Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. Hello Molly here. If you're a longtime
Speaker 1: Weird Little Guys listener, you might recognize this episode as
Speaker 1: one you've heard before. But don't panic, it's not a
Speaker 1: rerun week. There is a regular episode today. Two This
Speaker 1: one is back at the top of your feed today
Speaker 1: for your convenience, because if you haven't heard this one,
Speaker 1: you might want to give it a listen alongside today's
Speaker 1: regular episode. I write a lot of multi part stories,
Speaker 1: but usually part two comes out the week after part one.
Speaker 1: That's really the only way to do it. And there
Speaker 1: are episodes I would love to write right now that
Speaker 1: I'm putting off because I know the ending will change
Speaker 1: if I just wait a little longer. But when I
Speaker 1: wrote this episode in October of twenty twenty four, the
Speaker 1: subject of the story was just a few days into
Speaker 1: a nearly five year term in federal prison. I figured,
Speaker 1: even if he did have a second act, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be for another few years. At least. This part of
Speaker 1: the story was definitely over. But that five year prison
Speaker 1: sentence ended three months later. On January twentieth, twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: within hours of being sworn into office for his second term,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump pardoned more than fifteen hundred people who'd been
Speaker 1: charged with federal crimes related to their participation in the
Speaker 1: January sixth insurrection. With the stroke of a pen, he
Speaker 1: erased the legal consequences of those actions, whether that consequence
Speaker 1: had been a slap on the wrist for a misdemeanor
Speaker 1: trespassing conviction or two decades in prison for seditious conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Whatever they'd done, they were free to go. Technically, most
Speaker 1: of them already were free. Four years into the investigation
Speaker 1: and prosecution of the events of January sixth, there were
Speaker 1: hundreds of defendants who'd already resolved their cases and completed
Speaker 1: whatever sentence they'd been given. If they got any sentence
Speaker 1: at all, Hundreds of those convicted weren't sentenced to any
Speaker 1: period of incarceration. Most of the January sixth defendants still
Speaker 1: in custody by twenty twenty five were outliers. They'd been
Speaker 1: leaders or planners where they'd committed crimes of violence, they'd
Speaker 1: used weapons, they were convicted of multiple felonies, and they
Speaker 1: were going to be in there for a while. Within
Speaker 1: twelve hours of the president's pardon, the Bureau of Prisons
Speaker 1: released two hundred and eleven January sixth defendants who were
Speaker 1: still in custody. Tyler Bradley Dykes was one of those
Speaker 1: two hundred eleven. This episode from October of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four is about how he ended up in prison. Now
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five, he's running for Congress. Last week,
Speaker 1: a jury in Alpamarole County, Virginia found Augustus Sole Invictus
Speaker 1: guilty on the felony charge of burning an object with
Speaker 1: the intent to intimidate for his participation in the Nazi
Speaker 1: torch march at the University of Virginia on August eleventh,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. This was not only the first trial conviction
Speaker 1: for this charge, it was the first ever jury verdict
Speaker 1: reached on a charge under Section eighteen point two dashed
Speaker 1: four twenty three point oh one of the Virginia Code.
Speaker 1: That law passed in two thousand and two in response
Speaker 1: to the legal challenge to Virginia's crossburning statute by Pennsylvania
Speaker 1: clansman Berry black I spent the last two episodes talking
Speaker 1: about the history of cross burning in Virginia and the
Speaker 1: life and legal battles of the man who brought about
Speaker 1: this change to the law, and I told you that
Speaker 1: until last year, that law had been sitting on the books,
Speaker 1: all but untouched for two decades. I left you last
Speaker 1: week with a terrifying image, a small group of students
Speaker 1: surrounded by a sea of flames one summer night seven
Speaker 1: years ago. I told you a few weeks ago that
Speaker 1: this is a story I've been writing and rewriting for years.
Speaker 1: I could fill six months worth of episodes with just
Speaker 1: the stories of the men who carried those torches. The
Speaker 1: years I've spent watching the same few minutes of history,
Speaker 1: frame by frame from different angles, placing individual men within
Speaker 1: that seething mass of violent intent taught me a lot
Speaker 1: about the kinds of weird little guys that make up
Speaker 1: a crowd like this. There are cops and criminals, soldiers
Speaker 1: and soldiers of fortune, students and fathers, domestic abusers, realtors
Speaker 1: and lawyers and small business owners, social media personalities, and
Speaker 1: wanted fugitives. They're your neighbors, your weird cousin, that guy
Speaker 1: at work you don't want to talk about politics with.
