Phone calls to Solidarity AGM hotel needed

The BNP tradition of lying about itself seems to have filtered down to its front groups. Even when pretending to operate as a trades union, the party seems unable to be honest about what it is and what it stands for. Today is supposed to be the AGM of the BNP's fake union Solidarity (to begin at 2pm) and a conference room has been booked for it at the Apollo Hotel at Hagley Road, Birmingham - under the name of Accentuate, a fake PR company that is the sinecure of former National Front treasurer Graham Williamson.

We need to ring the hotel to let them know that Accentuate is simply a front group for Solidarity, itself a front group for the BNP and Patrick Harrington's Third Way grouplet. Harrington is yet another old Griffin comrade from his days in the National Front.

The Apollo Hotel can be called on 0121 455 5291. Remember to stay polite and persistent.

MSU-YAF Part of Skinhead’s Campus Speech Operations

Preston Wiginton (left, in the silly hat)

On Oct. 26, 2007 Nick Griffin, the Chairman of the British National Party, spoke at MSU. Griffin has a history of anti-Semitism, Holocaust Denial and racist remarks. The event on campus was sponsored by the Michigan State University Young Americans for Freedom (MSU-YAF), the first university affiliated hate group listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But MSU-YAF wasn’t alone in arranging the event. Griffin’s MSU speech was part of a larger three-university speaking tour for the British political leader. Before speaking at MSU, Griffin spoke at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas and Clemson University in Clemson, S.C. Behind all three events was one man, Preston Wiginton.

The Griffin tour coincided with, but was not part of, Islamofacist Awareness Week, a nationwide event arranged by conservative David Horowitz. Horowitz condemned the event by Griffin because of Griffin’s past statements denying the Holocaust.

I. Background

Wiginton and MSU-YAF Chair Kyle Bristow had known each other before the Nick Griffin speech. In Sept. 2007, MichiganMessenger.com reported that Bristow and Wiginton were co-administrators in two Facebook groups, “The American Patriot Movement” and “Jobs a White Man Won’t Do.” Both groups were anti-immigration groups with white nationalist leanings.

Despite this report, Bristow welcomed Wiginton and Griffin to campus. In a press release for the event Bristow said that YAF was honored to bring Nick Griffin to campus. Bristow hasn’t publicly changes his stance on Wiginton, even though in the week after bringing Griffin to MSU, Wiginton went to Russia to attend an anti-immigrant rally. The International Herald Tribune reported:

“As Preston Wiginton, a white supremacist from Texas, stepped forward to address thousands of Russian nationalists at a rally Sunday in Moscow, he lifted his black cowboy hat high in the air.

‘I'm taking my hat off as a sign of respect for your strong identity in ethnicity, nation and race,’ he said, exposing his close-cropped head to a freezing drizzle.

‘Glory to Russia,’ Wiginton, 43, said in broken Russian, as the crowd of mostly young Russian men raised their right hands in a Nazi salute and chanted ‘white power!’ in English.”

II. Trouble in Texas

The Nick Griffin speech at MSU was not the first college event arranged by Wiginton. As far back as 2005 Wiginton was going to campus to promote his white nationalist views against non-white immigration.

Wiginton took part in arranging a speaking tour for author Frosty Wooldridge, an anti-immigration author and activist.

The purpose of the tour was to gather signatures on a petition against Texas House Bill 1403, a law which gave children of illegal immigrants in-state college tuition rates if they had graduated from a Texas high school and lived in the state for three years.

Wiginton was by Wooldridge’s side at the stops on the tour. Wooldridge faced protests from pro-immigrant groups, and conservative groups as well. At the University of Houston College Republicans joined with College Democrats to oppose Wooldridge’s petition. Student Government Association Speaker Pro-Tem Mark Annas, a member of the UH College Republicans, told the University of Houston student newspaper the Daily Cougar.

"He called and asked if I would sponsor his petition against the bill, and I said ‘no way,'" Annas said. "College Republicans won't support something that prevents people from getting an education."

The College Republicans weren’t the only group to get an invitation to host Wooldridge. David Morris, then Chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas at Texas A&M University, received an invitation from Wiginton. Morris wrote in the Texas A&M Battalion about the invitation:

“He assured me that he had already spoken to the state officers of YCT and received permission to have similar events sponsored across Texas. With that assurance in mind, I went about setting up the speaking event.

It occurred to me to check up on Preston before I finalized the event, so I called the state officers to talk to them about it and, to my suprise [sic], they had never heard of Preston Wiginton and, in fact, had no idea what I was talking about.”

In a phone interview Morris explained why he looked into Wiginton before the event.

“It’s just that I didn’t want to host an event about someone I had never heard of,” Morris said.

Morris was not on campus the day of the Wooldridge event, but another member of the Young Conservatives of Texas went to observe. Morris said Wiginton was handing out literature opposing immigration on racial and ethnic grounds, which was not what the event had been advertised as. Morris said he was approached later by Wiginton during the university open house.

“We had our university open house at the event for all the organizations. He came up and wanted to talk to me and basically bragged about all the events he had hosted. He told me ‘I’ve even had skinheads at my events’” Morris said.

Morris said he didn’t approve of Wiginton’s methods or events.

“I have a very negative opinion about him. He was not straightforward about the event and felt he had to lie about our state offices giving him approval,” Morris said.

Morris wasn’t the only one who opposed Wiginton’s role in the tour. At the University of Houston, The Daily Cougar wrote an editorial, opposing Wooldridge’s stance on immigration but approving of the way he handled himself.

