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The detailed inner workings and operations of neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front have come to light after a massive leak from their chat servers. The exposed communications show coordination with their leader Thomas Rousseau to deface murals and monuments to Black lives across the United States, and intimate struggles to bolster morale through group activities like hiking and camping.
By Chris Schiano and Dan Feidt, Unicorn Riot January 21, 2022
The detailed inner workings and operations of neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front have come to light after a massive leak from their chat servers. The exposed communications show coordination with their leader Thomas Rousseau to deface murals and monuments to Black lives across the United States, and intimate struggles to bolster morale through group activities like hiking and camping.
This release includes more than 400 gigabytes of data published by Unicorn Riot. Ostensibly private, unedited videos and direct messages reveal a campaign to organize acts of racial hatred while indoctrinating teenagers into national socialism (Nazism). The information stands as a chilling reminder that fascist organizing thrives in secrecy and obscurity.
Content advisory: Organized racism, harassment, vandalism
Patriot Front, known for its disconcerting masked ‘flash rallies’ and racist sticker campaigns, was organized by Thomas Rousseau in the immediate aftermath of 2017’s Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, VA. Rousseau gained power within the group’s predecessor organization, Vanguard America, in the fallout from the nationally orchestrated event. After James Alex Fields, seen sporting a Vanguard America shield during the march, murdered Heather Heyer, Rousseau moved to split with Vanguard America, taking with it most of the members as well as the website domain name “bloodandsoil.org.”
Vanguard America’s ‘bloodandsoil.org’ domain was reconfigured to support Patriot Front’s main internal communications system: a self-hosted instance of RocketChat, an open-source chat server software similar to Slack and Discord; messaging platforms with multiple channels.
Information security in this centralized communications project failed almost entirely. Sources provided Unicorn Riot with screenshots, audio recordings of meetings (self-hosted on another system called Mumble), extracted texts of group chats and even the private direct message system. Chat messages contained dozens of links to unlocked, public mega.nz cloud storage directories, which hosted more than 400 gigabytes of raw videos and photos of Patriot Front events, gatherings, scouting for vandalizing Black monuments, and much more. Most of the materials come from the latter half of 2021, including a rally in Washington, D.C.
This release is now made available to the public at vault.unicornriot.ninja. Volunteers upgraded Unicorn Riot’s DiscordLeaks platform to host 55,249 RocketChat messages and file attachments, allowing the public to search the cache and inspect how fascists try to operate discreetly at their most inner levels. (See BitTorrent info below)
The civil rights lawsuit ‘Sines v. Kessler’ concluded last November with multiple findings of civil liability against Vanguard America and other white supremacist defendants for their participation in the deadly Unite the Right event. Rousseau was deposed during the lawsuit and asked extensively about his role in planning the Charlottesville rally and encouraging his followers to participate in street violence there.
Members of Patriot Front consider themselves a part of “the greatest nationalist activist organization in the world.” As the leaks reveal, they are micromanaged by their Texas-based director who oversees every detail of the organization from its persistent campaign of racially motivated vandalism to the minutiae of clothes members may wear in public.
Unicorn Riot reported in 2017 how Vanguard America’s “Southern Front” server on Discord was used to celebrate Fields’ vehicle attack, as well as exposing the group’s links to Robert Ray (aka ‘Azzmador’) of the Daily Stormer, Richard Spencer and other figures in the white supremacist movement. In 2018, with further Discord leaks data we examined how Patriot Front developed its style of stickering and how they show up as a security force for touring speakers like Spencer and other ‘alt-right’ events, while enthusiastically promoting sexual assault and training for further violence.
[For related stories see Unicorn Riot’s Far-Right Investigations Desk.]
After the 2018 disclosures, internal chats were moderated more strictly, but the group’s prospective member intake process, exposed in the current leak, most clearly highlights the members’ ardent beliefs in national socialism and adulation towards historic Nazi figures.
Despite Patriot Front’s strict measures to avoid overt Nazism in their public rhetoric, the group’s racist, antisemitic and misogynistic nature shines through quite clearly in their more recently leaked chats. Members frequently use slurs and brag about IRL racist harassment.
The recent leak also reveals that Patriot Front preys on teenagers, recruiting members through the internet who are still legally minors, indoctrinating them with white supremacist ideology and even encouraging them to lie to their parents so the group can transport them across state lines for fascist events. According to the chats, while the group’s official policies require members to be at least 17 ½ years old to join, in reality it “goes by a case by case basis” with some members being recruited below that age.
