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This is a CBC Podcast.
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The following episode contains coarse language and descriptions of violence.
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Please take care when listening.
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Voice memo.
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I'm going to try and get everything I can remember.
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I've popped my head.
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The meeting just ended and I didn't record it.
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It's the summer of 2019. And this is Ryan Thorpe,
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a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. He's just had
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what could be the biggest interview of his career. But
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he couldn't take notes. So he's jogging home, fast, recording
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on his phone everything he can remember.
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He's about 5'10.
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Lives in Beaujour. Has for a couple of years. Grew
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up in the country. Used to live in Winnipeg.
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Fuck!
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We spoke for like an hour and a half.
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So much. He ranted with homophobic and racist language.
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He's anti-Semitic.
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He likes to talk. He talked about fomenting a race war.
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He talked about derailing a train.
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That we were nearby, sabotaging a train track.
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He is a violent extremist.
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The man Ryan just met, basically, he described himself as
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a neo-Nazi. He talked about derailing a train and fomenting
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a race war. Ryan didn't know the man's identity. And
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the man did not know that Ryan was a journalist.
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Pretty tough, but the importance of keeping information siloed and
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that there is no discussion in the main chat room
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of any upcoming training camps until after they happen. But
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there's no discussion of them prior to the events themselves
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because they're worried that there might be.
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A journalist infiltrating the group. I could have recorded the
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whole fucking conversation.
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He wouldn't have even.
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Known.
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I'm Michelle Shepard, and this is White Hot Hate. Episode one,
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save your race, join the base. Have you heard of
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the term accelerationism? It's not widely known. But in recent years,
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the ideology has taken root among white supremacists. Basically, an
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accelerationist is someone who revels in chaos. They want governments
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and society to collapse. And one way they believe they
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will is if they accelerate it through acts of violence.
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Here's their thinking. Neo-Nazi accelerationists believe the white race is
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at risk of extinction. And the government is largely corrupt
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and will not stand up for their rights, so they
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can't win through ballot boxes. But they think violence can
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set off a series of reactions that will sow political discord.
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Those in the political center, who they call fence-sitters, will
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be forced to pick sides, sparking a kind of Lord
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of the Flies survival of the fittest frenzy.
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Is what is needed.
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Most in these trying times, and that action must be
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driven towards our white revolution.
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A race war will begin, and the whites will triumph.
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Embrace the chaos, and from its ashes, a new world
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shall arise, beautiful and pure, to victory, white men!
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If you haven't been following this, their mission sounds a
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bit far-fetched, I know. But this violent faction of the
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far-right has been busy spewing hate and organizing on social
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media and in private chat groups. And those who share
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the ideology have been carrying out deadly attacks.
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At least 49 people have been killed in two mosques
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in Christchurch. In El Paso, Texas, 20 people were gunned
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down inside a Walmart. In Charleston, South Carolina, nine people
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were killed in a shooting. at a historic African-American church.
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We are following a developing story out of Quebec City.
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Police confirm multiple deaths inside a mosque.
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Dozens of others are wounded.
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Many are in critical condition. Police are now searching for
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a white male suspect thought to be in his early 20s.
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I've been tracking terrorism since the September 11th attacks. But
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the vast majority of the violence I covered was outside
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of North America and perpetrated by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates,
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and then by ISIS. But there was one devastating terrorist
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attack by a right-wing extremist that I covered in my travels.
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Today, the usually peaceful nation of Norway is coming to
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terms with horrific acts of violence. A large bomb went
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off outside Norwegian government offices in the capital, Oslo, this afternoon,
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killing at least seven people and injuring many more.
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When I got on a plane in Toronto to fly
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to Norway, all I knew was that a bomb had
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gone off in Oslo and there were early reports of
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children being killed on the nearby island of Utøya. In
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the end, there were 77 victims, most of them teenagers.
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The survivors were heartbreakingly composed. I can still picture Caroline
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Bank telling me how her arm was cramping as she
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pressed a shredded t-shirt into her friend's bullet wounds. And
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that she was trying to camouflage her friend's purple hoodie
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with sticks and dirt because the murderer, Anders Bering Breivik,
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was still out there. I read Breivik's terrorist manifesto, all 1,518
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pages of it. He didn't use the term accelerationist back then,
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but that's what he was. This is what he wrote.
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We are in the very beginning of a very bloody
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cultural war, a war between nationalism and internationalism, and we
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intend to win it. He wanted to start a race war.
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Others are still trying today. And that's what we're investigating
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in this podcast, this overt and covert accelerationist movement, this
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push by a small, but determined and violent faction of
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the far right. And that's the story journalist Ryan Thorpe
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found in the city of Winnipeg, smack dab in the
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middle of North America. Ryan was working as a general
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assignment reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press. Affectionately known as
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the Freep, it's the paper of record in this city
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on the Canadian prairies.
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So anytime that there was violent crime or homicide or
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something like that in Winnipeg, I was usually the person
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asked to cover it. And then when I wasn't working
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on stuff like that, just anything that might need to
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be covered in a day, they would kick over to me.
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So it was pretty varied.
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One day in the summer of 2019, Ryan's editor asked
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him to follow up on a tip. Someone had been
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putting up posters around Winnipeg with the words, Learn, Train, Fight.
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There was a sketch of a jacked-up Grim Reaper in
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a skull mask, cradling an assault-style rifle. And the call
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to arms? Save your race.
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Join the base.
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So what's your next move, then, now that you have
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this poster? What do you do to try and figure
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out what's going on?
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My first step is just to begin doing kind of
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an internet dive into this organization called The Base. I
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had never heard of them before. I didn't know anything
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about them. And I come across this 2018 expose done
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by Vice, which.
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In late 2018, Vice journalists Ben Makou and Mac Lamoureux
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wrote the first big piece on the base under the headline,
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Neo-Nazis are organizing secretive paramilitary training across America.
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And aside from this kind of single news article, I
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couldn't find anything about this organization, which probably explained by
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virtue of the fact that this group was fairly new.
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that according to Vice, they had been formed in 2018.
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And I knew that they'd been formed in the United States,
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and now all of a sudden we've got recruitment posters
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turning up here in Winnipeg.
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So Ryan considered his options.
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I walked down the newsroom and go back to my
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editor and essentially say, look, this is what I found
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out so far. There are two different ways you could
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approach the story. One is that I could write something
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for tomorrow's paper. I would just get some interviews with
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academics I would contact the Winnipeg Police Service, ask if
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they're aware of these posters and tracking them at all.
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Maybe I would go to one of the kind of
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anti-fascist organizers that I know and get a quote from them.
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It'd be pretty straightforward. It'd be quick to turn around.
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The other approach, I said, would be to create a
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fake name and just reach out to them and ask
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for more information about them, pretend to be a white
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nationalist that's potentially interested in joining up.
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So that's what Ryan does. He goes by the alias
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of Mark, a 26-year-old university student who has been flirting
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with white nationalist ideology. And he emails the contact on
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the poster, asking for more information.
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I got a response the next day. The first thing
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they wanted to know was where I had seen their posters.
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And so I described the area of St. James where
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I knew one of these posters had come up. And
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after that, they sent me a questionnaire that they asked
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me to fill out, which wanted to know, you know,
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my name, my age, my physical fitness level, my ethnicity,
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my sex. They wanted to know if I had firearms training,
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if I had military experience at all, if I had
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background in chemistry or engineering. They wanted me to describe
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my political worldview. And so I filled out that questionnaire
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and sent it back to them.
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This fact strikes me as so funny and familiar, too.
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The bureaucracy of extremist groups is just surreal. I remember
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in 2016 getting my hands on a database of 4,000
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ISIS recruits. It contained all the answers those applicants had
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to supply. Date of birth and nationality.
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Education. Employment.
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And would you like to be a fighter, security guard, administrator,
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or martyr? Ryan answered the base's questionnaire carefully.
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I didn't want to inflate my credentials or, like, lie
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about my background to make myself seem like a more
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attractive recruit to them. So when it came to, like,
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questions of military training or a background in chemistry and engineering,
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in real life, I have neither. And so I didn't
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pretend to have those things. So I gave them my
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real age. You know, when it came to, do you
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have any firearms trainings, I just said that, like, I
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grew up in a rural area of the Canadian prairies, and, like,
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all of my family were hunters, and my dad taught
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me to shoot guns from a young age, which was
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all accurate.
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The form worked. For the next few days, there were
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emails back and forth.
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Eventually, the person I was communicating with told me to
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download an app.
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Ryan signed up as Mark. And he started communicating with
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someone with the handle Roman Wolf. The texting continued, and
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then Roman said it was time to talk on the phone.
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I can remember, you know, being in the newsroom all
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day and kind of going about, you know, my regular
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GA duties. And then it was eight or nine at
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night when I had set up this phone call. I
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had printed out all my correspondence with these people and
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then kind of wrote a list of all the key
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details that I've been telling them about myself just to
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make sure that I didn't screw up or say something
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that contradicted a piece of information I had previously given them.
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If I couldn't think of a way to answer a
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question off the top of my head, I could just
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look down at the page and then very quickly riff.
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Ryan spread the cheat sheets out in front of him.
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But from the get-go, there was something he hadn't expected.
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About 10 to 15 minutes prior to when this call
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is scheduled for, I get a message from the guy
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that I've been talking to. And he says, actually, there's
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going to be about like five to six other members
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of the base listening in, which I found unnerving because one,
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it just caught me off guard. And two, here I
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was thinking I only had to convince one person and
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now I had to be convincing to six or seven.
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This is the man calling himself Roman Wolf. And while
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there were supposedly others joining in, it's only Roman talking.
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It sounds like he's in charge. He tells Ryan, a.k.a. Mark,
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the university student, that the base is a survivalist self-defense
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network and its members are do not believe there is
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a political solution to the oppression of the white race.
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So?
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He says we're hoping for a collapse of the current system.
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And Ryan is playing right along.
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I would agree with that.
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I think I've just reached a point where it's like,
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I no longer want my political views to just be
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some private, personal thing that doesn't translate into how I
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operate or act in the world, which is how, admittedly,
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how it's been for me the past couple of years.
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That's something that I want to change. Not only do
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I think that a collapse is coming and is inevitable,
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I also hold the view that we've already entered into
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something approximating a kind of very low-intensity civil war.
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You're going to be stepping into the most extreme group
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00:15:35.950 --> 00:15:38.330
of pro-Bio people in.
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00:15:44.340 --> 00:15:48.980
The most extreme group of pro-white people you'll probably come across.
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Ryan kept his cool, didn't flinch. It seemed like he
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00:15:53.730 --> 00:15:56.330
had built some kind of rapport with this Roman wolf.
250
00:15:57.129 --> 00:16:00.590
But as the call was winding down, a totally new
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00:16:00.649 --> 00:16:01.460
voice pops up.
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00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:05.580
I'm sorry for being late.
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00:16:06.220 --> 00:16:08.860
So far, it sounds like you're interested.
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00:16:09.340 --> 00:16:12.240
And the person that may or may not have been
255
00:16:12.320 --> 00:16:15.279
putting those posters may or may not have been me.
256
00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:19.700
So that person who is active, so to speak, in
257
00:16:19.759 --> 00:16:23.950
your area may or may not be me. Okay, sounds good.