“Wooldridge never even delivered a speech, opting to carry on a few quiet conversations with protesters. Whether it was self-preservation or a genuine desire for intelligent discourse motivating him, Wooldridge tried to keep things civil, unlike the event's organizer, Preston Wiginton. If Wooldridge's relative respectfulness wasn't an act, he proved himself better than the vitriolic hate-mongers who share his extreme views on immigration”

By 2007 Wiginton had enrolled at Texas A&M and begun a campaign to push his white nationalist views. Wiginton posted on Stormfront about his challenge to Dr. Tito Guerrero, Associate Provost of Diversity at Texas A&M, to debate Jared Taylor.

Wiginton attended a diversity symposium set up to address racial tension at the university. Wiginton protested parts of the speech. The Battalion reported:

“[Wiginton] interrupted Feagin's explanation that racism on an institutional level occurs only by white people.

“Sir, you're lying and I'm having a hard time listening to this,” interjected Preston Wiginton. “I hate to see young minds get lied to.”

Wiginton later said he was not a racist but that he was a racial realist who believes that genetics and behavior make people different. About 20 students and community members approached Wiginton following the symposium to express their disapproval of his disruption.

Wiginton, class="storybody" working with the Aggie Independents, also hosted Nick Griffin at Texas A&M.

III. Shenanigans in South Carolina

Preston Wiginton’s next campus speech came on April 9, 2007. Wiginton, working with the Clemson Conservatives, hosted Jared Taylor, the editor of the white nationalist Web site American Renaissance.

Taylor spoke about multiculturalism as a weakness to the country and claimed that racial segregation was a natural state of being.

Preston Wiginton wrote in the online comment section of the Clemson newspaper, The Daily Tiger, praising the way the students at Clemson handled the event.

He also posted on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront (under the name ruskybound) calling for donations to support more speeches by Jared Taylor for fall 2007.

The speech was aided by Nathanael Strickland, a Clemson student with a history of anti-Semitic remarks and white supremacy beliefs. Clemson’s The Tiger reported him as being fundamental in arranging the speech. Strickland would be even more important when Griffin was looking for schools to host Nick Griffin’s American tour.

Griffin’s speech in Clemson almost didn’t happen. According to the White nationalist Western Voices World News, conservative groups backed out of sponsoring Griffin when they discovered parts of his past. But the event did go on.

“Thanks to one dedicated student the show will go on,” the article said.

A FOIA request to Clemson University for reservation documents showed that one student to be Nathanael Strickland.

IV. Why Universities?

Wiginton’s work setting up speakers at universities has come to the attention of civil rights groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

Carrie Waggoner, assistant director of the Michigan Region for the Anti-Defamation League, said that Wiginton was likely trying to draw attention to his ideas by hosting events on campus.

“He is likely trying to draw attention to and support for his point of view on immigration and white nationalism,” Waggoner said. “Ideas like Holocaust denial and white nationalism/white supremacy are not generally accepted by academia but may be discussed as concepts in a classroom setting.”

Waggoner couldn’t speak to the immigration debate issues, but said there were also strong pro immigrant views as well. Waggoner said that the message Wiginton was trying to send did concern the Anti-Defamation League.

“The ADL is a strong supporter of the First Amendment, so we recognize and support Mr. Wiginton’s right to express his point of view and to organize these events,” Waggoner said. “However, ADL finds it very troubling that such anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic rhetoric is being expressed on our campuses. It is important for students, faculty and community members to speak out against hate speech and make it known that they do not support these types of speakers.”

Wiginton declined to be interviewed for this article.

Original article by Philip Rodney Moon
Spartan Edge

Extremists target youth

Extreme right wing political group the National Front has set up a youth group in Chippenham, despite huge opposition from schools and parents.

The group, whose conditions of membership include no homosexuals, must be of white parentage and partners must also be white', has already held two meetings in the town.

At the latest meeting on February 16, more than 25 youngsters from the age of 14 attended and awards were handed out to individuals for their work for the organisation.

When the Gazette broke the news of the National Front's arrival in Chippenham in September, schools were outraged that the party intended to hand out leaflets at the gates to attract young members.

Gerard MacMahon, head teacher at Sheldon School, said: "I am confident that our pupils would not have any involvement with an organisation which is involved in the stirring or spreading of hate.

"At the school we would have nothing to do with an organisation like that - Sheldon will have nothing to do with them.

"As an immigrant myself, I am not at all interested in what they have got to say."

News that the party has managed to establish a youth group in town has come as a shock to many. Mum-of-two teenagers Emma Fitzwarren, 44, of Eastern Avenue said: "I think it is totally disgusting they have infiltrated the town - why have people even given them the time of day?

"I have warned my children about getting involved with the racists and I know they would never be sucked into it.

"I am now just concerned about other children. They might feel pressured to join and that could lead to horrendous consequences. I plead with all parents to make sure their children are not involved."

A spokesman for Wiltshire College said: "We are an inclusive organisation and we would be very concerned about any association with groups who do not share our values, particularly those who would seek to discriminate against groups or individuals."

Steve Reynolds, executive member of the National Front, said: "Many issues arose, one on their safety and their fears of being attacked by others. Some expressed concern for their elderly relatives, claiming they had been failed by the system and others in the community. We also touched on the closure of Lacock Post Office."

Gazette and Herald

Bad blood: attack illuminates skinhead underworld

They left Amanda Crow to die under an ironwood tree. Paralyzed, the 19-year-old lay on her back in a remote wash, studying its thorny branches and teardrop leaves. Blood from her slashed throat and stab wounds pooled around her body in a scarlet aura. A night passed, then a day, then another night. Twice, she watched the Day-Glo bloom of a desert sunrise while flies and ants feasted on her blood.

