RAM rundo
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charlottesville
nazi fight club active
merri ok
see what aboutism antifa
3 24 ICHH bogus selective presecution bizzaro antifa; flight risk serbia active clubs europe, go far enough so so not cross US air space fail el salvador, 9th tries to kep in jail, carney judge retire racist
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AN 9 25
Small local organizations called Active Clubs have spread widely across the U.S. and internationally, using fitness as a cover for a much more alarming mission. These groups are a new and harder-to-detect form of white supremacist organizing that merges extremist ideology with fitness and combat sports culture.
Active Clubs frame themselves as innocuous workout groups on digital platforms and decentralized networks to recruit, radicalize and prepare members for racist violence. The clubs commonly use encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, Wire and Matrix to coordinate internally. For broader propaganda and outreach they rely on alternative social media platforms such as Gab, Odysee, VK and sometimes BitChute. They also selectively use mainstream sites such as Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok, until those sites ban the clubs.
Active Club members have been implicated in orchestrating and distributing neo-Nazi recruitment videos and manifestos. In late 2023, for instance, two Ontario men, Kristoffer Nippak and Matthew Althorpe, were arrested and charged with distributing materials for the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division and the transnational terrorist group Terrorgram. Following their arrests, Active Club Canada’s public network went dark, Telegram pages were deleted or rebranded, and the club went virtually silent. Nippak was granted bail under strict conditions, while Althorpe remains in custody.As a sociologist studying extremism and white supremacy since 1993, I have watched the movement shift from formal organizations to small, decentralized cells – a change embodied most clearly by Active Clubs.
An investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation tracks down two Ontario-based Active Clubs that recruit and train young men to fight.
White nationalism 3.0
According to private analysts who track far-right extremist activities, the Active Club network has a core membership of 400 to 1,200 white men globally, plus sympathizers, online supporters and passive members. The clubs mainly target young white men in their late teens and twenties. Since 2020, Active Clubs have expanded rapidly across the United States, Canada and Europe, including the U.K., France, Sweden and Finland. Precise numbers are hard to verify, but the clubs appear to be spreading, according to The Counter Extremism Project
, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and my own research. The clubs reportedly operate in at least 25 U.S. states, and potentially as many as 34
. Active U.S. chapters reportedly increased from 49 in 2023 to 78 in 2025. The clubs’ rise reflects a broader shift in white supremacist strategy, away from formal organizations and social movements. In 2020, American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo introduced the concept of “White Nationalism 3.0
” – a decentralized, branded and fitness-based approach to extremist organizing. Rundo previously founded the Rise Above Movement, which was a violent, far-right extremist group in the U.S. known for promoting white nationalist ideology, organizing street fights and coordinating through social media. The organization carried out attacks at protests and rallies from 2016 through 2018. Active Clubs embed their ideology within apolitical activities such as martial arts and weightlifting
:{. This model allows them to blend in with mainstream fitness communities. However, their deeper purpose is to prepare members for racial conflict.
An actor reconstructs how British broadcaster ITV News infiltrated and secretly filmed inside Active Club England, documenting its recruiting process, activities and goals.}:
‘You need to learn how to fight’
Active Club messaging glorifies discipline, masculinity and strength – a “warrior identity” designed to attract young men. “The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo explained via his Telegram channel. “They never were like, ‘You need to learn how to fight so you can beat up people of color.’ It was like, ‘You need to learn how to fight because people want to kill you in the future,’” a former Active Club member told Vice News in 2023.These cells are deliberately small – often under a dozen members – and self-contained, which gives them greater operational security and flexibility. Each club operates semi-autonomously while remaining connected to the broader ideology and digital network.
Expanding globally and deepening ties
:{:{Active Clubs maintain strategic and ideological connections with formal white supremacist groups, including Patriot Front, a white nationalist and neofascist group founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.Active Clubs share extremist beliefs with these organizations, including racial hierarchy and the “Great Replacement” theory, which claims white populations are being deliberately replaced by nonwhite immigrants.}:
While publicly presenting as fitness groups, they may collaborate with white supremacist groups on recruitment, training, propaganda or public events. Figures connected to accelerationist groups – organizations that seek to create social chaos and societal collapse that they believe will lead to a race war and the destruction of liberal democracy – played a role in founding the Active Club network. Along with the Rise Above Movement, they include Atomwaffen Division and another neo-Nazi group, The Base – organizations that repackage violent fascism to appeal to disaffected young white men in the U.S.}:
Brotherhood as a cover
By downplaying explicit hate symbols and emphasizing strength and preparedness, Active Clubs appeal to a new generation of recruits who may not initially identify with overt racism but are drawn to a culture of hypermasculinity and self-improvement.Anyone can start a local Active Club chapter with minimal oversight. This autonomy makes it hard for law enforcement agencies to monitor the groups and helps the network grow rapidly. Shared branding and digital propaganda maintain ideological consistency.
Through this approach, Active Clubs have built a transnational network of echo chambers, recruitment pipelines and paramilitary-style training in parks and gyms.Club members engage in activities such as combat sports training, propaganda dissemination and ideological conditioning. Fight sessions are often recorded and shared online as recruitment tools.Members distribute flyers, stickers and online content to spread white supremacist messages. Active Clubs embed themselves in local communities by hosting events, promoting physical fitness, staging public actions and sharing propaganda. Potential members first see propaganda on encrypted apps such as Telegram or on social media. The clubs recruit in person at gyms, protests and local events, vetting new members to ensure they share the group’s beliefs and can be trusted to maintain secrecy.
From fringe to functioning network
Based on current information from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, there are 187 active chapters within the Active Club Network across 27 countries – a 25% increase from late 2023. The Crowd Counting Consortium documented 27 protest events involving Active Clubs in 2022-2023. However, precise membership numbers remain difficult to ascertain. Some groups call themselves “youth clubs” but share similar ideas and aesthetics and engage in similar activities. Active Club members view themselves as defenders of Western civilization and masculine virtue. From their perspective, their activities represent noble resistance rather than hate. Members are encouraged to stay secretive, prepare for societal collapse and build a network of committed, fit men ready to act through infiltration, activism or violence.
Hiding in plain sight
Law enforcement agencies, researchers and civil society now face a new kind of domestic threat that wears workout clothes instead of uniforms.Active Clubs work across international borders, bound by shared ideas and tactics and a common purpose. This is the new white nationalism: decentralized, modernized, more agile and disguised as self-improvement. What appears to be a harmless workout group may be a gateway to violent extremism, one pushup at a time.
Art Jipson, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Dayton This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
---
wiki 3 24
:{The Rise Above Movement (RAM) is a militant alt-right Southern California-based street fighting group which has variously been described as "a loose collective of violent neo-Nazis and fascists", white nationalists,[1] white supremacists,[2][3] and far-right persons.[4][5] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), it "is inspired by identitarian movements in Europe and it is trying to bring their philosophies and violent tactics to the United States."[1] Its members are primarily located in the areas of Orange County and San Diego,[2] and are variously numbered at 20 to 50.[4][6][7]
Individual RAM members are also members of other organizations, such as the self-described Identitarian Identity Evropa/American Identity Movement, the "Western chauvinist" Proud Boys, and the neo-Nazi skinhead Hammerskin Nation, according to Northern California Anti-Racist Action (NoCARA).[8]}:
The group, which was started by Robert Rundo[3] as DIY Division (DIY standing for Do It Yourself) before changing its name in early 2017, is described as a "militant racist and anti-Semitic group"[9] which sees itself as defending Western civilization, which they claim is being undermined by "Muslims, immigrants and Jews",[5] as well as liberals.[2] Heidi Beirich, Director of the SPLC's Intelligence Project, said that members of the Rise Above Movement "think they're holding onto the old California, which was white, which was conservative, which was male-run, which was connected to the military ... and now that culture is being lost and they're fighting to bring it back. In other words, it's reactive."[4]
According to ProPublica, RAM has "...a singular purpose: physically attacking its ideological foes. RAM's members spend weekends training in boxing and other martial arts, and they have publicly boasted about the acts of violence which they have committed during protests in Huntington Beach,[7] San Bernardino and Berkeley. Many of the altercations have been captured on video ..."[6] Because of its focus on street fighting, it has been described as "less like the Klan and more like a fight club".[5] According to NoCARA:
[It is] a loose collective of violent neo-Nazis and fascists from Southern California that's organized and trains primarily to engage in fighting and violence at political rallies. They have been a central participant in the recent wave of far-Right protest movements in California during the first half of 2017 which have attempted to mobilize a broad range of right-wing constituents under the banners of protecting so-called "free speech,: unyielding support for Trump, and antipathy towards Muslims, immigrants, and other oppressed groups.[8]
The group uses social media to recruit members, emphasizing the "fight club" aspect by posting videos of their training sessions,[1] and refers to itself as the "premier MMA [mixed martial arts] club of the Alt-Right."[2] According to the Anti-Defamation League, "While they consider themselves a part of the alt right, R.A.M.'s membership has deep roots in California's racist skinhead movement,[7] and it includes individuals who have faced serious criminal charges, including assault, robbery and weapons offenses."[2]
One way in which the group funds its activities is through the sale of online merchandise.[10]
By January 2021, an Active Club Network largely inspired by RAM had been formed, later developing an active presence in at least 25 states with multiple international chapters.[11]
Arrests
On August 27, 2018, charges were filed by the United States attorney's office in Charlottesville, Virginia, against four members of the group in connection to their actions at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017. They were arrested by the FBI, and the charges were unsealed and announced on October 2. The four California men — Benjamin D. Daley, 25, and Thomas W. Gillen, 34, both of Redondo Beach; Michael P. Miselis, 29, of Lawndale; and Cole E. White, 34, of Clayton — were charged with a single count each of violating the federal rioting statute as well as with conspiring to violate it. They were said to have come to the rally "with the intent to . . . commit violent acts in furtherance of a riot." According to an affidavit, the four men who were charged were "among the most violent individuals present in Charlottesville" for the rally. The charges were not related to the death of Heather Heyer.[9][12]
On May 3, 2019, Daley and Miselis pled guilty to conspiring to riot, joining the other Rise Above members who had done so earlier.[13][14] Three of the four were sentenced on July 19: Daley to 37 months, Gillen to 33 months, and Miselis to 27 months. Cole White was to be sentenced at a later date.[15][16] In August 2020, the unanimous United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the convictions of Daley and Miselis because, it found, any unconstitutionally overbroad elements of the Anti-Riot Act were fully severable.[17][18]
When Miselis was arrested, a search of his house found assault weapon ammunition, smoke bombs and flares, as well as a poster which read "88", code for "Heil Hitler" — "H" being the eighth letter of the alphabet. Miselis had recently met members of violent white supremacist groups in Europe, according to prosecutors.[4]
In October 2018, four other members of the group — Robert Rundo, Robert Boman, Tyler Laube and Aaron Eason — were charged with conspiracy to incite political riots in relation to multiple incidents which occurred in southern California and incidents which occurred during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.[3][19] Rundo, described as the founder of the group, fled to Mexico and then to Central America, where he was arrested and extradited back to the US. He was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport. A search of his home found a large framed portrait of Adolf Hitler.[3] Boman and Laube were arrested on October 24 in Southern California.[20] Eason surrendered himself on October 29.[21] Beside the Unite the Right rally, the incidents cited took place in Huntington Beach in March 2017 and in UC Berkeley in April 2017.[3] While Laube pled guilty in November 2018, the others were indicted by a grand jury of one count each of violating the Anti-Riot Act of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
In June 2019, U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney dismissed the indictment because, he held, the Anti-Riot Act is "unconstitutionally overbred in violation of the First Amendment".[22][23] In March 2021, that judgment was reversed by a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the indictments were reinstated.[24][25]
Robert Rundo, Robert Boman, and Tyler Laube were re-indicted in January 2023.[26][27]
In early August 2023, Robert Rundo was extradited to the United States from Romania. Rundo had left the U.S. in the time between the dismissal of the charges against him and their reinstatement. Rundo pleaded not guilty to the charges of conspiracy and rioting.[28][29][30]
References...
