>> narrator: tonight... >> you will not replace us! >> narrator: aftere. charlottes.. >> is your sense that there's new energy joining these movemes? >> it's probably the most active in my career. >> narrator: frontline and propublica reporr ac thompson investigate. >> i wanted to talalk to you abt at you were doing in charlottesville last year. >> narrator: who was behold the ent rally? >> there's video of you launching yourself into that crowd. h you could feel how angry they were but also happy they were to be inmidating people like this and it was just this happy rage. >> we're down to die for this man.nd >> narrator: a uncover a network across america that goes

beyond charlottesville. >> yeah we think he's serving in the marines now. >> narrator: tonight on frontline, the first film of a continuing series, "documenting hate: charlottesville." >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t.da macarthur foon, committed to building a more just, verdant and peacefulorld. more information is available at macfound.org. the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwid at ford foundation.org. additional support is provided le the abrams foundation, committed to exce in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heighteni public awareness of critical issues. the john and helen glessner. family tru supporting trustworthy

journalism that informs and inspires. and by the frontline journalism fund, with major support om jon and jo ann hagler. and additional support from laura debonis and scott nathan. ♪ ♪ >> you will not replace us! you will not replace us! you will n replace us! you will not replace us! >> a.c. thompson: arlottesville, virginia, august 12, 2017.

i'd been tracking hate cris since the presidential campaign, and i could see that something was happening in this country. the charlottesville rally was supposed to be about a confederate monument, but anne t o was paying attention could see that it was abmore than a single statue. (shouting) it felt like a national reckoning around race was coming. (shouting, chanting) and being hereould help me understand it.(s uting, repetitive banging) i came here to ask questions, but as the day unravelnto chaos around me, one thing became clear: this was not a place to listen or understand. charlottesville was a crime

scene. (shouting, screaming) >> medics! >> medics! >> medics! ♪ ♪ >> thompson: i arrived in charlottesville for what would l become thegest gathering of white supremacists in a generation. they called it unite the right, and it was drawing individuals from at least 35 states.

>> good afternoon. i'm chief thomas, charlottesville police department. we will have a significantpo ce presence throughout the weekend-- well over a hundred officers from my agency, several hundred officers from t e virginia state police. we were informed te national guard is monitoring the situation. >> thompson: the day before the rally, a few reporters gathered ncr the police press confe but i'd begun to hear from other sources in charlottesville. >> we have time for one more question. >> thompson: chief, 're hearing rumors of there being another torch-light march tonight, an unpermitted rch. do you have any information about that? ot i've heard the same rumors, but i don't have af details. what have you heard? where is it going to take place? in the city or the count >> thompson: we've been hearing 5:00 or 6:00. >> where at? re thompson: not far from is what we've been hearing. the police had heard the same rumors i had, but the university grounds were quiet and it seemed l.ke the march might not be happening after

until suddenly, the torches. appear >> you will not replace us! you will not replace us! yowill not replace us! you will not replace us! you will not replace us! thompson: in a matter o moments, hundreds of neo-nazis and white supremacists assemblee and maon the university. the police arrived on the scene, but watched from theidelines as a small group of anti-racist activists were quickly surrounded.m- one of temily gorcenski-- was streaming it from her phone. >> we are penned in.we are surrounded on all sides by hundreds of nazis. we have no way out. >> white lives matte

white lives matter! >> white lives matter! white lives matter! (shouting) >> (bleep) >> i got punched. i got kicked. i remember getting hit in the head. i thought it was with a torch. i stepped forward at one point and i got shoved back. i thought i was going to die. the thing that i was thinking as the melee was happening was, "i just need to keep the camera going." you know, that was the only thing that i could do. yeah, it was like a hundred people beatingp like a small group of us and a small group of students. >> thompson:en or 15 people? >> yeah. you could feel how angry they were, but also how happy they were, you know, to bg this, to be intimidating people like this, and this happy rage. >> thompson: had you ever seen that displayed before? >> no, never in my life. theyere cheering, they were running through the streets,

yelling at people. and they walked away and theyay got ith it. they're coming in here the next day ready to do more. i thought like, "here we go. w yeah, hego." di (police chatter) >> thompson: the morning after the torchlight march i walked into town with a group of clergy. (chanting) the whe supremacists who'd beaten people the night before re returning. and anti-fascist counter-protesters were arriving to challenge the >> ♪ no hate, no fear white supremacists not welcomehe re. ♪ >> ♪ no hate, no fear (shouting) >> no kkk, no fascists!t >> thompson:10:15 a melee erupted. (shoutin screaming)

