First responders and public safety personnel joined militia Facebook group

Dozens of first responders, detention officers, police and enlisted military personnel joined or were added to a Facebook group set up by a notorious militia leader where administrators and members shared content promoting violence against Muslims, undocumented immigrants and other groups.

Chris Hill, a Marine Corps veteran who leads the III% Security Force, attracted international media attention last year for a video depicting members shooting firearms interspersed with images of Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia, with text pledging that if she won they would respond with a “war against all domestic enemies.” A rival militia network, the Three Percenters — Originals denounced Hill as an “anti-government extremist,” and denounced III% Security force for destroying a replica of a mosque during a training exercise.

Hill set up the Roll Call page as a public Facebook group in January to mobilize support for an upcoming Nov. 9 rally in Washington DC and northern Virginia to promote the Second Amendment, Trump’s border wall, voter ID and abortion restrictions. Amidst a bitter leadership battle and an organizational schism, Hill temporarily shut down the Roll Call page in late August and then resurrected it as a secret Facebook group. Content shared on the Roll Call page as well as Hill’s own Facebook page over the past nine months has frequently promoted violence against Muslims, undocumented immigrants, abortion doctors and Democratic politicians.

A months-long investigation by Triad City Beat revealed that members of the Roll Call Facebook group set up by Hill included

•
An EMT from eastern Kentucky who publicly identified himself in a comment
thread on one of Hill’s Facebook Live videos as an “armed EMT” and member of
Kentucky Security Force III%;

•
An EMT who has worked for multiple first-responder agencies in central Georgia
who commented, “Guns up” at the beginning of an incendiary video hosted by Hill
and his militia associates, and who continues to maintain ties with Hill;

•
A police officerin upstate New York
who commented, “Guns up,” on the Roll Call page, uses a Medieval crusader image
as his Facebook profile, and has expressed negative feelings towards
undocumented immigrants on social media;

•
An EMS volunteer in New Jersey who made a comment on the Roll Call page that
appears to express sympathy with a Louisiana police officer fired for saying US
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot;

•
A lieutenant firefighter in eastern Ohio who uses a Confederate flag with the
text “Support your local whiteboys” as his Facebook cover photo, and makes
posts on his personal Facebook page that are disparaging towards Muslims and
undocumented immigrants;

•
A volunteer with another eastern Ohio fire department whose personal Facebook
page displays memes that disparage Muslims; and

•
Firefighters in Massachusetts and Michigan, along with an enlisted member of
the US Army and a detention officer in Florida, are active in other militia
groups.

First
responders, law enforcement and other public servants have come under
increasing scrutiny in recent months for support of violent, right-wing
extremism on social media.

In July, firefighter Caleb Folwell was fired from the Julian Fire Department and North Chatham Fire Department, both in North Carolina, after posting on Facebook that immigrants in detention should be “exterminated,” calling for the fantasized violence to be broadcast “over Mexican national TV to send a message that if you cross illegally you die.”

In the same month, Gretna, La. police Officer Charles Rispoli was fired for writing on Facebook that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, an outspoken Democratic lawmaker, “needs a round… and I don’t mean the kind she used to serve.” Another officer, Angelo Varisco was also fired for liking the post.

And in August, Capt. Thomas Woodword resigned after driving his truck into a group of Jewish protesters outside a Rhode Island detention facility that contracts with US Immigration Customs Enforcement.

Earlier this year, an investigation by Reveal found that hundreds of active-duty and retired law enforcement officers across the country are members of “anti-Islam, misogynistic or anti-government militia groups on Facebook.”

‘GUNS ARE GONE,
AND YOU’RE ISLAMIC OVERNIGHT’

The major thrust of the national Second Amendment rally scheduled for Nov. 9 — which has undergone at least two name changes — is opposing so-called “red flag laws,” which allow police and family members to petition the courts for the authority to temporarily remove firearms from a person deemed to be a danger to others or themselves. The chosen location of the rally on the Arlington Memorial Bridge is symbolic in the minds of the rally organizers of a line between the more lenient gun laws in Virginia and more restrictive laws on the books in Washington DC.

Reflecting
a tension between libertarian and authoritarian tendencies in the militia
movement, the demands published on the Roll Call page layered on a host of
conservative and Trumpist causes, including building the border wall, requiring
photo ID to participate in elections and restricting abortion, while vaguely
threatening that “if no remedies are timely available, we the people, without
further notice, may seek all remedies afforded to us” under the Constitution.
To diffuse the focus even further, organizers added a pro-Confederate “Heritage
Not Hate” event at the Lincoln Memorial.

