WEBVTT - Burning Hate: Tyler Dykes 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.920 Colzone Media. 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:12.320 Last week, a jury in Alpamarole County, Virginia found Augustus 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:16.560 Sole Invictus, guilty on the felony charge of burning an 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.079 object with the intent to intimidate for his participation in 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:23.160 the Nazi torch march at the University of Virginia on 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:28.080 August eleventh, twenty seventeen. This was not only the first 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:32.120 trial conviction for this charge, it was the first ever 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:36.320 jury verdict reached on a charge under Section eighteen point 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.800 two dashed four twenty three point zh one of the 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:44.640 Virginia Code. That law passed in two thousand two in 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.159 response to the legal challenge to Virginia's cross burning statute 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:50.680 by Pennsylvania klansman Barry Black. 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:53.120 I spent the last. 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:55.760 Two episodes talking about the history of cross burning in 0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:58.840 Virginia and the life and legal battles of the man 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.080 who brought about this change the law. And I told 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:05.440 you that until last year, that law had been sitting 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:10.200 on the books, all but untouched for two decades. I 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:14.119 left you last week with a terrifying image a small 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:17.520 group of students surrounded by a sea of flames one 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:21.800 summer night seven years ago. I told you a few 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:24.480 weeks ago that this is a story I've been writing 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:29.960 and rewriting for years. I could fill six months worth 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.319 of episodes with just the stories of the men who 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:36.600 carried those torches. The years I've spent watching the same 0:01:36.760 --> 0:01:41.039 few minutes of history, frame by frame from different angles, 0:01:41.720 --> 0:01:45.760 placing individual men within that seething mass of violent intent 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:48.960 taught me a lot about the kinds of weird little 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.600 guys that make up a crowd like this. There are 0:01:52.800 --> 0:01:59.560 cops and criminals, soldiers and soldiers of fortune, students and fathers, 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:06.480 domestic abusers, realtors and lawyers and small business owners, social 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:13.600 media personalities, and wanted fugitives. They're your neighbors, your weird cousin, 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:16.960 that guy at work you don't want to talk about 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:23.519 politics with. They're all just some guy. There were hundreds 0:02:23.520 --> 0:02:26.079 of them there that night in August of twenty seventeen, 0:02:26.720 --> 0:02:33.040 but we'll just start with one today. I'm Molly Conger. 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:50.800 This is weird little guys. 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.000 You might think this episode is going to be about 0:02:55.400 --> 0:03:02.400 Augustus and Victus. It isn't. Where will one day probably 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:06.200 be a multi episode arc about the man who calls 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:11.200 himself the attorney for the damned. A man whose name 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.760 literally appears in the Miriam Webster Dictionary in the example 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:19.360 sentence for the term white nationalist. A man who has 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.160 been both a proud boy and a presidential candidate, both 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:27.960 a goat's slaughtering, blood drinking wizard and a traditionalist Catholic. 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.200 A father of seven with two ex wives and a 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.480 string of police reports filed by wives, girlfriends, and mistresses. 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:42.560 An attorney whose client list includes white supremacist paramilitaries, Nazi 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:47.080 street gangs, and anti Semitic trolls. A man who once 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.200 renounced all of his worldly possessions and wandered off into 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.760 the desert, proclaiming himself to be a god and a prophet, 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.840 before quietly returning to Orlando to work at his father's 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:03.880 law office. But that day isn't today. His conviction last 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.400 week won't be the end of his story. I'm sure 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:11.119 of that. So I'll bide my time. Because while Augustus 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.840 Invictus was the first person ever found guilty by a 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.520 jury of the crime of burning an object with the 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:20.840 intent to intimidate, he wasn't the first to be convicted. 