According to leaked messages, Patriot Front’s rank and file still enjoy doing ‘Roman salutes’ despite rules saying they shouldn’t. In one direct message exchange members nostalgically recalled throwing up Nazi salutes “in front of a PF flag in full uniform” at a bar in Europe while meeting up with Polish neo-Nazi skinheads. In one leaked video of masked Patriot Front members reading a manifesto, as they take off their official gear one of them remarks, “Sieg fucking heil! Lets fucking go. I can say that now that [the recording is] over.”
Patriot Front also routinely praises historical fascist leaders such as Mussolini, Oswald Mosley, and American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell, as well as contemporary Nazi and fascist groups such as the Nordic Resistance Movement in Sweden and Casa Pound in Italy. Members sometimes address each other with Nazi titles, and others reportedly hung swastika Christmas decorations or displayed the Nazi sonnenrad ‘black sun’ symbol on their home.
Numerous membership applications marked ‘ACCEPTED’ are logged as “ideology: national socialist.“ Another member wrote on his approved application to join that the “biggest threat to America is Jewish domination over the world” and complained about an incident in his childhood when his Jewish kindergarten teacher gave blocks that he wanted to play with to another child.
Racist Propaganda Coordinated to Stir Fear Across America
Patriot Front has aimed to terrorize non-white and pro-racial justice communities around the U.S. by trying to damage and deface murals and Black Lives Matter art by placing racist messages and other actions at the direction of its national leadership and regional Network Directors.
[Note: Members of Patriot Front are assigned handles with a fake first name – two letter state code, which is used in most internal communications for the purpose of maintaining anonymity.]
The pattern of activity mainly centers around an aggressive propaganda strategy distributing ‘promat’ (‘promotional materials’) pushing the group’s name, website, and white nationalist views. Members are required to submit proof of weekly ‘activism’ tasks and are criticized, scolded and punished when they fail to meet their expected quotas.
Tasks towards members’ weekly requirements are reviewed and accepted by Patriot Front leaders, often regional Network Directors (NDs) or sometimes the group’s leader, Thomas Rousseau. Actions that help meet the official member requirements sometimes include spray painting official Patriot Front stencils on public or private property, painting over racial justice murals, as well as stealing, defacing or destroying pro-diversity yard signs and flags from homes and businesses.
Patriot Front’s official ‘promat,’ such as stickers and flyers, can only be bought directly from leader Thomas Rousseau, who personally ships it to members. “If any of the prices seem above market rate,” wrote Rousseau in the group’s chat in July 2021, “it’s because it also goes toward paying for our servers, our digital accounts and subscriptions, and the food I can afford to eat.”
Having to pay Rousseau out of pocket in order to post the group’s propaganda has led some Patriot Front members to make their own bootleg materials. Others have complained that buying stickers from Rousseau in order to meet their mandatory action quotas meant they were “paying Thomas’ rent“ and that without forcing his followers to buy stuff from him he might have to find a real job.
Some members mentioned targeting “diverse“ neighborhoods for plastering with Patriot Front stickers. Others discussed placing stickers along the route of a leftist protest march the night before it took place.
Texas: Most of the dozens of banners Patriot Front members have dropped have been on highway overpasses or other public areas visible by traffic. However, some of their banner drops have seen members go to greater lengths. In one official banner action, Patriot Front members in Texas targeted an FBI billboard, which read, “Protecting our communities TOGETHER. Report hate crimes.”
Network Director ‘James TX’ discussed the FBI billboard plan with Rousseau, who asked him for the exact GPS coordinates for the billboard’s location. In Patriot Front’s chat server ‘James’ proposed scouting for “weaknesses in the fence“ in order to access the billboard; Texas member ‘Patrick‘ said he would “bring bolt cutters.” Messages show ‘James TX’ had “been wanting to get this billboard for a while“ and said he planned to cut down part of the billboard’s anti-hate crime message before draping a banner over it.
Photos and video [1, 2] shared privately inside Patriot Front show members making a banner, accessing the billboard at night to drape it in a banner, then driving by the next day to show the banner still up in the daylight. The banner placed over the anti-hate crime billboard featured several fasces, a classical symbol of fascism.
At least four other Patriot Front Network Directors – ‘William OK‘, ‘Eric PA’, ‘Lawrence FL’ and ‘Carter MO‘ (Luke Paule) – discussed coordinating actions targeting FBI “report hate crimes” billboards in their respective areas [1, 2, 3, 4].
Spray painting is also one of the group’s main activities that members are encouraged to carry out to meet “activism” quotas. Rousseau and other directors instruct members on details down to what kinds of spray paint cans to use, how to place Patriot Front stencils and how to photograph them.