While the militia movement has traditionally maintained a skeptical stance towards federal power, the election of Donald Trump reordered its priorities: Last fall, Hill told a Danish reporter: “If [the Democrats] win they win the House and the Senate, they are going to move forward with impeachment for some bogus, bullshit reason. If they succeed in impeaching President Trump, then we will back Trump.” Asked to elaborate, Hill said, “With a use of force, if need be.”

The
militia movement emerged in the early 1990s as the collapse of the Soviet Union
eliminated communism as a credible threat, and paranoia about globalism,
embodied in the United Nations and multilateral cooperation, became a
preoccupation of the far right.

“Foundational
to their ideology is the belief that virtually the whole rest of the world has
been taken over by a globalist, tyrannical government,” said Mark Pitcavage, a
senior researcher at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. “They
call it the ‘New World Order.’ They see the United States as the last bastion
of freedom, and they believe the US government is actively collaborating with
the New World Order. Their idea is that once the Second Amendment is
compromised and their guns are taken away, the United States will be absorbed
into the New World Order.”

Pitcavage
said militia activists had gravitated to marginal political candidates like Ron
Paul in the past, but Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign was the first time they
aligned with anyone who was truly viable. Trump’s election effectively
realigned the priorities of the militia movement.

“They
strongly support Donald Trump,” Pitcavage said. “A lot of them really emphasize
from 2017 less opposition to the federal government, and they direct their
anger more on immigrants, Muslims and antifa. The militia movement has
transferred its anger from president as the symbol of federal government to the
enemies of Trump, as they see them. Should a Democrat be elected in 2020, it
will go right back to the president.”

The synthesis of Second Amendment advocacy with hysterical Islamophobia, xenophobia, anti-abortion sentiment and anti-Democrat hate was on vivid display in a Facebook Live video posted by Hill in March.

Chris Pickle, an EMT who has worked for three different EMS agencies in rural, central Georgia over the past year, commented at the 2:07 mark of the video, “Guns up.” What followed over the next 54 minutes was an orgy of animosity towards various imagined foes.

“If
it takes dragging a [abortion] doctor away from a table to save that unborn
child that’s 15 minutes away from its birthday, then drag that fucking doctor
away from the table, and yeah, take him outside and whup his ass,” Hill said.

Skylar Steward, a militia activist from Ohio who has since broken with Hill to form the American Constitutional Elites, commented in response: “Fuck a foot in the ass. I bet a bullet in the head would pass a clear fucking message.”

Roughly
15 minutes later, imagining a war on American soil, Hill and his cohorts conjured
a sinister Muslim enemy.

“There
are live targets,” Hill said. “The enemy is here and want to fucking destroy us
and our way of life. When they get froggy and jump, we’re gonna put ’em on
their ass.”

As
the discussion veered into a fevered clarion about Muslims supposedly imposing
sharia law from bases in Dearborn, Mich. and Islamburg, NY, Hill interjected,
“You saw that New Zealand shooting, right?”

Greg
Scott, another militia activist, opined that Brenton Tarrant, who live-streamed
a slaughter of 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand on March
15 “was provoked.”

Hill
was going in a different direction, suggesting the massacre might be a false
flag.

“Wait,”
he said. “Within 24 hours all their semiautomatic rifles are gone, and it’s an
Islamic country, like just that quick. One shooting, one false-flag operation.
One psy-ops. Guns are gone, and you’re Islamic overnight.”

Hank
Steward, Skylar’s father, commented that he had recently proposed “Muslim
community patrols” on “comms,” the voice communication channel the militia
network utilizes through the Zello app.

Hill
enthusiastically endorsed the idea.

“Let’s
do a fucking Three Percent patrol in Dearborn, Michigan or Islamburg, New
York,” he said. “We show up, kick ass, and drink cold beer when the sun goes
down.”

Peter
Simi, an associate professor at Chapman University who studies extremist groups
and violence, said it’s unrealistic to think that first responders can hold
bigoted views without their biases bleeding over into the performance of their
professional duties.

“If
you have really strongly held beliefs that bias you in favor of certain groups,
that’s a problem,” Simi said. “If you have strongly held views that involve
hatred and disgust, that’s even more of a problem. Disgust is important because
when you feel disgust, you want to distance yourself as much as possible from
that. If they’re disgusted by certain immigrant groups or disgusted by Muslims,
are they going to render the same care? Is it going to delay decisions that
they make? Are they going to be less sensitive? Are they going to give priority
to one group or another? I think these are reasonable questions to ask an EMT
or firefighter that espouses these kind of views.”

