8 Aryan Brotherhood Members Charged With Hate Crime In Washington
LYNNWOOD, WA — Eight people affiliated with the Aryan Brotherhood were arrested early Saturday at a western Washington bar following an attack on a DJ that charging documents indicate was racially motivated.
According to the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Probable Cause affidavit obtained by Patch, the attack occurred around 12:30 a.m. Saturday at the Rec Room Bar and Grill off Highway 99 in Lynnwood — a minority-owned establishment that prides itself on inclusivity for all, according to the bar’s general manager, Jason Baum, who described the incident for KIRO7 reporters.
Baum told KIRO7 the group of alleged offenders came into the bar just after midnight and ordered drinks. Soon after, they attacked the DJ — who is black — while shouting racial slurs. Baum said he jumped into the fight to help, doing what he could against more than 10 people.
“That’s what a friend does,” Baum told KIRO7. “A friend’s not going to stand back and watch another friend in need.”
The PC affidavit offers a bit more detail.
Around 12:40 a.m. a patron at the bar called 911 to report gunshots. Hiding under a car outside the bar, the 911 caller told dispatchers at least 14 white people were beating on the black DJ.
Multiple people and vehicles were seen fleeing the bar as Snohomish County deputies arrived, including a white Toyota Tundra with Oregon license plates. The driver of the Tundra, later identified as Cory Thomas Colwell of Eugene, Oregon, reportedly made eye contact with one of the deputies as they passed each other but continued driving.
Eventually Colwell pulled over a little ways down the road, submitting to law enforcement.
In the car with Colwell were Travis David Condor, 34, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Daniel Delbert Dorson, 23, of Corvallis, Oregon; Leah N. Northcraft, 25, of Raleigh, North Carolina; Randy Aaron Smith, 38, of Eugene; and Nathaniel L. Woodell, 32, of Woodstock, Illinois.
Arrested later were Guy Albert Miller, 37, of Tacoma, and Vincent Bradley Nutter, 28, of Bothell.
All eight individuals were identified as members of the Aryan Brotherhood, and at least three were skinheads in appearance. Additionally, each was charged with “malicious harassment based on race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sex orientation, or handicap,” which Washington identifies as a hate crime.
Northcraft, for her part, was reportedly not involved in the actual fighting, but allegedly participated nonetheless by shouting racial slurs and threatening to kill the DJ.
According to the DJ’s statements to police, the incident began when one of the white supremacists began operating his equipment without permission. After demanding the individual stop, the DJ was met by a crowd of “white supremacist gang members.”
The DJ then turned off the music and told everyone to leave the bar. The gang refused and instead encircled the DJ and attacked him, punching and stomping him.
After the beating was finished, one of the members reportedly said, “We will see you, (racial slur) … It’s over for you.”
Sheriff’s investigators said the DJ “was in complete fear for his life.”
The DJ reportedly sustained non-life-threatening injuries, including a swollen eye, and was taken to hospital. Baum, for his part, reportedly sustained a concussion.
The entire incident was reportedly captured on the bar’s security video cameras.
With the help of Everett and Lynnwood police as well as Washington State troopers, law enforcement rounded up others who were reportedly involved, including Miller and Nutter, who were seen leaving the scene and later found at a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant at the intersection of 176th Street Southwest and Highway 99.
Along with both men appearing in the surveillance video of the beating, Nutter left his ID at the bar. Yet at the jail following his arrest, Nutter remained indignant and uncooperative, telling police to “suck his (expletive)” when asked if he would take a breathalyzer voluntarily.
The reported attack came hours after a Virginia jury on Friday found James Alex Fields guilty of murder for driving his car into a large group counter-protesting the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville on August 12, 2017, injuring 19 people and killing 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer.
The attack also came minutes after the start of white supremacist de facto holiday “Martyr’s Day,” which the SPLC describes as the death day anniversary of Robert Jay Mathews, who was killed Dec. 8, 1984, during a gun fight with FBI agents on Whidbey Island.
Mathews at the time reportedly led The Order, a domestic terrorist group infamously known for the murder of talk radio host Alan Berg, who was Jewish.
Of those arrested in Lynnwood Saturday Condor is probably the most well known.
The Southern Poverty Law Center identified Condor as the “head of hate music record label American Defense Records,” which advertises a colorful array of non-hit albums that include “Liberals Can Die,” “American Skinheads… Armed With The Truth!” (parts one and two, apparently), and the non sequitur “Diversity Is Our Strength,” which includes a track titled, “The Rats Ain’t Hiding in the Walls No More,” a song about disadvantaged whites forced to endure the successes of minority groups who no longer “hide their faces.”
In a statement released Monday, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said it will work with the FBI on this investigation.
“We do not and will not ever tolerate acts of hate in Snohomish County,” Sheriff Ty Trenary said in the statement. “The violent behavior directed at members of our community over the weekend simply because of their race is disgusting. The Sheriff’s Office is partnering with the FBI in hopes of getting the strongest sentencing possible for these hate crimes.”
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This post has been updated from its original version to include information from the Snohomish County Prosecutor’s Office Probable Cause Affidavit.
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