis London, a former Republican primary candidate for a Rockwall-based Texas House district who attended Elfarr’s lecture, said he wasn’t surprised Perry was pardoned but that gun rights were “constantly under attack.” He insisted he wasn’t a far-right extremist, but rather a constitutional conservative who believed in the exchange of ideas, in adults engaging in civilized dialogue—politely. Then he parroted a common saying in Texas: “An armed society is a polite society.”

So glad these churches are not being used for political means and get to remain tax free.

Pescado_Rojo · July 3

13 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Not so fast my friend, I’ve been killed by illegal immigrants twice this week and a homeless man tried to pick up my house and move it to a public creek. Thankfully he didn’t have any massive hydraulic jacks or a crane or a couple of 18 wheelers, but we have to be careful these days!

Thank goodness we made abortion illegal or he might have forced you into having one!

YGIFS · July 3

I think of that Family Guy episode where Peter tells Lois that he's pregnant and doesn't know what to do. and Lois says, "Peter, you can't be pregnant!" And Peter replies, "Well, I'm Catholic Lois. I don't have any other options!" That's about the intelligence level of Texas men. Don't want one and think their immoral, then just don't have one. Have the baby and love it. What that other couple over there decides with their doctor is their business. How is this so fucking difficult?

Do I want my 9yo making life-altering changes to her body? No. So I guess we just won't do it then. Does the 18yo down the street considering gender affirming care affect us at all? Not in the least. I mean, I know Jesus spoke at length about gender medical care and D&C procedures. He spoke to the Disciples about it all for many years between fishing trips, cabinet DIY projects, and magic tricks. But we could just let people live in peace as he intended.

NeverMarryAStripper · July 4

I feel like signing up for one of those seminars and asking him under what circumstances is it acceptable to shoot MAGA cunts

bolverk · July 17

Maniac Murder Cult? Yeah, that name checks out.

Alleged neo-Nazi ‘murder cult’ leader accused of plot to poison children
The Georgian national was charged with scheming to have an associate dress up as Santa to hand out poisoned candy to Jewish and minority children in Brooklyn.

Federal authorities have charged the suspected leader of an Eastern European-based neo-Nazi group with harboring plans to have an associate dress up as Santa Claus and hand out candy laced with poison to Jewish and minority children in New York City.

Michail Chkhikvishvili, a Georgian national in his early 20s who goes by the alias “Commander Butcher,” was indicted on four charges, the Justice Department said in a statement on Tuesday, including the transmission of threatening communications and conspiracy to solicit hate crimes and acts of mass violence.

He is alleged to be the leader of a group known as the Maniac Murder Cult, a violent international extremist outfit that prosecutors say “adheres to a neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and promotes violence and violent acts against racial minorities, the Jewish community and other groups it deems ‘undesirables.’”

The group is believed to be based in Russia and Ukraine, with members around the world, including the United States.

It was not immediately clear whether Chkhikvishvili had an attorney.

According to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, he was arrested in Moldova on July 6 under an Interpol order after trying to recruit an undercover law enforcement officer to join the group and commit acts of violence, including arson and bombings.

Prosecutors say Chkhikvishvili began plotting in late 2023 to carry out an attack that year in New York City on New Year’s Eve. According to the Justice Department statement, “The scheme involved an individual dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out candy laced with poison to racial minorities and children at Jewish schools.”

Chkhikvishvili sought to persuade the undercover law enforcement employee posing as a potential recruit to carry out the plan, providing step-by-step instructions and details on how to mix lethal poisons.

In electronic correspondence with the employee, who was not identified in court documents, Chkhikvishvili later suggested carrying out the plan at another time, on “some Jewish holiday” at “Jewish schools full of kids.”

When the undercover employee warned that the attack would “bring alot of heat” on the group, Chkhikvishvili responded, “That’s what we exactly want.” The Georgian national also discussed publishing a video of the planned attack, hoping that it could make the cult “bigger than Al Qaeda.”

According to court documents, Chkhikvishvili since 2021 has distributed a manifesto titled the “Hater’s Handbook,” in which he encourages others to commit acts meant to sow terror — specifically within the United States — and admits to committing such acts himself.

“Beginning at least as early as July 2022, Chkhikvishvili repeatedly encouraged others, primarily via encrypted mobile messaging platforms, to commit violent hate crimes and other acts of violence” on behalf of the Maniac Murder Cult, the Justice Department statement read.

Prosecutors said Chkhikvishvili traveled to New York City at least twice in 2022, first around April and again in June, providing his grandmother’s address in Brooklyn to border authorities.

If convicted, Chkhikvishvili faces a maximum 20-year prison sentence for solicitation of violent felonies, five years for conspiring to solicit violent felonies, 20 years for distributing information pertaining to the making and use of explosive devices, and five years in prison for transmitting threatening communications.

mchookem · July 17

3 hours ago, bolverk said:

'... harboring plans to have an associate dress up as Santa Claus and hand out candy laced with poison to Jewish and minority children in New York City.'

tx 3 putt · July 20

Hugo Stiglitz · August 4

Appears to be some nazi shit going down in England… Wankernacht

Edited August 4 by Hugo Stiglitz

TexArcher · August 4

What the actual fuck?!

mdmost · August 4

Always appropriate for the shitty racists in England.

BamaATL · August 4

7 minutes ago, mdmost said:

Always appropriate for the shitty racists in England.

The day Rupert Murdoch departs this Earth will be one worthy of a global celebration.

Hugo Stiglitz · August 5

Brisketexan · August 5

But remember.....it's Democrats who have "created hostile discourse" in this country by doing crazy shit like.....calling out nutbattery like this guy. See, telling right wingers that they are psychopathic murderous nutjobs who want to violently overthrow the government....is what MAKES them sychopathic murderous nutjobs who want to violently overthrow the government!

WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME HIT YOU????

wildcat09 · August 5

Neo-nazi gang affiliates attacked a mixed-race family in Martindale, only one was arrested:

Quote

On June 22, a hot summer day, a group of 10 family members and friends were wrapping up a tubing trip on the San Marcos River at Don’s Fish Camp in the Central Texas town of Martindale when they were violently attacked by members or supporters of a neo-Nazi prison gang, according to eyewitness videos, interviews with victims, and publicly available records, photos, and other information.

The group of family and friends included three members who were not white, according to interviews, and they were there to celebrate a birthday—something they had done many times in the past. The physical attack apparently began, video shows, after a brief verbal altercation. Several of the victims, who requested not to be named due to serious safety concerns, said that at least one member of the neo-Nazi group referred to a mixed-race teenager, the son of the woman whose birthday was being celebrated, as “Tarzan” after he went to use a rope swing, which the victim group understood as a racial epithet.