The
Code of Ethics adopted by the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians
in 2013 addresses both bias and social media use. The code states that EMS
practitioners should “provide services based on human need, with compassion and
respect for human dignity, unrestricted by consideration of nationality, race,
creed or status.” It instructs practitioners “to use social media in a
responsible and professional manner that does not discredit, dishonor or
embarrass an EMS organization, co-workers, other healthcare practitioners,
patients, individuals or the community at large.”

The
Firefighter Code of Ethics developed by the National Society of Executive Fire
Officers similarly calls upon firefighters to pledge to “never discriminate on
the basis of race, religion, color, creed, age, marital status, national
origin, ancestry, sexual preference, medical condition or handicap,” and to
“responsibly use social networking… in a manner that does not discredit,
dishonor or embarrass my organization, the fire service and the public.”

Chris
Pickle, the EMT in Georgia who commented on Chris Hill’s Facebook Live video in
March, declined to comment for this story. In late August, Pickle commented on
Hill’s personal Facebook page to inform him that he had to leave the Roll Call
page because a news reporter called him and asked him how he would treat
Muslims.

“I
told him to F off,” Pickle said.

Lee
Conner, the director of Telfair County EMS in Georgia, said Pickle resigned
from the agency for personal reasons in early August.

Pickle
is a volunteer with EMS in neighboring Wheeler County, according to Steve
Adams, the director there.

“If
it happened, I would immediately excuse him from doing anything in Wheeler
County,” Adams said.

Conner
said after Pickle left Telfair County EMS, he went to work for Johnson &
Johnson Ambulance, a private firm based in Uvalda. Cecil Walls, the manager at
Johnson & Johnson, told TCB he is
reviewing the matter.

Conner
said Pickle’s social-media activity “needs to be addressed,” adding that it
doesn’t put the agencies where he’s worked in a good light.

“It’s
a brotherhood like law enforcement or firefighting,” he said. “We have to treat
everybody, from a minor child to a Muslim to a KKK member to inmates with the
same level of care. It doesn’t change. Anything less would be a failure.

“Anybody
showing a bias towards a race, religion or creed — we can’t do that,” Conner
added. “You set your county up for a lawsuit. It will be brought to a
supervisor’s attention. You can’t have bias in this line of work.”

‘ARMED EMT,
KENTUCKY SECURITY FORCE III%’

TCB confirmed that 11 current or former members of the Roll Call group are currently employed by fire departments, six by EMS agencies, three by detention facilities, and two by police departments. One is currently enlisted in the Army. One is a member of the Air Force Auxiliary Civil Air Patrol. One firefighter in upstate New York retired in August.

The
roughly two dozen confirmed first responders, law enforcement, detention
officers and military personnel identified by TCB were among more than 5,300 who joined or were added to the Roll
Call group. Not all the public servants identified for this story actively
participated in the Roll Call group. TCB’s
investigation found that roughly half of the larger group of 24 either
participated in the Roll Call group or posted content on their personal
Facebook pages that exhibited bias. Agency representatives or the employees
themselves confirmed that a handful received counseling as a result of TCB’s inquiry.

A
much larger cohort of members on the Roll Call page identified themselves as
military veterans and retired law enforcement. The group has also attracted
members of Bikers for Trump; the Hiwaymen, a hybrid militia-neo-Confederate
group; the Proud Boys, a male chauvinist group known for street brawling; Back Woods
Survivalist Squad, an anti-Muslim network; and adherents of the QAnon
conspiracy movement.

Jason Randall, an EMT at Powell County EMS — which serves Natural Bridge and Red River Gorge, two of the most breathtaking natural areas in eastern Kentucky — joined the Roll Call page in early July. On July 27, Randall commented on a Facebook Live video hosted by Chris Hill: “Armed EMT Kentucky Security Force III%.”

Following
several attempts to contact him and an inquiry with Powell County EMS, Randall eventually
called TCB on Aug. 30 and said he had
left the Roll Call page and had disassociated himself with Chris Hill.

“I
didn’t realize that guy was a radical nut,” Randall said.

Randall
said he and a group of friends who like to get together to target-shoot received
an invitation to join the III% Security Force network. He said after watching
some of Hill’s Facebook Live videos and communicating with other members
through the network’s Zello channel, he and his friends decided to leave.

“I
was embarrassed, I’ll be honest,” Randall said. “Once I found out what he was
about, I was angry because it took me so long to figure out his true colors.”

