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A Massachusetts police officer attended the lethal “Unite the Proper” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, 5 years in the past and acted in key safety and planning roles, HuffPost has confirmed. He additionally used an alias to put up racist and antisemitic feedback on-line. The officer, John Donnelly, was nonetheless an active-duty member of the police drive till Thursday, shortly after HuffPost inquired about his standing with the division and position within the lethal white supremacist rally.
Donnelly, 33, was a patrolman for the Woburn Police Division close to Boston, the place he has been employed since 2015.
However on the morning of Aug. 12, 2017, Donnelly might be seen on video arriving on the Charlottesville rally with Richard Spencer, a distinguished white supremacist for whom Donnelly was apparently performing as a safety guard. Spencer, Donnelly and a coterie of different suit-and-tie fascists labored their approach right into a metropolis park the place they held courtroom beneath a statue of Accomplice Gen. Robert E. Lee, posing for pictures and speaking into livestreams.
Donnelly was amongst lots of of white supremacists who invaded the college city. His fellow attendees violently attacked counterprotesters, with one neo-Nazi driving his automotive right into a crowd of anti-fascists, killing a 32-year-old lady and injuring 19 others. That night, Donnelly went to a celebration at a home close to Charlottesville, the place he joined in a celebration of the day’s occasions.
Donnelly then returned to Massachusetts and resumed his job as a cop.
His white supremacist activism and involvement within the Charlottesville rally has gone unknown for 5 years, throughout which era Donnelly — whereas nonetheless working as a police officer — turned the president of a “again the blue” nonprofit elevating cash for regulation enforcement, in addition to an award-winning actual property agent whose face is featured on an enormous billboard in Woburn, a Boston suburb.
However final month, an anti-fascist collective referred to as Ignite the Proper supplied HuffPost with proof exhibiting Donnelly attended the Charlottesville rally and connecting him to a collection of deeply alarming messages posted on-line during which he advocated violence towards leftists and minority teams.
HuffPost has verified the collective’s analysis and confirmed Donnelly’s employment with the Woburn Police Division.
After HuffPost contacted the division about Donnelly’s extremism, Police Chief Robert Rufo and Woburn Mayor Scott Galvin launched an announcement asserting Donnelly had been placed on administrative depart pending an investigation.
“The Charlottesville rally is a darkish second in our historical past, and deeply disturbing,” Galvin mentioned. “The Metropolis of Woburn is taking these allegations significantly by investigating the incident totally and I’ll transfer to terminate Officer Donnelly if the investigation concludes that the allegations are correct.”
Rufo added that if the allegations towards Donnelly are sustained, the division will “ask the Massachusetts Peace Officer Requirements and Coaching Fee to decertify Officer Donnelly, guaranteeing he could now not serve in regulation enforcement” within the state.
In response to questions concerning whether or not Donnelly had ever been disciplined for violating codes of conduct, or whether or not he’d been the topic of civilian complaints, Rufo mentioned HuffPost’s inquiries could be handled as a public data request and answered inside 10 days.
Donnelly didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark. After HuffPost left him voicemails, emailed him and messaged him, he deleted his pages on Fb, LinkedIn and Instagram.
White Supremacist ‘Johnny O’Malley,’ Patrolman Johnny Donnelly
Ignite the Proper is a bunch devoted to exposing each single one who participated within the 2017 occasion. “We don’t forgive,” the group’s web site states. “We don’t neglect.”
The location features a database of white supremacists who’ve been recognized as attending the demonstration. (HuffPost has not independently verified these IDs.) It additionally contains pictures of the numerous white supremacists whose names are nonetheless unknown, 5 years later.
A type of pictures was of a white man sporting a swimsuit and sun shades, sporting a “high-and-tight” haircut favored by fascists on the time.
The anti-fascists with Ignite the Proper plugged that picture into the facial recognition software program PimEyes. The location searched the web and shot again a photograph of an identical-looking man from a profile web page on the web actual property market Zillow. It belonged to a Boston-area realtor named John Donnelly, a “purchaser’s agent” and “itemizing agent” catering to shoppers within the police and the navy.
The anti-fascists then went to work discovering corroboration that the PimEyes identification was right — to show Donnelly was actually the person within the swimsuit and sun shades.
They discovered a video on YouTube, filmed by somebody named “KK,” from the Aug. 12, 2017, rally, exhibiting the person standing beneath Charlottesville’s statue of Accomplice Gen. Robert E. Lee. Within the video he introduces himself to KK.
“I’m Johnny O’Malley,” he says.