a group of white supremacists-- some with their hands taped up like boxers-- punched, kicked, and choked people who d to pak their path, leaving th bloodied on the ment. >> thompson: just want to let you know there's been all kinds of crazy violencover here. pepper spray, people beating each other with sticks. we're trying to figure out if the police are going to intervene to stop that or if it's just going to keep going on. ot different all assignments to try to maintain me sort of order here, s that's what we're focusing on right now. t mpson: hundreds of people had shown up to protest the white supremacists. most were non-violen some-- black-clad militant anti-fascists-- had come to fight. and while police looked on, the crowd grew more aggressive. (shouting) g >>o ahead (bleep), i'm tellin' you, i'lshoot you! (shouting) go ahead, you want to play that way, i'll play it. >> (bleep) (shouting)

itethompson: a group of supremacists formed up with shields and clubs and pushed straight into the protesters. ckhouting) some of them fough, but no one was arrested, and the violence continued to escalate. at about noon, a group of white supremacists cornered protestor deandre harris in a ing garage next to a police station. they beat him with poles, metal pipes, and wooden boards. >> thompson: police did not intervene break it up. then at 1:45 the brawling turned oto something else-- an a terror.ti

(screaming, ng) a grey dodge slammed into crowd of protesters. 20 people were rushed to the hospital. 32-year-old heather heyer was pronounced dead. >> i always wondered, "was she afraid? (exhales) did she see him coming?" she was deaf in one ear, so, um... damn it, i wasn't going to cry. (sighs) she had planned on not going. but when she saw videos from friday night, she said, "i have

to go." and... when you drive through charlottesville now and see that peaceful little downtown it'sar really, reallyto imagine. even seeing the videos it's surreal. i get cold chills evme i'm in the parking garage and have to walk past where dre was beat up. that's just insane, right there by the police station,he police standing right there. >> thompson: for you, what is justice for heather look like? >> i don't know. i don't know that you could ever call it justice for heather. nothing's gonna bring heather back. those of us who miss her, miss her... forever. her best friend said, "you knowd

it's kinda w i'll get to be an old man and she'll always have been 32." you know, life goes on. i'm getting older... it's just weird. life is very different. (soft chuckle) >> thompson: james alex fields is the person who's been prosecuted for heather's murder. in your mind, is he the only person who should be held accountable? >> no. for people from 35 states to come in to fight, that's absolutely absurd. >> you had a group on one side erat was bad, and you had a group on the oth side that was also very violent. nobody wants to say that, bu i'll say it right now. we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides, on many

sides. >> it was really something else. to s this news conference, bill, encapsulated the president's thinking, his reasoning and frankly his frustration over the events that took place over th.weekend in charlottesvil >> he defended his initial comments and says there is plenty of ame to go around on both sides. specifically he mentioned what he called the "alt-left." >> excuse me, what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right? do they have any semblance of guilt? >> today david duke, the former grand wizard of the kkk, tweeted this. >> grateful to the president for ids words today. >> "thank you prest trump for your honesty and courage to tell the truth about charlottesville and condemn thee ftist terrorists in black lives matter/antifa." >> here in charlottesville one white nationalist told us the president has helped them. >> he's opened up a door, his movement has opened up a door, but it's up to us to take the initiative.

>> thompson: president trump's comments sparked national outrage. while white supremacist leaders praised the president's words, they angered many here in charlottesville, including the city's mayor at the time, democrat mike signer. >> groups that previously had been stuck in the shadows and at the margins and at the extremes are brought into the mainstream and that's why they felt welcome to try and "unite the right" in charlottesville. and at the end of the day it's a city of, you know, just under 50,000 people and we were, we were in this, we were this target for forces much bigger an us. >> thompson: you are the jewish mayor of smallouthern town.yo i imaginve gotten a lot of trolling and a lot of harassment. >> oh, yeah, hundreds of messages on twitter, mail at my house. a cartoon of robert e. lee pressing the green buttoon a gas chamber where my face had been photoshopped into it with

a star of david on my lapel in rerence to the confederate statue issue here in charlottesville. >> thompson: i saw you that night over at the county government headquarters and you looked stricken. >> stricken is not a bad word for it. i wish that we had known more.t i wish t had been given more information by the, by the state intelligence apparatus.so >> tho did they say anything like, "hey, these guys are going to come with clubs, they're going to come withpp spray, they're going to come with, you know, implements of violence"? no. we had one briefing with three members of the virginia state police who came and talked to us on city council. they did not present us with ano evidena credible threat. >> thompson: as i understand it, about ten people altoghave been prosecuted from those days, does that sound accurate to you? >> it sounds like it should be a lot higher. ♪