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.960 Before his trial last week, there had already been five 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.880 guilty pleas by other members of that march. You see, 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.359 there is no statute of limitations on a felony in 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:38.080 the Commonwealth of Virginia. Whether or not that's wise or 0:04:38.240 --> 0:04:41.400 really in the overall best interests of justice more generally 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:45.440 is a discussion for another day and maybe for another person. 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.520 But it is the current state of affairs, and Virginia 0:04:50.640 --> 0:04:54.360 is a southern state, the one time capital of the Confederacy. 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.560 Few states without a bloody history of clan violence even 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:01.520 have a life on the books that makes it a 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.600 crime to use a burning object as a tool of intimidation. 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:09.039 But we did have such a history, and we do 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:13.320 have the resulting law. So even though that march in 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:17.800 twenty seventeen feels like it was almost a lifetime ago, 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.640 it's not too late under Virginia law to hold those 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:27.160 men accountable. To date, twelve men who marched that night 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.080 have been charged under a Virginia law that makes it 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.200 a felony to burn an object with the intent to intimidate. 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.560 Five have pleaded guilty to it, three have entered into 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:43.480 plea agreements to the lesser charge of disorderly conduct, one 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:46.920 went to trial and got a hung jury, and two 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:51.880 cases remained pending. The first sentence handed down in one 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:57.000 of these cases was for Tyler Bradley Dikes. His story 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.599 touches on quite a few of the recurring themes this show. 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.760 He was a US Marine who was discharged for his 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:09.080 involvement in extremist groups. He attended this Nazi rally where 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.800 he's on video throwing punches and Hitler salutes, and when 0:06:12.800 --> 0:06:15.240 he wasn't held accountable for his actions, he went on 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:19.200 to engage an even more serious conduct, and now he's 0:06:19.240 --> 0:06:23.960 in federal prison. The entire arc of his story can 0:06:24.000 --> 0:06:27.080 be summed up in a single pair of images, I 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:33.039 think like a pair of Nazi bookends. First there's Tyler 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:37.280 Diykes on August eleventh, twenty seventeen, standing at the base 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:40.440 of the statue of Thomas Jefferson, holding a torch in 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:43.600 his left hand, with his right arm extended in a 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:49.599 Nazi salute. And then there's Tyler Dikes again on January sixth, 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.800 twenty twenty one, on the steps of the Capitol Building, 0:06:53.440 --> 0:06:56.200 turning to face the mob below after fighting his way 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:01.640 up to the doors, giving the same salute. A few 0:07:01.640 --> 0:07:05.200 months ago, Tyler Dykes was handed a fifty seven month 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:09.159 federal sentence for assaulting police officers during the January sixth 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:12.760 riot at the Capitol in twenty twenty one. If you're 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:15.160 trying to do some math in your head right now, 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.560 I'll tell you fifty seven months is just shy of 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:23.280 five years. But a federal prison sentence is kind of 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.920 like a baby in that you always measure it in months, 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.120 not years, and only the people who have to deal 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:32.520 with the time in question feel like that makes any 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:37.080 sense at all. In the sentencing memorandum written by his 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:42.160 defense attorney, he's described as an impressionable young man. He 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:44.880 was just twenty one years old when he traveled to Washington, 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:48.840 d C. With his friends from church. They said he'd 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.840 been influenced by the NonStop media coverage and President Trump's 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.560 social media posts into believing that the election had been stolen. 