The anti-fascists acknowledged this title and understood it was seemingly an alias. They’d seen a “Johnny O’Malley” in a non-public message group for white supremacists planning the Charlottesville rally. Many of the group’s members used pseudonyms.
The members’ messages to one another — hosted on the moment messaging platform Discord — had been later obtained and printed on-line by the impartial media collective Unicorn Riot.
In a message on Aug. 14, 2017, somebody within the group chat advised “Johnny O’Malley” he’d seen him the YouTube video from Charlottesville. “Oh hey O’Malley, I noticed you on KK’s video…good glasses,” the message learn.
“Oy vey… thanks lol,” O’Malley replied, suggesting that the O’Malley within the video and the O’Malley within the chat had been the identical man.
Because the anti-fascists scrolled by means of messages from “Johnny O’Malley,” they discovered him divulging biographical particulars that matched these of John Donnelly, the true property agent. O’Malley, for instance, usually talked about being Irish American and residing within the Boston space.
And in a message dated Aug. 20, 2017, O’Malley wrote, “My sister acquired married to a huhwhite man right now… I’m trashed.” (“Huhwhite” is alt-right lingo for “white,” a reference to how some older white nationalists pronounce the phrase.)
In keeping with the Fb profile belonging to John Donnelly’s sister, she was married on Aug. 20, 2017.
Ignite the Proper seen on Donnelly’s LinkedIn web page that he was not solely a realtor; he was a cop. “Police Officer, Metropolis of Woburn,” the web page mentioned. “Acted in assist of standard police operations serving arrests, implementing visitors legal guidelines, and offering companies to 40,000+ residents of Woburn.”
Earlier this week, HuffPost emailed the picture of “Johnny O’Malley” from Charlottesville to Rufo, the police chief, asking him to substantiate the title and rank of the person within the picture.
“Johnny Donnelly,” Rufo responded. “Patrolman.”
‘Johnny O’Malley’ In Charlottesville
Donnelly was not some random attendee of the Charlottesville rally, however seems to have been deeply concerned in organizing the occasion.
Within the chat logs obtained by Unicorn Riot, the place he used the title “Johnny O’Malley,” Donnelly will be seen coordinating flights and carpools to Charlottesville for Unite the Proper.
In a single message, Donnelly refers to himself as an Identification Evropa member, or at the least suggests he’s carefully affiliated with those that are. Identification Evropa is a since-dissolved white supremacist group.
“If anybody heading downtown flying in Friday and has transportation … that wishes to select up two IE goys up on the airport, shoot me a [private message],” he wrote. “We’re flying into CVille airport.” (The phrase “goy” is a Jewish title for non-Jewish those who’s been appropriated by antisemites in recent times.)
Within the video of Donnelly on the rally, it’s clear that he’s working as a bodyguard for Spencer, the racist and antisemitic chief of the “alt-right” — a time period Spencer coined to make his white supremacist motion sound extra palatable to most people.
Donnelly stands subsequent to Spencer within the video. “Had been you on the torch rally final night time?” the cameraman asks Donnelly, referring to an illustration on the night of Aug. 11, 2017, when lots of of white supremacists marched throughout the campus of the College of Virginia carrying tiki torches and chanting, “You’ll not substitute us!” and “Jews won’t substitute us!”
“Yeah, I used to be defending this man,” Donnelly responded to the cameraman’s query, gesturing at Spencer.
After the video of Donnelly and Spencer was filmed, the Unite the Proper rally attendees broke into varied bigoted chants, some concentrating on anti-fascist demonstrators.
And a short while later, the rally exploded into violence, with white supremacists and anti-fascists buying and selling blows within the streets for hours as police stood close by, watching.
Police ultimately declared the rally an “illegal meeting” and began to push the white supremacists out of Lee Park. Images present Spencer pushing himself towards a phalanx of riot police, screaming and never wanting to depart.
It’s unclear if Donnelly, a police officer, joined Spencer in pushing the police.
Scattered violence broke out round Charlottesville because the white supremacists made their approach out of the town. One fascist contingent beat a Black counterprotester with flag poles inside a parking storage.
And a neo-Nazi named James Alex Fields drove his Dodge Challenger right into a crowd of anti-fascists, sending individuals flying into the air and fatally injuring 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
That night, Donnelly joined a celebration of this violence.
In a message posted within the Discord group, Donnelly described getting a cab to a celebration after the Unite the Proper rally. “And I used to be redpilling the fuck out of the driving force concerning the JQ,” Donnelly recounted. “Redpilling” means awakening to white supremacist beliefs, and “JQ” is an acronym for the “Jewish Query,” a phrase with Nazi roots referring to the antisemitic perception that Jews have undue affect and management over society.
