Brutal Racist Skinhead Assault in Philadelphia Results in Victim’s Blinding

Racist skinheads have a long track record of brutal and vicious assaults and murders in the United States. Usually, they direct their extreme violence at perceived “enemies,” such as ethnic or religious minorities, members of the GLBT community, or anti-racist activists.

However, the racist skinhead subculture is an inherently violent one. When they have a mind to, racist skinheads can be just as brutal towards their own, as a recent shocking attack in northeast Philadelphia graphically demonstrated.

According to police reports, the attack occurred on May 6, 2012, when a racist skinhead, David Phillips, 43, was assaulted by two fellow white supremacists, Stephen Masten, 29, and Frank Casiano, 28, who allegedly kicked in the door to Phillips’ home and began beating him with sticks and a blackjack while threatening to kill him.

The police report states that the assailants repeatedly punched, kicked and stabbed Phillips—but that was not all. According to the victim, Masten tried to smother Phillips with a pillow, then gouged out the victim’s eyes with his bare hands, ripping them from their sockets. Phillips suffered multiple stab wounds and lacerations on his face and head, as well as broken eye sockets, and was permanently blinded by the assault. He remains hospitalized.

During the initial investigation, Phillips told police that the perpetrators were white supremacist comrades of his, while a fourth white supremacist who witnessed part of the assault allegedly identified the attackers as Masten and Casiano. The witness claimed the violent assault was an act of retaliation against Phillips because of a prior incident involving Phillips and Masten’s girlfriend while Masten was incarcerated on theft charges. Masten left prison on parole about two weeks prior to the assault.

A few days after the assault, Joshua Steever, founder of the small racist skinhead crew Aryan Terror Brigade (ATB) and currently living in New Jersey, began posting about the attack on the ATB’s on-line forum. Identifying Phillips as ATB’s Pennsylvania state representative, Steever asked forum members to donate money to help with his recovery.

Police arrested the two suspects on May 22, 2012, charging them with attempted murder, aggravated assault, conspiracy to commit murder, burglary, criminal trespassing, possession of an instrument of crime with intent, making terroristic threats with intent to terrorize another, simple assault, reckless endangerment to another person, and criminal mischief.

Masten and Casiano remain incarcerated with bail set at $3 million and $1 million, respectively. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 12, 2012.

May Not So Merry For White Supremacists

April ended with a shock to the racist world, as prominent Arizona white supremacist and border vigilante J.T. Ready fatally shot four people before turning his gun on himself.   White supremacists would not be given a chance to catch their breaths, however, as the month of May continued to serve them setback after setback.

Christopher Brooks of American Front

On the heels of the Ready murder-suicide came a high profile incident in Florida in early May, in which law enforcement officers rounded up almost the entire Florida contingent of the hardcore racist skinhead group American Front on weapons, paramilitary training, and hate crimes charges.  To date, authorities have made 14 arrests.  According to court documents, the group allegedly conducted paramilitary training to prepare for an “inevitable race war” and discussed possible acts of violence ranging from shooting at a house to attacking an anti-racist group.

This just set the stage for a wave of arrests and setbacks to the white supremacist movement in May, including:

• In mid-May, Virginia neo-Nazi Bill White became a fugitive, announcing that he had “left the country,” though authorities think otherwise.  White, who had been released from prison in April, missed a re-sentencing court hearing and possibly feared he might be sent back to prison.

•  On May 17, court documents revealed that a Minnesota white supremacist, Joseph Benjamin Thomas, arrested with another white supremacist a few weeks earlier on drug and weapons charges, respectively, had allegedly planned to attack the Mexican consulate in St. Paul.

• On May 19, anti-racist activists crashed a Chicago-area white supremacist event billed as an “economic summit,” attacking attendees and sending three to the hospital.  Police arrested five anti-racists on charges related to the attack.  Adding insult to injury, police also arrested two of the attendees of the white supremacist event—one for child pornography and the other for unlawful possession of weapons by a felon.

• On May 30, Joliet resident Brian Moudry, a long-time Chicago-area white supremacist associated with the Creativity Movement, was arrested on federal arson and civil rights charges in connection with the 2007 arson of an African-American family’s house a few doors down from Moudry’s.

• Also on May 30, agents from the Washington, D.C., Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Virginia white supremacist Douglas Howard Story for allegedly attempting to obtain a fully automatic AK-47.  Story had a track record of on-line comments about responding with violence to encounters with police and about how President Obama might be assassinated.

American Front Members Arrested on Hate Crimes, Conspiracy Charges

Patricia Faella

Federal, state and local authorities arrested much of the core membership of the Florida contingent of the white supremacist American Front this past weekend on hate crimes and conspiracy charges.   The American Front is one of the oldest hardcore racist skinhead groups in the United States, with a membership concentrated primarily in northern California and central Florida.

At least seven people, all from the greater Orlando area in central Florida, have been arrested; additional arrests may ensue.  Members picked up so far include Marcus Faella, 39; Patricia Faella, 36; Mark McGowan, 29; Jennifer McGowan, 25; Diane Stevens, 28; Kent McLellan, 22; and Paul Jackson, 25.   The Faellas have played something of a leadership role within the American Front since the shooting death of its previous leader, David Lynch, in California in 2011.

