>> narrator: tonight... st you will not replace us... >> narrator: fir charlottesville, then ur pittsbgh. >> ...he's got an automatic weapon... >> ...multiple casualties inside the synagogue... i >>your sense that there's new energy, joining these movements? >> it's probably the most active in my career. >> narrator: frontline and propublica reporter, a.c. thompson investigate... w anted to talk to you about what you were doing in charlottesvie last year? >> narrator: who was behind the viont rally? >> there's video of you launching yourself into that crowd. >> you could feel how angry they were, but also how happy they were to be intimidating people like this, and it was just this happy rage. >> we're dowisto die for than. >> narrator: and uncover a network of white supremicists

across america. >>g eah we think he's servinin the marines now. >> ...the news orginization propublica... >> narrator: tonight on frontline, the film that led toa of prosecutions- "documenting hate: charlottesville". >> frontline is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. ank you. and by the corporation for public broadcasting. major supporis provided by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more informati is available at macfound.org. the ford foundation, workinges with visionan the front lines of social change worldwide. at fordfoundation.org. additional support is provid by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critil issues. the john and helen glessner family trust. pporting trustworthy journalism that informs and

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♪ ♪ >> you will not replace us! you will not replace us! you will not replace us! you will n replace us! >> a.c. thompson: charlottesville, virginia, gust 12, 2017. i'd been tracking hate crimes 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 anyone who was paying attention could see that it was about more than a single statue. (shouting) it felt like a national

reckoninaround race was coming. (shouting, chanting) and being here would help me unrstand it. (shouting, repetitive banging) q i came here to askuestions, but as the day unraveled intoch s around me, one thing became clear: this was not ae to listen or understand. charlottesville was a crime scene. (shouting,creaming) >> medics! >> medics! >> medics! ♪

♪ >> thompson: i arrived intt charloville for what would become the largest gathering of whitpremacists in a generation. ndey called it unite the right, and it was drawingiduals from at least 35 states. >> good afternoon. i'm chief thomas, charlottesville police department. we will have a significant police presence throughout the weekend-- well over a hundred ficers from my agency, several hundred officers from the virginia state police. we were informed that the national guard is monitoring the situation. >> thompson: the day before the rally, a few rorters gathered for the police press conference. but i'd begun to hear from other

sources in charlottesville. >> we have time for one more question. >> thompson: chief, we're hearing rumors of thing another torch-light march rmnight, an unpermitted march. do you have any inion about that? >> i've heard the same rumors, but i don't have a lot of detail what have you heard? where is it going to take place? in the city or the county?e' >> thompson: been hearing 5:00 or 6:00. >> where at? >> thompson: not far from here is what we've been hea the police had heard the samers ru had, but the university grounds were quiet and it seemed like the march might not be happening after all. until suddenly, the torches appeared. >> you will not replace us! you will not replaces! you will not replace us! you will not replace us! you will not replace us! >> thompson: in a matter ofs, moment hundreds of neo-nazis and white supremacists assembled and marched on the university.

the police arrived on the scene, but watched from the sidelinesup as a small gf anti-racist activists were quickly surrounded. one of them-- emily gorcenski-- was staming it from her phone. >> we are penned in. we are surrounded on all ses by hundreds of naz. we he no way out. >> white lives matter! white lives matter! >>hite lives matter! white lives matter!ho uting) >> (bleep)>> i got punched. i t kicked. ei remember getting hit i head. i ought it was with a torc i stepped forward atne 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 iould do. yeah, it was like a hundred people beating up like a small group of us and a small group of students. >> thompson: ten or 15 people? >> yeah. you could feel how angry they were, but also how happy they were, you know, to be doing this, to be intimidating people like this, and this happy rage.o >> tho had you ever seen that displayed before?my >> no, never iife. they were cheering, they wereug running ththe streets, yelling at people. and they walked away and they got away with it.ey e coming in here the next day ready to do more. i thought like, "here we go. yeah, here we go." (police radio chatter) er thompson: the morning a the torchlight march i walked into town with a group of clergy.

(chanting) the white supremacists who'd fobeaten people the night re were returning. and anti-fascist counter-protesters were arriving to challenge them.♪ >> ♪ no hate, no fearsu whitpremacists not welcome here. ♪ >> ♪ no hate, no fear ut (shog) >> no kkk, no fascists! >> thompson: at 10:15 a melee erupted. (shouting, screaming) up a group of white sremacists-- some with their hands taped up like boxers-- punched, kicked, and choked people who tried to block their path, leaving them bloodied on the pavement. >> thompson: just want to let you know there's been all kinds of crazy violence over 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 it's just going to keep going on.