Delirious, Crow imagined at times that she was home in bed, with a heavy blanket wrapped tight around her, forcing her to lay still. It was mid-morning, almost 40 hours after she'd been beaten, knifed and abandoned, when she heard the crunch of tires. "Help!" she gasped, in the strongest voice she could muster. To the man who found her, it sounded like the cooing of a dove.

Crow was airlifted to a hospital, where doctors put her on a respirator after tweezing the insects from her throat and perforated torso. Her left lung was collapsed. Her spinal cord was pierced at neck-level.

The ensuing police investigation culminated in the arrest of four neo-Nazi skinheads on charges of attempted murder and kidnapping, and two of them face trial next spring. But already, voluminous police reports, crime scene photos, interrogation transcripts and court documents related to the attack on Crow, along with interviews with investigators, ex-skinheads, and those close to Crow and her accused attackers shed light on the secretive, criminal subculture of racist skinheads in America's fourth-largest metropolis. The inhabitants of this chaotic and violent underworld boast of virtues like "Aryan pride" and "racial unity." But in reality, they are just as dangerous to their own kind as they are to non-whites and Jews, the declared targets of their hate and rage.

Crow was a victim of skinhead violence. But she was also a skinhead, a fact which did nothing to dissuade her "racial brothers and sisters" from literally stabbing her in the back.

Pride and Prejudice

Three years before her throat was cut, Crow was a rebellious teenager growing up in a lower-middle-class West Phoenix neighborhood where whites were the minority. The student body at her high school was 76% Hispanic. Students were allowed to wave the Mexican flag, but school officials reprimanded her when she pinned a Confederate battle flag to her backpack. She felt persecuted.

At the same time, the skinhead scene in Phoenix was making a very public comeback, as a local group of skins who would eventually call themselves the North American Skinheads (the crew went through a series of name changes) was surging in numbers, violence and public attention.

In October 2002, soon after Crow began her junior year of high school, four racist skinheads stomped a young white man to death outside a pool hall. As news of the murder coursed through the Phoenix media, the brash and brutal leaders of this new crop of Phoenix skins, rather than shying away from scrutiny, courted publicity by granting television and newspaper interviews as they continued to organize skinhead events and actively recruit young people into the movement.

Crow became a skinhead in early March 2003, after she wandered into a Phoenix pool hall and wandered out holding a flier advertising an upcoming "Aryan Barbecue" in a mostly minority neighborhood.

With long dark hair, and at a shapely 5 feet 10 inches, Crow looked quite a bit older than 16. One of the Aryan barbecue's principal organizers, former Phoenix skinhead leader Sean Gaines, describes Crow back then as sweet, needy and hopelessly unaware of what she was getting herself into.

"She brought this girl who was part Jewish to the barbecue. That shows how naïve and how young they were," Gaines told the Intelligence Report from his Phoenix jail cell, where he's awaiting trial for capital murder in a separate case. "I tried to tell her to stay out of trouble."

But Crow didn't see trouble, only acceptance. She'd found a world where the sort of thinking that got her in trouble at school was openly celebrated. At the barbecue — which organizers say drew 80 skinheads — swastika flags were draped from the park's ramada, white-power music raged from an overtaxed boom box, and young men in wifebeaters, red suspenders, and steel-toed boots strutted among the picnic tables oozing testosterone.

Skin Tight

Among the "boots" at the park that spring Sunday was Jason Shakofsky, 23, a brooding, 6-foot-tall, 250-pound amateur tattoo artist who repossessed cars for a living.

Shakofsky, whose older brother David was a Florida Aryan Nations recruiter killed in a 1994 car accident, had come onto the Phoenix scene a few months earlier.

Usually, new recruits were tested for loyalty before gaining acceptance. Not Shakofsky. There was no need. Shakofsky's violent temper was evident early on, recalls Gaines. His home was draped in Nazi flags and cluttered with weapons, including two handguns, a shotgun, a rifle and a fully automatic assault rifle. Clips and shells were everywhere, and a crossbow and arrows hung from the wall.

Crow and Shakofsky embarked on a whirlwind skinhead romance. She moved out of her parents' house into his a week after they met and began hanging out with skinheads full time, often wearing one of Shakofsky's Skrewdriver T-shirts. She didn't know the significance of the shirt depicting the seminal skinhead band. All she knew was that it was white power, it was Shakofsky's, and now so was she.

On Shakofsky's orders, a fellow skinhead shaved Crow's head into a "Chelsea," with tendrils framing her face. She dyed her remaining hair blonde by dunking her head in a bowl of bleach. Two weeks after her debut on the scene, Crow had completely morphed into a full-blown "skinbyrd."

When skinhead leader Joshua Fiedler invited a newspaper photographer to his home to take photos of his crew that same month, Crow and Shakofsky were there, posing defiantly in front of a Nazi flag with his arm draped around her belly.

Shakofsky was carrying a gun, and Crow was carrying his child that night, although she didn't yet know she was pregnant.

'Hate and Discontent'

Crow had a difficult pregnancy, and the couple fought constantly. The birth of their daughter, Hayley, in December 2003 did little to improve their relationship. "Man, I wish I could get away from that bitch," Shakofsky told fellow skinheads.

They finally split up six months later. Crow took the baby and moved back in with her parents. Shakofsky began dating Jessica Bruner, a divorcée with two children. Bruner was by her own account raised in the neo-Nazi movement and enjoyed spreading "hate and discontent," according to her online profile.