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00:16:25.970 --> 00:16:30.009
Basically, now Ryan knows. Okay, he's got the guy who's
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00:16:30.029 --> 00:16:33.309
been putting up the posters in Winnipeg. The call ends
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00:16:33.350 --> 00:16:35.970
with Roman Wolf saying he and the others would discuss
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00:16:36.009 --> 00:16:39.269
Ryan's application and get back to him in 24 hours.
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00:16:40.789 --> 00:16:43.519
The next day, I'm in the newsroom working on a
263
00:16:43.649 --> 00:16:47.639
different story, and I see a notification pop up on
264
00:16:47.700 --> 00:16:51.279
my work cell phone, and it was Roman Wolf. And
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00:16:51.379 --> 00:16:53.639
he said, you did good last night. The next step
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00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:55.120
is to meet our local guy in person.
267
00:17:02.750 --> 00:17:05.589
In 2010, a family of four in California goes missing,
268
00:17:05.950 --> 00:17:09.930
and the clues left behind send investigators on a years-long search.
269
00:17:10.809 --> 00:17:12.930
Is this a family on the run, or is the
270
00:17:12.990 --> 00:17:18.180
truth far more sinister? From ABC Audio in 2020, this
271
00:17:18.380 --> 00:17:21.720
is What Happened to the McStaves, coming August 11th. Listen
272
00:17:21.779 --> 00:17:26.599
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.
273
00:17:26.839 --> 00:17:30.089
Or subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts
274
00:17:30.210 --> 00:17:31.710
to listen early and ad-free.
275
00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:43.960
Ryan's investigation was moving surprisingly fast. It had only been
276
00:17:44.200 --> 00:17:46.720
about two weeks since he'd first reached out.
277
00:17:48.839 --> 00:17:50.319
And now all of a sudden I'm going to be
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00:17:50.380 --> 00:17:53.799
meeting up with the person who is responsible for putting
279
00:17:53.839 --> 00:17:56.599
these posters up, right? And so that felt good from
280
00:17:56.640 --> 00:17:58.839
a journalistic standpoint. It's like, oh, I actually got to
281
00:17:58.880 --> 00:18:01.220
the bottom of this one. At the same time, by
282
00:18:01.240 --> 00:18:03.369
this point, I'd learned a lot about this organization. I
283
00:18:03.509 --> 00:18:07.460
had learned that this wasn't the type of far-right groups
284
00:18:07.500 --> 00:18:09.519
that I had done coverage on in the past, that
285
00:18:09.539 --> 00:18:12.900
this was something far more serious, far more militarized, and
286
00:18:13.200 --> 00:18:16.539
potentially violent. And so, you know, I was worried. Am
287
00:18:16.579 --> 00:18:18.400
I going to be convincing enough? You know, it's one
288
00:18:18.460 --> 00:18:21.640
thing to kind of convince them over text messages and
289
00:18:21.740 --> 00:18:24.119
emails and even a phone call, right, where if something
290
00:18:24.140 --> 00:18:27.220
had went wrong, I'm still physically separated from these people,
291
00:18:27.279 --> 00:18:30.319
so the consequences aren't that bad. This time around, if
292
00:18:30.380 --> 00:18:33.279
I screw up and blow my cover... I'm going to
293
00:18:33.299 --> 00:18:35.789
be face-to-face with this guy, and what might he do?
294
00:18:36.660 --> 00:18:39.410
At that point, a face-to-face meeting, I'm essentially acting. I
295
00:18:39.440 --> 00:18:43.470
don't have any chops as an actor or background in drama,
296
00:18:43.549 --> 00:18:45.650
so I was being put to the test in a
297
00:18:45.670 --> 00:18:47.269
way that I hadn't been before.
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00:18:51.990 --> 00:18:54.710
Ryan didn't have much time to prep for the meeting.
299
00:18:55.569 --> 00:18:58.150
We set up this meeting for 8 p.m. at Whittier
300
00:18:58.190 --> 00:19:01.089
Park in Winnipeg. which was a park that I had
301
00:19:01.170 --> 00:19:03.710
chosen due to its location. I wanted to keep things
302
00:19:03.769 --> 00:19:05.990
central and I didn't want to meet him, you know,
303
00:19:06.049 --> 00:19:09.309
out of town or in some like very secluded area.
304
00:19:09.769 --> 00:19:11.710
So I go into work that day and I can't
305
00:19:11.730 --> 00:19:13.170
remember what I was covering. You know, I had a
306
00:19:13.210 --> 00:19:15.269
daily deadline. And so I didn't really think about the
307
00:19:15.289 --> 00:19:17.990
meeting a lot. I honestly, I didn't have the time to.
308
00:19:18.710 --> 00:19:19.589
But when he gets home.
309
00:19:20.890 --> 00:19:23.349
Kind of as I'm walking through the door, it's like
310
00:19:23.450 --> 00:19:26.250
three hours out and it hits me, you know, what
311
00:19:26.289 --> 00:19:29.430
I'm about to do. So that's when the nerves really
312
00:19:29.470 --> 00:19:35.200
start Getting to me. You know, I'm thinking through various
313
00:19:35.259 --> 00:19:37.920
things that could happen at that meeting that might blow
314
00:19:37.960 --> 00:19:40.599
my cover. I can't have my audio recorder in my pocket.
315
00:19:40.660 --> 00:19:41.759
What if he pats me down?
316
00:19:42.089 --> 00:19:42.240
Right.
317
00:19:42.309 --> 00:19:46.130
Like that's that's obviously a red flag. You know, I thought, well,
318
00:19:46.170 --> 00:19:48.750
maybe I can just run an audio recorder on my
319
00:19:48.890 --> 00:19:49.410
cell phone.
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00:19:49.849 --> 00:19:49.970
But.
321
00:19:50.619 --> 00:19:52.640
I was just worried that if for whatever reason he
322
00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:55.160
saw the screen, maybe I check the time at some
323
00:19:55.220 --> 00:19:58.599
point and he sees that little recording bar at the
324
00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:00.809
top of the screen that I just figured it wasn't
325
00:20:00.849 --> 00:20:04.150
worth the risk. Then I get worried that he might
326
00:20:04.710 --> 00:20:07.390
ask to see my driver's license or my ID. And
327
00:20:07.410 --> 00:20:09.960
then all it takes is one Google search of my
328
00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:12.319
name and he would see that I'm a reporter at
329
00:20:12.339 --> 00:20:13.259
the Winnipeg Free Press.
330
00:20:14.880 --> 00:20:18.220
But then Ryan thinks, OK, but it's also weird not
331
00:20:18.259 --> 00:20:19.140
to carry your wallet.
332
00:20:19.940 --> 00:20:21.380
Is that going to be a red flag in and
333
00:20:21.420 --> 00:20:24.789
of itself? So I essentially come up with this story
334
00:20:24.829 --> 00:20:27.150
where I message him a couple hours before a meeting
335
00:20:27.670 --> 00:20:30.279
and I say, look, I usually go jogging a few
336
00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:32.980
times a week. And normally on Wednesdays, which was the
337
00:20:33.019 --> 00:20:34.259
day of the week it was, I go jogging. But
338
00:20:34.279 --> 00:20:36.000
I was so busy today that I couldn't. So I'm
339
00:20:36.039 --> 00:20:39.740
going to jog from my place to the park. You know,
340
00:20:39.779 --> 00:20:42.099
I'm six feet tall. I'm thin. I'm going to be
341
00:20:42.140 --> 00:20:45.140
wearing jogging clothes and I have a shaved head. He says, yeah,
342
00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:46.349
that's fine. That's good.
343
00:20:47.869 --> 00:20:50.369
As a young white dude with a shaved head, Ryan's
344
00:20:50.430 --> 00:20:53.430
about as central casting as you can get for neo-Nazis.
345
00:20:54.430 --> 00:20:57.529
But Winnipeg's not a huge city. and the Free Press
346
00:20:57.799 --> 00:21:01.460
is the main paper. And Ryan had covered a couple
347
00:21:01.500 --> 00:21:05.900
far-right stories. So ostensibly, if you were into this stuff,
348
00:21:06.420 --> 00:21:10.500
you may have read him. And his headshot accompanies his articles.
349
00:21:12.799 --> 00:21:16.000
And so I have a mustache in that photo, and
350
00:21:16.019 --> 00:21:17.640
I had a mustache at the time. So I go
351
00:21:17.700 --> 00:21:20.690
into my bathroom and I shave off all my facial hair.
352
00:21:21.089 --> 00:21:22.849
And then the final thing was that, you know, I
353
00:21:22.890 --> 00:21:25.940
was wearing a, t-shirt and shorts but some of my
354
00:21:25.980 --> 00:21:28.420
tattoos were visible and so I put on kind of
355
00:21:28.440 --> 00:21:32.380
like a long sleeve exercise shirt and kind of athletic
356
00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:35.460
like long john type things underneath the shorts and t-shirt
357
00:21:35.509 --> 00:21:38.210
just so that my entire body was covered and so
358
00:21:38.250 --> 00:21:42.150
he wouldn't see any of my tattoos. I have one
359
00:21:42.170 --> 00:21:46.470
tattoo which is the M-30 tattoo which is associated with
360
00:21:46.849 --> 00:21:49.230
journalism that reporters would put at the end of their
361
00:21:49.269 --> 00:21:51.190
copy to signal the end of the story for a
362
00:21:51.190 --> 00:21:53.069
long time but.
363
00:21:52.430 --> 00:21:55.180
That's There's only one other person I know who has
364
00:21:55.250 --> 00:21:57.470
that inside baseball journalism tattoo.
365
00:21:58.089 --> 00:21:58.289
Me.
366
00:21:58.930 --> 00:22:01.450
I got it 18 years ago on my 30th birthday
367
00:22:01.609 --> 00:22:06.049
as a joke. Dash, 30 dash, the end. Mine's on
368
00:22:06.089 --> 00:22:09.410
my lower back. I thought it was pretty original. Ryan's
369
00:22:09.710 --> 00:22:12.569
is on his arm. It's not his only tattoo.
370
00:22:13.130 --> 00:22:14.769
And essentially on the insides of my arms, I have
371
00:22:14.809 --> 00:22:17.769
these two circles with these little flowers. One's a black rose,
372
00:22:17.890 --> 00:22:19.250
one's like a sunflower.
373
00:22:19.730 --> 00:22:23.690
Ryan's a vegan. Apparently, the sunflower is a symbol of veganism.
374
00:22:24.109 --> 00:22:26.410
Yeah, I just think that's probably not the type of
375
00:22:26.450 --> 00:22:31.690
tattoo that some hardcore, macho, neo-Nazi would probably have, so
376
00:22:31.750 --> 00:22:33.769
I figured it best to cover those up.
377
00:22:34.990 --> 00:22:38.779
So, the cleanly shorn, long-sleeved jogger runs off to Whittier
378
00:22:38.839 --> 00:22:41.400
Park and goes to the baseball diamond, where there's a
379
00:22:41.420 --> 00:22:46.619
game underway, and waits. Pretty soon, another man arrives and
380
00:22:46.640 --> 00:22:50.019
makes a beeline for Ryan. He has blonde hair, longish
381
00:22:50.059 --> 00:22:53.789
on top, with short sides. His build is stocky, and
382
00:22:53.809 --> 00:22:56.329
he looks like he's in pretty good shape. It's him.
