Tracking and Countering the Far Right since 2016
Based on our experiences and reports from international antifascists, we made this video to dispel misinformation around conflict in Ukraine.
Key take-aways:
A .pdf version of the presentation is available here.
Dalton Russell Woodward (“Jesse AR”) is the current “Interview Coordinator” for Patriot Front (PF), a white supremacist organization operating across the US. Atlanta Antifascists first exposed Woodward as a white nationalist in 2019, while he was an active-duty Georgia National Guardsman stationed in Afghanistan. Following media attention and the return of Woodward’s unit to the US, the National Guard eventually removed him. Woodward currently lives in Chester, Arkansas.
As Patriot Front’s national Interview Coordinator, Woodward organizes the initial interview sessions in which applicants submit to questioning by trusted PF members. These first interviews are conducted over a voice call and aim to identify potential infiltrators and to ensure ideological consistency. If a prospective member passes this first test, an in-person meetup is scheduled for further scrutiny, including a physical search and examining the contents of their phone. Woodward’s work as Interview Coordinator is a key part of PF’s security structure and is crucial to maintaining PF’s internal culture of fascism, white supremacy, and antisemitism.
In January 2022, the Unicorn Riot media collective published a trove of internal Patriot Front communications, documents, images, and video footage. Soon after this leak, we received a tip linking Dalton Woodward to a PO Box in Chester, Arkansas that “Jesse AR” provided in a message. Leaked video from PF further confirms that Woodward is “Jesse AR.”
Before Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau announced Woodward as the organization’s new Interview Coordinator, Woodward held another prestigious role in PF: leader of the “vanguard” shield section for its December 2021 national rally in Washington, DC. Woodward’s military background is presumably one reason PF chose him for this role.
Woodward’s high-level position within Patriot Front is particularly concerning because of his ties to accelerationist neo-Nazism. Accelerationist neo-Nazis aim to collapse society through infrastructure sabotage and mass casualty events in the hope of building a new fascist order from the ruins. Although PF shares its origin with accelerationist groups like Atomwaffen Division (through the defunct Iron March forum), PF is not an accelerationist organization. This is a deliberate choice by Thomas Rousseau for PF’s short-term survival. Woodward, in his role as Interview Coordinator, ostensibly screens for candidates who seem over-eager for violence. Rousseau considers such individuals to be magnets for state repression. However, a review of leaked interview decisions across multiple PF regions shows that rejecting an applicant for violence is less common that rejecting an applicant for being insufficiently racist. Woodward’s prominent role within PF further suggests that the distance between the group’s membership and accelerationist circles is smaller than the group admits publicly.
Continue reading “Dalton Woodward, Patriot Front “Interview Coordinator,” is an Ex-National Guardsman and Friend to Accelerationist Neo-Nazis”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.
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.
Continue reading “Meet Georgia “Patriot Front” White Supremacists: Karter Brown of Marietta and Christian Foshee of Milledgeville”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.
Continue reading “Help Identify these White Supremacists: Patriot Front Training Camp, October 2021 (AL, FL, GA & TN Members)”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.
Recently-exposed PF members:
Alabama: Ian Michael Elliott
California: Ryan Richard Sundberg
Oregon: Casey James Knuteson
Washington: James Julius Johnson
…and more to come!
Updates December 6, 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.
