On Monday August 14th 2023, Philadelphia police officer Mark Dial shot and killed Eddie Irizarry as he sat in his car. Police initially lied saying that Eddie attacked the cop with a knife, but video footage showed that Eddie was shot in mere seconds while seated in his car with the window up. Following this Dial was suspended for 30 days pending termination. In early September Dial was charged with a number of crimes including murder but the presiding judge would eventually dismiss his charges. The cops who attended the court date in uniform cheered and celebrated when the charges were dropped. On September 26th, that same day Eddie’s family and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (alongside Black leftist groups like Black Alliance for Peace and the W.E.B. DuBois Movement School) organized a peaceful march through Center City protesting the decision. That demonstration dispersed after a couple hours but was followed by looting, initially in Center City before spreading to West, North, and Northeast Philly as the night went on.
The Black liberation movement is alive! Those who say it’s dead are either racist or not in the street and these revolts are the proof. Although the number of people in the streets was smaller than in 2020, there was widespread revolt across Philadelphia. Police killed Eddie Irizarry, a non-Black Puerto Rican, and Black people responded with revolt. Similarly in 2020 in Kenosha, WI when Kyle Rittenhouse killed two white people in the midst of a riot against police and later had his charges dropped, Black people rioted in the Bay Area. These are both examples of a Black consciousness that recognizes anti-Black systems regardless of if they are targeting Black people in a specific instance.
Here in Philly looters and rioters were well prepared. People were overwhelmingly masked, wearing black clothes, and many were brandishing tools. The looting was organized spontaneously over social media the same day as it took place. People used police scanners to monitor police and prepare for their responses. Numerous businesses, car lots, and ATMs were targeted throughout the city, spreading the PPD thin. Many participants used cars to move between businesses, as getaways, and to generally stay mobile.
It is a far too common belief among radicals that the state is omniscient. This night of rebellion proves otherwise, that opportunity is abundant for insurrectionary activity! As Black radicals (and generally for “political” people) we need to understand it’s possible to get away with things if we plan on challenging the state. Many ordinary people already know this and behaved accordingly.
The riots on Tuesday night into Wednesday are an image from the future. Sprawling and scattered rebellions are becoming the norm. Better prepared participants spread across the city, overwhelming police forces that feel they cannot defend everything at once. What moves do we want to make in this new context?
After the run on the Apple store, as people saw that their looted iPhones and iPads were being tracked and bricked by security systems, they smashed them immediately. Poured orange juice on them. Dropped them into the sewers. A beautiful display of how commodities are bullshit. Destroying anti-Blackness necessarily involves attacking property and the relations needed to maintain it, whether commodities or capital. Black consciousness cannot be separated from class consciousness.
It is important to note that this revolt and the George Floyd Uprising (including the Walter Wallace rebellion nestled within it) hold key differences. This recent riot was overwhelmingly Black with minor Latine participation in the Northeast, as opposed to the multiracial character of 2020. This lines up with the reality of Black people being the most advanced in struggle against the so-called United States. September’s revolt also saw a more chill vibe with little focus on fighting police, as looters helped each other attack property and evade capture. They seemed to have a more collaborative and joyous attitude compared to the Walter Wallace rebellion of October 2020, which saw more skepticism and lateral violence amongst participants. Another interesting difference from those events was that September 2023 saw Black people of various ideologies and walks of life moving together in insurrection. As a result the revolt rejected a conventional political character while still maintaining an inherent black consciousness (best exemplified by the occasional Black Trump supporter joining in on the smash-and-grab).
The second day, looting continued in a smaller capacity although the larger crowds that gathered were noticeably absent. Instead, people mostly used their cars to do smash and grabs. The police were also more prepared and mobilized on the second day. Understandly, this probably meant a lot more people stayed home because the police presence was far more intense on the street.
The Left was either too afraid of or uninterested in participating in the Black revolt, sidestepped and left behind by young people who organized themselves via social media. These socialist groups constantly talk about the need for organziation. But young Black people on the 26th were ready to go. They didn’t need any self appointed community organizers then and they don’t now. The looting on September 26th is just a form of self organization that the Left refuses to take seriously. At best we saw boilerplate analyses that looting pales in comparison to corporate wage theft. The WEB DuBois School of Abolition went so far as to make a statement saying “it isn’t our task to either celebrate or condemn the actions” of the looters. The inability (and cowardice) of leftist groups to even consider publicly celebrating attacks on capital by young Black people speaks to a real division between what Black people are doing versus what the Left is doing. The issue of how to include more activist and leftist organizations is as irrelevant as ever, the question now is how do we continue to sidestep the left and add to the growth of ever more terrible revolts?
Anarchists made an effort to add to the situation. Anarchists were not only present during the riots (albeit to a limited degree), some also carried out attacks. Although anarchists were largely late to the game in terms of intentionally participating, a good amount of anarchists showed up. Segregation and being in different social networks may have played a part in why our response as anarchists was delayed. A proposal of dispersed attacks was made and followed through on. That said, an opportunity to raise morale was missed by prioritizing atomized attack over group action. The anarchist space in Philadelphia is growing right now, and tempering cautious attitudes with encouragement and support can further encourage that growth. Black clothes are cool again, anarchists need not worry about alienating others with monochrome outfits, though some sportswear brands (Nike, Adidas, and Champion were common) might go a long way.
This moment felt like an opening salvo of mass revolts to come. Let’s stay ready for next time.
Development is officially moving forward – though very slowly – in destroying the alluring wastelands of Bartram’s North, the wooded riverside area just north of Bartram’s Gardens in Southwest Philly. For years, this area has been a favorite hangout spot for anarchists, ravers, feminist nude sunbathers, and other companions in being up to no good. Within the past eight months, a fence has gone up – twice – around the fields adjacent to the bike path that runs through the area, and a nearby building is slated to be demolished at the end of July. Earlier that month, three surveillance cameras were installed high up along Botanic Ave, the street that leads up to Bartram’s North. An unpermitted rave at Bartram’s in mid-July was reportedly broken up by police, which was to our knowledge the first time cops had kicked a party out of that location.
Resistance to the project has also been moving along, but slowly. According to websites like Philly Anti-Cap, over this calendar year so far the following events and actions have taken place:
– January: A zine is released entitled “Fuck a ‘Cellicon Valley’: Against the Proposed Development of Bartram’s North and South.”
– February: “Fuck Cellicon Valley” graffiti goes up along with “No Cop City” slogans.
– February: A Valentine’s Day-themed communique entitled “ISO Fence4Fence” notes that the fence around Bartram’s North has been broken down and is accompanied by anti-Cellicon Valley graffiti nearby.
– February: Iffy Books hosts a zine launch and social to publicize “Fuck a ‘Cellicon Valley.'”
– March: A communique claims the sabotage of a machine at Bartram’s North that was in the process of destroying “one of our favorite post-industrial wildernesses.” Bleach was poured into the tanks and tools were stolen.
– March: An anarchist assembly meets to discuss the various ecological and place-based struggles across the city, connecting the proposed struggle at Bartram’s with other campaigns like Save the Meadows, Save the UC Townhomes, No Arena in Chinatown, and the fight against the Cobbs Creek golf course.
– March/April: Anti-development and other anarchist graffiti goes up in Bartram’s North, including “Land Back” and Developers GTFO (A).”
– April: A communique posts photos of graffiti at Bartram’s North (with slogans including “fuck in the forest (A)” and “developers GTFO”) “for those Sexy Elves and Fairies out there in the Sex Forest. Let’s make the space more fun and cute while we defend the land. ;-)”
– May: A “work party” takes down most of the fence around the Bartram’s North fields for a second time and puts up more graffiti.
– June: “Feral gnomes” write a claim taking responsibility for pouring grit into the lubricating system of an earth-destroying machine at Bartram’s.
The proposal for “Cellicon Valley,” part of the Lower Schuylkill Master Plan, threatens to build a biotech campus at the sites of Bartram’s North and Bartram’s South. As well as demolishing the green spaces in those areas, the proposal also likely involves razing Bartram’s Village (the project housing nearby), and displacing its residents to build a new road to the Bartram’s South site.
This proposal is part of an ongoing effort by Philadelphia’s city planners to attract tech investment and brand the city as a new tech hot spot in competition with innovation hubs like Boston, the Bay and Silicon Valley itself. The city has been trying to do this kind of thing for a while, with mixed results, for example with Philadelphia’s failed attempt around 2018 to win the bid to house Amazon’s second national headquarters.
It is critical that we help them continue to fail in this goal. The effects of gentrification have already been devastating, and taking it to this level would make the city unlivable for everyone except a newly arrived generation of yuppie tech gentry.
The city is still looking for a partner to actually carry out the development process at Bartram’s. The PIDC (Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation) is reportedly in conversation with three development firms: Quaker Lane Capital, Gattuso Development Partners/AR Spruce, and Lincoln Property Company. The latest information we have, from February 2023, says they expected to select a partner and negotiate a development agreement by the second quarter of 2023.
It is much easier to intimidate potential developers, discouraging them from committing to the project in the first place, than it is to dissuade companies that have already signed a contract. Waiting until a developer is actually chosen might galvanize resistance by helping publicize the project and showing people it’s a real threat, but do we really want to wait til the deal is done, mainstream media has decided to start talking about (i.e. advertising) it, and everyone else on the opposition has been put on point to promote the project and squash resistance?