Although Bruner and Crow clashed horribly at first, they became tenuous friends, a relationship Bruner cultivated in order to wrest control of Hayley away from Crow. Bruner and Shakofsky told Crow they had gotten married and that a court had awarded them full custody of the child. Crow foolishly believed these lies because she trusted Bruner.

Her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and father of her child remained as stormy as ever. Numerous instant messages recovered by police show Crow begging for time with her daughter and Shakofsky accusing her of being a bad mother and a child abuser. "All you were supposed to be was a fuck, Amanda, that is it," Shakofsky wrote in one exchange. "Shit got out of hand. … Never my intention to have you in my life forever." Crow retaliated by reminding Shakofsky that she knew about crimes he'd committed that had gone unpunished. "They don't get along, they argue," Bruner later told detectives. "There's a lot of bad blood there."

Crow told several friends that Shakofsky repeatedly threatened to find her and slit her throat if she ever took Hayley and disappeared, which is exactly what she was planning to do in early 2006. She confided in Bruner that she was going to get herself and her daughter away from Shakofsky by moving to Texas and starting a new life.

Bruner allegedly told Shakofsky of Crow's plans, juicing up her account with a tall tale about Crow hiring a member of the Aryan Brotherhood to kill him. Tired of Crow's bickering, enraged by her plans to run away and her veiled threats to talk to law enforcement about his criminal acts, Shakofsky allegedly told Bruner to "handle the situation" on a certain night when he made sure he was at work repossessing cars to establish an alibi.

Into the Darkness

Although some of the details of that night are disputed, evidence compiled by police, including Crow's own account, suggests this is what occurred next. Bruner enlisted two other skinheads, Kelly Harkins and Edward Ware, to help her "handle" Crow.

Ware, 27, was the son of Baptist ministers who conducted Bible studies in their home. Although one-quarter Japanese, Ware had been a skinhead for 11 years. He had "White" tattooed on one forearm and "Pride" on the other. He had known Crow for several years. She used to babysit for his five children, who at the time of the assault had been turned over to relatives because Ware had gone off the deep end.

Standing 6 foot 3 inches and weighing in at 260 pounds, the self-described skinhead "enforcer" had been drinking heavily over the past four months and quit taking the medications prescribed to him to curb his anxiety and bipolar tendencies — including daily doses of 2000 milligrams of Depakote, a mood stabilizer, and 600 milligrams of the anti-psychotic Seroquel.

Harkins was a hard-line skinhead whose husband, also a skinhead, was a Marine dispatched to Iraq. She had been married several times before and had three children she abandoned to relatives. Harkins lived in Tucson where she worked as a caregiver in a rest home, and she had a large outline of a swastika on her back that Bruner, also a tattoo artist, worked on filling in over the weekend Crow was assaulted.

Bruner drove 90 miles south of Phoenix to Tucson to bring Harkins up for the occasion that Friday night. "Amanda's a snitch," Bruner allegedly told her. "Jason wants us to take care of it."

The next afternoon, Harkins says she watched Bruner crush up a pill and slip it into a bottle of Smirnoff Ice with the intention of drugging Crow before the attack.

Bruner invited Crow, who was due at work later that night, to attend a bonfire in the desert west of Phoenix. Crow agreed. Bruner drove her extended-cab Ford pickup, and Harkins sat in the middle of the front seat with Ware riding shotgun. Crow sat in the back with her daughter, Bruner's 5-year-old son and 6-month-old baby girl.

When they hit the freeway Bruner broke out the Smirnoff Ice and offered one to Crow. "Chug it," Bruner is said to have told her. But Crow sensed something was up. Her bottle had a different colored cap than the others, and it tasted funny. Crow dumped it out on the floorboards and watched the city lights fade as the truck headed into the desert under a waxing moon.

Bruner asked Crow if she was ready to earn her red laces, symbolic in the skinhead culture of spilling blood for the cause.

Crow was. After nearly three years in the movement it was about time she advanced in rank. Bruner, in her reds herself, had the authority and stature to bring her up.

Ware was a rat, Bruner explained, and Crow would have to beat him down.

Crow looked at Ware in the front seat and when he didn't react her suspicions turned to dread. Bruner pulled off the pavement onto a crude dirt road south through the desert until they reached a pullout near a small wash. There were no cars. No fellow skinheads. No bonfire. They told Amanda to get out, left the children in the truck and walked her into the darkening desert.

Blood, Boots and Betrayal

"We're here to kick your ass and you know why," Ware told Crow as the trio moved in on her, encircling her and yelling angrily. "You fucking narc! You fucking whore! You fat fuck! You smell like a nigger!" Bruner allegedly punched her in the face and spat on her. "Are you a narc?" Harkins shouted as she pummeled Crow. "I'm not a narc!" Crow protested, trying to defend herself. "Jessica is just trying to get my daughter!"

The beating swung into full force. They hit her with closed fists, kicked her with steel-toed boots and pelted her with large rocks, calling her a rat all the while.

Crow was knocked to the ground. Ware stomped on her head with his boots, then grabbed her by the hair and lifted her to a kneeling position. The rocks bouncing off her head had splattered his clothes with her blood.

Ware placed his hand on top of Crow's head and punched her in the jaw.

"Why do you think they brought me out here?" he asked Crow menacingly. Ware later told detectives that it was at that moment she must have realized what was about to happen. He could see it in her eyes.

Ware tried to break her neck. When after several tries it wouldn't break, Ware got frustrated and called for a knife — a Smith and Wesson SWAT folding knife with a four-inch blade that Harkins had tucked in her purse. Ware admits he stabbed her once in the chest and walked away. Crow says he stabbed her repeatedly and slashed her throat.

