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Apr 1, 19

This Week in Fascism #3: The Fool Who Wears the Crown

Welcome, fellow anti-fascists! This is the third installment of The Week in Fascism, a weekly roundup of the latest and greatest happenings in the anti-fascist world.

This week’s #IdentifyEvropa doxxes brings more military members, a software engineer, and an immigration lawyer, plus more ways you can help deplatform a black metal band with neo-Nazi ties.

Explainer: San Francisco Sword Attack

Police are still looking for the attacker who lost a MAGA hat while injuring a man with a sword on Friday night outside of a San Francisco roller-skating rink.

The attack happened outside the Church of 8 Wheels. Witnesses say an altercation occurred after a man dressed like a pirate and wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat had been lurking around the venue all evening, attempting to provoke people with homophobic slurs as they went inside.

Allegedly the victim knocked the attacker’s MAGA hat off, at which time the attacker pulled out his sword and sliced the victim’s hand. After chasing the attacker down the block, the victim was left badly bleeding on the corner of Fillmore and Fell streets.

When the San Francisco Chronicle first reported the attack, they said the police had announced that a sword attack happened to a MAGA hat wearing victim. The newspaper corrected their report after the police changed their statement late Saturday. The mistake has caused conspiracy enthusiasts to theorize that the attack was somehow related to the Jussie Smollett case.

The Chronicle’s correction was issued only after a tweet went viral from an individual who had interaction with the suspect before the attack Friday night. Describing an odd confrontation with the suspect in a twitter thread, Scott Sweeney said the suspect had been shouting homophobic slurs at him earlier in the night.

In Sweeney’s thread, below, he describes how the suspect turned his back, showing a large item tucked out of the back of his jacket that looked like a sword handle. The suspect pulled the sword part-way out of the sheath in front of Sweeney and his girlfriend.

“In my mind, I didn’t think it was a real sword until we came out later and police were on the scene, and there was blood and the hat on the ground,” Sweeney said.

The symbolism of wearing a MAGA hat has become a contentious topic throughout the country, as numerous instances of harassment by Trump supporters have been reported. Americasvoice.org follows specific cases of harassment from those supporters, without accounting for numerous pro-Trump rallies held in cities like San Francisco, Berkeley, Portland, Seattle, Berkeley, New York, and Los Angeles which have ended with political violence. There has been a pattern since 2015 of MAGA hat wearing Trump supporters approaching people in cities deemed liberal hot-spots, and acting in such a way as to incite violence. Then, there’s also everyone from the Parkland shooter, tiki-torch Charlottesville marchers, to the Quebec City and Christchurch mosque killers – all who donned the red hat.

Far-right violence has also included swords on more than one occasion. In 2107, white supremacist James Jackson murdered 66-year-old Timothy Coughman in a Manhattan sword attack. In 2018, Proud Boy Bucky Wolfe murdered his brother with a sword because he believed God told him his brother was a lizard.  

In October, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes re-enacted the assassination of the leader of the Japanese Socialist Party by a Japanese nationalist with a sword, and then brandished the sword in the middle of a Manhattan street while at least ten of his Proud Boys brutally attacked antifascist protestors right around the corner.

Indybay.org has reported a far-right gathering is planned for San Francisco on May 3rd 2019, at 10:00 am outside of city hall, with right-wing speakers who have attended many violent rallies including the Charlottesville, VA “Unite the Right” rally which ended in more than 38 injured and Heather Heyer killed. The speakers listed are Laura Loomer, Jacob Wohl, Dylan Wheeler A.K.A. Educating Liberals, Joe Biggs, Baked Alaska, Ashton Whitty, Craig R. Brittain, Jacob Engels, Adrienna DiCioccio and Richie Greenberg.

Reporting by @ShelleDione

Doxxes

Monday, April 1st, 2019

–Andy Gene Strickland, a 44-year-old immigration lawyer in Tampa Bay, Florida, was exposed as a member of the white nationalist group Identity Evropa (recently rebranded as the American Identity Movement) by the Coordinating Committee of Concerned Vandals. In the IE chats, Strickland went by the handle “FlyingDutchmann,” a reference to his hobby as an amateur pilot. You can view his messages here.

If you would like to alert the Florida Bar to Strickland’s white nationalist organizing, you can call the Attorney Consumer Assistance Program at 1-866-352-0707.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

–James Ambrose Meyer, a 29-year-old software engineer in Dallas, Texas, was revealed to be Identity Evropa member “Procella Eques” by Eugene Antifa.

–Joshua Sayre, a 26-year-old active duty Air Force member who used his real name in the Identity Evropa Slack chats, was exposed by Panic in the Discord.

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

-After Derek Magill was exposed as Identity Evropa member “Alexander Pechorin” in early March by WANaziWatch, he promptly deleted his entire social media presence, and began to claim that he’d been falsely accused.

WANaziWatch responded by producing police records showing that Magill had filed reports that exactly matched an incident described by “Alexander Pechorin” in the Identity Evropa chats.