At this time, it’s not certain that any of the above development firms will even decide to commit to the project. If we act now, we can make this potential failure a reality. If we wait til later, we can still make construction a problem for the developers, but we’ll be at more of a disadvantage.
We don’t need to rely on our opposition’s timeline or their media; we can create our own. At this moment, we have the chance to widely publicize the project *ourselves*, spreading the information we want to see spread and finding potential accomplices, while the city waits around for their side of things to get finalized. It might not feel like it, but the time in which it’ll be most effective to act is now.
Who’s Responsible:
– PIDC (Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation), a non-profit founded by the city of Philadelphia and the Chamber of Commerce that funds development, is the main vehicle of this project
– Anne Bovaird Nevins, President of PIDC
– Angie Fredrickson, Vice President of Real Estate Services of PIDC (oversees the group’s marketing efforts in the Lower Schuylkill)
– Tom Dalfo, Senior Vice President of Real Estate Services for PIDC (oversaw the implementation of the Lower Schuylkill Master Plan)
– Colliers Life Sciences, “elite” real estate advisors leading the effort to solicit developers for the biotech campus
– Joseph Fetterman, Executive Vice President
– Clifford Brechner, Vice President
– Matthew Barkann, Associate
– William Penn Foundation, funders of the Lower Schuylkill Master Plan, along with the City of Philadelphia
– PennPraxis, local advisors and facilitators for the Lower Schuylkill Master Plan
– PHA (Philadelphia Housing Authority)
– Urban Land Institute (ULI) Philadelphia – assembled the panel of experts in 2021 (sponsored by PIDC) that recommended and specified suggestions for the development of Bartram’s
– All development firms that have shown interest in the project
Some ideas:
– Counter-information about the project (on site and in general)
– Actions against people responsible for development
– Work parties
– Dare to dream >:)
On the weekend of June 29 through July 2nd, some folx had organized to do what would turn out to be more of a block party then a protest. The weeks ahead saw numerous virtual zoom meetings between members of various organizations which included ‘Act Up’ and ‘Young Communist League,’ and almost seemingly endless group chat conversations on signal. The event discussed was because folx had gotten wind that a right wing neofascist christian group called “Moms 4 Liberty were coming to town at the end of the month. Amongst those conversations there seemed to have been talks of a “diversity of tactics” with the basic goal to run these fuckers out of Philly.
The next coming weeks saw a few actions at various locations. We should also mention that separate from all the orgs bullshit, local and non-local anarchists and anti-fascists also began to plot various actions for the last couple of weeks before the event.
Fast forward to the last meeting before the mums got here. Basically, more talks of a variety of tactics. The vibes that left that conversation was one of an acceptance of more autonomous actions. The event itself had been scheduled for every day and every time slot. Actually, kinda fucking crazy how scheduled shit was. It’s almost as though they were really afraid that any unscheduled time slot would like, deter their plans to ultimately just fucking yell at people. We remember at one point, folks had discussed not “peace policing” anyone. Would you believe that there basically wasn’t a day that some MC on a microphone didn’t peace police in a way?
Basically, the whole weekend went like this from what we saw: Big crowds gathered in the middle of 12th and Filbert street for roughly 12 hours to put on various events, but mostly set up a place for folx to just dance and “make noise” next to the Marriott where the mums for liberty (also referred to jokingly as the “mums 4 hate”) were staying and hosting their big event.
Round the evening of the first rally, anarchists and antifascists took to the streets to spread art and agit-prop throughout old towne. The rally goers and the art march briefly met, with art marchers ultimately turning down an alleyway and going their own way. Seems both groups had different ideas. There were no clashes for either side.
However, the same could not be said about the so called “peaceful protestors.” Since the first night, interactions with the police happened more than once. Protesters were detained practically at each event. They seemed to also be released hours later so, we can at least all be happy about that. Unfortunately, some interactions left scars. A comrade had alerted us to one time that a brave soul dared to throw a easily breakable object into the crowd of people supporting the mums for liberty. The next thing, and we couldn’t believe we heard it, that brave soul was essentially brought attention by the mc on the mic saying “Get your boi!” (exact words may differ) and then chased off… Oh, in case it wasn’t understood, by the people supposedly protesting the mums for liberty… Not the cops. And before that, being confronted by what people call “march marshals.” Fucked up right? We’ll say again that this is what we heard so, check up about it if ya feel (stories and recollections may vary). The other “clashes” if you even wanna fucking call it that, just us but like, clashes usually mean that both individuals involved equally try to inflict harm, but we digress… There was also another brave soul that ran to wave goodbye to the mums in their own special way and they tackled by security. They suffered injuries and had to be taken to hospital. For such a “peaceful” event, sure was some fuckery that went down. We guess we could also mention “struggles” for space.
Which, ultimately, were won by the cops. The cops were granted EVERY SINGLE FUCKING METER they wanted. The protesters lost, you know what, fuck it, GAVE space away at both locations. Once at the local “revolutionary” museum, and again outside the hotel. It seemed that these communists and other socialist types couldn’t defend or hold the space like their precious daddies back in the day. (Shocker.) To be fair to all involved, they were basically, well wait no, not basically, DEFINITELY fucking kettled the whole time. It just seemed like the whole event was just meant to be a place where there wasn’t much room to move.
Ultimately, not a fun time if you wanted to actually accomplish scaring those bigots away. They laughed at everyone multiple days. That one pragur u dude even came out to see the spectacle. Comrades, we have got to start taking shit in our own hands if we wanna accomplish shit. Ours enemies get stronger and chose violence at every single turn, we can BARELY keep comrades from getting caught up. The protesters liberal agenda is going to more people killed. It’s not funny, and dancing round instead of showing these fuckers what is actually up, is just a bad look and not doing us any favours. Bleh… fuck it. We need to show people that there is a different way. A more autonomous way, a more direct way. You know that direct actions yields more results rather than waiting for some authority or these phantom “masses” they fucking go on about. Yeah, we need numbers, but we can attract those numbers when people see we’re fucking serious. We’re a force to be reckoned with when we all find our self determination. The orgs have become so big in this fucking city. These orgs will organize our way into the system. It’s just the fucking truth from what we’re seeing. It’s called a ‘DIVERSITY OF TACTICS’ not Only ‘organization of tactics’ 🙄
And like, definitely fuck the mums for liberty and all these conservative and transphobic cunts, but part of that is showing them why their wrong in a more conflictual way.
The details on Bair’s organization are listed in this Telegram screen grab. After issues with the national organization and chapters Bair rebranded the First Capital Proud Boys as the Common Sons of Pennsylvania.
Bair, who goes by “Cotton Hill” on Telegram, first publicly joined S14 during the Spring of 2023. Bair quickly got acquainted with Mark Kauffman, a leader of S14, and began cross posting propaganda from different local far right organizations. He also bragged about the amount of graffiti and stickering he was doing for White Lives Matter over the Dover and York PA area.
Bair’s personal telegram account.
Here Bair is discussing some stickering he did and also making a point to get more involved in S14 activities.
At some point during this time, Kauffman and Bair got closer and began hanging out socially and doing different actions together in person.
Mark Kauffman posing while Bair takes his picture.
Bair, with his face covered doing the same pose as Kauffman. The number 88 is a nazi dogwhistle, read as “HH” (the eighth letter of the alphabet) and standing for “Heil Hitler.”
Bair was interested in impressing his peers and getting more involved in S14. When Bair’s doxx by Philly Antifa dropped in May, he used it as an opportunity to try and gloat and look tough to his fellow Neo-Nazis, declaring on the S14 public telegram channel that his address listed in the doxx was incorrect.
Bair attempting to troll antifascists and impress other nazis by detailing he does not currently live in Spring Grove, PA.
If Bair’s ego had been in check he wouldn’t have made the serious operational security (opsec) mistake of publicly mentioning that the address listed for him was wrong. Bair and his family have moved upwards of half a dozen times over the past four years, muddling their living history. He could have easily chosen not to say anything and protect his and his family’s anonymity but ultimately, Bair’s arrogance got the better of him.
Bair’s revelation enabled local antifascists to identify and confirm his actual current address: an apartment in a large multi family house on N Main Street in Dover, PA. Bair lives there with his long term girlfriend and their kids.
Antifascists were able to pull recent pictures from Bair’s family and compare them to photos from Bair’s rental history. Through a process of elimination the house on N Main Street in Dover, PA was positively identified as Bair’s current residence.
The N Main Street house’s features like doors and molding in these pictures are identical to those pictured on social media.
Additionally, the N Main Street house’s floors were found to be identical to those from social media.
For whatever reason Bair thinks the information released about him in the May 2023 doxx, including his dropped lawsuit against York PA police, prior drug arrests, his positive identification as a failed January 6 insurrectionist, and his court martial and discharge from the Marines, is a badge of honor. Bair has no sense of self reflection or preservation, as he has functionally changed nothing about how he operates, further opening up his entire family to potential consequences for his own independent actions.
An article from 2018/2019 detailing Bair’s dropped lawsuit against York PA police.