The attack took less than 10 minutes.

"Let's get out of here, I'm freezing," Bruner allegedly said. Ware looked at the blood on his hands. "I'm getting sloppy," he commented.

When they came back to the truck, blood-spattered and disheveled, they told the kids that Crow was a monster and needed to be killed.

On the drive back to Bruner's home, they all agreed that this was a night that officially never happened.

Covering Up

The three stayed over at Bruner's home, where Bruner allegedly gathered their bloody clothes and Crow's purse and cell phone in a plastic garbage bag and boiled the knife. The next morning, Harkins and Bruner allegedly took the truck to a car wash and scrubbed the inside with ammonia and bleach to destroy blood evidence.

When he awoke Monday afternoon, Shakofsky ordered those involved to scatter. Harkins left to visit fellow skinheads Joshua Krueger and Jacob Stevens. Their home in Wittman, Ariz., had a swastika poster and SS flags in the bedrooms, a Skrewdriver banner in the living room, and pistols and swastika knives lying about. Ware and Bruner soon followed, allegedly bringing with them the garbage bag full of evidence and tossing it in a burn barrel in the back yard. The group partied in front of the fire.

The next day, when they learned Crow had been found and was alive, Ware says he and Bruner threw their boots in a Dumpster, but not before Bruner removed her bloody laces and gave them to Ware as a token of her appreciation.

Bruner called Harkins. "Amanda survived," she is said to have warned her friend. "You better get out of town." Harkins bought a long red wig and asked a friend to lie for her should anyone come around asking questions about where she was Sunday night.

But Bruner could barely contain herself, and walked across her driveway to talk with next-door neighbor, Chris Powers.

"Did you hear about Jason's girlfriend? She was found in the desert?" Bruner asked Powers, according to his later account to police.

"What, a car accident?" Powers replied.

"No, she was stabbed and sliced up."

Shakofsky came over and followed Bruner into Powers' kitchen where she had gone to get some ice. "Don't say anything!" Powers heard him yell. Later that week, Shakofsky brought the couple's computer over and asked Powers to store it at his house.

"I had nothing to do with it," Bruner told Powers' wife. "If I had, I would have made sure she was dead."

Busted Skins

Today, Amanda Crow, who lives with her daughter at her parent's home, has complete and irreversible paralysis on the right side of her body. She gets around in an electric wheelchair, attends extensive physical therapy sessions and needs constant care. Her injuries were so severe that for two weeks she could only communicate with detectives by answering yes or no questions.

On Jan. 24, doctors removed her breathing tube and she described her ordeal to police, naming her attackers from her hospital bed, although she was terrified they would come back and finish the job. (Citing the upcoming trial, Crow declined to comment for this story.)

Police conducted a coordinated early morning sweep three weeks later, on Valentine's Day, taking Bruner, Ware and Harkins into custody. Their loyalty to the skinhead cause evaporated rapidly in the heat of attempted murder charges. Although Harkins and Ware each minimized their own involvement, they were quick to finger the others.

Just a minute into her interview, Harkins became every bit the narc she accused Crow of being on the night they'd almost killed her.

"I know who did it," she told the detective. "Jessica planned the whole thing."

Harkins tried to ingratiate herself. She dropped the names of two police officers she knew in Tucson and mentioned that cops get a discount at her uncle's shoe repair business. She worried aloud about losing her job and getting evicted from her apartment.

"Everyone, you know, thinks I'm a bad person. I was just raised Aryan. And I'm not — I'm not a violent person," she told police.

Shakofsky, for his part, denied any prior knowledge of the assault, which he claimed was all Bruner, Ware and Harkins' doing, a story that sharply contradicted his fiancée's claim that she was home feeding and bathing the children that night. "Supposedly, [Crow] was taken out there and there's a guy named Eddie: he's the one that did it," he said.

"And how do we know this?" the detective asked him.

"Because my wife — my girlfriend — she was there, too."

Shakofsky claimed that Bruner told him about what they had done to Crow a week after she was found. He exhibited little surprise that the mother of his child had been brutally attacked. Crow "talked shit about everything and everybody, man," Shakofsky offered.

"What happens to people like that?" the detective asked him. "Probably what happened, man," Shakofsky responded.

'Dear Amanda'

Bruner was seething when she was arrested. "I know what this is about. This is about that fucking bitch, Amanda Crow," she said shortly after she was 'cuffed.

Bruner told police Crow was falsely accusing her and Shakofsky in order regain custody of her daughter.

"I knew this was coming. We knew it. We knew it was. Why? Because if she can pin what happened to her in any way, shape or form on either both of us or either one of us, she can get Hayley back."

During one interrogation, Bruner defended her white supremacist views. She talked of her childhood growing up in the Ku Klux Klan in Greenville, Ala. One black family tried to move into her town "and it lasted maybe three weeks. It wasn't allowed."

She condemned "Jerry Springer Nazis," a term she used for "those little punk kids running around here with their boots and laces and braces and, you know, beating people up and what not." She explained the evolution of the skinhead movement to the detective, its roots in working-class England, the significance of the laces.

"I understand exactly why I'm here, but — we'll get this resolved really quick 'cause I had nothing to do with anything that happened to her," she stated. "For all the bullshit I've gone through, I wish I was there."

As the questions got tougher, Bruner announced she was done and asked for a lawyer.

Then Bruner voiced one last question: "So when this is all over, can I sue her for destroying my life? That stupid bitch."

