Weird Little Guys

Last week, we talked about one particular incident of vehicular violence on protesters. But where does the tactic come from? Who is doing it? And why?

Sources:
Miller, Vincent, and Keith J. Hayward. “‘I DID MY BIT’: TERRORISM, TARDE AND THE VEHICLE RAMMING ATTACK AS AN IMITATIVE EVENT.” The British Journal of Criminology, vol. 59, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1–23. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26...

With vehicular attacks on protests on the rise and elected officials encouraging the tactic, old conspiracy theories about one vehicular attack in particular are circulating once again. This is the story of what actually happened on Fourth Street in downtown Charlottesville on August 12, 2017.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/08/us/la-immigration-protests-photos-map.html

https://files.integr...

Last week, five Proud Boys announced a $100 million lawsuit against the government over their treatment during the January 6th prosecutions.

Sources:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70474277/tarrio-v-united-states-of-america/

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/ex-soldiers-acceptance-trump-pardon-didnt-constitute-confession-guilt-court-2021-09-23/

https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/proud-boys-leaders-su...

After losing his job, an ex-Disney employee tried to get his former employer's attention by hacking in and making strange updates to company files.

Sources:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69534211/united-states-v-scheuer/
https://www.eeoc.gov/what-you-can-expect-after-you-file-charge
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/26/us/disney-worker-prison-hacking.html

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy infor...

In April 2025, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case filed by a pair of white supremacists who felt the police had violated their civil rights by refusing to help them put on a rally in Charlottesville in August of 2017. Their lawsuit was a joke, but unfortunately for all of us, the punchline is that the police don't actually have to help anyone.

Sources:
https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/neo-nazi-lawyer-r...

In 1992, a small business owner in Oregon had to shut down his gun store. But he had to do something with all his remaining inventory….

Sources:

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2014-01-21-ariel-sharon-apartheid-south-africa-and-mutual-military-interests/#.Vc4WVige5lk:

Moore, Matthew. “Arming the Embargoed: A Supply-Side Understanding of Arms Embargo Violations.” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, ...

Arrested Democracy, Part 1

In 2010, conspiracy theorists around the country were convinced that Barack Obama was not the rightful president. Some of them filed lawsuits. Some of them tried to have the President indicted. And when none of that worked, some of them took matters into their own hands and tried to arrest the county court employees they thought were standing in their way. In the first half of this story, Walter F...

A bite-sized look at the NYPD officer who sued the city for firing him over anonymously mailing racist pamphlets to charitable organizations

Sources:

​​https://www.nytimes.com/1998/06/17/nyregion/officer-admits-to-racist-mail-and-is-offered-deal-to-retire.html

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/sotomayors-defense-of-whi_n_210795

https://www.criminallawlibraryblog.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/335/2016/09/Sotomayor_2002...

The Devil's Chat Room: Ethan Melzer, Part 1

In June of 2020, US Army Private Ethan Melzer was arrested for leaking information about his unit's deployment to Turkey with the intention of causing a mass casualty incident. The plot was hatched in a Telegram chat room for a group calling itself Rapewaffen, an Atomwaffen splinter cell that was committed to the beliefs of a neonazi satanic cult called the Order of Nine Angles. Th...

At the end of this miniseries about white supremacist terrorism in the final years of apartheid in South Africa, this episode returns to the present day as white South Africans are lining up outside the embassy in Pretoria to claim refugee status under Trump's executive order.

Sources:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us-focuses-persecution-claims-white-south-africans-seek-resettlement-2025-04-24/

https://www.theguardian...

In 2002, a terrorist group failed to assassinate Nelson Mandela. In 2012, a plot to assassinate Jacob Zuma was foiled. Both plots were attempts to fulfill a prophecy and renew a bloody covenant with God.

Sources:

Thompson, Leonard L. The Political Mythology of Apartheid. Yale University Press, 1986.
FA Mouton (1995) F A van Jaarsveld (1922–1995) — a flawed genius?, , 27:1,
5-11, DOI: 10.1080/0023208...

This is the very strange story of the time Dolph Lundgren starred in a piece of apartheid propaganda.

Sources:

Bellant, Russ. Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party. South End Press, 1991.

Abramoff, Jack. Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth about Washington Corruption from America’s Most Notorious Lobbyist. WND Books, 2011.

Easton, Nina. Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conserv...

In the final days of apartheid, white extremists were getting desperate. That desperation contributed to one of the strangest political crises of the late 20th century:

Sources:
https://dcist.com/story/12/09/24/aryan-nations/

https://archive.idavox.com/index.php/2012/09/24/the-aryan-nations-show-of-farce-in-dc/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naRGivc7Ong

Guelke, Adrian. “Political Violence and ...

In 1994, a second group of mercenaries arrived at the airport in Johannesburg... but no one was there to pick them up. Their host had been arrested days earlier, after the last group of mercenaries she'd hosted got into a deadly shootout with the South African police. But how did all these Germans end up in South Africa in the first place?

https://www.propublica.org/article/vasilios-pistolis-imprisoned-marine-hate-groups

Sou...

In 1989, four Afrikaner nationalists and one German mercenary killed a security guard at a United Nations outpost in Namibia. After escaping from custody, they fled home to South Africa. A possibly non-existent group called The White Wolves took credit for the wave of bombings that followed. 

Sources:

Du Preez, M. (2010). Pale native: Memories of a Renegade reporter. Zebra Press. 

Rotberg, Robert (1988). The Founder: Ceci...

In the last episode, we looked at a strange series of rallies held in cities across the United States in 2012 - American neo-nazis were rallying in support of white South African Farmers. But how did they get that idea in their heads? The rallies were put on by a group called The South Africa Project, run by a woman I'd never heard of. Digging into this mysterious South African, I found a lot more than I bargained for - bombings an...

This is a rerun of the episode that originally ran on February 6, 2025 with a newly recorded introduction with new information about the traffic stop that led to Matthew Huttle's death.

Sources:

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2025/02/27/body-cam-footage-jan-6-defendants-traffic-stop-shooting-death-released-matthew-huttle-jasper-county/80731312007/

https://www.in.gov/sheriffs/jasper/files/Jasper-Coun...