Speaker 1: They're all just some guy. There were hundreds of them
Speaker 1: there that night in August of twenty seventeen. But we'll
Speaker 1: just start with one today. I'm Molly Conger. This is weird,
Speaker 1: Little guys under You might think this episode is going
Speaker 1: to be about Augustus and Victus. It isn't. There will
Speaker 1: one day probably be a multi episode arc about the
Speaker 1: man who calls himself the Attorney for the Damned. A
Speaker 1: man whose name literally appears in the Miriam Webster Dictionary
Speaker 1: in the example sentence for the term white nationalist. A
Speaker 1: man who has been both a proud boy and a
Speaker 1: presidential candidate, both a goat slaughtering, blood drinking wizard and
Speaker 1: a traditionalist Catholic. A father of seven with two ex
Speaker 1: wives and a string of police reports filed by wives, girlfriends,
Speaker 1: and mistresses. An attorney who's list includes white supremacist paramilitaries,
Speaker 1: Nazi street gangs, and antisemitic trolls. A man who once
Speaker 1: renounced all of his worldly possessions and wandered off into
Speaker 1: the desert, proclaiming himself to be a god and a prophet,
Speaker 1: before quietly returning to Orlando to work at his father's
Speaker 1: law office. But that day isn't today. His conviction last
Speaker 1: week won't be the end of his story. I'm sure
Speaker 1: of that, So I'll bide my time, because while Augustus
Speaker 1: Invictus was the first person ever found guilty by a
Speaker 1: jury of the crime of burning an object with the
Speaker 1: intent to intimidate, he wasn't the first to be convicted.
Speaker 1: Before his trial last week, there had already been five
Speaker 1: guilty pleas by other members of that march. You see,
Speaker 1: there is no statute of limitations on a felony in
Speaker 1: the Commonwealth of Virginia. Whether or not that's wise or
Speaker 1: really in the over all best interests of justice more
Speaker 1: generally is a discussion for another day, and maybe for
Speaker 1: another person, but it is the current state of affairs,
Speaker 1: and Virginia is a southern state, the one time capital
Speaker 1: of the Confederacy. Few states without a bloody history of
Speaker 1: clan violence even have a law on the books that
Speaker 1: makes it a crime to use a burning object as
Speaker 1: a tool of intimidation. But we did have such a history,
Speaker 1: and we do have the resulting law. So even though
Speaker 1: that march in twenty seventeen feels like it was almost
Speaker 1: a lifetime ago, it's not too late under Virginia law
Speaker 1: to hold those men accountable. To date, twelve men who
Speaker 1: marched that night have been charged under a Virginia law
Speaker 1: that makes it a felony to burn an object with
Speaker 1: the intent to intimidate. Five have pleaded guilty to it,
Speaker 1: three have entered into pleagre reamons to the lesser charge
Speaker 1: of disorderly conduct, one went to trial and got a
Speaker 1: hung jury, and two cases remained pending. The first sentence
Speaker 1: handed down in one of these cases was for Tyler
Speaker 1: Bradley Dikes. His story touches on quite a few of
Speaker 1: the recurring themes of this show. He was a US
Speaker 1: Marine who was discharged for his involvement in extremist groups.
Speaker 1: He attended this Nazi rally where he's on video, throwing
Speaker 1: punches and Hitler salutes, and when he wasn't held accountable
Speaker 1: for his actions, he went on to engage an even
Speaker 1: more serious conduct, and now he's in federal prison. The
Speaker 1: entire arc of his story can be summed up in
Speaker 1: a single pair of images, I think like a pair
Speaker 1: of Nazi bookends. First, there's Tyler Dikes on August eleventh,
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, standing at the base of the statue of
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson, holding a torch in his left hand, with
Speaker 1: his right arm extended in a Nazi salute. And then
Speaker 1: there's Tyler Dykes again on January sixth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: on the steps of the Capitol Building, turning to face
Speaker 1: the mob below after fighting his way up to the doors,
Speaker 1: giving the same salute. A few months ago, Tyler Dykes
Speaker 1: was handed a fifty seven month federal sentence for assaulting
Speaker 1: police officers during the January sixth riot at the Capitol
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one. If you're trying to do some
Speaker 1: math in your head right now, I'll tell you fifty
Speaker 1: seven months is just shy of five years. But a
Speaker 1: federal prison sentence is kind of like a baby in
Speaker 1: that you always measure it in months, not years, and
Speaker 1: only the people who have to deal with the time
Speaker 1: in question feel like that makes any sense at all.
Speaker 1: In the sentencing memorandum written by his defense attorney, he's
Speaker 1: just decribed as an impressionable young man. He was just
Speaker 1: twenty one years old when he traveled to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: With his friends from church. They said he'd been influenced
Speaker 1: by the NonStop media coverage and President Trump's social media
Speaker 1: posts into believing that the election had been stolen. He
Speaker 1: made incredibly poor decisions. His attorney conceded, but he never
Speaker 1: planned to engage in any violence. He was just young
Speaker 1: and impetuous, and he got caught up in the crowd.
Speaker 1: He was a United States Marine. He was a boy scout,
Speaker 1: quite literally. The defense sentencing memo cites his accomplishments as
Speaker 1: an Eagle Scout. He was just a nice young man
Speaker 1: who goes to church every Sunday and runs a small
Speaker 1: IT services company and takes care of his elderly parents.