>> well, we've all got different assignments to try to maintain some sort of order here, so that's what we're focusing on right now. >> thompson: hundreds of peoplsh han up to protest the white supremacists. most were non-violent, but some-- black-clad militantti anascists-- had come to fight. and while police looked on, theg crowd grew moressive. (shouting) >> go ahead (bleep), i'm tellin' you, i'll shoot you! (shouting) go ahead, you want to play hat way, i'll play it. >> (bleep) (shouting) >> thompson: a group of white supremacists formed up with shields and clubs and pushed straight into the protesters. (shouting) some of them fought back, but no one was arrested, and theol ence continued to escalate. at about nn, a group of white supremacists cornereprotestor deandre harris in a parking garage next to a police station.

they beat him with poles, metal pipes, and wooden boards. >> thompson: police di intervene to break it up. then at 1:45 the brawling turned into something else-- an act of terror. (screaming, shouting) a grey dodge slaed into a crowd of protesters. 20 people were rushed the hospital.

-year-old heather heyer was pronounced dead. >> i always wondered, "was she afraid? (exhales) did she see him comi?" she was deaf in one ear, so, um... t, damn 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's really, really hard to imagine. even seeing the videos it's surreal. i get cold chills every time 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, the poce standing right there.

>> thompson: forou, 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 know, it's kinda weird. g to be an old man and she'll always have been 32." s you know, life g. 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 that was bad, and you a group on the other side that was also very violent. nobody wants to say that, but i'll say it right no we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sideson many sides. al >> it was something else to see. this news conference, bill, encapsulated the president's thinking, his reasoning and ankly his frustration ov the events that took place over the weekend in charlottesville. >> he defended his initial comments and says there is plenty of blame to go around on both sides. specifically he mentioned what he called the "alt-lef >> 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? >>meoday david duke, the forr edand wizard of the kkk, t this. >> grateful to the president for his words toda >> "thank you president trump for your honesty and courage to tell the truth aboutlo charttesville and condemn the leftist terrorists in black lives matter/antifa." >> here in charlottesvle one white nationalist told us thepr esident has helped them. >> he's opened up a door, hisne movement has oup a door, but it's up to us to take the initiative. >> thompson: president trump's comments sparked national outrage. while white supremacleaders praised the president's words, they angered many here ine, charlottesvincluding the city's mayor at the time, democr mike signer. >> groups that previously had been stuck in the shows and at the margins and at the extremes trare brought into the maim 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 thiss target for forch bigger than us. >> thompson: you are the jewish mayor of small southern town. i imagine you've 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 pressing the green button on a gas chamber where my face had en photoshopped into it with a star of david on my lapel in reference to the confederate statue issue here in arlottesville. >> thompson: i saw you that night over at the county government headqrters and you looked stricken. >> stricken is not a bad word for it. i wish that we had known more. i wish that we had been given more information by the, by the state intelligence aaratus.

>> thompson: did they say anything like, "hey, these guys are going to come with clu, they're going to come with pepper 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 any evidence of a credible threat.s >> thompson:understand it, about ten people altogether have 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 for the white supremacist movement. en isolated ond the margins for years suddenly converged out in the open. ♪ an independent report commissioned by the city said the many failures of state a local police had produced dadisastrous results that y.

i just want to see if there's anything the charlottesville police can say about happened that day, and what changes might have been made going forward. 'tcharlottesville police w talk. and the state police won't either i got your message saying that basically we should look at the facebook and twitter posts you put out, b 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 goway. like i said, i'm just trying to figure out how many folks have been prosecuted and how manymi caset still be in the pipeline. i wasn't getting any answers in charlottesville so i set off on my own. ♪ who were these white

supremacists who had dcended on charlottesville? and why did the authorities seep so upared? ♪ i arrive in new york to meet with a retired fbi agent, a man who infiltrated neo-nazi groups during the 1990s. te this is from charlille. >> mike german tracked the violence in charlottesville as it unfolded. >> this is when the police should be there and they aren't. and not even in view. i mean you can't even see somebody close by. i mean it's one thing to, okay, watch these guys trade some punches and then follow them a they separate and grab them. >> 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 waafter almost two years of increasing violence at these protests.