383
00:22:58.700 --> 00:23:02.140
And pretty quickly, he says, well, you know, we're going
384
00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:05.200
to be working with each other a lot moving forward,
385
00:23:05.740 --> 00:23:07.819
and so if you'd like, we can just drop the pseudonyms.
386
00:23:08.599 --> 00:23:11.089
And I think about it for a split second, and
387
00:23:11.130 --> 00:23:13.569
I'm like, yes, let's do that. And so he says,
388
00:23:13.630 --> 00:23:16.490
my name's Patrick, and I say, my name's Ryan.
389
00:23:17.789 --> 00:23:20.849
The meeting spot is loud and crowded, so Patrick tells
390
00:23:20.930 --> 00:23:23.759
Ryan he wants to go further into the park. And
391
00:23:23.799 --> 00:23:25.619
they walk into a wooded area.
392
00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:28.240
And so he takes off this big backpack that he
393
00:23:28.279 --> 00:23:30.339
had on and he unzips it. He starts pulling stuff
394
00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:32.359
out and he also pulls out some of the posters
395
00:23:32.400 --> 00:23:35.049
he had been putting up. And then he pulls out
396
00:23:35.160 --> 00:23:39.950
two jackets that are like military camouflage style. He pulls
397
00:23:40.009 --> 00:23:43.569
out two masks, face masks that have a skull on them.
398
00:23:43.779 --> 00:23:46.700
printed on the front of them, which are popular in
399
00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:49.980
certain neo-Nazi circles. And then he pulls out two hats
400
00:23:50.180 --> 00:23:52.619
and he says, you know, we have to take a
401
00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:55.210
picture together and then send it back to Roman to
402
00:23:55.289 --> 00:23:58.950
prove that we've met and that this meeting actually happened.
403
00:23:59.869 --> 00:24:01.589
And Ryan thinks, uh-oh.
404
00:24:01.609 --> 00:24:05.369
You know, I was uncomfortable with it. Like, I don't
405
00:24:05.410 --> 00:24:09.079
want to help create propaganda for this, like, horrific group.
406
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.539
But it was something that I had to do.
407
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:12.180
So.
408
00:24:12.630 --> 00:24:15.009
There was actually this funny moment where we're in this
409
00:24:15.029 --> 00:24:17.690
like secluded area and it's like all woods. It's down
410
00:24:17.710 --> 00:24:21.109
by the river. And we start putting on the military
411
00:24:21.210 --> 00:24:24.829
jackets and the face masks. And as we're pretty much
412
00:24:24.910 --> 00:24:27.769
like done getting dressed up, all of a sudden a
413
00:24:27.869 --> 00:24:30.970
guy rips down on a bicycle on like this little
414
00:24:31.029 --> 00:24:33.059
path in the woods and like looks at us and
415
00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:35.730
then just like keeps going. And I'm like, oh, shit,
416
00:24:35.779 --> 00:24:37.519
like that's not that's not good.
417
00:24:38.839 --> 00:24:42.000
The cyclist spooks Patrick. So they try a new location.
418
00:24:43.079 --> 00:24:44.859
So we cross the field and we go to the
419
00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:47.559
opposite end of the park where again, there's more woods.
420
00:24:47.900 --> 00:24:49.380
Then I can remember walking up this kind of like
421
00:24:49.480 --> 00:24:53.410
steep embankment. And at the top, there was a rail
422
00:24:53.450 --> 00:24:56.289
line that ran all along the park. As soon as
423
00:24:56.309 --> 00:24:58.250
he sees the rail line, he thinks this is where
424
00:24:58.289 --> 00:25:00.369
I want to take this photo. And then he keeps
425
00:25:00.390 --> 00:25:02.269
trying to set up his phone so that it can
426
00:25:02.289 --> 00:25:04.490
like take a photo. Cause obviously there's no one there
427
00:25:04.529 --> 00:25:05.829
to take the picture of us. And so he has
428
00:25:05.869 --> 00:25:07.869
to like put a timer on his phone and set
429
00:25:07.910 --> 00:25:10.329
it up in such a place. And in the end,
430
00:25:10.769 --> 00:25:12.769
He's struggling with it for so long, and in the end,
431
00:25:12.849 --> 00:25:14.890
he takes out a roll of tape that he had
432
00:25:14.910 --> 00:25:17.829
been using to put up these posters, and he tapes
433
00:25:17.890 --> 00:25:22.769
his phone to a pole that had a sign from
434
00:25:22.809 --> 00:25:26.170
the rail company on it or something. Anyway, so he
435
00:25:26.259 --> 00:25:28.279
tapes up his phone, he hits the timer, and then
436
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:30.579
we kind of run down onto the middle of the
437
00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:33.259
train tracks, and we both stand there with our arms crossed,
438
00:25:33.339 --> 00:25:39.460
and the photo gets taken. And then, as we are...
439
00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:42.890
leaving that area. We take off the clothes and we're leaving,
440
00:25:42.910 --> 00:25:46.109
kind of going back out into a different area of
441
00:25:46.150 --> 00:25:48.329
the park. And that's where he makes this comment to me,
442
00:25:48.390 --> 00:25:51.210
where he's talking more about being a combat engineer and
443
00:25:51.250 --> 00:25:52.529
his military experience.
444
00:25:53.390 --> 00:25:56.720
The first time Ryan spoke to Patrick during that vetting call,
445
00:25:57.240 --> 00:26:00.680
he got the impression Patrick did have military training.
446
00:26:00.700 --> 00:26:02.700
I have one question.
447
00:26:03.019 --> 00:26:07.589
And being that Do you have any by chance military
448
00:26:07.650 --> 00:26:08.490
experience at home?
449
00:26:08.890 --> 00:26:09.349
No, I don't.
450
00:26:09.369 --> 00:26:09.769
Okay, all right.
451
00:26:10.769 --> 00:26:13.009
Go ahead, whatever.
452
00:26:14.369 --> 00:26:18.329
I mean, if you did, that would save me a
453
00:26:18.390 --> 00:26:19.250
little bit of trouble.
454
00:26:19.329 --> 00:26:24.339
But that's okay, whatever. No, yeah, yeah, it's fine.
455
00:26:26.170 --> 00:26:28.779
So Ryan knew now was the time he had to
456
00:26:28.819 --> 00:26:32.319
drill down. What is a combat engineer, and what do
457
00:26:32.339 --> 00:26:32.640
they do?
458
00:26:34.589 --> 00:26:37.789
He's saying things like, oh, they're responsible for surveying like
459
00:26:37.829 --> 00:26:40.289
the field of battle and trying to find different things
460
00:26:40.309 --> 00:26:43.900
that could be used to the military's advantage. And then
461
00:26:43.940 --> 00:26:46.700
he says, as an example, like that rail line there,
462
00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:48.079
he's like, even if you didn't want to make that
463
00:26:48.140 --> 00:26:51.339
go boom, you could do X, Y and Z. And
464
00:26:51.359 --> 00:26:53.339
he starts talking about how you could go about pulling
465
00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:55.980
up one of the sides of the rail line to
466
00:26:56.180 --> 00:26:57.039
derail a train.
467
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:02.019
So it sounds like this man who is actively recruiting
468
00:27:02.059 --> 00:27:06.309
for the base is a neo-Nazi accelerationist group, actually has
469
00:27:06.410 --> 00:27:09.950
the know-how to carry out a terrorist attack on a train.
470
00:27:11.710 --> 00:27:13.170
Ryan tried to wrap up the meeting.
471
00:27:15.349 --> 00:27:17.349
At this point, we've been talking for quite a while,
472
00:27:17.430 --> 00:27:20.509
and we've kind of been walking around these various areas
473
00:27:20.569 --> 00:27:23.349
of the park. The light's fading from the sky a
474
00:27:23.490 --> 00:27:26.910
little bit. It's getting darker. Temperature's dropping a little bit.
475
00:27:27.059 --> 00:27:30.140
And so we kind of walk back towards where We
476
00:27:30.180 --> 00:27:32.900
first met. And so now the baseball game is done.
477
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.960
There's less people around. And we're kind of standing at
478
00:27:36.019 --> 00:27:40.410
the edge of the ball diamond talking. And at this point,
479
00:27:40.450 --> 00:27:44.849
he starts telling me about his past relationship. And he
480
00:27:44.930 --> 00:27:49.529
reveals to me that his ex was a person of color,
481
00:27:49.769 --> 00:27:53.190
was a black woman. And the sense I get when
482
00:27:53.230 --> 00:27:56.059
he's opening up to me about this is like he's
483
00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:59.720
confessing something or he's like unburdening himself a little bit.
484
00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:06.640
And then he tells me this horrific anecdote where he says, yeah,
485
00:28:06.680 --> 00:28:08.839
like towards the end of the relationship, there was a
486
00:28:08.880 --> 00:28:12.299
pregnancy scare. And he might have even said that she
487
00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:16.039
had lied about being pregnant or something. So for a while,
488
00:28:16.099 --> 00:28:18.740
Patrick thought he was going to have a child with
489
00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:22.690
this woman. And then he tells me, he says, the
490
00:28:22.710 --> 00:28:25.170
only problem is the child only would have been half human,
491
00:28:25.970 --> 00:28:29.049
which was strange. You know, just a disgusting comment. And
492
00:28:29.210 --> 00:28:33.619
then I remember he added, yeah, having a mulatto child
493
00:28:33.660 --> 00:28:37.420
would have been a fucking nightmare. And so again, it's
494
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:41.279
just like, okay, this is the level of racism that
495
00:28:41.359 --> 00:28:44.150
this guy has fallen into. These are kind of the
496
00:28:44.210 --> 00:28:46.970
depths of his bigotry where he was in a relationship
497
00:28:47.009 --> 00:28:48.849
with this person, but if he had had a child
498
00:28:49.329 --> 00:28:51.900
with them, he thinks it only... You know, only half
499
00:28:51.940 --> 00:28:54.480
of it would have been human. So he looks at
500
00:28:54.539 --> 00:28:56.880
his ex as subhuman in some sense.
501
00:28:59.660 --> 00:29:02.559
I'm so amazed that you were able to keep your composure. Because,
502
00:29:02.579 --> 00:29:04.920
I mean, even you telling me that now, you should
503
00:29:04.940 --> 00:29:07.640
see my face. And it's not, you know, it's not
504
00:29:07.660 --> 00:29:10.940
that often. Obviously, you've read lots of hateful comments. We
505
00:29:10.980 --> 00:29:13.049
see this sort of stuff on TV. But it's pretty
506
00:29:13.119 --> 00:29:17.250
rare that you have someone telling you that to your face,
507
00:29:17.390 --> 00:29:20.009
thinking that, you know, you're this comrade in arms. You're
508
00:29:20.029 --> 00:29:22.569
going to understand it. How did you I mean, were
509
00:29:22.589 --> 00:29:24.490
you biting your cheek or I mean, how did you
510
00:29:24.970 --> 00:29:27.819
maintain your your composure as he's saying this to you?