Speaker 1: How could he possibly be the kind of person who
Speaker 1: deserves to go to federal prison for making a little mistake.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't quite the whole picture. Not that those
Speaker 1: things aren't mostly true. They are, but it's a spit
Speaker 1: shined image of a much darker situation. Tyler Dykes was
Speaker 1: indeed a member of the United States Marine Corps. On
Speaker 1: January sixth, twenty twenty one, he was a US Marine
Speaker 1: when he wrenched the riot shield from the hands of
Speaker 1: a US Capitol police officer and then used that shield
Speaker 1: to force his way through the police line and into
Speaker 1: the Capitol building. And he remained a United States Marine
Speaker 1: until he was given an other than honorable discharge in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. The revelations that unraveled his life came
Speaker 1: out of order. He wasn't identified as a Unite the
Speaker 1: Right attendee until twenty twenty two, after he'd already participated
Speaker 1: in the January sixth riot in twenty twenty one. He
Speaker 1: wasn't identified as the man putting swastika stickers around town
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty until he was discharged from the Marines
Speaker 1: for it in twenty twenty two, and he wasn't identified
Speaker 1: as a participant in the January sixth riot until July
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, after he'd been convicted for his
Speaker 1: conduct at Unite the Right. The consequences of his actions
Speaker 1: always seemed to come a little too late, after he'd
Speaker 1: already been emboldened by an apparent lack thereof. At his
Speaker 1: federal sentencing hearing a few months ago, he told the
Speaker 1: judge that he was high on adrenaline during the Capitol
Speaker 1: riot and said, I falsely believed that I would be
Speaker 1: free of consequences. But maybe we should start at the
Speaker 1: beginning rather than the end. In August of twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: Tyler Dykes was nineteen years old. He'd taken a year
Speaker 1: off after high school and was living at home home
Speaker 1: with his parents in North Carolina that summer after spending
Speaker 1: his gap year abroad in Romania. He'd been accepted to
Speaker 1: Cornell University and would be moving into his dorm at
Speaker 1: the end of the month. Just a week before new
Speaker 1: student orientation at Cornell, he took one last trip before
Speaker 1: starting college. He came here to Charlottesville on the evening
Speaker 1: of August eleventh, twenty seventeen. Tyler Dyke stood among the
Speaker 1: hundreds of men who gathered at Nameless Field. It's a
Speaker 1: confusing name, Nameless Field. It isn't nameless. It has a name.
Speaker 1: The name is nameless Field. I wonder what kind of
Speaker 1: who's on first type conversations happened over text message that
Speaker 1: night as the crowd assembled. But there he was in
Speaker 1: the field, down by the tennis courts behind the library,
Speaker 1: and he was handed a torch, and he found a
Speaker 1: place in line, and he marched. He chanted with the
Speaker 1: crowd as this river of flames wound its way through
Speaker 1: the university grounds. Blood and soil, Blood and soil. You
Speaker 1: will not replace us, Jews will not replace us. Fuck off,
Speaker 1: commis this is our town now, they shouted on the
Speaker 1: empty streets as they passed empty buildings. Blood and soil,
Speaker 1: blood and soil, blood and soil. They chanted until they
Speaker 1: could taste the blood in their own mouths from shouting
Speaker 1: themselves hoarse, blood and soil, until they saw blood red.
Speaker 1: When the small group of students at the base of
Speaker 1: the Thomas Jefferson Statue came into view, the streets had
Speaker 1: been empty until the march filled them. The libraries were empty,
Speaker 1: the dorms were empty. The academic and administrative buildings were empty.
Speaker 1: But as the march reached the top of the rotunda steps,
Speaker 1: looking down into the brick plaza below, they knew they
Speaker 1: weren't alone anymore. They knew what they were doing. As
Speaker 1: they came down those steps, each man, torch in hand,
Speaker 1: had a moment. At the top of those stairs, each
Speaker 1: marcher could see from that vantage point the tiny group
Speaker 1: in the plaza below, students, many of them still just teenagers,
Speaker 1: holding a home made banner that read UVA Students Against
Speaker 1: White Supremacy, And in that moment on those steps, each
Speaker 1: of them made the choice to follow the man in
Speaker 1: front of him. As the march wound its way around
Speaker 1: the statue, around the students, circling around, arching wide and
Speaker 1: then tightening up, encircling them and closing them in. As
Speaker 1: the ring of fire closed around the statue around those students,
Speaker 1: the violence began almost immediately. Verbal altercations gave way to
Speaker 1: fists shouted epithets were chased through the air by streams
Speaker 1: of pepper spray. A lit torch was swung, making contact
Speaker 1: with a counter protester trying to shield those terrified young people.
Speaker 1: I've watched this video a hundred times, a thousand, maybe,
Speaker 1: and I still flinch as the flame arcs towards someone
Speaker 1: that I count among my closest friends. I tell you
Speaker 1: that not to pull at your heart strings. You don't
Speaker 1: need to know that that video still makes my chest
Speaker 1: feel tight. I'm telling you because I want you to know.
Speaker 1: I'm not objective about this. I don't pretend to be.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be. I don't believe in this
Speaker 1: myth of journalistic objectivity. Everybody has a thumb on the
Speaker 1: scale somewhere. Most people just lie about it to you
Speaker 1: or even to themselves. Of course, I have a bias here.
Speaker 1: I live here. I've sat in courtrooms and in coffee shops,
Speaker 1: and on long car rides and on living room couches
Speaker 1: with people who are hurt that night. But even if
Speaker 1: I had no connection to these people or to this place,
Speaker 1: no secret that as a researcher of white supremacist violence
Speaker 1: in America, my starting position is always against fascism, against Nazism,
Speaker 1: against violence done in the name of white supremacy. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. As
Speaker 1: sociologist and expert on political violence, doctor Peter Seemi, once
Speaker 1: set on the stand, no one is ever surprised to
Speaker 1: find out that a cancer researcher is interested in preventing cancer.