Randall,
who teaches a concealed-carry class and trains EMTs in Kentucky, said that
although he doesn’t like the idea of people illegally entering the country, he
feels confident that his professional commitment to preserving life trumps any
personal feelings he might have about patients.

“I’m
human: I cry when I don’t win at CPR,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if they’re
this druggy or Hispanic. You don’t ask on the radio: ‘Is this a Muslim
patient?’ That’s a human being.”

Randall
said he received a written warning from his employer as a result of TCB’s inquiry and was worried he might
lose his job.

Responses
from EMS squads and fire departments to inquiries about employees’ involvement
with the Roll Call page or expression of bias on social media varied widely.

Stephanie
Solanka Clouse, a volunteer at Glenwood Pochuck Volunteer Ambulance Corps in
New Jersey, joined the Roll Call page in January. On July 23, Clouse commented
on a news article posted on the Roll Call page about the Louisiana police
officer fired for suggesting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot. Some
commenters wrote that they agreed with the officer.

Ryan
Netherton, who made the post, wrote, “I know. This is exactly why I’m going to
try my hardest to get into journalism because I’m tired of seeing shit like
this. If everyone could get on my page and share my post about it and pass this
along it would be greatly appreciated.”

Clouse
responded to Netherton: “Your voice will be heard by many if you create an
Instagram account! Encourage factual conversation!”

Reached
by TCB, Clouse denied making the
comment, and said she wasn’t interested in seeing the evidence.

Kevin
Duffy, the chief operating officer for Glenwood Pochuck Volunteer Ambulance
Corps, requested screenshots documenting Clouse’s involvement with the Roll
Call page. After reviewing them, he said he would take no action.

Ryan
Netherton added Steve Netherton, a firefighter employed by South Oldham Fire
Department outside of Louisville, Ky., to the Roll Call group in April. In late
June, Jason Minnar, a firefighter trainee at the department, also joined the
group. Minnar’s personal Facebook page displays Three Percenter symbols,
signifying affinity with a subset of the militia movement that conceives
modern-day Second Amendment proponents as the political heirs of the American
patriots who threw off British colonial rule.

The
day after the Aug. 12, 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Minnar posted a conspiracy-laden essay positing that the violence at the event
was orchestrated by George Soros using antifa and the Ku Klux Klan as pawns to
discredit “constitutionalists,” with the active collusion of law enforcement
and the news media.

Minnar
could not be reached for this story, but Netherton returned a message left at
the fire department.

“It’s
just a group that jokes and memes and things like that,” Netherton said. Asked
if he was concerned that his membership in a Facebook group where people shared
violent and bigoted content might undermine public trust in his agency,
Netherton responded, “I’m done with this conversation.”

Following
TCB’s inquiry, Chief Edward Turner
said, “I talked to them. I don’t think they’re breaking any of my policies.”

Asked
if South Oldham Fire Department maintains any policies to address
non-discrimination or social media use, Turner responded, “No, I don’t have
none.”

A SKEWED FOCUS ON
THE LEFT AS THE GREATER THREAT

Fred
Robenski, a retired police officer who now works part-time for several small
municipal law enforcement agencies in upstate New York, joined the Roll Call
page in February. Robenski recently used a Knights Templar sketch, paying
homage to the Catholic military order that fought Muslims during the 12^th
and 13^th centuries, as his Facebook profile picture. In May, he
posted a rant against New York State Democrats on his Facebook page that
expressed resentment towards undocumented immigrants.

In
July, Robenski commented, “Guns up” — a slogan used by militia activists
associated with III% Security Force to signal ready for battle — on the Roll
Call page in response to another member who made a post with the same phrase.

“They’re
all saying, ‘Guns up,’” Robenski explained to TCB. “In order to be part of this, you have to be accepted…. That
‘guns up’ was, Hey, I’m a part of you
guys. Let me be accepted.”

Robenski
said for much of his career in law enforcement he worked as a field
intelligence officer.

“I’m still very involved in it,” he said. “From being a field intelligence officer, I always like to know what’s going on. I’ve been looking into some of these militia groups on Facebook. Anything affiliated with antifa I like to pay attention to, to see where we’re going socially.”

In
an interview with TCB, Robenski
expressed a view commonly held in the law enforcement community — that “antifa”
poses a greater risk of violence than far-right groups.

“The
antifa groups, by far,” he said.

In early 2009, the Obama administration Department of Homeland Security suppressed a report on right-wing extremism under pressure from Congressional Republicans. As the New York Times reported in November 2018, law enforcement failed to see the threat of white supremacy as extremists became increasingly emboldened in public clashes leading up to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 and then as right-wing violence metastasized into domestic terror acts like the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh the following year. In some instances, police have even coordinated with far-right groups to apprehend left-wing activists.