0:07:58.040 --> 0:08:04.440 He made incredibly poor decisions, his attorney conceded, but he 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.360 never planned to engage in any violence. He was just 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.600 young and impetuous, and he got caught up in the crowd. 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:16.840 He was a United States Marine. He was a boy 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:21.720 scout quite literally. The defense sentencing memo cites his accomplishments 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.560 as an Eagle Scout He was just a nice young 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:28.440 man who goes to church every Sunday and runs a 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:33.360 small IT services company and takes care of his elderly parents. 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.800 How could he possibly be the kind of person who 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.640 deserves to go to federal prison for making a little mistake. 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.240 But that wasn't quite the whole picture. Not that those 0:08:47.280 --> 0:08:52.400 things aren't mostly true. They are, but it's a spit 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:57.720 shined image of a much darker situation. Tyler Diykes was 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.800 indeed a member of the United States Marine Corps. On 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:05.439 January sixth, twenty twenty one, he was a US Marine 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.640 when he wrenched the riot shield from the hands of 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:11.079 a US Capitol Police officer and then used that shield 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:13.400 to force his way through the police line and into 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:18.000 the Capitol building, and he remained a United States Marine 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:21.160 until he was given an other than honorable discharge in 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:26.800 twenty twenty two. The revelations that unraveled his life came 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:30.719 out of order. He wasn't identified as a Unite the 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:35.319 Right attendee until twenty twenty two, after he'd already participated 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:39.280 in the January sixth riot. In twenty twenty one, he 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.600 wasn't identified as the man putting swastika stickers around town 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.960 in twenty twenty until he was discharged from the Marines 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.040 for it in twenty twenty two, and he wasn't identified 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:53.280 as a participant in the January sixth riot until July 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:57.120 of twenty twenty three, after he'd been convicted for his 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:01.720 conduct at Unite the Right. The consequences of his actions 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:05.600 always seemed to come a little too late, after he'd 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:10.680 already been emboldened by an apparent lack thereof. At his 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.520 federal sentencing hearing a few months ago, he told the 0:10:13.600 --> 0:10:16.559 judge that he was high on adrenaline during the Capitol 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:20.760 riot and said, I falsely believed that I would be 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:25.880 free of consequences, But maybe we should start at the 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:32.000 beginning rather than the end. In August of twenty seventeen, 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:37.000 Tyler Dykes was nineteen years old. He'd taken a year 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.240 off after high school and was living at home with 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.040 his parents in North Carolina that summer after spending his 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:46.400 gap year abroad in Romania. He'd been accepted to Cornell 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:49.080 University and would be moving into his dorm at the 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:53.040 end of the month. Just a week before new student 0:10:53.080 --> 0:11:00.200 orientation at Cornell, he took one last trip before starting college, 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:06.440 he to Charlottesville. On the evening of August eleventh, twenty seventeen, 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:10.200 Tyler Dyke stood among the hundreds of men who gathered 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:16.520 at Nameless Field. It's a confusing name, Nameless Field. It 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:21.840 isn't nameless, it has a name. The name is nameless Field. 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.439 I wonder what kind of who's on first type conversations 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:29.119 happened over text message that night as the crowd assembled. 