Pacific Northwest: Patriot Front’s Pacific Northwest Network Director Colton Michael Brown posts in RocketChat as ‘ND – John WA‘ and has taken part in a prolific amount of Patriot Front vandalism as well as directing others to do so. RocketChat message logs show Brown took personal responsibility for Patriot Front stenciling in front of Seattle’s City Hall as well as its Capitol Hill neighborhood. He also provided instructions to his chapter’s members on what kinds of spray paint to use [1, 2, 3, 4], and told one to modify fire extinguishers for spraying paint.
In a direct message exchange about a business displaying “anti-American propaganda“, Colton Brown aka ‘ND – John WA‘ and Patriot Front member ‘Patrick NC’ had a frank exchange about their group’s involvement in apparent vandalism and the problems it could pose to their organization. “Maybe I can talk to Thomas about stenciling the store”, ‘Patrick’ wrote, before adding “Of course, never talk about criminal activities … that’s how we get doxed, sentenced, and basically fucked over.”
Brown’s reply did not seem amused. “The org would be pinched if we had to fund any legal funds right now,” he wrote. “I’d advise not doing that. Do you have $3000 or more to spend on a petty vandalism case?“
After learning in December 2021 that his chapter of Patriot Front had been infiltrated, Brown wrote to Rousseau that he was becoming “concerned all of us or at least Tyler will get charged for the Olympia mural.” ‘Tyler WA’, real name James Julius Johnson, was identified by antifascists last month as one of the Patriot Front members who painted over the “Respect & Love Olympia” mural on 4th avenue in Olympia, WA on October 16 around 3 a.m.
The mural vandalism garnered attention and outrage in the local media, with Patriot Front members declaring victory and feeling heartened when city officials announced they would remove the mural instead of continuing to repaint it. Chat logs reveal that Patriot Front leader Rousseau was not only aware of the Olympia mural vandalism, but even joined a group call with the Pacific Northwest chapter to direct the group in how best to accomplish the task.
“Obviously the objective is to mess up as much of it as possible,” instructed Rousseau, “I would have start out by having a few guys just going up and down the length of it with turbo cans…so that if they are going to repair it they’re essentially going to have to start from scratch.”
Worried that he “might get a knock” from police over the mural, Brown “moved all [his] [Patriot Front] materials and political stuff“ into the car of another member who stored his items in their home, according to his messages to Rousseau. (Brown was previously named in a 2020 report filed by a detective with the King County Sheriff’s Office as part of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) investigation into Patriot Front activity in Washington state.)
The Olympia mural vandalism was primarily planned by Jacob Stephen Sundt (aka ‘Clark WA‘), a member of Brown’s chapter, who lives in Olympia “not too far away from downtown.” Before Patriot Front knew they were infiltrated, Sundt bragged that “our recent actions have shown we can walk down busy avenues at prime time in Seattle and deface the largest most well protected mural in shitlib olympia without so much as being accosted once.”
Members of Patriot Front’s Pacific Northwest chapter, including Brown, also defaced a mural in Portland, OR in July 2021 honoring the lives of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. “When we did the George Floyd one,” Brown said in an audio call with Rousseau and other Patriot Front members, “we were in and out maybe two minutes. It was really fast and we got up the URL stencil like three times.”
After the artist who created the mural called for help on social media, the mural was repainted within 24 hours.
One of the more religiously Christian members seems to have quit Patriot Front over his concerns about “some of the techniques related to the activism, specifically the stenciling and defacement of other property.” Patriot Front Network Director Paul Michael Gancarz aka ‘Samuel VA‘ told Rousseau that he responded by telling the former member “George Floyd is the messiah of a false religion of evil.” Another member, ‘Ben MD‘, summed the matter up with: “if you have a moral problem with covering up a George Floyd mural then you’re probably not a good fit for PF.“
Massachusetts: Patriot Front members in Massachusetts discussed casing and wanting to ‘hit’ a Black Lives Matter mural on the side of the Champion Ice Cream shop at 113 Legion Parkway in downtown Brockton, MA. A Patriot Front member going by the alias ‘Philip MA’ described the mural as being located in a “potential high risk area” but assured other members that “with a bunch of guys we should be able to pull it off.” Patriot Front members ‘Philip MA‘ & ‘NQ – Henry MA‘ messaged each other to weigh the merits of using light bulbs, balloons and/or a pesticide sprayer filled with paint in order to quickly and effectively deface the mural. “I’m thinking a simple ‘Reclaim America’ should do the trick,” ‘Phillip MA’ wrote.
A PDF document entitled “Stenciling – December 12rd, 2021” [sic] lists the aliases of seven members involved in the day’s plans, outlined meetup locations, scouting plans and radio frequencies for members to use to communicate. Along with directions and GPS coordinates, the document included a photo of the mural to be vandalized as well as a list of spray paint supplies and detailed instructions for lookouts.
