WEBVTT - CZM Rewind: Burning Hate: Tyler Dykes 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:14.440 Cool Zone Media. Hello Molly here. If you're a longtime 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.040 Weird Little Guys listener, you might recognize this episode as 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.520 one you've heard before. But don't panic, it's not a 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:27.200 rerun week. There is a regular episode today. Two This 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:29.400 one is back at the top of your feed today 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:33.200 for your convenience, because if you haven't heard this one, 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.360 you might want to give it a listen alongside today's 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:41.239 regular episode. I write a lot of multi part stories, 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:47.120 but usually part two comes out the week after part one. 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:51.479 That's really the only way to do it. And there 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:55.360 are episodes I would love to write right now that 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:58.160 I'm putting off because I know the ending will change 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:02.760 if I just wait a little longer. But when I 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.760 wrote this episode in October of twenty twenty four, the 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:09.279 subject of the story was just a few days into 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:13.800 a nearly five year term in federal prison. I figured, 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.200 even if he did have a second act, it wouldn't 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:21.480 be for another few years. At least. This part of 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:28.160 the story was definitely over. But that five year prison 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:34.440 sentence ended three months later. On January twentieth, twenty twenty five, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.560 within hours of being sworn into office for his second term, 0:01:39.400 --> 0:01:43.400 Donald Trump pardoned more than fifteen hundred people who'd been 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.400 charged with federal crimes related to their participation in the 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:51.360 January sixth insurrection. With the stroke of a pen, he 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:56.480 erased the legal consequences of those actions, whether that consequence 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:58.640 had been a slap on the wrist for a misdemeanor 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:03.680 trespassing conviction or two decades in prison for seditious conspiracy. 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:11.720 Whatever they'd done, they were free to go. Technically, most 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:16.000 of them already were free. Four years into the investigation 0:02:16.120 --> 0:02:19.959 and prosecution of the events of January sixth, there were 0:02:20.280 --> 0:02:24.240 hundreds of defendants who'd already resolved their cases and completed 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:28.000 whatever sentence they'd been given. If they got any sentence 0:02:28.040 --> 0:02:33.000 at all, Hundreds of those convicted weren't sentenced to any 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:37.560 period of incarceration. Most of the January sixth defendants still 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:42.520 in custody by twenty twenty five were outliers. They'd been 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:48.119 leaders or planners where they'd committed crimes of violence, they'd 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:53.320 used weapons, they were convicted of multiple felonies, and they 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:58.080 were going to be in there for a while. Within 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:01.359 twelve hours of the president's pardon, the Bureau of Prisons 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.640 released two hundred and eleven January sixth defendants who were 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:09.440 still in custody. Tyler Bradley Dykes was one of those 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:14.400 two hundred eleven. This episode from October of twenty twenty 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:19.000 four is about how he ended up in prison. Now 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:29.359 in twenty twenty five, he's running for Congress. Last week, 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:34.400 a jury in Alpamarole County, Virginia found Augustus Sole Invictus 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:38.120 guilty on the felony charge of burning an object with 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.600 the intent to intimidate for his participation in the Nazi 0:03:41.600 --> 0:03:45.200 torch march at the University of Virginia on August eleventh, 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:50.040 twenty seventeen. This was not only the first trial conviction 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:54.320 for this charge, it was the first ever jury verdict 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.320 reached on a charge under Section eighteen point two dashed 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.840 four twenty three point oh one of the Virginia Code. 