>> thompson: unite the right was a watershed moment f the white supremacist movement. groups that had been isolated on the margins for years suddenly converged out in the open. ♪ an independent report commissioned by the city said the many failures of state and local police had produced disastrous results that day. i just want to see if there's anything the charlottesville police can say about what happened that day, and what chans might have been made going forward. charlottesville police won't talk. and the state police won't ayther. i got your messageg that basically we should look at the facebook and twitter posts you put out, but we have questions that go beyond that. they've charged one man for the killing of heather heyer and four for the beating of deandre harris, but if charlottesville was a crime scene, then most of the criminals had gotten away.

like i said, i'm just trying to figure out how many folks have been prosecuted and how many cases might still be in the pipeline.ng i wasn't getny answers in charlottesville so i set off on my own. ♪ whwere these white supremacists who had descended charlottesville? and why did the thorities seem so unprepared? ♪ aarrive in new york to meet with a retired fgent, a man who infiltrated neo-nazi groups during the 1990s. this is from charlottesville. >> mike german tracked the violence in charlottesville as it unfolded. >> this is when the police should be there and they aren'to aneven in view. i mean you can't even see

somebody close by. aymean it's one thing to, watch these guys trade some punches and then follow them as hethey separate and grab t >> thompson: right. >> they weren't even doing that or let them go home but then pick them up. because you can identify them pretty easily. and what's interesting about charlottesville is that it was that it was after almost two years of increasing violencet these protests. (shouting) ere was anaheim... ♪ sacramento...g) (sho the first berkeley protest in 2017. the huntington beach protest. (crowd chanting "u.s.a.") the second berley protest was even more violent. the fifth, sixth, seventh in a series. i could see from my of here in new york city how ts was

building. this was not just predictable but predicted. i couldn't believe that there wasn't better intelligence being provided by the federal government, by the fbi and department of homeland security, particularly when people are coming in from out of state, they should be warning them. these are people who engaged in violence in berkeley. these are people who engaged in violence in huntington beach. where was the fbi? unless the fbi too has just abandoned this ground, which i would find even more shocking. >> thompson: and your sort of sense is like if you allow folks to go out and act very violently over and over and over again in these political spaces then they basically start to think, "hey, the cops are okay with us." >> right, "they're going to protect me coming in, let me do it and then protect me going out." now that these groups feel that they have some state sanction for that, they are going to be o lot more dan in the coming years. ♪ >> thompson: "where was the

fbi?" mike germawondered. they had issued warningsbout white supremacy violence before charlottesville, but thosee warnings hiled to stop the bloodshed. l no one from the bureau wt down with me, but they send me a statement. the fbi said while it doesn't i police ideologhas long investigated white supremacy extremistsnd it will enforce the rule of law. (keyboard clicking) ♪ stabbings, shootings, beatings-- at rally after rally leading up to charlottesville, i see the same faces again and again. one face stands out to me. i first notice him at a pro-trump rally in huntington beach, and he surfaces again at other rallies where he's treated like a leader. after he's briefly detained by

police, i'm finally ableo identify him. robert rundo is based in california now, but his rap sheet begins back east.e that's where hd a small street gang in queens, new york, called the original flushing crew. the queens d.a. shares rundo's file with me. rundo's flushing crew wasn't racist and iluded a few latino members. they got into a bloody feud wito the in street gang ms-13. (engine revving) within ms-13 rundo was known as "el diablo blanco." in 2009, he was filmed b surveillance cameras in front of this corner store.