Belying law enforcement’s focus on left-wing violence, the Anti-Defamation League reported in January that “more than 70 percent of the 427 extremist-related killings over the past 10 years” in the United States have been committed by right-wing extremists, “far outnumbering those committed by left-wing extremists or domestic Islamic extremists.”

Speaking
to TCB Robenski downplayed
white-supremacist violence through a familiar reframing used by both law
enforcement and the new media.

“These
mass shootings you’re talking about, several of them they have been white supremacists,”
he acknowledged. “From the word go, they’ve had severe psychological issues.”

While
accusing “antifa” of “assaulting innocent people, Robenski said of the white
supremacists, “These crazed lone-wolf, killing people, it’s different. There’s
an ideology, but it’s a demented mental illness.”

Robenski
also expressed the view in an interview with TCB that Islam is uniquely malevolent among world religions, while
explicitly drawing a distinction between the Christchurch massacre in New
Zealand, where a gunman killed 50 worshipers at two mosques earlier this year,
and Islamic extremist terrorist attacks such as 9-11.

“You
take the Christchurch situation, a mental illness situation,” Robenski said.
“When you get a lone-wolf thing, a paranoia sets in. I’m probably interjecting
more opinion than I need to, but with the 9-11 hijackers, that was a
government-funded, assisted situation where an ideology comes into play, which
you can go right back to the Koran to see where they got their instructions.

“Those
that will defend Islam or Muslims, saying it’s the religion of peace, if you
read the Koran, there’s no mincing words: ‘Behead them.’… ‘Lie to assert your
domination.’ It’s black and white: Kill
everybody that’s not like you.”

Ibrahim Hooper, the national communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said it’s disturbing enough that a police officer would be involved with the Three Percenter movement, given its history of armed rallies outside mosques. But Robenski’s views of Islam and the Koran are even more concerning.

“Does
it really say, ‘You need to kill everybody’? No, it doesn’t. That’s bigotry on
its face,” Hooper said. “The Koran is a manual for promoting a just and
peaceful society, and it completely rejects terrorism and extremism in all its
forms. Any religious text can be distorted.”

When
asked about his use of the Knights Templar image as his Facebook profile,
Robenski equated the symbol of Christian militancy with his role as a law
enforcement officer.

“I
have a cross in my faith; that represents righteousness,” Robenski said. “I’m a
law enforcement officer that enforces the laws of society, helping not one
segment, but helping that part of society that are law-abiding, decent and
upstanding. I will fight against those who try to destroy my society —
criminals.”

The
police officer doubled down on language he posted on Facebook expressing
resentment towards undocumented immigrants.

“What
[Gov.] Andrew Cuomo is doing — when you are going against the Constitution,
you’re working against the people in your state for a group of foreign people,”
Robenski said. “He’s trying to make it a sanctuary state, taking away money
from New York residents to give it to illegals. He is going out of his way to
protect and give extra rights to convicted criminals. There’s so much — that’s
very common language up here. The state government is coddling the enemy, and I
don’t mean the illegals, but that which serves to destroy New York State.”

Robenski
said he once posted on Facebook: “Hey, where’s this well-regulated militia? I
want in on it.”

He
said he increasingly sees people using the slogan, “Guns up,” on Facebook,
reflecting a heightened sense of vigilance.

“When
I see people in my community gearing up for the apocalypse, I need to pay
attention,” Robenski said. “That’s where a lot of my stuff comes from.”

Robenski
declined to name the agencies where he works, but an April 2019 article published
by WKTV NewsChannel 2 in Utica identifies him as a police officer with the
Camden Village Police Department.

“These are small municipalities, and I don’t want to create anything that can be construed as public,” Robenski said. “This is Fred the private guy.”

Camden
village police Chief Daniel Maher did not return phone calls for this story.

Mark
Pitcavage with the Anti-Defamation League cautioned that membership in a
Facebook group like Roll Call doesn’t automatically prove that someone is an
extremist. Considering the innocuous name of the group and the fact that the
name does not reference III% Security Force, he said it’s possible that
membership “might be a vague indication of support,” but equally possible that those
who joined were merely “right-wing conservatives.”

Cpl.
Anthony Oswald, a school resource officer with the Marion County Sheriff’s
Office in north-central Florida, was added to the Roll Call page by a friend in
January. There is no evidence that Oswald commented or liked posts on the Roll
Call page and the posts on his personal Facebook page are unremarkable.