Speaker 1: So yes, I have a stake in this, But you
Speaker 1: do too. Maybe you don't know it yet, you don't
Speaker 1: know these people. But I choose to betray my own
Speaker 1: lack of objectivity here to get you to think about yours,
Speaker 1: because I don't think you should be objective about this.
Speaker 1: There is no special prize to be won by being
Speaker 1: the most diligently neutral observer of fascist violence. You and I, listener,
Speaker 1: We are not jurors. We are not ruling on the law.
Speaker 1: We are people who have to live in this world.
Speaker 1: You should feel something you can't shove down when you
Speaker 1: see a man who proudly calls himself a Nazi. Swing
Speaker 1: a flaming torch at someone who is trapped, someone whose
Speaker 1: only crime is not wanting hate to go unchallenged in
Speaker 1: a public square. And that's where Tyler Diykes was that night,
Speaker 1: right at the center of this melee. As the air
Speaker 1: filled with screams and the burning scent of pepper spray,
Speaker 1: Tyler Diykes was fist fighting anyone he could reach. Videos
Speaker 1: showed Dikes was the last one still fighting. He threw
Speaker 1: the last punch of the night, even as everyone else
Speaker 1: seemed to be coming to their senses. When the counter
Speaker 1: protesters were finally able to escape from the mob, the
Speaker 1: torch marchers took the statue. Several of them climbed the
Speaker 1: plinth and cheered for the victory they'd won. Seeg Kile
Speaker 1: Hail victory they shouted. Video shows Tyler Dikes pacing back
Speaker 1: and forth in front of the statue, right arm extended
Speaker 1: in a Nazi salute. After the deadly rally, the next morning,
Speaker 1: Tyler Diykes went home. He started at Cornell a few
Speaker 1: weeks later, but they didn't go well. He dropped out
Speaker 1: after a few months and enlisted in the Marines instead,
Speaker 1: and it seems like that may not have gone well either.
Speaker 1: After a few months of training, he was discharged to
Speaker 1: the Reserves and returned home, which was now South Carolina.
Speaker 1: He started an IT company, calling himself the Technology King
Speaker 1: of the Low Country, and made house calls to help
Speaker 1: suburban grandparents set up their Wi Fi routers. And when
Speaker 1: he wasn't troubleshooting a customer's computer or going to church,
Speaker 1: he was hanging Swastika banners from highway overpasses with his
Speaker 1: friends in the Southern Sons Active Club, a white supremacist
Speaker 1: organization operating in Georgia and the Carolinas. A regional cell
Speaker 1: of the larger international network of Active Clubs. These Active
Speaker 1: clubs are, to put it succinctly, Nazi fight clubs. They
Speaker 1: were inspired by Robert Rundo's Rise Above movement, the Southern
Speaker 1: California based Nazi street fighting outfit that brawled their way
Speaker 1: across the country at right wing political rallies throughout twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: There's no centralized leadership or organizational structure. Active clubs operate
Speaker 1: regionally and are operationally independent from one another. They share
Speaker 1: a love of mixed martial arts. Both as a hobby
Speaker 1: and as training for a coming race war, and engage
Speaker 1: in the kind of propaganda campaigns common among groups like
Speaker 1: Patriot Front, so hanging banners with racist slogans from bridges
Speaker 1: and plastering stickers on street signs and mailboxes around town.
Speaker 1: There are active clubs all over the United States, Canada,
Speaker 1: and Europe, as well as a faltering effort led by
Speaker 1: Thomas Seole to get them going in Australia. Each club
Speaker 1: operates independently, but they network and meet up even across
Speaker 1: national borders, and there is quite a bit of cross
Speaker 1: pollination between the active clubs and other violent white supremacist organizations.
Speaker 1: They tend to be on good terms with groups like
Speaker 1: Patriot Front, and several notable active club members have ties
Speaker 1: to Adam Waffen and Terogram. Andrew Takstov, the New Jersey
Speaker 1: teenager and Terogram collective chat member arrested this summer, was
Speaker 1: a member of an active club cell in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Active clubs in Finland are involved in paramilitary training of
Speaker 1: Karelian separatist groups that fight alongside the Russian Volunteer Corps,
Speaker 1: the same Nazi paramilitary group in Ukraine that Andrew Takestov
Speaker 1: was on his way to join when he was arrested.
Speaker 1: All that to say, this isn't just guys lifting weights
Speaker 1: together and talking about their love of the white race.
Speaker 1: Active Club members on multiple continents have been arrested for
Speaker 1: acts of violence and for planning acts of terrorism. And
Speaker 1: the reason I can tell you with an unusually high
Speaker 1: degree of certainty that Tyler Dykes was a member of
Speaker 1: the Southern Suns Active Club is because of one particular,
Speaker 1: no good, very bad day that he had on March seventeenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. You see, Tyler Dykes was indicted by
Speaker 1: a grand jury in Virginia in February of twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: but he didn't know that nobody did. Grand juries are
Speaker 1: secret things, and his indictment stayed sealed until he was
Speaker 1: taken into custody. And with an out of state warrant,
Speaker 1: you don't just send a local cop down to get him.