rundo's crew can be seen chasing members of ms-13. rundo stabs one of them. s victim falls as he tries to escape, and rundo stabs him six more times. rundo's graffiti remains on sidewalks here, but he's gone.en he wasnced to two years in prison for gang assault and sent upstate. re after hiase, he moved to orange county, california. the neat rows of s-bleached homes here look like a vision of suburban utopia. but orange county has always had a darker se. >> this is actually a klan robe.

the guy was the grand dragon of the imperial klans of america. the rank structure here. s >> thompsoo kind of like sergeant's stripes or something? >> yeah, like that, but he's like in charge.hi he ranwhole chapter in the whole region. >> thompson: lowell smith was an orange county probation officer for 26 years for much of his career, he worked exclusively with white supremacts. so the guy we're looking at, rob rundo, he has this tattooed on his back. can you explain the significance? >> well the totenkopf is primarily found what we see with neo-nazi organizatns. back in the day started off with adolf hitler, with the gestapo and some of the nazi secret pole. >> thompson: wow. so this is a thing that, that i've been trying to understand. rob rundo, he grows up in quee, new york. he's a member of kind of a multi-cultur gang. he goes upstate to new yorkon state pr and by the time he gets out of new york state prison, he is

definitely on the path to being a neo-nazi or a white supremacist. >> there is a lot of hate thin the prison system. there's a lot of assaults, fights, racial fights. so they go in there and they separate by race for protection. so for these guys to be protected, they got to be allied for protection with hardcore violent skinheads. then they go out to the streets, they're ideologically motivated. >> thompson: so it's not surprising to you? it doesn't surprise me all, no. over time, especially within the last year or so couple of years' seen this whole white supremacy becoming more emboldened. >> thompson: just in the last couple of years? >> yeah. it's probably most ain my history, in my career. >> thompson: so in almost 30 years? >> yeah, and a little t different too because you're seeing mainstream that you wouldn't suspect. you're seeing college kids becoming emboldened in this moveme. >> thompson: so moving out of the subculture and moving into the mainstream of american life. >> right. it worries me a lot.

yeah, i'm, i'm really concerned. i am afraid charlottesville could happen again and be a lot. wo ♪ >> thompson: smith says a new generation of white supremacists are pushing their politics into the mainstream. rob rundo seems to be part of that trend. his oup's first public appearance wasn't at a torch march, it was in huntington ach at a pro-trump rally behind a banner that "defend america." (crowd chanting) when anti-fascists showed up, rundo and his crew attacked them. he pinned one of them on the ground and pummeled him. (people shouting) one member of his ew also attacked frank tristan, a journalist with orange county's alternative weekly paper. at the time did you know that this was a gro, or who did this, or what was going on? >> no. i definitely saw they were organized. they stuck as a group, you know, also the banner.

when we got back to the office and i started talking gustavo about everything, he started having me go out and look for everybody there who attacking people. (keys clicking) i started going through hashtags. so like #magamarch. >> thompson: that's you! >> yeah, right there. so i started finding pictures like this. >> thompson: so is this him hitting you or is ther? >> so this is right after he had just hit me. when i clicked on his name, it took me to his profi >> thompson: and you look at his pictures there and you say, "oh, that's the dudwho attacked me." >> there you go. >> i said, "okay, if we're goino to tell this that actually there were white supremacists there, we need to get everything right. so start digging." ♪ then i started seeing pictures that photographers took of that maga mar and i see a guy with a shaved head and a jacket and immediately i'm like, "that's a hammerskins logo." walking around openly with ain hammerjacket. and so then he starts digging, he finds out that this guy hadac tually been just recently released from jail from prison for a hate crime. and that's when you know, "okayh this mor just a couple of

random people. there's something much more organized. >> thompson: frank and gustavo followed a trail of social media posts and court record their research put a name to rob rundo's group: the rise above movement, or ram. they portray themselves as patriotic nationalists. but the members' facebook posts are full of anti-semitic and racist imagery. they also appear in photos and videos training with the largest nazi skinhead gang in america-- the hammerskins. >> so you got a hammerskin here. hanging out, they're doing their fight training with the rise above movement. >> so they're, they're, they're training and they're not identifying separately, it's all under the same moniker.o >> thompson:basically, you have like a new white supremacist group kind ofin absorbg the old guard. >> yes. >> thompson: and the old guard being knn as being hyper-violent. >> oh yeah. >> thompson: so what happened with these guys in the weeks ant hs after the march and the attack at huntington beach?

