One of the largest and most
prominent confederations in the US far-right militia movement has deposed its
national leader and reorganized under a new name.
Chris Hill, aka General Blood Agent,
head of the Georgia Security Force III% and de facto leader of the national
coalition of state militia groups, shut down the Roll Call public Facebook
group on Aug. 22. The page was an organizing platform for an upcoming Nov. 9
Second Amendment rally in northern Virginia and Washington DC that had
attracted upwards of 5,300 members.
Skylar Steward, who had been the executive officer of Ohio Security Force III%, told Triad City Beat that his organization had been effectively kicked out of the coalition, and then several state organizations followed. Steward said the breakaway state organizations have formed a new coalition named American Constitutional Elites.
“I don’t know if he had a mental
breakdown,” Steward said of Hill. “He’s done this kind of thing dozens of
times. III% Security Force has dissolved.”
Steward said about a week ago he requested a “mass” — a meeting of state leaders — to address a concern about Hill’s leadership, and Hill retaliated by removing Ohio Security Force III%’s secure Zello channel — a voice app that allows members to communicate.
“When the dust settled, he has about
15 or 20 people,” said Steward, who called from a “field training exercise”
with the sound of gunfire in the background. “The rest of the organization has
formed under a new name.”
Steward said leaders of the
constituent organizations had become increasingly concerned that Hill’s
rhetoric about the planned Nov. 9 rally was becoming too provocative, and they
were unsettled by statements that he was making about FBI monitoring of the
group.
“Chris Hill got on [the Roll Call
Facebook page] and posted, ‘FBI is watching; remove yourselves,” Steward said.
“He wants to be a martyr,” he added.
“He wants to provoke someone to make him famous. He don’t care what it takes to
become famous.”
On Aug. 24, Bill Hartwell, former head of Virginia Security Force III% and a key organizer of the Nov. 9 rally posted on his Facebook page: “I am no longer a standing member with 3% Security Force. This is a public declaration that I am no longer associated with Chris Hill and Security Force and no longer have any knowledge of their internal workings or operations.”
In response to a commenter who
questioned the motives of Hartwell’s public declaration, a militia activist
from Arizona named AC Lytle defended him, writing: “Situational awareness…. All
members leaving are posting this uniform statement as public notice for legal
reasons. He’s not trying to tear anyone down.”
Hill could not be reached for this story.
Josh Smith, who has organized with Hill and Georgia Security Force III%, said the III% Security Force no longer exists. But he defended Hill against accusations that he was overly provocative.
“The November 9th rally was strictly to present a redress of grievances,” Smith said in a Facebook message to TCB. “No physical war would ever come to the United States government until a redress of grievances was filed. And the war would not be immediate. Everything that Chris did was constitutionally allowable.”
Even within the far-right militia
universe — widely known as the Three Percenter movement — the III% Security
Force was considered extreme due to its violent rhetoric and its hostility
towards Muslims, immigrants and other marginalized groups.
Another group — Three
Percenters-Original — denounced the III% Security Force in a March 2018
statement, calling the group “anti-government in nature” and Hill “an anti-government
extremist.” The Three Percenters-Original noted that Hill’s followers “have
been seen on YouTube making racial gestures and destroying a replica of a
mosque during a training exercise.” The statement went on to say that any
member of Three Percenters-Original found to be associating with III% Security
Force “will be immediately removed from our group permanently.”
III% Security Force has been repeatedly marred by an association with violence over the past three years. In 2016, three members of Kansas Security Force III who formed a more radical offshoot group were arrested for a plot to blow up a Muslim Somali apartment building, although Hill has publicly denied that his rhetoric contributed to the men’s actions. In 2017, a one-time member of Georgia Security Force III% named Alex Michael Ramos took part in the brutal beating of a young, black man named DeAndre Harris during the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. And during the 2018 election, Hill’s group put out a video that spliced footage of its members shooting guns with pictures of Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and the text “declaration of war against all domestic enemies.
In an interview with TCB, Steward acknowledged that the Abrams video was a bad look for III%
Security Force.
“It was
borderline,” he said. “None of that was approved through any of the other
leadership. That was a rogue statement.”
From the
launch of the organizing effort for the upcoming Nov. 9 rally, Hill’s violent
rhetoric on Facebook has continued unabated.
Steward said he didn’t challenge violent, Islamophobic and anti-immigrant rhetoric because Hill outranked him, instead opting to not participate.
“If I’m
on Facebook and something comes on that I disagree with,” he said, “I’m going
to exit stage left.”
But in
one Facebook Live video from March 2019 that has since been taken down, Steward
escalated Hill’s rhetoric.
In the
video, Hill recommended “dragging” an abortion doctor away from an operation,
adding, “Take him outside and whup his ass.”
Steward
contributed a text comment during the live video: “Fuck a foot in the ass. I
bet a bullet in the head would pass a clear fucking message.”
Commenting
to TCB on Aug. 24, Steward blamed his former leader, saying, “He drug me
into the Chris Hill rhetoric.”
