Prison – Atlanta Antifascists

Update on Haralson County Jailer and Alabama National Guard Member Trent East

Update 5/21/2019: Approximately two weeks ago, Trent East was allowed to quit his job as a jailer in Haralson County, to avoid being fired.

Last month, we exposed Haralson County Deputy Sheriff Brandon Trent East as an active white nationalist and as part of the racist “Ravensblood Kindred”, alongside active duty Georgia National Guard member Dalton Russell Woodward. The Ravensblood Kindred is a regional branch of the Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA), a whites-only heathen organization with close ties to organized racism. AFA has been designated as a hate group by the anti-extremist Southern Poverty Law Center.

A few days after we published our documentation on the “Ravensblood Kindred”, independent journalist Nate Thayer exposed Corwyn Storm Carver, an active duty Army member, as a member and influential propagandist for Atomwaffen Division (AWD). AWD is a neo-Nazi terrorist organization whose members have committed at least five murders since its formation in 2015. Following Thayer’s expose, we released documentation showing that both Trent East – working as a jailer in Haralson County – as well as Dalton Woodward were connected on social media to AWD white supremacist Carver.

Both Trent East and Dalton Woodward linked to Atomwaffen Division white supremacist Corwyn Carver

Despite this, Haralson County Sheriff Eddie Mixon initially defended his employee Trent East when interviewed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, stating in the AJC’s April 17 article that everything “should stand the way it is” with East not facing discipline, because East is not on a Federal Bureau of Investigation watch list. The next day, Mixon backtracked on his support for East, after his initial public stance generated outcry. A new investigation has now been launched. Trent East is receiving paid leave while the investigation proceeds.

White Nationalist “Ravensblood Kindred” Features Haralson County Jailer and Active Duty National Guardsman

Update 5/21/2019: Approximately two weeks ago, Trent East was allowed to quit his job as a jailer in Haralson County, to avoid being fired.

See our 5/7/2019 article for more info on Trent East and neo-Nazism.

Update 4/20/2019: On April 18, the Haralson County Sheriff’s Department backtracked on its earlier support and clearing of racist Trent East and have re-started an investigation. The Alabama National Guard is also investigating East, while Georgia National Guard is investigating Dalton Woodward.

Update 4/17/2019: Haralson County Sheriff Eddie Mixon is defending his white nationalist employee Trent East. Read our statement here.

Introduction

A small whites-only, heathen “kindred” includes a jailer with the Haralson County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia, as well as an active-duty member of the Army National Guard currently stationed in Afghanistan. The “Ravensblood Kindred” is affiliated with the Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA), a Germanic neopagan/“heathen” organization which refuses membership to people of color but embraces the far-Right and organized racists. By “heathen,” we mean worshippers of the pre-Christian gods of Germanic Europe. Many heathens are anti-racist. However, the AFA states that its gods are for white people only. The Southern Poverty Law Center’s anti-extremist Intelligence Project lists the AFA as a “hate group” due to the AFA’s insistence on racial purity and its unapologetic ties to white nationalism.

The small Ravensblood Kindred – it began with three members – is even more clearly political than other AFA groups. Ravensblood Kindred describes itself as having an “alt-right agenda”, supported white power leader Richard Spencer when he gave a talk at Auburn University in 2017, and circulates “white genocide” and anti-immigrant propaganda. Ravensblood leaders Brandon Trent East – a jailer in Haralson County, Georgia – and Dalton Russell Woodward – currently in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard – are both also connected to the Wotan Network, an explicitly white nationalist project which operates parallel to the AFA. East and Woodward’s social media accounts reveal that both are deeply immersed in white power and neo-fascist circles.

*Dalton Woodward and Trent East leave speech by white nationalist leader Richard Spencer at Auburn University, April 2017.*

Georgia Sacred Knights KKK Members Rebranding as Soldiers of Odin

Update 11/4/2018: the Soldiers of Odin “Heiðinn Division” has now broken from S.O.O. international leadership in Finland.

Members of the Sacred Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia are now claiming state leadership of the “Soldiers of Odin,” a far-Right anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim organization. The Soldiers of Odin (SOO) formed in 2015 in Finland, but have now spread to other European countries, to Australia, to Canada (the Québec group remains affiliated with Finland, while other groups have distanced themselves from Finnish leadership), and – despite initial growing pains in this country – to the United States.

The Soldiers of Odin, known for their anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim street patrols, claim not to be “a MC [motorcycle club], criminal organization or a Nazi group!” However, the founder of the Soldiers of Odin in Finland was convicted of a racist attack in 2005 and is a supporter of the Nordic Resistance Movement, whose politics are neo-Nazi. Finnish SOO leadership is clear that white supremacists are welcome within their organization’s ranks. The US division we discuss in this article is answerable to SOO leadership in Finland.

The Sacred Knights KKK members now serving as Georgia state leaders for the Soldiers of Odin are part of “Soldiers of Odin – Heiðinn Division”. The SOO “Heiðinn Division” in the United States was founded by a murderer who was released from prison last year. In this article we will provide more information about the SOO “Heiðinn Division” and its Missouri-based leader; about the Soldiers of Odin Georgia chapter president and its vice president; and finally, about another white supremacist affiliated with SOO in Georgia.

L-R: SOO “Heiðinn Division” founder Strider Rögnirhár AKA Gabriel Saraceno; Georgia SOO participants Joey Hobbs, Brandon Smith and Terrance Sellars. Continue reading “Georgia Sacred Knights KKK Members Rebranding as Soldiers of Odin”