To top things off, Bair has recently been in the habit of promoting S14 and the Common Sons of Pennsylvania by directly involving his very young children and his girlfriend in propaganda. At the time of publishing it is unclear if Bair’s girlfriend has any direct involvement in either Neo-Nazi group.
Bair with his family as of July 2023, taken from a family members social media account.
Bair’s girlfriend on the left and his three children on the right. All of his children have a “nazi death head” or totenkopf concealing their identity. This picture was specifically promoted for S14 and the Common Sons of Pennsylvania’s propaganda.
A picture Bair took during one of his stickering actions for the Common Sons of Pennsylvania. Two of his children can be seen in the background.
Bair’s hubris and opsec may in fact be the worst out of the entire group, even outshining Kauffman. During the week of July 17, 2023, Bair posted a series of voice messages whining about NJ Hate Watch’s coverage of Kauffman stating verbatim “what do I have to do to be mentioned”. Bair was likely trying to act tough while sucking up to Kauffman.
Bair’s voice messages about the S14 doxxes that have been published. He also mentions the recent Southern Sons Active Club doxx, which he was also mentioned in.
Despite awareness of the continued coverage and exposure of S14’s members, the group is largely acting as if nothing has happened. This is of course on top of them being surveilled by the state (Nicholas Mucci was connected to WLM and S14 members after getting picked up by the federal government and several state agencies after a protest).
S14 members consider this a warning: With addition of Mathew Bair, five of your members have officially been identified and doxxed including Paul Minton, Daisy McGowan, Mark Kauffman, and Sara Sheaffer. If you continue to operate your members will continue to be exposed, the pressure will be increased, and there will be real world repercussions.
S14, known officially as Storm 14, is a Tristate (New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York) Neo-Nazi organization that has been increasingly active in the region as of March 2023. They have been busy with banner drops, conducting protests, and doing large scale stickering and graffiti campaigns, in an effort to recruit masses of young people and push their fascist agenda. Their escalating activity, includes the rollout of a propaganda subcommittee, which stages flashy fascist demos like their recent midnight New Brunswick march, as a part of their larger organizational growth strategy.
The New Brunswick propaganda event.
S14, Embrace Struggle Active Club, NJEHA and other fascist groups have been coordinating their releases of information together.
To analyze S14’s current activity and future organizational trajectory a closer look at their origin must be taken.
Back in October 2022, an Illinois based Neo-Nazi known by the alias Stephen Quest, put out a call on Stormfront that he was forming a national socialist organization called the National Socialist Youth Alliance (NSYA), aimed at young people. Quest modeled this organization after the National Alliance. He requested that interested people message him to help form on the ground attachments.
Stephen Quest’s NSYA announcement on Stormfront on October 8, 2022.
Quest created a closed Gab account for the NSYA and altered his personal account to recruit young people and create tangible on the ground cells. At this point in time, Quest began actively recruiting and connecting with prospective members on Gab.
Quest’s personal Gab account, which he altered to recruit for the NSYA.
Quest’s NSYA Gab organization and recruitment page.
At some point in late 2022, Quest formed a circle of other leaders and began to push for in person attachments and actions to take place. Quest placed a Nazi using the alias “Joachim Peiper”, as the leader or “commandant” and took up post as the second in command. (Peiper has since been unmasked as Philadelphia resident Mark A. Kauffman). Kauffman’s Gab account was created during this time as well. Kauffman took charge in leading on the ground support and action for the NSYA in the Tristate area.
Kauffman created his Gab account during this time to connect with Quest and other fascists interested in the NSYA.
In early January 2023, Kauffman officially launched the NSYA’s Tristate attachment at a collaborative protest in Hamilton NJ, in support of the right wing January 6 insurrection prisoners. Kauffman and other NSYA members, including Kauffman’s fiance Sara Sheaffer, worked with WLM-PA and NJEHA and their leader Dan D’ambly for this protest.
A telegram post about the early January 2023 Hamilton NJ protest, where NSYA had their official unveiling with the help of WLM-PA and NJEHA.
Kauffman and the NSYA also unveiled their organization flag at this same protest, signalling its usage for the first time on the ground.
Kauffman is pictured here with the NSYA flag and with NJEHA, NSYA, and WLM-PA members.
Kauffman and the NSYA Tristate attachment continued to do actions with D’ambly and NJEHA, WLM-PA, and other fascists like Embrace Struggle AC and Atlantic Nationalist Club throughout January and February 2023. They coordinated cross posts on all of their respective organizations social media to promote their partnership.
Evidence of strategic cross-posting from WLM-PA as a part of a larger united far right in the Tristate area.
Despite increasing organizational overlap and connections being forged within the Tristate far right, as of February 2023, Kauffman and Quest were drifting a part organizationally. Reportedly Quest began acting erratically.
According to multiple members Quest’s paranoia seeped into the NSYA and halted most major organizational activities.
After an internal power struggle the NSYA split, with Quest keeping the NSYA organization and moniker and Kauffman leaving with the majority of membership behind him to start a different iteration of the group, S14.
Evidence of the split between Quest and Kauffman and ultimate separation of the NSYA and impending formation of S14.
Kauffman launched S14 in March 2023. With Kauffman now in place as the organization’s head, or “commandant”, he instituted a new ranking system, logos, and different organizational structures with a primary focus on recruitment and propaganda.
S14’s official organizational launch announcement which details their organizational structure.
From left to right: an unidentified nazi, Sara Sheaffer in a red hoodie, Mark Kauffman, and Paul Minton. All are members of S14.
Mark Kauffman kneeling, Paul Minton on the far left, Daisy McGowan in the middle, and an unidentified short Nazi on the right.
Sheaffer on the left and McGowan on the right at the Spring 2023 Easton PA action held by S14, NJEHA, and Embrace Struggle Active Club.
S14’s logo on a flag they had made during the Spring of 2023.
Kauffman and Sheaffer are pictured at the recent Easton PA rally holding the new S14 flag. Minton was also present at this rally.S14’s official logo, which debuted in March 2023.
S14 also has several variations of their logo, in this case, projecting it onto the liberty bell.
Notably, Kauffman has forged strong bonds with several subordinates, who he has given leadership positions to, in order to help direct S14’s subcommittees and regular day to day activities. This includes his fiance Sheaffer, who now acts as his second in command and is taking on greater responsibility for S14’s functioning. As such, S14 has been producing recruitment propaganda and running in person actions between NJ and PA at a steady rate since the split.
An example of new propaganda stickers Kauffman and other S14 members had specially made. The recruitment details have been edited out.
News coverage from a June 2023 S14 Delaware County PA stickering action, where they threw up recruitment stickers all over Ridley Township.
Internally, with Kauffman at the helm of S14 and Sheaffer at his side, the organization’s main drive is on building up base membership numbers. Kauffman specifically has special interest in recruiting underage teenagers and those in their 20’s and 30’s.
It has been confirmed that S14 does currently have underage members, some as young as 15 years old.
Kauffman and his circle, which includes minors in organizational leadership roles, has been very active inundating both PA and NJ with physical and virtual recruitment materials, as evident by both the mainstream news and their own propaganda videos. Their propaganda subcommittee has been prolific in creating both general S14 propaganda and merchandise for them internally.
Fascists, including S14, often use more covert symbols and ways to signal to other fascists when out in public. S14 members often wear these and other patches on jackets or hats to signify their status.
An example of what S14 members wear to detail their affiliation. This set of patches is being displayed on one of Kauffman’s every day jackets.
Kauffman pictured during the Ridley Township action wearing some of the newly made S14 accessories.
Another set of new made patches that are being disseminated and worn by S14 members.
Externally, Kauffman and S14 has put a lot of energy into promoting cross-organizational membership and solidarity between the different fascist organizations in the area. Kauffman is open about the fact he is also personally a member of WLM-PA and routinely references that members of NJEHA, S14, the Garden State Nationalists, WLM-PA, Embrace Struggle AC, and Atlantic Nationalist Club have crossover membership. Kauffman and his crew can also be seen in their varying propaganda videos putting up graffiti and stickers from these organizations as well.
Kauffman and other members are very public about their crossover membership because they aim to have a united far right, another one of S14’s tenants.
This Spring 2023 joint action that Kauffman, Sheaffer, D’ambly, and others held further highlights their goal for a united far right.
While S14’s activity in the region has been escalating over time their bad security culture practices, probable swarming of state agencies, and resistance from antifascists leaves one to wonder how long they can keep this up before their behavior catches up with them. This is especially true now that certain S14 members like Kauffman, Sheaffer, Minton, and McGowan have been exposed and now have a magnifying glass on them. The heat will likely only be turning up higher considering their ownership over their Ridley Township white nationalist flyering action and their proven connections to Nicholas Mucci, who has the force of the state crushing him down.
Despite all of this including the recent doxxes of Kauffman and Sheaffer as covered NJ Hate Watch, S14 and their members don’t seem to be changing anything they are doing and are navigating their social media platforms as if nothing has happened. There are changes on the horizon however and S14 members will continue to be exposed for who they really are.