511
00:29:29.140 --> 00:29:31.740
Yeah, it was it was a pretty shocking comment. And
512
00:29:31.779 --> 00:29:34.839
I think I tried to just like not address it
513
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:38.450
throughout the entirety of the reporting process. that was undercover
514
00:29:38.599 --> 00:29:40.920
in this group, like, I didn't use any sort of, like,
515
00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:43.640
racial epithets or anything like that. That wasn't something I
516
00:29:43.680 --> 00:29:46.920
was comfortable doing, and I didn't engage in the overt
517
00:29:47.339 --> 00:29:50.700
racism that everyone else was. That was something where it's like,
518
00:29:50.839 --> 00:29:53.940
if I had had to actually directly respond to that comment,
519
00:29:54.019 --> 00:29:56.380
I don't know what I would have said. But you
520
00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:57.740
just moved on at that point?
521
00:29:58.400 --> 00:29:59.400
Yes. Yeah.
522
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:10.000
Patrick didn't label himself an accelerationist during the meeting, but
523
00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:11.880
he seemed to be quoting from the playbook.
524
00:30:13.630 --> 00:30:17.369
He was certainly presenting a political worldview that was consistent
525
00:30:17.650 --> 00:30:22.170
with accelerationism. He's kind of going on about the local
526
00:30:22.589 --> 00:30:25.609
anti-fascist presence in Winnipeg. And he says, you know, in
527
00:30:25.650 --> 00:30:27.849
a well-ordered society, these people would be dragged out of
528
00:30:27.869 --> 00:30:30.769
their homes and strung up. At one point, he's going
529
00:30:30.970 --> 00:30:33.789
on and on about like the political situation in America,
530
00:30:33.849 --> 00:30:37.029
the political situation in Canada. And he goes on this
531
00:30:37.069 --> 00:30:41.049
little rant where he says, I want the Liberal Party
532
00:30:41.170 --> 00:30:43.789
of Canada to get five terms in office. I want
533
00:30:43.849 --> 00:30:48.609
them to push multiculturalism down people's throats. I want Black
534
00:30:48.650 --> 00:30:51.410
Lives Matter in every white neighborhood. You know, I want
535
00:30:51.589 --> 00:30:54.490
things so bad that white people start picking up guns.
536
00:30:55.200 --> 00:30:57.970
And he also makes clear to me what I'll be expected,
537
00:30:58.009 --> 00:31:00.569
what we'll be up to together as the kind of
538
00:31:00.990 --> 00:31:04.450
two people in this Manitoba cell of the base.
539
00:31:05.589 --> 00:31:09.089
A tight cell. And they wouldn't be just keyboard warriors.
540
00:31:09.490 --> 00:31:11.819
They'd be out in the real world carrying out their mission.
541
00:31:13.170 --> 00:31:17.119
Ryan's face-to-face with Patrick had taken far longer than he'd expected.
542
00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:21.000
At the end of our meeting, we're standing at the park,
543
00:31:21.059 --> 00:31:23.220
kind of closer towards the entrance. The parking lot is
544
00:31:23.319 --> 00:31:26.559
within view. And so I was trying to get out
545
00:31:26.579 --> 00:31:29.000
of there and he's just kind of going on and on.
546
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:32.019
Ryan was thinking his editor would be freaking out at
547
00:31:32.059 --> 00:31:33.480
the lack of a safety update.
548
00:31:34.220 --> 00:31:37.440
And then eventually a cruiser car for the Winnipeg Police
549
00:31:37.480 --> 00:31:41.160
Service pulls into the parking lot. And they are kind
550
00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:43.720
of just like slowly driving through the parking lot. I
551
00:31:43.759 --> 00:31:46.180
think they're just kind of pulling in to check out
552
00:31:46.220 --> 00:31:48.799
the park, keep an eye on things. I didn't get
553
00:31:48.819 --> 00:31:51.750
the sense that anyone had called them there. But that
554
00:31:51.789 --> 00:31:55.369
spooked Patrick. And I also jumped on that as an
555
00:31:55.410 --> 00:31:58.009
excuse for us to wrap this up and leave. And
556
00:31:58.069 --> 00:31:59.880
he went back into the parking lot and he got
557
00:31:59.950 --> 00:32:04.619
into this red pickup truck, this large red pickup truck.
558
00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:08.059
And I didn't get a license plate, but I saw
559
00:32:08.220 --> 00:32:12.000
that the front driver's side door had a big dent
560
00:32:12.059 --> 00:32:15.279
in it. I made a mental note of and thought
561
00:32:15.319 --> 00:32:16.880
might be important down the line.
562
00:32:19.910 --> 00:32:23.369
Ryan ran home, making that recording on his phone, trying
563
00:32:23.410 --> 00:32:26.309
to regurgitate every single detail he could remember.
564
00:32:27.470 --> 00:32:32.170
Voice memo. I am leaving the meeting with a boost.
565
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:35.339
When he stepped through the door, he emailed his editor
566
00:32:35.420 --> 00:32:38.019
and a friend to assure them he was fine. And
567
00:32:38.039 --> 00:32:41.039
then he also messaged Patrick to assure him he was fine.
568
00:32:42.500 --> 00:32:45.680
Ryan says he can't exactly remember what he did next,
569
00:32:46.460 --> 00:32:47.759
but he thinks he may have.
570
00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:59.380
Cracked a beer. the next day I was in the
571
00:32:59.420 --> 00:33:02.380
newsroom and I get a message from Roman Wolf saying
572
00:33:02.839 --> 00:33:05.200
you did well last night if you still want in
573
00:33:05.579 --> 00:33:11.089
you're welcome to join and I say yes and then
574
00:33:11.230 --> 00:33:13.650
they add me to this kind of centralized group chat
575
00:33:13.670 --> 00:33:16.029
with all the other members where everyone keeps in communication
576
00:33:16.049 --> 00:33:19.529
with each other and so now I'm behind the scenes,
577
00:33:19.950 --> 00:33:22.609
and I have greater access to what this group is
578
00:33:22.650 --> 00:33:26.049
discussing than I've ever had. I wanted to stay in
579
00:33:26.089 --> 00:33:30.150
the organization so I could keep documenting their internal communications
580
00:33:30.269 --> 00:33:31.349
for as long as possible.
581
00:33:32.890 --> 00:33:36.410
But then Patrick insisted he and Ryan meet again.
582
00:33:38.380 --> 00:33:43.420
For our second in-person meeting, Patrick wanted to commence paramilitary training.
583
00:33:44.099 --> 00:33:47.339
And at that point, I push things as far as
584
00:33:47.400 --> 00:33:49.799
I'm willing to go, right? Like meeting this guy in
585
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:52.500
a park is one thing, but I'm not running off
586
00:33:52.900 --> 00:33:53.819
into the bush with guns.
587
00:33:55.359 --> 00:33:58.319
Ryan stalled as long as he could. He couldn't yet
588
00:33:58.539 --> 00:34:01.819
confirm the identity of the man in the park, but
589
00:34:01.839 --> 00:34:06.960
he knew he had enough for a story. On Friday,
590
00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:11.900
August 16, 2019, at 7 p.m., The Winnipeg Free Press
591
00:34:12.039 --> 00:34:17.960
published Ryan's story online under the headline, Homegrown Hate. It
592
00:34:18.019 --> 00:34:19.559
was a huge scoop.
593
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:22.409
And I went to a bar with a couple of friends,
594
00:34:22.849 --> 00:34:24.449
and I remember one of my colleagues being like, oh,
595
00:34:24.469 --> 00:34:26.309
this was such good work, we have to celebrate. And
596
00:34:26.329 --> 00:34:28.489
I was like, I want to go to my apartment
597
00:34:28.530 --> 00:34:30.250
and close the blinds and lock the door.
598
00:34:31.809 --> 00:34:35.090
That was Friday. The next day, Ryan was checking Twitter
599
00:34:35.449 --> 00:34:38.940
and saw a surprising reply from an anonymous account.
600
00:34:39.739 --> 00:35:09.630
It read, I think I know who Patrick is. Coming
601
00:35:09.710 --> 00:35:10.949
up on White Hot Hate.
602
00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:16.420
We are not a place for sick hobbyists to practice
603
00:35:16.440 --> 00:35:17.489
their vile ideology.
604
00:35:18.050 --> 00:35:20.690
And we won't stand for it. We will react.
605
00:35:21.710 --> 00:35:24.349
The abandoned truck was found on a rural property in
606
00:35:24.369 --> 00:35:27.170
the RM of Piney off Highway 12. Now that's right
607
00:35:27.250 --> 00:35:29.909
near the American border. You know, you can think of
608
00:35:29.969 --> 00:35:33.280
them as like Tim McVeigh's children or Tim McVeigh's little cousins.
609
00:35:33.989 --> 00:35:37.400
The time for words has ended. The time for podcasts
610
00:35:37.500 --> 00:35:41.730
has ended. derail some fucking trains, kill some people, and
611
00:35:41.789 --> 00:35:47.050
poison some water supplies. I think it was a Nazi flag.
612
00:35:48.469 --> 00:35:49.650
I think it was a swastika.
613
00:35:50.349 --> 00:35:50.710
I think.
614
00:35:50.730 --> 00:35:52.949
I just figured he was going through a little phase.
615
00:35:54.050 --> 00:35:57.920
It wouldn't be right for my son to have been
616
00:35:57.940 --> 00:36:01.619
a victim of such a terrible crime and to allow
617
00:36:01.679 --> 00:36:05.480
this to potentially happen to other people too. The danger
618
00:36:05.579 --> 00:36:08.159
that is posed by extreme hate.
619
00:36:12.730 --> 00:36:15.489
White Hot Hate was written and produced by Ashley Mack
620
00:36:15.650 --> 00:36:19.150
and me, Michelle Shepard. Our associate producer is Kim Kasher,
621
00:36:19.429 --> 00:36:23.829
with production support from Sarah Melton. Additional reporting by Ryan Thorpe.
622
00:36:24.550 --> 00:36:28.320
Mixing and sound design by Danelle Cloutier, Evan Kelly, and
623
00:36:28.340 --> 00:36:33.239
Julia Whitman. With technical assistance from Laura Antonelli. Emily Connell
624
00:36:33.420 --> 00:36:37.559
is our digital producer. Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu and legal
625
00:36:37.579 --> 00:36:41.820
advice from Sean Mormon. Original music by Quiet Type. and
626
00:36:41.860 --> 00:36:45.860
a special thanks to the Winnipeg Free Press. For CBC Podcasts,
627
00:36:46.280 --> 00:36:49.480
our senior producer is Chris Oak, and our executive producer
628
00:36:49.639 --> 00:36:50.539
is Arif Noorani.
629
00:37:05.460 --> 00:37:10.280
For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.
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All your favorite CBC podcasts are now available on YouTube.
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if YouTube is your go-to source for podcasts, just search
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CBC Podcasts and hit subscribe, and you'll never miss the
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latest updates.
10
00:00:30.140 --> 00:00:32.119
This is a CBC Podcast.
11
00:00:35.079 --> 00:00:38.600
The following episode contains coarse language and descriptions of violence.
12
00:00:39.079 --> 00:00:40.500
Please take care when listening.
13
00:00:44.060 --> 00:00:44.759
Voice memo.
14
00:00:45.859 --> 00:00:48.479
I'm going to try and get everything I can remember.
15
00:00:49.090 --> 00:00:50.109
I've popped my head.