where did they go? >> they started getting more prominent.rt they s getting more well-known and more celebrated. >> and they started becoming friends with other alt-righterse they were coming heroes. >> oh, check it out, if anyone wants to know, this is what we're about, it's rise above vement. we were at berkeley, at huntington, now we're here. >> that's right. nt >> thompson: in thhs after their emergence at the huntington beach trump rally, the rise above movement's social media following swelled. by the time of the charttesville rally, they'd gained a national reputation as white supremacist street fighters. ♪ >> there were a couple of guys in these few shots that we weren't able to identify. i wonder who he is. 'cause he looks like he's part of ram.so >> tho oh yeah, he's definitely a ram person. >> he's definitely dressed in one whole thing. >> thompson: but i think we know his name, no. i know rob rundo is the leader of ram. and by examini online videos

and court documents, i'm able to identify several more ram meers. >> so there's this guy who i in't... i don't know if you guys know who s now. >> thompson: okay, so leave that on him. and then come over t video to the charlottesville. >> oh yeah. >> thompn: one face looks familiar, and i quickly realize .where i've seen him befo he marched in charlottesville on august 12, his hands taped up for a fight. oh look, he's got his righhand taped up. >> right hand. >> thompson: i wonder if hisle hand is as well. >> sure we can see...e oh yeah,s both here. so this is him. >> thompson: they're the same person.>> eah. >> thompson: the ram member can clearly be seen attacking people at the california rallies. and in crlottesville he participates in one of the morning's first fights, beginning the escating spiral of violence. but whoever he, is i can'tim identify.

using clues from ram's propaganda videos, i manage to locate one of their training spots. just off the 405 outside of irvine, we find ram's graffiti tags hidden inside drainage tunnels. >> traditionally when you looked at white supremacist graffiti, t ded to be the opposite of this. so not the fwery large letters that's associated more with the hip hop culture. white supremacist graffiti traditionally tended to be more just like narrow lettersust like the lettering there. >>hompson: i'm guessing th is like the new york city influence, like rob rundoom bringing this ueens and his upbringing here is my guesso >> i mean it that way. >> thompson: sociologist pete simi has studied white supremacistsor decades. his field research takes him inside dozens of racist groups

emross the country. >> i'd describe s a hybrid of sorts because they're kind of a collage in a way. you know, where they're pulling together these different ideasmb and s and associations and kind of making their own thing.o >> thomp this is the... >> that's the life rune. >> thompson: how does it get appropriated by the whe power movement? >> it's all about white survival. >> tmpson: so this is one that's been in circulation for a long time? >> yeah national alliance used it back in the '70s. o >> thompson: sat do you make of this? >> got the celtic cross, it's one of the most widely utilized tattoos among white supremacists. anthen it's interesting because you get then this phrase here, "kill your local drug dealer." which taps into what's right above-- the straight edge, the three x, the triple xs. is notion of living a clean life and being very kind of puritanical almost. >> thompson: right. >> it felt like they were doing like a vigilante type work.ng they're cleap the streets.

>> thompson: like the white supremacists who came befo them, simi says that ram members present themselves as defenderst ditional white culture. we visit marblead park in san clemente, where they film training videos that celebrate personal fitss, the warrior spirit and political street fighting. ♪ >> what they're trying to sellha is this idea twe need to go back to a more traditional time, you know, traditional masculinity. when they blend in theseight scenes, that's also this idea of being not only just fit and living a pure life but alsowa being ior of sorts. so you could imagine a, you know, 16-, 17-year-old white male watching these vide and

being somewhat moved by th or attracted to them in some case. >> thompson: it looks like it's a oup, it's a fringe group. why are they important? and what do you thin >> well, first, you know, the first thing is we just want to strictly talk about violence. small groups can do as much if not more destruction than large groups. you have, for instance, the oklahoma city bombing. a relatively small group there that, you know, ulmately pulled off, at the time, the largest act of domestic terrorism prior to 9/11. so you know an act of violence can certainly be committed by al fringe group. >> thompson: by a small group. >> and then i think, yeah, they miet be kind of a small fri group, but the best, most sophisticated white supremacist is the one who appears the least visible. they're not out there wearing uniforms that are going to beis reallyle. they're not getting tattoos all over their face. you know, theye blending in, in a lot of different ways, including the issues they're concerned abt. the issue of immigration, which has been a real hot button issue. white supremacists can seize on that issue and say, "look, there's an invasion and that