S14, officially known as Storm Division, is a tristate (NJ, PA, NY) area neo nazi group that has been very active over the past few months. They have been busy doing pop-up propaganda demos, trying to recruit virtual and in-person members, mass stickering and putting up fascist graffiti in the region, specifically in the Philadelphia area and NJ. They have also been pushing a united front amongst the far right in the area and openly hold multiple different memberships within groups like NJEHA, Embrace Struggle Active Club, WLM, Atlantic Nationalist Club, and the Garden State Nationalists.
Their activity has been increasingly organized with some of their most recent actions making local media headlines. Despite their high level of organization and escalating actions, S14 and their members have gotten sloppy with their own security.
Due to lapses in S14’s security, antifascists have been able to identify their two leaders, “commandant Joachim Peiper” and his “wife”, as Mark A. Kauffman and Sara Sheaffer respectively.
Sheaffer and Kauffman in plain clothes on the left and in their “disguises” on the right during a neo-nazi demo.
Kauffman and Sheaffer are engaged to be married and are both originally from Massachusetts, having lived in different parts of the state. According to Kauffman, they bounced around a bit in MA and settled in Philadelphia several years ago. Antifascists were able to independently verify Kauffman’s account and confirmed that as of now he and Sheaffer live in North Philadelphia on East Wishart Street. Kauffman also supposedly owns property in the south, “on the Mason Dixon line”.
Sheaffer’s Facbook profile featuring a picture of her and Kauffman from several years ago. Both of them look notably different in 2023.
Kauffman’s Facebook profile, which has an updated picture of himself from a month ago.
Kauffman provides details about where he lived previously in MA and verifies he currently lives in Philly.
At the time of publishing Kauffman’s claim could not be independently verified.
Kauffman reportedly works in construction as a foreman at A Woman Owned Contractor, a “Hispanic owned” construction firm which does large scale commercial roofing and construction services. (More details on Kauffman’s employer and how to contact them will be listed at the end of the article).
Prior to moving to Philadelphia, Kauffman was in the US Army for several years and completed two combat tours in the Middle East. At that point he was already a nazi, as he stated in a public message on S14’s telegram channel.
Kauffman upon returning home from his second tour in the the Army.
Kauffman’s account of his time in the US military. Given Kauffman’s actions and beliefs one has to wonder what war crimes is he responsible for.
At the time of publishing it is unknown if Kauffman was convicted of any of the charges against him in this case.
There was no media follow up on how the case against Kauffman turned out and nothing was publicized. It’s not clear exactly when Kauffman and Sheaffer got clean and moved to Philadelphia, but it is suspected to be around the 2018/2019 time frame.
Kauffman’s white nationalist activities prior to 2022 are hazy, but it seems that Kauffman decided to publicly organize and establish ties with other fascists during 2022 on Gab. He was then connected with a fellow white nationalist, going by the alias Stephen Quest, who was recruiting members and leadership within a neo nazi organization called the National Socialist Youth Alliance (NSYA).
Kauffman’s Gab account, which was created in 2022, coinciding with the timeline of his efforts to publicly organize other fascists and white nationalists.
Kauffman officially launched S14 in March 2023, when he and others split from the NSYA. Upon starting this new nazi organization, Kauffman, with the help of Sheaffer, instituted new organizational security and logistical guidelines and started recruiting efforts both online and in-person. Kauffman made a serious effort to create a nazi safe space on telegram, shying away from infighting and trying to build camaraderie among members.
Kauffman and Sheaffer also have a special interest in recruiting minors.
He also increased the rate of in-person actions within his tristate area crew encouraging pop-up style protests during the day and night time propaganda dissemination actions.
Kauffman pictured during a recent midnight propaganda run where he and other S14 members covered Ridley Township in white nationalist leaflets.
In addition, Kauffman implemented different security guidelines for the public S14 Telegram chat like not discussing illegal activity, not giving out personal info or personal phone numbers to other group members, no infighting, and no glorification of white nationalists who have committed mass shootings. Kauffman has thus far strictly enforced his group’s code, often banning members for breaking these rules.
Ironically though, Kauffman does not hold himself to the same high standard. Kauffman’s first major mistake was providing a detailed background of his life in public Telegram chats which enabled antifascists to construct a profile on him. This included his time in the military, prior life in New England, veiled details about his day job, and the fact he currently lives in North Philly.
His second major mistake was providing information about the level of his fiance’s involvement and unintentionally revealing his fiance’s identity on the S14 public telegram channel.
Kauffman often refers to Sheaffer as his wife, though they are not legally married. Here Kauffman is discussing S14’s reading group.
Sheaffer does not have an individual discernible presence on Telegram. In a different situation this could give her plausible deniability over her level of involvement in S14 but Kauffman’s repeated reference to her on Telegram in combination with her heavy in-person involvement shows otherwise.
Kauffman’s most egregious error was revealing her legal name.
At the time, Kauffman likely didn’t think too much about mentioning his fiances legal name, because he was using it to try and recruit more women to his crew. Fascist and white nationalist groups are well known to have an absence of women for a variety of reasons, so leveraging female membership is something that would have been valuable to Kauffman and S14 as a whole.
Unfortunately for him, Kauffman’s revelation is the only reason that antifascists were able to find Sheaffer and confirm her identity. Kauffman took basic steps to erase information about himself on the internet, removing many links that could potentially expose him. This coupled with the fact that he and Sheaffer are not legally married added another layer of removal, functionally creating a situation where Sheaffer would be very difficult to identify without her legal name. Because antifascists had her first name they were eventually able to definitively identify and link Sheaffer to Kauffman and S14.
Kauffman and Sheaffer during one of S14’s stickering actions. Kauffman is pictured slapping up neo nazi stickers and Sheaffer is walking with her hair up in the background.
Sheaffer and Kauffman holding a new S14 flag at an action in Easton PA with S14, NJEHA, Embrace Struggle Active Club, and other fascists.
Other white supremacist activity in the area, the source of which has not been able to be identified until now, can also be ascribed to Sheaffer. A female member of Atlantic Nationalist Club has been trolling Philadelphia area antifascists on Telegram for a period of time throwing up racist stickers across the city.
The individual in the Atlantic Nationalist Club video is a white female wearing an engagement ring who quickly puts up a sticker on a utility poll. Given Sheaffer’s background info and the shooting style of the video, the likelihood of this being anyone but her is incredibly low.
S14 has prided themselves themselves on their anonymity, security culture, and ability to do things anonymously for months from behind the comfort of a mask. That time is now over. Kauffman and Sheaffer must be exposed for the nazis that they are.
Kauffman’s reported most recent employer, AWOC, can be reached at their main offices at 215-219-3579 or through email through their website. The following script and photos from the article can be used to contact AWOC about Kauffman.
“Hello I am a concerned Philadelphia resident and I am calling to inquire about the status of an AWOC employee. Mark Kauffman, an AWOC foreman, is a neo nazi and white supremacist. Kauffman regularly engages in bigoted and even illegal behavior directed towards minorities and marginalized people. I am happy to provide concrete evidence of his actions. If Kauffman is still employed at AWOC, it is not a safe environment for anyone. I request that action be taken immediately through terminating his employment. Thank you for your time.”
Recently, anonymous aboveground activists conducted research of east coast fur farms, with the purpose of determining operational status and the number of active fur farms in the eastern United States, primarily Pennsylvania and New York.
Of the 18 farms visited, only one farm was confirmed as an active mink farm, the Stahl mink farm in Sunbury PA (4130 SR 890). One fox farm was inconclusive, the Pacuchinski fox farm in upstate NY (2730 Lenox Road). All 16 others have shuttered. We found dilapidated and decayed sheds, and sheds that once confined mink were full of derelict machinery and various tools.
The number of operational U.S. mink farms is now under 100, down from over 400 in the 1990s and 274 just ten years ago. Estimates of active U.S. fox farms put the number between 25 and 50.
Last year, the Animal Liberation Front liberated over 15,000 mink from U.S. fur farms. In recent years, global pressure campaigns have seen nine designers go fur free. This is the grim state of the fur trade.
As the fur industry teeters on the brink of collapse, it’s up to all of us to do what it takes to ensure this industry never recuperates. Activist efforts and a diversity of tactics can destroy this industry that preys on native wildlife.
Look for the latest updates of closures and active fur farms at finalnail.com.
Benjamin F. Ryder, a neo-nazi and sex offender who harassed Wooden Shoe Books last week.
Last week, a neo-nazi entered the Wooden Shoe Books co-operative bookstore on South Street. He took a photo of a flyer hanging up there related to Paul Minton, the nazi groomer currently running “White Lives Matter PA” and “Embrace Struggle Active Club,” stole some Antifa stickers, and threatened a staff member. Another of Minton’s telegram pages,
“Pa Antifa Watch” posted pictures from the incident, claiming they received them from “someone unknown to us.”
“For absolutely no reason in particular, I’m just gonna mention we don’t know this guy.”
The nazi was driven from the area, but posted a short video of the incident on a closed chat of neo-nazis. In the video, the nazi’s face is visible and easily identifiable as Ben Ryder.
Still from the video of the incident at The Shoe. Ryder’s face is clearly visible.
Ryder is a neo-nazi with a history of exposing himself and masturbating in front of women and young girls in public. Ryder was sentenced to 4-12 months in 2015 for approaching several women completely nude in a McDonalds parking lot. He was sentenced to 1-2 years in prison in 2019 for another a similar crime.
