In the early morning hours of July 9th, while Ghost Robotics CEO Gavin Kenneally was out of town at the Military Robotics and Autonomous Systems USA conference, several of his neighbors paid his Fairmount townhome a visit.
We threw paint and tagged the messages Ghost Robotics Kills and Murderer on the garage door and front entrance. We refuse to live in a world where Palestinians and migrants crossing the border must fear for their lives at the hands of killer robots, while the makers and war profiteers sleep peacefully in our city. We know where they live.
Seeing the crowded conditions in the concentration camps in Texas reminds me of Inauguration Day two months ago. That night we rose like lions striking at slumbering poachers.
We found a Customs and Border Protection SUV and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement SUV in a parking garage in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia. They were redecorated with paint, flattened tires, and shattered windows. Wouldn’t you know it? That advice that an awl can more quietly deflate a tire when pushed through its sidewall was right. And in a pinch, the awl can also be used to break the same vehicle’s glass. This tool can be found at most any hardware store.
So much of this settler-colonial empire’s origins can be traced to this very neighborhood. Paternal participants in slavery and genocide negotiating the imaginary lines that would cross so many living beings decreed their authority here, attempting to halt and erase so much life. The continuation of those programs crosses party lines as easy as capital does the border, and Democrats are as deserving of our fury as Republicans. Freedom cannot be attained beneath their thumbs or anyone else’s.
Another predator has settled in to his position as overseer, accompanied by an officer of law and order. Between them they have personally authored and been party to so much gendered and racialized violence, which is inherent to the nation-state. Don’t mistake what appears to be silence for inaction, because we’ve been busy. But this is a reminder that you don’t need to wait for a protest to interfere with the functions of this country, especially as so many return to resting on their heels. It’s imperative that we don’t wait and we support each other with words and actions.
For the destruction of this and every other empire.
Recently I gifted one OCF Realty van: four punctured tires…PLUS a bonus of two tires on a Comcast van.
Those spearheading gentrification make our lives increasingly unliveable, and will always be an enemy. Comcast has a contract with ICE; and they contribute to technological infrastructure and its web of surveillance, policing, ecological destruction and alienation. All things that continue to shape our daily lives into a suffocating prison of a world.
NOT being masked is suspicious these days, and I maintained 6ft of distance from another human the whole time! As what is ‘normal’ is changing rapidly, it’s important to think about how power will use our fear to keep us subdued. Shelter-in-place or not, are our lives really that free?
Report from recent action in Philadelphia against Devereux which has accepted a contract to open several migrant youth detention facilities.
On Saturday night, over 100 Jews, immigrants, and allies marched in the streets as others from the group infiltrated the annual fundraising gala of Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health. The demonstration was part of a larger campaign highlighting the $14 million contract Devereux accepted from the federal government to open several migrant youth detention centers. This action is the latest escalation from the national Jewish movement Never Again working in collaboration with local immigrant justice organization Juntos to demand that Devereux stop detaining migrant children.
On the streets outside of the event, protesters marched from 8th and Cherry to the National Constitution Center where the gala was held. Protestors chanted slogans like “It’s Not a Shelter, It’s a Jail” and blocked the Constitution Center parking garage where Devereux was offering free parking to its guests.
On October 17th, several dozen protestors from this campaign blocked the main exit to Devereux National Headquarters while protesting the nonprofit’s plans to hold migrant children in a detention center in Devon, PA. Devereux plans to use its $14 million contract from the Office of Refugee Resettlement to operate multiple youth detention centers nationwide, including one in Devon, PA, where they plan to house 42 migrant children who crossed the border without an adult.
Although Devereux calls them “shelters,” their facilities for migrant children are in fact detention centers since the children held there will be forbidden from leaving. “These young people need to be immediately reunited with their families or sponsors, not detained,” said Juntos Executive Director Erika Almirón, adding that agencies like Devereux “aren’t trying to help these children, they’re trying to make money.”