Michigan: Patriot Front members in Michigan also consulted with Thomas Rousseau about targeting historic civil rights murals in Detroit. ‘Alan MI‘ sent Rousseau photos he took while scouting the 8 Mile Wall, a historical site which hosts murals commemorating the history of segregation and civil rights in Detroit. ‘Alan’ asked Rousseau for advice for “better…covering stuff up” while defacing the civil rights mural; Rousseau told him to consult Patriot Front’s official stencil guide which instructs members to use turbo cans. Patriot Front also vandalized a ‘Black Lives Matter’ street mural in Ypsilanti, MI. Leaked video also shows members covering up a mural of a Native American at the Lincoln Street Art Park in Detroit.
Indiana: ‘Michael IN‘ reported to Thomas Rousseau that he “was thinking of using roofing tar of some sort to cover the George Floyd BLM mural in Lafayette, IN.“ ‘Michael IN’ noted the mural was “previously visited by PF twice, defaced 5 times overall” and asked Rousseau if the use of “rubberized roofing cement“ “would be permitted“ to cover the mural’s new “anti-graffiti clear coat“ during his return to deface the mural a third time. Thomas told ‘Michael IN’ to “keep me posted as to your research and practice with this substance. Orders will be given out at the event.” (According to WLWT Cincinnati, a protective coating was added to the George Floyd mural in Lafayette, IN on August 6 after police began investigating repeated “defacing” at the site.)
Colorado: Leaked videos dated October 8, 2021 show Colorado members of Patriot Front painting over and stenciling over a large pro-abortion mural outside a business in Denver.
Georgia: A leaked video shows members in Georgia spray painting Patriot Front stencils on a ‘Stop Asian Hate’ mural.
North Carolina: Another leaked video from inside Patriot Front shows members scouting the ‘Harriet Tubman – Journey to Freedom’ statue in Jackson County, NC. They discuss sabotaging the park’s electrical system in order to possibly shut off security cameras while defacing the statue. (“Have we considered [cameras] across the street? Think they would reach that far…can we disarm them?” “If everyone’s wearing what we’re supposed to be wearing, then it wouldn’t matter.”) One of the men the video shows casing the Tubman memorial wore a shirt reading ‘Legalize Arson.’
Pennsylvania: In October, Patriot Front members covered over a mural in Boyertown, PA reading ‘Boyertown is No Place For Hate’. They took ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos and videoed themselves spraying paint to cover several of the people of color depicted in the mural.
Eastern Berks Regional Police estimated the mural was defaced “sometime between 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 5, and 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6” according to The Mercury, a newspaper based in nearby Pottstown, PA. The next day, community members held an “anti-hate rally” and worked to restore the mural.
Virginia: Patriot Front Network Director Paul Michael Gancarz aka ‘Samuel VA‘ was one of several members involved in defacing a mural honoring Black tennis legend Arthur Ashe in Richmond’s Battery Park in October 2021.
Stealing signs from homes: Patriot Front members are also fond of stealing pro-diversity and pro-LGBTQ yard signs and flags; like graffiti, these thefts are among actions members can count towards their weekly activism requirements. Dozens of yard signs and several flags are discussed as having been stolen in late 2021. In a group call, Rousseau suggests that members steal American flags from bridges and other public areas so that they can be carried upside down by the group during marches. “I want a duffel bag full of flags by December,” Rousseau told one member.
On November 28, ‘Vincent VA’ posted a picture of himself stepping on a Black Lives Matter yard sign, bragging that he “got a trophy.“ The same day, another member in Utah, ‘Logan UT’, shared a photo posing with apparently stolen Mexican and transgender flags; another photo he sent shows the flags being burned. A video from that night shows the flags being burned after members read out a statement:
“for those who destroy our nation, we will destroy your symbols and all that you worship, to think that we will lay down and perish, you are greatly mistaken. Burn em.”
Another video from Michigan that night shows the members singing “blood and soil.”
In another post, Jacob Stephen Sundt (aka ‘Clark WA‘), shared a photo of Black Lives Matter signs and a rainbow flag with the caption “prisoners of war.”
On December 13, ‘Alan MI‘ asked other Patriot Front Michigan members, “coded language aside, how many flags did you guys steal? You guys took signs?” ‘Eric MI‘ replied “3 flags and at least 6 signs“, while ‘Benjamin MI‘ wrote “3 flags, not sure on signs but it was a lot… says BLM on it…“
Another photo, shared in Patriot Front’s chat sent by Colton Brown aka ‘ND – John WA‘, shows Pacific Northwest members posing with 26 stolen pro-diversity yard signs that had been painted over to feature Patriot Front stencils.
