Name: Racism, QAnon and 'cold civil war': Inside the 20,000-strong Defend East County Facebook group
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Racism, QAnon and 'cold civil war': Inside the 20,000-strong Defend East County Facebook group

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Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement A Facebook group that organized after a Black Lives Matter protest in La Mesa turned destructive has ballooned to more than 20,000 members.Called Defend East County, it has become an active online community of people who say they want to protect their cities, but it’s also a place where conspiracy theories, racist banter and calls for violence persist. Recently, videos of self-styled “patriots” in other cities punching and kicking Black Lives Matter protesters received hundreds of “likes” on the Defend East County page, as did a video of a car running over protesters.Some people affiliated with this and other East County community Facebook groups have counterprotested at area Black Lives Matter marches and, in at least five recent cases, have engaged in verbal and physical altercations. The latest verbal conflict occurred Tuesday at a march in La Mesa. Now tensions between counterprotesters — including members of Defend East County — and Black Lives Matter activists have some in both camps worried about the possibility of escalating violence.Advertisement Justin Haskins, a former East County resident who now lives in Yuma, Ariz., founded the Facebook group May 31, the day after and several businesses were looted in La Mesa after a protest. Now he and his wife, Alexandra, sell “DEC” brand shirts, hats and stickers from their incorporated “Defend East County” limited liability company in Arizona.In June, some East County residents began during daily Black Lives Matter demonstrations. At one of those protests, a White man cracking a bullwhip was caught on video as others with him taunted protesters. On June 7, there was a and protesters in front of a Santee Target store, after a Black Lives Matter march drew close to 1,000 people. Defend East County members captured it on video and shared it on Facebook. On Aug. 1, during a protest in La Mesa, several minor altercations between protesters and counterprotesters led to the arrest of a counterprotester, Ryan McAdams, of Jamul, on suspicion of battery. Some counterprotesters wore large knives on their hips, and others, who wore American flags in their back pockets, were involved in scuffles with protesters, videos show. Haskins, in one of his Facebook videos, defended the actions of those who engaged with protesters that day.“We’re a bunch of pissed-off patriots that are out there, sick and tired of our communities being attacked and threatened by these f------ terrorists,” he said.On Sunday, Aug. 9, during a Black Lives Matter food drive at Santee’s West Hills Park, a handful of people — one with a “Defend East County” sticker on their truck — kept watch nearby. Twice people in that group, a few with American flags hanging from back pockets, approached food drive volunteers and engaged in verbal confrontations. One wore a large hunting knife on his hip. On Tuesday, during another protest in La Mesa, Roger Ogden, an active member of Defend East County, was handcuffed and led away by police after he pulled out pepper spray while surrounded by protesters. Ogden said later he had felt threatened by demonstrators. He wasn’t charged and was released. In 2017 and to protest murals at Chicano Park. The 2018 picnic ended in violence.Not everyone engaged in counterprotesting against Black Lives Matter groups is part of the same community defense Facebook group, but Defend East County, with 20,753 members, is the largest.Haskins said he considers everyone who counterprotests or guards a business as a defender.“There are several groups out there,” he said by phone. “Anyone who is defending East County is ‘Defend East County.’”Facebook conversations in Defend East County sometimes become heated and, despite stated rules against it, racist. After Haskins called an injured La Mesa demonstrator a “colored girl” in an Aug. 4 post, members engaged in an almost 600-comment thread about the term, including jokes about the changing vernacular of race.“Wtf you can say people of color but not colored girl?” one commenter responded. “I’m so sick a ALL this f------ goddamn BULLS---.”The term “colored” is offensive to many and fell out of favor in the late 1960s. Haskins later edited the post to “woman of color.”East County has a fraught image when it comes to race. Two racist incidents in Santee in May made news nationwide. A man wore a Ku Klux Klan hood to a Santee Vons, and later a couple wore swastikas on face masks to protest public health orders, they said.In July, an Alpine man drove on a freeway with a large Nazi flag on his SUV, to protest Black Lives Matter, .A member wrote in Defend East County that they are frustrated these instances paint a racist picture of their community. Others said it didn’t bother them.“Who cares if people think that Santee is racist,” one member responded. “That’s been the only thing to keep the ghetto out all these years.”The Facebook group also has become a clearinghouse for right-wing conspiracies about who is funding Black Lives Matter and what ties it may have to liberal political funder and conservative boogeyman George Soros. There were recent conversations about QAnon — a nationwide conspiracy theory that has been and that the FBI considers a . At its core, QAnon’s theory alleges that President Donald Trump is leading a military operation to root out a Satanic child sex ring among Democratic “deep state” politicians and “Hollywood elites,” including Tom Hanks. QAnon adherents subscribe to a number of baseless theories, including that a global “cabal” is sacrificing children to harvest adrenochrome from their adrenal glands and that John F. Kennedy Jr. is still alive. On Aug. 5, a Defend East County user shared on the group’s page a photo of an elementary-age girl in sexy lingerie holding hands with a naked man. The image bore a warning about child sex trafficking, and the person who shared it cited a that the California Legislature is trying to legalize pedophilia.Child trafficking allegations are part of the discredited “Pizzagate” and QAnon conspiracy theories that nevertheless found purchase among a vocal minority of political conservatives,.Members of Defend East County engaged in a lengthy discussion about Hanks and other parts of the conspiracy in comments on the photo of the girl and naked man. In other threads they mention “pizzagate,” the “cabal,” and a QAnon phrase, “WWG1WGA,” for “Where we go one, we go all.”Haskins, in an interview, defended the image of the girl and man as necessary to get people to act.