The birthday group had just finished tubing on the river—a favorite Texas pastime in the summer heat—before the physical attack, which included punching and shoving, left at least two members of their group injured. In video recorded of the incident, someone can be heard yelling “white power.”

“I am afraid to go back,” one victim told the Texas Observer. “I definitely won’t go back, and if anyone I know is planning to, I will probably tell them what happened to me to discourage them from going.”

Members of the birthday group reported the incident to police, and local law enforcement from the Caldwell County Constable’s office arrived on the scene after the incident and arrested one person, Todd Jeremy Christian, a 45-year-old with an Austin address, on Class A misdemeanor charges for assault causing bodily injury, according to a police report the Observer obtained via a public information request. The report categorized the assault as a gang-related crime motivated by “Anti-Multi-Racial Group” bias.

While only Christian was arrested, video evidence shows at least eight people were involved in the apparent assault on the group of family and friends. Of those eight, the Observer and Bellingcat have identified five—including Christian—as members or supporters of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT), a white supremacist prison gang founded in the 1980s that is unrelated to the original Aryan Brotherhood.

Caldwell County District Attorney Fred Weber told the Observer that the “incident and circumstances leading up to the assault remain under investigation” and that “if warranted by the evidence additional charges may be filed.” Weber said he could not comment on whether additional suspects beyond Christian had been identified.

Don’s Fish Camp released a statement on its Facebook page describing the incident as “horrendous” and said the business is working closely with authorities. “These people are banned from Don’s for LIFE,” the statement reads. “We had no idea that these kinds of people were going to be a problem we just helped them like we do all of our customers. Our hearts go out to anyone who was negatively impacted by this awful incident. We stand behind those seeking justice. As far as we are concerned [the perpetrators] need to be removed from Texas … unfortunately bad people still exist in 2024.”

To identify those who participated in the attack but were not arrested, the Observer and Bellingcat reviewed eyewitness videos to identify possible suspects, noting distinct features such as tattoos. These features were then compared to images and videos on social media, as well as public criminal records, to confirm their identities. Based on that analysis, the outlets identified five of the participants as members or supporters of the ABT, whose neo-Nazi members typically join the gang in prison.

In a now-deleted Reddit post, one victim described how a “neo-nazi gang” with “their shirts off with swastika and other nazi symbols” held their friends underwater. One victim suffered a concussion, facial swelling, and a bruised retina resulting in partial vision loss, while another received a bruised eye, according to interviews with the victims. At least two sought medical attention after the attack.

The Observer acquired footage of the attack recorded by an eyewitness and verified the Reddit post’s claims with the victims. Video appears to show individuals who were part of the group that included the ABT members or supporters instigating the fight, which lasted approximately two minutes and took place in a part of the San Marcos River that is only a few feet deep. In the footage, apparent perpetrators seem to submerge two of the victims underwater.

The Observer and Bellingcat’s investigation identified the following individuals as having participated in the attack and as being either members or supporters of ABT: Cameron Christopher Gerrow, 30; Todd Jeremy Christian, 45; Thomas Dylan Mashburn, 33; James Edward “Buzz” Turner, 50; and Aubrea Faye Herpeche, 28. The outlets also identified a sixth person who participated in the attack: Angela Danielle Burkham, 42, who associates with ABT members or supporters but has not, within the scope of the outlets’ review, expressed explicit support. Another man and woman pictured in videos and described by witnesses remain unidentified.

Christian, Gerrow, and Mashburn all apparently belong to a motorcycle club affiliated with the ABT, called the “Aryan Brotherhood of Texas Motorcycle Club” (ABTMC), based on public records, tattoos, social media, and other information reviewed for this story.

The trio frequently appear together in photos and videos posted to social media wearing motorcycle vests with patches that are associated with the ABTMC, including ones with explicitly neo-Nazi designs like SS lightning bolts and the slogan “14/88”, Norse symbology like Thor’s hammer, and ABT symbology like the shield symbol and the initials “ABT”. Many members, including Gerrow, also have a patch that reads “In Memory KT 1979-2022”, a reference to Brian Keith “KT” Turner, an ABT member who was killed after allegedly threatening and then following a man who displayed LBGTQ+ bumper stickers.

Extremism experts describe the ABT as a crime syndicate and one of the nation’s largest prison gangs. Dozens of ABT members have faced indictment for various criminal acts in recent years, including hate crimes.

“In terms of membership, there aren’t concrete numbers,” said Chris Magyarics, a research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “But we’re talking in the 2,000 range. No other white supremacist group comes even close to having membership numbers that high.”

The physical attack in Martindale appears to have started, according to video footage, when one of the victims put her hands up to deescalate the situation. Gerrow then ran into the victims, knocked several into the water, and proceeded to punch the victims in the water.

According to Travis County court records, Gerrow served prison time for 2014 convictions on methamphetamine possession and burglary charges. (Because ABT members generally join the gang while in prison, information about past nonviolent felony convictions is included in this story as an indication of their access to joining the gang.)

“I don’t know nothing about it,” Gerrow told the Observer when reached for comment. “Like there was a scuffle, but it was nothing crazy.”

Footage of the incident clearly shows Gerrow throwing punches.

Gerrow has a tattoo on his stomach of a sword on top of a swastika and shield with SS lightning bolts on top that strongly resembles the symbol used by the ABT. He did not respond when asked whether he is a member of that organization.

Mike German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law and a former FBI agent who once worked undercover to infiltrate white supremacist groups in the 1990s, verified that the tattoos Gerrow has are associated with gang membership.

“Members of the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas often get tattoos that indicate membership or affiliation with the group,” German said in an interview. “It would be very dangerous for somebody to get that tattoo who wasn’t a member. There are even reports of members of the gangs actually cutting off the tattoos of people who have somehow failed to live up to their responsibilities.”

One second after Gerrow ran into the group, Christian threw a punch, hitting a woman in the face, as shown in the video footage.

According to a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) online criminal history database and county court records, Christian has previously been arrested on assault charges and was convicted on a felony prohibited weapons charge in 2003. An Austin American-Statesman news article included in an FBI report described Christian as a “gang member” and stated that a senior ABT leader was accused of ordering a botched hit on Christian in 2002.

According to the June 22 police report from the Precinct 3 Caldwell County Constable, Michael Bell, Christian was the only individual arrested for his role in the violent incident at the river. A misdemeanor charge is pending, and Christian could not be reached for comment despite multiple phone calls to numbers associated with his name.

“At this time, the case has been turned in to the DA’s office,” Bell told the Observer. “They handle all the media comments and open records requests, so I really can’t make a comment on it right now.”

