- Oct 17, 2011
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[resurgence of right wing radicals in Orange County, California.]
They included Alan Hostetter, a ponytailed retired police officer who taught yoga; Russ Taylor, an entrepreneur who called his red Corvette the “Patriot Missile” and ran a graphics design business that boasted of working with Fortune 500 companies; Morton Irvine Smith, the scion of one of Orange County’s most famous developer dynasties; and Leigh Dundas, a lawyer best known for her fiery crusade against childhood immunization laws.
On Jan. 6, three of the four were part of the crowd that swarmed the U.S. Capitol.
Up through the 1950s, the entire county was considered a “sundown town” hostile to people of color. New suburbs of largely white defense and aerospace workers provided followings for the Communist-obsessed John Birch Society, as well as militant Walter Knott, his patriot-themed berry farm and his School of Anti-Communism.
The surf spots at Huntington Beach became a draw for skinheads, white supremacists and neo-Nazis, including a local right-wing fight club that trained for combat at political demonstrations across the state and whose members in 2017 assaulted counter-demonstrators at the deadly Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Va.
By May, Hostetter had stopped teaching yoga and declared himself a full-time “patriotic warrior.”
Hostetter’s ponytail dangled behind his fedora with the ▇▇▇▇▇ pin, as he called for a reckoning that would hold accountable “the enemies and traitors of America, both foreign and domestic.”
“There must be long prison terms,” he told the crowd, “while execution is the just punishment for the ringleaders of this coup.”
--
Taylor, 39, lived larger than most. He had a $1.8-million home behind security gates, a $60,000 Corvette in the garage and a long history of traffic tickets for speeding and not displaying plates on his sports cars.
Shereen Rahming, a former teacher who moved to Ladera Ranch with her husband and children five years ago, said she saw Taylor monitoring Black Lives Matter marches. Those running the Ladera Ranch neighborhood watch had ties to Taylor, including accompanying him to rallies in Washington and helping administer his Facebook groups. The neighborhood watch refused to admit the Rahmings, who are Black, and other families, sometimes without explanation.
Swastikas were chalked on the sidewalks. Residents complained that skateboarders with U.S. and Trump flags rolled down Ladera Ranch streets shouting the N-word (they were defended as “Trump-loving boys” on the Patriot page). Men shouted the same racist slur at Rahming as she marched, she said. An Asian family was so constantly harassed by local teens that neighbors set up a nightly watch.
Hostetter told the 100 or so suburbanites spread before him in lawn chairs [in Taylor's neighborhood] to prepare for war, to stock food and ammo.
The weekend Curfew Breaker parties were meant to encourage businesses to flout closures.
--
Videos obtained from multiple attendees show young men at several of the Huntington Beach Curfew Breakers chanting “America first!” and “Groyper! Groyper!,” harassing and shouting “go home, harlot” to a woman in a mask, and stomping on a pride flag. Among them, videos show, was the UCLA student who founded America First Bruins, Christian Secor, now facing federal charges for his alleged participation in the Capitol riot.
--
Hostetter had a seasoned protester at his side last spring when he began his beach rallies in San Clemente: California anti-vaccination crusader Leigh Dundas, 48. While Hostetter railed against infringements to liberty, Dundas stood on makeshift platforms — a garden wagon, the tailgate of a truck — to make false claims about medicine and science. Often someone stood behind her holding up signs advertising her website.
When Orange County imposed a mask order in June, Dundas publicized the personal history and home address of the county health officer — a tactic she had used in the past against other foes. She then showed up at the doctor’s home with a large U-Haul, a banner strapped to the side depicting the doctor as Adolf Hitler. The doctor resigned days later.
--
American Phoenix’s board of directors also included Morton Irvine Smith, 55, a sixth-generation member of the Irvine development family on whose land much of the county is built.
The family wealth has long been sold off or dispersed, and Smith’s mother famously threatened him with disinheritance during a family rift in the 1990s. State business registration and court records and interviews show his main occupation is lending the Irvine name — and, he says, his expertise — to others’ ventures. His latest business venture, to help wealthy Chinese nationals immigrate, collapsed with the pandemic.
--
It was the chairwoman of California Women for Trump — an Orange County resident better known for the 150 Shih Tzus the animal welfare agency pulled from her homein 2019 — who provided the introductions that landed American Phoenix on a stage behind Roger Stone.
During the riot the next afternoon, Dundas livestreamed herself in the crowd, screaming “Traitor! Traitor!” at Capitol police. In someone else’s video posted to Facebook, she is seen standing outside the Capitol door, not far from a half-dressed man in a headdress, the so-called ▇▇▇▇▇ Shaman.
Hostetter and Taylor posted an Instagram photo of themselves grinning from a mobbed terrace as Congress was under siege and a video of the crowds below them. Taylor wore a tactical vest with a large knife protruding from the pocket and a walkie-talkie. In other photos and videos, he appears in a gas mask on Capitol terrace skirmish lines, facing off with police in riot gear. Hostetter carried a megaphone and a U.S. flag on a thick wooden stick.