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.640 But there he was in the field down by the 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:38.320 tennis courts behind the library, and he was handed a torch, 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.959 and he found a place in line, and he marched. 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:47.600 He chanted with the crowd as this river of flames 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:53.400 wound its way through the university grounds. Blood and soil, 0:11:55.440 --> 0:12:02.160 blood and soil. You will not run place us, Jews 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:07.920 will not replace us. Fuck off, commis this is our 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:11.839 town now, They shouted on the empty streets as they 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:23.000 passed empty buildings. Blood and soil, Blood and soil, blood 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:26.440 and soil. They chanted until they could taste the blood 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:31.520 in their own mouths from shouting themselves hoarse, blood and soil, 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:35.680 until they saw blood red. When the small group of 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.720 students at the base of the Thomas Jefferson statue came 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:44.200 into view. The streets had been empty until the march 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:51.640 filled them. The libraries were empty, the dorms were empty, 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:57.960 the academic and administrative buildings were empty. But as the 0:12:58.000 --> 0:13:01.400 march reached the top of the rotunda step, looking down 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:05.640 into the brick plaza below, they knew they weren't alone anymore. 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.320 They knew what they were doing. As they came down 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:15.680 those steps, each man, torch in hand, had a moment. 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:17.400 At the top of those. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:22.880 Stairs, each marcher could see from that vantage point the 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:29.440 tiny group in the plaza below, students, many of them 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:35.440 still just teenagers, holding a homemade banner that read UVA 0:13:35.600 --> 0:13:42.559 Students against White Supremacy, And in that moment on those steps, 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.959 each of them made the choice to follow the man 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.920 in front of him. As the march wound its way 0:13:49.120 --> 0:13:56.280 around the statue around the students, circling around, arcing wide, 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:01.400 and then tightening up, encircling them and. 0:14:01.280 --> 0:14:01.960 Closing them in. 0:14:04.440 --> 0:14:08.000 As the ring of fire closed around the statue around 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:14.760 those students, the violence began almost immediately. Verbal altercations gave 0:14:14.800 --> 0:14:18.440 way to fists shouted epithets were chased through the air 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.960 by streams of pepper spray, a lit torch was swung, 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:26.560 making contact with a counter protester trying to shield those 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:32.480 terrified young people. I've watched this video a hundred times, 0:14:33.400 --> 0:14:38.080 a thousand, maybe, and I still flinch as the flame 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.920 arcs towards someone that I count among my closest friends. 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:44.800 I tell you that not. 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:48.040 To pull at your heart strings. You don't need to 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.720 know that that video still makes my chest feel tight. 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.720 I'm telling you because I want you to know. I'm 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:00.040 not objective about this. I don't pretend to be, I 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.840 don't want to be. I don't believe in this myth 0:15:04.920 --> 0:15:11.240 of journalistic objectivity. Everybody has a thumb on the scale somewhere. 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:16.280 Most people just lie about it to you or even 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:23.640 to themselves. Of course, I have a bias here. I 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:28.040 live here. I've sat in courtrooms and in coffee shops, 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.760 and on long car rides and on living room couches 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.680 with people who are hurt that night. But even if 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.680 I had no connection to these people or to this place, 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.720 it's no secret that as a researcher of white supremacist 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:47.680 violence in America, my starting position is always against fascism, 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:53.360 against Nazism, against violence done in the name of white supremacy, 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:56.560 and I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.760 As sociologist and expert on political violence, doctor Peter Seemi 0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:05.600 once said on the stand, no one is ever surprised 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:08.840 to find out that a cancer researcher is interested in 0:16:08.920 --> 0:16:15.960 preventing cancer. So yes, I have a stake in. 