Eleven seconds into video footage of the fight, Mashburn entered the fray and began to punch the victims. According to Erath County court records, Mashburn was convicted in 2015 on a felony charge for the manufacture or delivery of a controlled substance. He has a tattoo on his back of SS lightning bolts and the term “Aryan Soldier.” Calls and messages directed to a phone number and an email address associated with Mashburn went unanswered.

Sixteen seconds into video footage of the fight, Turner began to throw punches. According to a patch seen in social media photos, Turner is the club president of the “Terror Squad MC” (TSMC), another motorcycle club affiliated with the ABT that regularly appears in social media posts with ABTMC members. The TSMC logo consists of a Celtic Cross with a Ku Klux Klan-style blood drop in its center, overlaid on crossed ball-peen hammers in the style of the Hammerskins, another white supremacist group with roots in Dallas. A photo found on TikTok shows Turner wearing a vest featuring a patch that reads “Aryan Brotherhood Supporter.”

The day after the attack, Turner posted a negative review of Don’s Fish Camp on Facebook, writing “it.was a cool place to.hang.out but the owner is lier [sic].” He later deleted it. A message left on Turner’s voicemail went unreturned.

Eleven seconds into video footage of the fight, Herpeche enters the fray. A woman who Gerrow initially knocked into then pushes Herpeche, who responds with punches. After a minute and a half, Herpeche is seen throwing down another woman into the water.

Photos and videos on social media and county records indicate Herpeche is married to Gerrow. A social media post shows Herpeche wearing an ABT hat and an ABTMC vest. Herpeche did not respond to emails and phone calls seeking comment.

Forty-seven seconds into the video footage and after things had settled down, Burkham walks into frame and proceeds to push a man in the face. She is dragged backwards by Herpeche, but after she’s released she walks toward a woman and appears to hit her, seemingly instigating a second round of violence. Burkham frequently appears in social media content alongside Christian and with wives of ABT members, though she does not appear to have ABT-affiliated tattoos or to have posted images of herself wearing ABT-affiliated clothing.

Burkham did not respond to requests for comment.

The Observer also identified and reached Melinda Coldiron, a woman who was present with the ABT-affiliated group at Don’s Fish Camp but did not participate in the brawl. In a phone call, Coldiron said that her group was called “white trash” at one point. “I’m not really even sure what happened,” Coldiron said. “I know we was having fun one minute, the next minute everybody was fighting.”

Coldiron said she is friends with Turner. Regarding the neo-Nazi tattoos seen on members of the group she was with, whom she described as “friends of my friend,” Coldiron said, “We can’t help the tattoos they got while they were away. … Nobody is like that anymore.”

When asked about the ABT insignia featured on some of the group members’ motorcycle club vests in recent social media posts, Coldiron said, “They don’t seem like that type of people to me, because they seem like they put together a group that keeps people out of trouble.”

In February, four months before the Martindale incident, Coldiron appeared in a photo alongside Turner in which both were performing the Nazi salute. Coldiron did not comment directly about the photo when it was described to her.

The Observer and Bellingcat were unable to identify two others who took part in the attack, which remains under investigation. One of these two has one or more neo-Nazi-affiliated tattoos.

“I think it’s important that the identities of these individuals be revealed mainly for a sense of safety and protection for the public,” one victim told the Observer in a text message. “These men and women are present in our everyday lives and were so emboldened by lack of accountability that they initiated a violent attack on women and multi-race individuals in broad daylight because they thought they could cover their hateful tattoos and walk away and go back to their regular lives without consequences. And that should never be able to happen again, for the safety of everyone, the protection of our communities, and justice for my family and friends.”

Hugo Stiglitz · August 8

Regarding UK racists

Hugo Stiglitz · August 18

Francisco 2.0 · August 19

https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-secret-ap3-militia-american-patriots-three-percent

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Last February, some 20 men and their wives gathered for dinner at an upscale restaurant in Spokane, Washington, for their annual Valentine’s Day celebration. The men weren’t just friends; they did community service work together. They had been featured on local television, in khakis and baseball caps, delivering 1,200 pounds of food to an area veterans’ center; they were gearing up for their next food drive, which they called Operation Hunger Smash. A few days after the holiday, the men went camping in the snow-speckled mountains outside Spokane, where they grilled rib-eyes and bacon-wrapped asparagus over a bonfire.

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They also engaged in more menacing activities. They assembled regularly — sometimes wearing night-vision goggles in the dark — to practice storming buildings together with semiautomatic rifles. Their drills included using sniper rifles to shoot targets from distances of half a mile. And they belonged to a shadowy organization whose members were debating, with ever more intensity, whether they should engage in mass-scale political violence.

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They were among the thousands of members of American Patriots Three Percent, a militia that has long been one of the largest in the United States and has mostly managed to avoid scrutiny. Its ranks included cops and convicted criminals, active-duty U.S. soldiers and small-business owners, truck drivers and health care professionals. Like other militias, AP3 has a vague but militant right-wing ideology, a pronounced sense of grievance and a commitment to armed action. It has already sought to shape American life through vigilante operations: AP3 members have “rounded up” immigrants at the Texas border, assaulted Black Lives Matter protesters and attempted to crack down on people casting absentee ballots.

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Now with the presidential election less than 100 days away, AP3 members see the fate of their country turning on a turbulent, charged campaign. They’re certain that Democrats will try to steal — not for the first time, in their view — the White House from Donald Trump. “The next election won’t be decided at a Ballot Box,” an AP3 leader wrote several months ago in a private Telegram chat. “It’ll be decided at the ammo box.” He has said he is ready to force his way into voting centers if need be, or “whatever it takes.”

Spoiler

The public’s impression of American militias is dominated by Jan. 6, 2021. Groups such as the Proud Boys had plotted to prevent the transfer of power from Trump to Joe Biden. They formed the vanguard of the mob that stormed the Capitol that day, according to the Department of Justice. Media coverage since has centered on the prosecutions of participants, with hundreds of rioters sent to prison.

But despite the riot and its fallout, militias are far from extinct. AP3 has expanded at a dramatic pace since Jan. 6, while keeping much of its activity out of view. This rise is documented in more than 100,000 internal messages obtained by ProPublica, spanning the run-up to Jan. 6 through early 2024. Along with extensive interviews with 22 current and former members of AP3, the records provide a uniquely detailed inside view of the militia movement at a crucial moment.

The messages reveal how AP3 leaders have forged alliances with law enforcement around the country and show the ways in which, despite an initial crackdown by social media, they have attracted a new wave of recruits. A change in the political climate has also helped: In a matter of months after Jan. 6, rioters went from pariahs to heroes in the rhetoric of prominent Republican politicians. By the summer of 2021, people were enlisting in AP3, saying that Jan. 6 inspired them to join.

