Patriot Front – Page 2 – Atlanta Antifascists

Help Identify these White Supremacists: Patriot Front Training Camp, October 2021 (AL, FL, GA & TN Members)

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.

Documentation: Patriot Front Defaces Black Lives Matter / Stop Asian Hate Mural in Atlanta, September 2021

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.

*Patriot Front members deface BLM/Stop Asian Hate mural, night of September 17, 2021*

Patriot Front National Call, December 10, 2021

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!

Ian Michael Elliott: Alabama “Patriot Front” Member, Neo-Nazi, and Combat Instructor

Updates December 6, 2021:

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.

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.

*Comment as “Varangian” in the “Church of Aryanity” Telegram channel*

Nephew of Tennessee Candidate for US Senate is “Patriot Front” Racist Militant in Georgia

Update, November 2020: Bill Hagerty won the Tennessee election for US Senate.

Summary: Twenty-year-old Michael Patrick Hagerty, II is a member of two racist organizations, Patriot Front and Revolt Through Tradition. This year, he placed stickers for those organizations throughout Atlanta. Hagerty even wears clothes designating himself as a “National Socialist” – in other words, a neo-Nazi. His uncle, Bill Hagerty, is a Trump loyalist campaigning as the Republican candidate in Tennessee’s US Senate race, which he will likely win. Bill Hagerty vilifies Black Lives Matter and anti-fascists. Meanwhile, his nephew works with white supremacists to build a climate of intimidation against people of color, Jewish people, Muslims, leftists and LGBTQ communities.

Introduction

Michael Patrick Hagerty, II is a twenty-year-old white nationalist who belongs to two different fascist organizations, Patriot Front (PF) and Revolt Through Tradition (RTT). Over the last year, he has covered Atlanta with stickers for these organizations, trying to give the impression that they have a strong presence in our city. Hagerty has also traveled to meet with other PF and RTT members and posed in photos as they trained together for fighting. Hagerty even wears a t-shirt identifying himself as a “National Socialist”: in other words, a neo-Nazi. One of Hagerty’s associates in Patriot Front is “John GA” (alias), who targeted synagogues in Columbus, Georgia, last year with another PF member, Chris Brooks.

Hagerty’s uncle, William F. Hagerty, is currently campaigning in Tennessee as the Republican candidate in that state’s election for the US Senate, which he will likely win. As a candidate, Bill Hagerty has repeatedly attacked Black Lives Matter and anti-fascists. He characterized Black Lives Matter as aiming to “overthrow the government and usher in Marxism” and echoed Donald Trump’s characterization of anti-fascists as “domestic terrorists”, stating that they “must be stopped”. Through his aggressive public stance against anti-racist movements, Bill Hagerty shelters and emboldens white nationalists like his nephew while they prepare for violence.

Patriot Front in Georgia

The Torch Network of militant antifascists has leaked over a year of internal communications from Patriot Front, a major white supremacist organization operating nationally. The data leak, which exposes the organization’s inner workings and potential identifying information about individual members, will be a blow to the racist group. Atlanta Antifascists are a member group within Torch and are proud to promote the data leak, which can be found here.

*Patriot Front propaganda distributed in Candler Park area of Atlanta, 2018*

Patriot Front formed in the direct aftermath of 2017’s “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, as a splinter from and rebranding of the fascist Vanguard America. From December 2017 through May 2018, a Patriot Front state chapter led at the time by Aaron Christopher Krueger repeatedly targeted metro Atlanta with Patriot Front propaganda. When we exposed Krueger based on an earlier info leak, the Patriot Front campaign came to a sudden halt. Also in 2018, we published about Christopher Gibson, a Ku Klux Klan supporter in Dublin, Georgia who had bragged about placing PF stickers around his community.

*We still seek information on “John GA” who targeted Columbus, GA synagogues*

The following year, Patriot Front surfaced in Columbus, Georgia, eventually targeting synagogues in that community. Some stickers were also posted in the Atlanta suburb of Lawrenceville. We determined that Christopher Skylar Brooks – also a member of the Proud Boys far-Right group – helped place the propaganda in Lawrenceville and traveled to Columbus to help target synagogues with member “John GA” (alias). The new Patriot Front leaks cover this time period. Brooks has now moved to Shanghai, China. We still seek information on “John GA”.

In 2020, Patriot Front has been recruiting in Georgia, with metro Atlanta and other locations hit with the organization’s propaganda. The current pandemic, which leads to more time spent online, may have assisted recruitment. In general, however, Patriot Front’s presence in Georgia is weaker than in other regions and their new recruits do not stick around for long: they are either scared away from racist activism or move on to other projects. We welcome any more information about members we have not yet identified. When we identify white supremacists, the information may follow them even to China, as Christopher Skylar Brooks found out.