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dubya nom judge
Notable decisions[edit]
- In 2009, Carney dismissed fraud and conspiracy charges against two executives of Broadcom Corporation, a telecommunications company, because of prosecutorial misconduct. Carney also vacated a guilty plea by Broadcom co-founder Henry Samueli and dismissed a civil case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission against four Broadcom executives. Carney found that the government had violated the defendants' right to a fair trial and right to due process by, among other things, engaged in conduct that "intimidated and improperly influenced" three important defense witnesses to try to prevent them from testifying and by leaking confidential grand jury proceedings.[11][12]
- In Jones v. Davis (2014), Carney issued an opinion and order declaring the California death penalty to be unconstitutional, writing that the system's arbitrariness and lengthy delays led to only a "random few" being executed by the state and violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (California at the time had 740 prisoners sentenced to die, but had executed only 13 people since 1978, the last one in 2006.) In a 29-page order, Carney vacated the death sentence of Ernest Dewayne Jones, who was sentenced to death in 1995 for rape and murder. The order was appealed by then-California Attorney GeneralKamala Harris.[13][14][15] The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned Carney's ruling in November 2015; in a unanimous decision of three-judge panel, the appellate court noted that "Many agree with Petitioner that California's capital punishment system is dysfunctional and that the delay between sentencing and execution in California is extraordinary," but held that the district court could not consider "novel constitutional theories" in reviewing a habeas corpus case.[14][15]
- In Fazaga v. FBI (2012), Carney dismissed most of plaintiffs' claims on the grounds of the state secrets privilege. In 2019, the Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part, reviving some of plaintiffs' claims.[16][17] The Supreme Court ruled unanimously on March 4, 2022, reversing the Ninth Circuit and remanding the case. The opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, stated that Section 1806(f) of FISA does not override the state secrets privilege, as was ruled by the Ninth Circuit.[18]
- In United States v. Rundo (2019), Carney dismissed criminal conspiracy charges and rioting against Robert Rundo, the leader of the white supremacist Rise Above Movement group, and three of this followers, stemming from their attack on counter-demonstrators and a police officer in Berkeley, California, in July 2017. Carney ruled that the Anti-Riot Act of 1968 was facially overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. In 2021, the Ninth Circuit reversed Carney's ruling. Applying the Brandenburg v. Ohio standard, the court of appeals, in a per curiam decision, agreed that the portions of the act that make it a crime to organize a riot, or to encourage, urge, or promote a future act of violence, were unconstitutional, but held that the Act's prohibitions on "speech that instigates (incites, participates in, or carries on) an imminent riot" and the Act's prohibition on "conduct such as committing acts of violence in furtherance of a riot, and aiding and abetting of that speech or conduct" were constitutional, since they addressed speech and actions directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and likely to incite or produce such action.[19][20]
- In 2019, Carney sentenced Adau Mornyang, an Australian model, to three years of probation and 100 hours of community service for causing an airline flight disturbance; Mornyang had pleaded guilty to felony interference with a flight crew and misdemeanor assault.[21]
- From March 2020 until May 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California temporarily halted both jury trials and bench trials to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.[22][23] Carney was one of a minority of judges who believed that trials should continue, believing that doing so was crucial for preserving the parties' rights. Beginning in September 2020, he sought to summon jury pools to select jurors for trial, but this effort was blocked by Chief Judge Philip S. Gutierrez.[23] In five criminal cases, Carney dismissed federal charges with prejudice on speedy trial grounds.[23][24] The controversial decision led to an appeal by federal prosecutors to the Ninth Circuit.[23] In April 2021, the Ninth Circuit reversed Carney's dismissal of the indictment in United States v. Olson, holding that Carney had misread the "ends of justice provision" of the Speedy Trial Act and that Carney's view (that a speedy trial is required unless it is impossible to hold a trial) was "an unnecessarily inflexible interpretation of a provision meant to provide necessary flexibility to district courts to manage their criminal cases."[25][26]
- On March 20, 2023, Carney in Boland v. Bonta issued a preliminary injunction against requiring handguns to have certain mechanical features (including microstamping) under the State of California's "Unsafe Handgun Act" (UHA).[27] Throughout his ruling, Carney justified his decision by, amongst other considerations, pointing to logical contradictions he observed within the UHA, making an argument about the use of Off-Roster Handguns by law enforcement departments throughout the state by stating "If C.L.I.'s (Chamber Load Indicator[s]) and M.D.M.'s (Magazine Disconnect Mechanism[s]) truly increased the overall safety of a firearm, law enforcement surely would use them. But they do not. Instead, they choose to use 'newer, improved and safer generations of handguns' that are Off-Roster."[28] In the conclusion of his ruling, Carney wrote "The Second Amendment enshrines a fundamental constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms for self-defense."[29] The Court's opinion effectively halts enforcement of the UHA after 14 consecutive days have passed from the date of the ruling.[30][31]
- On December 20, 2023, Carney in May v. Bonta and Carralero v. Bonta (consolidated into one) issued a preliminary injunction against a major portion of "sensitive places" as defined in California's SB 2.[32][33]
- On February 21, 2024, Carney dismissed criminal charges against two white nationalists accused of inciting violence at political rallies. Carney said the two men were being selectively prosecuted, claiming that members of Antifa and other groups were not prosecuted for similar crimes. The controversial ruling was immediately put on hold by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.[34]
Tenure as chief judge
Carney succeeded Virginia A. Phillips as Chief Judge of the Central District of California on June 1, 2020.[8]However, he stepped down on June 26, 2020 in light of allegations that he had made racially insensitive comments regarding the Clerk of the Court, Kiry Gray, who is African American. Carney referred to Gray as "street smart" and telling her "it was not like I was the police officer standing on your neck."[35][36][37] Carney apologized to Gray for the remark.[38] He was succeeded as Chief Judge by Philip S. Gutierrez.[38][39]
caller
HAILEY GOMEZGENERAL ASSIGNMENT REPORTER
February 22, 2024
The Ninth Circuit of Appeals stepped in Thursday to block a ruling from U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney after he dropped all charges against two alleged white supremacists, according to court filings.
Carney, a federal judge within Orange County, California, dismissed the charges Wednesday against alleged white supremacists Robert Rundo and Robert Boman who were charged in 2018 with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act, as well as rioting at political rallies in 2017, according to the Los Angeles Times. Within his opinion, the federal judge stated that both men displayed they’d been selectively prosecuted in comparison to “members of Antifa” and other “far-left groups” who had reportedly physically assaulted Trump supporters at rallies, however, were not charged in the same manner. (RELATED: 31 Suspected White Nationalists Booked For Conspiracy To Riot Near Pride Event)
“By many accounts, members of Antifa and related far-left groups engaged in worse conduct and in fact instigated much of the violence that broke out at these otherwise constitutionally protected rallies to silence the protected speech of the supporters of President Trump,” Judge Carney stated in his opinion. “That is constitutionally impermissible…prosecuting only members of the far right and ignoring members of the far left leads to the troubling conclusion that the government believes it is permissible to physically assault and injure Trump supporters to silence speech.”
While Boman was released on bond following the dismissal, disputes in reporting on if Rundo had also been released were up in the air as prosecutors filed an emergency request with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals after the judge had turned down their pleas Wednesday on not releasing Rundo, according to ABC News. Prosecutors argued that Rundo was a flight risk, noting that the alleged white supremacist had fled the U.S. previously in 2019 after Carney had dismissed another case of his based on First Amendment grounds, the outlet reported.
“I don’t believe it’s warranted that Mr. Rundo spend one minute more in custody, so I’m going to release him forthwith,” Carney stated. “I feel very comfortable in the decision I’ve made.”
Both Rundo and Boman are alleged members of a white supremacist group called Rise Above Movement (RAM), which claims to be a “combat-ready, militant group of a new nationalist white supremacy and identity movement,” with Rundo notably an alleged founding member, according to the LA Times. Carney additionally noted within his original opinion that the government couldn’t prosecute RAM members “while ignoring the violence of members of Antifa” and other far-left groups.
“The government cannot prosecute R.A.M. members such as Defendants while ignoring the violence of members of Antifa and related far-left groups because RAM engaged in what the government and many believe is more offensive speech,” Carney wrote.
It is unclear if Rundo is back in custody, however, a U.S. Attorney spokesperson in Los Angeles who had prosecuted the case stated that developments would be advised “as appropriate,” according to the LA Times. [comment yikes]
{{{RAM rundo BS:
[### Judge clears alleged supremacists, claims bias against far ...
Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com › california › story › judge-ag...](https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-02-21/judge-again-dismisses-charges-against-members-of-california-white-nationalist-group)
Feb 22, 2024 — U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney on Wednesday dismissed charges against Robert Rundo — who was extradited from Romania last year — and ...
[### A highly unusual ruling to dismiss a case against 2 White ...
CNN
https://www.cnn.com › 2024/02/22 › rise-above-move...](https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/22/us/rise-above-movement-ruling-on-hold/index.html)
Feb 23, 2024 — After a federal judge made the rare decision to dismiss a criminal case against two White nationalists suspected of inciting violence at ...
[### Circuit court blocks judge's decision to release ... - ABC News
ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos
https://abcnews.go.com › story](https://abcnews.go.com/US/circuit-court-blocks-judges-decision-release-white-supremacist/story?id=107447126)
Feb 22, 2024 — White supremacist leader Robert Rundo was freed from prison before the Circuit Court stayed his release Thursday.
[### Prosecutors ask court to keep white supremacist in prison ...
CBS News
https://www.cbsnews.com › ... › Local News](https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/federal-prosecutors-ask-court-to-keep-white-supremacist-in-prison-after-judge-tosses-case/)
Feb 21, 2024 — "At the same time, the government chose not to prosecute far-left extremist groups, such as Antifa, that went to the same protests and rallies ...
[### White Nationalist Robert Rundo Re-Arrested
Rolling Stone
https://www.rollingstone.com › politics › politics-news](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/robert-rundo-judge-dismisses-charges-white-nationalist-1234974338/)
Feb 23, 2024 — Federal government scrambled to put Robert Rundo back behind bars after California judge dismissed riot charges, citing "selective ...
[### Charges Against Two White Nationalists Are Dismissed as ' ...
The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/21/us/politics/rise-above-selective-prosecution.html)
Feb 21, 2024 — A federal judge found that prosecutors were biased in pursuing charges against the two men and not against far-left activists who had also ...
[### whiplash in a leading neo-Nazi's legal case
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › world › mar › californi...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/02/california-courts-neo-nazi-robert-rundo)
7 days ago — The violent neo-Nazi Robert Rundo thought he'd won freedom last week after a US district court judge in California threw out a federal ...
[### White supremacist will leave jail 'imminently' under federal ...
Legal Affairs and Trials with Meghann Cuniff
https://www.legalaffairsandtrials.com › white-supremaci...](https://www.legalaffairsandtrials.com/p/white-supremacist-will-leave-jail)
Feb 22, 2024 — For the second time, a federal judge in Orange County has dismissed an indictment against white supremacists accused of inciting violence at ...
[### Judge who dismissed case against violent OC white ...
Orange County Register
https://www.ocregister.com › 2024/03/08 › judge-who-...](https://www.ocregister.com/2024/03/08/judge-who-dismissed-case-against-violent-oc-white-supremacist-is-no-stranger-to-tough-decisions/)
18 hours ago — U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney has made several high-profile rulings challenging alleged misconduct by law enforcement officials.
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Founder of violent OC white supremacist group ordered ...
Orange County Register
https://www.ocregister.com › 2024/02/21 › founder-of-...](https://www.ocregister.com/2024/02/21/founder-of-violent-oc-white-supremacist-group-free-after-judge-claims-bias-against-far-right/)
Feb 21, 2024 — Judge says prosecutors didn't target 'Antifa and other extremist, far-left groups.'
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Judge dismisses charges against white nationalists who ...
Berkeleyside
https://www.berkeleyside.org › rise-above-movement](https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/02/23/rise-above-movement)
Feb 23, 2024 — 1, 2017, just hours before right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos was to speak at UC Berkeley, a band of black-masked Antifa protesters swept ...
