Posts Tagged ‘hate group’
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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September 20, 2012 6

One-Time Domestic Terrorist Now Leads White Supremacist Biker Gang

A wise man once said, “Old extrem­ists never die. They just change uniforms.”

That seems to be the case for long-time Illi­nois white suprema­cist Den­nis Michael McGif­fen.  In the 1990s, McGif­fen and other white suprema­cists (most asso­ci­ated with a Klan group or Aryan Nations) formed a group they dubbed The New Order, after the 1980s ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion known as The Order.  In 1998, McGif­fen and five other mem­bers were arrested by the FBI on weapons and explo­sives charges in con­nec­tion with alleged plots to rob banks and armored cars, poi­son pub­lic water sup­plies, and to attack blacks, Jews, and civil rights orga­ni­za­tions.  Five of the defen­dants, includ­ing McGif­fen, pleaded guilty, while a sixth was con­victed in court.  McGif­fen received a seven-year prison sentence.

Now McGif­fen, 50 years old and liv­ing in Wood River, Illi­nois, has once again found a lead­er­ship role in the world of white supremacy. McGiffen is pres­i­dent of the Sadis­tic Souls Motor­cy­cle Club (SS-MC), a white suprema­cist biker gang that started in 2010. In July 2012, the SS-MC for­mally merged with the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations, with which McGif­fen has had past ties. 

The Sadis­tic Souls are a small Illinois-based gang with approx­i­mately two dozen mem­bers and asso­ciates.  The bulk of the mem­ber­ship comes from small towns out­side of East Saint Louis, such as Wood River, Edwardsville, Brighton, God­frey, Alton, and Jer­seyville.  The gang’s “col­ors” (i.e., the emblems they put on their vests and jack­ets) include a Totenkopf death’s head and SS light­ning bolts.  Most mem­bers have added an Aryan Nations patch to their colors. 

Since the merger, Aryan Nations has heav­ily pro­moted McGif­fen and the SS-MC, even “donat­ing” one of its reg­is­tered Web sites for the use of SS-MC. On that site, the SS-MC dubs the rela­tion­ship “a new begin­ning.”  The site sells SS-MC mer­chan­dise and also pro­motes the McGiffen-owned Peck­er­woods Gym and Fight Club.  Mor­ris Gulett, the cur­rent leader of Aryan Nations, is clearly stak­ing much on this rela­tion­ship, per­haps because of recent defections.

In April of this year, McGif­fen and fel­low Sadis­tic Soul Ryan R. Duck­ett were arrested by the Madi­son County Sheriff’s Depart­ment and charged with felony mob action for an alleged assault at a bar in God­frey, Illi­nois.  Both posted bond and were released.

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September 13, 2012 18

White Supremacist Student Leader Creates Web site for his “White Student Union”

Matthew Heim­bach, a Tow­son Uni­ver­sity stu­dent who is try­ing to start a “White Stu­dent Union” on cam­pus, cre­ated a web­site for the union that fur­ther reveals his white suprema­cist beliefs.

On the newly cre­ated site, Heim­bach pro­vides links to what he describes are “pro-white” web­sites.   Almost all of the sites listed, how­ever, are actu­ally openly white suprema­cist, such as those for the Council of Con­ser­v­a­tive Cit­i­zens (CCC), the Amer­i­can Third Posi­tion and Amer­i­can Renais­sance.

The CCC is a direct descen­dant of the white suprema­cist White Cit­i­zens Coun­cils that fought inte­gra­tion in the 1950s and 60s. Amer­i­can Third Posi­tion is a whites-only polit­i­cal party whose mis­sion is “to rep­re­sent the inter­ests of White Amer­i­cans.” Amer­i­can Renais­sance is the racist web­site run by white suprema­cist Jared Tay­lor, who pub­lishes a monthly jour­nal by the same title and hosts an annual con­fer­ence that brings together some of the lead­ing white suprema­cists in the United States.

Heim­bach recently announced that Tay­lor will speak at Tow­son on Octo­ber 2, 2012.

Heim­bach also lists “rec­om­mended read­ings” that include books authored by a vari­ety of well-known white suprema­cists and racists, such as Fran­cis Parker Yockey’s “Imperium,” con­sid­ered one of the essen­tial works of mod­ern white supremacy. One book rec­om­mended by Heim­bach is the novel “Camp of the Saints” by French­man Jean Ras­pail. This racist novel por­trays a France being invaded by non-whites who are depicted as disease-carrying and sex­u­ally aggres­sive. The list also fea­tures two books authored by the late white suprema­cist Sam Fran­cis: “Essen­tial Writ­ings on Race” and “Race and the Amer­i­can Prospect.” In the lat­ter book, Fran­cis bemoans the “absence of racial con­scious­ness among whites.”

Prior to cre­at­ing the Web site, the Tow­son stu­dent news­pa­per, The Tow­erlight, pub­lished a let­ter by Heim­bach advo­cat­ing for a white stu­dent union.   Fly­ers were also placed all over the Tow­son cam­pus that pro­claimed: “love your race, sup­port a white stu­dent union.”

Heim­bach is a for­mer leader of the Youth for West­ern Civ­i­liza­tion chap­ter at Tow­son, a group with racist ties whose motto is “defend­ing the West on campus.”

Heim­bach still needs the approval of the Uni­ver­sity to make the White Stu­dent Union an officially-sanctioned uni­ver­sity group.  His Web site sug­gests that he will set­tle for an unsanc­tioned group if need be.  Either way, he has made clear his inten­tion to impose his white suprema­cist views on Tow­son stu­dents, staff, and faculty.

ADL, right-wing extrem­ism, white suprema­cist, white stu­dent union, hate group, jared tay­lor, coun­cil of con­ser­v­a­tive cit­i­zens, Amer­i­can renais­sance, Amer­i­can third posi­tion, fran­cis parker yockey, imperium, matthew heim­bach, youth for west­ern civilization

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