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:18.440 This, but you do too. 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.680 Maybe you don't know it yet, You don't know these people. 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.360 But I choose to betray my own lack of objectivity 0:16:28.360 --> 0:16:32.280 here to get you to think about yours, because I 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:36.280 don't think you should be objective about this. There is 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.440 no special prize to be won by being the most 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:45.920 diligently neutral observer of fascist violence. You and I, listener, 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:50.480 we are not jurors. We are not ruling on the law. 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.680 We are people who have to live in this world. 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.680 You should feel something you can't shove down when you 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.240 see a man who proudly calls himself a Nazi swing 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:07.440 a flaming torch at someone who is trapped, someone whose 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.680 only crime is not wanting hate to go unchallenged in 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:15.440 a public square. And that's where Tyler Diykes was that night, 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:20.240 right at the center of this melee. As the air 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:23.399 filled with screams and the burning scent of pepper spray. 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:29.360 Tyler Diykes was fist fighting anyone he could reach. Videos 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:33.360 showed Dikes was the last one still fighting. He threw 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:36.440 the last punch of the night, even as everyone else 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:40.720 seemed to be coming to their senses. When the counter 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:44.119 protesters were finally able to escape from the mob, the 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:48.399 torch marchers took the statue. Several of them climbed the 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:54.159 plinth and cheered for the victory they'd won. Seeg kile 0:17:55.240 --> 0:18:01.520 Hail victory they shouted. Video shows Tyler Dikes pacing back 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:05.240 and forth in front of the statue, right arm extended 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:23.200 in a Nazi salute. After the deadly rally, the next morning, 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:27.880 Tyler Diykes went home. He started at Cornell a few 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:32.120 weeks later, but they didn't go well. He dropped out 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.320 after a few months and enlisted in the Marines instead, 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.639 and it seems like that may not have gone well either, 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:41.480 because after a few months of training he was discharged 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.320 to the Reserves and returned home, which was now South Carolina. 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:47.720 He started an. 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:52.240 IT company, calling himself the Technology King of the Low Country, 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:55.679 and made house calls to help suburban grandparents set up 0:18:55.680 --> 0:19:00.000 their WiFi routers, and when he wasn't troubleshooting a customer 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:04.200 computer or going to church, he was hanging Swastika banners 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.160 from highway overpasses with his friends in the Southern Suns 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:11.480 Active Club, a white supremacist organization operating in Georgia and 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:16.440 the Carolinas, a regional cell of the larger international network 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:22.399 of Active Clubs. These active clubs are, to put it succinctly, 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:28.040 Nazi fight clubs. They were inspired by Robert Rundo's Rise 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:32.240 Above Movement, the Southern California based Nazi street fighting outfit 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:35.160 that brawled their way across the country at right wing 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:41.080 political rallies throughout twenty seventeen. There is no centralized leadership 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:46.920 or organizational structure. Active clubs operate regionally and are operationally 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.920 independent from one another. They share a love of mixed 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.159 martial arts, both as a hobby and as training for 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.119 a coming race war, and engage in the kind of 0:19:57.119 --> 0:20:02.320 propaganda campaigns common among groups like Patriot so hanging banners 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:06.359 with racist slogans from bridges and plastering stickers on street 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:11.640 signs in mailboxes around town. There are active clubs all 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.800 over the United States, Canada and Europe, as well as 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.480 a faltering effort led by Thomas Seol to get them 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:24.520 going in Australia. Each club operates independently, but they network 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:29.600 and meet up even across national borders, and there is 0:20:29.680 --> 0:20:32.680 quite a bit of cross pollination between the Active Clubs 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:36.960 and other violent white supremacist organizations. They tend to be 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:40.439 on good terms with groups like Patriot Front, and several 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:45.600 notable Active club members have ties to Adam Waffen and Terogram. 