On Thursday, city officials in Achille, Okla. confirmed that it had hired Bart Alsbrook as a reserve police officer to patrol the tiny town on Oklahoma’s Texas border. Alsbrook had impeccable credentials. He had a clean record, a background in law enforcement and the city could find no citizen complaints filed against him. Having served as the interim chief in a town less than 15 miles away, Alsbrook was also familiar with the community, something any citizen would want in a police officer. There was only one strike in Alsbrook’s past.
Bart Alsbrook was a Nazi.
A little over a year ago, on August 22, 2017, the KXII reported that the Colbert, Okla. city council had named Alsbrook as its interim chief of police. Less than a week later, on August 26, the news station revealed evidence that Alsbrook had also been serving his community by doing the much-needed work of promoting white-supremacy.
Knowing this, Christopher Watson, the police chief of nearby Achille, Okla. hired Alsbrook anyway. Citing his qualifications, the city of Achille is standing by Alsbrook, according to the Herald Democrat. The police chief admits that he was aware of Alsbrook’s two-decade long Skinhead past when he hired the new cop.
But before you judge the chief for being a white-supremacist apologist, we should take a look at Alsbrook’s resume.
Objective:
“Eventually there will be a race war and we have to be strong enough in numbers to win it. I’ll die to keep this country pure and if it means bloodshed at the end of the day, then let it be”
That’s a quote by Ian Stuart Donaldson, who, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, founded the hate group Blood & Honour. Bart Alsbrook has been associated with the “a shadowy international coalition of racist skinhead gangs,” (which could also describe the Republican Party) for more than a decade, and has been tied to skinheads for more than 20 years, so it might be safe to assume he held the same values at some point.
Not only has Alsbrook has appeared in videos, attended meetings and produced music for the skinhead organization dedicated to the supremacy of the white race, but he has also served in numerous official positions according to media reports.
And the crack about the Republicans wasn’t a joke. According to the Herald Democrat, in a 2003 Blood & Honour documentary, Alsbrook said: “The reason I became a skinhead was I had originally been a member of the Republican Party and always had what would be considered a right-wing point of view on politics and the social environment.”
See? It’s the same thing.
Work History
SPLC reports that Alsbrook served as the Texas coordinator for Blood & Honour as recently as 2005. He also ran the organization’s video service as well as it’s militant sister organization, C18.
“We have a saying that C18 is basically the militant wing of Blood & Honour,” Alsbrook said in one of the documentaries, according to the Herald Democrat. “The C, of course, stands for combat. The number 18 is the first letter of the alphabet — one being A and the eighth letter being H. AH, which stands for Adolf Hitler. So when you draw it out, it is Combat Adolf Hitler, which represents a fighting force, combat in the name of national socialism and Adolf Hitler.”
After the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va., the Southern Poverty Law Center posted a map of hate groups operating across the country. The only group on the SPLC hate map operating in that particular area of Oklahoma was ISD records, a website that was basically a white supremacist Soundcloud featuring groups like The Klansmen and albums like Hitler was Right.
The website was curiously registered to a man named Bart Alsbrook. But when the news station contacted Alsbrook, instead of claiming that he was working undercover, Alsbrook alleged that those meddling neo-Nazis had stolen his identity and registered websites in his name.
KXII eventually discovered that another similar site, NS88 was previously registered under the same name. Again, Alsbrook denied any connection with the sites, explaining that he had been in a fight with skinheads in the 1990s and he lost his wallet, which is how the Nazis stole his identity, which speaks to his ability to devise a motive out of thin air.
Even though the station couldn’t find a single other person in the United States with the name Bart Alsbrook, the white supremacist’s ties seemed to date back more than two decades because, in 1996, the Dallas Morning News reported that Alsbrook had registered a site, “Skinheads USA.”
How could you not hire someone who has these kinds of computer skills?
Skills
Aside from working as a police officer, Alsbrook has a long experience with law enforcement.
In 1995, Alsbrook was charged with attempted murder when a skinhead was brutally stabbed 24 times but refused to testify, according to court reports. Getting out of criminal cases is a necessary quality for an Oklahoma police officer.
Ask Betty Shelby.
This might be because, according to the SPLC, the Blood & Honour Council USA, with which Alsbrook was affiliated, has a rival faction, known as Blood & Honour America Division.
Alsbrook’s group, Blood & Honour USA, is known for its white power music, Ku Klux Klan ties and murder. In 1998, four Blood & Honour USA were convicted of killing two homeless men, beating one of them with a tire iron so savagely that police found “teeth scattered around the body,” the Tampa Bay Times reported. The other was killed with an ax to the back of the head.
So using a nightstick should be no problem for Allsbrook.
And according to Alsbrook, his neo-Nazi past doesn’t have anything to do with his job. In fact, he contends that it uniquely qualifies him to work as a police officer.
“I can tell a thug when I see one and can usually tell when they lie,” Alsbrook told the Herald Democrat. “But (my past would have) absolutely no negative bearing.”
References
Despite the fact this had all been public knowledge for more than a year, Achille’s police chief hired Alsbrook anyway, telling KXII that “He was involved in some kind of group then, and wanted out and the only way he figured he could get out would be to move far away.”
Achille city spokesman Jerry Harrell told KXII: “They don’t want him to leave because he hasn’t done anything they warrant would be grounds for his dismissal.”
In his defense, Alsbrook says he “left all that racist stuff behind me 15 years ago,” apparently unable to subtract 2005 from 2018, when he was pictured with his fellow skinheads, according the Daily Beast.
And Achille city clerk Laura Stanley also vouched for Alsbrook, telling the Herald Democrat: “We don’t consider something from 20 years ago.”
“In the two years that I have known him, he has done nothing but contribute,” said Watson. “Everyone has a past, some of which they may not be proud of, of which he is not. He wishes he never had those connections.”
Bart Alsbrook and Christopher Watson are still employed by the city of Achille. According to city data, the Oklahoma town of less than 507 residents is only 1.2 percent black ...
For now.