Ware was initially reluctant to snitch on his accomplices, citing fear of retaliation and the safety of his children. "There are some things I would love to tell you, but I can't. I can't," he told police.

Ware cautiously circled around the events of that night. He explained the "14 words" to cops, but misquoted them. His version — "We have to secure the existence of our race and a future for our white children" — had 16 words.

Then Ware told them how the bloody clothing was burned, the knife boiled, the truck detailed. He revealed that the attack on Crow had originally been planned for Friday night — Bruner even had a babysitter lined up — but Crow wasn't feeling well that night and stayed home.

He told them his former friend tried to fight back in the beginning, and then he finally admitted to stabbing her in the chest — but not to slitting her throat.

"I got her lung," he told police. "I hit her once in the chest and I bitched out."

As the interview drew to a close, the detective asked him if he'd like to write a note to Crow. Ware said he would. He wrote his apology longhand on a piece of paper moments before he was booked.

"Dear Amanda," he began. "I can't begin to imagine the pain that I've caused you. I also know that a simple apology wouldn't begin to make up for what I've done. I do want you to know that I'm truly sorry for bringing this pain upon you and your family. I don't expect you to forgive me and I don't blame you if you don't.

"I'm also truly sorry for almost taking you away from your daughter. No child deserves that and neither do you. I hope that you have a speedy recovery and a happy life ahead of you. I also want you to know that you will receive justice for what was done to you. Again I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart for hurting you. Sincerely, Eddie."

Ware later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and was sentenced to 99 years in prison. He and Harkins are expected to testify against Bruner and Shakofsky.

The trial for the attempted murder of Amanda Crow is scheduled to begin in April 2008.

SPLC

Blind association 'horrified' at BNP meeting

Not content with attempting to mislead the general populace with its lies about its core policies and plans for the future (such as they are), the BNP played up to its usual standard last night when it held a meeting at the Hastings Voluntary Association for the Blind, by lying about the booking and claiming to be an organisation called 'British Heritage'.

For a party that purports to want to run the country, is supposedly proud of what it stands for and believes in truth at all costs (or so it would have us believe despite all the evidence) it's remarkably deceitful when it comes to booking meetings

A recent Trafalgar Club dinner was only allowed to go ahead after the hotel owner was informed of the truth about the Trafalgar Club's connections with the BNP because he believed it would be damaging to his reputation to cancel at the last minute. Even so, he was furious at being misled and vowed that the BNP would never return, under any guise.

Similarly the Hastings Voluntary Association for the Blind, who were shocked to hear the news that it was the BNP who had booked their venue last night and that the meeting was attended by the convicted racist Nick Griffin.

'To say we are shocked about this is an understatement. We are horrified. We would not have allowed the booking if we had known it was for this purpose', said one member of staff.

The BNP's current infestation of South African ex-Security Service personnel seems to be increasing the BNP's love of cloak and dagger operations. Supporters were told to meet outside a nearby Methodist Church before being directed to the venue, a five minute walk away. The password, apparently, was 'buffoons'.

Reader article: That terribly quiet revolution...is still very quiet!

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Iliacus. We welcome any contributions (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste) from our supporters. Please send your articles to us here.

I have commented previously on the BNP's delusional claim that they are benefiting from a "quiet revolution" - one reflected by the party's increased success in contesting local authority by-elections, and in garnering votes.

February 7th provided further evidence that their claims are, indeed, delusional.

A by-election in a Surrey parish, which the BNP's "blonde bombshell campaigning mum" failed to win, despite huge media coverage, rather distracted attention from eleven rather more important by-elections that day to County, Borough, District and city Unitary Authorities. To have so many by-elections on a single day is unusual, doubtless related to a reluctance to issue the necessary paperwork over the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

So what happened on "Super Thursday"? Well let's start with candidates nominated:

Conservative 11
Labour 8
Lib Dem 8
UKIP 5
Green 5
Independent 2
BNP 1
English Democrats 1

Hardly a sparkling performance by the BNP! And who actually won the seats? Conservatives 6 (down 2), Lib Dems 2 (no change), Independents 2 (up 2), Labour 1 (no change). So no good news for the BNP there.

Share of the vote? Well, the average vote per candidate was as follows:

Independents 52.5% (but only two candidates - and both won!)
Lib Dems 44.5%
Conservatives 40.5%
Labour 17.3% (pretty miserable)
BNP 15.0% (but only one candidate)
UKIP 10.2% (depressed by a miserable 1.7% in one seat)
Green 5.1%
English Democrats 3.6% (in a seat they'd polled 17%+ last time)

Now I'm sure some in the BNP will crow about beating UKIP and the Greens, and "almost equalling the Labour party of government", but that would be deeply wishful thinking. The reality is that on that single day UKIP managed to poll 10%+ in three wards (two in Lancashire and one in Staffordshire), and 9.1% in a fourth (in Great Yarmouth - recently "graced" by a visit from Nick Griffin). UKIP also fielded five times as many candidates as the BNP. The Greens had a similar success in fielding candidates, but three of their candidates polled under 5% - the others achieved a slightly better 8.3% and 9.7%. Many of us may be sympathetic to parts of the green "programme" but - for whatever reason - their electoral fortunes are at present are pretty grim outside a very small number of areas.

It was a poor day for Labour, though their percentages were depressed by very low votes in true blue Hertfordshire (4.7%) and Wiltshire (a truly awful 2.0%), and in Portsmouth where an extraordinary Lib Dem campaign reduced the Labour vote to 10.6% on a 28.5% swing from the Conservatives to the Lib Dems.

The BNP? One candidate in the whole country, in a ward with no Lib Dem candidate, and just 15.0%. That quiet revolution sure is quiet!