Patriot Front Fascist Leak Exposes Nationwide Racist Campaigns
By Chris Schiano and Dan Feidt, Unicorn Riot January 21, 2022
The detailed inner workings and operations of neo-Nazi organization Patriot Front have come to light after a massive leak from their chat servers. The exposed communications show coordination with their leader Thomas Rousseau to deface murals and monuments to Black lives across the United States, and intimate struggles to bolster morale through group activities like hiking and camping.
This release includes more than 400 gigabytes of data published by Unicorn Riot. Ostensibly private, unedited videos and direct messages reveal a campaign to organize acts of racial hatred while indoctrinating teenagers into national socialism (Nazism). The information stands as a chilling reminder that fascist organizing thrives in secrecy and obscurity.
Content advisory: Organized racism, harassment, vandalism
Patriot Front, known for its disconcerting masked ‘flash rallies’ and racist sticker campaigns, was organized by Thomas Rousseau in the immediate aftermath of 2017’s Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, VA. Rousseau gained power within the group’s predecessor organization, Vanguard America, in the fallout from the nationally orchestrated event. After James Alex Fields, seen sporting a Vanguard America shield during the march, murdered Heather Heyer, Rousseau moved to split with Vanguard America, taking with it most of the members as well as the website domain name “bloodandsoil.org.”
Vanguard America’s ‘bloodandsoil.org’ domain was reconfigured to support Patriot Front’s main internal communications system: a self-hosted instance of RocketChat, an open-source chat server software similar to Slack and Discord; messaging platforms with multiple channels.
Information security in this centralized communications project failed almost entirely. Sources provided Unicorn Riot with screenshots, audio recordings of meetings (self-hosted on another system called Mumble), extracted texts of group chats and even the private direct message system. Chat messages contained dozens of links to unlocked, public mega.nz cloud storage directories, which hosted more than 400 gigabytes of raw videos and photos of Patriot Front events, gatherings, scouting for vandalizing Black monuments, and much more. Most of the materials come from the latter half of 2021, including a rally in Washington, D.C.
This release is now made available to the public at vault.unicornriot.ninja. Volunteers upgraded Unicorn Riot’s DiscordLeaks platform to host 55,249 RocketChat messages and file attachments, allowing the public to search the cache and inspect how fascists try to operate discreetly at their most inner levels. (See BitTorrent info below)
The civil rights lawsuit ‘Sines v. Kessler’ concluded last November with multiple findings of civil liability against Vanguard America and other white supremacist defendants for their participation in the deadly Unite the Right event. Rousseau was deposed during the lawsuit and asked extensively about his role in planning the Charlottesville rally and encouraging his followers to participate in street violence there.
Members of Patriot Front consider themselves a part of “the greatest nationalist activist organization in the world.” As the leaks reveal, they are micromanaged by their Texas-based director who oversees every detail of the organization from its persistent campaign of racially motivated vandalism to the minutiae of clothes members may wear in public.
Unicorn Riot reported in 2017 how Vanguard America’s “Southern Front” server on Discord was used to celebrate Fields’ vehicle attack, as well as exposing the group’s links to Robert Ray (aka ‘Azzmador’) of the Daily Stormer, Richard Spencer and other figures in the white supremacist movement. In 2018, with further Discord leaks data we examined how Patriot Front developed its style of stickering and how they show up as a security force for touring speakers like Spencer and other ‘alt-right’ events, while enthusiastically promoting sexual assault and training for further violence.
[For related stories see Unicorn Riot’s Far-Right Investigations Desk.]
After the 2018 disclosures, internal chats were moderated more strictly, but the group’s prospective member intake process, exposed in the current leak, most clearly highlights the members’ ardent beliefs in national socialism and adulation towards historic Nazi figures.
Despite Patriot Front’s strict measures to avoid overt Nazism in their public rhetoric, the group’s racist, antisemitic and misogynistic nature shines through quite clearly in their more recently leaked chats. Members frequently use slurs and brag about IRL racist harassment.
The recent leak also reveals that Patriot Front preys on teenagers, recruiting members through the internet who are still legally minors, indoctrinating them with white supremacist ideology and even encouraging them to lie to their parents so the group can transport them across state lines for fascist events. According to the chats, while the group’s official policies require members to be at least 17 ½ years old to join, in reality it “goes by a case by case basis” with some members being recruited below that age.
According to leaked messages, Patriot Front’s rank and file still enjoy doing ‘Roman salutes’ despite rules saying they shouldn’t. In one direct message exchange members nostalgically recalled throwing up Nazi salutes “in front of a PF flag in full uniform” at a bar in Europe while meeting up with Polish neo-Nazi skinheads. In one leaked video of masked Patriot Front members reading a manifesto, as they take off their official gear one of them remarks, “Sieg fucking heil! Lets fucking go. I can say that now that [the recording is] over.”