america is under siege." then they have theotential to recruit among a much broader swath of the population than wei often aring to admit or recognize. ♪ >> thompson: a couple after charlottesville, i had enough to publish story and video about the group, naming rob rundo and several other members. i later hear from several law enforcement agencies, including the fbi.on they talk on the record, but they say they've opened an investigation into rundo's group. i want to talk to rundo. lei go looking for him, ann that he's in europe networking with extremists there. and i still can't identify that ram member in the charlottesville photos-- the one wearing the "make america eat again" hat and punching people in the face. then i get a tip from a local cop. the man's name is chael miselis.

miselis doesn't have a criminal record. he's a phd candidate at ucla and holds a government-issued security clearance for his job at the massive defense contractor northrop grumman. hey mike, how you doing? a.c. thompson, "propublica" and "frontline." wanted to talk about what you were doing in charlottlle last year. u >>h, sorry, i don't know anything about that, man. >> thompson: but you were there, you're on camera, you're on photos. >> no, i, i think you got the wrong guy. >> thompson: hey, do northrop and ucla know u're involved with the rise above movement? >> gotta go, man. >> thompson: we identify michael .selis in a follow-up sto and the next day, rthrop grumman announces its takenmi action, and lis is no longer

an employee. ♪ >> in new york city, an army veteran, who police say is an admitted white supremacist, has en charged with murder as a hate crime. >> portland police say latest day afternoon three men were stabbed by a man yelling ethnic and religious slurs. >> thompson: over the course of my reporting, i've seen a wave of white sremacist violence hit the country. >> the brutal killing was motivated by prejudice after police found urbanski belongs to facebook group "alt-reich nation." (keys clacking) >>shompson: police departme across the country have reported s.steep rise in hate crimeys the fbi hat hate crimes have hit a five-year high.

one case draws my attention. >> prosecutors say sl woodward took bernstein to a park and kled him with a knife. >> bernstein was found with more than 20 stab wounds. >> twenty-year-old woodward was the last person to have seen the prstudent while he was home for winter break. >> do you think your son couldta have beeeted because he was jewish? >> absolutely. he was also a gay man. >> thompson: samuel woodward hasn't beecharged with a hate crime, but the case seems worth investigating. and it took place back in orange county, california. i've been looking at thiguy samuel woodward, the man accused of killing blaze bernstein in this park. at first i thought you have a gay jewish college student stabbed to death. maybe this is a hate crime. what do you know about woodward? >> woodward was a teenager, grew up in luxury newport beach, so

that's the old money of orange county. his family were very devout cathics. they went to one of the wealthiest parishes in orange county, our lady queen of angels. conservative catholic parish right there. >> thompson: you've been tracking white supremacist grou for many years now. was woodward a guy who was on your radar? k do yw of him to have been involved with any long-term o.c. groups? >> nothing. you have volksfront here, you have hammerskins. i knew the traditional neo-nazi grps. i had no idea of who this guy was. od thompson: woodward didn't seem to be on ans radar here and he didn't appear to be part of any local white supremacist grp. his alleged crime was vicious, but it wasn't clear to me that he was even part of my story. >> anything else the court needs to address on behalf of the people? >> no. thompson: sam woodward betrays no emotion at his court hearing. he pleads not guilty.ck (camerasing) defendant is "woodward." >> okay, go ahead and write that.

i pull woodward's court file, but there are precious few details in it. there's also not much to be learned from his schoolmates. they describe him as an introvert, and it seems like most of his life took place online. orange county is starting to feel like a ad end. then i hear from a journalist,ke jaanrahan, who gives me photos of an anonymous twitter account showing sam woodwardpa doing military training with a o-nazi group called atomwaffen dision. my colleague ali winston manages to make contact with the person who posted the photos. he's a former atomwaffen member, anhe points me to another member who uses the online handle "ted bundy." we trace him back to his parents' house in a d.c. suburb, a neighborhood favored by

members of the intligence community. he uses nazi imagery on his escebook page, posts selfi with guns, and i've obtained photos placing him in charlottesville. (dog barking) so i'm a reporter with "propublica" and pbs "frontline," and we're working on a documentary about the new neo-nazi this is a nazi emblem, the black sun, this is a t-shirt put out by the group atomwaffen. his father will neither confirm s r deny that the pictures on his cebook page are real. but the next day i get call om his family. .they say he left the gro