“The
old saying ‘curiosity killed the cat’?” said Oswald, a 15-year law enforcement
veteran. “Hello! I’m the cat.”

Oswald,
who identified himself as a Trump supporter and a Christian in a two-hour
interview with TCB, said he doesn’t
agree with violence against Muslims and does his best to perform his job
without regard to race.

Oswald
said he agreed with much of the content on the Roll Call page, although he
didn’t specify what.

“They
sparked an interest: The people are giving their honest view,” he said. “The
majority of the comments are spot-on and not racist or hateful. I thought,
‘Okay, they’re like-minded, like me.’”

Oswald
indicated that he wasn’t familiar with Chris Hill, or the content promoting
violence on the page.

“It’s
anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-abortion, right?” he asked. “When I see that
crap, I scroll past. I don’t agree. I don’t comment.”

Oswald
said the idea of challenging hate and bigotry brings to mind the gospel
scripture about how people who live in glass houses shouldn’t cast stones.

“Here’s
the thing: People whether they’re right or they’re wrong are still entitled to
their opinions or their beliefs,” he said. “If someone said, ‘I’m going to
shoot up the Paddock Mall [in Ocala] tomorrow,’ it is my obligation, moral and
legal, to report that. If some guys are saying, ‘This person should be shot,’
that’s their opinion. Do I have to agree with it? No. Do I have to believe in
it? No. In the end what makes America great is that people have the right to
express their opinions.”

Sgt.
Paul Bloom, the director of public information at the sheriff’s office, said he
spoke to Oswald’s supervisor after TCB brought
the matter to his attention.

“He
is a well-respected and well-liked deputy,” Bloom said. “He works at one of our
schools and does a fantastic job. They tried to move him out of that school,
and there was an uproar. The parents wouldn’t let them.

“I
don’t think it rises to a level of disciplinary action just to follow a page,”
Bloom said. “If he were to participate, that might warrant an investigation.”

Lt. Josh Thomas, an employee of the Belvedere Volunteer Fire Department in eastern Ohio, joined the Roll Call page in late January. While there’s no evidence that he participated in the group page, his own personal page abundantly displays neo-Confederate and militia messaging, along with anti-Muslim viewpoints.

The
cover photo on Thomas’ personal Facebook page displays the text “Support your
local whiteboys” superimposed over a Confederate flag. On Aug. 24, Thomas shared
a post celebrating the militia activists who faced down federal agents with
high-powered rifles to prevent them from seizing Cliven Bundy’s cattle outside
of Las Vegas in 2014 — a confrontation that is considered a seminal moment in
the militia movement.

Memes
recently shared by Thomas on his Facebook page minimize the trauma experienced
by migrant parents and children separated at the border; and express resentment
toward the idea that undocumented people should receive healthcare benefits,
employment and protection from deportation.

Thomas did not respond to multiple attempts to reach him through Facebook messages and calls to the fire department. The Belvedere Volunteer Fire Department, which congratulated Thomas on Facebook on July 25 for passing the Ohio Fire Fighter I course, also did not respond messages through voicemail and Facebook.

Linda
Williams’ Facebook page identifies her as a “stay-at-home parent” and firefighter
at the Tappan Lake Volunteer Fire Department, about 25 miles west of Belvedere.
While Williams was a member of the Roll Call page, there is no evidence that
she participated. But her personal Facebook page includes memes that are
disparaging towards Muslims. One depicts a pile of raw bacon swaddled in a
gauzy veil with the text “Happy Ramadan,” mocking the Muslim practice of
abstaining from pork. Another, titled “Infidel Brotherhood,” depicts a menacing
gunman, with the text, “Who wants to play Cowboys & Muslims?”

When
asked about the memes, Williams responded in a Facebook message: “They’re
called jokes and satire.”

Williams
also said, “The III% organizations are not anti-government, anti-immigrant, or
anti-Islamic. (My children are first-generation Americans.) We are
constitutionalists who have taken an oath to protect America from being
destroyed by zealots, illegal immigrants and terrorists. We never sanction or
condone any lawlessness.”

Doreen
Snodgrass, an interim trustee at Tappan Lake Volunteer Fire Department, said the
department would review the matter while declining to confirm or deny that
Williams works or volunteers there.

‘THEY WERE TALKING
ABOUT GOING TO WAR’

Eric
McDonald, a detention technician at the Regional Detention Center — a temporary
holding facility for delinquent children serving six counties in southwest
Alabama — told TCB that he joined
the Roll Call page in May out of curiosity.

