Tag: Patriot Front

republished from NYC Antifa

• Kieran P. Morris
• Patriot Front Network Director, Region 10
• AKA “Patrick”
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ForwardPatriots
• Iron March: ManyEnemiesBringsMuchHonor

Kieran Morris is Network Director of the fascist group, Patriot Front for New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. As Network Director, Kieran often travels from his home in Poughkeepsie, NY–where he lives with his family–to areas around the Northeast for fascist activism. He has especially targeted New York City for Patriot Front propaganda campaigns, and is behind the recent spate of Patriot Front banners around the five boroughs (notably in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn this past January). Before Kieran got involved in Patriot Front, he joined the notorious online Nazi forum Iron March and repeatedly messaged Brandon Russell, the founder of the deadly Nazi group, Atomwaffen Division (AWD), about joining a New York-based cell of the Nazi terror organization. AWD members have murdered at least 5 people in the United States and in March 2020, five AWD members were arrested for threatening journalists, the ADL, and people of color. Kieran and Russell were communicating on encrypted messaging services days before Russell was arrested on explosives charges in Florida.  In November 2019, Kieran traveled internationally with other Patriot Front members to network with european Nazi groups officially endorsed by Iron March, like Casa Pound in Italy and the Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) in Sweden. NRM is responsible for numerous racist and murderous attacks. Members were found guilty of bombing refugee centers in Gothenburg, Sweden. Kieran and Patriot Front also visited Poland, Germany, and Latvia. At Poland’s notorious Independence Day march, the group was photographed with Falanga, a Polish fascist group which also had a presence on Iron March. Most recently, Kieran was spotted outside of a Trump rally in Wildwood, NJ distributing fascist propaganda and carrying a shield at the Patriot Front march on the US Capitol Grounds in Washington DC.

Identification

We were able to identify Kieran Morris from the license plate on his truck which returned his name, date of birth, and his address in Poughkeepsie. As reported by Idavox, the photo was taken by an individual who observed Kieran and several other Patriot Front members dropping a banner in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and followed the group to Kieran’s truck. Several days prior, Patriot Front flyered and stickered the Brooklyn neighborhood with their fascist propaganda. However, residents did not turn a blind eye to fascists attempting to recruit and spread fascism in their neighborhood. The local community immediately responded by calling a rally in solidarity with targeted groups and denouncing fascism and bigotry. The banner drop was Kieran and Patriot Front’s attempt at intimidating local people rallying against the group’s hatred. Instead, Patriot Front’s banner lasted one minute before being cut down and we are now exposing Kieran Morris as Patriot Front’s Network Director in the region.

Poughkeepsie is a city in Dutchess County, NY, located in the Hudson Valley, and for awhile, we had been on the lookout for a Patriot Front Network Director living in the Hudson Valley thanks to some leaked intel from a disgruntled source no longer with the group. In one screenshot we received, “Patrick NY” used an avatar showing himself wearing a mask with a white power symbol, a distinctive hat, and sunglasses. Kieran wrote that when he was friends with Liam Neeson’s children growing up, he would go over to their house. Neeson lives in Millbrook, NY, a town in Dutchess County not far from Poughkeepsie. After running Kieran’s truck plates, and finding his name and address, we used the Facebook profiles for Kieran’s various relatives to connect him to “Patrick,” the name he uses in Patriot Front chat servers. In another screenshot we received, Kieran was upgraded to Network Director, which was reflected in his display name. The screenshot further corroborates that “Patrick” lives in the Hudson Valley and that he attends regional “Pool Parties” at Sven’s–a reference to co-host Jesse “Sven” Dunstan’s fascist gatherings in Fishkill, NY, also located in the Hudson Valley. Dunstan is the co-host of “The Daily Shoah” on fascist website, The Right Stuff.