Devereux claims to be “apolitical” and “neutral” on immigration policy, but its participation in the terrifying status quo is cowardly. The number of kids in cages is higher than it’s ever been, and only growing under this administration. In 2019 alone, 70,000 migrant children were detained, including infants and toddlers — more than ever before in the US and more than any other country in the world.
The detention center in Devon recently had its zoning permit revoked and organizers demand that Devereux accept this decision. They further demand an end to corporations profiting off of immigrant detention, the complete defunding of ICE and CBP as overall agencies, and permanent protection for all undocumented immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
Call for mass march on November 16th in Philadelphia against an immigrant youth detention center.
Philadelphia – On Saturday night, Jews, immigrants, and allies will march through downtown Philadelphia to protest the creation of privately-held immigrant youth detention centers by Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health. Devereux recently received a $14 million contract from the federal government to detain migrant children in facilities across the country, including in Devon, PA.
We demand that Devereux cancel its plans to hold 42 migrant children in a detention center in Devon, PA. We further demand an end to corporations profiting off of immigrant detention, the complete defunding of ICE and CBP as overall agencies, and permanent protection for all undocumented immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.
Devereux claims to be apolitical while it is catering to the political ends of the U.S. government. This was made clear when Devereux’s Leah Yaw told the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), “Should ORR needs dictate, Devereux is ready to grow capacity well beyond the 182 beds [initially opened] during this project’s three-year award cycle.” Devereux cannot remain apolitical when it makes covert promises to the Trump government that it will supply more and more child detention centers should the white nationalists in charge of our immigration policy deem it necessary.
There is no reason that unaccompanied children should be detained. In applying for asylum, they have committed no crime, and for decades, the US did not incarcerate them. Yet in 2019, nearly 70,000 migrant children have been detained so far, including infants and toddlers. While Devereux claims to be offering vital services to traumatized children with “specialized needs,” they are merely perpetuating trauma through a system of violence that has taken these children from their families and holds them indefinitely.
While the guests at Devereux’s 20th-anniversary gala enjoy appetizers and wine, the money they donate enriches an organization that seeks not only to prop up, but expand the current detention-and-deportation regime. As Jews, we know that people are isolated in secure facilities so the rest of the population can look the other way. Never Again stands with Juntos against private detention and the entire immigration deportation machine. We know that when a government targets one group of people, it is only a matter of time before everyone’s freedom is under attack.
Join us, 6 PM, Saturday 11/16/19, N 8th and Cherry St Philadelphia, PA.
The night of July 17 we paintbombed the facade of the Immigration and Citizenship Services building. We aimed for the big logo on the side of the building. We came up with and carried out this action quickly and spontaneously because we felt the urgency of attacking those who enforce borders. We especially felt this in the wake of Willem Van Spronsen’s death while fighting those maintaining concentration camps in the U$A. Acting in remembrance of our dead keeps the fire burning within us. We hope that this action and others add to the struggle against borders, until all borders are destroyed.
March & Noise Demo Against Borders & to Remember Willem van Spronsen
——–
Spread widely! Three fliers attached. Half-reluctant Facebook event here.
——–
“On July 13, Willem Van Spronsen was killed by police while apparently taking action to disable the fleet of buses that serve the Northwest Detention Center, a private immigration detainment facility.”
We hope to act to honor Will’s memory in solidarity with all those affected by the border regime – from the detention centers to the desert.
The ‘End ICE Contracts! Mayday Solidarity Rally’ is a show of solidarity with workers all around the world with a specific emphasis on solidarity with the local immigrant community. The march will highlight corporate sponsorships of ICE.
Meet at the Octavius Catto Statue
[May 1st from 2:30 PM – 5:30 PM at South Penn Square]
On the night of April 5th I sabotaged a Wells Fargo ATM using glue and a piece of credit card. Wells Fargo is part of the web of institutions and individuals that makes borders possible. Against borders and nations!