(shouting) there was anaheim... ♪ sacramento... phouting) the first berkelrotest in 2017. the huntington beach protest. (crowd chanting "u.s.a.") t.e second berkeley protest was even more violen the fifth, sixth, seh in a series. i could see from my office here in new york city how this was building. this was not just predictable but predicted. i couldn't believe that there wasn't better intelligence being provided by thfederal 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 eed in violence in huntington beach. where was the fbi?he unlessbi too has just abandoned this ground, which i

would find even more shocking. f thompson: and your sort 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,o th are okay with us." >> right, "they're going to protect me coming in, let me dot it and then prect me going out." now that these groups feel that they have some state sanction for that, they are going to be a lot more dangerous in the coming years. ♪ >> thompson: "where was the fbi?" mike german wondered. eney had issued warnings about white supremacy vice before charlottesville, but those warnings have failed to stop the bloodshed. no one from the bureau will sit down with me, but they send me a statement. the fbi sa while it doesn't police ideology, it has long investigated white supremacy extremists and 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 htington beach, and he surfaces again at otllies where he's treated like leader. after he's briefly detained by police, i'm finally able to identify him. se robert rundo is in california now, but his rap sheet begins back east. that's where he led a small street gang in queens, new york, called the original ng crew. the queens d.a. shares rundo's file with me.

rundo's flushing cw wasn't racist and included a few latino members.o they got ibloody feud with the infamous street gang ms-13. (engine revving) within ms-13 rundo was known as "el diablo blanco." in 2009, he was filmed by t rveillance cameras in fr this corner store. sindo's crew can be seen c members of ms-13. rundo stabs one of them. his victim falls as he tri to escape, and rundo stabs him six more times.

rundo's graffiti remains o sidewalks here, but he's gone. he was sentenced to two years in prison for gang assault and sent upstate. after his release, he moved to orange county, california. the neat rows of sun-bleached homes here look like a vision of suburban utopia. but orange cnty has always had a darker side. >> this is actually a klan robe. the guy was the grand dragon of the imperial klans of america. thrank structure here. >> thompson: so kind of like sergeant's stripes or something? >> yeah, like that, but he'ske n charge. he ran this whole 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 supremacists. so the guy we're looking at, rob rundo, he has this tattooed on his back.

can you explain the f gnificance? >> well the totenk primarily found what we see with neo-nazi organizations. back in the day started off with adolf hitler, with the gestapo and some of the nazi secret police. >> thompson: wow. so this is a thing that, that i've been tryi to understand. rob rundo, he grows up in queens, new york. he's a member of kind of a multi-cultural gang. he goes upstate to new york state prison. and by the time he gets out of s new yorktate prison, he is defitely on the path to bein a neo-nazi or a white supremacist. >> there is a lot of hate within the prison system. there's a lot of assaults, fights, racial fights. so they go in there and they f separate by ra 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 at all, no. over time, especially within the last year or so couple of years, i've seen this whole white supremacy coming more emboldened. >> thompson: just in the last couple of years?h. >> y it's probably most active in my history, in my career. >> thompson: so in almost 30 yes? >> yeah, and a little bit different too because you're seeing mainstream that you wouldn't spect. you're seeing college kids becoming emboldened in this movement. o thompson: so moving out the subculture and moving into the mainstream of american life. >> right. it worries me a lo yeah, i'm, i'm really concerned. i am afraid charlottesville could happen again and be a lot worse. ♪ >> thompson: smith says a new generation of white supremacists are pushing their politics into the mainstream.ro rundo seems to be part of that trend. his group's first publicpe apance wasn't at a torch march, it was in huntington beach at a pro-trump rally

behind a banner that read "defend america." (crowd chanting) when anti-fascists showed up, rundo and his crew attacked them. he pinned one of them on theou gr and pummeled him. (people shouting) one member of his crew also f attackrank tristan, a journalist with orange county's alternative ekly paper. at the time did you know that this was a group, or who did this, or what was going on? >> no. i definily saw they were organized. w,ey stuck as a group, you k also the banner. when we got back to the office and i started talking to gustavo lout everything, he started having me go out ak for everybody there who was attacking people. (keys clicking) i started going throh hashtags. so like #magamarch. >> thompson: that's you! >> yeah, righthere. so i started finding pictures like this. >> thompson: so is this him hitting you or is that later? >> so this is right after he had hist hit me. when i clicked oname, it took me to his profile. >> thompson: and you look at his pictures there and you say, h, that's the dude who attacked