16
00:00:50.130 --> 00:00:52.570
The meeting just ended and I didn't record it.
17
00:00:55.570 --> 00:00:58.280
It's the summer of 2019. And this is Ryan Thorpe,
18
00:00:58.520 --> 00:01:01.899
a reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. He's just had
19
00:01:02.020 --> 00:01:05.549
what could be the biggest interview of his career. But
20
00:01:05.560 --> 00:01:09.569
he couldn't take notes. So he's jogging home, fast, recording
21
00:01:09.609 --> 00:01:11.730
on his phone everything he can remember.
22
00:01:13.170 --> 00:01:13.519
He's about 5'10.
23
00:01:13.510 --> 00:01:18.030
Lives in Beaujour. Has for a couple of years. Grew
24
00:01:18.569 --> 00:01:21.109
up in the country. Used to live in Winnipeg.
25
00:01:24.969 --> 00:01:25.230
Fuck!
26
00:01:25.810 --> 00:01:27.010
We spoke for like an hour and a half.
27
00:01:28.049 --> 00:01:40.879
So much. He ranted with homophobic and racist language.
28
00:01:42.099 --> 00:01:42.980
He's anti-Semitic.
29
00:01:44.159 --> 00:01:49.260
He likes to talk. He talked about fomenting a race war.
30
00:01:51.359 --> 00:01:54.310
He talked about derailing a train.
31
00:01:55.290 --> 00:01:57.469
That we were nearby, sabotaging a train track.
32
00:02:02.120 --> 00:02:05.280
He is a violent extremist.
33
00:02:10.960 --> 00:02:14.919
The man Ryan just met, basically, he described himself as
34
00:02:14.979 --> 00:02:19.789
a neo-Nazi. He talked about derailing a train and fomenting
35
00:02:20.030 --> 00:02:24.569
a race war. Ryan didn't know the man's identity. And
36
00:02:24.590 --> 00:02:27.930
the man did not know that Ryan was a journalist.
37
00:02:29.069 --> 00:02:32.729
Pretty tough, but the importance of keeping information siloed and
38
00:02:32.770 --> 00:02:36.180
that there is no discussion in the main chat room
39
00:02:36.659 --> 00:02:41.759
of any upcoming training camps until after they happen. But
40
00:02:41.780 --> 00:02:45.080
there's no discussion of them prior to the events themselves
41
00:02:45.680 --> 00:02:47.919
because they're worried that there might be.
42
00:02:48.099 --> 00:02:59.819
A journalist infiltrating the group. I could have recorded the
43
00:02:59.860 --> 00:03:01.259
whole fucking conversation.
44
00:03:01.300 --> 00:03:02.539
He wouldn't have even.
45
00:03:05.370 --> 00:03:08.469
Known.
46
00:03:09.110 --> 00:03:13.050
I'm Michelle Shepard, and this is White Hot Hate. Episode one,
47
00:03:13.719 --> 00:03:29.830
save your race, join the base. Have you heard of
48
00:03:29.870 --> 00:03:34.669
the term accelerationism? It's not widely known. But in recent years,
49
00:03:34.750 --> 00:03:39.389
the ideology has taken root among white supremacists. Basically, an
50
00:03:39.449 --> 00:03:44.379
accelerationist is someone who revels in chaos. They want governments
51
00:03:44.520 --> 00:03:47.680
and society to collapse. And one way they believe they
52
00:03:47.719 --> 00:03:51.060
will is if they accelerate it through acts of violence.
53
00:03:52.360 --> 00:03:56.780
Here's their thinking. Neo-Nazi accelerationists believe the white race is
54
00:03:56.860 --> 00:04:00.069
at risk of extinction. And the government is largely corrupt
55
00:04:00.210 --> 00:04:02.409
and will not stand up for their rights, so they
56
00:04:02.430 --> 00:04:07.300
can't win through ballot boxes. But they think violence can
57
00:04:07.379 --> 00:04:11.340
set off a series of reactions that will sow political discord.
58
00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:15.629
Those in the political center, who they call fence-sitters, will
59
00:04:15.669 --> 00:04:19.329
be forced to pick sides, sparking a kind of Lord
60
00:04:19.350 --> 00:04:21.750
of the Flies survival of the fittest frenzy.
61
00:04:23.180 --> 00:04:24.079
Is what is needed.
62
00:04:23.920 --> 00:04:27.230
Most in these trying times, and that action must be
63
00:04:27.310 --> 00:04:30.509
driven towards our white revolution.
64
00:04:31.009 --> 00:04:33.970
A race war will begin, and the whites will triumph.
65
00:04:34.170 --> 00:04:38.290
Embrace the chaos, and from its ashes, a new world
66
00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:42.759
shall arise, beautiful and pure, to victory, white men!
67
00:04:45.139 --> 00:04:47.939
If you haven't been following this, their mission sounds a
68
00:04:47.959 --> 00:04:52.060
bit far-fetched, I know. But this violent faction of the
69
00:04:52.120 --> 00:04:56.339
far-right has been busy spewing hate and organizing on social
70
00:04:56.399 --> 00:05:00.079
media and in private chat groups. And those who share
71
00:05:00.100 --> 00:05:04.089
the ideology have been carrying out deadly attacks.
72
00:05:05.430 --> 00:05:08.329
At least 49 people have been killed in two mosques
73
00:05:08.410 --> 00:05:12.389
in Christchurch. In El Paso, Texas, 20 people were gunned
74
00:05:12.430 --> 00:05:16.170
down inside a Walmart. In Charleston, South Carolina, nine people
75
00:05:16.209 --> 00:05:19.839
were killed in a shooting. at a historic African-American church.
76
00:05:20.100 --> 00:05:22.569
We are following a developing story out of Quebec City.
77
00:05:22.889 --> 00:05:25.410
Police confirm multiple deaths inside a mosque.
78
00:05:25.529 --> 00:05:27.129
Dozens of others are wounded.
79
00:05:27.209 --> 00:05:32.480
Many are in critical condition. Police are now searching for
80
00:05:32.509 --> 00:05:36.009
a white male suspect thought to be in his early 20s.
81
00:05:41.720 --> 00:05:45.699
I've been tracking terrorism since the September 11th attacks. But
82
00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:48.839
the vast majority of the violence I covered was outside
83
00:05:48.860 --> 00:05:52.149
of North America and perpetrated by Al-Qaeda and its affiliates,
84
00:05:52.569 --> 00:05:57.290
and then by ISIS. But there was one devastating terrorist
85
00:05:57.329 --> 00:06:00.829
attack by a right-wing extremist that I covered in my travels.
86
00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:05.939
Today, the usually peaceful nation of Norway is coming to
87
00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:09.170
terms with horrific acts of violence. A large bomb went
88
00:06:09.230 --> 00:06:12.740
off outside Norwegian government offices in the capital, Oslo, this afternoon,
89
00:06:12.980 --> 00:06:15.480
killing at least seven people and injuring many more.
90
00:06:17.480 --> 00:06:19.279
When I got on a plane in Toronto to fly
91
00:06:19.300 --> 00:06:21.759
to Norway, all I knew was that a bomb had
92
00:06:21.779 --> 00:06:24.480
gone off in Oslo and there were early reports of
93
00:06:24.600 --> 00:06:29.000
children being killed on the nearby island of Utøya. In
94
00:06:29.040 --> 00:06:32.600
the end, there were 77 victims, most of them teenagers.
95
00:06:33.680 --> 00:06:38.430
The survivors were heartbreakingly composed. I can still picture Caroline
96
00:06:38.449 --> 00:06:41.230
Bank telling me how her arm was cramping as she
97
00:06:41.310 --> 00:06:45.480
pressed a shredded t-shirt into her friend's bullet wounds. And
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that she was trying to camouflage her friend's purple hoodie
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with sticks and dirt because the murderer, Anders Bering Breivik,
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was still out there. I read Breivik's terrorist manifesto, all 1,518
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pages of it. He didn't use the term accelerationist back then,
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but that's what he was. This is what he wrote.
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We are in the very beginning of a very bloody
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cultural war, a war between nationalism and internationalism, and we
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intend to win it. He wanted to start a race war.
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Others are still trying today. And that's what we're investigating
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in this podcast, this overt and covert accelerationist movement, this
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push by a small, but determined and violent faction of
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the far right. And that's the story journalist Ryan Thorpe
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found in the city of Winnipeg, smack dab in the
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middle of North America. Ryan was working as a general
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assignment reporter at the Winnipeg Free Press. Affectionately known as
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the Freep, it's the paper of record in this city
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on the Canadian prairies.
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So anytime that there was violent crime or homicide or
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something like that in Winnipeg, I was usually the person
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asked to cover it. And then when I wasn't working
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on stuff like that, just anything that might need to
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be covered in a day, they would kick over to me.
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So it was pretty varied.
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One day in the summer of 2019, Ryan's editor asked
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him to follow up on a tip. Someone had been
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putting up posters around Winnipeg with the words, Learn, Train, Fight.
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There was a sketch of a jacked-up Grim Reaper in
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a skull mask, cradling an assault-style rifle. And the call
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to arms? Save your race.
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Join the base.
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So what's your next move, then, now that you have
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this poster? What do you do to try and figure
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out what's going on?
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My first step is just to begin doing kind of
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an internet dive into this organization called The Base. I
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had never heard of them before. I didn't know anything
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about them. And I come across this 2018 expose done
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by Vice, which.
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In late 2018, Vice journalists Ben Makou and Mac Lamoureux
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wrote the first big piece on the base under the headline,
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Neo-Nazis are organizing secretive paramilitary training across America.
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And aside from this kind of single news article, I
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couldn't find anything about this organization, which probably explained by
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virtue of the fact that this group was fairly new.
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that according to Vice, they had been formed in 2018.
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And I knew that they'd been formed in the United States,
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and now all of a sudden we've got recruitment posters
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turning up here in Winnipeg.
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So Ryan considered his options.
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I walked down the newsroom and go back to my
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editor and essentially say, look, this is what I found
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out so far. There are two different ways you could
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approach the story. One is that I could write something
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for tomorrow's paper. I would just get some interviews with
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academics I would contact the Winnipeg Police Service, ask if
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they're aware of these posters and tracking them at all.
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Maybe I would go to one of the kind of
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anti-fascist organizers that I know and get a quote from them.
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It'd be pretty straightforward. It'd be quick to turn around.
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The other approach, I said, would be to create a
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fake name and just reach out to them and ask
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for more information about them, pretend to be a white
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nationalist that's potentially interested in joining up.
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So that's what Ryan does. He goes by the alias
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of Mark, a 26-year-old university student who has been flirting
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with white nationalist ideology. And he emails the contact on
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the poster, asking for more information.
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I got a response the next day. The first thing
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they wanted to know was where I had seen their posters.
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And so I described the area of St. James where
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I knew one of these posters had come up. And
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after that, they sent me a questionnaire that they asked
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me to fill out, which wanted to know, you know,
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my name, my age, my physical fitness level, my ethnicity,
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my sex. They wanted to know if I had firearms training,
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if I had military experience at all, if I had
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background in chemistry or engineering. They wanted me to describe
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my political worldview. And so I filled out that questionnaire
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and sent it back to them.
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This fact strikes me as so funny and familiar, too.