Patriot Front also routinely praises historical fascist leaders such as Mussolini, Oswald Mosley, and American Nazi Party founder George Lincoln Rockwell, as well as contemporary Nazi and fascist groups such as the Nordic Resistance Movement in Sweden and Casa Pound in Italy. Members sometimes address each other with Nazi titles, and others reportedly hung swastika Christmas decorations or displayed the Nazi sonnenrad ‘black sun’ symbol on their home.
Numerous membership applications marked ‘ACCEPTED’ are logged as “ideology: national socialist.“ Another member wrote on his approved application to join that the “biggest threat to America is Jewish domination over the world” and complained about an incident in his childhood when his Jewish kindergarten teacher gave blocks that he wanted to play with to another child.
Racist Propaganda Coordinated to Stir Fear Across America
Patriot Front has aimed to terrorize non-white and pro-racial justice communities around the U.S. by trying to damage and deface murals and Black Lives Matter art by placing racist messages and other actions at the direction of its national leadership and regional Network Directors.
[Note: Members of Patriot Front are assigned handles with a fake first name – two letter state code, which is used in most internal communications for the purpose of maintaining anonymity.]
The pattern of activity mainly centers around an aggressive propaganda strategy distributing ‘promat’ (‘promotional materials’) pushing the group’s name, website, and white nationalist views. Members are required to submit proof of weekly ‘activism’ tasks and are criticized, scolded and punished when they fail to meet their expected quotas.
Tasks towards members’ weekly requirements are reviewed and accepted by Patriot Front leaders, often regional Network Directors (NDs) or sometimes the group’s leader, Thomas Rousseau. Actions that help meet the official member requirements sometimes include spray painting official Patriot Front stencils on public or private property, painting over racial justice murals, as well as stealing, defacing or destroying pro-diversity yard signs and flags from homes and businesses.
Patriot Front’s official ‘promat,’ such as stickers and flyers, can only be bought directly from leader Thomas Rousseau, who personally ships it to members. “If any of the prices seem above market rate,” wrote Rousseau in the group’s chat in July 2021, “it’s because it also goes toward paying for our servers, our digital accounts and subscriptions, and the food I can afford to eat.”
Having to pay Rousseau out of pocket in order to post the group’s propaganda has led some Patriot Front members to make their own bootleg materials. Others have complained that buying stickers from Rousseau in order to meet their mandatory action quotas meant they were “paying Thomas’ rent“ and that without forcing his followers to buy stuff from him he might have to find a real job.
Some members mentioned targeting “diverse“ neighborhoods for plastering with Patriot Front stickers. Others discussed placing stickers along the route of a leftist protest march the night before it took place.
Texas: Most of the dozens of banners Patriot Front members have dropped have been on highway overpasses or other public areas visible by traffic. However, some of their banner drops have seen members go to greater lengths. In one official banner action, Patriot Front members in Texas targeted an FBI billboard, which read, “Protecting our communities TOGETHER. Report hate crimes.”
Network Director ‘James TX’ discussed the FBI billboard plan with Rousseau, who asked him for the exact GPS coordinates for the billboard’s location. In Patriot Front’s chat server ‘James’ proposed scouting for “weaknesses in the fence“ in order to access the billboard; Texas member ‘Patrick‘ said he would “bring bolt cutters.” Messages show ‘James TX’ had “been wanting to get this billboard for a while“ and said he planned to cut down part of the billboard’s anti-hate crime message before draping a banner over it.
Photos and video [1, 2] shared privately inside Patriot Front show members making a banner, accessing the billboard at night to drape it in a banner, then driving by the next day to show the banner still up in the daylight. The banner placed over the anti-hate crime billboard featured several fasces, a classical symbol of fascism.
At least four other Patriot Front Network Directors – ‘William OK‘, ‘Eric PA’, ‘Lawrence FL’ and ‘Carter MO‘ (Luke Paule) – discussed coordinating actions targeting FBI “report hate crimes” billboards in their respective areas [1, 2, 3, 4].
Spray painting is also one of the group’s main activities that members are encouraged to carry out to meet “activism” quotas. Rousseau and other directors instruct members on details down to what kinds of spray paint cans to use, how to place Patriot Front stencils and how to photograph them.