Early this morning, the home and car of leading ICE/HSI agent Bryan McPherson at 2600 Cedar St. appears to have been targeted. His house was spray painted with the words “Resist ICE,” and more importantly, his vehicle was disabled and thousands of dollars in damage done. This act of political vandalism follows after the names and addresses of several ICE agents in PA were released on the Internet last summer. At the time of this writing it is unclear whether this is an isolated incident, or whether other officers have been targeted.
In 2018, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deported over 270,000 people. ICE officers separate children from their families; several have died in custody. Bryan McPherson is the Assistant Special Agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), a division of ICE in Philadelphia. It is unclear whether or not he will be able to use his vehicle to report to work and deport more people.
Earlier today in Philadelphia, PA, around 9 AM, #AbolishICE protesters created a noisy disruption outside the ICE office during morning traffic. They said they were joining in a national response to President Trump declaring a state of emergency to fund his border wall.
As ICE’s brutality continues to shatter lives, we continue to document the struggle to abolish the institution.
We’ve compiled more stories of radical struggle against ICE, the border patrol, and the police; documenting the different tactics, successes, and philosophies from around the country.
We would like to thank the all of the contributors for each article that we’ve compiled, and the websites that originally published those writings and from which they were borrowed.
Again, this volume, like the first, is only one very limited snapshot of the vast anti-ICE uprising, which developed powerful expressions in many more than the few cities represented here.
Comrades in Harrisburg, PA have contacted us and requested that we share this image, with their accompanied text.
We dropped our banner on an overpass near Harrisburg,PA in solidarity with this past month’s prison strike. We want to honor their wishes to keep this issue in the public eye, letting our friends (and enemies) on both sides of the prison walls know that this is struggle will be ongoing,and that it will be at the cutting edge of the radical agenda until the last ashes of the last prison are blown away. We also wanted to make the same connection the striking prisoners did by acknowledging the struggle of the migrant families imprisoned in our own backyard by a proto-fascist regime. One of the three family detention centers in operation, Berks Family Detention Center is a monument to all we find disgusting, so we decided to put up a monument of our own in defiance. We we’re inspired by our comrades in Frederick,MD, and we hope we can inspire even more actions like this.
This has been a long time coming. For the next 30 days, every day, we will be profiling/exposing a member or supporter of Keystone United (KU) and Keystone State Skinheads (KSS). We will be largely concentrating on Pennsylvania fascists, with a few exceptions.
Every fall, KU/KSS comes to our city in secret and attempts to hold a march, rally and party to varying levels of success. They hold this event under the auspices of a “Leif Erikson Day Celebration.” Their logic being that Leif Erikson was (allegedly) the first “white” man (even though whiteness as a label was not a thing at the time, and Erikson would have considered himself Norse with no allegiance to Whiteness) to form a settlement in this hemisphere, and therefore began what they see as the rightful domination of these lands by the settler-colonial empires of Europe.
This year’s Leif Erikson day is October 9th, a month from today. The actual holiday, not the KSS rally, which they refuse to announce publicly anymore due to fear or mass opposition. Starting tomorrow, we will release a new article each day. We will be exposing KU/KSS members, former members, associates and supporters. We will reveal their homes, workplaces, criminal histories and other personal information.
Many of those we are exposing have gone to great lengths to hide their associations and cultivate a personable image, and the truth will likely be a shock to those around them. Many of them appear to be normal parents or friends, co-workers or neighbors, but moonlight in one of the most notorious neo-nazi organizations in the U.S. Keysone Untied especially loves to infiltrate general conservative circles and subtly move people more into the racist extreme or just normalize those ideas in the dialogues there.
We realize this is a controversial practice for some, so here is a brief summary of this group’s history and current activities to put it in perspective…
Keystone State Skinheads was founded in late 2001 at a Waffle House in Harrisburg, PA. KSS was part of a push to form state-based White Nationalist Skinhead crews in all 50 states that began in Indiana with the Hoosier State Skinheads, previously known as the Outlaw Hammerskins, who would later also go by the name Vinlanders Social Club and spread that brand around the country. Arizona (Canyon State Skinheads), Maryland (Maryland Skinheads aka MDS), and Ohio (Ohio State Skinheads) were just some of the other states where the idea found root.
