After Harassing Black Teens In Austin, Patriot Prayer is Coming to Providence, RI to Stand with White Nationalists

Several weeks ago in Austin, Texas, far-Right militia members, Trump supporters, Proud Boys, and fans of the far-Right conspiracy web site InfoWars, held a rally to “Free Alex Jones.” Ironically, Jones was not imprisoned, but had been removed from a variety of social media sites for his repeated statements that the Sandy Hook massacre was a staged “false flag,” carried out in order to take away people’s guns. The turnout was poor, with only about 60-70 people coming out, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which was a pathetic mobilization considering that Jones began his career in Austin, growing from an office in town to a mass media empire, and still calls the city home.

People from across the country attended the rally, most notably the group Patriot Prayer from Washington, led by Joey Gibson, which has extensive cross over with the Proud Boys. It’s Going Down has written extensively about Patriot Prayer, Gibson, and the Proud Boys, but to make a long story short, the goal of Patriot Prayer is to build a big tent coalition with those on the far-Right, including white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the Alt-Right, in order to build a street fighting force to attack social movements.

One of the most notorious members of Patriot Prayer who is also a member of the Proud Boys in the Washington State area, is “Tiny” Toese. In the past several months, Tiny has made headlines for attacking people randomly in public.

On May 11th, well known Patriot Prayer and Proud Boy members took part in an assault at the Vancouver, WA mall against an African-American youth of only 17 years. As the Portland Tribune wrote:

Mykel Mosley, a 17-year-old African American teenager…was wrongfully arrested after he was allegedly assaulted by several prominent Proud Boys on May 11 near the Vancouver Mall. The incident, captured on cellphone video, started after Mosley apparently shouted an obscenity to several Proud Boys driving by in a truck displaying a Donald Trump flag.

The Proud Boys — identified…as Tusitala “Tiny” Toese, Russell Schultz and Donovon Flippo — seem to have leaped from the truck and chased Mosley down. “We are not your average victimized Trump supporters we fight back and we know how to throw our hand,” Toese wrote on social media after the incident. “You get smacked and now your [sic] the victim you asked for it,” added Flippo.

The altercation caused mall cops to enter the fray — but it was Mosley who ended up in a juvenile detention center over Mother’s Day weekend, facing charges of criminal trespassing and third-degree assault.

Then, less than a month later, the same individuals had found a new victim, this time, on the streets of Portland. As Maria Perez wrote in Newsweek:

Tim Ledwith, 34, told The Guardian that he was punched by Proud Boys member Tusitala “Tiny” Toese…Ledwith told the publication around 2:30 p.m. on Friday, June 8 in a shopping center in Portland and claimed that Toese and another unidentified man were yelling at random people from a truck. “They were yelling: ‘Support Trump, build the wall,’” Ledwith told The Guardian.

Ledwith said he cursed at the men, which led to Toese and Donovan Flippo, a Patriots Prayer and Proud Boys supporter, to get out of the car and confront Ledwith. “They were calling me a faggot and slinging epithets at me,” Ledwith said. “Tiny walked over calmly and … punched me in the face. I’m like, half his size. I was not a threat to them. I’m 34 years old, not 17. This is not a thing that happens to me day-to-day.” The punch left a gash on his lip, and Ledwith was taken to the hospital and received stitches, he told The Guardian.

It seems this racist pattern continued in Austin, Texas, because after the attendees of the Alex Jones got tired of listening to Tiny scream about how the British lost “their nuts,” and after Alex Jones made a very brief appearance and then quickly left, the crowd then decided to “troll” the local Pecan Street Festival. According to a report from the SPLC:

[R]ight-wing demonstrators took their signs, their message and a bullhorn to the Pecan Street Festival and began, as one organizer put it on Facebook, “trolling 6^th” street. Soon after they arrived, Toese, Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson and others in the group began what appears in [Owen] Shroyer’s video [on InfoWars] to be an animated discussion with three young men. According to commentary in the video, demonstrators were upset by their Obama hats, which Shroyer insisted they wore on purpose “just to trigger you,” and they also objected to one man’s sweatshirt, which featured the name and likeness of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I have a dream to have all-black college graduations at Harvard,” Patriot Prayer supporter Jason Lo can be heard saying on the video, “I have a dream for white genocide.” An unseen person laughs, and he continues. “I have – no, no, no – I have a dream for all police to die!”

“That’s what he said, huh?” someone asked off-camera.

“No, but when you wear an Obama hat and a Martin Luther King sweater, that’s what it means,” Lo said. “Obama is literally a treasonous bastard.”

When two of the men retreat into the store behind them to escape the confrontation, Toese flies into a rage. “You think you a badass? You think you a badass? Get out here!” he yells. “Why you standing there like a little bitch? Bring your ass here, then! Let’s see, let’s see who the little bitch is!”

Gibson reached for Toese’s shoulder, and a demonstrator said, “We come in peace, guys,” but Toese thundered on.

“You won’t survive in my world, boy!” he roared. “You won’t survive in my world!”

“I’ll blow through your fuckin window!” he said, and then two police officers intervened and removed him from the fray.

Tiny’s actions at the Pecan festival are extremely important to highlight, because they show that far from just wanting “free speech” or just the ability to hold their own rallies in peace, when left just to their own pathetic echo chamber, the far-Right goes looking for a fight. With no counter-protesters to stand up to them and keep them in a contained space, members of Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys quickly found a group of young men of color to harass and surrounded and threatened them with violence. Such a reality cuts to the heart of why such people cannot be “left alone” as so many liberals contend – they only feel powerful as a movement when they are attacking “enemies,” especially those that they deem weaker than them. For Tiny, his thing seems to be young African-American boys.

Now, Patriot Prayer is making its way to Providence, Rhode Island to rally with another big-tent far-Right group called Resist Marxism on Saturday, October 6th. According to local antifascists, Tiny is scheduled to speak, and Gibson is also supposed to make an appearance. In recent months, investigative journalists and antifascists have exposed members of Resist Marxism as being connected to neo-Nazis in the group Patriot Front, as well as with the white nationalist group, The American Guard, who’s leadership is made up largely of former KKK members, neo-Nazi skinheads, and Alt-Right organizers.

Ironically, back in August, Joey Gibson stated on a livestream that he agreed with local bay area far-Right organizer Amber Cummings who refused to allow American Guard to conduct security at her event after being exposed by antifascists. He stated, “The founder is literally a Klan member.” Then, several days later, Tiny posted a photo of himself with the American Guard logo on his Facebook image, and most recently, has appeared on a livestream with neo-Nazi members of American Guard. Despite being non-white, Tiny has a long history of attempting to make friends with white nationalists, from calling up members of Identity Evropa to thank them for fighting along side Patriot Prayer, to wearing t-shirts made by neo-Nazis that promote Pinochet. This has always been a mutual relationship – white nationalists get to look multicultural, and a living sack of shit like Tiny gets to have “friends.”

Like always, the swindlers and dip shits of Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys attempt to present themselves as non-racist and unwilling to form alliances with neo-Nazis, but when push comes to shove, they’re willing to fly halfway across the country to rally with them.

The question is, will people allow them to rally unopposed, and look for defenseless children and community members to attack when they get bored, or will people come together to defend their communities from fascists?

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