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The bureaucracy of extremist groups is just surreal. I remember
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in 2016 getting my hands on a database of 4,000
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ISIS recruits. It contained all the answers those applicants had
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to supply. Date of birth and nationality.
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Education. Employment.
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And would you like to be a fighter, security guard, administrator,
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or martyr? Ryan answered the base's questionnaire carefully.
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I didn't want to inflate my credentials or, like, lie
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about my background to make myself seem like a more
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attractive recruit to them. So when it came to, like,
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questions of military training or a background in chemistry and engineering,
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in real life, I have neither. And so I didn't
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pretend to have those things. So I gave them my
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real age. You know, when it came to, do you
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have any firearms trainings, I just said that, like, I
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grew up in a rural area of the Canadian prairies, and, like,
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all of my family were hunters, and my dad taught
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me to shoot guns from a young age, which was
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all accurate.
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The form worked. For the next few days, there were
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emails back and forth.
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Eventually, the person I was communicating with told me to
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download an app.
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Ryan signed up as Mark. And he started communicating with
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someone with the handle Roman Wolf. The texting continued, and
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then Roman said it was time to talk on the phone.
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I can remember, you know, being in the newsroom all
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day and kind of going about, you know, my regular
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GA duties. And then it was eight or nine at
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night when I had set up this phone call. I
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had printed out all my correspondence with these people and
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then kind of wrote a list of all the key
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details that I've been telling them about myself just to
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make sure that I didn't screw up or say something
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that contradicted a piece of information I had previously given them.
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If I couldn't think of a way to answer a
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question off the top of my head, I could just
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look down at the page and then very quickly riff.
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Ryan spread the cheat sheets out in front of him.
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But from the get-go, there was something he hadn't expected.
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About 10 to 15 minutes prior to when this call
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is scheduled for, I get a message from the guy
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that I've been talking to. And he says, actually, there's
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going to be about like five to six other members
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of the base listening in, which I found unnerving because one,
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it just caught me off guard. And two, here I
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was thinking I only had to convince one person and
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now I had to be convincing to six or seven.
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This is the man calling himself Roman Wolf. And while
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there were supposedly others joining in, it's only Roman talking.
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It sounds like he's in charge. He tells Ryan, a.k.a. Mark,
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the university student, that the base is a survivalist self-defense
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network and its members are do not believe there is
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a political solution to the oppression of the white race.
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So?
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He says we're hoping for a collapse of the current system.
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And Ryan is playing right along.
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I would agree with that.
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I think I've just reached a point where it's like,
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I no longer want my political views to just be
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some private, personal thing that doesn't translate into how I
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operate or act in the world, which is how, admittedly,
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how it's been for me the past couple of years.
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That's something that I want to change. Not only do
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I think that a collapse is coming and is inevitable,
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I also hold the view that we've already entered into
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something approximating a kind of very low-intensity civil war.
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You're going to be stepping into the most extreme group
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of pro-Bio people in.
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The most extreme group of pro-white people you'll probably come across.
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Ryan kept his cool, didn't flinch. It seemed like he
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had built some kind of rapport with this Roman wolf.
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But as the call was winding down, a totally new
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voice pops up.
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I'm sorry for being late.
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So far, it sounds like you're interested.
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And the person that may or may not have been
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putting those posters may or may not have been me.
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So that person who is active, so to speak, in
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your area may or may not be me. Okay, sounds good.
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Basically, now Ryan knows. Okay, he's got the guy who's
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been putting up the posters in Winnipeg. The call ends
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with Roman Wolf saying he and the others would discuss
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Ryan's application and get back to him in 24 hours.
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The next day, I'm in the newsroom working on a
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different story, and I see a notification pop up on
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my work cell phone, and it was Roman Wolf. And
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he said, you did good last night. The next step
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is to meet our local guy in person.
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In 2010, a family of four in California goes missing,
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and the clues left behind send investigators on a years-long search.
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00:17:10.809 --> 00:17:12.930
Is this a family on the run, or is the
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00:17:12.990 --> 00:17:18.180
truth far more sinister? From ABC Audio in 2020, this
271
00:17:18.380 --> 00:17:21.720
is What Happened to the McStaves, coming August 11th. Listen
272
00:17:21.779 --> 00:17:26.599
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.
273
00:17:26.839 --> 00:17:30.089
Or subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts
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00:17:30.210 --> 00:17:31.710
to listen early and ad-free.
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00:17:39.200 --> 00:17:43.960
Ryan's investigation was moving surprisingly fast. It had only been
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about two weeks since he'd first reached out.
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And now all of a sudden I'm going to be
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meeting up with the person who is responsible for putting
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these posters up, right? And so that felt good from
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a journalistic standpoint. It's like, oh, I actually got to
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the bottom of this one. At the same time, by
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this point, I'd learned a lot about this organization. I
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had learned that this wasn't the type of far-right groups
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that I had done coverage on in the past, that
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this was something far more serious, far more militarized, and
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potentially violent. And so, you know, I was worried. Am
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I going to be convincing enough? You know, it's one
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thing to kind of convince them over text messages and
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emails and even a phone call, right, where if something
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had went wrong, I'm still physically separated from these people,
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so the consequences aren't that bad. This time around, if
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I screw up and blow my cover... I'm going to
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be face-to-face with this guy, and what might he do?
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At that point, a face-to-face meeting, I'm essentially acting. I
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don't have any chops as an actor or background in drama,
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so I was being put to the test in a
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way that I hadn't been before.
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Ryan didn't have much time to prep for the meeting.
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We set up this meeting for 8 p.m. at Whittier
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Park in Winnipeg. which was a park that I had
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chosen due to its location. I wanted to keep things
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central and I didn't want to meet him, you know,
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out of town or in some like very secluded area.
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So I go into work that day and I can't
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remember what I was covering. You know, I had a
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daily deadline. And so I didn't really think about the
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meeting a lot. I honestly, I didn't have the time to.
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But when he gets home.
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Kind of as I'm walking through the door, it's like
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three hours out and it hits me, you know, what
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I'm about to do. So that's when the nerves really
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start Getting to me. You know, I'm thinking through various
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things that could happen at that meeting that might blow
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my cover. I can't have my audio recorder in my pocket.
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What if he pats me down?
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Right.
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Like that's that's obviously a red flag. You know, I thought, well,
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maybe I can just run an audio recorder on my
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cell phone.
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But.
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I was just worried that if for whatever reason he
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saw the screen, maybe I check the time at some
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point and he sees that little recording bar at the
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top of the screen that I just figured it wasn't
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worth the risk. Then I get worried that he might
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ask to see my driver's license or my ID. And
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then all it takes is one Google search of my
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name and he would see that I'm a reporter at
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the Winnipeg Free Press.
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But then Ryan thinks, OK, but it's also weird not
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to carry your wallet.
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Is that going to be a red flag in and
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of itself? So I essentially come up with this story
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where I message him a couple hours before a meeting
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and I say, look, I usually go jogging a few
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times a week. And normally on Wednesdays, which was the
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day of the week it was, I go jogging. But
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I was so busy today that I couldn't. So I'm
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going to jog from my place to the park. You know,
340
00:20:39.779 --> 00:20:42.099
I'm six feet tall. I'm thin. I'm going to be
341
00:20:42.140 --> 00:20:45.140
wearing jogging clothes and I have a shaved head. He says, yeah,
342
00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:46.349
that's fine. That's good.
343
00:20:47.869 --> 00:20:50.369
As a young white dude with a shaved head, Ryan's
344
00:20:50.430 --> 00:20:53.430
about as central casting as you can get for neo-Nazis.
345
00:20:54.430 --> 00:20:57.529
But Winnipeg's not a huge city. and the Free Press
346
00:20:57.799 --> 00:21:01.460
is the main paper. And Ryan had covered a couple
347
00:21:01.500 --> 00:21:05.900
far-right stories. So ostensibly, if you were into this stuff,
348
00:21:06.420 --> 00:21:10.500
you may have read him. And his headshot accompanies his articles.
349
00:21:12.799 --> 00:21:16.000
And so I have a mustache in that photo, and
350
00:21:16.019 --> 00:21:17.640
I had a mustache at the time. So I go
351
00:21:17.700 --> 00:21:20.690
into my bathroom and I shave off all my facial hair.
352
00:21:21.089 --> 00:21:22.849
And then the final thing was that, you know, I
353
00:21:22.890 --> 00:21:25.940
was wearing a, t-shirt and shorts but some of my
354
00:21:25.980 --> 00:21:28.420
tattoos were visible and so I put on kind of
355
00:21:28.440 --> 00:21:32.380
like a long sleeve exercise shirt and kind of athletic
356
00:21:32.400 --> 00:21:35.460
like long john type things underneath the shorts and t-shirt
357
00:21:35.509 --> 00:21:38.210
just so that my entire body was covered and so
358
00:21:38.250 --> 00:21:42.150
he wouldn't see any of my tattoos. I have one
359
00:21:42.170 --> 00:21:46.470
tattoo which is the M-30 tattoo which is associated with
360
00:21:46.849 --> 00:21:49.230
journalism that reporters would put at the end of their
361
00:21:49.269 --> 00:21:51.190
copy to signal the end of the story for a
362
00:21:51.190 --> 00:21:53.069
long time but.
363
00:21:52.430 --> 00:21:55.180
That's There's only one other person I know who has
364
00:21:55.250 --> 00:21:57.470
that inside baseball journalism tattoo.
365
00:21:58.089 --> 00:21:58.289
Me.
366
00:21:58.930 --> 00:22:01.450
I got it 18 years ago on my 30th birthday
367
00:22:01.609 --> 00:22:06.049
as a joke. Dash, 30 dash, the end. Mine's on
368
00:22:06.089 --> 00:22:09.410
my lower back. I thought it was pretty original. Ryan's
369
00:22:09.710 --> 00:22:12.569
is on his arm. It's not his only tattoo.
370
00:22:13.130 --> 00:22:14.769
And essentially on the insides of my arms, I have
371
00:22:14.809 --> 00:22:17.769
these two circles with these little flowers. One's a black rose,
372
00:22:17.890 --> 00:22:19.250
one's like a sunflower.
373
00:22:19.730 --> 00:22:23.690
Ryan's a vegan. Apparently, the sunflower is a symbol of veganism.
374
00:22:24.109 --> 00:22:26.410
Yeah, I just think that's probably not the type of
375
00:22:26.450 --> 00:22:31.690
tattoo that some hardcore, macho, neo-Nazi would probably have, so
376
00:22:31.750 --> 00:22:33.769
I figured it best to cover those up.
377
00:22:34.990 --> 00:22:38.779
So, the cleanly shorn, long-sleeved jogger runs off to Whittier
378
00:22:38.839 --> 00:22:41.400
Park and goes to the baseball diamond, where there's a
379
00:22:41.420 --> 00:22:46.619
game underway, and waits. Pretty soon, another man arrives and
380
00:22:46.640 --> 00:22:50.019
makes a beeline for Ryan. He has blonde hair, longish
381
00:22:50.059 --> 00:22:53.789
on top, with short sides. His build is stocky, and
382
00:22:53.809 --> 00:22:56.329
he looks like he's in pretty good shape. It's him.
