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1) BREAKING: Neo-Nazi leader Burt Colucci of the National Socialist Movement was arrested on Monday in Arizona, just two days after leading a hate rally in Phoenix.
CW: Nazi violence and suicide are mentioned in this thread along with an incident involving anti-Black racism.
CW: Nazi violence and suicide are mentioned in this thread along with an incident involving anti-Black racism.
2) Details are scarce, but Colucci, who lives in Florida, was still in Arizona days after the rally when he was allegedly involved in some sort of altercation in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix.
3) Colucci is expected to be charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a felony which could lead to prison time as well as the loss of his right to own or possess a gun.
4) His arrest came about 48 hours after he led a small rally on Saturday that involved members of multiple neo-Nazi groups. At that rally, the Nazis accosted a group Black men sitting at picnic tables and taunted them with racial slurs.
(Photo of Burt Colucci by @ashponders.)
(Photo of Burt Colucci by @ashponders.)
5) Two years ago, Colucci took over as "commander" of the National Socialist Movement after its longtime leader, Jeff Schoep, quit and publicly renounced Nazism. (Schoep reportedly had contact with Colucci after that but insists his conversion is sincere.) https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/us/jeff-schoep-white-nationalist-reformer.html
6) Once the largest neo-Nazi group in the US, the National Socialist Movement has been on the decline for years, a trend which has only continued under Colucci's watch and which was on display with its small turnout on Saturday.
7) Despite its dwindling numbers, the NSM has a history of violence that shouldn't be ignored. Here are a few prominent examples:
8) The NSM was involved in the deadly 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. It's now among the defendants being sued in federal court by @IntegrityforUSA for allegedly planning the violence. A trial is expected later this year. https://www.integrityfirstforamerica.org/our-work/case/charlottesville-case
9) In 2012, one-time NSM member and border vigilante JT Ready shot and killed four people, including a child, in a house in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert, Arizona. He then committed suicide. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/border-vigilante-identified-as-gunman-in-arizona-massacre
10) In March 2020, a recent NSM recruit, Timothy Wilson, committed suicide during a shootout with the FBI in Missouri. The feds say Wilson had planned to use a vehicle bomb to blow up a nearby hospital amid COVID-19 lockdowns. https://www.informant.news/p/heartland-terror
11) The NSM rally this weekend was part of the group's annual tradition of marking the April 20 birthday of Adolf Hitler. The group dressed mostly in black uniforms with red armbands emblazoned with swastikas. Some carried swastika flags. Others carried shields with the NSM logo.
12) Now, instead of celebrating Hitler's birthday with his freedom, Colucci started the day today in a Phoenix-area jail, awaiting to be seen by a judge.
More details to come as I learn them.
More details to come as I learn them.
UPDATE: Court records show neo-Nazi leader Burt Colucci of the National Socialist Movement is accused of pointing a handgun at a Black man he claims he saw littering.
Colucci admitted drawing his gun but said he never pointed it.
A third-party witness says otherwise.
Colucci admitted drawing his gun but said he never pointed it.
A third-party witness says otherwise.
A judge in Maricopa County, Arizona has also ordered Colucci to be released on a $7,500 bond. My guess is he will be out of jail today if he isn't already.