Further searches show that Kieran went to Roy C. Ketcham High School in Wappinger’s Falls, NY, which is nearby Poughkeepsie. He also played in the Hudson Valley Rugby group last year. [Editor’s Note 2020.22.3–After reading our article, the Hudson Valley Rugby Club sent us an email stating their anti-oppression policy and asked us to make clear to readers that they do not support or share Kieran’s fascist politics. Here is their policy in full: “The Hudson Valley Rugby Football Club, Inc, 501 (c) 3, is dedicated to growing the sport of rugby in the Hudson Valley. The club works to create opportunities to play, participate in, support, enjoy and learn rugby. We create this access to the sport for everyone and anyone interested in participating. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexuality, politics, gender, fitness, or experience in the sport. We work to create an environment of acceptance, respect, equality, equal-access, equal-rights, and social support. The club has zero-tolerance for discrimination of any type, including any activities of hate, hate-speech, prejudice, bigotry, sexism, racism, gender discrimination, ageism, ableism, classism, misogyny, xenophobia, inequity, intolerance or anti-semitism.”]

As a member of Patriot Front, Kieran maintains the Twitter account @ForwardPatriots. He likes to post and retweet pictures and videos of himself, which is very convenient for research and investigation purposes.

We further corroborated that Kieran Morris is a fascist from Poughkeepsie, NY by finding his username, location, and Gmail address in the defunct Nazi web forum, Iron March, which was leaked in its entirety by anonymous antifascists in November 2019. The leaks were turned into a searchable website by Jewish Worker and include IP addresses, usernames, email addresses, locations, posts and direct messages with other users. Kieran listed his ideology on Iron March as “National Socialist” and in one direct message with “Odin” AKA Brandon Russell, the founder of the murderous Nazi group Atomwaffen Division, gave his Wire username as “hvny1488.” This username plainly references Hudson Valley, NY and the Nazi code “1488.” This string of numbers is the combination of the “14 Words,” a saying coined by David Lane, the leader of the ultraviolent, deadly white supremacist group, “The Order,” and “88” or “Heil Hitler” (H is the 8th letter of the alphabet). The avatar of Kieran’s Wire account is a photo of Hitler sieg heiling while giving a speech.

Various searches for Kieran’s Gmail address led to the discovery of his username on Skype, where Atomwaffen and other Nazis hosted group chats, as well as an archived retweet of Kieran’s defunct Twitter account. The hacked database search engine, Dehashed, shows that even when Kieran used his Gmail address on innocuous sites, his Nazism was always present.

Radicalization and Atomwaffen Division

Iron March billed itself as a “global fascist fraternity,” and prominently displayed their slogan, “Gas the K*kes, Race War Now, 1488 Boots on the Ground!,” on the website’s homepage. Iron March had an enormous impact on fascists around the world, promoting an ultra-violent accelerationist strain of fascism which lauded figures like Charles Manson, Dylann Roof, and Anders Breivik. Newcomers to the site were given a curriculum of fascist texts to read, a list which included Mein Kampf, the Iron March web zine NOOSE, and SIEGE, the ultra-violent accelerationist Nazi screed by James Mason. SIEGE calls for deadly violence against people and attacks on infrastructure in order to accelerate an inevitable race war, the collapse of society, and fascist totality. Iron March viewed Breivik, Roof, and Manson as heroes and their horrific actions as the ultimate recruitment tools. 

Iron March also was a tool for Nazis to network with each other and the site incubated Nazi groups such as National Action (Great Britain) and Atomwaffen Division (US). The site officially supported other groups like Nordic Resistance Movement (Sweden, Finland, Norway), Casa Pound (Italy), and Golden Dawn (Greece). About 8 months prior to Kieran joining the site, Jo Cox, a British MP, was murdered by a fascist. National Action called the murderer a hero, crowing on Twitter, “Only 649 MPs to go #WhiteJihad” and was soon labeled a terrorist organization by the British government. Around the time Kieran joined Iron March in March 2017, several members of National Action had been arrested for belonging to a terrorist organization, distributing materials of the terrorist organization, and for sending manuals on “white resistance” and “ethnic cleansing operations” to people over Skype.

Kieran wrote only one post in the Iron March forum proper, but in his message he describes the trajectory of how he ended up there. After struggling with substance abuse, he got clean and was radicalized during the 2016 election cycle, which evidently led him “down the rabbit hole” to violent accelerationist Nazi politics. Kieran wrote that articles on NOOSE, which feature articles such as “There Are No ‘Good Jews’” and rhetoric such as “fuck with us, you die,” and the accelerationist Nazi bible, SIEGE, had “all been of immense value in informing and refining [his] worldview.” Kieran says he joined Iron March “to network with like minded young men and to further educate [him]self in the fascist worldview” but that he was mostly interested in “find[ing] others in my region to unite and take action.”