A portrait emerges of a group alternating between focused action and self-destructive chaos and facing a schism over whether political engagement can still address our nation’s problems — or whether violence is the only option. It can be hard to discern the line between bluster and imminent threat in the messages, a perennial struggle for FBI agents who monitor paramilitary groups. But some senior AP3 members grew so alarmed that they quit, scared by the number of people, even high-level leaders, advocating acts of terror.

The materials also shed light on what former national security officials say is the most urgent question regarding militias: Will Jan. 6 prove the high water mark of the movement’s violence or merely a prelude to something more catastrophic? AP3 leaders have sometimes characterized the storming of the Capitol as a botched job, a failure of ill-formed plans that didn’t go far enough. “The Jan 6 event made the movement look weak and uncommitted,” one wrote a year and a half after the riot in a secret channel. “Had the house been taken for real and held we would all be in a different world.”

This is the story of a militia fighting for its survival, determined not to make the same mistake twice.

“Life Is Too Fucking Short”

On a Thursday afternoon in February 2021, Scot Seddon, national commander of AP3, sent an audio message to his deputies in a channel open only to the group’s leadership. A former Army reservist, Seddon had founded AP3 when he was in his 30s and shaped it into a national force. Now he was 50, with a receding hairline, his beard overtaken by gray. In videos from this time, typically recorded in his kitchen, Seddon favored baseball caps and tight shirts that revealed his bulky shoulders and trapezius muscles. He looked like an aging bro who had just returned from the gym. “I hate this movement more every day,” Seddon said that February day, “and I really don’t even want to be a part of it anymore.”

It had been a few weeks since the Capitol riot. The FBI was already arresting leaders of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, two of AP3’s prominent counterparts. Another militia was about to dissolve. One of Seddon’s lieutenants had issued a dark forecast: The reaction to Jan. 6 could destroy our movement. Everyday Americans will recoil.

At least Seddon didn’t have to fear going to prison. AP3 had spent weeks preparing to go to Washington, D.C., for Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, with one of his top deputies promising to “mad max this shit.” Whether through luck, foresight or miscalculation, Seddon had decided to save his forces for that event rather than deploy them at the Jan. 6 rally. Plenty of his members went anyway; some fought with police officers on the Capitol steps. But they were under orders not to wear AP3 insignia, according to two former lieutenants to Seddon, and the organization was never publicly linked to the rioters.

That did not save AP3 from the fallout. Membership plummeted. AP3ers lost friends and business. Active-duty police officers quit out of fear of losing their jobs.

What’s more, AP3’s best recruiting tool was essentially gone: Facebook had cracked down on paramilitary organizing. “Facebook has been our greatest weapon. It’s gotten us where we are today,” Seddon told his troops. He later described those months as a period of personal “misery” and self-doubt. “I had a drinking problem,” he would confide to the group. “The bottle was consuming me.”

By the middle of 2021, some AP3 leaders were ready to give up. In July, the head of its Arizona chapter announced he was stepping down. “My life is too fucking short to beg people to do what’s right,” he said. He had hardly any members left in his state, and rebuilding was proving impossible. Still, he added, “It has been a great honor to me to have been here (and stayed here) through some of the most trying times this movement has seen since April 19, 1995.”

Nobody needs to explain the significance of that date to a militia member. It was the day a Gulf War veteran with militia ties named Timothy McVeigh blew up a government building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring hundreds more. The modern militia movement — loosely speaking, a wide variety of groups whose shared traits are military-style training, an affinity for guns and a belief that they are the last line of defense against the excesses of the government and the left — started in the early 1990s and had been growing rapidly. But after the bombing, the movement crumbled. It didn’t recover until 2008, when a financial crisis and Barack Obama’s presidential election kindled a new generation of leaders like Seddon.

But the political climate after Jan. 6 would be very different from the period after McVeigh’s attack. Soon, Seddon’s group would have momentum back on its side.

Lions and Men

Seddon seems like an unlikely commander of a paramilitary organization. Raised in the suburbs of Long Island, he bounced between jobs through his early 40s, including stints as the manager for a small-time rapper and as a model. Seddon appeared on book jackets, including a vampire romance novel titled “Love’s Last Bite.” And there he was, in an awkward shirtless pose with a woman in lingerie, on the cover of “How to Handle a Younger Man: A Collection of Five Erotic Stories.”

It was in internet forums for models, during the latter years of the George W. Bush administration, where Seddon’s right-wing politics started to emerge publicly. He would engage in lengthy sparring with his peers, heckling them with insults: “we dominate you libs” and “you SOUND LIKE A FRENCHMEN need I say more?”

Seddon grew increasingly alienated — he would later say that he felt “very alone” after Obama was elected — and engaged. He became active on a Facebook page to support Iraq War veterans. And then, during Obama’s first term, he used that as a launchpad to create AP3. At the time, Seddon did not yet own a firearm, according to one of his first recruits.

Like many militias, AP3 was suffused with a military ethos. It adopted the hierarchy and nomenclature, with ranks such as “command sergeant major.” One credential most conferred authority: military service.

Seddon described himself as a veteran and, in a public resume, stated that he had served in Operation Desert Storm. He would tell Army stories to AP3 members and show them a photo of himself as a young soldier. Even his closest confidants in the group were left with the impression that he had substantial military experience.

But Seddon did not, in fact, serve in a combat zone. He joined the Army Reserve, without any prior stint in the military, more than a year after Desert Storm was over, according to his discharge papers and military personnel records. His active-duty tenure lasted for five months, the documents say, and ended when he finished his initial training.

Seddon declined to be interviewed for this article. Presented with an extensive list of written questions, he responded, “Lions do not concern themselves with the opinions of men.”

“J6 Made Me Want to Join”

Seddon’s vision for AP3 was novel for the time: a national organization, with chapters across the country operating under his command. After Obama announced a plan for tougher gun control in his second term, membership exploded, former leaders said. One told ProPublica that their local chapter grew from four or five people to over 200 in less than a year.

By 2016, AP3 had an active presence in 48 states, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center — larger than any other organization the anti-extremism watchdog was tracking. AP3 was part of the loose confederation known as the Three Percenters, a set of right-wing groups that take their name from the claim that only 3% of colonists fought in the American Revolution. At its peak, by Seddon’s likely exaggerated count, AP3 had 40,000 to 50,000 members. After the Jan. 6 riot, insiders and experts estimate the total was, at most, in the low thousands.