REVEALED: White Nationalist who Targeted Synagogues in Columbus, Georgia

On July 29 of last year, two members of Patriot Front – a fascist and white nationalist organization – placed propaganda at synagogues in Columbus, Georgia in an apparent attempt at intimidation. We can now identify one of the two people responsible, who we had written about earlier this year but failed to connect to activity in Columbus. As discussed in our previous article, Christopher Skylar Brooks helped place Patriot Front (PF) materials in the Atlanta suburb of Lawrenceville in May 2019. We connected Brooks to the PF materials in Lawrenceville via an online brag in combination with Brooks’ internet handle, location, dress, and other clues. In our article about Brooks, we surmised that he did not last long in Patriot Front. However, he stayed long enough in the organization to target Columbus, Georgia synagogues with another member, a month and a half after the May propaganda run in Lawrenceville.

*“Red hat” in Columbus surveillance footage*

Chris Brooks: From Proud Boys to Patriot Front

In May 2019, the white supremacist and fascist organization Patriot Front placed propaganda around Lawrenceville, a suburb of Atlanta. Patriot Front splintered and rebranded from another racist organization, Vanguard America, in the aftermath of the disastrous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, August 2017. We have now seen a few cycles of Patriot Front activity in Georgia. In late 2017 and early 2018, Patriot Front militants targeted several neighborhoods with propaganda, before our organization exposed their main organizer, coincidentally also in Lawrenceville. Patriot Front activity near Atlanta dropped off sharply after our 2018 exposé, so it was a surprise to see Patriot Front stickers appearing in Lawrenceville again the following year. [1]

*Old Twitter account for Patriot Front shows propaganda in Lawrenceville, May 2019*

While another Patriot Front member may have been involved, we have determined that Christopher Skylar Brooks helped place the white supremacist organization’s materials around Lawrenceville last May. Interestingly, while he assisted the white supremacist Patriot Front, Brooks was also involved with the Proud Boys, a “Western Chauvinist” far-Right group which claims to reject white supremacy and involves some reactionary people of color.

IronMarch Recruiter and Extreme-Right Propagandist “James Futurist” Exposed as Jamie Lee Mallard

Introduction

We are exposing Jamie Lee Mallard of Georgia as longtime racist and extreme-Right propagandist “James Futurist”. Mallard, whose other aliases include “James Egoist”, James Rockwell, Jameson Blackwell and NeoNationalist, has been active in the white power movement since 2012, including that movement’s most extreme neo-Nazi fringes. For years Mallard promoted IronMarch (IM), a website that birthed other white supremacist organizations such as Vanguard America and the murderous Atomwaffen Division (AWD). Jamie Mallard collaborated with IronMarch’s webmaster, “Slavros”, and had contact with early AWD members including its founder Brandon Russell – now imprisoned on federal explosives charges – and Devon Arthurs, who killed two other members of the group. As “James Futurist”, Mallard appeared on several episodes of IM’s “Mysterium Fasces” podcast.

Jamie Lee Mallard
Briefly-used profile image on white supremacist site The Daily Stormer

Jamie Mallard states that he currently lives in Smyrna, Georgia, part of the Atlanta Metropolitan Area. Before his 2019 move, Mallard lived in several southern Georgia communities such as Tifton and later Moultrie. Mallard is a veteran of the US Air Force but now works in information technology. While living in Moultrie, Mallard claims to have had access to the “entire town’s sensitive data” as part of his job. Mallard currently fantasizes about an approaching civil war, or “Boogaloo”. While Mallard maintains a nihilistic and despairing persona, he remains in contact with key players on the racist scene, such as Alt-Right podcaster Mike Peinovich (AKA “Mike Enoch”) and members of the fascist Patriot Front.

*Mallard’s “Jameson Blackwell” VKontakte account also references the skull mask, a symbol popularized by IronMarch.*

Christopher Gibson: Klansman and “Patriot Front” Sympathizer in Dublin, Georgia

In May, we exposed Aaron Christopher Krueger, a key organizer for the racist/fascist Patriot Front organization in Georgia.

Now we highlight another person in our state linked to Patriot Front: Christopher Wayne Gibson of Dublin, Georgia. Chris Gibson has not only circulated propaganda for Patriot Front – Gibson is clear that he is a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

In this article, we will share screen-captures of a now-deleted Facebook page under the name “Chris Waynes.” A quick comparison of the profile picture for “Chris Waynes” and other images of Christopher Gibson (from a Facebook account under his real name) make it clear that “Chris Waynes” and Christopher Wayne Gibson are the same person.

Image of “Chris Waynes” (left) and Christopher Gibson (right) for comparison. Note that “1488” is white supremacist code: the number 14 represents the “Fourteen Words,” a white power slogan. 88 represents the eighth letter of the alphabet repeated twice, which stands for “Heil Hitler.”

Gibson and the Ku Klux Klan

By his own admission, Christopher Gibson is a Klansman. In January 2018, Gibson (as “Chris Waynes”) posted images of himself at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Monument Park in Dublin, Georgia. Gibson/“Waynes” held a banner used by the first-generation Ku Klux Klan. Commenting on the Facebook pictures from the MLK Monument, “Chris Waynes” announced: “AKIA!” This is Klan code for “A Klansman I am!”

Chris Waynes Dublin KKK banner Jan 2018 — *Christopher Wayne Gibson holding Klan banner at MLK Memorial in Dublin, Georgia, January 2018.*

Continue reading “Christopher Gibson: Klansman and “Patriot Front” Sympathizer in Dublin, Georgia”