Speaker 1: You could, I suppose, but they didn't. The local prosecutor
Speaker 1: where the charge is filed can ask cops in the
Speaker 1: city where they think he lives to go look for him,
Speaker 1: but they aren't always super interested in doing. Some out
Speaker 1: of town courts work for them. So oftentimes an out
Speaker 1: of state warrant just sort of sits open, waiting for
Speaker 1: you to step on it, like a rake on the ground.
Speaker 1: If you've ever been pulled over, you've seen a cop
Speaker 1: take your license and walk back to his car. He's
Speaker 1: putting your name into a computer, and if you have
Speaker 1: an open warrant, he's going to find it. If you
Speaker 1: cross a border, or go through TSA, or get a
Speaker 1: speeding ticket, or have really almost any kind of interaction
Speaker 1: with a cop, they're going to run your name. And
Speaker 1: in Tyler Dyke's case, he was sitting in an emergency
Speaker 1: room in South Carolina making a police report about a
Speaker 1: dog bite. Saint Patrick's Day is a big deal in Savannah, Georgia.
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure why, and that wasn't a rabbit
Speaker 1: hole I let myself pursue this week, but it is.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's some particular moment in history where the
Speaker 1: city had an unusually high concentration of irishmen, and the
Speaker 1: only lasting legacy is the nation's second most debaucherous green
Speaker 1: beer soaked parade. I was in Savannah for Saint Patrick's
Speaker 1: Day in two thousand and eight, but there was a
Speaker 1: tornado that weekend and the blackout closed most of the bar,
Speaker 1: so I don't think I got the full experience. And
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, the Southern Sun's Active Club had
Speaker 1: the brilliant idea that Saint Patrick's Day in Savannah would
Speaker 1: be the perfect time and the perfect place to hang
Speaker 1: a Nazi banner from a highway overpass, because all the
Speaker 1: extra traffic in town meant more people would see their message.
Speaker 1: Thanks to an Atlanta based anti fascist research collective, we
Speaker 1: have an inside look at the private conversations Dykes and
Speaker 1: his friends had that day as they were going about
Speaker 1: trying to get that banner up. The day didn't start
Speaker 1: off well. The group had some trouble locating a good
Speaker 1: spot for their banner. They weren't the only ones who
Speaker 1: anticipated heavy traffic from tourists heading into town for the holiday.
Speaker 1: There were cops nearby several of the locations they'd hoped
Speaker 1: to hit. When they finally found a suitable spot, Tyler
Speaker 1: Dikes walked back to his car to get the tools
Speaker 1: they would need to hang the banner, but before he
Speaker 1: got back to his car, he encountered someone walking their dogs.
Speaker 1: Diykes claims that he was mauled by three pit bulls,
Speaker 1: but that seems like a bit of an over statement.
Speaker 1: In the infiltrated group chat, he posted a photo of
Speaker 1: a small, but unpleasant looking wound on his left pinky finger.
Speaker 1: I feel like you'd come away with more than a
Speaker 1: two inch cut on your little finger if you were
Speaker 1: truly attacked by even one dog, let alone three pit bulls.
Speaker 1: But we only have Tyler's word on this one. A
Speaker 1: little before six pm, he texted the Southern Son's group
Speaker 1: chat that he was headed to the hospital to have
Speaker 1: his hand looked at. While he was waiting to be
Speaker 1: seen at the hospital, he texted the group chat again
Speaker 1: to let them know that the plan had gone awry
Speaker 1: and unfortunately they hadn't been able to hang any of
Speaker 1: the banners that day, writing quite literally, everything that could
Speaker 1: possibly have gone wrong all happened at exactly the same time.
Speaker 1: Half an hour later, though, something else went very wrong
Speaker 1: for Tyler Dikes, and he texted the group again, I'm
Speaker 1: being arrested by Virginia nuke my account. Dog bites like
Speaker 1: gunshot wounds are something that hospital staff are required to
Speaker 1: report to the authorities. While Tyler Diykes was waiting for
Speaker 1: a doctor to look at his hand. An officer arrived
Speaker 1: to take a police report. And when you talk to
Speaker 1: a cop in some official capacity, he's going to run
Speaker 1: your name. I can't even imagine his surprise when the
Speaker 1: officer informed him that he was a wanted fugitive in
Speaker 1: a state he hadn't visited in years. His hand was fine,
Speaker 1: it seems, and he was taken directly into custody from
Speaker 1: the emergency room that night. It took nearly a month
Speaker 1: to arrange for his extradition back to Virginia, during which
Speaker 1: time he remained in custody. When Tyler Diykes was finally
Speaker 1: transported up to Virginia, his attorney asked for a bond hearing.
Speaker 1: Makes sense. He'd been in custody for a month, and
Speaker 1: it was at that April twenty twenty three bond hearing
Speaker 1: that I first saw Tyler Dikes. At that hearing, Tyler
Speaker 1: Dykes's father, Scott, took the stand to tell the judge
Speaker 1: that if his son was allowed to return home with him,
Speaker 1: he would ensure that his son stayed out of trouble,
Speaker 1: would return for all of his court hearings. And then
Speaker 1: the prosecutor handed Scott Dykes, A few pieces of paper?