“People know child trafficking, sexual abuse exists,” Haskins said. “A lot of people hear about it and move on, but once you see it, it becomes real.”Haskins said he does not specifically subscribe to the QAnon conspiracy theory but some of it makes sense.“It sounds like there’s a lot of truth to (QAnon) from what I’ve seen.... It’s not a conspiracy theory,” he said.As to the role his group plays in civil unrest in San Diego County, Haskins said in a video on YouTube and Facebook that he is on one side of a “cold civil war.”“I absolutely believe we are in the middle of a cold civil war,” Haskins said. “What do you think is going to happen in November? Win or lose, what do you think is going to happen?”Haskins said “pro-BLM, pro-Antifa socialist, communist terrorists” are inciting fear and violence.To local Black Lives Matter demonstrators, Defend East County and its affiliates are the inciters.KC Short, 30, said he has organized several protests in San Diego County and has seen counterprotesters at many of them.“Their true goal is to intimidate people, to discontinue their 1st Amendment rights — they don’t want people to protest any longer,” Short said. “They see protesters as people that are crying about problems that don’t really exist.”Online videos from the Aug. 1 confrontation in La Mesa show a counterprotester wearing an “American Guard” T-shirt and a truck with an American Guard flag parked nearby. American Guard members are described by the Anti-Defamation League as “hardcore white supremacists.” Many counterprotesters that day wore body armor and long knives on their hips. One wore a “three percenter” patch on his vest. Three-percenters are part of an anti-government militia, according to the ADL.“There was definitely a White supremacist presence,” said Matthew Brooks, 22, a student journalist from Southwestern College who took photos at the protest. “One counterprotester smashed cameras and megaphones on the ground.”Haskins dismissed the notion that extremists were at the rallies.“I haven’t seen White supremacists groups come out,” he said. “The racial tensions are a media prop tool. I haven’t been concerned with any of the groups that have come out.”Haskins, in his livestream of the altercation, yelled at counterprotesters to get back and disengage with protesters. He said that as a group administrator he can only do so much to keep things under control — in the real world and online. Despite group rules against racism and calls for violence, some Defend East County people advocated for a stronger response to protests. “If they come to Santee this weekend there will be violence,” a member wrote Aug. 5, ahead of Sunday’s food drive. “Time for them to get a taste of there own medicine. It’s time to take the fight to them.”“Time for armed citizen militias to step up and put a few thugs into body bags,” another member wrote Friday in response to Tuesday’s La Mesa protest.Short, who was at the Santee food drive but did not organize it, said a handful of people there tried to scare the volunteers.“Every single time DEC wants to say that ‘We’re not here to agitate; we’re here to defend,’ but what are you defending?” Short said. “Right now you just have people being peaceful and dropping off donations. These people are coming over here to intimidate people that are doing good.”The food drive, organized by the East County BIPOC Coalition, collected food, clothes and other goods for organizations such as the Santee Food Bank and the Crisis House in El Cajon.Haskins said he tried to discourage people from his group from showing up at the food drive. He said up to a dozen people who went were affiliated with another group, which he didn’t name. There are differences of opinion among counterprotest groups about how to properly “defend” at protests.Mike Forzano, a former organizer of Defend East County, said he left the group and started another called “Exiled Patriots,” in part because of those differences. Forzano said people can protect businesses without engaging with protesters.“Escalation can be avoided; it’s about the tolerance level of (those) on the ground,” Forzano said. “When we do what we do, we are relentlessly attacked verbally and sometimes physically by protesters.”Everyone on “Team Exile,” Forzano said, is there because they’ve been kicked out of Defend East County “for one reason or another.”Forzano, Haskins and Short each said they’re concerned about future confrontations escalating into more violence.“Instigators are everywhere, on both sides,” Forzano said. “But we want to avoid a race war at all costs.”Tasha, 24, an organizer of the Santee food drive, said her group is planning more actions in East County but they’ll have to be careful about how they’re announced, because their fliers are quickly shared in the Defend East County Facebook group.“We’re not here for them — intimidation is not going to scare us,” said Tasha, who declined to give her last name.Several elected officials from Santee, El Cajon and La Mesa are listed as members of the Defend East County Facebook group. Kristine Alessio, a La Mesa city councilwoman, and El Cajon City Councilman Gary Kendrick said they are there to keep an eye on their community. Both said they found some things shared in the group objectionable.Ronn Hall and Rob McNelis, Santee city council members with Facebook accounts in the group, did not respond to requests for comment.An account named for Santee Vice Mayor Laura Koval was listed, but Koval denied being a member and suggested someone was impersonating her. An hour later the account was no longer listed. Get our essential investigative journalism Sign up for the weekly Watchdog newsletter for investigations, data journalism and more. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune. Show Comments Load More Advertisement Get our essential investigative journalism Sign up for the weekly Watchdog newsletter for investigations, data journalism and more. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune. 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Copyright © 2022, The San Diego Union-Tribune | | AdvertisementAdvertisement A Facebook group that organized after a Black Lives Matter protest in La Mesa turned destructive has ballooned to more than 20,000 members.Called Defend East County, it has become an active online community of people who say they want to protect their cities, but it’s also a place where conspiracy theories, racist banter and calls for violence persist. Recently, videos of self-styled “patriots” in other cities punching and kicking Black Lives Matter protesters received hundreds of “likes” on the Defend East County...

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Racism, QAnon and 'cold civil war': Inside the 20,000-strong Defend East County Facebook group

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