that it was too extreme for him and he hasn't had anything to do with it for months. k i thinu should be aware that one of the people in the group that he was involved with is currently facing charges forin kia gay jewish college student in southern california. their story is difficult to verify. atomwaffen is obsessed with secrecy, communicating through encrypted text messas, and private chats using a service called discord. the former atomwaffen member sends usogs of 250,000 messages shared amongst the group. ted bundy is in the logsand so is sam woodward. but something unexpected catches my eye and i have to go back to charlottesville. at the torch march last august,

e ily gorcenski had been assaulted while vestreamed the confrontation.d we'd traformation, but there were new details in the atomwaffen discord logs. you wereending me messages when i was in california. and i think you and i were bothd ing if it was the rise above movement that came afteron yohe night of the 11th. then my colleagues and i got the chat logs for atomwaffen, this like much me extreme neo-nazi group. and this guy is talking about unite the right and he's repoing back to his fellow nazis and he says, "just got in a fight. if you see a guyn a tracksuit, that's me. i dropkicked emily gorcenski." >> thompson: this guy describesi cking you by name with your full name. we think this guy in the track suit, it's this guy, vasilli pistolis. he's a private first class in the u.s. marine corps. at

>> i mean that's, unbelievable. so there is somebody with a tracksuit. we have a photo of him. and if we look, we can see him back here. the guy in the adidas tracksuit. >> thompson: that's the guy. >> this is the guy. and then he comes running in from the back. does a flying dropkick. yeah, and he doesn't hit me because the person he hits is a few feet over to my right. but he definitely do come in and launch himself at people. and that's kind of what kicked off the whe group. wh>> thompson: and that's e things got crazy. >> yeah, the mel, yeah. >> thompson: if you look at this picture i think it's got to be the same guy. >> oh, that's him. yeah. i mean look at the haircut; that hairline is super distinctive. >> thompson: yeah he's got like the total widow's peak. so at the same time he would have been attacking people, he would have been workr the u.s. government, serving in the marines. ♪

the military bans membership int raroups, and the pentagon publicly condemned the violence in charlottesville but while reportg on pistolis, i get an email from a marine veteran. >> shortly afternite the right, a friend of mine came across a comment by pistolis on facebook and immediately clickep through to hfile and realized this kid's an active duty marine and you can't be a nazi in e military. she se the screenshot my way because she knew i had served and she thought maybe i would be able to get in contact with his command. >> thompson: ed beck served a tour in iraq where he'd been assigned to the 2nmarine logistics group-- the same command pistolis serves in at campejeune.

>> after i was first alerted to pistolis i started searching and just came across other websitesp that he had beting on for years-- white supremacist content, rist content, anti-semitic content. >> thompson: beck had seen the same footage i had of pistolis at the torch march and he collected video from charlottesville i'd never seen. >> he had posted a photo of his costume that he was preparing for unite the right. >> thompson: so it's punisher baseball cap. >> the punisher cap, the flag, the mask which he ended up not using. i startedigging into photos and videos. you can see pistolis on the side.so >> tho right. >> he turns and starts advancing. and he gets ready... to swing. >> thompson: he was...yw everre in these images.ig >> r in the middle of it. and here's one shot of him attacking. >> thompson: oh wo i had not se this. this is insane.re >> are multiple videos showing pistolis attacng. >> thompson: wow. he's hitting the guy on the

ground, right? >> right. >> thompson: it's vicious. >> but there were at least a half dozen videos that captured his attack on satuay. >> thompson: what made you finally decide, like, "i have enough information here to call law enforcement"? >> pistolis popped up at the white lives matter rally in shelbyville, tennessee.-n that night a ni groupte assauld an interracial couple. >> thompson: there's pistolis. >> there's pistolis. the nashville police were looking for witnesses. at this point i alized i had to report him. i called the military police at camp lejeune. i told them i had evidence that he had been a nazi for years and that he had assaulted multiple people at unite the right in charlottesville. >> thompson: and you said this all on the phone call.ai >> i sthis all on the phone call. >> thompson: and what happened? >> he said he'd send it up theey chain and ight be in touch. and i never heard back. ♪