Pacific Northwest: Patriot Front’s Pacific Northwest Network Director Colton Michael Brown posts in RocketChat as ‘ND – John WA‘ and has taken part in a prolific amount of Patriot Front vandalism as well as directing others to do so. RocketChat message logs show Brown took personal responsibility for Patriot Front stenciling in front of Seattle’s City Hall as well as its Capitol Hill neighborhood. He also provided instructions to his chapter’s members on what kinds of spray paint to use [1, 2, 3, 4], and told one to modify fire extinguishers for spraying paint.
In a direct message exchange about a business displaying “anti-American propaganda“, Colton Brown aka ‘ND – John WA‘ and Patriot Front member ‘Patrick NC’ had a frank exchange about their group’s involvement in apparent vandalism and the problems it could pose to their organization. “Maybe I can talk to Thomas about stenciling the store”, ‘Patrick’ wrote, before adding “Of course, never talk about criminal activities … that’s how we get doxed, sentenced, and basically fucked over.”
Brown’s reply did not seem amused. “The org would be pinched if we had to fund any legal funds right now,” he wrote. “I’d advise not doing that. Do you have $3000 or more to spend on a petty vandalism case?“
After learning in December 2021 that his chapter of Patriot Front had been infiltrated, Brown wrote to Rousseau that he was becoming “concerned all of us or at least Tyler will get charged for the Olympia mural.” ‘Tyler WA’, real name James Julius Johnson, was identified by antifascists last month as one of the Patriot Front members who painted over the “Respect & Love Olympia” mural on 4th avenue in Olympia, WA on October 16 around 3 a.m.
The mural vandalism garnered attention and outrage in the local media, with Patriot Front members declaring victory and feeling heartened when city officials announced they would remove the mural instead of continuing to repaint it. Chat logs reveal that Patriot Front leader Rousseau was not only aware of the Olympia mural vandalism, but even joined a group call with the Pacific Northwest chapter to direct the group in how best to accomplish the task.
“Obviously the objective is to mess up as much of it as possible,” instructed Rousseau, “I would have start out by having a few guys just going up and down the length of it with turbo cans…so that if they are going to repair it they’re essentially going to have to start from scratch.”
Worried that he “might get a knock” from police over the mural, Brown “moved all [his] [Patriot Front] materials and political stuff“ into the car of another member who stored his items in their home, according to his messages to Rousseau. (Brown was previously named in a 2020 report filed by a detective with the King County Sheriff’s Office as part of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) investigation into Patriot Front activity in Washington state.)
The Olympia mural vandalism was primarily planned by Jacob Stephen Sundt (aka ‘Clark WA‘), a member of Brown’s chapter, who lives in Olympia “not too far away from downtown.” Before Patriot Front knew they were infiltrated, Sundt bragged that “our recent actions have shown we can walk down busy avenues at prime time in Seattle and deface the largest most well protected mural in shitlib olympia without so much as being accosted once.”
Members of Patriot Front’s Pacific Northwest chapter, including Brown, also defaced a mural in Portland, OR in July 2021 honoring the lives of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. “When we did the George Floyd one,” Brown said in an audio call with Rousseau and other Patriot Front members, “we were in and out maybe two minutes. It was really fast and we got up the URL stencil like three times.”
After the artist who created the mural called for help on social media, the mural was repainted within 24 hours.
One of the more religiously Christian members seems to have quit Patriot Front over his concerns about “some of the techniques related to the activism, specifically the stenciling and defacement of other property.” Patriot Front Network Director Paul Michael Gancarz aka ‘Samuel VA‘ told Rousseau that he responded by telling the former member “George Floyd is the messiah of a false religion of evil.” Another member, ‘Ben MD‘, summed the matter up with: “if you have a moral problem with covering up a George Floyd mural then you’re probably not a good fit for PF.“
Massachusetts: Patriot Front members in Massachusetts discussed casing and wanting to ‘hit’ a Black Lives Matter mural on the side of the Champion Ice Cream shop at 113 Legion Parkway in downtown Brockton, MA. A Patriot Front member going by the alias ‘Philip MA’ described the mural as being located in a “potential high risk area” but assured other members that “with a bunch of guys we should be able to pull it off.” Patriot Front members ‘Philip MA‘ & ‘NQ – Henry MA‘ messaged each other to weigh the merits of using light bulbs, balloons and/or a pesticide sprayer filled with paint in order to quickly and effectively deface the mural. “I’m thinking a simple ‘Reclaim America’ should do the trick,” ‘Phillip MA’ wrote.
A PDF document entitled “Stenciling – December 12rd, 2021” [sic] lists the aliases of seven members involved in the day’s plans, outlined meetup locations, scouting plans and radio frequencies for members to use to communicate. Along with directions and GPS coordinates, the document included a photo of the mural to be vandalized as well as a list of spray paint supplies and detailed instructions for lookouts.