Marcus Faella

Prosecutors have charged the Faellas and the McGowans with criminal conspiracy and a hate crime.  McGowan and his wife Jennifer have reportedly also been charged with illegal paramilitary training—providing firearms or explosives training with the intention of committing civil disorder. Diane Stevens was also charged with criminal conspiracy and committing a hate crime.   Charging details for the others arrested are not yet available, nor has the nature of the alleged conspiracy yet been made public.

A number of Florida American Front members have been involved in criminal activity.  It was only in 2010 that McLellan was sentenced to a year in prison after being convicted of vandalizing a local restaurant and church with white supremacist graffiti in 2008.   In May 2010, another Florida American Front member, Christopher Brooks of St. Cloud, pleaded guilty in Virginia for his role in a synagogue vandalism there in 2009.  That same year, Florida American Front member Richard Adam Stockdale served time for battery charges.

The American Front is one of a large number of hate groups with a presence in Florida.  It includes subgroups such as the Valkyrie Corps for female members and the American Patriot Brigade for new members, referred to as “probates.”

White Supremacist Arrested for 2005 Arizona Murder

Source:  Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office

On March 9, 2012, Maricopa County authorities formally “arrested” Toby Ray Gaspard, a member of the Vinlanders Social Club (VSC), a violent racist skinhead group, for the 2005 murder of another racist skinhead, Cory Simpson.  The arrest gave notice that detectives had finally cracked a murder case nearly seven years old.

Simpson, 31 at the time of his murder, had been released from prison nearly a year earlier after serving four years on an armed robbery charge. He was one of the leaders of the Canyon State Skinheads (CSS), a local racist skinhead crew. The skinhead scene in Arizona in 2005 was complicated, thanks to the rise of the VSC and its growth through adopting members of local racist skinhead crews, including members of the Canyon State Skinheads.   

On December 24, 2005, Simpson attended a party in Mesa for local racist skinheads, held at Gaspard’s home. Gaspard was also a high-ranking CSS member.  The party turned ugly when other skinheads confronted Simpson. One of them repeatedly stabbed Simpson, leaving him bleeding on his front lawn. Simpson’s wife and another racist skinhead, Christopher Gromberg, took Simpson to a hospital, but he had been fatally wounded.

Gaspard became a suspect in the murders. However, witnesses, generally white supremacists who hated the police, were not exactly willing to talk.  Some may have also feared retaliation, which turned out to be a justifiable fear in April 2006, when Gromberg was shot to death, execution-style, with two shots to the back of the head (in November 2011, VSC member David Bounds was indicted for the murder of Gromberg).  

Mesa and Phoenix police (especially Phoenix’s Career Criminal Squad) did not give up on the case. In 2008, Gaspard was extradited from Oklahoma to Arizona to face questions about the Simpson murder (he would later be convicted on unrelated weapons charges and given a five year prison sentence, insuring his future availability). Finally, in January 2012, an indictment was handed down that charged Gaspard with second-degree murder, assisting a criminal syndicate, and misconduct involving weapons.  The formal arrest—a transfer from state prison to the Maricopa County Jail—occurred in March. 

ADL assisted Mesa and Phoenix police in the investigation from the day of the murder onwards.

Denver-area Shooting Latest in String of Extremist-Related Violent Confrontations with Police

 Police investigating a stolen vehicle in the Denver suburb of Englewood on February 23, 2012, unexpectedly found themselves facing an armed white supremacist with a history of violence—an encounter that eventually turned fatal. 

Jeremiah Barnum’s Colorado Department of Corrections photo

Source: Denver Westword

Earlier that day, Englewood police took two suspects into custody in connection with an allegedly stolen vehicle. Two officers remained behind to finish up paperwork, when they allegedly spotted a vehicle parked nearby whose driver was a “known associate” of the arrested suspects. The driver, later identified as Jeremiah Barnum, a long-time white supremacist with a history of violence, allegedly threatened police, who reportedly noticed that he had a “weapon” in his waistband (a gun was later found in the car). According to officers, Barnum “made a move like he was reaching for a gun” and the officers opened fire, wounding Barnum fatally.  An investigation into the shooting is pending.

In 1997, Barnum had briefly been infamous in Denver, after he and another white supremacist, Nathan Thill, were arrested for the brutal hate crime murder of an African immigrant, Oumar Dia. Thill eventually pleaded guilty in return for a sentence of life without parole. Barnum was initially convicted of murder, but his conviction was overturned by a judge. He eventually pleaded guilty to accessory to murder and received a 12-year sentence. During his stint in prison, he frequently appeared on lists of “Aryan Prisoners of War” circulated by white supremacists to get support for imprisoned fellow racists. He also became a member of the 211 Crew, a Colorado-based racist prison gang (Thill also became a 211 Crew member).

This shooting incident was merely the latest in a long string of confrontations across the country in which shots were fired between police and adherents of extremist movements.  Since 2009, ADL has identified some 24 such incidents, most of them related to white supremacists or anti-government extremists. 

The bulk of the incidents involved actual shootouts or exchanges of fire between police and extremists, while a handful of incidents were officer-involved shootings—typically after extremists attempted to draw weapons on the officers (or, in one instance, actually attempted to fire at police, only to have the gun jam). Six police officers have died in such confrontations, as well as a number of extremists, while others have been wounded or injured.