Speaker 1: Is that your son? He asked. Scott Dykes was still
Speaker 1: staring down at the paper in his hands when he said, softly, reluctantly,
Speaker 1: it looks like it could be. The pages in his
Speaker 1: hands were printed out stills from security camera footage showing
Speaker 1: a tall, dark haired young man putting up flyers with
Speaker 1: swastikas on them in Sumter, South Carolina. In November of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty. The prosecutor asked Scott Dikes if he knew
Speaker 1: why his son had been discharged from the Marines. He
Speaker 1: didn't know. Tyler had apparently not even told his parents
Speaker 1: that he'd been given an other than honorable discharge. He
Speaker 1: didn't tell his parents that he'd been interviewed by an
Speaker 1: FBI agent from the Joint Terrorism Task Force in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: or that he was a suspect in the case of
Speaker 1: the Sumpter County swastika stickers in twenty twenty. The prosecutor
Speaker 1: didn't ask Scott Dikes where his son was on January sixth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Maybe he didn't know. He should have.
Speaker 1: We know now that the FBI had been investigating Dikes's
Speaker 1: involvement in the insurrection since December of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: but they may not have shared that information with a
Speaker 1: county prosecutor. It was Dikes's own messages in the chat
Speaker 1: on the day of his arrest that left him in
Speaker 1: jail without bond. After that hearing mere hours before his
Speaker 1: arrest on Saint Patrick's day, he was demonstrating what they
Speaker 1: call consciousness of guilt. That is, behavior that shows you
Speaker 1: knew what you were doing was wrong. His messages show
Speaker 1: that he had attempted to evade police in order to
Speaker 1: find an overpass, which he planned to use tools to
Speaker 1: damage for the purpose of unfurling a racist banner. Then,
Speaker 1: upon learning of his arrest, he demonstrated a willingness to
Speaker 1: destroy evidence, asking other members of the white supremacist group
Speaker 1: to erase his participation, to nuke his account and delete
Speaker 1: the chat so police couldn't read it on his phone
Speaker 1: once it was checked into evidence. In his ruling denying bond,
Speaker 1: the judge told Dikes that day, this court can't believe
Speaker 1: you'll be on good behavior if released from custody. It
Speaker 1: was barely a month later that Tyler Diykes decided to
Speaker 1: plead guilty to the charge of burning an object with
Speaker 1: the intent to intimidate. The judge handed down a sentence
Speaker 1: of five years, the maximum under the statute, but suspended
Speaker 1: all but six months of it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is a common practice everywhere, but I see it
Speaker 1: almost all the time here in Virginia. The judge gives
Speaker 1: you a much longer sentence then he actually expects you
Speaker 1: to serve, and you just serve that little bit of
Speaker 1: your sentence, but that suspended portion hangs over you like
Speaker 1: a sort of damocles that will fall if you get
Speaker 1: into any trouble during some set period of good behavior.
Speaker 1: With the time he'd already served before his extradition and
Speaker 1: credit for good behavior, he was scheduled to be released
Speaker 1: in July of twenty twenty three, just four months after
Speaker 1: that terrible day in March. And here's where I wasted
Speaker 1: a whole day of my life. I was curious to
Speaker 1: see Tyler Diyke's walk out of the album Rall Charlesville
Speaker 1: Regional Jail. I can't explain now why I felt like
Speaker 1: that might be an interesting or important thing to see,
Speaker 1: and in retrospect it really wouldn't have been. But I
Speaker 1: knew his scheduled release date, and I live nearby. I
Speaker 1: wasn't busy that day, so I thought i'd try. I
Speaker 1: got up early and drove to the jail. I packed
Speaker 1: snacks and drinks, and I was prepared to wait around
Speaker 1: for a couple of hours. I talked to a few
Speaker 1: people who'd been booked into ACRJ, and typically you get
Speaker 1: released sometime before lunch. But the hours passed and they
Speaker 1: kept passing. I finished all the snacks I brought got bored.
Speaker 1: It was hot as hell, and I didn't want to
Speaker 1: run my car all day just for the AC so
Speaker 1: I just sat there, sweating, waiting. I watched that damn
Speaker 1: door like a hawk as the hours passed, and then
Speaker 1: I got an email. I have all sorts of automated
Speaker 1: email alerts set up related to court cases and custody
Speaker 1: status of weird little guys all over the country, some
Speaker 1: guys i'd just like to keep track of, or my
Speaker 1: right about one day, or I don't know, just nosy.