As discussed in the twitter thread above, Ryder was one of the neo-nazis who picked a fight at a Trans Day of Vengeance demo at the Supreme Court. Ryder attempted to take out a knife during the fight, but was dropped and disarmed by protestors while DC police meandered over and eventually detained him.
Ryder is a registered sex offender, so he likely feels common cause with Minton and his crew, judging by their enthusiastic cross-promotion. Ryder was last known to be living in Glenside, PA on E. Pleasant Avenue. He may be working for Kevin Ryder, Inc., a trucking company (we presume to be run by a relative) in Ivyland, PA. Ben Ryder drives a black Jeep Grand Cherokee (PA KDK5085).
Ryder is clearly an unstable and dangerous person and those who encounter him should be mindful of that. Despite their attempts to market themselves as an elite vanguard of the “pro-white movement,” Active Club and their supporters continue to tend more towards disgusting and embarrassing cautionary tales.
Eternal war on the Hitler Youth Mickey D’s flasher division,
Mathew David Bair, neo-nazi associated with The First Capitol Proud Boys and Southern Sons Active Club. Resident of Spring Grove, PA.
Atlanta Antifascists recently released an extensive report-back from a months-long infiltration of the “Southern Sons Active Club,” a cell “of the larger ‘Active Club’ network founded by fascist organizer Robert Rundo and his close associates.” As usual, it is S-tier research and reporting by ATL and we recommend reading it, even if you do not live nearby or feel you have a full understanding of the groups involved.
Most members and posters on the SSAC telegram reside in Georgia and the Carolinas, but one user, who posts on telegram as “Kermit (Sapper Actual)” reps Southern Sons while being from and living in Pennsylvania.
In addition to involvement in the openly fascist “Active Club,” Kermit runs the “First Capitol (York, PA) Proud Boys” telegram channel and appears to be running the chapter. Neo-nazi infiltration is well-documented in the proud boys, and many chapters function as essentially front-groups for neo-nazi orgs, while the “civic nationalist” chapters provide deniability and protect them.Kermit is feuding with the Ohio proud boys for being insufficiently openly racist for him.
Your Opsec is not good, Mathew.
Thanks to information provided to us by Antifa researchers, and then verified, we are prepared to expose “Kermit (Sapper Actual)” as Mathew David Bair of 138 N. Water St, Spring Grove, PA.
Antifa became aware of Kermit’s real name due to a doxx by his “white brothers” at Runic Storm, who make it a habit of doxxing anyone who doesn’t pay for an order or has issues with payment processing.
Though Bair had ordered under the name “Matthew Howse”, he used an email of MathewBairHxC@gmail.com. Sure enough, some light research confirmed that the address Kermit ordered to belongs to a Mathew Bair, who has been in the news several times for his far-right activities, as well as a run-in with York cops that generated a few moments of local notoriety for him. Interestingly, one of Bair’s friends present that day was named “Matthew Howse,” so we presume Bair used his friend’s name as a “cover,” while using his real-named gmail address.
Bair is 33 years old. He was in the marines but court martialed and discharged for stealing night-vision goggles. “Kermit” actually bragged about his court martial and it’s availability online. He was involved in an altercation with York PD for alleged brutality caught on video. The lawsuit was quickly dropped.
Bair was present at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021 and charged with curfew violation. He has prior guilty pleas for selling weed and harassment.
Mathew Bair of FCPB present at the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Bair and his crew have been working along with the NJEHA and WLM nazis we’ve previously profiled on this site, participating in shared days of action and joint demonstrations together. Presumably, the groups are also training together as that is a large part of the “Active Club” model. Recently, Bair posted public support Embrace Struggle Active Club, which is associated with disgraced sexual predator Paul Minton, whom Bair has worked with for some time.
Mathew Bair promoting Embrace Struggle Active Club, affiliated with Paul Minton.
Mathew Bair (holding megaphone) rallying in Easton, PA alongside fellow neo-nazis, including Paul Minton.
Anyone with more info on Bair or FCPB is welcome to contact us. Bair may be identified by his FCPB’s tattoo on one of his legs.
Join us on Sunday, May 21st from 1-3 PM for our next reading discussion! As usual, we’ll be meeting in Clark Park near the chess tables. This month we’ll be reading excerpts from The Palliative Turn, volume one.
APT operates from the understanding that humanity has collectively entered this phase of anticipatory grief. As we face the end of civilization as we know it, each of us is patient and caretaker and soon-to-be bereaved at the same time.
Paul Minton, neo-nazi living and organizing in South Philly out of his home on S. 26th street. Affiliated with “White Lives Matter (WLM) PA”
Paul Minton
Paul “Paulie” Minton
Born
8/23/1976
Home Base
1542 S. 26th St., Philadelphia, PA
Published By
OPP HQ
Published On
9/4/2023
Recently, an alert was circulated among Anti-Fascist social media accounts related to an individual from Philadelphia identified as Paul Minton (Be sure to read the whole thread).
The alert informed people that Minton was running several neo-nazi telegram channels and doxxing Anti-Fascists. The post featured pictures of Minton wearing Philly Antifa t-shirts and claiming that Minton had “masqueraded” as Antifa for several years.
Sadly, the alert is correct. Minton not only dressed the part, but participated in Anti-Fascist blocs from coast to coast from 2016 – 2019 and was targeted by both the far right and law enforcement for his activities.
Paul Minton while he pretended to be an Anti-Fascist. Note that flag on the left. It will come up again.
Despite deep involvement in Antifa, Minton had, at some point, returned back to nazi politics. We say “back” because, as this article will map out, Minton had previously already been a neo-nazi skinhead as a young man and publicly broken with that movement in the mid-2000s. We even had an earlier Rogues’ Gallery entry on him in those days – that we now have to bring back and update.
A recent photo of Minton. He is wearing a t-shirt for the California neo-nazi band “Final War” as well as sporting a leg tattoo repping the neo-nazi “Rise Above Movement.”
After months of research and interviews, we are ready to finally tell the story of Paul Minton and his turn from nazi to Antifa and back to nazi (with lots of stops along the way). Those interviewed (names withheld to protect them) were eager to tell tale of a man they describe as a manipulator and narcissist whose predatory and dishonest behavior ultimately left him isolated until he, unbelievably, re-joined the nazi movement.
Strap in, dear reader, this tragic tale has some serious twists and turns.
It is relatively common, if you’re tuned in to these types of things, to hear stories of a young neo-nazi who leaves that movement and later denounces it. It is also not unheard of to encounter a far-right activists who may have dabbled in leftist politics before becoming committed fascists.
There is also a small fringe of “NazBol” red-brown types who will attempt to find common ground between Marxism (red) and National Socialism (brown). As well as eco-fascists who combine green anarchist or primitivist ideas with fascist ideology. What is almost unheard of, however, is hearing of someone “flipping” from one side to the other and then flipping back.
Generally speaking, adults do not oscillate in their opinions drastically around whether the Holocaust occurred and was bad, whether certain races are inherently predisposed towards different types of societies, or whether a cabal of Jewish people are secretly in control of the world’s economy. So naturally, they don’t find themselves switching between the far left and fascist politics. Most people engage and support one, or neither, side. “Fencewalking,” by unprincipled people is common, but that is usually limited to socializing with both sides, not engaging in activism and combat with both. Furthermore, most individuals who have betrayed a political movement and joined their sworn enemies would reasonably not expect to find acceptance should they attempt to return to their old movement.
Paul Minton is an exception. This article will attempt to trace his development from a young man who was recruited to neo-nazi skinhead culture, to hardcore punk “youth crews,” to Orthodox Christianity, to Islamism, to militant animal liberation, to Antifa and back to the same nazi skinhead politics he was viciously fighting (literally) not even 2 years earlier.
Paulie Minton was born August 23, 1976 (46 years old) and grew up in Gray’s Ferry. Minton currently resides at 1542 S. 26th Street and runs his neo-nazi outfit “White Lives Matter” (WLM) out of that home. In addition to Minton, his mother and her longtime boyfriend live in the home. Minton’s oldest child is also living there as of when this was published. There is one more individual living there (that we know of) whom we will discuss later in the article.
When in NYC, Minton betrayed his friend and snitched him out to the port authority police. Minton then testified against Pearce, receiving a sweetheart deal of 2 years probation for tampering with a corpse, a fact that (of course) enraged the victim’s mother. Pearce was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Minton would deny being a nazi when questioned about this and attempted to hang out in the Anti-Racist punk scene, leading local hardcore band Barricade to write a song “dedicated” to Minton entitled “Fence Walker.”
Once his probation ended, Minton dropped all pretense and proudly declared himself a nazi. In an e-mail he sent to One Peoples Project during that time, he wrote… “I have always (been) WP (white power). I was on parole for the past five years and was told if I had any contact with anything I will do my whole 5 years back time… But guess what it is all over now and time to smash you fucks one again…”
Minton, right with two of his Nazi friends. Rob Julason, center, is from Delaware and was last living in Aston, PA.
Paul Minton in the early 2000s Minton with fellow nazis
Minton’s hand tats circa 2004. Oh, there will be coverups.