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.160 That law passed in two thousand and two in response 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:10.279 to the legal challenge to Virginia's crossburning statute by Pennsylvania 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:15.040 clansman Berry black I spent the last two episodes talking 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:17.960 about the history of cross burning in Virginia and the 0:04:18.040 --> 0:04:20.599 life and legal battles of the man who brought about 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.320 this change to the law, and I told you that 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.080 until last year, that law had been sitting on the books, 0:04:27.160 --> 0:04:31.960 all but untouched for two decades. I left you last 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:36.040 week with a terrifying image, a small group of students 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.960 surrounded by a sea of flames one summer night seven 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:43.599 years ago. I told you a few weeks ago that 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.800 this is a story I've been writing and rewriting for years. 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.000 I could fill six months worth of episodes with just 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:55.919 the stories of the men who carried those torches. The 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.919 years I've spent watching the same few minutes of history, 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:04.400 frame by frame from different angles, placing individual men within 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:08.080 that seething mass of violent intent taught me a lot 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.960 about the kinds of weird little guys that make up 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:16.560 a crowd like this. There are cops and criminals, soldiers 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:23.840 and soldiers of fortune, students and fathers, domestic abusers, realtors 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:28.880 and lawyers and small business owners, social media personalities, and 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:36.120 wanted fugitives. They're your neighbors, your weird cousin, that guy 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.640 at work you don't want to talk about politics with. 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:44.760 They're all just some guy. There were hundreds of them 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:49.280 there that night in August of twenty seventeen. But we'll 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:56.440 just start with one today. I'm Molly Conger. This is weird, 0:05:56.440 --> 0:06:15.440 Little guys under You might think this episode is going 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:21.400 to be about Augustus and Victus. It isn't. There will 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:26.400 one day probably be a multi episode arc about the 0:06:26.440 --> 0:06:31.400 man who calls himself the Attorney for the Damned. A 0:06:31.400 --> 0:06:35.000 man whose name literally appears in the Miriam Webster Dictionary 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:39.840 in the example sentence for the term white nationalist. A 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:42.159 man who has been both a proud boy and a 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:47.480 presidential candidate, both a goat slaughtering, blood drinking wizard and 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:52.000 a traditionalist Catholic. A father of seven with two ex 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:56.719 wives and a string of police reports filed by wives, girlfriends, 0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:02.839 and mistresses. An attorney who's list includes white supremacist paramilitaries, 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:08.080 Nazi street gangs, and antisemitic trolls. A man who once 0:07:08.160 --> 0:07:11.200 renounced all of his worldly possessions and wandered off into 0:07:11.200 --> 0:07:14.720 the desert, proclaiming himself to be a god and a prophet, 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:18.800 before quietly returning to Orlando to work at his father's 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:24.880 law office. But that day isn't today. His conviction last 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.360 week won't be the end of his story. I'm sure 0:07:27.400 --> 0:07:32.080 of that, So I'll bide my time, because while Augustus 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:34.800 Invictus was the first person ever found guilty by a 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.480 jury of the crime of burning an object with the 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:41.840 intent to intimidate, he wasn't the first to be convicted. 0:07:43.000 --> 0:07:45.960 Before his trial last week, there had already been five 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:50.880 guilty pleas by other members of that march. You see, 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:54.360 there is no statute of limitations on a felony in 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:59.080 the Commonwealth of Virginia. Whether or not that's wise or 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.880 really in the over all best interests of justice more 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:05.680 generally is a discussion for another day, and maybe for 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.600 another person, but it is the current state of affairs, 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:14.440 and Virginia is a southern state, the one time capital 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:19.080 of the Confederacy. Few states without a bloody history