383
00:22:58.700 --> 00:23:02.140
And pretty quickly, he says, well, you know, we're going
384
00:23:02.160 --> 00:23:05.200
to be working with each other a lot moving forward,
385
00:23:05.740 --> 00:23:07.819
and so if you'd like, we can just drop the pseudonyms.
386
00:23:08.599 --> 00:23:11.089
And I think about it for a split second, and
387
00:23:11.130 --> 00:23:13.569
I'm like, yes, let's do that. And so he says,
388
00:23:13.630 --> 00:23:16.490
my name's Patrick, and I say, my name's Ryan.
389
00:23:17.789 --> 00:23:20.849
The meeting spot is loud and crowded, so Patrick tells
390
00:23:20.930 --> 00:23:23.759
Ryan he wants to go further into the park. And
391
00:23:23.799 --> 00:23:25.619
they walk into a wooded area.
392
00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:28.240
And so he takes off this big backpack that he
393
00:23:28.279 --> 00:23:30.339
had on and he unzips it. He starts pulling stuff
394
00:23:30.440 --> 00:23:32.359
out and he also pulls out some of the posters
395
00:23:32.400 --> 00:23:35.049
he had been putting up. And then he pulls out
396
00:23:35.160 --> 00:23:39.950
two jackets that are like military camouflage style. He pulls
397
00:23:40.009 --> 00:23:43.569
out two masks, face masks that have a skull on them.
398
00:23:43.779 --> 00:23:46.700
printed on the front of them, which are popular in
399
00:23:47.039 --> 00:23:49.980
certain neo-Nazi circles. And then he pulls out two hats
400
00:23:50.180 --> 00:23:52.619
and he says, you know, we have to take a
401
00:23:52.640 --> 00:23:55.210
picture together and then send it back to Roman to
402
00:23:55.289 --> 00:23:58.950
prove that we've met and that this meeting actually happened.
403
00:23:59.869 --> 00:24:01.589
And Ryan thinks, uh-oh.
404
00:24:01.609 --> 00:24:05.369
You know, I was uncomfortable with it. Like, I don't
405
00:24:05.410 --> 00:24:09.079
want to help create propaganda for this, like, horrific group.
406
00:24:10.000 --> 00:24:11.539
But it was something that I had to do.
407
00:24:12.000 --> 00:24:12.180
So.
408
00:24:12.630 --> 00:24:15.009
There was actually this funny moment where we're in this
409
00:24:15.029 --> 00:24:17.690
like secluded area and it's like all woods. It's down
410
00:24:17.710 --> 00:24:21.109
by the river. And we start putting on the military
411
00:24:21.210 --> 00:24:24.829
jackets and the face masks. And as we're pretty much
412
00:24:24.910 --> 00:24:27.769
like done getting dressed up, all of a sudden a
413
00:24:27.869 --> 00:24:30.970
guy rips down on a bicycle on like this little
414
00:24:31.029 --> 00:24:33.059
path in the woods and like looks at us and
415
00:24:33.079 --> 00:24:35.730
then just like keeps going. And I'm like, oh, shit,
416
00:24:35.779 --> 00:24:37.519
like that's not that's not good.
417
00:24:38.839 --> 00:24:42.000
The cyclist spooks Patrick. So they try a new location.
418
00:24:43.079 --> 00:24:44.859
So we cross the field and we go to the
419
00:24:44.920 --> 00:24:47.559
opposite end of the park where again, there's more woods.
420
00:24:47.900 --> 00:24:49.380
Then I can remember walking up this kind of like
421
00:24:49.480 --> 00:24:53.410
steep embankment. And at the top, there was a rail
422
00:24:53.450 --> 00:24:56.289
line that ran all along the park. As soon as
423
00:24:56.309 --> 00:24:58.250
he sees the rail line, he thinks this is where
424
00:24:58.289 --> 00:25:00.369
I want to take this photo. And then he keeps
425
00:25:00.390 --> 00:25:02.269
trying to set up his phone so that it can
426
00:25:02.289 --> 00:25:04.490
like take a photo. Cause obviously there's no one there
427
00:25:04.529 --> 00:25:05.829
to take the picture of us. And so he has
428
00:25:05.869 --> 00:25:07.869
to like put a timer on his phone and set
429
00:25:07.910 --> 00:25:10.329
it up in such a place. And in the end,
430
00:25:10.769 --> 00:25:12.769
He's struggling with it for so long, and in the end,
431
00:25:12.849 --> 00:25:14.890
he takes out a roll of tape that he had
432
00:25:14.910 --> 00:25:17.829
been using to put up these posters, and he tapes
433
00:25:17.890 --> 00:25:22.769
his phone to a pole that had a sign from
434
00:25:22.809 --> 00:25:26.170
the rail company on it or something. Anyway, so he
435
00:25:26.259 --> 00:25:28.279
tapes up his phone, he hits the timer, and then
436
00:25:28.319 --> 00:25:30.579
we kind of run down onto the middle of the
437
00:25:30.640 --> 00:25:33.259
train tracks, and we both stand there with our arms crossed,
438
00:25:33.339 --> 00:25:39.460
and the photo gets taken. And then, as we are...
439
00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:42.890
leaving that area. We take off the clothes and we're leaving,
440
00:25:42.910 --> 00:25:46.109
kind of going back out into a different area of
441
00:25:46.150 --> 00:25:48.329
the park. And that's where he makes this comment to me,
442
00:25:48.390 --> 00:25:51.210
where he's talking more about being a combat engineer and
443
00:25:51.250 --> 00:25:52.529
his military experience.
444
00:25:53.390 --> 00:25:56.720
The first time Ryan spoke to Patrick during that vetting call,
445
00:25:57.240 --> 00:26:00.680
he got the impression Patrick did have military training.
446
00:26:00.700 --> 00:26:02.700
I have one question.
447
00:26:03.019 --> 00:26:07.589
And being that Do you have any by chance military
448
00:26:07.650 --> 00:26:08.490
experience at home?
449
00:26:08.890 --> 00:26:09.349
No, I don't.
450
00:26:09.369 --> 00:26:09.769
Okay, all right.
451
00:26:10.769 --> 00:26:13.009
Go ahead, whatever.
452
00:26:14.369 --> 00:26:18.329
I mean, if you did, that would save me a
453
00:26:18.390 --> 00:26:19.250
little bit of trouble.
454
00:26:19.329 --> 00:26:24.339
But that's okay, whatever. No, yeah, yeah, it's fine.
455
00:26:26.170 --> 00:26:28.779
So Ryan knew now was the time he had to
456
00:26:28.819 --> 00:26:32.319
drill down. What is a combat engineer, and what do
457
00:26:32.339 --> 00:26:32.640
they do?
458
00:26:34.589 --> 00:26:37.789
He's saying things like, oh, they're responsible for surveying like
459
00:26:37.829 --> 00:26:40.289
the field of battle and trying to find different things
460
00:26:40.309 --> 00:26:43.900
that could be used to the military's advantage. And then
461
00:26:43.940 --> 00:26:46.700
he says, as an example, like that rail line there,
462
00:26:46.720 --> 00:26:48.079
he's like, even if you didn't want to make that
463
00:26:48.140 --> 00:26:51.339
go boom, you could do X, Y and Z. And
464
00:26:51.359 --> 00:26:53.339
he starts talking about how you could go about pulling
465
00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:55.980
up one of the sides of the rail line to
466
00:26:56.180 --> 00:26:57.039
derail a train.
467
00:26:58.799 --> 00:27:02.019
So it sounds like this man who is actively recruiting
468
00:27:02.059 --> 00:27:06.309
for the base is a neo-Nazi accelerationist group, actually has
469
00:27:06.410 --> 00:27:09.950
the know-how to carry out a terrorist attack on a train.
470
00:27:11.710 --> 00:27:13.170
Ryan tried to wrap up the meeting.
471
00:27:15.349 --> 00:27:17.349
At this point, we've been talking for quite a while,
472
00:27:17.430 --> 00:27:20.509
and we've kind of been walking around these various areas
473
00:27:20.569 --> 00:27:23.349
of the park. The light's fading from the sky a
474
00:27:23.490 --> 00:27:26.910
little bit. It's getting darker. Temperature's dropping a little bit.
475
00:27:27.059 --> 00:27:30.140
And so we kind of walk back towards where We
476
00:27:30.180 --> 00:27:32.900
first met. And so now the baseball game is done.
477
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.960
There's less people around. And we're kind of standing at
478
00:27:36.019 --> 00:27:40.410
the edge of the ball diamond talking. And at this point,
479
00:27:40.450 --> 00:27:44.849
he starts telling me about his past relationship. And he
480
00:27:44.930 --> 00:27:49.529
reveals to me that his ex was a person of color,
481
00:27:49.769 --> 00:27:53.190
was a black woman. And the sense I get when
482
00:27:53.230 --> 00:27:56.059
he's opening up to me about this is like he's
483
00:27:56.160 --> 00:27:59.720
confessing something or he's like unburdening himself a little bit.
484
00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:06.640
And then he tells me this horrific anecdote where he says, yeah,
485
00:28:06.680 --> 00:28:08.839
like towards the end of the relationship, there was a
486
00:28:08.880 --> 00:28:12.299
pregnancy scare. And he might have even said that she
487
00:28:12.359 --> 00:28:16.039
had lied about being pregnant or something. So for a while,
488
00:28:16.099 --> 00:28:18.740
Patrick thought he was going to have a child with
489
00:28:18.880 --> 00:28:22.690
this woman. And then he tells me, he says, the
490
00:28:22.710 --> 00:28:25.170
only problem is the child only would have been half human,
491
00:28:25.970 --> 00:28:29.049
which was strange. You know, just a disgusting comment. And
492
00:28:29.210 --> 00:28:33.619
then I remember he added, yeah, having a mulatto child
493
00:28:33.660 --> 00:28:37.420
would have been a fucking nightmare. And so again, it's
494
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:41.279
just like, okay, this is the level of racism that
495
00:28:41.359 --> 00:28:44.150
this guy has fallen into. These are kind of the
496
00:28:44.210 --> 00:28:46.970
depths of his bigotry where he was in a relationship
497
00:28:47.009 --> 00:28:48.849
with this person, but if he had had a child
498
00:28:49.329 --> 00:28:51.900
with them, he thinks it only... You know, only half
499
00:28:51.940 --> 00:28:54.480
of it would have been human. So he looks at
500
00:28:54.539 --> 00:28:56.880
his ex as subhuman in some sense.
501
00:28:59.660 --> 00:29:02.559
I'm so amazed that you were able to keep your composure. Because,
502
00:29:02.579 --> 00:29:04.920
I mean, even you telling me that now, you should
503
00:29:04.940 --> 00:29:07.640
see my face. And it's not, you know, it's not
504
00:29:07.660 --> 00:29:10.940
that often. Obviously, you've read lots of hateful comments. We
505
00:29:10.980 --> 00:29:13.049
see this sort of stuff on TV. But it's pretty
506
00:29:13.119 --> 00:29:17.250
rare that you have someone telling you that to your face,
507
00:29:17.390 --> 00:29:20.009
thinking that, you know, you're this comrade in arms. You're
508
00:29:20.029 --> 00:29:22.569
going to understand it. How did you I mean, were
509
00:29:22.589 --> 00:29:24.490
you biting your cheek or I mean, how did you
510
00:29:24.970 --> 00:29:27.819
maintain your your composure as he's saying this to you?