Speaker 1: So not a day goes by that I don't get
Speaker 1: some notification that somebody's filed emotion, or they're appealing something,
Speaker 1: or they've been transferred to another facility. It's always something,
Speaker 1: and there it was a custody status change notification. I'd
Speaker 1: been sitting in the jail barking lot for seven hours
Speaker 1: waiting for a man who never did walk out the
Speaker 1: front door. This email is to inform you that Tyler
Speaker 1: Diykes with a fender number one zero six five one six' three,
Speaker 1: three was released from custody On july, seventeenth twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Three the release reason is other law enforcement, agency other
Speaker 1: law enforcement. Agency usually the email says bonded out or sentence,
Speaker 1: served but this one said other law enforcement. Agency that
Speaker 1: means he wasn't released at. All that means some kind
Speaker 1: of cop from somewhere else picked him. Up he never
Speaker 1: walked out the front door because he'd been driven out
Speaker 1: the side entrance in a nondescript LOOKING suv with A
Speaker 1: Us marshal at the. WHEEL i had to wait until
Speaker 1: the following morning for the federal charging documents to show
Speaker 1: up in the, System so it wasn't Until july of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three THAT i finally knew what THE fbi
Speaker 1: had known for a year and a. Half Tyler dikes
Speaker 1: fought his way into The capitol On january, sixth twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: one he was charged in a ten count indictment with,
Speaker 1: robbery civil, disorder two counts of, assaulting resisting or impeding
Speaker 1: an officer with a dangerous, weapon entering or remaining in
Speaker 1: a restricted, building disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted,
Speaker 1: building engaging in physical violence in a restricted, building disorderly
Speaker 1: conduct and a capitol, building engaging in physical violence in
Speaker 1: a capitol, building and picketing in a capitol. Building he
Speaker 1: was released on bond shortly after being transferred into federal,
Speaker 1: custody and in addition to the standard rules of pre trial,
Speaker 1: release the judge specifically mandated that he have no contact
Speaker 1: with members of The Southern Sons Active club or any
Speaker 1: related group while out on, bond and he was ordered
Speaker 1: to live at his parents' home and keep to a strict.
Speaker 1: Curfew In april of twenty twenty, four he accepted a
Speaker 1: plea agreement that dropped eight of the ten charges of the,
Speaker 1: indictment pleading guilty only to the two counts of, assaulting,
Speaker 1: resisting or impeding certain, officers and with the dangerous weapon
Speaker 1: element dropped with no. Trial some questions about this case
Speaker 1: will probably never get. Answered In december of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: one THE fbi received an anonymous tip from someone who
Speaker 1: Said dikes told them he had entered the capitol On january.
Speaker 1: Sixth the full text of the tip is printed in
Speaker 1: a filing by the. Government the suspect Is Tyler diykes
Speaker 1: lives In, Bluffton South. CAROLINA i was With dikes and
Speaker 1: we started talking about The january sixth. Attack we had
Speaker 1: differing opinions about, it but was. Respectful he then told
Speaker 1: me about how he went into the capitol with a
Speaker 1: mask on with the other rioters and started beating up police.
Speaker 1: Officers he states he was still in the military at the.
Speaker 1: Time he said he has video evidence of him being,
Speaker 1: there but he did not show me since we were
Speaker 1: in a public. Setting he was there for fund and
Speaker 1: wanting to make a. Statement he was there with other
Speaker 1: group of, people but would not state. WHO i believe
Speaker 1: he was telling the truth about, it AND i believe
Speaker 1: he needs to be. Investigated the agent assigned to investigate
Speaker 1: the tip confirmed the sources identification Of dikes through typical
Speaker 1: investigative means things like issuing a subpoena to his cell phone,
Speaker 1: provider comparing footage from the capitol to the, SUSPECTS dmv
Speaker 1: photo and so. On but he had an extra source this,
Speaker 1: time something AN fbi agent doesn't usually have at his
Speaker 1: disposal when he investigates an anonymous tip like. This he
Speaker 1: already knew What Tyler dikes looked. Like he had Met
Speaker 1: Tyler dikes. Before the agent assigned to follow up on
Speaker 1: this tip was the one who had Interviewed dikes In
Speaker 1: january of twenty nineteen regarding his potential ties to domestic extremist.
Speaker 1: Groups no additional information was offered in this affidavit about
Speaker 1: the circumstances that prompted their first, meeting whether any follow
Speaker 1: up investigation was, done or if that investigation was at
Speaker 1: the request of or reported to The Marine, corps or
Speaker 1: even which extremist group THE fbi believed he was involved
Speaker 1: in in twenty, nineteen because it couldn't have been The
Speaker 1: Southern Sun's Active. Club The Active club network didn't really
Speaker 1: exist that early, on back In january of twenty, nineteen
Speaker 1: and The Southern suns chapter certainly. Didn't the agent doesn't
Speaker 1: give me even a crumb to work with, here SO
Speaker 1: i don't, know and whatever it was about that wasn't
Speaker 1: what led To dykes's discharge from The. Marines the military
Speaker 1: records filed in this case are, sealed but references made
Speaker 1: to them specifically cite Those november twenty twenty swastika flyers
Speaker 1: In Sumter, County South carolina as the reason for his.