of 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.000 clan violence even have a law on the books that 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:24.520 makes it a crime to use a burning object as 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:29.120 a tool of intimidation. But we did have such a history, 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:33.719 and we do have the resulting law. So even though 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.960 that march in twenty seventeen feels like it was almost 0:08:37.000 --> 0:08:41.360 a lifetime ago, it's not too late under Virginia law 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:47.320 to hold those men accountable. To date, twelve men who 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.200 marched that night have been charged under a Virginia law 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:52.920 that makes it a felony to burn an object with 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:57.240 the intent to intimidate. Five have pleaded guilty to it, 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.440 three have entered into pleagre reamons to the lesser charge 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:05.800 of disorderly conduct, one went to trial and got a 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:12.000 hung jury, and two cases remained pending. The first sentence 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:14.560 handed down in one of these cases was for Tyler 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:19.760 Bradley Dikes. His story touches on quite a few of 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:23.360 the recurring themes of this show. He was a US 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:27.320 Marine who was discharged for his involvement in extremist groups. 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.280 He attended this Nazi rally where he's on video, throwing 0:09:31.320 --> 0:09:34.760 punches and Hitler salutes, and when he wasn't held accountable 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.120 for his actions, he went on to engage an even 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:43.319 more serious conduct, and now he's in federal prison. The 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:45.880 entire arc of his story can be summed up in 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:49.720 a single pair of images, I think like a pair 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:55.679 of Nazi bookends. First, there's Tyler Dikes on August eleventh, 0:09:55.880 --> 0:09:58.959 twenty seventeen, standing at the base of the statue of 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.960 Thomas Jefferson, holding a torch in his left hand, with 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.559 his right arm extended in a Nazi salute. And then 0:10:07.640 --> 0:10:11.600 there's Tyler Dykes again on January sixth, twenty twenty one, 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:15.199 on the steps of the Capitol Building, turning to face 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.040 the mob below after fighting his way up to the doors, 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:24.360 giving the same salute. A few months ago, Tyler Dykes 0:10:24.480 --> 0:10:28.319 was handed a fifty seven month federal sentence for assaulting 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:31.160 police officers during the January sixth riot at the Capitol 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:34.920 in twenty twenty one. If you're trying to do some 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.680 math in your head right now, I'll tell you fifty 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:41.840 seven months is just shy of five years. But a 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.559 federal prison sentence is kind of like a baby in 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:49.520 that you always measure it in months, not years, and 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:51.640 only the people who have to deal with the time 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.200 in question feel like that makes any sense at all. 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:59.679 In the sentencing memorandum written by his defense attorney, he's 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:03.520 just decribed as an impressionable young man. He was just 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.200 twenty one years old when he traveled to Washington, d C. 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:10.640 With his friends from church. They said he'd been influenced 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:14.480 by the NonStop media coverage and President Trump's social media 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:19.120 posts into believing that the election had been stolen. He 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:25.720 made incredibly poor decisions. His attorney conceded, but he never 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.760 planned to engage in any violence. He was just young 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.600 and impetuous, and he got caught up in the crowd. 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:38.360 He was a United States Marine. He was a boy scout, 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.880 quite literally. The defense sentencing memo cites his accomplishments as 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.840 an Eagle Scout. He was just a nice young man 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:49.800 who goes to church every Sunday and runs a small 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:53.840 IT services company and takes care of his elderly parents. 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:57.800 How could he possibly be the kind of person who 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.679 deserves to go to federal prison for making a little mistake. 