An early pic of Keystone United.
KSS was one of the more successful iterations of the statewide skinhead crew idea. Though they suffered an early defeat in York, PA in 2002, when Antifa and local residents teamed up to chase the nazis out of town, KSS persisted and picked up steam into the late 2000’s, when they engaged in several large rallies around Pennsylvania, including the 2008 Leif Erikson Day, which drew 70+ hardcore Neo-nazis from all over the country (at a time when rallies of that size were extremely rare), including members of the Vinlanders Social Club and Volksfront, groups that had previously been hostile to each other. During this period, KSS ramped up attacks around the state, including in Philly. Assaults, harassment and vandalism against left wing community spaces were common. Many pitched battles occurred in the Punk and Hardcore to keep KSS from gaining a foothold in Philly, as they had in many other cities in PA.
Also around this time, the KSS label was avoided in favor of “Keystone United,” which allowed KSS to organize with White Nationalists and Neo-nazis who did not meet the male skinhead criteria that KSS was founded under. Basically, all members of KSS can be considered members of KU, but only male bonehead members of KU can be “patched in” members of KSS. Outright Neo-nazi activities, such as the White Power show being organized for September 15th somewhere in PA, are organized as Keystone State Skinheads.
White power concert being organizing by KSS this month.
Political advocacy and demonstrations are organized as Keystone United. It is also a common strategy to “remove” anyone accused of a crime from KU, embracing them as KSS instead, allowing them to keep the image of KU sanitized for the media. For the forthcoming profiles, we will at different times refer to people as members of KSS and/or KU, but for all intents and purposes, the difference is a matter of public image, and the groups are essentially the same.
KU/KSS members rally against refugees in Harrisburg.
During this period, KU/KSS began to do things like bring dozens of neo-nazis to an NAACP organized community meeting in response to the vandalism of a synagogue in Wilkes Barre by nazi teens who were friends with members of KU, in order to intimidate opposition and dominate the discussion with the fruitless act of debating nazis. Keystone United also brought out a large contingent to support an Anti-Immigration rally in Harrisburg, and its members attended the National Policy Institute conference, for at least one year.
KU/KSS has strong ties with Matthew Heimbach, formerly of the Traditionalist Worker’s Party, and hosted a secret conference for Trad Worker’s “Traditionalist Youth Network” in Philly in 2016. Heimbach attended with Paddy Tartleton and several TWP members, but the bulk of the attendees were KSS/KU members.
Traditionalist Youth mid-Atlantic gathering in Philly in 2016
The threat represented by KSS/KU is a dual one. Firstly, they engage in White Nationalist activism and political work. Steve Smith, a co-founder of KSS, is in his 2nd term as Republican Committeeman in Luzerne County. He was elected the first time as a write-in candidate, but campaigned for his 2nd term and gathered over 70 votes. He has been joined this term by KU member Ryan Wojitowicz, who was also elected to the same position. Keystone United actively campaigned for both candidates.
Not only has Luzerne County’s GOP neglected to try and campaign anyone against this nazi incursion, but both Keystone United members have become regular attendees at GOP party functions in Luzerne County. They are often joined by “Joe Mulligan,” a Pennsylvania KKK leader who is friendly with Smith, a former klansman.
Keystone United will also engage in political activism around issues of immigration, refugees, gun rights, and support for President Trump. They regularly participate in “Overpasses Across America” rallies on highway overpasses to protest against immigration and accepting refugees.
KSS members participate in an anti-refugee protest as The “European American Action Coalition,” one of many front groups
KSS is under the Blood and Honour USA umbrella, and have alliances with those crews as well as The Traditionalist Workers Party (until that groups implosion earlier this year) and the Pennsylvania State Militia (whom they have rallied with at Overpasses Across America events).