[### Charges against alleged white supremacists tossed by judge
NBC News
https://www.nbcnews.com › news › us-news › charges-...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charges-against-alleged-white-supremacists-tossed-judge-n1013931)
Jun 4, 2019 — LOS ANGELES — Federal charges against three alleged members of a violent white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California ...
[### Federal Judge Dismisses Charges Against 3 White ...
ProPublica
https://www.propublica.org › article › federal-judge-dis...](https://www.propublica.org/article/federal-judge-dismisses-charges-against-3-white-supremacists)
Jun 4, 2019 — The three, members of the Rise Above Movement, had been charged under a federal anti-riot statute with planning and then carrying out ...
[### Judge again dismisses charges against members of ...
The Daily Item
https://www.dailyitem.com › wire › politics › judge-aga...](https://www.dailyitem.com/wire/politics/judge-again-dismisses-charges-against-members-of-california-white-nationalist-group/article_949a3e7e-81e6-55b6-9d48-72c2c5fea8ed.html)
Feb 21, 2024 — U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney on Wednesday dismissed charges against Robert Rundo — who was extradited from Romania last year — and ...
[### US judge again drops case against alleged white ...
Daily Journal
https://www.dailyjournal.com › articles › 377278-us-jud...](https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/377278-us-judge-again-drops-case-against-alleged-white-supremacists-citing-unequal-targeting)
Feb 22, 2024 — It was the second time U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney dismissed charges against Robert Rundo and Robert Boman of Torrance. In 2018, the ...
[### UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. ROBERT RUNDO AND ...
FindLaw
https://caselaw.findlaw.com › us-dis-crt-c-d-cal-sou-div](https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-dis-crt-c-d-cal-sou-div/115856212.html)
Feb 21, 2024 — The government cannot prosecute RAM members such as Defendants while ignoring the violence of members of Antifa and related far-left groups ...
[### US appeals court blocks release of white supremacist leader
JURIST - Legal News
https://www.jurist.org › news › 2024/02 › us-appeals-co...](https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/02/us-appeals-court-blocks-release-of-white-supremacist-leader/)
Feb 23, 2024 — A US federal appeals court halted the release of Robert Rundo, an alleged leader of the white supremacist group Rise Above Movement (RAM), ...
[### US judge again drops case against alleged white ...
Daily Journal
https://www.dailyjournal.com › article › 377277-us-judg...](https://www.dailyjournal.com/article/377277-us-judge-again-drops-case-against-alleged-white-supremacists-citing-unequal-targeting)
Feb 22, 2024 — ... California. It was the second time U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney dismissed charges against Robert Rundo and Robert Boman of Torrance.
[### Gabriel San Román
X · gsanroman2
1 like · 2 weeks ago](https://twitter.com/gsanroman2/status/1760421024162791905)
OC federal judge Cormac Carney citied "selective prosecution" when freeing alleged members of RAM, a white supremacist group who brawled ...
Missing: california | Show results with: california
[### Judge Tosses All Charges in White Nationalist Rioting Plot
Courthouse News Service
https://www.courthousenews.com › judge-tosses-all-cha...](https://www.courthousenews.com/judge-tosses-all-charges-in-white-nationalist-rioting-plot/)
Jun 3, 2019 — A federal judge in Los Angeles dropped all charges against three men charged with inciting riots across California as part of a white ...
[### Charges against alleged white supremacists are tossed by ...
AP News
https://apnews.com › article › california-white-suprema...](https://apnews.com/article/california-white-supremacists-charges-dismissed-498d1099d9ab592d94fe6207faf01d49)
Feb 21, 2024 — LOS ANGELES (AP) — For the second time in five years, federal charges against alleged members of a violent white supremacist group accused ...
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Los Angeles judge dismisses all riot charges against 3 ...
Los Angeles Daily News
https://www.dailynews.com › los-angeles-judge-dismiss...](https://www.dailynews.com/los-angeles-judge-dismisses-all-riot-charges-against-3-members-of-reputed-white-nationalist-group/)
Jun 3, 2019 — LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles federal judge Monday dismissed all charges against three reputed members of a Southern California white ...
[### Judge clears charges against alleged white supremacists ...
AOL.com
https://www.aol.com › news › judge-again-dismisses-ch...](https://www.aol.com/news/judge-again-dismisses-charges-against-200451647.html)
Feb 22, 2024 — Rundo is alleged to be a founding member of Rise Above Movement, or RAM, a white supremacist group that, according to a federal indictment, ...
[### Rise Above Movement
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Rise_Above_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rise_Above_Movement)
The Rise Above Movement (RAM) is a militant alt-right Southern California-based street fighting group which has variously been described as "a loose ...
[### Charges against alleged white supremacists tossed by judge
AP News
https://apnews.com › ...](https://apnews.com/general-news-4076ec1422f747668e1ecc29f85bd679)
Jun 4, 2019 — Three alleged members of a white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California political rallies were cleared of federal ...
[### Calif. district judge tosses US case against members of white ...
ABC News - Breaking News, Latest News and Videos
https://abcnews.go.com › Politics › story](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/calif-district-judge-tosses-us-case-members-white/story?id=63511366)
Jun 6, 2019 — The government suffered a loss this week in a case against members of a militant white nationalist group accused of inciting violence at ...
[### White Nationalist Robert Rundo Re-Arrested
Yahoo News Singapore
https://sg.news.yahoo.com › government-scrambles-cap...](https://sg.news.yahoo.com/government-scrambles-capture-white-nationalist-014454328.html)
Feb 23, 2024 — The feds secured an emergency warrant for Robert Rundo, whose riot charges were shockingly dismissed Wednesday.
[### Violent White Nationalist Rob Rundo Arrested in Romania
Southern Poverty Law Center
https://www.splcenter.org › hatewatch › 2023/03/31 › v...](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2023/03/31/violent-white-nationalist-rob-rundo-arrested-romania)
Mar 31, 2023 — Romanian authorities have arrested white nationalist brawler Robert Rundo at the request of American authorities, according to several local ...
[### Judge dismisses charges against members of California ...
Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com › local › lanow › la-me-ln-whi...](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-white-nationalist-charges-dropped-20190604-story.html)
Jun 4, 2019 — A federal judge in L.A. dismissed all charges against three reputed members of a Southern California white nationalist group suspected of ...
[### Robert Rundo
Counter Extremism Project
https://www.counterextremism.com › extremists › robert-...](https://www.counterextremism.com/extremists/robert-rundo)
Robert Rundo is the founder and leader of the Rise Above Movement (RAM), a white supremacist gang based in Southern California that calls itself the ...
[### Judge dismisses federal charges against 3 members of ...
Los Angeles Times
https://www.latimes.com › socal › daily-pilot › news › t...](https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/news/tn-dpt-me-hb-ram-charges-dropped-20190604-story.html)
Jun 4, 2019 — A U.S. District Court judge ruled Monday that the federal Anti-Riot Act is "unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First Amendment ...
[### White supremacist Robert Rundo extradited from Romania ...
The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com › us-news › aug › robert-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/02/robert-rundo-white-supremacist-extradited-romania-charges-los-angeles)
Aug 2, 2023 — Rise Above Movement co-founder to face charges in Los Angeles in relation to violent clashes with anti-fascist protesters in 2017.
[### Judge Cormac Carney dismisses Rundo indictment
DocumentCloud
https://www.documentcloud.org › documents › 2443635...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24436350-judge-cormac-carney-dismisses-rundo-indictment)
-1- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SOUTHERN DIVISION ...
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Romania extradites California white supremacist to US
Courthouse News Service
https://www.courthousenews.com › romania-extradites-...](https://www.courthousenews.com/romania-extradites-california-white-supremacist-to-us/)
The Southern California resident was arrested in Romania after federal prosecutors brought a new indictment against him and other participants in the Rise ...
[### Rob Rundo, RAM Members Among Extremists on Leaked ' ...
Southern Poverty Law Center
https://www.splcenter.org › hatewatch › 2023/01/31 › r...](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2023/01/31/rob-rundo-ram-members-among-extremists-leaked-no-fly-list)
Jan 31, 2023 — A leaked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) list shows that Robert Paul “Rob” Rundo, founder of the violent white nationalist Rise Above ...
[### Charges dismissed against RAM members ...
NewsRadio WINA |
https://wina.com › news › 064460-charges-dismissed-a...](https://wina.com/news/064460-charges-dismissed-against-ram-members-charged-with-inciting-violence-at-california-rallies/)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three alleged members of a white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California political rallies were cleared of federal ...
[### Four Local Members of White Supremacy Group Face ...
United States Department of Justice (.gov)
https://www.justice.gov › usao-cdca › four-local-memb...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/four-local-members-white-supremacy-group-face-federal-charges-attacks-political-rallies)
Oct 24, 2018 — The four RAM members allegedly engaged in a series of violent attacks at political rallies in 2017, including events in Huntington Beach, ...
Missing: carney | Show results with: carney
[### United States v. Rundo U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (.gov)
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov › 2021/03/04](https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2021/03/04/19-50189.pdf)
Mar 4, 2021 — The panel reversed the district court's dismissal of an indictment charging four defendants with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act and ...
[### 9th Circuit reverses Judge Carney in USA v. Rundo, 1st order
DocumentCloud
https://www.documentcloud.org › documents › 2443930...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24439307-9th-circuit-reverses-judge-carney-in-usa-v-rundo-1st-order)
FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ROBERT PAUL RUNDO; ROBERT BOMAN; ...
Missing: ram | Show results with: ram
[### Lead Defendant in Federal Case Charging White ...
United States Department of Justice (.gov)
https://www.justice.gov › usao-cdca › lead-defendant-fe...](https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/lead-defendant-federal-case-charging-white-supremacist-group-violence-political)
Aug 4, 2023 — LOS ANGELES – The lead defendant in an indictment that charges three Southern California men linked to a white supremacy extremist group ...
Missing: carney | Show results with: carney
[### Ninth Circuit Steps In After California Judge Drops Charges ...
The Daily Caller
https://dailycaller.com › 2024/02/22 › ninth-circuit-cali...](https://dailycaller.com/2024/02/22/ninth-circuit-california-judge-white-supremacist/)
Feb 22, 2024 — Font Size: The Ninth Circuit of Appeals stepped in Thursday to block a ruling from U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney after he dropped all ...
[### As Neo-Nazi 'Active Club' Grows, Charges Against Its ...
Unicorn Riot
https://unicornriot.ninja › as-neo-nazi-active-club-grow...](https://unicornriot.ninja/2024/as-neo-nazi-active-club-grows-charges-against-its-founder-dismissed/)
5 days ago — Known hate group Active Club has seen explosive growth while the group's founder was nearly released by a federal judge last week.
[### Judge tosses riot charges against white supremacist — again
Law and Crime News
https://lawandcrime.com › high-profile › yes-another-m...](https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/yes-another-minute-in-custody-back-to-jail-for-alleged-white-supremacist-leader-after-judge-dismisses-rioting-charges-again/)
Yes, 'another minute in custody': Back to jail for alleged white supremacist leader after judge dismisses rioting charges — again. Brandi BuchmanFeb 22nd, 2024, ...
[### Judge Says Feds Can't 'Selectively' Prosecute Right-Wing ...
The Daily Wire
https://www.dailywire.com › news › judge-says-feds-ca...](https://www.dailywire.com/news/judge-says-feds-cant-selectively-prosecute-right-wing-rioters-while-ignoring-antifa)
Feb 27, 2024 — A judge in California threw out charges against two far-right political agitators, saying the federal government engaged in “selective ...
[### Of COURSE It was a Controversial Right Wing Judge Who ...
Idavox
https://idavox.com › index.php › 2024/02/22](https://idavox.com/index.php/2024/02/22/14764/)
Feb 22, 2024 — A judge that once had to resign as chief judge of the Central District of California over racist comments about a Black court official and ...