Seddon set about rebuilding the group in 2021. It was difficult initially and made even harder by his own struggles. When the pandemic started, he had a job as a doctor’s technician in New York City, but he refused to get vaccinated and left the medical field. He tried to get licensed as a realtor, then as a personal trainer, and found gig economy work near Scranton, Pennsylvania. He often recorded video directives to his troops from his car while driving between deliveries for Uber Eats.

He began reinvigorating the remnants of his command. His communications offered a mix of elements that his followers found compelling. There was lots of posturing: “Fuck the federal government,” he offered as an opener in one video. “These rats, these devils,” he said in another, “the only way they’re going to start listening is fear.” But Seddon also hailed his members as patriots, heroes, and praised their deeds with an “awesome job bro.” Seddon traveled the country. He would drop by at AP3’s training exercises, where veterans might teach close-quarters gun combat at an abandoned car dealership or lead sniper rifle practice at a suburban ranch.

Recruiting new members and unifying the old ones — a disparate roster that brought together men with white nationalist ties and Black military vets — demanded constant effort. Seddon avoided getting pinned down on one controversial question: what precisely his group’s purpose was. “Resisting all efforts to undermine our constitution and the American way of life,” AP3’s mission statement read, at once lofty and vague. “Together we will return our country to the glory it once was.” Many members were furious about COVID-19 restrictions and the “LGBTQ agenda.” Gun control, they thought, was an injustice that might be worth dying over. But Seddon imposed no litmus test. “We have some [members] that are fixated on Muslims,” as one leader put it. “Most are fixated on Antifa and BLM.”

Under Seddon, AP3 was both an armed right-wing resistance group and something akin to a Rotary Club; camaraderie was as important a draw as ideology. AP3 members patrolled city streets with AR-15-style rifles and baseball bats during Black Lives Matters protests. They practiced attacking dummies with knives. But they also taught each other how to save money on groceries through gardening and organized seminars where they wrote reports on each Constitutional amendment. One member said the group dispatched trucks filled with clothes and furniture to his family after a wildfire destroyed their house. AP3 had its own monthly magazine, with militia news in the front pages and word games for kids in the back.

By August 2021, Seddon’s lieutenants noticed that the backlash to the Capitol riot was starting to dissipate. A new type of member was signing up. “J6 made me want to join,” a recruit wrote that month in a Telegram channel. He hadn’t been part of a militia before, he explained, but seeing how “true Patriots” were being treated, “it was time to actually do something.”

Seddon sought ways to capitalize on the improving political climate. In Alabama, members fanned out to shops around the state, where they dropped off stacks of business cards encouraging patriots to “do your part.” “The APIII Alabama Recruitment line has rang non stop today,” a leader reported back afterward. “I honestly wasn’t expecting it to get this big.”

In Washington state, AP3 members in the military reserves touted the militia to fellow reservists during their units’ regular monthly drills. One chapter looked into purchasing billboard ads. In internal chats, many members agreed the “best place to recruit” is Veterans Affairs facilities.

By the fall, they had arrived at a more efficient method. Facebook’s public posture hadn’t wavered. AP3 was still on its list of banned “dangerous organizations.” Again and again in press releases, the company said its efforts to combat militias were stronger than ever.

Inside AP3, though, leaders were seeing something different: The social media giant was gradually loosening its controls.

A Meta spokesperson said Facebook was still actively working to keep AP3 off its platform. “This is an adversarial space,” she said, “and we often see instances of groups or individuals taking on new tactics to avoid detection and evade our policies and enforcement.”

Seddon would soon tell leaders there were “huge opportunities to recruit using Facebook” again. AP3 experienced such an influx of aspiring members that leaders struggled to keep up. “GUYS WE REALLY NEED SOME HELP,” one of Seddon’s deputies wrote in a typical appeal in an internal chat. “GOT 175 PEOPLE WAITING TO GET IN.”

It was a sorely needed shot of adrenaline.

“Our Force Multiplier”

In the view of many AP3 leaders, their chances of success hinged on building alliances with another heavily armed sector of society: police and sheriffs’ departments. If they couldn’t get the agencies to fight alongside them, they at least needed the cops to leave them alone. Many organizations like AP3 share this approach; a leaked FBI counterterrorism guide from 2015 noted that investigations of “militia extremists” often find “active links to law enforcement officers.” The details of those efforts rarely come into public view.

One test of that strategy occurred in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as the prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse was winding to a close in 2021. When Black Lives Matter protests and civil unrest overtook Kenosha the year before, Rittenhouse had ventured into the scrum with a semiautomatic rifle and killed two people. Prosecutors called it murder; Rittenhouse called it self-defense. Within AP3, he’d become a folk hero. “Kyle represents every one of us,” one leader said.

In September 2021, with Rittenhouse’s trial two months away, AP3 leaders were preparing for what would happen after the verdict. If he were acquitted, there might be riots in Kenosha. And if there were riots, the militia might deploy a team that could be in the same position as Rittenhouse had been in, walking armed into a volatile situation. They wanted local law enforcement on their side.

The head of AP3’s Wisconsin chapter, a truck driver, had already contacted the Kenosha County sheriff. He’d invited a couple of local officers over for beers, too. The sheriff wasn’t interested in help from a militia, the chapter head reported in an internal chat. (The sheriff did not respond to attempts to seek comment.) Seddon told him he wasn’t trying hard enough: “I hate these kind of excuses.”

On Sept. 20, Seddon recorded a speech with more full-throated instructions for courting law enforcement. He already had officers as members: One AP3 leader in Alabama would send video messages while driving in his police uniform. Seddon wanted to move up the chain of command. “We need to pick the good apples and we need to have them infiltrate the minds of those on the inside that stand on the fence,” he said. “It’s like building an army.”

He knew that was harder to achieve when you’re seen as anti-government extremists. So Seddon had created a playbook for presenting AP3 as a misunderstood club for good Samaritans. Leaders encouraged members to get local police departments involved in AP3’s food drives for homeless people. Seddon emphasized that these community service projects, a source of pride for many members, were invaluable public relations coups.

His members distributed brochures — “WE ARE NOT A MILITIA!!!!!” they declared — at rallies and to police officers. This was a branding decision to make people like cops feel comfortable supporting or joining AP3, Seddon said in internal messages, even though “we all know better.”

Seddon pushed members to contact sheriffs in their regions and had his deputies send Excel spreadsheets to the militia’s rank and file. The documents listed every sheriff in each member’s state, with columns to mark whether they were Republicans and “friendly.”

Sometimes it came easily. During the 2022 election, the county where Burley Ross, head of AP3’s North Carolina chapter, lived had an open seat for sheriff. In an interview with ProPublica, Ross said he approached both candidates and asked: If the federal government wanted you to take someone’s guns, what would you do?