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:08.240 But that wasn't quite the whole picture. Not that those 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:13.400 things aren't mostly true. They are, but it's a spit 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:18.720 shined image of a much darker situation. Tyler Dykes was 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:21.800 indeed a member of the United States Marine Corps. On 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:26.439 January sixth, twenty twenty one, he was a US Marine 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:28.599 when he wrenched the riot shield from the hands of 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.079 a US Capitol police officer and then used that shield 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.400 to force his way through the police line and into 0:12:34.400 --> 0:12:39.000 the Capitol building. And he remained a United States Marine 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.160 until he was given an other than honorable discharge in 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:47.800 twenty twenty two. The revelations that unraveled his life came 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.720 out of order. He wasn't identified as a Unite the 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:56.319 Right attendee until twenty twenty two, after he'd already participated 0:12:56.320 --> 0:13:00.320 in the January sixth riot in twenty twenty one. He 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:03.600 wasn't identified as the man putting swastika stickers around town 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.920 in twenty twenty until he was discharged from the Marines 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:11.040 for it in twenty twenty two, and he wasn't identified 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:14.280 as a participant in the January sixth riot until July 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:18.120 of twenty twenty three, after he'd been convicted for his 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:22.720 conduct at Unite the Right. The consequences of his actions 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:26.600 always seemed to come a little too late, after he'd 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:31.680 already been emboldened by an apparent lack thereof. At his 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.520 federal sentencing hearing a few months ago, he told the 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.520 judge that he was high on adrenaline during the Capitol 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:41.760 riot and said, I falsely believed that I would be 0:13:41.840 --> 0:13:46.880 free of consequences. But maybe we should start at the 0:13:46.920 --> 0:13:52.960 beginning rather than the end. In August of twenty seventeen, 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.959 Tyler Dykes was nineteen years old. He'd taken a year 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:00.160 off after high school and was living at home home 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:02.920 with his parents in North Carolina that summer after spending 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:07.000 his gap year abroad in Romania. He'd been accepted to 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:10.000 Cornell University and would be moving into his dorm at 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.679 the end of the month. Just a week before new 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:18.280 student orientation at Cornell, he took one last trip before 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:25.480 starting college. He came here to Charlottesville on the evening 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:29.600 of August eleventh, twenty seventeen. Tyler Dyke stood among the 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.920 hundreds of men who gathered at Nameless Field. It's a 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:39.680 confusing name, Nameless Field. It isn't nameless. It has a name. 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:45.040 The name is nameless Field. I wonder what kind of 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.760 who's on first type conversations happened over text message that 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:53.160 night as the crowd assembled. But there he was in 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.680 the field, down by the tennis courts behind the library, 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:01.240 and he was handed a torch, and he found a 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:06.560 place in line, and he marched. He chanted with the 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.880 crowd as this river of flames wound its way through 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:20.360 the university grounds. Blood and soil, Blood and soil. You 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:27.680 will not replace us, Jews will not replace us. Fuck off, 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:31.560 commis this is our town now, they shouted on the 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:37.960 empty streets as they passed empty buildings. Blood and soil, 0:15:40.040 --> 0:15:46.320 blood and soil, blood and soil. They chanted until they 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.640 could taste the blood in their own mouths from shouting 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:55.200 themselves hoarse, blood and soil, until they saw blood red. 