Michigan: Patriot Front members in Michigan also consulted with Thomas Rousseau about targeting historic civil rights murals in Detroit. ‘Alan MI‘ sent Rousseau photos he took while scouting the 8 Mile Wall, a historical site which hosts murals commemorating the history of segregation and civil rights in Detroit. ‘Alan’ asked Rousseau for advice for “better…covering stuff up” while defacing the civil rights mural; Rousseau told him to consult Patriot Front’s official stencil guide which instructs members to use turbo cans. Patriot Front also vandalized a ‘Black Lives Matter’ street mural in Ypsilanti, MI. Leaked video also shows members covering up a mural of a Native American at the Lincoln Street Art Park in Detroit.
Indiana: ‘Michael IN‘ reported to Thomas Rousseau that he “was thinking of using roofing tar of some sort to cover the George Floyd BLM mural in Lafayette, IN.“ ‘Michael IN’ noted the mural was “previously visited by PF twice, defaced 5 times overall” and asked Rousseau if the use of “rubberized roofing cement“ “would be permitted“ to cover the mural’s new “anti-graffiti clear coat“ during his return to deface the mural a third time. Thomas told ‘Michael IN’ to “keep me posted as to your research and practice with this substance. Orders will be given out at the event.” (According to WLWT Cincinnati, a protective coating was added to the George Floyd mural in Lafayette, IN on August 6 after police began investigating repeated “defacing” at the site.)
Colorado: Leaked videos dated October 8, 2021 show Colorado members of Patriot Front painting over and stenciling over a large pro-abortion mural outside a business in Denver.
Georgia: A leaked video shows members in Georgia spray painting Patriot Front stencils on a ‘Stop Asian Hate’ mural.
North Carolina: Another leaked video from inside Patriot Front shows members scouting the ‘Harriet Tubman – Journey to Freedom’ statue in Jackson County, NC. They discuss sabotaging the park’s electrical system in order to possibly shut off security cameras while defacing the statue. (“Have we considered [cameras] across the street? Think they would reach that far…can we disarm them?” “If everyone’s wearing what we’re supposed to be wearing, then it wouldn’t matter.”) One of the men the video shows casing the Tubman memorial wore a shirt reading ‘Legalize Arson.’
Pennsylvania: In October, Patriot Front members covered over a mural in Boyertown, PA reading ‘Boyertown is No Place For Hate’. They took ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos and videoed themselves spraying paint to cover several of the people of color depicted in the mural.
Eastern Berks Regional Police estimated the mural was defaced “sometime between 10:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 5, and 7:30 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 6” according to The Mercury, a newspaper based in nearby Pottstown, PA. The next day, community members held an “anti-hate rally” and worked to restore the mural.
Virginia: Patriot Front Network Director Paul Michael Gancarz aka ‘Samuel VA‘ was one of several members involved in defacing a mural honoring Black tennis legend Arthur Ashe in Richmond’s Battery Park in October 2021.
Stealing signs from homes: Patriot Front members are also fond of stealing pro-diversity and pro-LGBTQ yard signs and flags; like graffiti, these thefts are among actions members can count towards their weekly activism requirements. Dozens of yard signs and several flags are discussed as having been stolen in late 2021. In a group call, Rousseau suggests that members steal American flags from bridges and other public areas so that they can be carried upside down by the group during marches. “I want a duffel bag full of flags by December,” Rousseau told one member.
On November 28, ‘Vincent VA’ posted a picture of himself stepping on a Black Lives Matter yard sign, bragging that he “got a trophy.“ The same day, another member in Utah, ‘Logan UT’, shared a photo posing with apparently stolen Mexican and transgender flags; another photo he sent shows the flags being burned. A video from that night shows the flags being burned after members read out a statement:
“for those who destroy our nation, we will destroy your symbols and all that you worship, to think that we will lay down and perish, you are greatly mistaken. Burn em.”
Another video from Michigan that night shows the members singing “blood and soil.”
In another post, Jacob Stephen Sundt (aka ‘Clark WA‘), shared a photo of Black Lives Matter signs and a rainbow flag with the caption “prisoners of war.”
On December 13, ‘Alan MI‘ asked other Patriot Front Michigan members, “coded language aside, how many flags did you guys steal? You guys took signs?” ‘Eric MI‘ replied “3 flags and at least 6 signs“, while ‘Benjamin MI‘ wrote “3 flags, not sure on signs but it was a lot… says BLM on it…“
Another photo, shared in Patriot Front’s chat sent by Colton Brown aka ‘ND – John WA‘, shows Pacific Northwest members posing with 26 stolen pro-diversity yard signs that had been painted over to feature Patriot Front stencils.
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