We would like to introduce you to Calvin Joseph Stow-Ortiz (born 2003), who is known as “Arthur FL” within Patriot Front (PF). PF is a white supremacist organization founded in the aftermath of 2017’s bloody “Unite the Right” rally, as a splinter from and rebrand of Vanguard America. Recently, the Unicorn Riot media collective published a giant trove of PF documents, video, and internal messages. Not long after the public release of those materials, our inbox started filling with tips that Stow-Ortiz was a Patriot Front member.
We are unmasking two members of Patriot Front in Georgia: Karter Regan Brown of Marietta and Christian Ian Foshee of Milledgeville. Patriot Front is a white supremacist and fascist organization, formed as a splinter from and rebrand of Vanguard America in the aftermath of 2017’s bloody “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The organization is known for carefully choreographed marches, incessant placement of propaganda, and a nationwide defacement campaign against anti-racist murals, community spaces, and memorials to victims of police murder. All these activities are symbolic acts of intimidation, foreshadowing more literal violence. Patriot Front has tried to hide the identity of its members, but their organization has recently suffered a massive data leak.
Karter Brown at Patriot Front training camp, October 2021
Christian Foshee at Patriot Front training camp, October 2021
Both Brown (“Jackson GA” within Patriot Front) and Foshee (“Jesse GA”) are visible in footage from the organization’s training camp in Tallahassee, Florida, which was held last October. Christian Foshee is also visible in an image of Patriot Front’s drill formations at a Unionville, Virginia camp, just before the racist group held its December 4th national rally in Washington, DC. Karter Brown also attended the December Patriot Front rally in Washington DC, renting a van for Patriot Front members from Georgia to drive to the event.
The Unicorn Riot media collective recently released a giant trove of documentation from Patriot Front, a white supremacist and fascist organization operating throughout the US. For more background on Patriot Front, see Torch Network’s earlier overview and check the “Patriot Front” tag on our website.
Among the recently leaked Patriot Front footage, the Unicorn Riot materials includes video from a regional PF training camp held at Williams Landing Park in Tallahassee, Florida, on October 15-17, 2021. Twelve members from four states – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee – attended the training. The white supremacist group briefly moved to Lafayette Park in Tallahassee for physical fitness evaluations, shown in some images below.
The training camp aimed to drill and prepare for Patriot Front’s national demonstration on December 4, held in Washington, DC. During that demonstration, Alabama Patriot Front member Ian Michael Elliott (“Norman AL”) served as the personal bodyguard for Patriot Front’s leader, Thomas Rousseau. Elliott facilitated the grappling sessions during the October training camp in Tallahassee.
We have extracted stills from Unicorn Riot’s leaked Patriot Front footage to compile this image gallery. Please share it widely, so we can identify our regional Patriot Front members. We have organized this image gallery by state, with galleries for individual Alabama, Florida, and Georgia members, as well as the sole attending Tennessee member. A collection of group images follows the stills of individual Patriot Front members.
For a broader rogues’ gallery of yet-to-be-identified Patriot Front members from across the country, see Rose City Antifa’s gallery here.
Please contact us if you can help identify any of the unnamed Patriot Front members in this collection.
Update, July 2022: Patriot Front member “Nathan AR” who participated in the mural defacement has been identified as Devin Wayne Center of Fayetteville, Arkansas.
On the night of September 17, 2021, the racist and fascist organization Patriot Front (PF) defaced a Black Lives Matter / Stop Asian Hate mural in Atlanta’s Reynoldstown neighborhood. The mural was created as a symbol of Black and Asian solidarity in the direct aftermath of the Atlanta spa murders. By targeting the mural, white supremacists aimed to hurt and intimidate still-grieving communities while gaining cheap publicity for their organization.
Before defacing the mural, Patriot Front members stenciled in the nearby Krog Street Tunnel, a well-known Atlanta graffiti spot. Later, the racists dropped a banner promoting their organization at an overpass for I-20. Locals spotted and removed the banner the same night. Other anti-racists located and quickly covered all of PF’s stencil graffiti. Community members later did additional restoration on the damaged mural in Reynoldstown.
At the start of each year, we publish this reminder to any white nationalists or fascists reading our site. Our offer stands year-round.
Some advice for the new year: if you want this year to be better than 2021 was, then you need to make a permanent break with the fascist movement. The fascist movement is not one you want to be associated with, and the consequences are often life-ruining. Even if you make it to the top of a far-Right group, you are not protected from job loss and your career being destroyed. Your organization can also fall apart leaving you alone to face the consequences.
There are, however, options to leave the white power movement. Contrary to the established mythology around “red-pilling”, people leave all the time, both publicly and privately. There are even networks in place that can help you exit the movement – let us know if you need help establishing contact with them. Merely saying you are no longer a racist or fascist while still organizing and associating with your fascist pals is not acceptable. We will know if you are insincere.
Atlanta Antifascists will not go after you for your past. If it’s clear that you’ve left white nationalism behind, we’ll leave you alone. Just send us an email with an account of your time in the movement as a token of good faith/sincerity (what you’ve done, with what organizations, etc.), be ready to answer some follow-up questions, and make clear in your actions going forward that you’ve left white nationalism behind. That’s all. We can’t speak for anyone else you may have harmed, but we don’t get in the way of people trying to do better by themselves and others.