[### Judge Drops Charges Against Two Far-Right Activists
La Voce di New York
https://lavocedinewyork.com › news › 2024/02/22 › ju...](https://lavocedinewyork.com/en/news/2024/02/22/judge-drops-charges-against-two-far-right-activists-its-selective-prosecution/)
Feb 22, 2024 — U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney dismissed charges against Robert Rundo and Robert Boman, members of the Rise Above Movement (RAM), a ...
[### Judge Found That government 'Selectively' Prosecuted ...
OutKick
https://www.outkick.com › culture](https://www.outkick.com/culture/judge-found-that-government-selectively-prosecuted-right-wing-rioters-while-ignoring-antifa)
Feb 28, 2024 — A California judge dismissed charges against two members of the conservative agitator group Rise Against Movement (RAM), while ignoring ...
[### DOJ Rearrests Exonerated 'Far-Right' Protester
Dallas Express
https://dallasexpress.com › National](https://dallasexpress.com/national/doj-rearrests-exonerated-far-right-protester/)
7 days ago — A federal judge dismissed cases against two far-right protesters because the prosecution did not charge left-wing agitators committing ...
[### United States v. Rundo, No. 19-50189 (9th Cir. 2021)
Justia Law
https://law.justia.com › cases › federal › appellate-courts](https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/19-50189/19-50189-2021-03-04.html)
The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of an indictment charging defendants with conspiracy to violate the Anti-Riot Act and three of ...
[### Appendix
Supreme Court of the United States (.gov)
https://www.supremecourt.gov › DocketPDF › 20...](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-5952/195982/20211008164833245_Rundo%20et%20al%20-%20Appendix.pdf)
Oct 8, 2021 — v. Robert Paul RUNDO; Robert Boman;. Tyler Laube; Aaron Eason,. Defendants-Appellees. No. 19-50189.
[### Prosecution of Far-Right But Not Antifa for Same Riots ...
NTD News
https://www.ntd.com › prosecution-of-far-right-but-not...](https://www.ntd.com/prosecution-of-far-right-but-not-antifa-for-same-riots-constitutionally-impermissible-judge_974849.html)
Feb 22, 2024 — U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney of southern California therefore dismissed charges against two men from the “white nationalist” Rise ...
[### Judge: White supremacist group's actions protected by free ...
The Christian Science Monitor
https://www.csmonitor.com › USA › Justice › Judge-W...](https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2019/0605/Judge-White-supremacist-group-s-actions-protected-by-free-speech)
Jun 5, 2019 — A Los Angeles judge decreed that members of a white supremacist group were protected by constitutional free speech despite their advocacy ...
[### White supremacist group member from Redondo Beach ...
Daily Breeze
https://www.dailybreeze.com › white-supremacist-group-...](https://www.dailybreeze.com/white-supremacist-group-member-from-redondo-beach-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy-for-role-in-o-c-rally-violence/)
Nov 20, 2018 — Tyler Laube, 22, of Redondo Beach, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal riots act. U.S. District Judge Cormac J.
[### Charges Against Alleged SoCal White Nationalist Revived
Spectrum News
https://spectrumnews1.com › crime › 2021/03/04 › app...](https://spectrumnews1.com/ca/la-west/crime/2021/03/04/appeals-court-revives-charges-against-alleged-socal-white-nationalists)
Mar 4, 2021 — The alleged members of the so-called Rise Above Movement were indicted in 2018 for allegedly inciting violence at political rallies.
[### A Descriptive Review of the Commercial, Industrial, ... google.com
https://books.google.com › books](https://books.google.com/books?id=l9EsAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=judge+carney+california+ram+rundo&source=bl&ots=rBDL56asJ7&sig=ACfU3U3BhrIMz8jx1c1eTEV5wSCRzs_zGA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7r5CP1eeEAxVX5skDHT5UBqs4MhDoAXoECAIQAw)
George F. Cram Company · 1915 · Atlases
... CARNEY NADEAU HANG BAGLEY PHEE CHARNOLD HOTUS ... RAM / ONA STIMSON M. WOODVILLE M HERRICK GILMORE ... CALIFORNIA MONTGOMERY O CAMDEN RANSOM MADIS PALM MEDINA ...
[### Charges against alleged white supremacists tossed by judge
San Diego Union-Tribune
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com › news › sns-bc...](https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/sns-bc-us--white-supremacists-charges-dismissed-20190605-story.html)
Jun 4, 2019 — Federal charges against three alleged members of a violent white supremacist group accused of inciting violence at California political ...
[### A highly unusual ruling to dismiss a case against 2 White ...
WICZ
https://www.wicz.com › story › a-highly-unusual-ruling-...](https://www.wicz.com/story/50488532/a-highly-unusual-ruling-to-dismiss-a-case-against-2-white-nationalists-is-put-on-hold-by-a-federal-appeals-court)
Feb 22, 2024 — (CNN) — After a federal judge made the rare decision to dismiss a criminal case against two White nationalists suspected of inciting violence at ...
[### Federal judge dismisses charges against 3 white ...
MPR News
https://www.mprnews.org › story › 2019/06/05 › feder...](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/06/05/federal-judge-dismisses-charges-against-3-white-supremacists)
Jun 5, 2019 — In this Aug. 12, 2017 file photo, white nationalist demonstrators clash with counter demonstrators at the entrance to Lee Park in ...
[### California judge dismisses charges against right-wing ...
Rebel News
https://www.rebelnews.com › california_judge_dismisse...](https://www.rebelnews.com/california_judge_dismisses_charges_against_right_wing_activists_cites_selective_prosecution)
Feb 28, 2024 — Judicial ruling points to unequal treatment of political agitators at 2017 Berkeley rally.
[### White Supremacist YouTube Channel Gives Tips on ...
Newsweek
https://www.newsweek.com › ... › Europe › California](https://www.newsweek.com/white-supremacist-youtube-channel-gives-tips-avoiding-homeland-security-1579102)
Mar 26, 2021 — The Anti-Defamation League said, "it's incredibly disturbing YouTube continues to provide Robert Rundo with an outlet for his bigotry."}}} endit
---
russian Militia Has Links to American Neo-Nazi and Anti-Trans Figures
Ben Makuch
The leader of the anti-Putin Russian Volunteer Corps is publicly connected to Robert Rundo and Christopher Pohlhaus.
---
rww 921
a night of canvasing begins with a group of angry, white men.
Dressed in matching T-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with the phrase “Active Club,” the masked white nationalists wield a starter pack of extremist paraphernalia: stickers that read “FCK ANTIFA” and “Defend the White Race,” posters promoting a “nationalist lifestyle,” stencils etched with racist slogans, and black spray paint. They disperse, plastering stickers on lamp posts, billboards, and the occasional statue. They replace Black Lives Matter slogans with smatterings of hate messages and promises to “reclaim America.”
Among the scattered propaganda is a blue poster imploring readers to start their own active clubs—spaces for white men to train in combat while openly embracing white nationalism through street activism and publicity stunts. “Now is all we have,” read the poster. “Join the fight.”
Various videos and photos posted online by the group show this scene play out over and over again. You might even have seen these posters across small-town USA: Seymour, Indiana; Coeur d’Alene Idaho; Cheyenne, Wyoming—or even across cities like Denver and Philadelphia. These calls to actions are not the work of misguided teenagers but the persistent effort ofinfamous white nationalists like Robert Rundo, who spent years sowing the seeds of hate while building a global following for his neo-Nazi fight-club initiatives.
By using combat sports as a medium to recruit, radicalize, and discipline white nationalists disenfranchised by mainstream conservative politics, Rundo is able to create physical and digital spaces where extreme right political ideologies can flourish. He also joined forces with like-minded white nationalist groups such as Patriot Front and Revolt Against Tradition, which has allowed Rundo to rapidly expand his network and spread his active club ideology across North America.
The Rise of Active Clubs
The chaos that took place in Berkeley on April 15, 2017, was among the worst the city had seen in years. For approximately three hours, protesters for and against then President Donald Trump brawled at a “Patriot Rally” on the streets surrounding Civic Center Park, armed with pepper spray, smoke bombs, sticks, and wooden dowels. Seven attendees were hospitalized with injuries while 20 people were arrested, according to Berkeley police.
Among those arrested was Rundo, who arrived in Berkeley with members of his Rise Above Movement white nationalist group, and was later taken into custody on suspicion of battery on a police officer and for resisting a police officer. The charges were dropped after an Alameda County deputy district attorney determined that there was not “enough evidence to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.” It took more than a year for theDepartment of Justice to bring federal charges against Rundo and three other RAM members for their alleged involvement in political rallies across California, claiming that they “violently attacked counter-protesters, journalists and a police officer.”
According to the complaint filed by federal officials in October 2018, Rundo and three other RAM members were allegedly involved in “violent attacks” at the Berkeley rally, which included Rundo punching a defenseless person and a police officer. The complaint also noted that RAM members celebrated the assaults in Berkeley, which prosecutors say included one member posting photos of himself attacking people and of other RAM members assaulting counterprotesters with their combat sports training.
The 2018 federal complaint followed the filing of an indictment in federal court that led to the arrest of four other RAM members on rioting charges related to their participation at the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 at which a counterprotester was murdered. The four men, including RAM co-founder Ben Daley and UCLA doctoral student Michael Miselis, pleaded guilty and were sentenced for their crimes. The RAM defendants in California were luckier. While many expected Rundo and the three other defendants to face jail time—one RAM member even pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge—a district judge dismissed the charges against them in 2019, claiming that the federal statute used to prosecute the members infringed upon their First Amendment rights to free speech.
Prior to the string of arrests, the California-based RAM boasted more than 50 members who trained in various combat sports such as mixed martial arts and boxing, which they later applied during street fights and protests.The group rose to prominence in 2017, when they began attending political rallies and targeting anti-fascist activists. They infiltrated protests and disrupted proceedings by fighting with those opposing their ultra-nationalist ideology. They concealed their identities using skull face masks and goggles, and went into rallies with their hands wrapped in tape in preparation for physical altercations. They then glorified their antics in propaganda videos posted on social media.
RAM members at an “anti-Sharia law” protest in San Bernardino, California.
RAM’s penchant for MMA and underground fight clubs is one of the main things that distinguishes it from various other white supremacist groups in the United States. It has also helped RAM expand beyond the borders of the U.S., recruit new members, and network with other neo-Nazi groups dabbling in MMA around the world.
While four of RAM’s most prominent members remain in jail since being indicted on Charlottesville rioting charges, Rundo left the United States after having his case dismissed in California and has spent the last few years trying to further his white nationalist agenda and rebuild the fighting community that had been diminished by federal prosecution. After moving to Eastern Europe, Rundo founded a far-right propaganda outfit known as theInternational Conservative Community,which boasts a network of neo-Nazis around the world, with groups in Greece, Poland, Sweden, Hungary, Russia and Canada. The ICC is behind the propaganda campaign for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old charged with the fatal shooting of two protesters during an anti-racism demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Rundo’s campaign included spreading artwork depicting Rittenhouse with the caption, “Kyle was Right.” The ICC has planted stickers, large-scale graffiti work, and banners emblazoned with Rittenhouse’s image across Europe and North America. In Serbia, where Rundo was living in 2020, the group painted a picture of an armed Rittenhouse standing proud with a Schwarze Sonne (German for Black Sun) as his backdrop; the symbol, also known as a sonnerad, is used by a number of with far-right groups that traffic in neo-Nazi ideologies. The painting in Serbia was featured alongside a Confederate flag and a picture of a deranged-looking Homer Simpson cartoon character aiming a gun, with the caption “KILL YOUR LOCAL ANTIFA SCUM.”
It was around this time that Rundo began encouraging his followers to form their own “Active Clubs,” which he defined as a “small group of comrades who share our values of identity.” The aim of such groups is to “focus on physical fitness” and “create displays of defiance that show your community that our culture will not be erased.”
“The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo wrote on his Active Club Telegram channel. “The active lifestyle is the counter to the left’s culture of apathy, addiction, and vice. Get active today in your area and be the change you want to see.”
