DALLAS
(AP) -- They are known as "Three Percenters," followers of a movement
that has rallied against gun control efforts nationwide, patrolled the
U.S. border with Mexico and recently begun confronting Muslim Americans.
Followers
describe themselves as armed "patriots." But some of their leaders have
been blamed for threats and vandalism against lawmakers, police and
Muslims. One prominent member from Phoenix prompted an FBI alert in
November after posting an expletive-filled Facebook video saying he was
headed to upstate New York with guns to challenge a Muslim group. A
Three Percenter in suburban Dallas led a mosque protest by armed, masked
men that same month.
Texas has been the scene
of several other incidents this year that have raised anti-Muslim
unease. Two
Muslim gunmen in May were shot outside a Prophet Muhammad
cartoon contest in Garland. Police in Irving arrested a 14-year-old
Muslim whose teachers thought his homemade clock was a bomb in
September.
All this comes at a time when Texas
has led a number of states trying to block the resettlement of Syrian
refugees and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a
"complete shutdown" of Muslims entering the U.S.
"We
will interfere with every move they (Muslims) make towards taking over
our country," Dallas protest organizer David Wright said in response to
questions the Associated Press sent to his personal Facebook page. "We
are ready to fight back if they come at us violently."
Wright,
who plans to protest Saturday at a different mosque, hasn't advertised
the "Three Percenters" name in his activities. But he claimed membership
in comments on Facebook and told the AP he was a leader in a Texas
chapter. A second Facebook profile appends the Roman numeral "III" to
his name, as do other Three Percenters, and features a black "III%"
patch as a background photograph.
The Three
Percenters movement began in 2008, galvanized by President Barack
Obama's election, followers and researchers say. The name comes from the
disputed percentage of colonials who armed themselves and fought the
British during the American Revolution.
The
number of Three Percenters is unclear partly because anyone can ascribe
to the movement. The man credited as the founder has claimed 3 million
on his blog. One national Three Percenters' Facebook group has about
12,000 members, including people from all 50 states.
Followers
appear to consist mainly of white, male, conservative gun owners who
believe the nation has been pushed to a tipping point by socialists in
government aiming to disarm them, strip their constitutional rights and
take their property, according to groups that track anti-government
movements.
The Three Percenters lack a formal
command structure, but have ideological similarities with other groups
such as minutemen or militias. Their founder, a former militia member
named Michael B. "Mike" Vanderboegh, stresses what he calls "armed civil
disobedience."
Vanderboegh, 63, a one-time
nurse's aide who lives in Pinson, Alabama, looks the part of an elderly
professor. With the cadence of a Baptist preacher, he blends references
to God and fist-banging disdain for "predatory government."
"What
they are selling is a lie told by pathological collectivist liars ...
to satisfy their insatiable appetites for your liberty and your
property, even at the cost of your life," he told a crowd this year in
Canon City, Colorado.
A 2009 Anti-Defamation
League report called Rage Grows in America featured Vanderboegh and the
Three Percenters as a growing "anti-government" movement. The Southern
Poverty Law Center has labeled him an extremist.
After
the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting that killed 26, Vanderboegh sent
emails to hundreds of Connecticut state police officers saying they
risked "initiating hostilities" if they enforced new gun-control
measures.
"People like Mike Vanderboegh and
others, can cause all sorts of people from the fringes who might be
listening to do a violent act," said Mark Pitcavage, a defamation league
expert on anti-government movements.
In 2011,
one of four suspected militia members charged in a plot to attack
unnamed government officials in Atlanta cited Vanderboegh's
self-published online novel as inspiration, federal authorities said.
Vanderboegh said at the time that the book, about a deadly federal gun
raid that spurred armed citizen resistance, was merely a "useful dire
warning."
Wright borrowed from Vanderboegh's
tactics last month. Wright posted the names and home addresses of Muslim
residents and other "Muslim sympathizers" who spoke against a city of
Irving resolution they called discriminatory. Vanderboegh once shared
similar information on Connecticut state senators who supported
gun-control measures after the Sandy Hook shooting.
Some Three Percenters, such as Kaleb Hill, say they don't share Vanderboegh's "extreme ideology."
"We
are more concerned about exposing corruption and preserving the
Constitution and our God-given freedoms," said Hill, who runs a Three
Percenter group and Facebook pages from Mississippi. "Those who have
anti-government views are not welcome in our group."
In
response to AP questions, Vanderboegh did not specifically address
characterizations of him as an extremist. He said, generally speaking,
that not "all folks claiming to be 'Three Percenters' are."
Little
is known about Wright's past. He says on Facebook that he's a general
contractor originally from Garland, Texas, but has declined to share
biographical information, citing security concerns. Wright posted
pictures of himself armed and talks tough about jihadists on Facebook.
In July, Wright wrote: "We should be setting traps for them and
exterminating them."
Wright said he and his
cohorts protest only at certain Muslim locations. The mosque they plan
to picket Saturday is in the same suburb, Richardson, as a now-defunct
charity that federal investigators said had illegally funded Hamas, an
Islamic militant group.
Wright's group
promises a "peaceful" event Saturday, Richardson police spokesman Sgt.
Kevin Perlich said. The group staged a demonstration there in October
with less than 10 people.
"We have never hurt
anyone," Wright said. "We are careful to work within the law at all
times as we prepare to defend our homes and communities from any
offensive forces."