me." >> there you go. , >> i said, "ok we're going to tell this story that actually there were white supremacists there, we need to get everytt.ng ri so start digging." ♪ then i started seeing pictures that photographers took of that maga march and i see a guy with a shaved head and a jacket and immediately m like, "that's a hammerskins logo." walking around openly with a hammerskins jacket. and so then he starts digging, he finds out that this guy had actually been just recently released from jail from prison for a hate crime. and that's when you know, "okay, this more than just a couple of mundom people. there's something ch more organized." >> thompson: frank and gustavo followed a trail of social media posts and court records. their research put a name to rob runds group: the rise above movement, or ram. they portray themselves asc patriotionalists. but the members' facebook posts are full of anti-semitic and racist imagery. they also appear in photos and

arvideos training with thest nazi skinhead gang in america-- the hammerskin >> 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 >> thompson: so basically, you have like a new white supremacist group kind of absorbing the old guard. >> yes. >> thompson: and the old guard being known as being hyper-violent. >> oh yeah.so >> thompn: so what happened with these guys in the weeks a months after the march and t attack at huntington beach? where did they go? >> they started getting more prominent. they started getting more well-known and more celebrated. >> and they started becoming friends with other alt-righters. they were becoming heroes. >> oh, check it out, if anyonewa s to know, this is what we're about, is rise above movement. we were at berkeley, at huntington, now we're here. >> thas right. >> thompson: in the months after their emergence at the huntington beach trump rally,ri the above movement's social media following swelled. by the time of the

charlottesville rally, they'd gained a national retion as white supremacist street fighters. ♪ >>here were a couple of gu 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. >> thompson: oh yeah, he's definitely a ram person. >> he's definitely dressed ine ole thing. >> thompson: but i don't think we know his name, no. lei know rob rundo is the er of ram. and by examining online videos and courdocuments, i'm able to identify several me ram members. >> so there's this guy who i don't... i don't know if you guys know who he is now. >> thompson: okay, so leave that on him. and then come over to this video to the charlottesville. >> oh yeah. >> thompson: one face looks familiar, and i quickly realize where i've seen him before. he marched in charlottesville on augu 12, his hands taped up for a fight. oh look, he's got his right hand

tapeup. >> right hand. >> thompson: i wonder if his left hand is as well. >> sure we can see... oh yeah, he has both here. so this is him. >> thompson: they're the same person. >> yeah. >> thompson: the ram member can clearly be seen attacking ople at the california rallies. and in charlottesville he participates in one of the morning's first fights, beginning the escalating spiral of violence. he but whoever , is i can't identify him. r using clues fr's propaganda videos, i manage to locate one of their trainings. sp just off the 405 outside of irvi, we find ram's graffiti tags hidden inside drainage tunnels. >> traditionally when you looked white supremacist graffiti,

it tended to be the opposite of this. so not the flowery large letters that's associated more with the afp hop culture. white supremacist ti traditionally tended to be more just like narrow letters just like the lettering there. >> thompson: i'm guessing this is like the new york city influence, like rob rundo bringing this from queens and his upbringing here is my guess. >> i mean it looks that way. >> thompson: sociologist pete simi has studied white supremacists for decades. his field research takes him inside dozens of racist groups across the country. >> i'd describe them as a hybrid of sorts because they're kind of a collage in a way.th you know, wher're pulling together these different ideas and symbols and associations and kind of making their own thing. >> thompson: this is the... >> that's the life rune. >> thompn: how does it get appropriated by the white power movement? >> it's all about white survival. >> thompson: so this is one that's been in circulation for a long time? >> yeah naonal alliance used

it back in the '70s. >> thompson: so what do you make of this? >> got the celtic cross, it'sof onhe most widely utilized tattoos among white supremacists. and then it's interestingyo becausget then this phrase here, "kill your local drug 'saler." which taps into whight above-- the straight edge, the three x, the triple xs. this notion of living a ean life and being very kind of puritanical almost. >> tmpson: right. >> it felt like they were doing like a vigilante type work. they're cleaning up the streets. >> thompson: like the white supremacists who came before them, simi says that ram members present themselves as defenders of traditional white culture. we visit marblehead park in san clemente, where they film training videos that celebrate personal fitness, the warrior spirit and political street fighting. ♪