He began antagonizing Anti-Fascists by doing things such as driving by punk shows at First Unitarian Church with his nazi buddies yelling “white power!” out of the car. Minton and co. threatened several shows during this period, usually demurring from actually showing up.
During 2005 Philly Pride, while Antifascists were countering an anti-gay group who were there, Minton, who at the time was repping KSS, arrived yelling homophobic slurs in a group of a dozen neo-nazi skinheads associated with a coalition of neo-nazi bonehead crews called Blood and Honour, including Joey Phy. who is currently associated with neo-fascist crews like the Rise Above Movement.
Paul Minton, rear behind Doug Sonier, in 2005 harassing Philly Pride.
Minton (center, profile) at Pride in 2005. He is wearing a shirt of NJ neo-nazi band “H8Machine.” Behind him with sunglasses is Clemie “Rick” Haught of Blood and Honour/Maryland Skinheads. Next to him, shirtless and obscured, is Joey Phy.
For reasons unknown, around late 2005 Minton left the white nationalist movement. He provided information and made a public disavowal of that movement to One Peoples Project. He got tattoos on his hands saying “Anti-Racist” with crossed out swastikas. He was briefly involved with co-opting hip- hop and graffiti culture as well as dabbling in Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and 2 different hardcore crews.
The first, PBHC (Philly Brotherhood of Hardcore) Minton left relatively quickly (though not after getting a tattoo on the side of his head for the group that he would then need to immediately remove). The second was Baxwar, or “BattleAxe Warriors, a fan/biker crew started by the Canadian rapper MildChild. Minton also began having children (he has 4 so far) with his (now ex) longtime partner.
The many faces of Paul Minton. The 44-year-old orthodox Muslim antifa nazi vegan hardcore kid backpacker.
Flash forward to around 2016, he was seen wearing a Philly Antifa shirt on social media. It’s not unheard of for someone who was involved in far right politics as a young person to later support the Anti-Fascist movement. Sure enough, he was seen posing in the shirt on social media not long after.
“How do you do, fellow Antifa?”
As the Trump candidacy kick-started the far right in this country, Minton began associating with the Antifa movement. He began working with much younger and inexperienced people who were unaware of his history. Someone did attempt to warn some of these individuals to be wary of Minton due to his past as a neo-nazi as well as being a snitch and an accessory to murder. Unfortunately, those warnings were not taken seriously. Minton is very adept at manipulating people and insulating himself from criticism, as will be discussed later in this article.
Starting with the opposition to the March for Trump in Philly in 2016, for roughly three years, Minton worked with several different crews in Philly and around the country. He traveled to demonstrations all over the U.S., including Unite the Right in 2017, often brawling with fascists. He was recorded fighting on the Antifa side in Cville and doxxed by neo-nazis, including “Jack Corbin,” Daniel McMahon.
Minton is actually the person who originally informed Antifa Philadelphia that the previous identification of Corbin was incorrect and pointed them to the old Pioneer Little Europe post identifying McMahon as Corbin. Minton had infiltrated Patriot Front online and learned from loose discussion among their ranks of the original misidentification. From there, Antifa needed only to confirm the information and then release it.
Minton was also very online and active in Anti-Fascist social media and research circles we are not involved in, so we don’t have much information on that. Minton often goes by the alias “Misk.”
An archived tweet from Minton’s old twitter account where he casually advocates burning his current “brothers” alive.
Eventually, as we’ve mentioned, Minton was alienated from the Anti-Fascist movement in Philly due to his own behaviors. The list of bad behaviors is long and would not surprise readers. He was untrustworthy, erratic and predatory. Most leftists and Antifa in Philly had stopped communicating with him entirely by 2020. Later, we were informed by members of his former crew that there were concerns about the nature of Minton’s interest in a teenage girl whom he had been inviting to anarchist and radical demos in Philly. Reportedly, not long after he was ostracized, his longtime partner and mother of his children left him and that young woman (more on her below) moved into the home.
Minton’s decision to return to neo-nazi politics can be traced to sometime in 2021. Former friends of Minton’s contacted us concerned about social media posts he was making.
Paul Minton expressing support for Kyle Rittenhouse.
Paul Minton parroting RAM and Active Front propaganda.
Prior to the postings, he had also been leaving long, incoherent voice messages to some other (former) friends about nobody wanting to work with him and having “good and evil raging inside” him. When questioned about the posts, Minton gave a very half-hearted excuse that he was “attempting to infiltrate”… with his real name and face. This was despite previous conversations where Minton claimed to be out of political activism and just focusing on his family.
What is known is that the WLM_USA_PENNSYLVANIA Telegram page that Minton set up and runs was originally set up as a honeypot, and Minton was still attempting to send information on local nazis to us. By that time, we could not reliably count on anything he was sending us so it was largely ignored. Minton is also believed to be running or involved in the “Embrace Struggle AC” and “PA Antifa Watch” telegram channels.
Not long after this, a new doxx account on twitter began targeting people perceived to be Antifa in Philly. Some of the information coming out of that account pointed to someone with inside, but out-dated, knowledge of the Antifascist scene in Philly. The timing of this account with Minton’s public statements strongly implicated him as involved. He was also sighted in the same area immediately prior to several WLM banner drops and stickering runs.
Eventually, Minton dropped all pretense and began posting social media pictures of himself wearing clothing and getting tattoos associated with neo-nazi and fascist groups.
Minton making that corny “white power” hand troll thing. Note the RAM tattoo is visible.
Someone has also started parking an SUV with a gigantic White Lives Matter logo on it in front of his house.
Minton’s Chevy Tahoe, parked outside his home with a WLM logo decal.
As we have explained, it is primarily personal anger that motivated Minton’s decision to flip back to being a nazi. Anger borne from being ostracized from our movement for his own behaviors, the most heinous of which was his grooming of a teenage girl whom he preyed on and then recruited to nazi politics.
Minton is a nazi because we are the things we do. But, to say he believes in anything is a partial truth at best. Minton is a cliche’ man-child who tries to find a family in political movements, burns his bridges through his dishonest and predatory behavior, and then rage-quits and retaliates by doxxing and harassing his former friends and comrades. As dangerous as Minton can be as an enemy, he is far more of a threat as a “friend.”
The very young woman reportedly living with Minton, whom he recruited to nazi politics, is named Daisy McGowan. Minton met her at local political protests and later was able to get a job at Morning Glory Diner, which is owned by McGowen’s grandmother. Minton has reportedly been lying about McGowan’s age, but an inquirer article from July 2018 states Daisy’s age as 13. She turned 18 just in January 2023.
Daisy McGowen (r) at the WLM nazi demo in Easton, PA.
McGowan in the rear of the formation with her phone out in Tom’s River
Minton and McGowan shopping in Walmart together.
We have also just recently learned from our sources that McGowan is pregnant and that Minton is the father, confirming all of our worst fears. Reportedly, Minton is planning to relocate with McGowan in the near future, as most of both of their families are disgusted by the relationship and too many people in Philly know his history and both of their real ages.
Minton worked at the Diner for a time, but was fired for stealing from other employees. Daisy has cut ties with her grandmother. McGowan was arrested at an anarchist noise demo at a jail in Philly. We don’t know Daisy, but earnestly encourage her to change her path while she can. No one has ever benefited from their relationships with Paul Minton. Everyone has suffered.
In addition to the demonstrations mentioned, Minton and co. have claimed responsibility for nazi stickers put up in Port Richmond, South Philly, Kensington, and Glenside. They also dropped a nazi banner on Route 309 in Ambler.
Despite representing himself as a hustler and grinder, Minton’s primary income has been social security disability since his corpse desecration trial in 2000. While we do not know what his diagnosis is, we have learned that the doctor that reapproves his status periodically specializes in “psychotic disorders.” According to interviewees, he spends his money largely on himself and has a taste for expensive clothing, travels frequently for political events and meetings, and (of course) spends tons of money on tattoo cover-ups from all of his various drifting around scenes and movements. He lends very little financial support to his four children, three of whom reside out-of-state.
Minton’s cover-up of his three arrows tattoo.
Due to his social security disability, Minton might be hiding other income streams. According to our sources, he has been working for Relay delivery services and at some point obtained ServSafe certification from the City of Philadelphia and may also be working or looking for work as a food safety manager.
And let’s be clear, we don’t share this information about Minton’s disability or his scamming to stigmatize others or because SS or tax scams upset us. Rather because, as an organizing neo-nazi, Minton is now championing an ideology that would describe someone like himself as a “parasite” and “asocial/mentally feeble” individual who would be lucky to simply be sterilized under national socialist doctrine. This mindset is absolutely abhorrent and wrong, but he is a complete fraud for viciously broadcasting this genocidal language about the same situations and behaviors of others while living, existing and supporting himself by similar means.
Furthermore, his actions as an abusive or absentee father who spends his money traveling to demonstrations or on endless tattoo cover-ups to hide his long history being a phony hypocrite, while his children struggle, is far from the rhetoric of the “rise above movement,” which claims to champion “the white family” and “traditional western values.”
This article is overdue. We first became aware of Minton “flipping” nearly 18 months ago. A quiet alert was circulated among those that had worked with or adjacent to him, and several other groups sounded the alarm on social media.