While
insisting that he is not Islamophobic and recognizes the rights of Muslims to
live in the United States and practice their religion freely, Steward equated
“antifa” and Black Lives Matter to the Ku Klux Klan. Three Percenters and other
far-right groups typically characterize any left-wing activists that oppose
white supremacists as “antifa”; Black Lives Matter is a group that protests
police violence against people of color. The Ku Klux Klan is an organization
that historically waged a campaign of terror and violence against black people,
at times enjoying cover, tacit support and even active involvement by local law
enforcement and elected officials.
Steward said the newly formed American Constitutional Elites, or ACE, plans to move forward with plans for the Nov. 9 rally. He said an activist named Mike Rage has been tasked with organizing the rally, and the new group will have to re-apply for permits.
As part
of the realignment of the Three Percenter movement, Steward has mended fences
with a former adversary — and more importantly, an adversary of Chris Hill
— named James Stachowiak, aka Johnny Infidel.
Stachowiak attended a rally with Heirs to the Confederacy at the former site of Silent Sam at UNC-Chapel Hill in December 2018. After discovering that one of the participants’ tires had been slashed, Stachowiak took to YouTube, calling for retaliation through “lone wolf” attacks. (The Heirs quickly fell out with Stachowiak, citing his “unruly, ungentlemanly behavior.”)
Stachowiak’s
rhetoric is no less violent or Islamophobic than Hill’s. In an article
published on his Freedom Fighter Radio website on Aug. 24, Stachowiak accuses
“antifa and anti-Trumpers” of “claim[ing] Allah as their God” and “promot[ing]
the teachings of a goat-humping illiterate desert nomad genocidal manic child
rapist and false prophet aka Muhammad.”
Whatever
the tenor of Stachowiak’s rhetoric against Muslims and other marginalized
groups, Steward decided to publicly broadcast his rapprochement with his former
adversary on a Facebook Live video made on Aug. 22.
“I will
publicly apologize for the things that I have said in retaliation for the things
that were said about me,” Steward said. “This shit’s gotta stop, guys.”
Stachowiak said he and Steward “have more in common than we have differences.” He went on to endorse the Nov. 9 rally while fretting that Hill’s “actions would demonize the patriot movement” and provide a pretext for “Deep State provocateurs to come in an initiate a false flag so they can push through their red flags [gun control laws].”
While
characterizing the rapprochement with Stachowiak as a “ceasefire” as opposed to
an alliance or friendship, Steward said, “The problem with the patriot movement
right now and the reason why the left is currently winning is because patriots
spend more time fighting amongst themselves, hating on each other than they do
focusing on real issues at hand.”
After
Stachowiak left the video, Steward publicly addressed his rupture with Chris
Hill.
“Last
night, how many of you pledged your allegiance to that man with everything that
happened and said, ‘I stand with you, sir!’?” he asked. “And then 30 minutes
later he come back on your channel and bombed the whole thing, abandoned ship
and said, ‘Fuck all of you.’
“The new
and improved organization that used to be founded by Chris Hill will continue
to move forward,” Steward promised, “continue to do God’s work, continue to
fight for the American way, the Constitution and American patriots.”
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Call them what they are, a violent gang.
They have the same signifiers of gangs. The only thing we don’t have proof of is organized criminal activity.
This article could be talking about bookish stamp collectors the way they are presented. Instead of informing the readers that the 3%ers are those guys that show up at various protests armed to the teeth, and attempt to provoke or escalate situations, all while talking and acting like cops or military.
It would be kind of pathetic and funny were it not for the high capacity rifle and copious ammunition they all carry.
The III% movement was raised by Mike Vanderbough in the late 90s and early 2000’s, the ideals still on the Sipsey Street Irregulars blog page. The factions have split due to various differences, one of the largest being the formation of groups, which Vanderbough and early followers were against. The latest groups include the United Patriots III%, American Patriots III%, III% originals, and the III% SF/ACE. Other factions exist, some who are more or less assertive than others. Some groups are heavyweights with the Law Enforcement and Military, in which those groups are far more diverse racially and socially, and tend to follow the Sipsey mantra. They eschew those in the movement who are extremists, and tend to avoid interaction.
Chris Hill has caused about 9 major splits where multiple states walked away from him and numerous small splits of a state or two since he stole the organization from the original founders in 2015. There were 3 such splits in 2017 alone. Check out Security Force Survivors group.
I was Lt. Dino on zello and XO of SC.
Calaverasgranda.. I’m pretty sure u are 100% wrong.. do some research sir. We are armed to the teeth cause that’s our rite.. dont like it leave but I will say this that we are not violent in anyway until we have to defend ourselves but in no way are we acting like like cops nor poking the bear.. I can only imagine your not much of a man anyways with the way you describe the 3%..
Yes I know SKYLER STEWART ALIAS CAPT SKYDOG ” HE WAS A GOOD MAN AND WELL MANNERED ” AND KNEW THE RIGHT THINGS TO DO WITH IN THE LAW AND AS WE SAY IT ” ABOVE BOURD AND LEGAL
Stay in touch with Threepercenters and Oathkeepers.. you might need them one day.