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.880 Andrew Tekstov, the New Jersey teenager and Terogram collective chat 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:52.840 member arrested this summer, was a member of an Active 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:57.520 Club cell in New Jersey. Active Clubs in Finland are 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:01.200 involved in paramilitary training of Karelians reparatist groups that fight 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:05.879 alongside the Russian Volunteer Corps, the same Nazi paramilitary group 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:08.600 in Ukraine that Andrew Takestov was on his way to 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:13.359 join when he was arrested. All that to say this 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:17.160 isn't just guys lifting weights together and talking about their 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:21.520 love of the white race. Active club members on multiple 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:25.159 continents have been arrested for acts of violence and for 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:29.360 planning acts of terrorism, and the reason I can tell 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:33.200 you with an unusually high degree of certainty that Tyler 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.960 Diykes was a member of the Southern Suns Active Club 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:41.680 is because of one particular, no good, very bad day 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:48.520 that he had on March seventeenth, twenty twenty three. You see, 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.960 Tyler Dykes was indicted by a grand jury in Virginia 0:21:52.040 --> 0:21:55.919 in February of twenty twenty three, but he didn't know 0:21:55.960 --> 0:22:02.719 that nobody did. Grand juries are secret things, and his 0:22:02.760 --> 0:22:06.919 indictment stayed sealed until he was taken into custody. And 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.120 with an out of state warrant, you don't just send 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:13.320 a local cop down to get him. You could, I suppose, 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:18.320 but they didn't. The local prosecutor where the charge is 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.160 filed can ask cops in the city where they think 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:24.879 he lives to go look for him, but they aren't 0:22:24.880 --> 0:22:27.760 always super interested in doing. Some out of town courts 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:32.280 work for them, so oftentimes an out of state warrant 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.879 just sort of sits open waiting for you to step 0:22:35.920 --> 0:22:39.320 on it, like a rake on the ground. If you've 0:22:39.359 --> 0:22:42.040 ever been pulled over, you've seen a cop take your 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:45.960 license and walk back to his car. He's putting your 0:22:46.040 --> 0:22:49.240 name into a computer, and if you have an open warrant, 0:22:50.040 --> 0:22:50.919 he's going to find it. 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:52.800 If you cross a. 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:56.159 Border or go through TSA, or get a speeding ticket, 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.760 or have really almost any kind of interaction with a 0:22:59.800 --> 0:23:03.679 cop up, they're going to run your name. And in 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:06.840 Tyler Dyke's case, he was sitting in an emergency room 0:23:06.920 --> 0:23:10.040 in South Carolina making a police report a bought a 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:17.640 dog bite. Saint Patrick's Day is a big deal in Savannah, Georgia. 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:22.160 I'm not entirely sure why, and that wasn't a rabbit 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.040 hole i'd let myself pursue this week, but it is. 0:23:26.240 --> 0:23:29.200 I'm sure there's some particular moment in history where the 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:33.359 city had an unusually high concentration of Irishmen, and the 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:37.119 only lasting legacy is the nation's second most debaucherous green 0:23:37.160 --> 0:23:41.520 beer soaked parade. I was in Savannah for Saint Patrick's 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:44.159 Day in two thousand and eight, but there was a 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:48.680 tornado that weekend and the blackout closed most of the bar, 0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:53.119 so I don't think I got the full experience. And 0:23:53.200 --> 0:23:57.000 in twenty twenty three, the Southern Sun's Active Club had 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:01.120 the brilliant idea that Saint Patrick's Day and Savannah would 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:04.440 be the perfect time and the perfect place to hang 0:24:04.440 --> 0:24:07.800 a Nazi banner from a highway overpass, because all the 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:12.879 extra traffic in town meant more people would see their message. 