Minton (on left in tan cargo pants), and some nazis he conned, with the flag he captured from himself.
Unfortunately and remarkably, Minton has found allies willing to work with him, despite his past betrayals. He appears to be allied with Dan D’Ambly and Ron Sheehy’s “New Jersey European Heritage Association ” (NJEHA), appearing together in Tom’s River, and also stickering together.
WLM and NJEHA rallying in Easton, PA together on April 23, 2023.
WLM PA rallying in Morris Plains, NJ. Minton is masked on the far right.
Active Front has been repped locally for years by the same KSS boneheads Paulie betrayed and left behind almost 20 years ago, including longtime KSS boneheads AJ Olsen, Nunzio Pellegrino and the same Joey Phy who was with Paul Minton harassing the Philly Pride event in 2005.
AJ Olsen (c) and Nunzio Pellegrino (r) in a post promoted by Minton’s telegram pages.
Bryan Vanagaitis of Keystone United in a post promoted by Minton.
Minton regularly promotes their activities on his telegram pages, so we can assume they have some sort of relationship these days.
There is only one more group that Minton has had a long lasting and close relationship with, and that’s the state and federal government. We have recently learned that Paul Minton was regularly visited by the FBI in his home for years. These visits were for neo-nazi, radical Islam, animal liberation, Anti-Fascist and other postings and threats on the internet at different times in his life. During one visit, he was reportedly offered (and turned down) a job on a task force for extremism.
When the FBI visited him during his time posing as Antifa, Minton admittedly chatted with them and tried to weaponize them back at the fascists who had called them on him. He also has his history of snitching and testifying in court. While we are not making any conclusions, we do find it notable that this man with a history of side-switching and snitching, who had burned all his bridges in the Antifa movement, has now started a local affiliate of a hardcore international neo-nazi network and is filling it largely with young fascists he finds on the internet.
As the Antifa movement’s 15 minutes of infamy seems to be subsiding slightly, there will likely be a steady stream of “defectors” that come out of the woodwork for the next 10 years or so. With the huge influx of people coming into this movement during the Trump presidency, it is natural that some people will leave. Their level of involvement and reasons for leaving will vary. But in the case of Paul Minton, ideology was never important. Ideas, and people, are only important to Minton for how they make him feel. He wants to be close to danger, to feel like an “extremist” and to impersonate youth. In short, he’s a self-absorbed liar and manipulator.
Maybe he likes throwing up hands?
We think, in the context of the panic around “groomers” that the right is pushing, it is also worth noting that Minton was immediately called out and ostracized at the first sign he was preying on McGowan. That situation was not handled perfectly by those who had worked with Minton, but nobody tolerated it, even despite both of them claiming the relationship was not of that nature.
Meanwhile, he has now been bringing this young girl with him to various RAM and WLM events and meetings around the country, and nobody on their side seems to have any issue with a nearly 50-year old man and his newly 18 “girlfriend.” As many issues as the radical left, and our society as a whole, have with sexual violence and abuse, it is normalized on the far right in a way most of us would find unimaginable. One need only see some of the stories women have told after leaving that movement.
A still from a video of the local NJ/PA nazis in a park marching in New Brunswick, NJ (our home base) in the early morning hours of May 6, 2023 – when there were no one in what is normally a busy area of a town WLM described as “Antifa Infested” (you’re damn right). It is believed Paulie and Daisy participated in this outing and are possibly in this pic.
We hope that this story will serve as a warning to everyone in the Anti-Fascist movement. No matter how effective an organizer, spy, or street fighter, when someone is:
a) not trustworthy
b) seeking out attention/praise for Antifascism rather than treating it like a responsibility and self defense.
c) lacking fundamental understanding of the politics they espouse
d) a creep
it is only a matter of time before that person does serious harm.
If you’re not Antifa now, then you never fucking were.
Submission
Written during the riots, The George Floyd Uprising is a compendium of radical writing to come out of that long, hot summer. These incendiary dispatches—from those on the front lines of the struggle—examine the new horizons opened by the revolt, as well as the social, tactical, and strategic obstacles it confronted. This practical, inspiring collection offers a toolbox for all those actively seeking to expand and intensify revolts in the future, and it is essential reading for everyone interested in toppling the state, racism, and capitalism.
Join us May 7th at 3pm at the Quaker Meeting House in Harrisburg, PA for a discussion of the book with the editors!
When Ruthie Wilson Gilmore and I sat down for a conversation, we spoke about how the PIC not only exploits the labor of imprisoned folx (mainly via reproductive labor of the prison), but also extracts value from us. I came to this conclusion because I knew that our labor wasn’t the only or even major source of value the PIC was after. The PIC extracts our lives, our life time. Ruthie helped me to see each person as a territory that the PIC extracts value from via a time-space hole that imprisonment creates. Incarceration creates a mechanism through which money/capital can flow through a person and into the pockets of the PIC. This all sounds abstract. I know. But since coming to SCI Dallas, I clearly and concretely see how extraction, not exploitation, is the big game the PIC is using. And we need to get hip.
I am housed on a Veterans Service Unit (VSU). This is one of four blocks within the PA DOC prisons system that partners with the Veterans Services Administration (state and federal). Currently imprisoned people who have served in the military, no matter how they were discharged, are eligible for the services on these blocks. Most of these people don’t work. But they still provide value to the PA DOC/PIC. How? Programming.
The PA DOC receives state, federal and private funds for creating these types of programs and keeping them filled. Almost every prison in PA has a therapeutic community (TC) for drug/alcohol treatment. Money has been flowing to the PIC via imprisoned people in these programs for decades. But now, DOCs are getting hip and creating more programs (usually centering on mental health) in order to extract more value from imprisoned people. We don’t need to work to be of value to the PIC. Just being here and being “diagnosed” by their staff makes extraction possible and valuable.
PA has created an alphabet of solitary under the mental health programming name. Thousands of people are in these programs and capital/money is flowing through them and into the PIC. These funds could be and should be used to provide non-coercive, community based services. But the PIC is gobbling up more and more of them. Mental health, substance and alcohol treatment, reentry services, elder care programming is ramping up behind the walls. We don’t have to work. All we have to do is be imprisoned and we become of value.
Some of us are experiencing exploitation. We don’t program, but we work. Most imprisoned folx don’t work but those of us who do are being exploited. These places couldn’t run without us. But many more people are experiencing extraction. Remember, many programs are mandated for parole purposes. Working isn’t. Some of us experience both. And what is even more disturbing is that many of these new programs use the labor of imprisoned folx to succeed. On my block, there is a program almost everyday. Only once a week does a DOC employee run the groups! Every other group is run by a DOC trained imprisoned person. All sign ups and paperwork too! The staff don’t even have to show up!
Extraction is going to become the dominate game. With fewer jobs available (most of us didn’t work anyway) and less out of cell time since COVID, programming is the way to create value and keep imprisoned folx running. And what makes it more sickening is that many imprisoned people are fooled into thinking these programs are the way to success, happiness, peace and safety.
***
These observations help me to see extraction as the major mechanism of the PIC. While this is more easily seen and accepted outside the walls, exploitation has been the major topic behind the walls. Even though most people don’t work in here. And work is becoming less important. They are using fewer people to work. And they are giving us less hours. A shift in the kitchen used to be 6-8 hours. Now it’s 4-6 hours. It is a rare person who gets paid for an 8-hour shift.
People out there see how extractive the PIC is. Offender-funded punishments are common. Remember Ferguson? What do we think e-incarceration is all about? But people don’t realize extraction is happening in here too. And it is taking money, programs and services from our communities and sending them through imprisoned people and into the pockets of those vested in the PIC.
Besides capital, legitimacy is being bestowed upon the PIC. It continues to offer itself as the “solution” to social problems. State, federal and private funds are flowing into prisons. These death making spaces are passing themselves off as life enhancing. Besides state and federal money, I have witnessed nonprofits like LOOP get into the game, partnering with the DOCs in a number of states to provide programming, often dependent on imprisoned people’s labor.
We have to talk more about the role of extraction in all of this.
from It’s Going Down
[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]
A banner dropped in Eugene, OR this past February read “Against Cop City and Its World.” These words have come to echo throughout Atlanta and across Turtle Island, indicating that the struggle extends far beyond the construction of this particular police facility. But what exactly is “the world” of Cop City?
One interpretation has to do with the strategy of secondary and tertiary targeting. This past winter, night owls across the country have set their sights beyond the state officials behind the Cop City project, focusing instead on the contractors hired to build it and the banks and corporations funding it. This is a practical approach to stopping this specific project — sabotaging the offices of contractors like Atlas and Brasfield & Gorrie is intended to put pressure on them to drop their contract with Atlanta, which would make it harder for the city to move forward with its plans.
Many of the communiques accompanying the actions we’ve seen this season state this as their goal. A claim for an action against an Atlas office in Detroit included the warning, “Atlas, until you stop supporting Cop City, there will be no safe corner for you on Turtle Island.” A communique out of Indiana writes that all executives and property of Atlas should be considered legitimate targets “until Atlas publicly announces that it will no longer work on the project.”