Members of Colorado’s “Front Range Active Club” training in combat sports. Credit: Front Range Telegram
Rundo later started the “Active Club Podcast” with Denis Nikitin, a Russian neo-Nazi considered to be the godfather of the extreme-right MMA scene, where they teach fellow nationalists how to form their own hate groups. Nikitin, who rose to infamy after launching the neo-Nazi MMA organization and clothing brand known as White Rex, has also been banned from entering any Schengen-area European countries. However, while Rundo boasted on the podcast about the “perks” of living in Eastern Europe, the extremist was expelled from Serbia after Bellingcat outed his location in Serbia. The Serbian daily Blic reported that on Feb. 11, 2021, Serbian police escorted Rundo to the Trbušnica-Šepak border pass, which connects Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Rundo’s luck in avoiding prosecution, however, may soon come to an end. On 4 March, 2021, the LA Timesreported that a US Federal Appeals Court had reinstated rioting charges against Rundo and three accomplices from RAM, ruling that they could be tried for their roles in riots in California in 2017. Despite facing potential arrest, Rundo remains active on Telegram, the social media platform popular among the extreme right, where continues to espouse his vision for the evolution of white supremacy.
“White Nationalism 3.0”
In a December 2020 essay entitled “The Idea Behind ‘Active Club,’” Robert Rundo laid out his argument for why his fellow angry white men should start their own neighborhood fight clubs.
“As most institutions give little or no regard for white youth today, Active Clubs’ role will fill that gap,” Rundo wrote, adding that active clubs promote camaraderie, identity formation, and “awaken racial bonds between kin” as they engage in fitness activities, combat sports training, and the “thrill and excitement” of spreading right-wing propaganda in the form of flyers, stickers, and graffiti. Rundo theorized that by spreading their message through propaganda posters and stickers, it will serve as a “critical revelation,” letting “our own know the fight is not over.”
Rundo also dictated that the clubs must remain small and local, explaining that it will make it more difficult for the media and law enforcement officials to shut down the entire operation. “Even if the system and their dogs manage to put out one fire, it will lead to minimal results,” he wrote.
Rundo’s guidelines suggest he has learned from his mistakes with RAM. Initially, the white nationalist group, the first prominent example of an active club in North America, had 50 members and was active on mainstream social media, which made it easy for researchers to identify its members. The modern iteration of the active club, which Rundo sometimes refers to as “white nationalism 3.0,” is different. The groups are local, self-contained, and are careful about the images they publish online. They take part in fitness activities together and focus on local activism—spreading stickers, posters, and banner drops—instead of taking part in rallies and demonstrations where they may be identified.
Rundo also launched a media outlet called Media2Rise, which he claimed would “counter” liberal narratives.Over the past few months, the former MMA fighter has used this platform to publish “Sons of the Founders,” described as a “documentary” about Patriot Front—an offshoot of the white supremacist Vanguard group that trains in “hand-to-hand combat.” The propaganda film, which follows Patriot Front members during their demonstrations held this year on the Fourth of July in Pennsylvania, underscores the growing (and highly concerning) ties between like-minded extremists such as Rundo and Patriot Front.
Patriot Front members holding up an ‘Active Club’ banner
To date, Rundo’s active clubs have formed across the United States, including in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire.An active club has even launched in Quebec and Ontario, the latter of which was recently renamed to “Action 14,” a reference to the 14-word neo-Nazi slogan “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The rebranding leaves no doubt that the group is more than a fitness club for like-minded individuals but rather a white nationalist propaganda outfit that indoctrinates white men into the nationalist cause.
When prospective members questioned Action 14’s decision to rebrand in the public chat, arguing that it was “setting up the group to be targeted,” the club’s leadership shrugged off the concerns. “The name gives us a new look, and a clear signal to those on our side as to what we are about. It allows us to go national without splintering into 13 different groups, one for each province. We are a National Active Club now. Action 14 is the banner we all organize under,” the administrator said. However, the group eventually rebranded to “Active Club Canada” after what the administrator said was a “detailed discussion” among the founders.
“Tell your friends, wherever they are in Canada, that we are organizing workouts near them! If we don’t have one set up already in your area, you can rest assured that we will soon! This is the place to reach out to us. If you are a White man, looking to meet other Pro-White Brothers in a fitness setting, Active Club Canada is the place for you!” the group’s administrator posted on Telegram.
‘Active Club Canada’ aka ‘Action 14’ members posing during a workout session in Ontario.
While Rundo would likely disagree with the Ontario active club’s decision to go national, he is no doubt delighted to know that his propaganda outfit masquerading as a fitness and martial arts counter culture group is spreading. The extremist organizer had previously written about the importance of combat sports as a “weapon” for white supremacists, as well as a way of building a community of like-minded individuals. “The nationalist movement was never built on idle talk but on those with iron will who didn’t back down,” he wrote in a 2020 essay. “In a time of weak men it only takes some effort to rise above all. Combat sports is that way up.”
Indeed, MMA and combat sports’ idolization of hypermasculinity, its penchant for violence, and its emphasis on wellness based lifestyles is well suited to far-right groups whose members object to progressive society’s supposed decadence and degeneration. Many white nationalist and far-right groups espouse “straight-edge” lifestyles focused on clean eating, a disciplined physical fitness regimen, and abstention from drugs and alcohol. Many such groups lionize white, muscular, male bodies, using them as models for future generations. MMA’s training regimen is also appealing to members of far-right groups because it offers them structured tutelage that they believe is necessary to defend their homeland.
Writing in her acclaimed book “Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right,” Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss stated that “MMA becomes a powerful incubator for the far right when these ideas of masculinity—the notion that being a man is achieved through violent confrontation, domination, and physical intimidation of opponents—are layered onto far-right ideology about immigrant invasions and defense of the nation.”
This is exactly what Rundo hopes to achieve with his active club initiative. And as his fascist fight clubs continue to spread across the United States, so does his message of hate.
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https://www.alternet.org/2019/05/all-4-white-supremacists-charged-in-charlottesville-violence-plead-guilty/
story was co-published with Frontline PBS.
Last year, when federal authorities arrested and charged four members or associates of a white supremacist gang for their roles in the infamous 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the men and their supporters struck a defiant tone.
The men proclaimed their innocence, and their backers described them in social media posts as “patriots” and “political prisoners.” The gang, known as the Rise Above Movement and based in Southern California, set up an anonymous tip line for people to share evidence that might exonerate the imprisoned members, and it established alegal defense fund, with donations taken via PayPal and bitcoin.
But in the following months, the men, one after the other, have pleaded guilty.Last Friday saw the final two guilty pleas, including one from Ben Daley, 26, one of the group’s leaders. He was joined by Michael Miselis, 30, a former Northrop Grumman aerospace engineer. The men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to riot.
“These avowed white supremacists traveled to Charlottesville to incite and commit acts of violence, not to engage in peaceful First Amendment expression,” U.S. Attorney Thomas T. Cullen said in announcing the guilty pleas. “Although the First Amendment protects an organization’s right to express abhorrent political views, it does not authorize senseless violence in furtherance of a political agenda.”
The Rise Above Movement and its role in the violence in Charlottesville in 2017 and at rallies in other cities was the subject of reporting by ProPublica and Frontline, work the authorities have credited in taking action against the men. Federal prosecutors in California are pursuing charges against four other RAM members, including its founder, Robert Rundo.
The plea documents filed during Friday’s court proceedings in Charlottesville lay out a detailed narrative of what the authorities say were RAM’s repeated acts of violence two years ago.
The narrative chronicles RAM’s combat training and the visual evidence capturing its members attacking protesters, including in Charlottesville, where, the authorities spell out, they “collectively pushed, punched, kicked, choked, head-butted, and otherwise assaulted several individuals, resulting in a riot.”
In pleading guilty, the authorities said, Daley and Miselis admitted their actions were not in self-defense.
In the contemporary white supremacist scene, RAM had positioned itself as the violent vanguard of the movement, a successor to the volatile and hyper-aggressive skinhead gangs that were prevalent during the 1980s and 1990s. Since its formation in 2016, the group has recruited several members of the Hammerskin Nation, the largest skinhead gang in the country, which has been tied to numerous killings, including the massacre of six Sikh worshippers at a temple outside Milwaukee.
Though RAM has eschewed the skinhead style — combat boots and bomber jackets — in favor of a more mainstream look, its members have embraced the bloody tactics of the Nazi skinhead gangs.
Miselis, a onetime engineering student at UCLA, was fired from his job at Northrop Grumman after ProPublica and Frontline exposed his membership in RAM. In a companywide email, then-CEO Wesley Bush said he was “deeply saddened yesterday to see news reports alleging that one of our employees engaged in violence as part of the Charlottesville protests.” Miselis held a government-issued security clearance while at Northrop, a major defense contractor, though the company has so far declined to say what projects Miselis was assigned to.
Rundo, who was living in Orange County at the time of his arrest, has also portrayed the federal prosecutions as a miscarriage of justice. “The rioting charges brought against us have not been used in 70 years,” Rundo said in a jailhouse interview posted on YouTube in February. “This has little to do with rioting and all to do with censorship and silencing anyone that they deem too radical by today’s standards.”
In the interview, Rundo blamed the media for demonizing RAM and described the group as a self-improvement club for white men.
Rundo has pleaded not guilty, and he could be headed to trial.
The RAM prosecutions have become something of a cause celebre for the racist right. Augustus Invictus, a fringe political figure and attorney, has set up a legal defense fund to solicit donations for the RAM members facing charges. “The federal government has taken an absolute political hard line against the right wing,” Invictus said in a 53-minute YouTube video discussing the case. The video has generated more than 22,000 views and nearly 700 comments, most of them sympathetic to RAM and many of them racist, anti-Semitic and Islamophobic.
One of RAM’s most infamous supporters is Robert Bowers, the Pennsylvania man accused of murdering 11 congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburghlast October. Shortly before the massacre, Bowers posted a message decrying the RAM prosecutions on Gab, a far-right social media platform. Bowers has pleaded not guilty in the unfolding case.
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https://www.propublica.org/article/four-men-arrested-over-unrest-during-2017-unite-the-right-rally
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Four Men Arrested Over Unrest During 2017 “Unite the Right” Rally
The four are members or associates of the Rise Above Movement, a white supremacist group based in Southern California, prosecutors say.
by Rahima Nasa Oct. 2, 7:30 p.m. EDT
Benjamin Daley, in the long-sleeve white shirt, center; Michael Miselis, in the backward baseball cap; Thomas Gillen, with goggles around his neck; and Cole White, in a white shirt and sunglasses, right; were arrested in connection with the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. (Edu Bayer, special to ProPublica)
DOCUMENTING HATE
Tracking Hate Crimes and Bias Incidents
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday announced they had arrestedfour members or associates of the Rise Above Movement, a white supremacist group, over their alleged role in the infamous 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The four men were charged with having traveled to Charlottesville with the aim of inciting a riot and conspiracy to incite a riot, and prosecutors submitted an array of photographs and videos capturing the men pummeling and choking protesters over two days.
If convicted, the men — Benjamin Drake Daley, 25, of Redondo Beach, California; Thomas Walter Gillen, 34, of Redondo Beach; Michael Paul Miselis, 29, of Lawndale, California; and Cole Evan White, 24, of Clayton, California — could face five years in prison for each of two federal riot charges. White has been described as an associate of the group, not a member.
Most of the men charged on Tuesday have been the subject of reporting by ProPublica and Frontline over the last year. RAM, based in Southern California, claimed more than 50 members in 2017 and an overriding purpose: physically attacking its ideological foes. Its members spend weekends training in boxing and other martial arts, and they have boasted publicly of their violence during rallies — not just in Charlottesville, but in the California cities of Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley, as well. Many of the altercations have been captured on video.
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https://www.propublica.org/article/robert-rundo-denis-nikitin-hooligans-europe-hate-group
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Robert Rundo, a leader of the violent white supremacist group known as the Rise Above Movement, pounded the man, hitting him with a series of thudding punches — left, right, left — that sent his foe staggering backwards.
But this wasn’t a street brawl captured on video: It was a boxing match — complete with 12-ounce gloves, a referee, and scantily attired ring girls — and it was promoted by a white supremacist fight club in Ukraine. The event was held inside a bunker-like building in Kiev, with fighters competing inside a cage of the sort familiar to mixed martial arts fans in America.