511
00:29:29.140 --> 00:29:31.740
Yeah, it was it was a pretty shocking comment. And
512
00:29:31.779 --> 00:29:34.839
I think I tried to just like not address it
513
00:29:35.200 --> 00:29:38.450
throughout the entirety of the reporting process. that was undercover
514
00:29:38.599 --> 00:29:40.920
in this group, like, I didn't use any sort of, like,
515
00:29:40.960 --> 00:29:43.640
racial epithets or anything like that. That wasn't something I
516
00:29:43.680 --> 00:29:46.920
was comfortable doing, and I didn't engage in the overt
517
00:29:47.339 --> 00:29:50.700
racism that everyone else was. That was something where it's like,
518
00:29:50.839 --> 00:29:53.940
if I had had to actually directly respond to that comment,
519
00:29:54.019 --> 00:29:56.380
I don't know what I would have said. But you
520
00:29:56.400 --> 00:29:57.740
just moved on at that point?
521
00:29:58.400 --> 00:29:59.400
Yes. Yeah.
522
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:10.000
Patrick didn't label himself an accelerationist during the meeting, but
523
00:30:10.039 --> 00:30:11.880
he seemed to be quoting from the playbook.
524
00:30:13.630 --> 00:30:17.369
He was certainly presenting a political worldview that was consistent
525
00:30:17.650 --> 00:30:22.170
with accelerationism. He's kind of going on about the local
526
00:30:22.589 --> 00:30:25.609
anti-fascist presence in Winnipeg. And he says, you know, in
527
00:30:25.650 --> 00:30:27.849
a well-ordered society, these people would be dragged out of
528
00:30:27.869 --> 00:30:30.769
their homes and strung up. At one point, he's going
529
00:30:30.970 --> 00:30:33.789
on and on about like the political situation in America,
530
00:30:33.849 --> 00:30:37.029
the political situation in Canada. And he goes on this
531
00:30:37.069 --> 00:30:41.049
little rant where he says, I want the Liberal Party
532
00:30:41.170 --> 00:30:43.789
of Canada to get five terms in office. I want
533
00:30:43.849 --> 00:30:48.609
them to push multiculturalism down people's throats. I want Black
534
00:30:48.650 --> 00:30:51.410
Lives Matter in every white neighborhood. You know, I want
535
00:30:51.589 --> 00:30:54.490
things so bad that white people start picking up guns.
536
00:30:55.200 --> 00:30:57.970
And he also makes clear to me what I'll be expected,
537
00:30:58.009 --> 00:31:00.569
what we'll be up to together as the kind of
538
00:31:00.990 --> 00:31:04.450
two people in this Manitoba cell of the base.
539
00:31:05.589 --> 00:31:09.089
A tight cell. And they wouldn't be just keyboard warriors.
540
00:31:09.490 --> 00:31:11.819
They'd be out in the real world carrying out their mission.
541
00:31:13.170 --> 00:31:17.119
Ryan's face-to-face with Patrick had taken far longer than he'd expected.
542
00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:21.000
At the end of our meeting, we're standing at the park,
543
00:31:21.059 --> 00:31:23.220
kind of closer towards the entrance. The parking lot is
544
00:31:23.319 --> 00:31:26.559
within view. And so I was trying to get out
545
00:31:26.579 --> 00:31:29.000
of there and he's just kind of going on and on.
546
00:31:29.559 --> 00:31:32.019
Ryan was thinking his editor would be freaking out at
547
00:31:32.059 --> 00:31:33.480
the lack of a safety update.
548
00:31:34.220 --> 00:31:37.440
And then eventually a cruiser car for the Winnipeg Police
549
00:31:37.480 --> 00:31:41.160
Service pulls into the parking lot. And they are kind
550
00:31:41.200 --> 00:31:43.720
of just like slowly driving through the parking lot. I
551
00:31:43.759 --> 00:31:46.180
think they're just kind of pulling in to check out
552
00:31:46.220 --> 00:31:48.799
the park, keep an eye on things. I didn't get
553
00:31:48.819 --> 00:31:51.750
the sense that anyone had called them there. But that
554
00:31:51.789 --> 00:31:55.369
spooked Patrick. And I also jumped on that as an
555
00:31:55.410 --> 00:31:58.009
excuse for us to wrap this up and leave. And
556
00:31:58.069 --> 00:31:59.880
he went back into the parking lot and he got
557
00:31:59.950 --> 00:32:04.619
into this red pickup truck, this large red pickup truck.
558
00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:08.059
And I didn't get a license plate, but I saw
559
00:32:08.220 --> 00:32:12.000
that the front driver's side door had a big dent
560
00:32:12.059 --> 00:32:15.279
in it. I made a mental note of and thought
561
00:32:15.319 --> 00:32:16.880
might be important down the line.
562
00:32:19.910 --> 00:32:23.369
Ryan ran home, making that recording on his phone, trying
563
00:32:23.410 --> 00:32:26.309
to regurgitate every single detail he could remember.
564
00:32:27.470 --> 00:32:32.170
Voice memo. I am leaving the meeting with a boost.
565
00:32:33.279 --> 00:32:35.339
When he stepped through the door, he emailed his editor
566
00:32:35.420 --> 00:32:38.019
and a friend to assure them he was fine. And
567
00:32:38.039 --> 00:32:41.039
then he also messaged Patrick to assure him he was fine.
568
00:32:42.500 --> 00:32:45.680
Ryan says he can't exactly remember what he did next,
569
00:32:46.460 --> 00:32:47.759
but he thinks he may have.
570
00:32:47.680 --> 00:32:59.380
Cracked a beer. the next day I was in the
571
00:32:59.420 --> 00:33:02.380
newsroom and I get a message from Roman Wolf saying
572
00:33:02.839 --> 00:33:05.200
you did well last night if you still want in
573
00:33:05.579 --> 00:33:11.089
you're welcome to join and I say yes and then
574
00:33:11.230 --> 00:33:13.650
they add me to this kind of centralized group chat
575
00:33:13.670 --> 00:33:16.029
with all the other members where everyone keeps in communication
576
00:33:16.049 --> 00:33:19.529
with each other and so now I'm behind the scenes,
577
00:33:19.950 --> 00:33:22.609
and I have greater access to what this group is
578
00:33:22.650 --> 00:33:26.049
discussing than I've ever had. I wanted to stay in
579
00:33:26.089 --> 00:33:30.150
the organization so I could keep documenting their internal communications
580
00:33:30.269 --> 00:33:31.349
for as long as possible.
581
00:33:32.890 --> 00:33:36.410
But then Patrick insisted he and Ryan meet again.
582
00:33:38.380 --> 00:33:43.420
For our second in-person meeting, Patrick wanted to commence paramilitary training.
583
00:33:44.099 --> 00:33:47.339
And at that point, I push things as far as
584
00:33:47.400 --> 00:33:49.799
I'm willing to go, right? Like meeting this guy in
585
00:33:49.839 --> 00:33:52.500
a park is one thing, but I'm not running off
586
00:33:52.900 --> 00:33:53.819
into the bush with guns.
587
00:33:55.359 --> 00:33:58.319
Ryan stalled as long as he could. He couldn't yet
588
00:33:58.539 --> 00:34:01.819
confirm the identity of the man in the park, but
589
00:34:01.839 --> 00:34:06.960
he knew he had enough for a story. On Friday,
590
00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:11.900
August 16, 2019, at 7 p.m., The Winnipeg Free Press
591
00:34:12.039 --> 00:34:17.960
published Ryan's story online under the headline, Homegrown Hate. It
592
00:34:18.019 --> 00:34:19.559
was a huge scoop.
593
00:34:20.159 --> 00:34:22.409
And I went to a bar with a couple of friends,
594
00:34:22.849 --> 00:34:24.449
and I remember one of my colleagues being like, oh,
595
00:34:24.469 --> 00:34:26.309
this was such good work, we have to celebrate. And
596
00:34:26.329 --> 00:34:28.489
I was like, I want to go to my apartment
597
00:34:28.530 --> 00:34:30.250
and close the blinds and lock the door.
598
00:34:31.809 --> 00:34:35.090
That was Friday. The next day, Ryan was checking Twitter
599
00:34:35.449 --> 00:34:38.940
and saw a surprising reply from an anonymous account.
600
00:34:39.739 --> 00:35:09.630
It read, I think I know who Patrick is. Coming
601
00:35:09.710 --> 00:35:10.949
up on White Hot Hate.
602
00:35:13.000 --> 00:35:16.420
We are not a place for sick hobbyists to practice
603
00:35:16.440 --> 00:35:17.489
their vile ideology.
604
00:35:18.050 --> 00:35:20.690
And we won't stand for it. We will react.
605
00:35:21.710 --> 00:35:24.349
The abandoned truck was found on a rural property in
606
00:35:24.369 --> 00:35:27.170
the RM of Piney off Highway 12. Now that's right
607
00:35:27.250 --> 00:35:29.909
near the American border. You know, you can think of
608
00:35:29.969 --> 00:35:33.280
them as like Tim McVeigh's children or Tim McVeigh's little cousins.
609
00:35:33.989 --> 00:35:37.400
The time for words has ended. The time for podcasts
610
00:35:37.500 --> 00:35:41.730
has ended. derail some fucking trains, kill some people, and
611
00:35:41.789 --> 00:35:47.050
poison some water supplies. I think it was a Nazi flag.
612
00:35:48.469 --> 00:35:49.650
I think it was a swastika.
613
00:35:50.349 --> 00:35:50.710
I think.
614
00:35:50.730 --> 00:35:52.949
I just figured he was going through a little phase.
615
00:35:54.050 --> 00:35:57.920
It wouldn't be right for my son to have been
616
00:35:57.940 --> 00:36:01.619
a victim of such a terrible crime and to allow
617
00:36:01.679 --> 00:36:05.480
this to potentially happen to other people too. The danger
618
00:36:05.579 --> 00:36:08.159
that is posed by extreme hate.
619
00:36:12.730 --> 00:36:15.489
White Hot Hate was written and produced by Ashley Mack
620
00:36:15.650 --> 00:36:19.150
and me, Michelle Shepard. Our associate producer is Kim Kasher,
621
00:36:19.429 --> 00:36:23.829
with production support from Sarah Melton. Additional reporting by Ryan Thorpe.
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00:36:24.550 --> 00:36:28.320
Mixing and sound design by Danelle Cloutier, Evan Kelly, and
623
00:36:28.340 --> 00:36:33.239
Julia Whitman. With technical assistance from Laura Antonelli. Emily Connell
624
00:36:33.420 --> 00:36:37.559
is our digital producer. Fact-checking by Emily Mathieu and legal
625
00:36:37.579 --> 00:36:41.820
advice from Sean Mormon. Original music by Quiet Type. and
626
00:36:41.860 --> 00:36:45.860
a special thanks to the Winnipeg Free Press. For CBC Podcasts,
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00:36:46.280 --> 00:36:49.480
our senior producer is Chris Oak, and our executive producer
628
00:36:49.639 --> 00:36:50.539
is Arif Noorani.
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00:37:05.460 --> 00:37:10.280
For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.