Speaker 1: Discharge and that's as much creed information as we're likely
Speaker 1: ever going to get about the reason for his removal
Speaker 1: from the. Military in a text found on his phone
Speaker 1: after his, Arrest dykes had sent a photo of his
Speaker 1: discharged letter to Someone he claimed he was being discharged
Speaker 1: quote for being incredibly political with my Fellow marines after
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty, election incredibly. Political when he was interviewed
Speaker 1: by the probation office for the pre sentenced investigation report
Speaker 1: in his federal criminal, case he. Lied he told the
Speaker 1: probation office that he was asked to leave the military
Speaker 1: after not reporting for, drill and that wasn't the only
Speaker 1: time he. Lied the government sentencing memorandum also indicates that
Speaker 1: despite his willingness to plead guilty to the charges to
Speaker 1: be honest about his conduct on that, day he was
Speaker 1: not tr truthful in his final interview with federal. Agents
Speaker 1: the terms of his plea agreement required his cooperation with
Speaker 1: the ongoing investigation into the events Of january. Sixth part
Speaker 1: of that agreement was a final debrief interview with federal,
Speaker 1: agents which was conducted On june twenty, eighth twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Four in that, Interview dykes again told agents that he
Speaker 1: left his home In South carolina mid morning On january
Speaker 1: fifth and arrived IN dc that evening sometime after, dark
Speaker 1: but early enough to have dinner with his friends before
Speaker 1: checking into his hotel for the. Night and that's not
Speaker 1: true because his cell phone tells a very different. Story
Speaker 1: records obtained From verizon show that his phone was In, Marathon,
Speaker 1: florida at three twenty pm On january. Fifth a little
Speaker 1: before eight, pm he took a photo with his cell
Speaker 1: phone of a slip printed by An American airlines kiosk
Speaker 1: at The Miami, airport indicating that he would need to
Speaker 1: see a ticket agent for. Assistance his phone pinged again
Speaker 1: an hour outside his home In South carolina at twelve
Speaker 1: thirty a. M On january. Sixth no clear conclusion is
Speaker 1: drawn in the. Memo the prosecutor doesn't ride out exactly
Speaker 1: what he thinks this, means but it appears That dykes
Speaker 1: drove thirteen hundred miles from The Florida keys To, washington D.
Speaker 1: C overnight after unsuccessfully trying to board a flight In.
Speaker 1: Miami it would be very hard to forget driving for
Speaker 1: twenty hours and then immediately fighting your way inside The
Speaker 1: United States capitol even three years after the. Fact that's
Speaker 1: not something you'd, forget is. It it seems far more
Speaker 1: likely that he chose to conceal his activities in the
Speaker 1: lead up To january, Sixth but why it seems unlikely
Speaker 1: now that THE doj would choose to pursue additional, Charges although,
Speaker 1: remember it is a federal crime to lie to AN fbi,
Speaker 1: agent and it obviously wasn't something they cared enough about
Speaker 1: to ask the judge to reject the plea, agreement which
Speaker 1: they could. Have whatever he was hiding about his trip
Speaker 1: To florida the day before the, insurrection he must have
Speaker 1: felt like it was worth the possibility of a lot
Speaker 1: of extra prison time to keep it to. Himself the
Speaker 1: government sentencing memo also details some of what was found
Speaker 1: On dike's. Phone in The Southern suns group, chat he
Speaker 1: used the Name Nocturnal. Wolf the prosecutor who prepared the
Speaker 1: memo included several examples of materials found on the phone
Speaker 1: related to the pseudonym things About. Wolves one of those
Speaker 1: little odds and ends about wolves was the front cover
Speaker 1: of A terogram collective publication called Do it for The,
Speaker 1: gram which bears the phrase faceless Lone. Wolf the prosecutor
Speaker 1: makes no mention of the contents of the document or
Speaker 1: the fact that it is a three hundred page manual
Speaker 1: on how to commit varying acts of. Terrorism it seems
Speaker 1: he was perhaps unaware that he'd stumbled across a piece
Speaker 1: of Neo nazi terrorist. Propaganda there's no transcript of his
Speaker 1: sentencing filed in the, case but NBC's RYAN. J riley
Speaker 1: reported that Quote dykes did not distance himself from extremist,
Speaker 1: ideologies nor did he say he no longer believes the
Speaker 1: former president's lies about the. Election his biggest expression of
Speaker 1: regret seemed to be for his elderly, parents who adopted
Speaker 1: him as a child and who are still providing him
Speaker 1: with a monthly. Allowance diykes was given a few months
Speaker 1: to get his affairs in order after being sentenced to
Speaker 1: fifty seven months back In. July the day before he
Speaker 1: was scheduled to turn himself in to begin serving his.
Speaker 1: Sentence he filed a last minute motion asking for just
Speaker 1: one more. Month the reasons he gave were a series
Speaker 1: of doctor's appointments that he needed to drive his eighty
Speaker 1: six year old father. To the judge was unimpressed By
Speaker 1: dikes's desire to drive his dad to the gastro enrologist
Speaker 1: and denied the. Motion he reported to prison last week
Speaker 1: On october, ninth twenty twenty. Four if you don't have
Speaker 1: any disciplinary, issues you typically serve eighty five percent of federal,
Speaker 1: time so he could be released as early As october
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, eight just in time for the next presidential.
Speaker 1: Election Weird Little guys is a production Of Cool Zone
Speaker 1: media And. iHeartRadio it's, researched written and recorded by, Me Molly.
Speaker 1: Conger our executive producers Are Sophie lichterman And Robert. Evans
Speaker 1: the show is edited by the wildly Talented Rory. Gagan
Speaker 1: the theme music was composed By Brad. Dickard you can
Speaker 1: email me At Weird Little Guys podcast at gmail dot.
Speaker 1: COM i will definitely read, it BUT i almost certainly
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