With the skinhead subculture fading, neo-Nazi organizers in Europe have turned to promoting boxing and mixed martial arts bouts with the aim of pulling in new recruits.
About This Partnership
This story is part of an ongoing collaboration between ProPublica and Frontline that includes documentaries scheduled to begin on PBS in August 2018.
Rundo’s fight in Ukraine occurred this spring, as he and two other RAM members toured Europe. In Kiev, Rundo and other RAM members hung out with Denis Nikitin, a burly Russian soccer hooligan who has become one of the most successful fight promoters in ultra-nationalist circles.
On social media the group posted video and photos from the event, which was held in May. Based in Southern California, RAM’s members were involved in political violence last year in Charlottesville and other American cities. The group says it wants to revive the “warrior spirit” of the white male, and its videos of fight-training, weight-lifting and street melees have proven popular on social media.
Before traveling to Ukraine, Rundo and another RAM member, Robert Smithson, visited the German town of Ostritz to compete in a mixed martial tournament at the Shield and Sword festival, a white power convergence held on Hitler’s birthday. Attracting roughly 1,000 fascists from across the continent, the gathering was arranged by Germany’s National Democratic Party, the closest thing the country has to an openly Nazi political party. The mixed martial arts tournament held that weekend, Kampf der Nibelungen, is the largest white power combat sports event in Europe, according to researchers monitoring European extremists.
Observers of the far-right in Europe are concerned about the infiltration of neo-Nazis into the boxing and MMA scenes — and they’re particularly worried about Nikitin.
“He is seen as dangerous by those who monitor the far right” due to his “outright neo-Nazi ideology — preaching racial war and the need to ‘reconquer’ the ‘living space’ of the white man in Europe,” said Pavel Klymenko, a Ukrainian researcher with the FARE Network who tracks soccer hooligans.
According to Klymenko, Nikitin has taught knife-fighting techniques and hand-to-hand combat skills to extremist groups in Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom. In recent years he has launched a successful streetwear company called White Rex — one T-shirt design features an iron cross, an emblem used by the Nazis, and the words “YOU MUST MURDER,” while another depicts the logo of the Spanish fascist party, or Falange.
Nikitin has repackaged older white supremacist ideas for a new generation, rebranding them as “nationalist concepts,” said Karim Zidan, an independent journalist who writes on the intersection of sports and politics. “Nikitin is a massive figure in both MMA and football hooliganism. In a way, he’s weaponized both sports for his cause,” Zidan told ProPublica and Frontline.
At the Southern Poverty Law Center, Keegan Hankes, an analyst who follows RAM, said the group’s trip to Europe “signals that they aren’t just hobbyists. It’s gives them credibility” within the U.S. white power movement.
Social media postings show Rundo acquired several new tattoos on RAM’s European excursion, including an “8” on each shoulder (88 is the white supremacist code for “Heil Hitler”) and the White Rex logo (a Viking warrior) on his right shin with the word “fanatic” emblazoned below.
RAM has also begun importing White Rex T-shirts and selling its own garments as a means of funding the group. The Southern California organization operates an online store, Right Brand Clothing, which carries items from Nikitin’s clothing line as well as other brands like Svastone.
Nikitin refused to comment when contacted by ProPublica and Frontline, saying via email, “There will be no contact or information exchange with you. Just sit quietly and see us rise.”
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https://www.propublica.org/article/michael-miselis-rise-above-movement-white-supremacist-group-northrop-grumman
There likely isn’t such a thing as a “typical” violent white extremist in America in 2018. Still,Michael Miselis — a University of California, Los Angeles doctoral student with aU.S. government security clearanceto work on sensitive research for a prominent defense contractor — makes for a pretty unusual case.
For months, ProPublica and Frontline have been working to identify the white supremacists at the center of violent demonstrations across the country, including the infamous Unite the Right rally last August in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Rise Above Movement, a Southern California group that expresses contempt for Muslims, Jews, and immigrants, became a focus of that effort. ProPublica and Frontline were able to quickly identify a number of the group’s leaders, and find evidence that put them in the middle of violence in Charlottesville and Berkeley, California, among other places.
Ultimately, ProPublica and Frontline determined the man in the violent footage was Miselis, a 29-year-old pursuing a Ph.D. in UCLA’s aerospace engineering program. Miselis was identified using video footage and social media posts, and reporters confirmed his identity in an encounter with him outside his home. In interviews, a number of California law enforcement officials said Miselis was a member of RAM.But one seeming member of RAM was harder to nail down. In video shot in Charlottesville, a bearded, husky man is seen in a red Make America Great Again hat with his hands wrapped in tape that came in handy for the brawling that occurred that day. During one encounter, the unidentified man in the red hat pushed an African-American protester to the ground and began pounding on him, video of the episode shows; moments later, a known RAM member choked and bloodied a pair of female counterprotesters. The possible RAM member also had turned up in video shot during hours of combat at a Trump rally in Berkeley, as well. Wearing protective goggles to ward off pepper spray, the man fought alongside RAM members, wrestling one protester to the ground and punching others.
In addition to his scholarly pursuits, Miselis works as a systems engineer for Northrop Grumman, the giant defense contractor with a plant in Redondo Beach, California.
When approached by ProPublica and Frontline in front of his home in Lawndale, a small city south of Los Angeles, Miselis said he “didn’t know anything” about what happened in Charlottesville.
Miselis did not respond to questions about his involvement with RAM. He did not answer additional questions sent by email.“I think you got the wrong guy,” he said before driving off in his car.
Several current and former employees at Northrop Grumman told ProPublica and Frontline that Miselis has received a security clearance to work in a computer modeling and simulation group within Northrop’s aerospace division. Such security clearances are typically issued in a two-step process. The federal Office of Personnel Management conducts an investigation into the individual. The agency’s findings are then forwarded to a special unit within the Department of Defense, which makes the final determination on whether the person should receive a clearance, a status that often allows the person access to classified or otherwise sensitive information concerning national security.
Public affairs officers at the Defense Department declined to comment about Miselis and his security clearance. The federal personnel management office referred questions regarding Miselis to Northrop Grumman.
Northrop Grumman did not respond to several requests for comment. However, interviews with current and former Northrop employees, as well as an internal email, make clear the company knows of Miselis’ actions in Charlottesville and involvement with RAM. Miselis informed his superiors about his contact with reporters from ProPublica and Frontline, as is required by any individual who holds a higher-level security clearance, the people said.
With hands taped like a boxer, Michael Miselis pushes an unidentified African-American man to the ground in in Charlottesville last August. (Edu Bayer, special to ProPublica)
So far, it seems, the company has taken no action against Miselis, who remains employed.
Keegan Hankes, an analyst with the Southern Poverty Law Center who follows RAM closely, said he was surprised that nothing has been done about Miselis’ employment and security clearance.
“It’s ridiculous,” Hankes said.
“They’re openly motivated by racism,” he added of RAM.
As ProPublica has previously reported, RAM first surfaced publicly last spring and has quickly established itself as one of the violent groups in the resurgent white supremacist scene; members, who regularly train in boxing and martial arts, have been documented engaging in a string of melees. Founded in early 2017 by Robert Rundo, a Queens, New York, native who served an 18-month prison sentence for stabbing a rival gang member six times during a 2009 street fight, the group’s core membership is small — 15 to 20 young men — but capable of real menace, ProPublica’s reporting has shown.
Rundo has recruited followers from the Orange County and San Diego chapters of the Hammerskin Nation, the country’s largest Nazi skinhead gang, and one the authorities say has been behind at least nine murders. One of the Hammerskins who joined up with RAM, Matthew Branstetter, went to prison in California in 2011 on hate crime charges for robbing and assaulting a Jewish man in an Orange County park. The attack left the victim with “a concussion, broken jaw, eye socket fracture, broken nose, cracked ribs, severe facial bruising, and cuts and bruises to his body and face,” according to a news release issued by county prosecutors at the time. Other RAM members have spent time in prison and Los Angeles County Jail on charges for robbery, firearms possession and other offenses.
Identifying Members of RAM.
The FBI has taken notice. Several law enforcement officials familiar with the bureau’s work said agents have opened a formal investigation into RAM. In a statement, the FBI said, “While the FBI neither confirms nor denies the existence of an investigation, our agents investigate activity which may constitute a federal crime or pose a threat to national security. Our focus is not on membership in particular groups but on criminal activity. The FBI cannot initiate an investigation based solely on an individual’s race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or the exercise of their First Amendment rights, and we remain committed to protecting those rights for all Americans.”
Since last August, local prosecutors have brought charges against a handful of participants in the Charlottesville rally, successfully convicting several men so far, including activists on both sides of the clashes. Now federal authorities are targeting neo-Nazi James Alex Fields, the man accused of killing counterprotester Heather Heyer and injuring more than two dozen others. Federal prosecutors recently filed 30 charges against Fields, including 28 hate crime charges.
A native of Stockton, California, Miselis earned a bachelor’s of science degree in mechanical engineering from UCLA in 2011. UCLA’s website today lists Miselis as a Ph.D. candidate in the engineering department’s hypersonics and computational aero-dynamics group. After Frontline and ProPublica began making inquiries about Miselis, the school issued a brief statement saying only that he is technically on leave from the doctoral program.
Read More
Racist, Violent, Unpunished: A White Hate Group’s Campaign of Menace
They train to fight. They post their beatings online. And so far, they have little reason to fear the authorities.
American Hate Group Looks to Make Allies in Europe
Trips to Ukraine. Mixed martial arts events with a white supremacy flavor. California’s Rise Above Movement goes on the road.
Miselis was clearly prepared for the unrest in Berkeley in the spring of 2017. At the Trump rally he wore protective goggles to ward off pepper spray or tear gas, taped his hands up like a boxer, and wore a gray active-wear uniform, as did several other RAM members that day. In video footage reviewed by ProPublica and Frontline, Miselis can be seen fighting alongside other RAM members.
[Miselis prepares to hurl what appears to be a soda can at counterprotesters during the weekend of mayhem around the Unite the Right rally. (Edu Bayer, special to ProPublica)
Daley attacked two female counterprotesters, kicking and punching them, a scene captured in video obtained by ProPublica and Frontline. He wrapped both hands around the throat of one woman, throttling her until she fell to the ground, blood seeping from a gash on her temple. The other woman emerged from the incident with a laceration across her forehead. On video, she screams as blood drips across her face.
Miselis jumped into the fracas. In addition to Frontline and ProPublica, National Geographic produced video documenting the brawl.
A sequence of pictures shot by photojournalist Edu Bayer, who was on assignment for the New York Times, show Miselis hurling what appears to be a can of soda at a counterprotesters. In one photo he flexes his biceps muscles in celebration.
It’s this sort of street combat that worries the SPLC’s Hankes. In his view, such brazen criminal activity should be a red flag for both Northrop Grumman and the Pentagon.
“I can’t believe that participation in an organized white supremacist group focused on street-level violence wouldn’t jeopardize your security clearance,” Hankes said.
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It was about 10 a.m. on Aug. 12 when the melee erupted just north of Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Virginia.
About two dozen white supremacists — many equipped with helmets and wooden shields — were battling with a handful of counter-protesters, most of them African American. One white man dove into the violence with particular zeal. Using his fists and feet, the man attacked one person after another.
The street fighter was in Virginia on that August morning for the “Unite the Right” rally, the largest public gathering of white supremacists in a generation, a chaotic and bloody event that would culminate, a few hours later, in the killing of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who was there to protest the racist rally.
The violence in Charlottesville became national news. President Donald Trump’s response to it — he asserted there were “some very fine people on both sides” of the events that day — set off a wave of condemnations, from his allies as well as his critics.
But for many Americans, conservatives as well as liberals, there was shock and confusion at the sight of bands of white men bearing torches, chanting racist slogans and embracing the heroes of the Confederacy: Who were they? What are their numbers and aims?