o >> what they're trying tll is this idea that we need to go back to a more traditional timeo know, traditional masculinity. when they blend in these fight scenes, that's also this idea of being not only just fid living a pure life but also being a warrior of sorts. so you could imagine a, you know, 16-, 17-year-old white male watching these videos and being somewhat moved by them or attracted to them in some case. >> thompson: it looks like it's a small group, it's a fringe group. why are they important? and what do you think? >> well, first, you know, the first thing is we justant 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, ultimatelyat pulled offhe time, the largest act of domestic terrorism prior to 9/11.an

so you know ct of violence can certainly be committed by a small fringe group. >> thompson: by a small group. >> and then i thk, yeah, they might be kind of a small fringe group, but the best, most sophisticated white supremacist is the one who appea the least visible. they're not out there wearing uniforms that are going to be really visible. they're not getting tattoos all overheir face. you know, they're blending in, in a lot of different ways, including the issues they're concerned about. the issue of immigration, which has been a real hot button issue. white supremacists can seize on that issue and say, "look, i there's asion and that america is under siege." then they have the potential to recruit amg a much broader swath of the population than we often are willing to admit or recognize. ♪ >> thompson: a couple months after charlottesville, i had enough to publish a story and video about the group, naming rob rundo and several other mbers. i later hear from several law

enforcement agenciesincluding the fbi. they won't talk on the record, but they say they've opened an investigation into rundo's group. i want to talk to rundo. i go looking for him, and learn that he's in europe networking with extremists ther and i still can't identify that ram member in th charlottesville photos-- the one wearing the "make america great agai hat and punching people in the fe. then i get tip from a local cop. the man's name is michael miselis. miselis doesn't have a criminal record. 's a phd candidate at ucla and holds a govement-issued security clearance for his job at the massive defense contractor northrop grumman. mi

hey ke, how you doing?c. a. thompson, "propublica" and "frontline." wanted ttalk about what you were doing in charlottesville last year. >> uh, sorry, i don't know anything about that, man. >> thompson: but you were there, you're on camera, you're on yootos. >> no, i, i thingot the wrong guy. >> thompson: hey, do northrop and ucla know you're volved with the rise abo movement? >> gotta go, man. >> thompson: we identiichael miselis in a follow-up story. s d the next day, northrop grumman announcetaken action, and miselis is no longer an employee. ♪ in new york city, an ar veteran, who police say is an admitted white supremacist, has been charged with murders a

hate crime. >> portland police say late yesterday afternoon three me were stabbed by a man yelling ethnic and religious slurs. >> thompson: over the course of my reporting, i've seen a wave of white supremacist violenceth hicountry. >> the brutal killing was motivated by prejudice afterou police f urbanski belongs to " facebook groupt-reich nation." eys clacking) >> thompson: police departments across the country have reported a steep rise in hate crimes. the fbi says that hate crimes have hit a five-year high. one case draws my attention. >> prosecutors say samuel woodward took bernstto a park and killed him with a knife. >> bertein was found with more than 20 stab wounds. >> twenty-year-old woodward wast the erson to have seen the pre-med student while he was home for winter break. do you think your son could have been targeted because he was jewish? >> absolutely. he was also a gay man.

>> thompson:amuel woodward hasn't been charged with a hate crime, but the case seems worth investigating. and it took place back in orange county, california. i've been looking at this guy samuel woodward, the man accused of killing blaze bernstein in this park. at first i thought you have a gay jewish college studentto stabbeeath. maybe this is a hate crime. what do you know about woodward? >> woodward was a teenager, grew , up in luxury newport bea that's the old money of orange county. his fami were very devout catholics. they went to one of the wealthiest parishes in orange county, our lady queen of angels.va consve catholic parish right there. >> thompson: you've been trackinghite supremacist groups for many years now. was woodward a guy who was onar your r do you know of him to have been involved with any long-term o.c. grou? >> nothing. you have volksfront here, you onve hammerskins. i knew the tradi neo-nazi

hooups. i had no idea of whis guy was.mp >> tn: woodward didn't seem to be on anybody's radar here and he didn't appear to be part of any local white his alleged crime was vicious, but it wasn't clear to me thatn he was ert 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. (cameras clicking) an defeis "woodward." >> okay, go ahead and write that. i pull woodward's court file, but there are precious fewta s in it. there's also not much to be learned fromis schoolmates. they describe m as an introvert, and it seems likest mo of his life took place online. orange county is starting to feel like a dead end. then i hear from a journalist, jake hanrahan, who gives me