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:16.680 Thanks to an Atlanta based anti fascist research collective, we 0:24:16.840 --> 0:24:21.520 have an inside look at the private conversations Dykes and 0:24:21.520 --> 0:24:24.200 his friends had that day as they were going about 0:24:24.240 --> 0:24:28.560 trying to get that banner up. The day didn't start 0:24:28.600 --> 0:24:31.800 off well. The group had some trouble locating a good 0:24:31.800 --> 0:24:35.360 spot for their banner. They weren't the only ones who 0:24:35.400 --> 0:24:38.920 anticipated heavy traffic from tourists heading into town for the holiday. 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:42.880 There were cops nearby several of the locations they'd hope 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:47.399 to hit. When they finally found a suitable spot, Tyler 0:24:47.480 --> 0:24:49.879 Diykes walked back to his car to get the tools 0:24:49.920 --> 0:24:53.280 they would need to hang the banner, but before he 0:24:53.320 --> 0:24:57.200 got back to his car, he encountered someone walking their dogs. 0:24:58.960 --> 0:25:02.720 Diykes claims that he was mauled by three pit bulls, 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:05.440 but that seems like a bit of an over statement. 0:25:07.200 --> 0:25:09.919 In the infiltrated group chat, he posted a photo of 0:25:09.960 --> 0:25:15.040 a small, but unpleasant looking wound on his left pinky finger. 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:18.600 I feel like you'd come away with more than a 0:25:18.720 --> 0:25:21.520 two inch cut on your little finger if you were 0:25:21.520 --> 0:25:26.520 truly attacked by even one dog, let alone three pit bulls. 0:25:26.600 --> 0:25:31.000 But we only have Tyler's word on this one. A 0:25:31.040 --> 0:25:34.040 little before six pm, he texted the Southern Son's Group 0:25:34.119 --> 0:25:36.560 Chat that he was headed to the hospital to have 0:25:36.640 --> 0:25:40.040 his hand looked at. While he was waiting to be 0:25:40.119 --> 0:25:42.760 seen at the hospital, he texted the group chat again 0:25:42.840 --> 0:25:45.280 to let them know that the plan had gone awry 0:25:45.400 --> 0:25:48.000 and unfortunately they hadn't been able to hang any of 0:25:48.040 --> 0:25:52.640 the banners that day, writing quite literally, everything that could 0:25:52.720 --> 0:25:56.159 possibly have gone wrong all happened at exactly the same time. 0:25:57.680 --> 0:26:02.000 Half an hour later, though, nothing else went very wrong 0:26:02.320 --> 0:26:06.560 for Tyler Dikes, and he texted the group again, I'm 0:26:06.600 --> 0:26:13.359 being arrested by Virginia nuke my account. Dog bites, like 0:26:13.400 --> 0:26:17.560 gunshot wounds are something that hospital staff are required to 0:26:17.640 --> 0:26:21.600 report to the authorities. While Tyler Diykes was waiting for 0:26:21.640 --> 0:26:24.480 a doctor to look at his hand, an officer arrived 0:26:24.480 --> 0:26:27.920 to take a police report. And when you talk to 0:26:28.000 --> 0:26:31.760 a cop in some official capacity, he's going to run 0:26:31.800 --> 0:26:37.159 your name. I can't even imagine his surprise when the 0:26:37.200 --> 0:26:40.119 officer informed him that he was a wanted fugitive in 0:26:40.160 --> 0:26:44.760 a state he hadn't visited in years. His hand was fine, 0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:48.520 it seems, and he was taken directly into custody from 0:26:48.560 --> 0:26:52.639 the emergency room that night. It took nearly a month 0:26:52.800 --> 0:26:56.040 to arrange for his extradition back to Virginia, during which 0:26:56.080 --> 0:27:13.159 time he remained in custody. When Tyler Diykes was finally 0:27:13.160 --> 0:27:16.600 transported up to Virginia, his attorney asked for a bond hearing. 0:27:17.840 --> 0:27:21.800 Makes sense he'd been in custody for a month, and 0:27:21.840 --> 0:27:24.240 it was at that April twenty twenty three bond hearing 0:27:24.760 --> 0:27:30.119 that I first saw Tyler Dikes. At that hearing, Tyler 0:27:30.160 --> 0:27:33.040 Diykes's father, Scott, took the stand to tell the judge 0:27:33.040 --> 0:27:35.920 that if his son was allowed to return home with him, 0:27:36.560 --> 0:27:38.840 he would ensure that his son stayed out of trouble 0:27:38.880 --> 0:27:42.800 and would return for all of his court hearings. And 0:27:42.840 --> 0:27:46.639 then the prosecutor handed Scott Diykes a few pieces of paper. 0:27:48.800 --> 0:27:54.240 Is that your son? He asked. Scott Dykes was still 0:27:54.240 --> 0:27:58.880 staring down at the paper in his hands when he said, softly, reluctantly, 0:28:00.320 --> 0:28:03.639 it looks like it could be. The pages in his 0:28:03.720 --> 0:28:07.600 hands were printed out stills from security camera footage showing 0:28:07.640 --> 0:28:11.119 a tall, dark haired young man putting up flyers with 0:28:11.200 --> 0:28:14.560 swastikas on them in Sumter, South Carolina. In November of 0:28:14.600 --> 0:28:19.480 twenty twenty, the prosecutor asked Scott Dikes if he knew 0:28:19.480 --> 0:28:23.600 why his son had been discharged from the Marines. He 0:28:23.640 --> 0:28:28.240 didn't know. Tyler had apparently not even told his parents 0:28:28.280 --> 0:28:32.760 that he'd been given an other than honorable discharge. He 0:28:32.800 --> 0:28:35.040 didn't tell his parents that he'd been interviewed by an 0:28:35.160 --> 0:28:39.160 FBI agent from the Joint Terrorism Task Force in twenty nineteen, 0:28:40.360 --> 0:28:42.080 or that he was a suspect in the case of 0:28:42.120 --> 0:28:47.360 the Sumter County swastika stickers in twenty twenty. The prosecutor 0:28:47.400 --> 0:28:51.479