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:57.880 When the small group of students at the base of 0:15:57.920 --> 0:16:03.320 the Thomas Jefferson Statue came into view, the streets had 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:08.920 been empty until the march filled them. The libraries were empty, 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:17.720 the dorms were empty. The academic and administrative buildings were empty. 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.120 But as the march reached the top of the rotunda steps, 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.560 looking down into the brick plaza below, they knew they 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:30.520 weren't alone anymore. They knew what they were doing. As 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:35.840 they came down those steps, each man, torch in hand, 0:16:35.920 --> 0:16:40.400 had a moment. At the top of those stairs, each 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.680 marcher could see from that vantage point the tiny group 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:52.880 in the plaza below, students, many of them still just teenagers, 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:57.680 holding a home made banner that read UVA Students Against 0:16:57.720 --> 0:17:04.240 White Supremacy, And in that moment on those steps, each 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.119 of them made the choice to follow the man in 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.600 front of him. As the march wound its way around 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:17.959 the statue, around the students, circling around, arching wide and 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:25.600 then tightening up, encircling them and closing them in. As 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.720 the ring of fire closed around the statue around those students, 0:17:30.760 --> 0:17:36.080 the violence began almost immediately. Verbal altercations gave way to 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:40.240 fists shouted epithets were chased through the air by streams 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:45.440 of pepper spray. A lit torch was swung, making contact 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:48.800 with a counter protester trying to shield those terrified young people. 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:56.640 I've watched this video a hundred times, a thousand, maybe, 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.520 and I still flinch as the flame arcs towards someone 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:05.399 that I count among my closest friends. I tell you 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:08.760 that not to pull at your heart strings. You don't 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:11.040 need to know that that video still makes my chest 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:15.560 feel tight. I'm telling you because I want you to know. 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:20.000 I'm not objective about this. I don't pretend to be. 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:25.359 I don't want to be. I don't believe in this 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:31.159 myth of journalistic objectivity. Everybody has a thumb on the 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:36.160 scale somewhere. Most people just lie about it to you 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:43.240 or even to themselves. Of course, I have a bias here. 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:49.000 I live here. I've sat in courtrooms and in coffee shops, 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:51.760 and on long car rides and on living room couches 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.679 with people who are hurt that night. But even if 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.639 I had no connection to these people or to this place, 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:03.159 no secret that as a researcher of white supremacist violence 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:10.760 in America, my starting position is always against fascism, against Nazism, 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:15.720 against violence done in the name of white supremacy. And 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:19.280 I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. As 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.960 sociologist and expert on political violence, doctor Peter Seemi, once 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.879 set on the stand, no one is ever surprised to 0:19:26.960 --> 0:19:31.480 find out that a cancer researcher is interested in preventing cancer. 0:19:33.720 --> 0:19:38.959 So yes, I have a stake in this, But you 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:43.960 do too. Maybe you don't know it yet, you don't 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:48.040 know these people. But I choose to betray my own 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:52.440 lack of objectivity here to get you to think about yours, 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.200 because I don't think you should be objective about this. 0:19:56.960 --> 0:19:59.920 There is no special prize to be won by being 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:06.920 the most diligently neutral observer of fascist violence. You and I, listener, 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.480 We are not jurors. We are not ruling on the law. 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.159 We are people who have to live in this world. 