Thursday, March 28 2019

-In another case of a liar exposed, Identity Evropa member Alex Kerrigan, a Computer Science major at the University of Central Florida, contacted Panic in the Discord, saying, “I have been out of Identity Evropa and the movement for nearly two years and have done all I can to heal the damage I’ve done to the community. You can contact Christian Picciolini of Free Radicals to confirm I’m telling the truth.”

Upon being contacted by Panic in the Discord is verify, Picciolini wrote, “Well, he emailed me tonight for the first time. I’ve never spoken to him before, but he swears up and down he’s no longer connected…. I have no idea if he’s being genuine. I cannot vouch for him.

“If he is sincere, I’m happy to help him, but I’m not in the habit of vouching for existing Nazis who are just scared they got doxxed.”

If you would like to contact the UCF Computer Science department to tell them about their student, Alex Kerrigan, you may do so via Twitter @UCFComSci.

Friday

–Atlanta Antifascists profiled Identity Evropa member and Buford, Georgia resident Jared Huggins. Huggins served as the Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party of Dekalb County (disbanded in January 2017), and attended the first Unite the Right rally in August 2017 as a member of Identity Evropa.

His LinkedIn page currently lists him as working at Hartford Trust, a business venture linked to George white power organizer Sam Dickson.

-Right Wing Watch exposed Judson Blevins as a member of Identity Evropa. The Enid, OK-based Blevins attended the first Unite the Right rally, and served as IE’s Oklahoma State Coordinator.

According to messages posted in the IE chats, Blevins currently works for his father’s roofing and siding firm, Invincible Contracting, LLC, in Enid, Oklahoma. You can review the business via their Facebook page or through their Porch page.

-Asheville Anti Racism identified Daniel Rasch of Greenville, South Carolina, as a member of Identity Evropa. In the group’s Discord chats, he went by “Tanner – SC,” and served as the group’s State Coordinator for South Carolina.

Rasch works at the Global Leadership Development Program at Michelin North America, Inc., in Greenville, South Carolina. You can contact Michelin to tell that their employee, Daniel Rasch, is a state-level leader in a white nationalist organization via their contact page here, or via their Twitter account, @Michelin.

Deplatforms

-Following last week’s expose of Officer Daniel Morley, a School Resource Officer at LC Bird High School in Chesterfield, Virginia, as a member of Identity Evropa, felony charges were dropped against an unnamed person on the single pending prosecution for which Morley was the primary officer. Additionally, the Chesterfield Commonwealth Attorney’s Office is reviewing all of Morley’s past cases for “any signs of impropriety,” according to a statement made on social media.

Calls to Action

Note: For up-to-the-minute information on deplatforming Horna, follow Heresy Labs on Twitter.

After being deplatformed by anti-fascists at the Oakland Metro Operahouse in Oakland, CA; the Bossanova Ballroom in Portland, OR; the Hi-Dive in Denver, CO; the Kingsland in Brooklyn, NY; The White Swan in Houston, TX; and the Five Star Bar in Los Angeles, CA, national socialist black metal act Horna hasn’t been having a good week.

Though the group had a show booked in Austin on April 2, the local promoter, Come and Take It Productions, backed down after pressure from anti-fascists. On the event page, the band claims that the show will be hosted at a new venue.

4/2/19 (Tuesday)
Austin, TX
Location TBA
Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1145212225648469/

4/3/19 (Wednesday)
Houston, TX
Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1863104780478224
STATUS: Cancelled by The White Swan, Horna claims the show is still happening at an undisclosed location on April 3. The Houston United Front Against Fascism is organizing a flash protest at wherever the location will be on August 3.

4/5/19 (Friday)
Chicago, IL
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LiveWireLoungeChicago/
Phone: (773) 756-5363
Venue contact page: http://livewireloungechicago.com/contact.htm
Venue email: [email protected]
Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/207851826822366/
STATUS: While we’ve gotten no official confirmation that the show has been cancelled, the LiveWire Lounge has removed the event from their Facebook calendar, and the event promoter, SOUND ZERO Productions, claims that no tickets are available.

4/6/19 (Saturday)
Ashburn, Virginia
Location TBD
Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/250823115840681/

4/9/19 (Tuesday)
Seabrook, NH
The Chop Shop Pub & Grub
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chopshoppub/
Twitter: @chopshopnh
Venue phone: (603) 760-7706
Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/880159952329069/
STATUS: This one’s still live. Keep calling, tweeting, and commenting on their Facebook page!

4/10/19 (Wednesday)
Allentown, PA
Jabber Jaws Bar and Grille
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JabberJawsBarAndGrille/
Phone: (610) 432-6524
Event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/jabber-jaws-bar-and-grille/horna-returns-to-the-usa-4102019/458850381317760/
STATUS: Still going! Keep calling and leaving comments on their Facebook page!

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A weekly roundup of the latest and greatest happenings in the anti-fascist world. Each column features a roundup of news, actions, doxxes and current calls to action.

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