Richard Spencer’s Ties To Violent Nazi Will Fears (Newsweek)

Last week, Texas neo-nazi Will Fears, along with his brother Colton and another local fascist, Tyler Tenebrink, were arrested after a speech by the notoriously punchable Richard Spencer at the University of Florida.

Fears was, once again, collaborating with Patriot Front, the neo-nazis who attacked the Houston Anarchist Bookfair and themselves a spin off of Vanguard America, the neo-nazi group that included Heather Heyer’s killer in Charlottesville. Patriot Front and other fascist groups like Anti-Com were working as security for Spencer’s event, according to a document leaked by Atlanta Antifascists that has since been verified by multiple sources including Spencer’s think tank.

After activists essentially shut down Spencer’s speech, Fears brothers and Tenebrink were arrested in the streets of Gainesville when Tenebrink, under encouragement from Will Fears, opened fire on a group of antifascist activists.

I recently spoke with Newsweek reporter Michael Hayden about Fears’ long history of violence against antifa and the left in Texas, which includes his participation in the May Day fascist attack in downtown Austin and an assault on a clergywoman at Houston airport during the Muslim Ban protests. I told Hayden I wasn’t surprised that Spencer, despite his claims to want “peaceful” genocide (an oxymoron if ever I heard one), has to resort to hiring violent, would-be murderers as security:

“Essentially, someone like Richard Spencer doesn’t have anyone else to reach out to,” O’Connell said. “Who can he turn to other than people like this?”

I’ve spoken with Hayden several times before, including about neo-nazi recruitment efforts and, memorably, was quoted in his article about the ridiculous rumors that antifa is starting a civil war on November 4:

Kit O’Connell, an Austin-based writer and a veteran antifascist organizer who is not a member of Refuse Fascism but is familiar with it, says the idea that the group could cause a civil war is preposterous.

“For Alex Jones to say that about this protest is like suggesting that a local parent teacher association is capable of waging a civil war,” O’Connell quips.

A planning document for an alt-right event in Florida shows links to an attempted murder suspect

It was a warm Thursday afternoon in Gainesville, Florida, and white nationalist Richard Spencer was doing his best to talk over a room of protesters who were shouting down his persistent vows that the “alt-right” movement would one day take over the world. “You think that you shut me down.