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.720 You should feel something you can't shove down when you 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:24.280 see a man who proudly calls himself a Nazi. Swing 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.399 a flaming torch at someone who is trapped, someone whose 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.679 only crime is not wanting hate to go unchallenged in 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:36.440 a public square. And that's where Tyler Diykes was that night, 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:41.200 right at the center of this melee. As the air 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:44.359 filled with screams and the burning scent of pepper spray, 0:20:45.560 --> 0:20:50.320 Tyler Diykes was fist fighting anyone he could reach. Videos 0:20:50.359 --> 0:20:54.360 showed Dikes was the last one still fighting. He threw 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:57.400 the last punch of the night, even as everyone else 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.680 seemed to be coming to their senses. When the counter 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:05.119 protesters were finally able to escape from the mob, the 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:09.359 torch marchers took the statue. Several of them climbed the 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:15.159 plinth and cheered for the victory they'd won. Seeg Kile 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:22.520 Hail victory they shouted. Video shows Tyler Dikes pacing back 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:26.240 and forth in front of the statue, right arm extended 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:44.200 in a Nazi salute. After the deadly rally, the next morning, 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.840 Tyler Diykes went home. He started at Cornell a few 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:53.120 weeks later, but they didn't go well. He dropped out 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.240 after a few months and enlisted in the Marines instead, 0:21:57.160 --> 0:21:59.600 and it seems like that may not have gone well either. 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:02.560 After a few months of training, he was discharged to 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:06.280 the Reserves and returned home, which was now South Carolina. 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:12.160 He started an IT company, calling himself the Technology King 0:22:12.240 --> 0:22:15.200 of the Low Country, and made house calls to help 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:19.399 suburban grandparents set up their Wi Fi routers. And when 0:22:19.440 --> 0:22:22.760 he wasn't troubleshooting a customer's computer or going to church, 0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:26.800 he was hanging Swastika banners from highway overpasses with his 0:22:26.880 --> 0:22:30.640 friends in the Southern Sons Active Club, a white supremacist 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:35.320 organization operating in Georgia and the Carolinas. A regional cell 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:40.800 of the larger international network of Active Clubs. These Active 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:47.080 clubs are, to put it succinctly, Nazi fight clubs. They 0:22:47.080 --> 0:22:50.800 were inspired by Robert Rundo's Rise Above movement, the Southern 0:22:50.800 --> 0:22:54.679 California based Nazi street fighting outfit that brawled their way 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:58.160 across the country at right wing political rallies throughout twenty seventeen. 0:23:00.000 --> 0:23:06.000 There's no centralized leadership or organizational structure. Active clubs operate 0:23:06.080 --> 0:23:11.160 regionally and are operationally independent from one another. They share 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:13.919 a love of mixed martial arts. Both as a hobby 0:23:14.080 --> 0:23:17.600 and as training for a coming race war, and engage 0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:20.480 in the kind of propaganda campaigns common among groups like 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:25.080 Patriot Front, so hanging banners with racist slogans from bridges 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:29.399 and plastering stickers on street signs and mailboxes around town. 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:34.720 There are active clubs all over the United States, Canada, 0:23:35.119 --> 0:23:38.200 and Europe, as well as a faltering effort led by 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:42.720 Thomas Seole to get them going in Australia. Each club 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:47.560 operates independently, but they network and meet up even across 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:51.520 national borders, and there is quite a bit of cross 0:23:51.560 --> 0:23:56.280 pollination between the active clubs and other violent white supremacist organizations. 0:23:57.440 --> 0:23:59.359 They tend to be on good terms with groups like 0:23:59.359 --> 0:24:03.560 Patriot Front, and several notable active club members have ties 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:08.840 to Adam Waffen and Terogram. Andrew Takstov, the New Jersey 0:24:08.880 --> 0:24:12.840 teenager and Terogram collective chat member arrested this summer, was 0:24:12.880 --> 0:24:15.240 a member of an active club cell in New Jersey. 0:24:16.480 --> 0:24:20.280 Active clubs in Finland are involved in paramilitary training of 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:24.480 Karelian separatist groups that fight alongside the Russian Volunteer Corps, 0:24:24.960 --> 0:24:28.920 the same Nazi paramilitary group in Ukraine that Andrew Takestov 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:30.920 was on his way to join when he was arrested. 