Additional communiques from this winter’s solidarity actions with Atlanta — to our knowledge, only a handful of claimed actions took place that were not Atlanta-related — clarify their opposition not just to Cop City but to the world that needs it. In many cases, they do this by drawing connections in writing to additional struggles that the authors see as interconnected. In other cases, this projectuality that aims to destroy both Cop City and the world that makes it possible is embodied in the choice of target. Many of this winter’s actions expanded from the more “precise” choice of targets like Atlas offices and into the wider world of exploitation and domination, which, after all, would likely just find a replacement for Atlas elsewhere if the contract was dropped. This is not to minimize the significance of actions against contractors, but rather to consider some critical questions being raised and experimented with through action, a powerful and beautiful dynamic that we were happy to see growing this winter.
Night owls in the Ozarks sabotaged “four forest-killing machines,” writing that their action was taken in solidarity with “forests under siege everywhere” as well as with the Atlanta forest. This thought was echoed later by Portland anarchists, who similarly took up a solidarity action that burned a machine unrelated to the specific contractors of Cop City. Other actions, like ones in Durham and Oakland, were dedicated to Tortiguita, who was murdered in the Atlanta forest in January, as well as to Tyre Nichols and others recently executed by the police.
Anarchists in Denver remind us that that the violence of US-based private extraction companies extends beyond US colonial borders, acknowledging “the murder of three land defenders in Honduras since the beginning of the year.” In another communique, Brooklyn anarchists included shoutouts to “the struggles in Latin America, the Palestinian struggle and the struggles against exploitation the world over” alongside their solidarity with Atlanta.
But there are also ways in which these struggles, regions, and systems of oppression are materially and logistically interconnected. A handful of actions in solidarity with Stop Cop City have turned their focus to this aspect of Cop City’s world. In a communique about an action against Norfolk Southern, three weeks after the catastrophic derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, anarchists in Philly wrote that they chose this target not only because NS is itself a funder of Cop City, but because “large shipping companies like NS are the circulatory system of industrial colonialism.” The authors illustrate this by discussing how rail and other logistics provide the means through which industrial agriculturists move their soy and corn, loggers get lumber to and from mills, and Amazon gets shipping containers from ships to distribution centers. “Perhaps NS funds cop city because they understand both how crucial they are in building a dead world and exactly how vulnerable they are.”
There’s been a lot of talk of winning with regard to the fight in the forest, but in a world whose brutal domination and exploitation extends so much further than one police facility in one city, what exactly constitutes a victory? If Brasfield & Gorrie drop the contract, is it still a win if a new company then gets hired to do the same thing? If this police training facility is never built in Atlanta, but is built somewhere else instead, should we call that winning? What exactly are actions accomplishing if their perspective is confined to winning a campaign goal?
Any particular struggle against a specific manifestation of domination will have its ebbs and flows — triumphant moments, waves of repression, and responses to that repression. Moments of success and failure happen throughout a particular struggle, not merely at the end of it. Memories of past struggles can be used as a weapon, too, whether to avenge our fallen comrades or to send a kind of smoke signal that the will to rebel endures.
Projectuality is a word the insurrectionary anarchist tradition uses to describe the longterm and contextual dimensions of the projects that rebels take up, and how we make sure these projects take us to, and help us create, the places we want to go. This often includes fighting against a particular project the state is proposing, but is not confined to responding to the initiatives of those in power.
Our conception of victory and defeat must similarly extend beyond the immediate goal. For one thing, to say that nothing is truly a victory while capitalism is still intact is not just an ideological flourish, but quite literal. It is a commitment to continue fighting against all forms of domination and to resist recuperation at any cost. From resource extraction projects to new prison construction, in the rare cases in which we do succeed in stopping a particular thing from happening, the state and capital tend to simply shuffle things around until they get what they needed from that project through other means. When the state is just giving us the stick, it can be difficult to remember that the carrot is just as dangerous.
For examples of how to move through these peaks and valleys, we can look to those who have kept fighting long after a particular phase of the struggle has ended. In a recent communique in solidarity with Tortiguita, comrades resisting a nuclear waste storage project in Bure (France) wrote:
“We have taken the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the evacuation of the forest [in Bure] to show that we have neither forgotten nor forgiven what they did. And that they are mistaken if they think they have hunted us and defeated us forever.”
In torching an ANDRA transmission pylon near Bure, the writers aimed not specifically at the corporation (CIGEO) that drove the police to evict the forest occupation, but rather “deliberately place[d] our action in the context of a series of attacks carried out last year against measuring stations intended to collect geological, hydrological and meteorological data.” This choice of target comes from observing that “these structures are of paramount strategic importance in the current development phase of the project given that the data collected, for example for environmental impact studies, alone constitute a necessary basis in the creation authorization procedures. Thus, destroying them, putting them out of service, are and will inevitably be a thorn in the side of the ‘smooth running of the CIGEO project.’”
“And its world” is adopted from the slogan accompanying the struggle to halt the airport slated for development in Notre-des-Landes, France, this past decade. Proponents of the ZAD (“zone to defend”) saw the horizon of victory squashed there after a long, brutal, and dedicated fight. After the state announced that they were no longer planning to build the airport, the fixation among certain participants in the struggle on securing their hold on this particular piece of land led them to effectively recuperate their own struggle. The long and violently repressed fight against another airport in Atenco, Mexico State ended when the current progressive president AMLO was elected. He was able to claim the victory of cancelling the contentious project in the name of the popular struggle, carrying out mediatized “consultations” with the affected communities, and then proceeded to build the airport elsewhere. His government has proceeded to use the support garnered from this strategic concession to pave the way for further industrialization and militarization across the country.
Both of these struggles cost the state and the corporations behind the projects dearly, and both live on in the multitudes of actions that took place against the world that made the proposed airports possible. The claims of “victory” are attempts to rewrite these stories of struggle, and the heavy costs suffered by the rebels, as part of the necessary democratic process of checks and balances within the power structure. From unions to politicians to social movement leaders, opportunists everywhere seek to pacify our intransigent struggles with “winning strategies”.
Specific struggles are part of the fight against domination, but the whole cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts — this fight is also long, intergenerational, and cyclical. Out of the endless daily miseries of this world, choosing where to draw lines in the sand enables rebellious energy to coalesce and build on itself. The most significant struggles are ones that are approached not with an expectation of “winning,” but rather with an eye towards how to spread practices of lived anarchy and struggle, how to build capacity as individuals and networks, and what can be taken from this struggle into the next. The words “Cop City will never be built” evokes a powerful and transformative commitment to fight to the end, to refuse surrender. The fact that there is no end, that the fight against domination cannot be reduced to a single target, but is a tension that must be created and maintained, doesn’t make this specific fight any less important.
The only way to really do away with the world of Cop City is through profound revolutionary upheaval, an insurrectional process that goes so far that normalcy can’t return. The fight to defend the Atlanta forest has disrupted the social peace that those in power reimposed following the 2020 uprisings for Black lives and against the police. The combative struggle against Cop City lays the social groundwork for insurrection, spreads indomitable practices and ideas, and provides anarchists with the experiences of autonomous self-organization that will be needed to decisively intervene when widespread social revolt comes knocking.
Along these lines, the epic mass action on March 5th during the Week of Action in Atlanta was in itself a major milestone. That a combative crowd was able to force police out of their own outpost and then burn it down in front of them in broad daylight — unprecedented in the US as far as we know — potentially opens up vast new fields of action for those with the courage and ability to pursue them.
The publication Storm Warnings‘ 2018 essay “Without Victory, Nor Defeat” argues that the logic of victory and defeat comes from politics, i.e. activities that distribute power relations and status among individuals. Anarchy, the beautiful idea, abjures the realm of politics and proposes instead to live and fight in a state of tension towards freedom and the destruction of power relations. The only defeat is submission, resigning ourselves to the world of policing, Cop City or no; and as all those who put their freedom on the line showed us this winter, that seems unlikely to ever happen.
“Contrary to cats, we indeed only have one life, and we dare to say that it is during this life – the only one we have – what matters is to fight, to live that tension towards the destruction of authority. It’s by moving, moving on the path we have chosen, that we live up to ourselves, that we become what we are. It is the quality that bursts into our life, the quality of actions and ideas that go hand in hand. Victory or defeat have no place here, only persisting or abandoning, perseverance or resignation, passionate love and hate or obliteration to politics.”
A small group broke off from a vigil for Tortuguita and threw up barricades and graffiti before smashing a realty office. “Neither innocent nor guilty, neither terrorists nor protesters, simply anarchists!”
The railway mainline belonging to the Norfolk Southern company was sabotaged with copper wire, which trips the signal and potentially stops traffic until the wire is located. “With love for Tort, and infinite hostility for cops who killed them.”
Bleach was poured into the tank of a “monster of steel and rubber” by Tortuguita Revenge Gang.
Hit Us Up
If you come across existing articles from mainstream media you’d like to see included in our next action briefs, or have feedback on the column, we’d love to hear from you at nightowls[at]riseup [dot] net. Please do not send us your communiques or any actions you are personally taking responsibility for — send these instead to one of the counter-info projects that publish claims, some of which are listed here.
Distribution of Night Owls is decentralized—don’t forget to print the column, bring it to infoshops, drop it in newspaper boxes, or just pass it to your friends.
