Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Red Deer Aftermath and Some Identifications

This past Sunday the group Red Deer Against Racism with speakers from the Rural Alberta Against Racism (RAAR) and the Black and Indigenous Alliance Alberta (BIAA) had planned on holding a rally in the city of Red Deer, AB. Similar rallies had been held in other rural communities where members of those communities spoke about their experiences with racism in rural Alberta. The events attracted people from both outside these communities and within and were always peaceful and included families.

Then Pat King decided to Pat King all over their efforts:

Despite being the one who threatened the members of RAAR and their supporters with violence should they come to "his town", King unsurprisingly claimed that they were the ones who were violent. The thing is, King knows this to be untrue. He harassed members of RAAR at another event and at still another he hid in the bushes filming the rally. In neither incident was he touched and in the second he was ignored:

No Pat, this isn't creepy at all.

But then the truth isn't of great importance to these people.

So on the day of the rally a large group of hatriots showed up to harass, threaten, intimidate, and attack people who showed up for the rally:

Now the hatriots, who included in their number such august groups as the Soldiers of Odin, Yellow Vests, and Woke Onez Rebellion (I mean, they have to be kidding with that name, right?) were pleased as punch to have been able to shut down an anti-racist rally. However, one thing they never considered were (a) optics and (b) intel gathering opportunities.

First with the optics.

Media that reported on the event, at least Edmonton City News which has been widely shared, clearly showed that the hatriots were the ones who where there to cause problems and to hurt people:

The backlash appears to have surprised the hatriots who genuinely seem to think that their actions would be viewed favorably. To be clear, they were not and political figures from accross the spectrum condemned the attacks on the anti-racist rally goers:

Granted, some readers may be reasonably skeptical about the condemnation of the racists by certain figures listed above, but it still goes to indicate that even they realize that aligning one's self with groups such as those who attacked the anti-racist rally isn't politically expedient. 

Then there's this:


Again, I'm certainly not about to hold my breath that anything is going to happen (hope springs eternal however), but it is the result of pressure from the public that resulted in an investigation in the first place. This has to be at least somewhat jarring to those hatriot who believe the public are on their side, at least to the few who have any ability to engage in a degree of critical thinking.

Then there are the intel gathering opportunities.

Sure, there were a lot of people we already recognize from elsewhere. There was Pat King of course as well as members of the SoO from both Calgary and Red Deer:

Ashley Wagner, Richard Wagner, and Terry Lefranc

By the way, if these particular members of the SoO claim their aren't racists we invite them to take a look at this article published earlier in the month:

Also, their claims to support the police ring just a wee bit hollow when their Red Deer leader posts comments like these:



Sort of makes this sign a bit awkward, eh?


We also see that Steven Lane made an appearance:


He mostly shaved his very unfortunate facial hair off.

Good choice.

And there's Ricky "Honey, I Shrunk the Patriot" Tollekko (aka Ricky Rush) and his partner Chantel Miller:


Finally we see ubiquitous Calgary Yellow Vests protester Chris Harrod who incidentally was caught on camera assaulting two Indigenous women in Calgary:


There were of course other known figures that we may post here eventually as more photos and/or screen captures are sent to us.

We also were sent images of people we didn't really know much about or at all, such as Cody Frederickson (apparently a QAnon supporter based on his t-shirt) who is holding the blowhorn:


We also got to met Jack Schultz who was especially aggressive during event and who also has an interesting story that may find its way to the blog eventually:


Again, there were others who we plan on discussing in the future.

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