“I
was just being nosy,” he said. “I wanted to see what all was being said, what
was going on. I didn’t have any affiliation.”

McDonald
said he asked a cousin about the Nov. 9 rally, and what he heard concerned him.

“They
were talking about going to war,” McDonald said. “I ain’t trying to die or go
to jail. There’s some hardcore people on that site.”

Notwithstanding
his statement to TCB that he’s not
involved in any real-world militia activity, posts on McDonald’s personal
Facebook page suggest an affinity with the movement. One includes a
surveillance photo from the federal government’s 1992 siege at Ruby Ridge in
northern Idaho, an incident that electrified and galvanized the modern militia
movement. “Ruby Ridge,” the meme reads. “Reminder that the government will kill
your wife, child and dog to enforce their gun laws.”

McDonald
said on Aug. 23 that he had left the Roll Call group a couple days prior out of
concern about anti-government rhetoric on the site. Chris Hill had shut down
the page only one day earlier, on Aug. 22.

Asked
about posts on the page promoting violence against different groups based on
religion and immigration status, McDonald said he doesn’t harbor any ill will
towards anyone. “As far as Muslims or any of that, I don’t blame anyone for
leaving their country and coming to a different country,” he said. “We all
bleed red.”

McDonald
said that his supervisor called him in for a meeting to discuss his involvement
with the Roll Call page on Sept. 11, and he feared he might lose his job over
it.

“Most
people that know me, know I’m quiet and keep to myself,” McDonald said. “It
would probably shock ’em to know I had been on that kind of page.”

McDonald
is only one of a number of members of the Roll Call page who have expressed
reservations about the tenor of Chris Hill’s rhetoric, although, notably the
concerns center on Hill’s confrontational stance towards the federal government
rather than promoting violence against Muslims and other groups.

Skylar
Steward, a one-time member of Ohio Security Force III% who went on to form the
new American Constitutional Elites, told TCB
that Hill’s warnings about FBI monitoring the page made other members
nervous.

“He
wants to be a martyr,” Steward said. “He wants to provoke someone to make him
famous. He don’t care what it takes to make him famous.”

Hill
did not respond to messages for this story.

Since
the schism, organizers have continued to squabble over who has stewardship of
the Nov. 9 rally.

Michael
Ubriaco, a onetime ally of Chris Hill who is now organizing with another
faction, recently texted Hill: “Many are pissed off at the deletion of the
event…. You really think it’s a good idea to show up? I’m just being straight
up. Not just with pissed-off patriots but authority as well. The feds deemed
your event an act of war.”

Hill,
who posted his exchange with Ubriaco on his Facebook page and then removed it,
replied, “The event was not deleted. I archived it. And opened it back up…. I
was told informants were in the group, so I archived it and got their
attention.”

Ubriaco
wrote, “The event has taken a different turn. Not being a dick, but Chris Hill
is not a part of it anymore.”

Hill
replied, “Whatever. I got the back-up group and I got the page. I got the
reservations.”

Jesse
Edelen, who told TCB he’s currently
serving as an enlisted member of the US Army, said he joined the Roll Call page
to monitor the discussion. Edelen said he’s a member of the Three Percenter —
Originals, the group that denounced Chris Hill’s III% Security Force in 2018.

“The
organization I’m in, we’re keeping tabs on these other patriot organizations,”
Edelen said.

As
for his own beliefs, Edelen said he wants immigrants to enter the country
through a legal process, adding, “I’m not racist or anything.”

Edelen
said he believes that a 2017 Vice documentary about Hill and III% Security
Force aided Hill’s efforts to expand his network, but that now his star is
waning.

“I
don’t see his organization recovering,” Edelen said. “He don’t seem mentally
stable. He’s reflected bad on the whole patriot movement as a whole.”

Leonard
Rogers, a corrections officer at the Okaloosa County Jail in the Florida
panhandle, said he joined the Roll Call page out of curiosity after seeing the
Vice documentary.

Rogers
told TCB he is a member of a
different militia group, the III% United Patriots.

“It’s
a pro-gun, let’s-get-together, family type of thing,” he said.

As
for Hill, Rogers said, “His views are extreme, very extreme. I don’t align with
that.”

While
describing himself as “pro border control,” Rogers said he’s trained to not
allow bias to infect his treatment of inmates, most of whom he noted have not
been convicted of a crime.

“Our
motto is ‘firm, fair and consistent,’” Rogers said. “That’s how I live my life
as a corrections officer. We do get a lot of people who are illegal immigrants
arrested for driving without a driver’s license. We treat them just as I would
anyone else.”