photos of an anonymous twitter account showing sam woodward doing paramilitary training with a neo-nazi group called atomwaffen division. my colleague ali winston manages to make ntact with the person who posted the photos. he's a former atomwaffen member, and he points me to another member who uses the online handle "ted bundy." we trace him back his parents' house in a d.c. suburb, a neighborhood favored by members of the intelligence communy. he uses nazi imagery on his facebook page, posts selfies with guns, and i've obtained otos 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-nazis. this is a nazi emblem, the black sun, this is a t-shirt put out by the group atomwaffen. his father will neither confirm nor deny that the pictures on his son's facebook page are real. but the next day i get a call from his family. they say he left the group. that it was too extreme for hima and he hasn'anything to do with it for months. i think you should be aware th one of the people in the group that he was involved with is currtly facing charges for killing a gay jewish college student in southern california. their story is dficult to verify. atomwaffen is obsessed with secrecy, communicating through encrypted text messages, and

private chats using a service called discord. thformer atomwaffen member sends us logs of 250,000 messages shared amongst the group. ted bundy is in the logs, and so is sam woodward. but something unexpected catches my eye and i have to go back to charlottesville. at the torch march last august,k emily gorchad been assaulted while she livestreamed the confrontation. we'd traded information, but there were new details in the atomwaen discord logs. you were sending me messages en i was in california. and i think you and i were both wondering if it was the rise above movement that came after you on the night of the 11th. then my colleagues and i got the chat logs for atomwaffen,

this like much more extremene nazi group. ouand this guy is talking unite the right and he's reporting back to his fellows nad he says, "just got in a fight. if you see a guy in a tracksuit, that's me. i dropkicked emily gorcenski." >> thompson: this guy describes kicking you by name with your inll name. we think this guhe track suit, it's this guy, vasilli pistolis. s.'s a private first class in the u.s. marine co >> i mean that's, 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: thas the guy. >> this is the guy. and then he comes running in from the back. does a flying dropkick. myeah, and he doesn't hit because the person he hits is a few feet over to my right.

but he definitely does come in and unch himself at people. and that's kind of what cked off the whole group. >> thompson: and that's where thgs got crazy. >> yeah, the melee, 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 stinctive. >> thompson: yeah he's got like the total widow's peak. so athe same time he would have been attacking people, he would have been working for the u.s. government, serving in the marines. ♪ the military bans membership in racist groups, and the pentagon publicly condemned the violence in charlottesville. but while reporting on pistolis, i get an email from a marine vetera >> shortly after unite the

right, a friend of mine came across a comment by pistolis on facebook and immediately clicked through to his profile and realized this kid's an active duty marine and you can't be a nazi in the military. she sent 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 2nd marine logistics grou- the same command pistolis serves in at camp lejeune. >> after i was first alerted thstolis i started searching and just came across websites that he had been posting on for years-- whe supremacist content, racist content, anti-semitic content. >> thompson: beck had seen the same footage i had of pistolis at the torch march. and he collected video fromch lottesville i'd never seen. pr he had posted a photo of his costume that he waaring for unite the right.

>> thompson: so it's the punisher baseball cap. >> the punisher cap, the flag,th mask which he ended up not using. i started digging into photos. and vide you can see pistolis on the side. >> thompson: right.tu >> he s and starts advancing. and he gets ready... to swing. >> thompson: he was... everywhere in these images. >> right in the middle of it. and here's one shot of him attacking. >> thompson: oh wow! i had not seen this. this is insane. >> there are multiple videos showing pistolis attacking. >> thompson: wow. he's hitting the guy on thegh ground, ri >> right. >> thompson: it's vicious. >> but there were at least a half dozen vids that captured his attack on saturday. t mpson: what made you finally decide, like, "i have enough information here to call law enforcent"? >> pistolis popped up at the white livematter rally in shelbyville, tennessee. that night a neo-nazi group assaulted an interracial couplee

>> thompson: t's pistolis. >> there's pistolis. the nashville police were looking for witnesses. at this point i realized i had to report him. i called theilitary police at camp lejeune. ftold them i had evidence that he had been a nazi years and that he had assaulted multiple people at unite the right in charlottesville. >> thompson: and you said this all on the phone call. >> i said this all on the phone call. >> thompson: and what happened? >> he said he'd send it up the chain and they might be in touc and i never heard back. ♪ >> thompson: i speak to the marine corps several times. they told me they'd opened an investigation into pistolis but it came to nothing i made contact with pistolis over email, but he denied evenha being rlottesville. he tells me to call him. hey, it's a.c. is this vasilios?