“We did our part,” the Instagram caption said.
They included Alan Hostetter, a ponytailed retired police officer who taught yoga; Russ Taylor, an entrepreneur who called his red Corvette the “Patriot Missile” and ran a graphics design business that boasted of working with Fortune 500 companies; Morton Irvine Smith, the scion of one of Orange County’s most famous developer dynasties; and Leigh Dundas, a lawyer best known for her fiery crusade against childhood immunization laws.
On Jan. 6, three of the four were part of the crowd that swarmed the U.S. Capitol.
Up through the 1950s, the entire county was considered a “sundown town” hostile to people of color. New suburbs of largely white defense and aerospace workers provided followings for the Communist-obsessed John Birch Society, as well as militant Walter Knott, his patriot-themed berry farm and his School of Anti-Communism.
The surf spots at Huntington Beach became a draw for skinheads, white supremacists and neo-Nazis, including a local right-wing fight club that trained for combat at political demonstrations across the state and whose members in 2017 assaulted counter-demonstrators at the deadly Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Va.
By May, Hostetter had stopped teaching yoga and declared himself a full-time “patriotic warrior.”
Hostetter’s ponytail dangled behind his fedora with the ▇▇▇▇▇ pin, as he called for a reckoning that would hold accountable “the enemies and traitors of America, both foreign and domestic.”
“There must be long prison terms,” he told the crowd, “while execution is the just punishment for the ringleaders of this coup.”
--
Taylor, 39, lived larger than most. He had a $1.8-million home behind security gates, a $60,000 Corvette in the garage and a long history of traffic tickets for speeding and not displaying plates on his sports cars.
Shereen Rahming, a former teacher who moved to Ladera Ranch with her husband and children five years ago, said she saw Taylor monitoring Black Lives Matter marches. Those running the Ladera Ranch neighborhood watch had ties to Taylor, including accompanying him to rallies in Washington and helping administer his Facebook groups. The neighborhood watch refused to admit the Rahmings, who are Black, and other families, sometimes without explanation.
Swastikas were chalked on the sidewalks. Residents complained that skateboarders with U.S. and Trump flags rolled down Ladera Ranch streets shouting the N-word (they were defended as “Trump-loving boys” on the Patriot page). Men shouted the same racist slur at Rahming as she marched, she said. An Asian family was so constantly harassed by local teens that neighbors set up a nightly watch.
Hostetter told the 100 or so suburbanites spread before him in lawn chairs [in Taylor's neighborhood] to prepare for war, to stock food and ammo.
The weekend Curfew Breaker parties were meant to encourage businesses to flout closures.
--
Videos obtained from multiple attendees show young men at several of the Huntington Beach Curfew Breakers chanting “America first!” and “Groyper! Groyper!,” harassing and shouting “go home, harlot” to a woman in a mask, and stomping on a pride flag. Among them, videos show, was the UCLA student who founded America First Bruins, Christian Secor, now facing federal charges for his alleged participation in the Capitol riot.
--
Hostetter had a seasoned protester at his side last spring when he began his beach rallies in San Clemente: California anti-vaccination crusader Leigh Dundas, 48. While Hostetter railed against infringements to liberty, Dundas stood on makeshift platforms — a garden wagon, the tailgate of a truck — to make false claims about medicine and science. Often someone stood behind her holding up signs advertising her website.
When Orange County imposed a mask order in June, Dundas publicized the personal history and home address of the county health officer — a tactic she had used in the past against other foes. She then showed up at the doctor’s home with a large U-Haul, a banner strapped to the side depicting the doctor as Adolf Hitler. The doctor resigned days later.
--
American Phoenix’s board of directors also included Morton Irvine Smith, 55, a sixth-generation member of the Irvine development family on whose land much of the county is built.
The family wealth has long been sold off or dispersed, and Smith’s mother famously threatened him with disinheritance during a family rift in the 1990s. State business registration and court records and interviews show his main occupation is lending the Irvine name — and, he says, his expertise — to others’ ventures. His latest business venture, to help wealthy Chinese nationals immigrate, collapsed with the pandemic.
--
It was the chairwoman of California Women for Trump — an Orange County resident better known for the 150 Shih Tzus the animal welfare agency pulled from her homein 2019 — who provided the introductions that landed American Phoenix on a stage behind Roger Stone.
During the riot the next afternoon, Dundas livestreamed herself in the crowd, screaming “Traitor! Traitor!” at Capitol police. In someone else’s video posted to Facebook, she is seen standing outside the Capitol door, not far from a half-dressed man in a headdress, the so-called ▇▇▇▇▇ Shaman.
Hostetter and Taylor posted an Instagram photo of themselves grinning from a mobbed terrace as Congress was under siege and a video of the crowds below them. Taylor wore a tactical vest with a large knife protruding from the pocket and a walkie-talkie. In other photos and videos, he appears in a gas mask on Capitol terrace skirmish lines, facing off with police in riot gear. Hostetter carried a megaphone and a U.S. flag on a thick wooden stick.
“We did our part,” the Instagram caption said.
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