“Hitler Did Nothing Wrong”: Spalding County Deputy Sheriffs Express Far-Right Allegiance

Update, afternoon of 8/6/2018: Well that was quick… Costner and James have been fired.

Introduction 
howard costner
Howard Reece Costner

 

jesse a jones deputy
Jesse Aaron Jones
We are not surprised at the presence of a hardened ideological racist in Georgia law enforcement, or about another Deputy proclaiming that “Hitler did nothing wrong.” There are likely others with the same commitments as Costner and Jones, although some may be better at covering their tracks. With our release of this documentation on Deputies Costner and Jones, the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office must decide if it will continue to employ open ideological racists.

(1)    Howard Costner
Howard Costner Prior to the Sheriff’s Department
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YouTube video from “Howie3601”: Waffen-SS division in online game.
In his leisure time, Costner is a devoted online gamer — this is one of the hobbies covered on Costner’s YouTube channel. In one World War Two multiplayer online game, Costner is part of a German Waffen-SS division. In a US Civil War online game, Costner is part of a Confederate company. Costner’s choices of fantasy roles in these games reflect his actual political outlook, which is racist and sympathetic toward Nazism.
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Howard Costner in YouTube video
Racism, the Alt-Right, and Neo-Nazi Associates
Costner operates several online accounts, for example on Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, Facebook and Steam (a platform used by gamers.) These accounts are interconnected. The “Howie3601” Steam account links to Costner’s YouTube channel and displays a photo of Costner’s gaming setup that was also shared to Facebook. Reddit user “Howie3601” describes himself as “Deputy Costner […] a Detention Officer/Deputy for my county” and shares videos from the “Howie3601” YouTube channel. Instagram account “Howie3601” has a profile picture of Costner and is consistent with Costner’s Facebook. (Costner’s Facebook, Instagram, and Steam accounts are all connected to those of Jesse Jones as well.) 

 

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Howard Costner/“Howie3601” comments about racism.
Also on YouTube, Costner stated that “I have a lot of friends that are National Socialist [i.e. Nazi/neo-Nazi] that are in the Alt Right.” Costner later added that he considers most of these “Nazis” to be “normal everyday people” and that “They’re not Anti Semitic at all […] Some of them deny the holocaust [sic] and most of them think it was exaggerated.” Costner writes that the founder of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, is someone who he “respect[s]”. The only criticism Howard Costner makes of present-day neo-Nazis is that they are “nothing like they used to be” – in other words, that these modern neo-Nazis are not enough like the Nazis of Hitler’s regime, or at least not like the white supremacists of the American Nazi Party during the 1960s.  

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Howard Costner comments about his neo-Nazi friends
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“Howie3601” declares that “National Socialism > Communism”
Last year, Costner shared a photo of a Nazi flag hanging in his living space to a group on Facebook. While this original post with the swastika flag has been deleted from the Facebook group, Costner later shared an image featuring responses to his original post. The initial Nazi flag image is visible in the background to Costner’s follow-up post. 
howard costner to fallout radposting posted July 22 2018 I
In the background behind responses: Costner’s original post featuring Nazi flag.
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Howard Costner’s profile image on Steam.
Costner’s far-Right, racist and antisemitic associations do not end there. On Steam, Howard Costner/“Howie3601” is part of the group “Fashy Dreams: The New Reich”. “Fashy” is short for fascist; the group’s ID “fashydreams1488” further includes white supremacist code – 14 stands for the “Fourteen Words,” a white power motto, while 88 is alphanumeric code for H.H. or “Heil Hitler.” Among Costner’s “friends” on Steam is a profile promoting the Nordic Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi formation which is active in several Nordic countries. (Costner’s Steam account is also “friends” with the account for Deputy Jesse Jones.)

 

 

Many of Costner’s associates on Facebook are clear far-Right racists. When Costner posted a historical German military flag to his profile, one of his friends complained that it was “not the NSDAP flag” (the flag of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei i.e. the Nazi Party). Another of Costner’s friends described the Nazi swastika flag as “ye olde windmill o’ friendship”, a comment which then Costner “liked.”
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Costner “likes” comment describing Nazi flag as “ye olde windmill o’ friendship”. 

 

 

(2)    Jesse A. Jones
According to Facebook, Jesse Andrew Jones joined the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office in October 2017, just one month after Howard Costner. The two appear to have known each other for some time, and even had similar experiences in the military: like Costner, Jones joined the Army in 2016 but was discharged due to a medical issue

 

On Facebook, Jesse Jones keeps a lower profile than Howard Costner. There, Jones “likes” the Right-wing populist/xenophobic Breitbart website, pages relating to 4chan (whose political board is a breeding ground for the far-Right), as well as pages mocking “social justice warriors.” However, unlike Costner, Jones does not use Facebook to follow explicitly fascist, white nationalist, or neo-Nazi projects. The only Nazi-related page “liked” by Jesse Jones on Facebook is “Unseen Photos of World War 2”, a self-described “non-political” page that posts almost entirely Nazi and Axis images, supplied with little context and no criticism.

 

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Jesse Jones profile as “SlimJerky” on Steam
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Profile picture for “Sp00kyRavioli” – connected to Costner and Jones on Steam – featuring racist mass murderer Dylann Roof
We are confident that “SlimJerky” and Jesse A. Jones are the same person:

 

 

 

·         The same “Thin blue line” American flag image which “SlimJerky” uses as his profile picture on Steam, was also used as a cover photo by Jesse Jones on his Facebook account.  

 

 

Conclusion
We have set out evidence of two current employees of the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office – Howard Costner and Jesse Jones – expressing sympathy with Hitler’s genocidal regime. Both Costner and Jones were hired last year and work as detention officers. It is unsurprising that ideological racists are drawn to institutions such as the military, police, and prisons. Such positions allow them to get their hands dirty while maintaining the racist status quo, to turn departments into far-Right recruiting grounds, and potentially to do favors for their fascist associates.
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Militarized police from the Spalding County Sheriff’s Office assist multi-agency mobilization in Newnan, Georgia, April 21

 

As always, please get in contact if you have information about white supremacist or fascist organizing in our state.

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