In late 2016 in Harrisburg, KSS members were in the area during a National Socialist Movement rally to provide security for the event since one of the speakers was Matthew Heimbach of the TWP. At the time both the NSM and TWP were members of “The Nationalist Front,” which, along with League of the South, Vanguard America (the group James Fields was marching with in Charlottesville 2017 before he plowed his car into a crowd of protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring many others) and other smaller nazi orgs.
Nationalist Front marching Charlottesville at Unite the Right 1.
The Nationalist Front made up the single largest Fascist bloc at Charlotesville, and were heavily involved in the fighting that occurred. In the fallout of UTR1, The Nationalist front has been largely reduced to an NSM front, with the dissolution of TWP, the re-branding of Vanguard America to Patriot Front, and the recent departure of League of the South.
The second threat is that, behind the veneer of “gentle” white nationalism, KSS/KU is still a bonehead crew. In their over 15 years of existence, their members and supporters have been involved in countless acts of violence.
Here is a timeline of just some of the known attacks by KSS:
In June 2002, KSS members Robert Gaus, Douglas and Joseph Hoesch were arrested by police outside the Suburban Diner in Feasterville, near Philadelphia, for assaulting a man who asked them to stop throwing food at his table. The victim was struck several times and left on the diner’s floor. All three pleaded guilty to a charge of simple assault and were given suspended sentences
In September 2002, KSS members Todd Sager, Jason Hayden, and Christopher Keough, beat a former member, Christopher Morosko, who refused to return his KSS “colors”. The three pleaded guilty to assault on March 3, 2003, and were all released for time served.
On March 23, 2003, KSS members Keith Carney (Carney has since left KSS), Steve Smith and Steve Monteforte were arrested on ethnic intimidation charges in Scranton, Pennsylvania, for assaulting an African-American man who, according to police, was walking home in the early morning
In April 2003, two associates of the Lancaster Keystone State Skinheads were arrested and charged with ethnic intimidation and terroristic threats for making racist and threatening comments to three black patrons in a Lancaster-area bar.
In January 2006, KSS members Edward Robert Locke and Todd Clair Sager were charged with multiple counts in connection with a violent bar fight in March 2005 in New Stanton. Police claim Locke stabbed two men. Locke was charged with attempted homicide and four counts of aggravated assault while Sager was charged with criminal solicitation to commit homicide and criminal solicitation to commit aggravated assault.
Also in 2006, KSS members attacked several Anti-Racists outside a show at Mojo 13 (bar name later changed) in Delaware.
In January 2007, KSS members Kenneth Hoover and Charles Marovskis were arrested for beating two homeless men to death in Tampa, Florida in 1998. Hoover pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and racketeering. Charles Marovskis, of West Pittston, Pennsylvania, but originally from Tampa, Florida, pleaded guilty to two federal charges of second-degree murder.
In October, 2007, KSS members attacked Anti-Fascists down the street from a Floorpunch Show at first Unitarian Church in Philly, injuring 3 before fleeing.
On September 7, 2008, Philadelphia police officers arrested KSS member Andrew Boyle at a Philadelphia bar for being in possession of a knife. At the time of his arrest, Boyle was out on bail, awaiting trial on another matter. Boyle, along with co-defendants and fellow KSS members Carney and Doug Caffarella, and Atlantic City Skinhead Vincent DeFelice, were charged with assault and conspiracy in the alleged attack of another skinhead outside a Philadelphia bar in 2007.
In May 2014, KSS associate Vincent Pellegrino, brother of KSS member Nunzio Pellegrino, sexually assaulted a woman and stole her car, crashing it into a wall while being persued by police. Pellegrino died at the scene.
In October 2017 following their disrupted attempt to rally in Philly’s boathouse row, 10 KSS members attacked 2 Anti-Fascists in FDR park, injuring them both before aborting their party and fleeing the scene. KSS went on to celebrate the event with their event t-shirt.