14th February Postscript

There were four further by-elections on 14th February - three in England and one in Scotland. In England the three major parties fought all three, Independents and Greens two, BNP and the Popular Alliance (a fragment of Veritas !) one each. Again, not a great BNP achievement. Denise has already summarised the outcome in the Burton ward which saw the only BNP intervention, and I agree with the posted comment that it was a bit of an "in between result". Not good enough to be an encouragement to the BNP; but not bad enough to cheer us too much!

The two other by-elections were in Labour-held seats in Preston and Waltham Forest - and it must be cause for concern for the BNP that they were unable to find a mug (I'm sorry, I mean a committed local activist) to contest each seat! Preston is, of course, in the North West - which has a dynamic new Regional Organiser ... one Nicholas Griffin. He really needs to get his act together or he'll be purged. And the failure to find a candidate in Waltham Forest doesn't bode well for the LGA/ Mayoral polls in May (not that it upsets me you understand). In the event it was the Liberal Democrats who seized the initiative, a 13% swing in Waltham Forest (seat gained) and a 15% swing in Preston (Labour majority reduced to just 23).

The Scottish by-election, for Moray Council, was contested by ten candidates, and resulted in an SNP gain from Independent. Though there was no far-right involvement the result is worth listing for sheer novelty value:

SNP 884 (35.1%)
Ind 845 (33.5%)
Labour 459 (18.2%)
Ind (no 2) 278 (11.0%)
Con 223 (8.8%)
Lib Dem 53 (2.1%)
SSCUP 37 (1.5%)
UKIP 20 (0.8%)
Ind (no 3) (16 0.6%)
Ind (no 4) 1 (0.0%)

(Yes, that is 1 vote for the fourth Independent! And SSCUP stands for Scottish Senior Citizens Unity Party!)

Protestors see red over second BNP village bash

Campaigners have vowed to fight plans by the British National Party to hold its annual festival in Derbyshire for the second year in a row.

BNP member Alan Warner wants to attract thousands of people to Red, White and Blue - which he plans to hold in early August on his fields in Codnor-Denby Lane, Denby. He said the festival would be almost double the size of last year's event, covering the area of 35 football pitches. People living near the site, who said they fear noise and nuisance from the hundreds of people expected, said they would be better prepared to fight the plans than they were last summer.

John Lumsden, who lives opposite the fields, said: "Last year, the first we heard of the festival was signs on lampposts a few weeks before it was due to start. This time we'll be able to make a bigger effort."

Mr Lumsden said Red, White and Blue 2007 had attracted about 800 people, but said noise levels had disturbed residents. He said: "The people who caused the main problems were the organisers who stayed up all night having large karaoke parties."

Brian Bentley, also of Codnor-Denby Lane, said the festival was completely unsuitable for the area. Mr Bentley, 76, said: "We had a lot of noise last year and a lot of people from the festival left the site and were just walking around the village drinking."

Amber Valley MP Judy Mallaber backed the residents' comments, saying she would "strongly support the campaigners in stopping the festival coming back".

She said: "Several residents moved away for the weekend last year because they were so frightened. One family moved out because they didn't want their children to be there. Many of the residents' fears came true. Kids brought glass bottles on to fields where horses were kept, and there was a loud firework display which made the horses bolt. The festival does the area's reputation no good whatsoever."

It is legal to hold events on privately-owned land in the UK, but selling alcohol or playing music on the site requires a licence from the local district council. A licensing application for the festival will be sent to Amber Valley Borough Council by the end of this month, but Mr Warner said Red, White and Blue would go ahead even if the application was unsuccessful.

He said: "I own the site and I will be holding the event with or without drink or music. They put a restriction on the number of people allowed last year, I believe it was 2,000, but I would prefer to see more. This year we have extra land because a neighbouring landowner has offered his fields. We can't have any control over what visitors do once they leave the site."

He said the members-only event would be "a family festival celebrating British culture" and would feature, among other things, a big wheel, a falconry display and dodgems.

Amber Valley Borough Council said it would consider any application on its own merit. Police said no arrests were made at last year's Red, White, and Blue, and that, if it took place this year, they would treat the festival in the same way as any other large event.

This is Derbyshire

Just in case you missed it...

A BBC investigation hears claims that BNP officials ordered important financial data to be shredded...

If you missed Tuesday's edition of File on Four, you can catch it on Sunday at 8pm on Radio Four, download the podcast here or listen online here. Our article covering the programme is here.

Acquitted of Murder, Neo-Nazi Killer Taunts Victim’s Family

Even by the twisted standards of the neo-Nazi underworld, Hardy Lloyd is one sick individual. The 30-year-old skinhead, who describes himself as the “doctor of all hate,” was kicked out of the ultra-violent World Church of the Creator in 2003 after he was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital. “I do not believe killing is wrong,” Lloyd wrote in 2004. “Our new religion must be the worship of death and murder.”

Later that year, Lloyd (right) was arrested for murder after he killed his girlfriend. The victim, 41-year-old Lori Hann, was a divorced legal secretary who met Lloyd through an Internet dating service. Lloyd admitted shooting Hann in the face during an argument over another woman, but claimed that she’d threatened him with a handgun minutes earlier and that he fired in self-defense.

Prosecutors argued that Hann was gunned down in the street while running for help (she’d pulled over her car and gotten out in front of a stranger’s house with Lloyd in the passenger seat), and pointed out that Hann was unarmed when Lloyd shot her (Hann’s handgun was found in her vehicle). Nevertheless, a jury in November 2006 acquitted Lloyd of first-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter, finding him guilty only of carrying a firearm without a license.