And Kieran definitely tried to find other Nazis in his area to unite and take action with. The day after his Iron March post, he sent a direct message to “Odin,” AKA Brandon Russell, the founder of Atomwaffen Division, about finding AWD members in New York because he was “impressed” with the group. Somewhat amusingly, Kieran disparages American Vanguard, a fascist group which also got its start on Iron March, as only interested in “shitposting” and browsing the notorious /pol/ (or “politically incorrect”) message boards on (probably) 4chan. American Vanguard was heavily involved in the Alt-Right and was connected to the fascist website The Right Stuff, through their Deputy Director, “Ghoul” AKA Cooper Ward. Iron March as a whole and the groups it supported, such as Atomwaffen, were opposed to the bait-and-switch “respectability fascism” that groups like American Vanguard promoted in their appeals to Trump supporters. After a convoluted history of infighting, name changes, and allegations of Ghoul grooming underage members, American Vanguard is now better known as Patriot Front. Kieran is now a Network Director in the Patriot Front organization.

However, in 2017, Kieran was interested in joining Atomwaffen and repeatedly messaged Brandon Russell about becoming a member. After his first couple of direct messages to Russell didn’t go anywhere, Kieran tried again several months later in May. The two Nazis exchanged Wire handles on May 16, 2017 and their conversation about Kieran joining Atomwaffen went offsite. Three days after exchanging Wire handles with Kieran, Brandon Russell was taken in for questioning after his roommate and fellow Atomwaffen member, Devon Arthurs, killed two other roommates/Atomwaffen members in their shared Tampa, Florida house. The house was filled Nazi memoribilia, books like Mein Kampf, The Turner Diaries, and a garage full of explosives. Russell was let go after convincing authorities the explosives were only used for his “model rockets,” but arrested several days later with yet another Atomwaffen member in a car filled with over 1000 rounds of ammunition, an assault rifle, and a bolt-action hunting rifle. 

Patriot Front

After American Vanguard, the group that became Patriot Front was known as Vanguard America (VA), one of the main organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 and defendant in the lawsuit, Sines v. Kessler, brought by survivors of the violence perpetrated by Vanguard America and others at “Unite the Right.” Thomas Rousseau assumed control of a faction of Vanguard America after the deadly rally and subsequently renamed the group to “Patriot Front.” James Fields, the fascist who murdered Heather Heyer and injured dozens of others by driving his car into a crowd of antifascist protesters, marched with Vanguard America during “Unite the Right ” and is seen near Rousseau in pictures from that day. Patriot Front is affiliated with several other fascist groups and individuals who are also co-defendants in the Sines v. Kessler lawsuit. One month after “Unite the Right,” Patriot Front and the Nazi group Daily Stormer Book Club jointly attacked the Houston Anarchist Bookfair. Patriot Front members have also acted as armed security for Richard Spencer and have continued ties to The Right Stuff, the fascist podcast and forum. The social media for Joffre Cross, a Patriot Front member arrested on gun charges in Houston in February 2019, showed numerous connections to “affiliates” of The Right Stuff. Patriot Front focuses heavily on recruitment through propaganda campaigns in states with membership. They also aggressively target college campuses with flyers and stickers and distribute propaganda at other events, such as anti-war protests. Patriot Front also utilizes flash-mob-style photo ops and spectacular events, such as their recent “march on the US Capitol” to recruit and spread their fascist message. However, they also attempt attacks and disruptions of leftist events and protests. In 2018, Patriot Front attacked an OccupyICE encampment in San Antonio and attempted to disrupt the Boston Anarchist Bookfair. In 2019, they showed up to the “March against Cages” in Boston. Patriot Front members routinely release videos of themselves doing martial arts training and also carry weapons. A knife and brass knuckles were found on Boston Patriot Front members after a confrontation with a police officer who caught them putting up fascist propaganda.

