In the Daily Sentinel on Sunday, January 8, Jacob Richards authored a column titled “The Grand Valley has a problem with hate,” in which he discussed leaked videos of local activity by the violent white supremacist group Patriot Front that were posted by Unicorn Riot, a noncommercial, decentralized nonprofit media organization of journalists.
One of those videos is above. It shows members of Patriot Front holding military-style training drills in Canyon View Park in Grand Junction on October 10, 2021. Members of the group came from Utah and Idaho to participate in this training. Some of the known Patriot Front members in the video have been identified as 26 year old Nathan David Brenner from Louisville, CO, 23 year old Cameron Pruitt of Utah, Richard Jacob Jessop and Nathaniel Taylor Whitfield.
Notorious white supremacists
The men who participated in these drills have strong white supremacist backgrounds and are known to law enforcement for their violent activity.
Patriot Front was the group that was stopped by Coeur d’Alene, Idaho police on June 22, 2022 on their way to violently disrupt a “Pride in the Park” event on the same day. Acting on a tip, police pulled over a U-Haul van with 31 members of the group inside. All were dressed in uniform riot gear and all were arrested and charged with criminal conspiracy to riot. Nathaniel Taylor Whitfield, Cameron Pruitt and Richard Jacob Jessop, who were at the Canyon View Park drills October 10, 2021, were among the 31 men who were arrested in Coeur d’Alene.
Another one of the Canyon View Park drill participants was William Planer, a violent neo-Nazi well known to law enforcement who was arrested in 2016 in connection with a violent riot outside the California Capitol in Sacramento. He has been involved in incidents in which anti-racists were beaten and stabbed. Planer is also member of the violent Nazi sympathizer group the Golden State Skinheads, and has previously been charged with assault with a deadly weapon.
Below is another leaked video from Unicorn Riot, showing neo-Nazis, most likely some of those who attended the Canyon View Park training, spray painting stencils promoting their white supremacist movement onto bridge abutments in Palisade, CO. Note the man with his back to the camera wearing the black “Will 2 Rise” T-shirt over a long sleeve white shirt. It is the same outfit William Planer wore in Canyon View Park for the paramilitary training exercise on October 10, 2021. (See video at the top of this post.)
Patriot Front was formerly known as “Vanguard America,” but changed its name after the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA.
Patriot Front members believe their ancestors conquered America and bequeathed the country to them, and them only. The group justifies its hatred and intolerance towards Jews and LGBTQ+ Americans by portraying themselves as working to preserve the ethnic and cultural heritage of their white European ancestors.
More on Patriot Front’s organized national campaign of vandalism: https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/patriot-front-fascist-leak-exposes-nationwide-racist-campaigns/
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Related post:
Grand Junction area Chamber of Commerce linked to racist comments at City Council meeting
While the imagery here is comical- very comical, the hard fact is that ‘Sam Colt made all men equal’…
The hard fact is that their own recognition of their incompetence & buffoonery will ADD to their angst & sad recognition of how pathetic they are.
This WILL lead to wanton acts of violence against any / all who they feel are ‘responsible’- the minority who beat them out for a place on a sports team; the minority who the white girls were attracted to; the minority who, even as gay or trans, was STILL more popular than them. Even worse- that these ‘men’ are attracted to gay people and it’s the fault of ‘them’…
One of the big problems in this country- that these types know they would lose in most any physical confrontation and therefore need to rely on firearms to ‘defend themselves’ when they attack others.
In 2017, 60 Minutes interviewed a former KKK member of ~8 years. He detailed the plans for the klan of changing its image & reestablish its presence in public service- from politicians to law enforcement. From the J6 investigations & online detective work by regular folk, we all now know that a notable percentage of these white supremacist militias are comprised of active military & law enforcement along with politicians at every level.
Just this past week, one or more people recorded NYPD giving free passage to proud boys who were protesting drag shows. How many of the prod boys are NYPD? (on a side note, when the Boebert clan were detained by local sheriffs dept, where the belligerent father aggressively confronted neighbors & LEOs & destroyed private property, the sheriff (who has publicly supported BoBo & has been the subject of Ann’s blog) opted to NOT arrest Jayson for destruction of private property (mailbox) which is also a federal offense.
This is the reality around us. This is the reality we must not allow to dominate us/US.
As disturbing as this is, it is really nothing new in America. Although we’ve been reading about fascists in the US, especially since Trump opened the door for them during his four years of rule, their history goes back to before WW2. It was then that the Nazi propaganda machine enlisted many Americans, some even well-meaning, into supporting their cause. Trump’s “America First” movement did not just pop up in his little brain, but had its roots in the original movement from the 1930s. Right now, Rachel Maddow’s Ultra podcast is doing a multi-part series about this early rise in US fascist activity. The subject of the podcast is reported to have caught the eye (ear?) of Steven Spielberg who is considering turning the story into a movie. Any thing that puts a public eye on these scary organizations whose goal is to make the US into an authoritarian state, like this blog, deserve a broad audience.
“The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.”
Ultra is a very good podcast, and Maddow is a great storyteller. I had never heard this part of our country’s history before. Sounds very similar to what the GOP is doing now.
…this is ‘news’? having grown up in a Jackson Co. Trumptown, I can assure you that it isn’t. When I was nearing high school graduation, one of my favorite teachers pulled me aside to encourage me to leave because, ‘this place is a cultural sink’. Which is exactly how your Lauren Boebert constituents wish it to remain. Backward, in-bred caucasians, stuck in a time that never was. My thanks to that teacher for helping me sever those ties.
What on earth are people like that — with guns and violent intent — doing in a public park where children are playing???
Because having grownups around would threaten them.
As a total information side-note, based on the following YouTube video, it appears the US Supreme Court will be deciding on a case that could in affect, disallow citizen’s future rights to a hearing by a Grand Jury.
https://youtu.be/bafWKyPyUCg
Anne, Thanks for posting. Some of us never see this part of the local culture.
Responding to Dwanna.These groups are loaded with men who feel, accurately, that they are deeply deficient. A few sisters show up in this sad shit-show and share their deep-seated deficiencies. In order to mask these short-comings, these folks affect fast, sleek autos, known as penis cars, and gross smoking pickups, festooned with decals of military weapons, obscenities, and bullying banalities. As the videos so clearly demonstrate, “white racists can’t dance.”
It has been said that ridicule is the despot’s worst enemy. But we must add to ridicule intel, infiltration, prosecution and incarceration, as these misled numbnuts are a serious threat.
Mock them at your peril dumb people can still hurt people.
This is us, mocking them.
Tell your friends.
Tissues were needed to watch this video. Most Patriot Front fellas are still having difficulty knowing left from right. “Left, left, left, right, left” were the commands while those “Patriots” continuously kept stumbling into each other.
Yes! “Military-style” is a major stretch here. If every military was like this group of goobers wars would be hilarious
In our city, county and nation goobers are encouraged to expose their “weapons of war,” for want of a better euphemism. They whip them out and use them in a crowd, a la Kyle Rittenhouse. Somehow, a confused Supreme Court equated these vulgar violators with “a well regulated militia.”