Narrowly escaping a murder conviction has done nothing to dampen Lloyd’s enthusiasm for celebrating violence, including mass murder, on his “Universal Fascism” website, on which he encourages fascists of all colors to unite and kill Jews. But in recent weeks he’s sunken to a new sadistic low by taunting Hann’s loved ones and bragging about ending her life by posting lyrics to his own sadistic versions of hit pop songs and gangsta rap singles.

Last Dec. 22, for example, Lloyd posted the lyrics to “’Bitch Killer,’ as sung by Hardy Lloyd,” a take on rapper Ice-T’s controversial 1992 single “Cop Killer.” Here’s a sampling of the lyrics:

I got my 380 cocked off.
I got my headlights turned off.
I’m bout to bust some shots off.
I’m bout to dust some bitch off.

BITCH killer, better her than me.
BITCH killer, fuck Hann’s family.
BITCH killer, I know Lori’s family’s grievin’
BITCH killer, but tonight I got even.

One month later, on Jan. 21, Lloyd posted the lyrics to “‘The Heat is On,’ by Glenn Fr[e]y, as sung by Hardy.” An excerpt:

The heat is on, on the street
Insider her head, she feels the beat
And the beat’s so loud, deep inside
The pressure’s high, and Lori can’t stay alive

Lloyd’s site also displays a photo of him French-kissing his new wife, Lisa Donato, the other woman Lloyd said he was fighting with Hann about the night he put a bullet in Hann’s temple. Lloyd, who still resides in Pittsburgh, Pa., where he grew up, is depicted in other photos on the site wearing sunglasses and a bomber jacket while brandishing a variety of weapons. “I hate Americans more than I hate the JEWS!” he writes. “I am not an American! And if I was, I would kill myself!!”

Perish the thought.

Hatewatch

Watch out for BNP drink drivers in Dagenham tonight

The BNP monkeys arrived at Redbridge station this morning to start their second national weekend of campaigning for the London elections. They are hoping to rest their sore feet at a BNP social this evening at the Eastbrook pub in Dagenham Road, Dagenham, east London.

You can give the pub a call on 0871 984 4446 to check whether it is true that the bar tab is on Richard Barnbrook, a man noted for his deep pockets and short arms.

On a more cautionary note, it is not unknown for BNP activists to drink and drive home afterwards, or for visiting party members from the North West to be topped up with steroids.

Stop the BNP

BNP to set up HQ in North Wales

The far right British National Party is moving the headquarters of its merchandising arm (above) to a secret location in North Wales. Party leader Nick Griffin yesterday said it would be based in Deeside – but claimed he did not know where.

The commercial wing is called Excalibur and produces merchandise for the BNP including T shirts, mugs and key fobs.

Party treasurer John Walker flatly refused to specify where Excalibur would be based. Mr Walker said: “There is no need for us to say where this premises is.”

Yesterday politicians from other parties reacted with concern to hear that the BNP were setting up such a premises somewhere in Deeside. Alyn and Deeside MP Mark Tami said it was a development local people would want not want to see in the area.

“This is a very unwelcome development,” said Mr Tami. “Clearly there views are abhorrent to the vast majority of the British public. Nobody would want to see this in the area and I hope that people steer clear of buying any merchandising from the BNP.”

Shotton East councillor John Beard said: “I don’t know where it is but it is certainly the last thing that the people here would want. I would echo what Mr Tami has said that this is a most unwelcome development.”

Anti racism and fascism campaign group Searchlight claimed the secrecy showed the BNP’s true colours.

A Searchlight spokesman said: “If they were really a legitimate party why do they act so differently to other parties and why are they not saying where it is? It is exactly what we have come to expect of the BNP, they are not being open with their dealings.”

Video clips by BNPtv of the new base have been posted on websites including YouTube.

But an unrepentant Nick Griffin claimed the presence of the party’s commercial arm in Deeside would benefit the local economy.

“It is bringing a lot of money into the area and it is no-one else’s business where a legitimate party has its offices,” he said. Mr Griffin has claimed the party has undergone major changes in the last few years to improve its image and electoral appeal.

Daily Post

BNP leader plans visit to Hastings

The British National Party chairman Nick Griffin is coming to Hastings on Monday, sparking a storm of controversy.

Hastings MP Michael Foster and a host of councillors have spoken out against the visit, saying the right wing leader is not welcome here.

He is due to address a supporters' meeting at a venue which is not being disclosed for fear the gathering may be disrupted by protestors. Invitations have been sent out to local British National Party (BNP) members calling on them to meet in Hollington on Monday evening. From there, they will be bussed to the secret venue where Mr Griffin will address them.

Andrew McBride, the BNP's south east regional organiser, said: "We always have a redirection point for safety reasons. The meeting is for members and supporters only."

Borough Council leader Peter Pragnell is appalled the BNP chairman has chosen to visit Hastings. He added: "This is what they do - target areas which are predominantly white and working class. I am neither pleased nor impressed they have chosen to try and preach their abhorrent politics to the people of Hastings. As far as I am concerned the BNP stands for nothing more than the Bloody Nasty Party.

"Hastings is a culturally diverse town with more than 90 different nationalities living side-by-side and generally getting along fine. We do not need the BNP stirring things up. This is the price of democracy and free speech which we have to swallow occasionally but they are not welcome here and never will be."

Do you think the BNP should be allowed to visit Hastings? Should they be welcomed or are councillors right to be hostile to them?

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below [click link] or emailing richard.morris@trbeckett.co.uk

Hastings Observer