For a detailed write-up of this event and more documentation, see Dirty South Right Watch’s coverage.
Racist and antisemitic anti-vaxxer Christopher Mark Head, who had promoted the rally and who we exposed before the event, did not show up at Piedmont Park on the day.
The Georgia III% Martyrs are a fairly new III% militia. Originally formed after a split from Chris Hill’s Georgia III% Security Force, they received major media attention when they acted as armed security for a Kelly Loeffler and Marjorie Taylor Greene campaign event in Ringgold, GA. During the summer their members also conducted armed surveillance of at least one BLM march. Their provocative name, signifying a willingness to die for their right-wing nationalist cause, has raised eyebrows even within the militia world. Like most III% groups, they claim to reject overt white nationalism but embrace racist xenophobia and Islamophobia.
The Georgia III% Martyrs have recently allied themselves with Chester Doles, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi of long standing. Since last year, Doles has pretended to have left the white power movement, although his social media shows that Doles is still highly networked with Klansmen and neo-Nazis, and that he regularly promotes racist websites and themes. There was conflict between the two parties as recently as last year, when the Martyrs ejected Doles from the Marjorie Taylor Greene campaign event in Ringgold, but their differences have been set aside.
We are exposing known members of the Georgia III% Martyrs in order to warn their communities. The members of this militia are volatile and happy to ally with white nationalists.
LEADER
Names: Justin Bowen Thayer, Justin Thayer, Justin “Slayer” Thayer
Born: 1987
Location: Bremen, Georgia
Employment: Starr Services
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Thayer7420 (removed)
Known arrests: March 2019 domestic violence arrest (media link), November 2019, DUI (police record), April 2020, DUI: (court case)
MEMBER
Names: Jake Michael Bassett, Jake Cheek, BassettHound
Born: 1994
Location: Carrollton, Georgia
Affiliations: Georgia III% Martyrs
Facebook: account 1 and account 2
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bassetthound1
MeWe: https://mewe.com/i/bassetthound
MEMBER
Name: Jerry Ray Pless
Born: 1982
Location: Dalton, GA
Affiliations: Georgia III% Martyrs
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerry-pless-a18b83166 (listed as working at Tandus Centiva)
Facebook: account 1 and account 2
Update: due to indications that Hill has been fired, we are removing workplace contact information from this post.
Since March 2015, the Brannen Law Firm in Morrow, Georgia has employed far-Right militia leader Christopher Hill as a paralegal. During this time, Hill’s III% Security Force militia led anti-Muslim campaigns, organized alongside white supremacists despite claims of being non-racist, and was linked to a bomb plot in Kansas. A III% Security Force ally committed a brutal attack during 2017’s “Unite the Right” event in Charlottesville, Virginia. Most recently, Hill’s “Georgia Security Force” – our state’s wing of III% SF – assaulted unarmed anti-racist and anti-fascist counter-protesters in Atlanta, with Hill boasting about the gang attack afterward.
Since Hill is a highly visible public face of the militia movement and frequently makes inflammatory statements to the media, Joseph Chad Brannen’s firm must be aware of his employee’s activities. Chad Brannen nevertheless enables Hill’s far-Right organizing by keeping the militia leader employed. After half a decade of harm to communities, it is time for the Brannen Law Firm to fire Hill.
Contact the Brannen Law Firm and express your concern about how it enables violent far-Right militia organizing. We provide a sample script for calls below. Remember that if concerned about privacy, you can use *67 when calling. After the script, we provide notes on some of the violence and campaigns of intimidation linked to Hill, while he worked at the Brannen Law Firm.
Contact:
Brannen Law Firm
[removed]
Gallery 2 of 2 here.
On Saturday, December 12, 2020, far-Right militias rallied in Atlanta, Georgia in response to a call to “defend your homeland” issued by the Southern Patriot Council AKA veteran Eric M. Braden of Texas. Braden had previously tried to organize a “Stone Mountain Redux” event in Georgia in late September, but that event collapsed at the last minute.
The December 12 militia mobilization joined with the “Stop the Steal” rally against election results at the Georgia Capitol.
The largest and most visible bloc of militia members on December 12 were from Christopher Sheldon Hill’s III% Security Force / Georgia Security Force militia. After the rally, Hill discovered that one of his truck tires had been cut by an unknown person. Hill’s militia went searching for anti-racist/anti-fascist counter-protesters who remained downtown, in order to enact revenge on “antifa”. Hill’s men attacked an unarmed group they found. Hill later bragged about the gang assault online.
If you have further information on any of the militia members in these galleries, please get in touch. Bear in mind that journalists, onlookers, and so on may also be pictured: use common sense when evaluating.
Gallery 1 of 2 here.
Update 7/19/2020: The III% Security Force, an Islamophobic far-Right militia headed by Chris Hill, yesterday reversed its earlier position and stated it will rally at Stone Mountain on August 15th.
On August 15, 2020, far-Right demonstrators will rally at Stone Mountain Park outside Atlanta. The August 15 rally, held at the birthplace of the modern Ku Klux Klan, is being promoted and partially organized by figures tied to neo-Nazism and the white supremacist movement. Although some organizers claim to represent “Heritage Not Hate”, a closer look at who is mobilizing shows that August 15 will bring an influx of racists to the surrounding community.
Update 5/1/2018: According to new information released in response to a public records request, it appears that the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office also relied on the militia sympathizer’s scare story when planning for April 21. See Unicorn Riot’s story here.
According to the City of Newnan, police relied on a fantasy written by an “anti-antifa” sympathizer of the far-Right militia movement when deciding on a mammoth police presence against anti-Nazi protesters on April 21.
Last week, The Times-Herald – Newnan, Georgia’s main paper – published the story “Police clarify arrests, heavy presence during rally.” The Times-Herald article attempts to push back against media coverage of the militarized police in Newnan on April 21st, who charged an anti-racist crowd and pointed guns at protesters. Law enforcement now tries to build a narrative around “agitators” within the anti-racist crowd. The Times-Herald published Newnan Police Department and Coweta County Sheriff’s Office claims without any counterpoint from anti-racists or non-police observers.
