Posts Tagged ‘domestic extremism’
 
February 19, 2013 0

Was Hatchet Wielder An Insane Clown Posse Fan?

Mug shot obtained by KUSA 9News

Cur­rently fac­ing crim­i­nal trial in Den­ver, Col­orado, is Jason Gemkow, 34.  Accord­ing to Den­ver tele­vi­sion sta­tion KUSA, Gemkow allegedly used a hatchet to attack his for­mer room­mate last June, strik­ing the vic­tim twice in the head.  The vic­tim, who was for­tu­nate to sur­vive, later described the attack, say­ing that “there was blood all over me.  It was like a foun­tain of blood.” 

Fol­low­ing the attack, Gemkow fled to the Pacific North­west, where a Lin­coln County, Ore­gon, sheriff’s deputy appre­hended him in July 2012 at the Bev­erly Beach State Park.  Even­tu­ally, author­i­ties extra­dited Gemkow back to Den­ver, where he has been charged with assault.

Gemkow’s mug shot reveals a promi­nent “WP” neck tat­too, which is most com­monly a white suprema­cist tat­too stand­ing for “White Power.”  Exam­i­na­tion of an old Myspace social net­work­ing pro­file belong­ing to Gemkow leads to another reveal­ing pho­to­graph:  a photo dat­ing from 2010 or 2011 that shows Gemkow wear­ing a cap with the logo of the Insane Clown Posse (ICP).  ICP’s logo fea­tures a man run­ning with a large hatchet.  

ICP is a cult favorite white hip-hop duo from Michi­gan whose mem­bers dress as clowns, as some­times do its fans, who are called Jug­ga­los.  Jug­ga­los are typ­i­cally not racist (in fact, many are anti-racist), but a small minor­ity of Jug­ga­los do have ties to white supremacy.  A minor­ity of Jug­ga­los also engage in vio­lent or crim­i­nal activ­ity, to the extent that some law enforce­ment agen­cies have—controversially—identified some Jug­galo groups as street gangs.

There has been at least one pre­vi­ous inci­dent in which a white suprema­cist Jug­galo used a hatchet in a vio­lent attack.  In 2006, Jacob Robida used a hatchet to strike patrons of a gay bar in the head.  He then pulled out a pis­tol and began shoot­ing the three vic­tims, who sur­vived the attack.  Robida fled to West Vir­ginia, where he picked up a woman, and together they fled west.  On Feb­ru­ary 4, 2006, Robida shot and killed a Gassville, Arkansas, police offi­cer who had pulled them over.  Fol­low­ing a chase, Robida even­tu­ally killed the woman and then himself.

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January 23, 2013 0

White Supremacists Begin New Year With Plot, Murder

Anthony Baum­gart­ner at Char­lotte, North Car­olina, NSM rally in Novem­ber 2012

Amer­i­can white suprema­cists marked the New Year with vio­lence, open­ing 2013 with a mur­der in Ken­tucky and an alleged plot in Ohio.  Sus­pects in both inci­dents have ties to neo-Nazi groups.

The mur­der occurred near the small town of Wal­ton, Ken­tucky, south of Cincin­nati, Ohio, on Jan­u­ary 9. About a week later, Boone County sheriff’s deputies arrested three men on kid­nap­ping, mur­der and abuse of a corpse charges, stat­ing that the sus­pects had beaten the vic­tim in two sep­a­rate loca­tions and stabbed and stran­gled him to death at the sec­ond loca­tion, then dis­mem­bered his body and left parts of it in dif­fer­ent places. The vic­tim was a 19-year old drug addict who also allegedly sold heroin to sup­port his own drug habit.  