Let 2022 be a year of turning your life around. Reach out for help leaving the fascist movement if you think you need it. If you’re in our region, send us a message to let us know about your choice. We look forward to hearing from you.
Dustin Lee Barnes and Juliette Rose Barnes (née Fretté) purchased a homestead in Blairsville, Georgia this year after moving across the country from Washington state. Dustin Lee Barnes is a neo-Nazi and Army Rangers veteran who leads the “White Lives Matter” (WLM) network in Georgia. He has placed WLM propaganda around Blairsville, forcing park employees to regularly clean up his racist stickers at Meeks Park. His wife, Juliette Rose Barnes (née Fretté), is a former feminist and Playboy model who now operates a far-Right conspiracy theory website. Before their relocation to north Georgia, the couple were active against Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 health measures in Washington last year.
Click here for a recording of Patriot Front’s December 10, 2021 national call, which we hope will be of interest to antifascist researchers. We beeped out use of a racial slur in the recording.
For background on the racist/fascist organization Patriot Front, see here.
After publication of this article, Triad Martial Arts removed Ian Elliott and stripped him of any rank from the school. The school states that it firmly stands against bigotry.
Concealed Tactical has not made any public statement but quietly removed Elliott’s profile from its instructors page. We will update our story if Concealed Tactical clarifies its stance.
On Saturday, December 4, Patriot Front rallied in Washington, DC. Video footage from the event shows Ian Elliott sticking close by Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau, seemingly serving as his personal security.
Elliott on rightElliott on leftIan Elliott protects Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau, Washington, DC, December 4, 2021.
Ian Michael Elliott of Harvest, Alabama is a member of the racist and fascist organization Patriot Front, going by the alias of “Norman AL” within the group. Elliott is also highly active in martial arts: he trains at Triad Martial Arts in Huntsville, Alabama and teaches at Concealed Tactical, a Krav Maga school in Madison, Alabama. In the neo-Nazi “Church of Aryanity” Telegram channel, Elliott – using the alias “Varangian” – states that he spends most of his time “traveling, and training, with White Nationalists”. By sharing his martial arts skills with racist associates, Elliott helps white supremacists prepare for violence against their enemies.
Ian Michael Elliott
Comment as “Varangian” in the “Church of Aryanity” Telegram channel
Caleb Petersen, at the time a Mechanical Engineering graduate student at Auburn University in Alabama, was the president of the unofficial “White Student Union” on campus from 2017-2018. The white nationalist/Alt-Right “Union” spread antisemitic propaganda on Auburn’s campus in the lead-up to racist leader Richard Spencer’s speaking event there. The group continued until 2018, when Petersen was exposed as its leader.
Twitter and Caleb Peterson don’t want you to see this old Tweet. The website mentioned in the text is archived here.
On December 1, 2021, Twitter used its new “private media” policy to lock the account of our organization, until we deleted a 2018 Tweet about Petersen. Petersen seemingly does not want people talking about his leadership of an antisemitic, white power group. Too bad. Twitter working to protect white nationalists from exposure and public scrutiny is reprehensible.
Petersen was featured in a 2017 documentary on Richard Spencer and the Alt-Right, produced by Channel 4 in the UK. Although he did not provide a name and his face was blurred, the “White Student Union” leader talking about “the death of our [white] race” is clearly Petersen, who will be recognizable by voice to anyone who has met him.
Images of Caleb Petersen from Channel 4 documentary.
Petersen may be currently pretending to be respectable and not a white supremacist. He has made no amends for his racist and antisemitic agitation, but seems interested in burying the truth about it.
We are not going to forget. Please reach out if you have further information on Caleb Petersen or any of his political associates.
Update 9/2/2021: Organizers have officially canceled the far-Right conference.
Update: On the site for his District 14 labor commissioner run, Georgia State Senator Bruce Thompson confirmed he is speaking at the “Christian Veterans United” conference.
Warning: This article contains descriptions of rape.
Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh, a notorious far-Right antisemite, misogynist, and rape apologist, is a featured speaker at the upcoming “Faith and Freedom Men’s Conference” organized by Christian Veterans United. The conference is scheduled to take place on September 10th and 11th, in or near metro Atlanta. Two venues, Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Buckhead and the First Baptist Church in Woodstock, have so far canceled use of their spaces after learning of the event’s true nature. Organizers are vowing to go ahead with the event but have not publicly announced their new venue.
Conference promotional image
Daryush “Roosh” Valizadeh
GA State Senator Bruce Thompson
As well as Valizadeh, the Christian Veterans United website lists Jesse Lee Peterson, a rightwing commentator who bemoans women’s suffrage, and Bruce Thompson, Georgia State Senator representing District 14, as event speakers. By appearing alongside Valizadeh, perhaps the world’s most notorious women-hating propagandist, State Senator Thompson would normalize Jew-hatred and violence against women.
At the time of publication, Thompson has not responded to a request to confirm his appearance at the Conference, though his name and image feature on the event’s website. We will update this article if Thompson issues a clarification.