“I’m 100% not taking someone’s guns,” Scott Hammonds, the Republican candidate, responded, according to Ross. When his Democratic opponent said he’d enforce the law, Ross suggested that if he tried that, someone would leave the encounter in a body bag.

Hammonds won. Then as sheriff, he became an “off the books” member of AP3, according to messages Ross sent in internal chats. Some of Hammonds’ deputies started training with the group, Ross wrote. “For us to train with the deputies, that’s a plus for us,” he told ProPublica, “because we understand how they work.” ProPublica could not independently confirm Hammonds’ relationship with the group. Hammonds did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Police officers weren’t the only ones quietly allying with AP3. Some lawmakers did, too. Among them was a North Carolina state legislator who was an off-the-books member, Ross wrote in an internal chat. It was Keith Kidwell, leader of the state House Freedom Caucus. (Ross asked ProPublica to make clear he did not name Kidwell or Hammonds in interviews and that ProPublica identified them using the AP3 messages it obtained. Kidwell did not respond to requests for comment.)

AP3’s “commanding officer” in Oklahoma, Ed Eubanks, took an especially calculated approach to cultivating ties with police. A competitive shooter who said he’d been a sniper in the Special Forces, Eubanks was older than most in the militia, in his 60s and retired. He was an “outcast” in his liberal family, he wrote to a group of about 100 militia members, echoing a common theme in the group. He had a lot of time to dedicate to AP3.

Eubanks announced in a 2021 internal chat that he was setting up “a PR team to start making inroads” with law enforcement across Oklahoma. He let officers use shooting ranges on his property. He built a barbecue smoker with “APIII” on the side to use for meet-and-greets with police departments. It was just the sort of creativity Seddon was hoping for.

Eubanks would claim success with multiple law enforcement agencies, particularly the Oklahoma City police force. Messages from 2020 show the courtship in its beginnings. Eubanks described his plans to stage a counterprotest at an upcoming “defund the police” rally in Oklahoma City in order to “build a better relationship with the OKCPD.” After the rally, Eubanks reported that he had made connections with city police officers who would be giving him intel (and barbecue — they’d invited AP3 members to a cookout at police union headquarters after the event).

In the years that followed, the invitations to functions at the union lodge continued, according to messages from Eubanks and another AP3 member. Eubanks said police notified him when rallies were happening and that the militia got “minute by minute updates” from officers at some events.

A spokesperson for the Oklahoma City police department said it was “going to pass” on a request for an interview and did not respond to detailed written questions. Mark Nelson, president of the local Fraternal Order of Police, said that AP3 was never invited to an official union event, but that officers can host private events at the union lodge and he would “have no idea” who was invited. In response to detailed questions, Eubanks declined to comment.

One of Eubanks’ members said he pretended to be a Black Lives Matter supporter at one protest in the city because police had asked AP3 to embed a member inside BLM and report back. “The demonic presence there when the leaders showed up,” the member wrote, “was downright oppressive.”

ProPublica could not determine the full extent of AP3’s ties to the Oklahoma City police, but Eubanks contended in a message that his efforts were “worth every second.” As he put it in another message, “This will be our force multiplier when the time arises.”

AP3 on Patrol

By mid-2022, Seddon was growing ebullient. He’d toned down his drinking, he told his comrades. In videos, he looked clean cut and slimmed down. Recruiting was booming, with as many as 50 people applying each day. His members were providing security details for county GOP events again. And the militia’s first major operation since the Capitol riot was well underway.

Seddon had sounded a call to arms in late 2021. Illegal border crossings were surging, and the Texas governor had declared that his state was “abandoned” by the federal government. “Our country is being invaded at the Southern border,” Seddon said. “Haitians, Middle Easterners, South American invaders that are coming in.” He had about 20 members preparing to deploy to Quemado, Texas, he said, and was seeking more volunteers.

Anyone interested would need to bring an AR-15-style carbine and a semiautomatic pistol. They would conduct vigilante patrols, a regular feature at the border since the 1970s. Another leader explained the rules. “It is a felony to detain these folks under Texas law,” he said. “We can only report to the authorities, but we are allowed to carry live rounds.”

Many members said they didn’t want to go if they couldn’t kill migrants. “The most heard comment I get” is “there is only one way to stop them,” one leader told Seddon. AP3 joined forces with another militia and soon had members in Quemado, sleeping at a Christian charity 1,000 feet from the Rio Grande.

The charity’s leaders, terrified of the Mexican cartels that helped transport some migrants, were initially grateful for the support. They put the militiamen up in twin bunk beds in little rooms that resembled a hospital ward. AP3 would keep a presence at the border for at least the next year and a half. Their members caught migrants and turned them over to the authorities. In time, messages claim, they were patrolling over 10,000 acres of land.

Eubanks helped lead the operation. At night, he’d split members up to cover more ground. Then he would don camouflage fatigues and venture alone into the pitch darkness, a shotgun in his hand.

In internal chats, Eubanks bragged about the allies they’d cultivated, including Brad Coe, a cowboy-hat-wearing local sheriff who had publicly praised border militias and regularly discussed immigration on Fox News. Coe shared intel with him and discussed the idea of Eubanks “running a bush team to track the cartel,” Eubanks told Seddon and others. Eubanks complained in the chats that the Texas Department of Public Safety was “refusing to work with us” but said AP3 was collaborating with the Border Patrol and the National Guard, who installed “observation pads for us to use along the river.”

The partnerships didn’t always go smoothly. Once, an AP3 member got into an argument with a National Guardsman that turned physical. “He kicked the shit out of the national guardsman,” Ross, who helped coordinate the operation, told ProPublica. “I called him and said, ‘You cannot beat up the national guardsmen any more.’” (Local law enforcement arrived but decided not to make any arrests, according to Ross.)

Coe did not respond to requests for comment. A Border Patrol spokesperson did not address ProPublica’s questions about its agents but said that civilians “involving themselves in border security related activities” is “unlawful” and “dangerous.” In response to detailed questions, the Texas Military Department, which oversees the Texas National Guard, issued a one-sentence statement: “The Texas Military Department does not provide support to or operate with local militias.”

As the operation expanded, Eubanks sent back pictures of hundreds of migrants the militias had “rounded up,” huddled on the ground, often surrounded by Border Patrol or what appear to be National Guard members. The militiamen would return excited after stopping a group at gunpoint, according to Lorraine Mercer, the charity’s ministry director, who got to know the men over many months as their host. They didn’t always wait for government agents to arrive, Mercer said. “Some of them were trying to run them back into Mexico,” she told ProPublica. They’d say, “We’ll handle them, the Border Patrol doesn’t know what they’re doing.”