>> thompson: i know that you told me that you weren't in charlottesville, but i have found photos of you and messages in different discord chats where you're talking about assaulting people and assaulting emily gorcenski. >> thompson: yeah, but there's photos of you there. >> thompson: i guess that's it. you know, you say you weren't in charlottesville. you're starting new. you don' want to talk.

>> thompson: there's video, man, of you there. you know, there's video of you launching yourself into that crowd. it doesn't seem like 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 and his activities inharlottesville. ♪ in response to our reporting, congressman keith ellison issues a formal letter to sretary of defense, james mattis. ellison asks him to look into the case and the presence of white supremacists in the milita. have you heard anything from the marine corps or from navalti criminal invtive services sbout this? >> no, we heard about it from "propublica." we wrote in about it because we're concerned about it. >> thompson: what are you hoping to get out of that letter? >> well, you know, look, we've seeneople, military leaders the past actually change policy and we've seen them make some strong statements. i think this is a critical... because i think what trump has actually done is given thepo opte message. the realitis is that any time you get a whole bunch of the young white extremists carrying tiki torches with no masks

on, through a public street, they're telling you, "we're not worried." >> thompson: "we're not afraid." >> "we're not afraid, we're going to just do this."'s that is why ritically important to be very clear about the unacceptability of any extremists, including these white supremacist extremists acquiring theest military training in the world. because if somebody pistolis gets the training and uses it, who's he gonna use it on? maybe his fellow soldiers, maybe his fellow americans. one thing we can do is to shine a ght on this. because when we get some light on it, then somebody somewhere is gonna say, "okay, this needs to become a priority." and so that's what we're going to do. >> thompson: a year after the charlottesville rally, the u.s. attorney's office in virginia indicted eight ram members or associates.

michael miselis and rob rundo are amoung those charged. in orange county, the secretwo life of saward that we discovered has caught up with him. prosecutors have now charged him wi a hate crime. for their part, the marines court martialed vasilios pistolis and ousted him from the corps. but the movement that violently erupted in the streets of charlottesville hasn't gone away. our source inside atomwaffen says the group has been adding members, and that pistolis is not the only soldier in its ranks. this story is far from over. >> the stock market is down 21 percent. >> narrator: 10 years reter the greassion. >> that took a piece of our soul. >> narrator: cities like dayton are still struggling to come back. >> i actually worked in this same exact plant for gm.

i'd say it probably averaged oud arou35 an hour. at$1uyao you started out at 2 an hour. >> dayton is not unique in thewe problems that re facing. but, what is unique is that dayton is still small enough to fix this. >> frontline is made possible by contributions r 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.rt mar foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant and peacef world. more information is available at macfound.org. the ford foundation, working with visionaries on the front lines of social changedw woe. at fordfoundation.org. additional support is provided by the abrams foundation, committed to excellence in journalism. the park foundation, dedicated to heightening public awareness of critical issues. the john and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and

inspires. je wyncote foundation. and by the frontlirnalism fund, with major support from jon and jo ann hagler. and by the y, "for a better us." captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> go to pbs.o/frontline for our latest reporting with propublica about hate imes. >> then coming november 29th... >> i'm ranearonson, executive producer of frontline. our podcast, "the frontline dispatch", is back for season two. >> it's so risky. i don't want to be walking ound like this... >> i think it's gut-wrenching that he knew that he could go out there... >> you start hearing bullets fly over your head, "phewing!" >>ubscribe now on our website, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

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- everything changed that night after the children passed. i did everything that i was supposed to do. and the law failed me. i wa p to see other familitected. - the department of justice does not have legal authority. - you can do anything you want. i don't want to keep reliving this. but i don't want anybody else to suffer this loss. [dramatic music] - funding for "home truth" waprovided by the corporation for public broadcasting. addiidonal funding was pr by the new york state council on the arts, t. herrig, abigail disney, mary ann bruni, and others. a complete list is available from pbs. [baby cooing] [distant tv playing]