The sus­pects arrested were Anthony Baum­gart­ner, 23; Jef­frey Allen, 21; and Stephen Hark­ness, 22. At least one of the sus­pects has ties to the white suprema­cist movement. Baumgartner, who has sev­eral white suprema­cist tat­toos, was a rel­a­tively recent recruit to the neo-Nazi National Social­ist Move­ment (NSM), with the rank of “Stormtrooper First Class.” He attended a major NSM rally in Char­lotte, North Car­olina, in Novem­ber 2012 and also attended or orga­nized local NSM events in Boone County. He claimed to have in the past been involved with a Ku Klux Klan group; this has not been verified.

Baum­gart­ner and the oth­ers also admired out­law motor­cy­cle gangs and Baum­gart­ner claimed on one Web site that he was the for­mer pres­i­dent of a biker club called “SS Ban­dits.” This has also not been verified.

Recently, he posted to a white suprema­cist site that “I want to get back in the race war so me and a few other boys in my area are start­ing to clean up [the] area of drugs and so called street gangs…we had […] enough and its time we stand up and take back what is ares [sic].”

In neigh­bor­ing Ohio, mean­while, fed­eral pros­e­cu­tors in mid-January indicted another neo-Nazi, Richard Schmidt of Bowl­ing Green, on weapons charges. Schmidt, a con­victed felon, allegedly had a horde of weapons that included at least 18 assault weapons and more than 40,000 rounds of ammo. Accord­ing to NBC News, a law enforce­ment offi­cer said there was evi­dence that Schmidt pos­si­bly was plan­ning attacks on Jew­ish and civil rights groups in the Detroit area. 

Schmidt was a long-time mem­ber of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, recently act­ing as its Toledo con­tact point, and in the past also occa­sion­ally attended meet­ings of the NSM.

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November 5, 2012 0

Idaho White Supremacist Wounds Two Deputies in Shootout

Kyle Alan Batt, a 27-year-old white suprema­cist from Cald­well, Idaho, remains hos­pi­tal­ized fol­low­ing a shootout on Octo­ber 23 in which Batt allegedly shot two Canyon County deputies search­ing for him in con­nec­tion with an aggra­vated assault inves­ti­ga­tion. The shoot­ings are the lat­est in a string of nearly 30 shootouts between police and domes­tic extrem­ists in the United States since 2009.

The inci­dent began ear­lier in the day when Batt allegedly appeared at the home of a woman with whom he had been hav­ing a rela­tion­ship. Batt report­edly car­ried a firearm and made threats at the woman. The woman called Cald­well police, but Batt had already left the scene when offi­cers arrived.

Later, five Canyon County sheriff’s deputies went to a res­i­dence in Cald­well look­ing for Batt.  Batt allegedly opened fire at the offi­cers as they approached the house, hit­ting two of them before flee­ing. One offi­cer was able to return fire and hit Batt before he fled. A few hours later, deputies found Batt hid­ing in a nearby garage, at which point he report­edly tried to take his own life by shoot­ing himself.

One of the two wounded deputies remains in seri­ous con­di­tion; the other was treated and released with only minor injuries. Batt was listed in crit­i­cal condition.

Batt has a long crim­i­nal his­tory, includ­ing sev­eral drug con­vic­tions. He is also a white suprema­cist with a large “white power” tat­too stretched across his breast­bone. He has con­nec­tions with other white suprema­cists in the Nampa-Boise area, includ­ing mem­bers of the Ham­mer­skins racist skin­head group. The Ham­mer­skins’ pres­ence in this area has sig­nif­i­cantly increased in recent years and the Ham­mer­skins held their 2012 “Ham­mer­fest,” the group’s annual large white power music con­cert, in the Nampa-Boise area on Octo­ber 6, less than a cou­ple of weeks before the shootout.

Among the 100+ atten­dees at the Boise Ham­mer­fest was Brent Rack­ley, the band­mate of Ham­mer­skin Wade Page, who killed six peo­ple and injured more dur­ing a shoot­ing ram­page at a Sikh tem­ple in Wis­con­sin in August 2012. It is not known if Batt attended Hammerfest.

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