Seddon wanted the operation to get even more ambitious. And he had a scheme he thought could make that possible. “The bottom line is we need to start making money,” he told state leaders in July 2022. His answer was to create a nonprofit called American Community Outreach Network.

ACON’s website gave no indication of its ties to AP3. It was advertised as a charity that provided services in disaster zones and to disadvantaged youth.

But in internal chats, Seddon was explicit that ACON was a way to fund the militia. “I want every single one of us to fucking get rich,” he said in one video. “I want to be sitting on a yacht in two years with every one of you,” he said in another. Members would receive a 20% cut of any donations they brought in, he promised.

This was more than a get-rich-quick ploy, in Seddon’s telling. It could help AP3 thrive in the post-Jan. 6 era. “I feel reborn,” he said as the plan moved ahead. Imagine if people didn’t need to juggle militia duties with their day jobs, “if every single one of us had the ability to do this full-time,” he said. It’d be so much easier to mobilize troops to the border or anywhere else.

“It’s Going to Be a Blood Bath”

“This election is do or die for us,” Seddon told his lieutenants in August 2022. The midterm elections were months away, and Democrats controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress. If we can’t retake Congress now, Seddon said in a video, “we’re in real, real deep shit.” He had a plan to get involved.

Seddon wanted AP3 to fan out across the country, stake out ballot boxes and deter fraudulent voting, which he claimed was rampant during the 2020 election. “We’re trying to persuade these people maybe that’s not such a good idea,” Seddon said about supposed liberal ballot stuffers. “There’s a large group of what look like some pretty badass patriots outside.” The operation was shortly underway in Arizona, Colorado and Michigan, though it’s unclear how many members heeded Seddon’s call.

Absentee ballots had barely made it into voters’ mailboxes before it all went awry. Eubanks posted a handheld video of a television screen in an internal chat: “NBC Nightly News” was showing surveillance footage of a man in Maricopa County, Arizona. The man hadn’t been identified, but inside AP3, they knew who he was: a Marine veteran named Elias Humiston. Several years before, he had pleaded guilty to an illegal firearm discharge. Now he was at the center of a national news cycle.

Humiston was captured on camera outside a drop box for absentee ballots. His face was masked, and he had a handgun and wore a tactical vest. He had gotten into a confrontation with a woman who tried to record his license plate, prompting the sheriff’s department to arrive.

“Now the DOJ is involved,” Eubanks wrote four days after the incident. Government attorneys said such activities could constitute illegal voter intimidation. But the authorities didn’t appear to know that the anonymous vigilante was a part of AP3.

Humiston had held a leadership role in AP3 and had recently won an award from the militia for his work at the border. He promptly resigned “to protect” AP3, records show. He was never charged with a crime or publicly linked to the militia. (Humiston did not respond to requests for comment.)

Some leaders said that Humiston’s efforts “should be applauded.” Another camp saw the mission as a foolhardy mistake by Seddon. “Poorly planned and horribly executed,” one leader called it.

Seddon told everyone to stop acting like cowards. “If it’s not this, it’s the fact that we’re white, that we’re Christian,” he said. The DOJ is “going to come at us no matter what we do,” Seddon continued. “Communism — that’s where this country is leading if we don’t take a stand.”

Seddon had always had a short fuse. But he was becoming increasingly militant and inflammatory, according to several longtime members. In messages, he raged against “pedophilia” in schools and the “panels of blacks” “disrespecting white Americans” on MSNBC. When Congress increased the IRS’ budget, he declared that revenue agents were coming to “kill our kids.” Once, in a voice note he recorded while driving, he paused. “I almost ran over this nigger,” Seddon said. “I am not racist — just these dirty fucks walking these streets.”

Seven former leaders told ProPublica they became alarmed by how the rhetoric was shifting in AP3. In the days after Jan. 6, Seddon had suppressed calls for violence, telling members who wanted to assassinate politicians to stand down. But he had stopped acting as a voice of restraint, even as such talk increased.

One morning in August 2022, an ex-cop with at least 100 AP3 members under his command announced a mysterious initiative. He had previously said it was time to take a violent stand against Black Lives Matter: “We will have to suffer some and some will die,” he said, but he was “tired of waiting.” Now he said he planned to assemble a “Tac Team” of “those who will do what others won’t.”

A different afternoon, a different leader put forward his own proposal. “We havnt made any head way in the last 5 plus years,” he wrote. Let’s pick a date and descend on government buildings across the country, he suggested, and then kill the officials who’ve committed treason. “Time to stack body’s up.” (Two others told him to arrange a secret meeting offline.)

After the 2022 midterms, Ross made a plea in an internal chat. “APIII AND EVERY OTHER PATRIOT group seems to want a fight,” he wrote. “A war will leave no winners.” Ross, too, believed that civil war was inevitable, but he pushed for the group to focus on grassroots politics in the meantime. “There’s going to be a time to be violent,” he told ProPublica. “I’m the type of person who’s like, ‘Now is not the time.’” In AP3, that made him a moderate.

A growing faction had lost hope in the democratic process. Elections and activism are pointless, they maintained; even the midterms were rife with fraud. They felt out of alternatives. Their talk was now a steady drumbeat:

“Get it over with I’ll die with honor.”

“It’s going to be a blood bath.”

“When does AP3 as a whole say, that’s enough and stand up?”

“I Know Where You Live”

Seddon’s downfall started around the turn of this year. An AP3 member, increasingly suspicious, had obtained a copy of his military discharge papers. That was enough to cause an explosion. After years of touting his Army experience, Seddon’s secret was exposed.

He tried to suppress the uprising that ensued. He threatened a former leader who confronted him about the records in private. “I know where you live,” Seddon wrote on Facebook Messenger. “Tread careful.” Ross accused Seddon of stolen valor and was kicked out.

Seddon’s command quickly began to unravel. A rumor started to spread: Law enforcement was investigating the ACON scheme. The charity had never taken off. One of Seddon’s ex-deputies told ProPublica it raised less than $5,000. But its website falsely advertised it as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit authorized to accept tax-deductible donations, which the IRS said is not true.

Leaders who had spent months encouraging the initiative now condemned ACON as a scam to put money in Seddon’s pocket. “Not volunteering for a Rico trial,” one member wrote in a side chat, referring to the racketeering statute that prosecutors use to take down the mafia. In the spring, state chapters began to defect from AP3 in droves.

Soon Seddon had lost a significant majority of his organization. Former leaders estimate that about 10 state chapters stayed on, leaving him to try to rebuild the militia’s presence everywhere else.

Seddon appears undaunted. He’s lost a large chunk of his membership before and managed to recover. (Meanwhile, the instability in his career continues. Recently, he started a business that offers “fast cash” to cancer patients who sign over their life insurance policies.)