There is, of course, no single answer. Some who were there that weekend in Charlottesville are hardened racists involved with long-running organizations like the League of the South. Many are fresh converts to white supremacist organizing, young people attracted to nativist and anti-Muslim ideas circulated on social media by leaders of the so-called alt-right, the newest branch of the white power movement. Some are paranoid characters thrilled to traffic in the symbols and coded language of vast global conspiracy theories. Others are sophisticated provocateurs who see the current political moment as a chance to push a “white agenda,” with angry positions on immigration, diversity and economic isolationism.
ProPublica spent weeks examining one distinctive group at the center of the violence in Charlottesville: an organization called the Rise Above Movement, one of whose members was the white man dispensing beatings near Emancipation Park Aug. 12.
The group, based in Southern California, claims more than 50 members and a singular purpose: physically attacking its ideological foes. RAM’s members spend weekends training in boxing and other martial arts, and they have boasted publicly of their violence during protests in Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley. Many of the altercations have been captured on video, and its members are not hard to spot.
Indeed, ProPublica has identified the group’s core members and interviewed one of its leaders at length. The man in the Charlottesville attacks — filmed by a documentary crew working with ProPublica — is 24-year-old Ben Daley, who runs a Southern California tree-trimming business.
Many of the organization’s core members, including Daley, have serious criminal histories, according to interviews and a review of court records. Before joining RAM, several members spent time in jail or state prison on serious felony charges including assault, robbery, and gun and knife offenses. Daley did seven days in jail for carrying a concealed snub-nosed revolver. Another RAM member served a prison term for stabbing a Latino man five times in a 2009 gang assault.
“Fundamentally, RAM operates like an alt-right street-fighting club,” said Oren Segal, director of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.
RAM members Ben Daley (front, center) and Tom Gillen (front, right) in Charlottesville for the Unite the Right rally (Jason Andrew for Splinter)
Despite their prior records, and open boasting of current violence, RAM has seemingly drawn little notice from law enforcement. Four episodes of violence documented by ProPublica resulted in only a single arrest — and in that case prosecutors declined to go forward. Law enforcement officials in the four cities — Charlottesville, Huntington Beach, San Bernardino and Berkeley — either would not comment about RAM or said they had too little evidence or too few resources to seriously investigate the group’s members.
In Virginia, two months after the deadly events in Charlottesville, Corinne Geller, a spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police, would not say if the police had identified RAM as a dangerous group.
“We’re not going to be releasing the names of the groups that we believe were present that day in Charlottesville,” she said. Investigators, she added, are still “reviewing footage” from the event.
Law enforcement has a mixed record when it comes to anticipating and confronting the challenge of white supremacist violence.
Often working undercover at great personal risk, federal investigators have successfully disrupted dozens of racist terror attacks. In the last year, agents have captured three Kansas men planning to bomb a mosque and an apartment complex inhabited largely by Somali immigrants, arrested a white supremacist in South Carolina as he plotted a “big scale” attack, and investigated a neo-Nazi cell that allegedly intended to blow up a nuclear power plant.
But there have also been failures. During the past five years, white supremacists, some of them members of gangs or organized political groups, have murdered at least 22 people,according to the Global Terrorism Database and news reports. And some government insiders say the intelligence services and federal law enforcement agencies have largely shifted their attention away from far-right threats in the years since 9/11, choosing instead to focus heavily on Islamic radicals, who are seen by some to pose a more immediate danger.
State and local police have struggled to respond effectively to the recent resurgence in racist political organizing. Police in Sacramento were caught unprepared in June 2016 when neo-Nazis and anti-fascist counter-protesters, or “antifa,” armed with knives and improvised weapons, clashed outside the California State Capitol during a rally. Ten people were sent to the hospital with stab wounds.
Taking a different tack, Gov. Rick Scott of Florida took the aggressive step of declaring a state of emergency in the run-up to this week’s appearance by Richard Spencer, a white supremacist scheduled to speak in Gainesville.
Michael German is a former FBI agent who during his career infiltrated a Nazi skinhead gang and militia organizations. German, now a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, said he is worried that law enforcement doesn’t comprehend the threat posed by this latest iteration of the white supremacist movement.
Police and federal agents, in his view, are “looking at this whole thing so narrowly, as two groups clashing at a protest.”
In reality, German said, “it is organized criminal activity.”
One of the first people known to have been targeted by RAM was a journalist working for OC Weekly, an irreverent liberal publication based in Orange County, California.
The date was March 25, and writer Frank John Tristan was covering a Make America Great Again rally in Huntington Beach. The event, which had drawn more than 2,000 Trump supporters, marked what seems to have been RAM’s public debut. About a dozen RAM fighters showed up, with members carrying an anti-Semitic sign and a massive banner emblazoned with the words “Defend America.”
The march also drew a small contingent of anti-Trump protesters, including some militant antifa activists, and some people intent on physically blocking the procession as it moved along the Pacific Coast Highway. Before long, the scene turned violent and brawls between the political foes swept across the beach.
RAM members Daley, nearest at right, Tyler Laube, holding an American flag, and Robert Rundo, far left, display a “Defend America” banner at a pro-Trump rally on March 25, 2017, in Huntington Beach, California. (Brian Feinzimer for OC Weekly)
Tristan and two OC Weekly colleagues, photographers Julie Leopo and Brian Feinzimer, wound up in the conflict.
“The Trump supporters felt empowered to ridicule and intimidate me,” Leopo recalled in an OC Weekly article. “I kept shooting despite the insults and just as I was about to click the shutter on my camera, I looked up and locked eyes with a white woman carrying a flag.”
The woman struck Leopo and Feinzimer with the flagpole. A man shoved Feinzimer, sending him reeling. Tristan intervened, trying to calm the situation.
That’s when two men attacked him. One was a RAM member who charged at Tristan and began punching him in the face. The other assailant, who wasn’t a RAM fighter, grabbed Tristan’s sweatshirt and hit him with a series of punches.
Tristan was staggered. Someone standing nearby fired off a thick stream of pepper spray, and Tristan’s beating ended. Then RAM members fanned out and began fighting with other people.
Another RAM member confronted a masked counter-protester, grabbed the man, and threw him into the sand. From there he pummeled the counter-protester with his fist and elbow. Captured on video and shared through social media, the spectacle became a meme of the so-called alt-right.
In the days after the mayhem, Tristan spent hours studying shaky smartphone videos and scrolling through social media posts trying to identify the men who attacked him. He concluded that a 21-year-old man named Tyler Laube was the RAM memberwho struck him. Laube appears with his face uncovered in several group photographs of RAM from their training sessions in an Orange County park and at the Huntington Beach rally.
ProPublica was unable to contact Laube, but court records show he has had many entanglements with the law in recent years.
Identifying the Members of RAM
He has been convicted of fighting with a paramedic at a supermarket, illegally possessing a switchblade, disturbing the peace, and DUI, according to Los Angeles County court files. In 2015, Laube pleaded no contest to felony robbery charges — prosecutors said he partnered with another man to rob a 7-Eleven and another convenience store at gunpoint. While in jail before trial, Laube told a detective that he’d gone to a Hollywood strip club and gotten high on Xanax — the potent, often-abused prescription benzodiazepine — before acting as the wheelman in the robberies, which occurred early in the morning in Redondo Beach, according to court transcripts.
Laube, court records indicate, was on probation on the day he allegedly assaulted Tristan.
In the six months since the violent rally, state parks police have opened no criminal case in connection with the assault on Tristan and made no arrests. It is unclear how much of the abundant photographic evidence and video footage the authorities have reviewed, if any.
Capt. Kevin Pearsall, a regional superintendent with the parks police, says his officers can’t act because they’ve received no complaint from Tristan. However, former OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano says he’s repeatedly contacted parks police via phone and email in hopes of getting them to investigate. Parks police documents and internal emails obtained by ProPublica show that Arellano has reached out to police brass and that detectives are aware of the assault on Tristan.
Arellano said since the assault not a single law enforcement agency or official had contacted him about the alleged perpetrators.
“We know their identities,” said Arellano, who supervised Tristan and the other journalists until recently, when he left the paper amid staff cuts. “But what good is the truth when the law doesn’t give a shit?”
No charges have been brought against the people who attacked Leopo and Feinzimer, either, though Pearsall says those incidents have been examined by police. According to Pearsall, his agency, which is tasked with maintaining order in California’s vast network of parks and recreational areas, doesn’t have the resources to carry out extensive investigations and must turn to outside police forces for assistance in such cases.
In an undated photo posted to their since-deleted Instagram account, RAM members pose in skull masks.
Most of the time, the young men of the Rise Above Movement, nearly all of them in their 20s, look perfectly innocuous: close-cropped hair, clean-shaven faces, T-shirts and jeans.
But for public events, RAM has developed its own menacing signature look, with members often wearing skull masks and goggles to ward off pepper spray. At times, RAM fighters have tied American flag bandannas around their faces to conceal their identities.
A RAM recruiting video posted toYouTubeand Vimeo highlights the organization’s violent raison d’être, cutting between choppy footage of RAM members brawling at public events and carefully shot scenes of them sharpening their boxing skills and doing push-ups during group workout sessions.
There is an entire ecosystem of low-budget white supremacist media outlets — websites, blogs, forums, podcasts, YouTube channels and the like — and RAM members have been hailed as heroes on some of these platforms.
“They kicked the shit out of people in Berkeley. It was great,” said a host on a racist podcast called Locker Room Talk. “They like to go to rallies and beat up Communists.” YouTube talker James Allsup saluted RAM members as the embodiment of the ideal American man.
The group portrays itself as a defense force for a Western civilization under assault by Jews, Muslims and brown-skinned immigrants from south of the Rio Grande. The RAM logo features a medieval sword with a cross on the pommel — a symbol of the crusades — and an evergreen tree. On T-shirts they wear while training, the logo appears above three words, “courage, identity, virtue.” At rallies, members have waved red-and-white crusader flags and carried signs saying “Rapefugees Not Welcome” and “Da Goyim Know,” an anti-Semitic slogan meant to highlight a supposed conspiracy by Jews to control the globe and subjugate non-Jews. One RAM banner, which depicts knights on horseback chasing after Muslims, reads “Islamists Out!”
A ProPublica reporter recently met at a restaurant in Orange County with a man who says he’s a leader of the organization. This man, who appears frequently in the videos of RAM members fighting, would only agree to talk openly about the group’s origins and intentions if we didn’t reveal his name. No other RAM members or associates would speak to us.
RAM, the leader said, came together organically. It started when he encountered a few other guys with similar political beliefs, including two active duty U.S. Marines, while exercising at different gyms in Southern California. They all liked Trump but didn’t think his agenda went far enough.
The men began hanging out. Their numbers grew. Many came from rough backgrounds — they’d been strung out on drugs or spent time behind bars — and currently labored at tough blue-collar jobs. Soon they had a name and a mission: They would physically take on the foes of the far-right.
An undated photo posted to the RAM Twitter account shows a group training session in an unidentified Southern California park.
The RAM leader claims his organization isn’t racist and complains he doesn’t even know what the word “racism” means.
“We’re proud of our identity,” he said before launching into a long list of grievances. Whites, he said, are ignored by politicians, taught to be ashamed by leftist academics, and marginalized and driven from the workforce by economic globalization. Young white men, he said, are drawn to the extreme right “because there is no other option for them. They’re disenfranchised.”
This intense sense of victimization is widespread among figures involved in the so-called alt-right.
“I wouldn’t say I’m a fascist,” the RAM leader continued, though he acknowledged that his worldview is close. He said he’s trying to create a “conservative counter-culture” as an antidote to the “complete degeneracy” of contemporary American life and “the left-wing ideology that’s poisoning the youth.”
In the leader’s eyes, “your life should be dedicated to God and country and your people.”
While the RAM leader insists the group isn’t racist, on social media channels, its members regularly espouse blatantly anti-Semitic and racist views.