Chief
Eric Esmond, who oversees jail operations for the Okaloosa County Department of
Corrections, said Rogers’ social media and militia activity doesn’t violate any
department policies.

“My
main concern as a jail administrator is how people’s ideology and morality
transfers to the job,” he said. “I haven’t seen anything that suggests there’s
a problem in that area.”

John
Bielski, a firefighter with South Torch Lake Fire & Rescue in northern
Michigan, said he wasn’t sure how he ended up on the Roll Call page, although a
screenshot shows that he joined in February.

“Seeing
it now, honestly — I’ll have a knock on the door by the FBI,” Bielski said in a
Sept. 2 interview. “Which is fine. I have nothing to hide.”

Referring
to Chris Hill, Bielski said, “Everything I know of him, he’s anti-everything.
His beliefs are not anything that I follow. He’s a reckless person.”

Bielski
said he is a member of a different militia, which he declined to name.

“We
were invited to do security for a film shoot in Dearborn,” he said. “We found
it was to rile up the Arabic nation. We declined and pulled away from that. We
work with our law enforcement. It’s part of our background: Some are
firefighters, some are cops. This Chris Hill shit — there’s no ties. He is not
welcome in anything we are a part of.”

Chief
Jesse Lane of South Torch Lake Fire & Rescue said in mid-September that he
would look into the matter, but to date it’s not clear what, if any action,
he’s taken.

Richard
Moore Sr., a firefighter at New Ashford Volunteer Fire Department in western
Massachusetts, was added to the Roll Call page by Chris Hill in January.

Moore,
who belongs to a group called Three Percenters Massachusetts, said he decided
to leave the Roll Call group after he saw people posting about the FBI. He also
said he doesn’t plan to attend the Nov. 9 rally.

“To
be honest, rallies stir the pot,” he said. “I personally don’t think it does
anything but cause fights.”

Moore
said Three Percenters Massachusetts focuses on protecting constitutional
rights, particularly the right to bear arms. Members lobby the state
legislature and speak to local elected officials.

“I
personally can’t speak for anybody; I don’t have any prejudice,” Moore said.
“If you’re an immigrant and you come legally, that’s fine.”

As
the product of an interracial marriage himself, Moore said he’s an example of
why the perception that Three Percenters are racist is misplaced.

“My
grandmother was a racist,” he said. “She used to tell people I wasn’t half and
half; I was Italian. I grew up around a lot of bigoted people.”

Moore
said he leads classes on survival and disaster preparedness for a community
emergency response team that’s certified by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency.

In
late August, Moore disclosed on Chris Hill’s Facebook page that he had been
contacted by a reporter concerning his involvement with the Roll Call group.

Wayne
Buckley, the chief at the New Ashford Fire Department, said Moore joined the
department as a Marine Corps veteran with combat experience in Afghanistan
because he wanted more training and wanted to become a firefighter.

“I’ll
ask him about this,” Buckley said. “We do have a social media policy. If
somebody is found to be posting hateful, bigoted stuff, they’re done. If
someone starts spouting racist shit, I punch ’em in the mouth.

“He
might be better off blocking that party,” Buckley said of Chris Hill. “If it’s
domestic terrorism against other races and religions, he should definitely stay
away from it.

“If
somebody in our department is posting hateful discrimination stuff, we call ’em
on it, and we usually take him off the department,” the chief added. “I know
Rich pretty good. I’ll tell him: You might be better off blocking this guy.”

Triad City Beat is co-publishing this story with other members of the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, including Raw Story, Detroit Metro Times, Folio Weekly and Orlando Weekly.

UPDATE, Oct. 25, 2019: Following the initial publication of this story, the South Oldham Fire Department re-opened an investigation into two members’ involvement with the Roll Call Facebook page. Chief Edward Turner told TCB in an email today that the department has taken unspecified “disciplinary action, which includes additional mandatory education on diversity/sensitivity training as well as our social media policy.”

Full statement here:

“South Oldham Fire Department does not share personnel/disciplinary matters, however the department has taken disciplinary action which includes mandatory education on diversity/sensitivity training as well as our social media policy. Mr. Minnar is a recruit (probationary) firefighter who has not been released as a combat firefighter as of yet. While he was initially provided a copy of the department guidelines/policies, we are taking additional measures to ensure that [not] only Mr. Minnar, but all new recruits are now provided additional education on our policies through a more comprehensive review during their orientation. Our department will also conduct a review of these policies with all active members of the department.

“I want to gracefully thank you for bringing this matter to my attention and I hope we can put this matter to rest.”