0:24:32.520 --> 0:24:36.560 All that to say, this isn't just guys lifting weights 0:24:36.600 --> 0:24:39.399 together and talking about their love of the white race. 0:24:40.640 --> 0:24:44.320 Active Club members on multiple continents have been arrested for 0:24:44.400 --> 0:24:49.280 acts of violence and for planning acts of terrorism. And 0:24:49.320 --> 0:24:52.360 the reason I can tell you with an unusually high 0:24:52.440 --> 0:24:55.359 degree of certainty that Tyler Dykes was a member of 0:24:55.400 --> 0:24:59.720 the Southern Suns Active Club is because of one particular, 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:05.000 no good, very bad day that he had on March seventeenth, 0:25:05.680 --> 0:25:11.159 twenty twenty three. You see, Tyler Dykes was indicted by 0:25:11.200 --> 0:25:16.120 a grand jury in Virginia in February of twenty twenty three, 0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:21.920 but he didn't know that nobody did. Grand juries are 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:25.639 secret things, and his indictment stayed sealed until he was 0:25:25.680 --> 0:25:29.200 taken into custody. And with an out of state warrant, 0:25:29.359 --> 0:25:32.359 you don't just send a local cop down to get him. 0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:38.560 You could, I suppose, but they didn't. The local prosecutor 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:41.320 where the charge is filed can ask cops in the 0:25:41.320 --> 0:25:45.040 city where they think he lives to go look for him, 0:25:45.080 --> 0:25:47.920 but they aren't always super interested in doing. Some out 0:25:47.960 --> 0:25:52.520 of town courts work for them. So oftentimes an out 0:25:52.520 --> 0:25:56.280 of state warrant just sort of sits open, waiting for 0:25:56.320 --> 0:25:58.320 you to step on it, like a rake on the ground. 0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:02.640 If you've ever been pulled over, you've seen a cop 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:06.520 take your license and walk back to his car. He's 0:26:06.560 --> 0:26:09.359 putting your name into a computer, and if you have 0:26:09.440 --> 0:26:13.240 an open warrant, he's going to find it. If you 0:26:13.320 --> 0:26:16.320 cross a border, or go through TSA, or get a 0:26:16.359 --> 0:26:20.440 speeding ticket, or have really almost any kind of interaction 0:26:20.600 --> 0:26:24.560 with a cop, they're going to run your name. And 0:26:24.600 --> 0:26:27.639 in Tyler Dyke's case, he was sitting in an emergency 0:26:27.680 --> 0:26:31.000 room in South Carolina making a police report about a 0:26:31.040 --> 0:26:38.640 dog bite. Saint Patrick's Day is a big deal in Savannah, Georgia. 0:26:39.920 --> 0:26:43.160 I'm not entirely sure why, and that wasn't a rabbit 0:26:43.160 --> 0:26:46.040 hole I let myself pursue this week, but it is. 0:26:47.240 --> 0:26:50.199 I'm sure there's some particular moment in history where the 0:26:50.200 --> 0:26:54.320 city had an unusually high concentration of irishmen, and the 0:26:54.359 --> 0:26:58.080 only lasting legacy is the nation's second most debaucherous green 0:26:58.160 --> 0:27:02.520 beer soaked parade. I was in Savannah for Saint Patrick's 0:27:02.560 --> 0:27:05.119 Day in two thousand and eight, but there was a 0:27:05.160 --> 0:27:09.680 tornado that weekend and the blackout closed most of the bar, 0:27:09.920 --> 0:27:14.119 so I don't think I got the full experience. And 0:27:14.160 --> 0:27:18.000 in twenty twenty three, the Southern Sun's Active Club had 0:27:18.000 --> 0:27:22.160 the brilliant idea that Saint Patrick's Day in Savannah would 0:27:22.160 --> 0:27:25.399 be the perfect time and the perfect place to hang 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.760 a Nazi banner from a highway overpass, because all the 0:27:28.840 --> 0:27:32.119 extra traffic in town meant more people would see their message. 0:27:33.960 --> 0:27:37.679 Thanks to an Atlanta based anti fascist research collective, we 0:27:37.800 --> 0:27:42.480 have an inside look at the private conversations Dykes and 0:27:42.520 --> 0:27:45.200 his friends had that day as they were going about 0:27:45.240 --> 0:27:49.560 trying to get that banner up. The day didn't start 0:27:49.600 --> 0:27:52.760 off well. The group had some trouble locating a good 0:27:52.800 --> 0:27:56.320 spot for their banner. They weren't the only ones who 0:27:56.400 --> 0:27:59.920 anticipated heavy traffic from tourists heading into town for the holiday. 0:28:01.000 --> 0:28:03.880 There were cops nearby several of the locations they'd hoped 0:28:03.880 --> 0:28:08.399 to hit. When they finally found a suitable spot, Tyler 0:28:08.480 --> 0:28:10.920 Dikes walked back to his car to get the tools 0:28:10.920 --> 0:28:14.240 they would need to hang the banner, but before he 0:28:14.320 --> 0:28:18.160 got back to his car, he encountered someone walking their dogs. 0:28:19.960 --> 0:28:23.720 Diykes claims that he was mauled by three pit bulls, 0:28:24.440 --> 0:28:26.440 but that seems like a bit of an over statement. 0:28:28.200 --> 0:28:30.879 In the infiltrated group chat, he posted a photo of 0:28:30.920 --> 0:28:36.040 a small, but unpleasant looking wound on his left pinky finger. 0:28:37.600 --> 0:28:39.600 I feel like you'd come away with more than a 0:28:39.720 --> 0:28:42.479 two inch cut on your little finger if you were 0:28:42.520 --> 0:28:47.520 truly attacked by even one dog, let alone three pit bulls. 0:28:47.560 --> 0:28:52.000 But we only have Tyler's word on this one. A 0:28:52.000 --> 0:28:55.000 little before six pm, he texted the Southern Son's group 0:28:55.120 --> 0:28:57.560 chat that he was headed to the hospital to have 0:28:57.600 --> 0:29:01.080 his hand looked at. While he was waiting to be 0:29:01.080 --> 0:29:03.720 seen at the hospital, he texted the group chat again 0:29:03.840 --> 0:29:06.280 to let them know that the plan had gone awry 0:29:06.400 --> 0:29:09.000 and unfortunately they hadn't been able to hang any of 0:29:09.000 --> 0:29:13.680 the banners that day, writing quite literally, everything that could 0:29:13.720 --> 0:29:17.160 possibly have gone wrong all happened at exactly the same time. 0:29:18.680 --> 0:29:22.960 Half an hour later, though, something else went very wrong 0:29:23.320 --> 0:29:27.560