>> thompson: i speak to the marine corps several times. ed antold me they'd op investigation into pistolis but it came to nothing. i made ctact with pistolis over email, but he denied even being in charlottesville. he tells me to call hi hey, it's a.c. is this vasili? >> thompson: i know that you told me that you weren't in charttesville, but i have found photos of you there, and messages in different discord chats where you're talking about assaulting people anulting emily gorcenski. >> thompson: yeah, but there's photos of you there. ho

>>son: i guess that's it. you know, you say you weren't in charlottesville. you'retarting new. you don't want to talk. >> thompson: there's video, man, of you there. you know, there's video of you launching yourself into that crowd.li it doesn't see a joke. it doesn't seem like (bleep) posting. it seems like something else entirely.

>> thompson: okay. all right, man. ♪ we published stories on pistolis that reveal his identity andis activities in charlottesville. ♪ in resnse to our reporting, congressman keith ellison issues a formal letter to secretary of defense, james mattis.so elasks him to look into the case and the presence of white supremacistsn the military. have you heard anything from the marine corps or from naval criminal investigative services sbout this? >> no, we heard about it from

"propublica." we wrote in about it becausee wencerned about it. >> thompson: what are you hoping to get out of that letter? >> well, you kw, look, we've seen people, military leaders in the past actually change policy and we've seen them make some strong statements. i think this ia critical... because i think what trump has actually done is given the opposite message. the reality is is that any timeo get a whole bunch of these young white extremists carrying tiki torches with no masks on, through a public street, they're telling you, "we'red. not worrie >> thompn: "we're not afraid." >> "we're not afraid, we're going to just do this." that is why it's critically important to be very clear about the unacceptability of any extremists, including these white supremacist extremists acquiring the best military training in the world. because if somebody like pistolis gets the training ande uses it, who'snna use it on? maybe his fellow soldiers, maybe his fellow americans. one thing we can do is to shine

a light on this. because when we get some light on it, then somebody somewhere is gonna say, "okay, this needsc toe a priority." and so that's what we're going to do. >> thompson: as the anniversaryl of ctesville draws near, the u.s. attorney's office in virginia tells us they'reri pursuing anal prosecution. it seems like federal prosecutors are closing in on some of the same people i' been investigating. in orange county, the secret life of sam woodward that we discovered has caught up with him. prosecutors have now charged him with a hate crime. for their part, the marines court martialed vasilioste pistolis and ohim from the corps. but the movement that violently erupted in the streets o charlottesville hasn't gone away our source inside atomwaffen says the group has been adding

members, and that pistolis is not the ly soldier in its ranks. this story is far fr ove >> coming this fall, part 2 of "documenting hate-- new american nazis." >> so what do you want to have come out of this weekend?yo what dwant to accomplish? >> go to pbs.org/frontline for our latest reporting with propublica. atd send information about crimes to frontline, propublica and our partners in the documenting hate project. >> i've seen this whole white supremacy thing becomingd. more embolde >> just in the last couple years? >> yeah, it's probably the most active in my history, in my career. >> then visit our films page where you can watch over 200 frontline documentaries. connect to the frontline community on febook and twitter. then sign up for our newsletter at pbs.org/frontne. >> erdbrink: once upon a time on

a dusty road, i met a girl. (girl laughing) >> erdbrink: 17 years later, i'm still here. >> thomas erdbrink welcome to the program. >> narrator: from a country where nothing is allowed. but, everything is possible. stories fromhe inside... >> in this country especially if you live with fear, you're done. >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs stion from viewers like yo thank you. and by the corporation for public broadcastg. major support is provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdanc and ul world. more information is available at macfound.org. the ford foundation, working with visionaries on tht lines of social change worldwide. at ford foundation.org. additional support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in

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- [carlos]a young age roxane gay was writing stories. det over the years, shloped her skills beyond just storytelling. her voice became a battle cry that helped jump-start a modern-day feminist movement. - please welcome roxane gay. (audience applauding) - [carlos] but how did this quiet child of aitian immigrants turn h own hae into a spot at the top of all the best-sellers lists... - time magazine declared 2014 the year of roxane gay. - [carlos] and on a journey towards breaking big." (audience ding) what makes people successful? rnat are the unexpected s in life that propel people toness? (dramamusic) i'm carlos watson, editor of ozy.