Part One: Background
The past 6-8 weeks has seen an unusually large amount of police attention on White Power boneheads in the Garden State, and the boneheads are starting to ask questions as to why.
One People’s Project reports that Josh Steever (75A Kuhl Road, Flemington NJ) and Kyle Powell, the numbers one and two in Aryan Terror Brigade (ATB) are both facing legal troubles. Steever is (or was) being held in Middlesex County jail on charge of terroristic threats (more on that later). Powell has already plead guilty to his role in a hate crime committed on New Year’s eve 2011 in New Jersey that may spell the end of ATB, who may also be trying to take another older, more established NJ bonehead crew with them.
It is not known when exactly Powell was arrested for his role in the attack, but the fact that he has already pled guilty makes it very likely that he was arrested before any of the other boneheads discussed in this article.
Then, in mid-December, a member of the Atlantic City Skins (AC Skins) Chris Ising and a member of ATB Michael Gunar were arrested on federal hate crimes charges stemming from their alleged involvement in the same attack that Powell just pled guilty to.
According to the cops, all of these boys were in attendance at a “White Power Meet-and-Greet” held at Ising’s former home in East Brunswick. Following the event, several boneheads went out and randomly attacked a group of residents of a nearby housing development for being Arab, injuring them.
Unfortunately, these sorts of attacks are commonplace when boneheads congregate together and present a sobering reminder as to why ALL attempts to organize by Neo-Nazi and far-right groups need to be opposed, even their “social events.”
The police have not released any information as to how they ascertained who was involved in the attack, which again had occurred almost a year earlier. Another interesting thing to note is that this event shows a relationship between ACS and ATB has been developing for some time. It is unknown whether or not Josh Steever was in attendance at the meet-and-greet or the attack afterwards.
As a side note, during this period two other boneheads from ACS were arrested for Domestic Violence and Assault charges, as of now there seems to be no connection the arrests of Gunar, Ising and Powell.
Part Two: Fallout
Gunar and Ising (who has a long criminal record) remain under indictment. Powell is out of jail pending sentencing, with a maximum possible sentence of 5 years.
Since the arrests of Steevers, Powell, Gunar and Ising, some of the (relatively) smarter boneheads in NJ have begun questioning who can be trusted in ATB.
A commenter on the One People’s Project article about Steever and Powell’s arrests claiming to be “Josh Long” of ATB alleges that Steever snitched on Powell, Ising and Gunar and claims that he is no longer a member of ATB, the group he founded.
While this is hardly proof-positive of Steever (and Powell) being a snitch, it does fit in with what Antifa in NJ and Philly have been suspecting ever since Josh Steever returned to NJ: that he is a police informant, and that Aryan Terror Brigade might have been created with the express purpose of attracting some of the more reckless and unstable elements of the White Power scene in the US.
Part Three: Filling in the Blanks
So what has led us to believe that Steever was a snitch since day one of ATB? The answer goes back several years.
Josh Steever is originally from the New Jersey, but first drew attention in Texas in 2005 for attacking someone with an axe handle, earning the nickname “Hatchet.” Steever managed to plead down from Felony to misdemeanor assault.
In 2008 Steever was arrested again, this time in California. According to the Anti-Defamation League, Steever “as arrested on June 12, 2006, four days after he accompanied his girlfriend to Newark Memorial High School to pick up her yearbook. At that time, Steever allegedly made racial slurs at two African American students waiting in line for their yearbooks and then pulled out a pocket knife and threatened to stab them…”
Despite being charged with several Felonies and hate crime enhancements, Steever suspiciously served only a year in California. This led to the first allegations that Steever had informed to the police in exchange for a reduced sentence and/or an early release. Allegations coming from fellow Neo-Nazis like this stormfront poster going by the name “SWAWILL.” SWA, or Supreme White Alliance, is a Neo-Nazi group that Steever was once an associate of:
When Steever got out of jail in California he returned to NJ where he reportedly must remain as a condition of his parole. Upon his return Steever started ATB, which has been almost universally dismissed as too juvenile/shocking by other Neo-Nazis to develop public relationships with. Steever did develop a knack for attracting young internet boneheads with outlandish rhetoric and a reputation for being unapologetically unreasonable about his bigotry. Around this time Steever also became associated with Blood and Honor USA, one of two competing Neo-Nazi groups of the same name.
It did not take long for Blood and Honor to get wise to Steever, and they quite publicly removed him from their ranks in a public statement. Give it a read to get some insight into just how divisive and untrustworthy Steever is considered; even by his allies.
Conclusion
In addition to the situation on New Jersey, many of you may recall the recent arrest of the entirety of Florida American Front following a police informant being “patched into” their group. Coincidentally (?) one of the people arrested was Ken McClellan, who was pled a federal weapons charge down to PROBATION, despite being an ex-convict.
According to Josh Steever himself, Ken McClellan is (or was) a member of Aryan Terror Brigade before and during the arrests.
It seems that wherever Aryan Terror Brigade is found, the police are not far behind.
Police informants and undercover agents are no new phenomenon in Neo-Nazi/Far Right circles. Powerhouses in their movement such as The Order, the World Church of the Creator and the certain incarnations of the KKK have been destroyed by state infiltration and snitches.
Compared to two recent cases in New Jersey and Illinois involving Antifascists, the Pemberton 2 and the Tinley Park 5. In both cases those arrested represented a small portion of those involved in the “crimes” they were charged with. In both cases, but especially for the TP5, giving up their comrades would have certainly meant lenient treatment, if not immunity from charge altogether. But unlike the boneheads, in both cases not a single Antifascist would give up their accomplices.
Right now the Tinley Park 5 sit in prison on trumped-up charges because they were unwilling to sacrifice fellow Antifascists to save themselves, and all evidence indicates that members of Aryan Terror Brigade and the Atlantic City Skins sit in prison because their “white brothers” did just that.
This is why we will win.