In July 2018, 6 members of KSS were charged for attacking a Black man at a bar in Avalon, PA. According to the victim, KU members told him they were going to exterminate Black People “one by one” and called him the N-Word. They also injured an employee who tried to intervene. Others were involved, but the 6 charged were Natasha Dawn Bowers, 33, of Roaring Spring; Terrence Raymon Stockey, 40, of Beaver; Jeremy L. Ingram, 35, of Hollidaysburg; Travis Lee Cornell, 43, of Marianna; Crystal Lynn Shields, 23, of Tarentum; and James Edward Kryl, 45, of Pittsburgh’s North Side.
Just a few weeks ago, KSS associate and KU member Christopher Croumbley attacked an Anti-Racist outside the chameleon club in Lancaster for wearing clothing identifying themselves as Anti-Fascist.
It is worth considering that there is a pattern of high profile violent incidents, (which we assume to occur at times when non-reported acts of violence are at a peak) occurring at times when Keystone United’s “respectable white advocacy” is also more active. After the departure of a major organizer in the late 2000’s, Keystone United went relatively dormant for a few years and so did reports of violent attacks by it’s members. This flies in the face of the claim that allowing nazis in the public space for debate will redirect their energies and minimize violent assaults and murders. As nice as it would be to just let them “talk it out of their system,” when nazis and Fascists feel legitimized in the public sphere, they are emboldened, and attacks increase.
In addition to outward violence and their attempts to gain state power to enact large scale violence, KSS/KU is involved in fostering a Neo-nazi subculture in Pennsylvania that is larger than the group itself. They have organized Neo-nazi music festivals, usually in conjunction with Label 56, run by Rick Haught of Maryland Skinheads, including the “Uprise Festival,” which ran for several years, and shows by The Blue Eyed Devils, Aggravated Assault, and other popular Neo-nazi bands. They are hosting another Blue Eyed Devils show somewhere in PA on September 15th. The Blue Eyed Devils’ song titles include:
Bomb the Cities
Beating and Kicking
Hate Filled Mind
We Will Fight
Final Solution
Holocaust 2000
White Violence
Which feature lyrics such as :
During German nights and days
Adolf Eichman would lead the way
For the cause of White salvation
Victory, for our race and nation
The plan has started, no turning back
From the entire world, you’re under attack
A New Worlds Order for the Aryan man
Regain control of the European lands
Too many problems, too many lies
Too much of what you despise
Implement the only plan
Eradicate the so-called chosen man
The final solution!
White revolution!
This is a group with 2 Pennsylvania GOP politicians as members, promoting the show on their blog, alongside long articles claiming to be “white advocates” who “are like the NAACP for white people.” Who do these nazis think they are fooling… you?!
KSS makes it policy to show up at European heritage celebrations, St. Patrick’s day parades, and similar events. They do this both to recruit, and to normalize their presence in those spaces, making it harder to dislodge them later.
Each forthcoming article will come with a call to do some small action to make that KSS member’s life as a nazi a little bit harder. When it’s hard to be a nazi, some of them find a reason to quit. Others can’t do it as well as they had been. It creates divisions. Victories make them grow, defeats make them shrink.
Take the time to call their employer and demand they be fired. KSS has largely survived based on the ability for their members to travel around the state to swell numbers as needed. Gas is expensive. If the call is to help us get more info, ask your friend who is good at research but isn’t necessarily plugged into this world. If we mention that they hang out in certain places or areas, and you feel like you can do it safely, make up some flyers and post them around so that they have no anonymity. Someone should not be able to attack someone for their race on Saturday, then walk their dog to the park Sunday with no repercussions. We may feel better being ignorant of the nazi down the street, but it doesn’t actually make as any safer. Quite the opposite.
So remember to check back on the site every day. We are striving to put out each article first thing each morning, but it may be later some days. While standing our ground, defending ourselves, and physically shutting down Fascists in the street is an indispensable and crucial part of this work, the next 30 days is about showcasing how much we can do to disrupt neo-nazi organizing using research and communication.