From our research, we have found that Kieran is a very active member of Patriot Front, and as a Network Director, is heavily involved in organizing the group’s fascist activity in the region. Living in the Hudson Valley, he is most likely responsible for the spread of Patriot Front flyers and stickers in upstate New York. He has also especially targeted New York City, driving hours to drop banners and wheatpaste fascist garbage around the five boroughs. After identifying Kieran, we identified him as the fascist passing out propaganda at Trump’s rally in Wildwood, NJ and were able to find him at numerous Patriot Front events, including marching with a shield and special mask next to Patriot Front leader, Thomas Rousseau, at the “March on the US Capitol” this past February. 

Other Connections

The Right Stuff and the Stormer Book Clubs

Patriot Front has always had connection to The Right Stuff, a fascist website run by Mike “Enoch” Peinovich, who was a scheduled speaker and attendee of the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville. Cooper “Ghoul” Ward, the Deputy Director of American Vanguard, the first iteration of Patriot Front, was once a co-host of “The Daily Shoah” podcast, along with Mike Peinovich. Vanguard America, the second iteration of Patriot Front, and Mike Peinovich both attended “Unite the Right” and both were named as defendants in Sines v. Kessler, the lawsuit brought by victims of the deadly rally. We think it is noteworthy that in one of the leaked screenshots, Kieran mentions that Patriot Front has “a lot of members in PPs” a reference to The Right Stuff-hosted gatherings called “Pool Parties.” As noted earlier, Kieran attended Pool Parties hosted by Jesse Dunstan who goes by “Seventh Son” or “Sven” in Fishkill, near Poughkeepsie. Sven is also a regular of The Right Stuff. Interestingly, Kieran mentions Jesse getting nervous that the police were investigating Patriot Front members in his area. This is most likely a reference to the police investigating antisemitic posters that were put up throughout the Hudson Valley at First Presbyterian Church in Beacon; and Vassar, Dutchess Community College and Marist College in Poughkeepsie. Although the posters were “from your local Stormer book club” there is also cross-over between Patriot Front and the Stormer Book Clubs in particular and cross-over generally among many Alt-Right groups in New York. At Marist College, the culprit was found, but not named. On March 6th, the Patriot Front Twitter account posted that the college had been hit again. 

Nordic Resistance Movement

Nordic Resistance Movement is a group that some House democrats are trying to ban on the basis that they are “a foreign terrorist organization.” Although NRM got its start in 2016 with members in Sweden, Finland, and Norway, its roots are with Swedish Nazi groups like White Aryan Resistance (related to the US group) and the Swedish Resistance Movement. NRM members have planned to kill journalists, have actually bombed refugee centers, vandalized Jewish cemetaries, and committed many other bigoted attacks. NRM was a supported group on Iron March, and had many Iron March members in their membership. Patriot Front’s first iteration was as a group called American Vanguard, which got its start on Iron March. There are still deep connections, as Patriot Front visited NRM in Sweden, and the two groups practiced martial arts and passed out fascist propaganda in public together. Thomas Rousseau, the Patriot Front leader, also appeared on an NRM English language podcast.

Casa Pound

Although Kieran played coy on his own social media account, referring to Casa Pound as a “veteran activist organization and party,” the Nordic Resistance Movement had no problems saying exactly who Patriot Front was meeting with when the group traveled to Italy. NRM and Casa Pound were both “supported groups” on Iron March. Casa Pound members have been linked to gang rape, attacks on left-wing politicians, the murder of migrants, and other vicious attacks on migrants and Romani. Patriot Front also got its start on Iron March, and clearly maintains connections to groups from that time.

Falanga/ONR

Falanga is the colloquial name of a fascist group called “Obóz Narodowo-Radykalny” (ONR) in Polish. The Falanga is ONR’s symbol, which you can see in the last photo below on a banner. Falanga is most known for co-sponsoring the notorious Independence Day march in Warsaw on November 11, which attracts thousands of ultra-nationalists and fascists from around Europe (and the United States). Falanga members are known to shout slogans like “Death to the Enemies of the Fatherland!,” hold banners saying “White Europe,” and fly a lot of Celtic Cross flags (a Nazi “white power” symbol). They are also involved in things like the 2018 arson of a Hungarian Community Center near Kiev. While not an officially supported group on Iron March, there were Falanga members on the forum and Kieran and Patriot Front were motivated to attend the march with the explicitly fascist bloc.