His recent setbacks seem to have only made him more volatile. Toward the end of Trump’s criminal trial in May, Seddon wrote on Facebook that Judge Juan Merchan was treating the former president unfairly. “This guy needs to meet his maker,” Seddon said. He followed up by posting the judge’s home address.

Facebook shut down his account, which he’d long been using to promote the militia. The platform conducted a large enforcement action against AP3 in June, according to the Meta spokesperson, removing 40 pages, 15 groups and 600 accounts that “were mostly focusing on recruitment.” The spokesperson said Facebook strengthened its policies at the beginning of the year “to take an even stricter approach to enforcement against this group and other banned militia organizations.”

Seddon was back on social media, this time on TikTok, after the assassination attempt on Trump in July. “This was a direct attack on us,” he said. “We need to become fucking lions.”

AP3’s travails have not been unique. Since the Capitol riot, the militia movement has grown more fractured and decentralized. This may make it harder for one leader to spur mass action. It could also make it harder for one leader to prevent mass action and for law enforcement to track the groups and to intervene.

The presidential election could propel the militia movement in a darker direction. Experts worry that a Trump loss could spark violence from those who feel it’s their only option, especially if he once again refuses to accept the results. If Trump wins and then fulfills his promise to pardon Jan. 6 defendants, they fear the most radical wing of his party could take it as a license for more extreme action.

AP3 may have splintered, but its former members have mostly just moved to other militias. John Valle, Seddon’s former third in command, sees the movement’s future as consisting of state and local groups, operating independently but coordinating on secure messaging apps.

He said that the 286 members of his Washington chapter are now operating as their own independent group. They didn’t want to get caught up in AP3’s potential legal problems, but their mission remains the same. As Valle put it, “We’re just rebranding.”

DigglerontheHoof · August 19

TwiceHorn · August 19

On 7/3/2024 at 9:36 AM, Nivek said:

So glad these churches are not being used for political means and get to remain tax free.

Unfortunately, and I don't like it, I believe churches are permitted to do "political" things apart from any attempt to "influence legislation" or support or oppose a political candidate. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-501c3-organizations

I am for tax exemption for legitimate religious and charitable organizations, but believe the rules should be strictly enforced, and maybe even strengthened.

BamaATL · August 19

2 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Unfortunately, and I don't like it, I believe churches are permitted to do "political" things apart from any attempt to "influence legislation" or support or oppose a political candidate. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/exemption-requirements-501c3-organizations

I am for tax exemption for legitimate religious and charitable organizations, but believe the rules should be strictly enforced, and maybe even strengthened.

I'm not sure how you deal with this but's it's a big problem when it comes to the "non-profits" out there. The vast majority of these aren't really charities, as often times only an extremely small percentage of the proceeds actually go the causes the claim to support. Basically, they are highly profitable for the board, who gets huge salaries. I remember a few years ago reading an article on Wounded Warrior, in theory a very noble cause, but in reality the actual charity was only seeing somewhere under 20% of the proceeds. That's not a non-profit, nor is it a charity, that's a for profit business venture.

That's just one example, and unfortunately, if held under the same scrutiny, my bet is you'd find nearly 80% of the "non-profits" are just like this.

As for churches, sure some of them are just ordinary small town places trying to do their level best, but the mega church needs be under intense scrutiny and treated like for profit business, because that's what they are.

Again, I don't know the exact way to deal with all this, but some level of threshold when it comes to salaries, holding, and actual charitable acts needs to be considered.

Biff Tannen · August 19

On 8/4/2024 at 11:01 AM, BamaATL said:

The day Rupert Murdoch departs this Earth will be one worthy of a global celebration.

I somehow never made the connection that is supposed to be Murdoch, but yes.

Nivek · August 20

7 hours ago, BamaATL said:

I'm not sure how you deal with this but's it's a big problem when it comes to the "non-profits" out there. The vast majority of these aren't really charities, as often times only an extremely small percentage of the proceeds actually go the causes the claim to support. Basically, they are highly profitable for the board, who gets huge salaries. I remember a few years ago reading an article on Wounded Warrior, in theory a very noble cause, but in reality the actual charity was only seeing somewhere under 20% of the proceeds. That's not a non-profit, nor is it a charity, that's a for profit business venture.

That's just one example, and unfortunately, if held under the same scrutiny, my bet is you'd find nearly 80% of the "non-profits" are just like this.

As for churches, sure some of them are just ordinary small town places trying to do their level best, but the mega church needs be under intense scrutiny and treated like for profit business, because that's what they are.

Again, I don't know the exact way to deal with all this, but some level of threshold when it comes to salaries, holding, and actual charitable acts needs to be considered.

Oh, I know how to deal with it. Tax them like every other entity.

Or require all non-tax a provision that includes that 85%+ money must go to the charity and <15% can be used for salaries, utilities, and infrastructure of it office. If the charity is a shelter, then the rent/utilities/food/etc. can be used and it must be signed off by an independent accounting firm with the same accountability as the SOX (C-levels get jail for fucking around).

Hugo Stiglitz · August 28

One hell of a name.

Brisketexan · August 28

3 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

One hell of a name.

I mean, when your parents say "we want him to grow up to be a star of gay porn," that's what you get.

NTTAWWT.

TheStoicPaisano · August 28

Didn’t that motherfucker play quidditch with Potter?

Scheiss Meister · August 28

59 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

One hell of a name.

Sounds like a name made up for the loony sportscaster on a comedy about a small market TV station.

BrickHorn · August 28

2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

One hell of a name.

Bold Bigflank!

Butch Deadlift!

Teak Brockbank!

Homesickhorn · August 28

From the comments:

“His accomplices Blast Hardcheese, Punch Rockgroin, and Big McLargeHuge could not be reached for comment.”

Dnaguy · August 28

7 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Bold Bigflank!

Butch Deadlift!

Teak Brockbank!

Not enough Genz white kid

Cooper Daggerston

Bryce Axelstein

Blaze Carvercock

Tucker Beastmoore

GhostOfTomJoad · August 28

Bold Bigflank!
Butch Deadlift!
Teak Brockbank!

Big McLargeHuge!
Splint Chesthair!
Punt Speedchunk!
Fridge Largemeat!

MissingInAction · August 28

My porn name is Rod Pleasure.

BamaATL · August 28

3 hours ago, Homesickhorn said:

From the comments:

“His accomplices Blast Hardcheese, Punch Rockgroin, and Big McLargeHuge could not be reached for comment.”

I'm interested in changing my screen name to Blast Hardcheese, and perhaps my legal name.

Dnaguy · August 28

2 hours ago, MissingInAction said:

My porn name is Rod Pleasure.

Username does not check out.

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