Ben Daley has used his Facebook page to bash “Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook Jew police” for taking down his “anti Muslim posts”; to suggest that African Americans are “shit” and that former President Obama is a leech; and to cheer the fatal shooting of a black man. “Good riddance,” he wrote. The Facebook page of another member, Robert Boman, is laden with anti-Semitic graphics, including an illustration glorifying the Nazi SS and a cartoon depicting African Americans and Muslims as rabid dogs controlled by Jews. (Court and prison records show Boman served 18 months in prison for a 2013 robbery in Torrance.)
The group has drawn recruits from the ranks of the Hammerskin Nation, the country’s largest Nazi skinhead gang, which has been tied to at least nine murders in four states, including a 2012 massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin.
At the ADL, Segal said law enforcement agencies are struggling to keep up with RAM and the scores of other extremist outfits that have emerged in recent years. Skillful use of social media and the broader internet has allowed some of these organizations to metastasize quickly into formidable operations. And whatever connection, if any, Trump has to their rise, the groups don’t hesitate to invoke his presidency as validation for their belief systems.
“There are so many new faces,” Segal said. “It creates a challenge for law enforcement.”
Two veteran Southern California detectives who spoke to ProPublica were not familiar with RAM before our reporters brought the organization to their attention. After reviewing photos and videos of RAM in action, as well the social media pages of its members, the investigators said they were concerned by what they saw. The group, they said, seems to have ties to white supremacist gangsters known to law enforcement, a propensity for violence, and a desire to grow their numbers.
The detectives spoke to ProPublica anonymously in order to freely discuss intelligence on white extremists and street gangs.
Earlier this year, on April 15, about a dozen RAM members traveled from Southern California to Berkeley. The group was met there by a fan: Vincent James Foxx, a 31-year-old video blogger and livestreamer with a fondness for white supremacists and radical right-wing politics.
Foxx, a father of three who runs a growing media operation calledThe Red Elephants, had become RAM’s unofficial propagandist. After the Huntington Beach brawls, which he attended and filmed, Foxx put together a nearly 10-minute video glorifying the group’s fighting abilities and uploaded it to YouTube, where it has garnered 174,000 views to date.
Foxx and RAM were sure another Trump rally in one of the most liberal cities in America would provide an opportunity for violence.
Two earlier political events in Berkeley had turned ugly, with crowds of left- and right-wing activists engaging in running street battles. Police seized knives, baseball bats, axe handles, nail-studded boards and other weapons during the previous clashes. Few were predicting that the April event, scheduled for Berkeley’s Civic Center Park, would be peaceful. This is what RAM had been training for.
For Foxx’s part, he would be shadowing the group. He knew where the action would be.
RAM members (left to right) Daley, Robert Boman, and Spencer Currie and Identity Evropa founder Nathan Damigo in a blue collared shirt wrestle a banner away from anti-fascist protesters on April 15, 2017, in Berkeley, California. (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)
When leftist counter-protesters showed up to express their contempt for the president and his supporters, RAM, fighting as a pack, chased them down and attacked them — stomping, punching, kicking. Video shows Ben Daley pounding on a man who is trapped on the ground and kicking other opponents. In one incident, Daley and RAM member Robert Rundo manhandled a journalist, Shane Bauer of Mother Jones, shoving him and yelling at him “Get the fuck out of here! ... Fake news!”
At times RAM fought alongside an ally, Nathan Damigo, a former Marine and founder of Identity Evropa, a prominent white supremacist organization; Damigo wound up punching a female antifa member in the face, an act that would become one of the enduring images of the day’s havoc.
Foxx wasn’t just documenting the violence at the rally — he was inciting it. On video Foxx posted to YouTube, he can be heard repeatedly encouraging RAM members and others to assault people. “Get that fucking cuck!” he screamed when a RAM member and four or five other men grabbed a counter-protester and began beating him. “Charge!” Foxx yelled as a mob of right-wingers went on the offensive.
Reached via email, Foxx declined to be interviewed for this story.
At 11:45 a.m. that morning in Berkeley, police arrested Rundo, a 27-year-old boxer who lives in the beach town of San Clemente, for assaulting an officer and resisting arrest. “Oh shit … that’s one of our guys,” Foxx said as officers handcuffed Rundo, who was wearing a tight gray-and-black athletic shirt and a skull mask. Prosecutors would later decide not to bring charges.
“We reviewed it over the summer in July and declined to file charges,” said Teresa Drenick, an Alameda County deputy district attorney. “We determined we didn’t have enough evidence to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Another violent incident in Rundo’s past was far more clear-cut. In 2009, in Queens, New York, where Rundo had grown up, he confronted two Latino men in a store. Flanked by several other men, Rundo chased his victims into the street where one of them tripped and fell to the pavement. Prosecutors charged Rundo with pouncing on the man and stabbing him in the right hand, right elbow, left arm, chest and neck, according to court records. In a sworn statement the investigating New York Police Department detective noted that the entire episode was documented by surveillance video and that Rundo’s comrades used “some sort of club” to bludgeon the stabbing victim and his friend.
Rundo, who was 19 at the time, struck a plea deal, admitting his guilt in exchange for a sentence of two years in state prison on gang assault charges. He served about 20 months of his term, prison data shows.
As a detective in the 109th Precinct, Francis Johnston helped to build the case against Rundo in 2009. Johnston, who is now retired, remembers Rundo as a hard character — “a bit of an asshole” — with a strong dislike for law enforcement. While police were eager to question Rundo’s accomplices, they were never able to identify them — and Rundo never gave up their names.
At the Berkeley rally, RAM certainly wasn’t the only violent element on the scene — antifa cadres hurled bottles and other projectiles and instigated a number of melees. But throughout the day, interviews and video show, RAM was perhaps the most effective and disciplined group as the fighting dragged on for hours. At least 11 people were injured in the violence, with seven going to local hospitals for treatment, including a stabbing victim, according to local officials.
“From the second we got there it was just chaos,” said the RAM leader. “People like to say we’re Nazis and stuff, but all the people we’ve beaten up are white college kids.”
German, the former FBI agent now with the Brennan Center in New York, says he was shocked by the news reports he was seeing online about Berkeley. He thought: This isn’t a riot. It’s basically low-level political warfare in the streets of an American city. German, who studies national security and civil liberties at the Brennan Center, said he couldn’t believe law enforcement was allowing the two sides to battle it out with each other for hours with minimal intervention.
“The protests in Berkeley really caught my attention,” he said. “This should not be happening.”
Daley, wearing a skull mask, exults after chasing anti-fascist demonstrators down Center Street in Berkeley, California, on April 15, 2017. (Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)
In his view, police and federal agents should be focusing on RAM and similar organizations.
“This is black and white,” German said. “There are certainly people exercising First Amendment rights at these demonstrations. However, these people are in the middle of brawls and open about it — they’re posting images of violence and communicating their intent to commit violence. It’s very different than someone exercising their right to stand on a stage and preach their ideology.”
In June, RAM made its way to San Bernardino for a protest by Act for America, a controversial group that urges legislators to pass bills banning Islamic sharia law in the U.S. Act for America, which says its goal is to “protect and preserve American culture and to keep this nation safe,” has been labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has highlighted its ties to Billy Roper, a veteran white supremacist organizer.
In San Bernardino, the RAM forces included at least two members of the Hammerskin Nation, a loosely structured but highly aggressive Nazi skinhead gang with chapters across the U.S. and in Europe.
ProPublica identified the men as Hammerskin members by reviewing video footage, photos, social media channels and court files.
“California has the largest racist skinhead population in the U.S., predominantly based in Southern California,” Joanna Mendelson, a researcher at the ADL, testified at a recent California state Senate hearing. “Adherents have their own unique subculture and are dedicated to furthering Hitlerian ideology.”
The gangs, she noted, range from a few members to a few hundred members, and have been responsible for some of the country’s “most violent hate crimes.”
One of the Hammerskins who has trained with RAM and appeared with them at rallies is Matthew Branstetter, a 25-year-old Huntington Beach resident. In April 2011, Branstetter and an accomplice beat a Jewish man unconscious and robbed him in an Orange County park. Branstetter was convicted of aggravated assault with a hate crime enhancement, and sent to prison for 20 months.
While the San Bernardino march, which attracted about 300 people, was nominally a protest against sharia law, it quickly devolved into an opportunity for protesters to mock Muslims and deride their faith. One man carried a sign that said “Islam is not an American religion.” Another wore a shirt that said “Muhammed was a Homo.”
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A smaller crowd of counter-protesters also turned out to condemn what they saw as racism and Islamophobia. Police tried to keep the two groups separated, corralling them on opposite sides of a street. But that didn’t stop RAM, which brought about 15 members to the event. The group’s members crossed the street and began beating counter-protesters, eventually running many of them off.
In a video from the scene, RAM members boast about their actions. “We physically removed ‘em,” said Daley. “We chased ‘em down the block, smashed up their car,” added Rundo, describing an incident in which RAM forces shattered the rear window of a car driven by counter-protesters.
San Bernardino police did not respond to requests seeking comment.
Rundo also said, on video, that RAM members are “fans” of a white supremacist slogan called the “14 Words.” The slogan was authored by David Lane while he was serving a 190-year sentence in federal prison for his role in the murder of Jewish talk show host Alan Berg and a series of armored car robberies that netted more than $4 million, money that Lane and his co-conspirators planned to use to fund a race war.
Lane wrote: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
Lane’s message has been enthusiastically adopted as a call-to-arms by the current generation of right-wing radicals, many of whom believe that America’s ongoing demographic transformation is rapidly pushing whites towards extinction. The only answer, they believe, is an uprising.
What happened in Charlottesville last August looked a lot like an uprising, and RAM was right in the middle of it.
“You will not replace us! Jews will not replace us!” yelled Daley and another RAM member, Tom Gillen, as they stood before a statue of Thomas Jefferson on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. It was the night of Aug. 11. The men held torches. They were surrounded by hundreds of young white men, all of them shouting the same words.
Both of the Californians were known to law enforcement in Los Angeles County. Gillen, a surfer and 23-year-old native of Torrance, had been jailed in 2014 for possessing an illegal handgun — someone had grinded off the serial number on the gun, making it untraceable. Police seized the weapon, destroyed it and barred Gillen from owning any other guns.
Gillen, like other RAM members, would not speak to ProPublica.
Daley had been arrested on a gun charge that same year. He was convicted of illegally carrying a concealed snub-nose .357 Magnum revolver and sentenced to seven days in jail. Police also discovered an array of bullets in his pickup truck, including .38-caliber ammunition and .223 rifle rounds, the latter used in bolt-action hunting rifles and military-style assault weapons.
An unidentified woman attacked by Daley and other white supremacists lies wounded on the ground in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Aug. 12, 2017. (Jason Andrew for Splinter)
In a brief text message, Daley declined to comment on his arrest or his activities with RAM. He did, however, say that he had signed up for the U.S. military and would be going through basic training shortly.
That night in Charlottesville, Daley and Gillen clashed violently with a handful of college students who’d gathered at the Jefferson statue holding a banner denouncing racism. RAM and the white supremacists quickly prevailed, and drove the students off the campus and into the night. Charlottesville police did little to intervene as the conflict unfolded.
Whooping and giving straight-arm Nazi salutes, white supremacists began to celebrate their victory. Some chanted the words “blood and soil,” an old Third Reich slogan.
The violence would continue — and escalate dramatically — the next morning as racists from around the country gathered around a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee for the “Unite the Right” rally. And once again RAM members were at the heart of the fighting.
Charlottesville police declined to comment about RAM.
Today, according to the anonymous RAM leader interviewed by ProPublica, his organization is “trying to stay away from rallies.” RAM’s next moves, he explained, are confidential.
Oren Segal of the ADL said RAM could prove durable or fizzle out in a matter of months. It’s too soon to tell. But in both their short-term menace and their uncertain long-term future, Segal said RAM is quite representative of what he called the “new alt-right youth brigades.”
The self-described alt-right “really wants to strike while the iron is hot,” he said. “They believe that now is the time to go from online to the real world. And frankly, the street fighting element very much fits this narrative.”
Ali Winston is a reporting fellow with The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute and covers criminal justice and surveillance. Follow him on Twitter at @awinston.
Darwin BondGraham is an investigative reporter for the East Bay Express in Oakland, California.
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