Donnelly wrote that the cab was to “Azzmador’s home,” apparently a reference to Robert “Azzmador” Ray, an elder neo-Nazi who hosted a celebration at a protected home for white supremacists the night of Aug. 12, 2017.
As HuffPost first reported, a video from that get together exhibits Azzmador delivering a fiery speech after discovering out about Heyer’s homicide.
“That is our warfare!” he howled. “This has all the time been our warfare. And I wouldn’t need it some other approach. Demise to traitors! Demise to the enemies of the white race! Hail victory!”
Azzmador’s adoring followers responded with their very own shouts of “Hail victory,” the English translation of the German Nazi slogan “Sieg Heil.”
They then broke right into a racist and antisemitic tune, set to the tune of “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
“My eyes have seen the glory of the trampling on the zoo. We’ve washed ourselves in n****rs’ blood and all of the mongrels’ too. We’re taking down the ZOG machine Jew by Jew by Jew! The white man marches on!”
Donnelly didn’t reply to a HuffPost request for remark about whether or not he sang alongside.
Police Officer And Alt-Proper Shitposter
Donnelly’s messages within the chat group are replete with racist and antisemitic slurs, together with appeals to violence.
“I wore my bodily removing shirt from Proper Wing Demise Squad attire to the gymnasium right now,” Donnelly wrote in a single 2017 put up. “Obtained some appears to be like. When you’re not sporting offensive clothes to the gymnasium, the kikes win.”
Proper Wing Demise Squad is an attire firm that was well-liked among the many so-called alt-right in 2017. Its “bodily removing” T-shirt is emblazoned with the phrases “PINOCHET DID NOTHING WRONG,” a reference to former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s penchant for killing leftists by throwing them out of helicopters into the ocean.
An illustration on the again of the T-shirt depicts anti-fascists, or “antifa,” being thrown out of a helicopter. “MAKE COMMUNISTS AFRAID OF ROTARY AIRCRAFT AGAIN,” it says. “PHYSICAL REMOVAL SINCE 1973.”
Elsewhere within the chats, Donnelly wrote: “Pleasant reminder that in case you don’t elevate right now the kikes win.”
“Now we have sufficient fags in Boston we don’t want anymore,” learn one other message.
“Simply name them n*****s,” learn one other.
He additionally as soon as posted his e-mail tackle, which accommodates the phrase rotors ― a probable reference to Pinochet’s helicopters.
That e-mail tackle is linked to an account on Gab, a white-supremacist-friendly Twitter knockoff.
“Lastly a spot to shitpost with out normie intervention,” Donnelly wrote on Gab.
“REMOVE KEBAB,” he wrote a short while later, utilizing a racist alt-right euphemism for ethnically cleaning the U.S. and Europe of Muslims.
A Actual Property Agent, ‘Again The Blue’ Booster, And Firearms Teacher
Earlier this yr, John Donnelly was the topic of a good profile in Boston Agent Journal, an area actual property commerce publication. It started:
A Massachusetts resident for 32 years, John Donnelly, in his personal phrases, is “an agent’s agent.” A Woburn native, Donnelly takes satisfaction within the native connections he’s fostered in his three years in actual property and through his profession as a police officer.
Along with offering him an outlet to hone his social expertise, Donnelly credit his expertise on the police drive with giving him a robust eye for element and a fine-tuned negotiation fashion that helps him succeed right now.
Donnelly now has a crew of 15 motivated individuals working with him as The Donnelly Group, which primarily serves shoppers within the northern Boston and southern New Hampshire areas. “My crew consists of a constructive and enjoyable environment which promotes synergy, permitting us to get extra executed,” he remarks. In 2021, Century 21 additionally acknowledged Donnelly personally with the CENTURY 21 CENTURION® manufacturing award.
Donnelly acquired into the true property enterprise in 2018, in accordance with his since-deleted LinkedIn profile. By November 2020, in accordance with an Instagram put up from The Donnelly Group, he had his personal billboard in Woburn. The picture exhibits him standing along with his German shepherd in entrance of the signal — which options his likeness and his enterprise’s cellphone quantity.
Century 21 didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Thursday about Donnelly’s white supremacist activism.
Donnelly’s former LinkedIn profile additionally described him as being the “president” of a nonprofit group referred to as Irish Angel since February of this yr.
“Irish Angel is a assist community for Regulation Enforcement, EMS, Firefighters, and the Army,” the group’s web site states. “We offer schooling, consciousness, and sources about addictions, PTSD, PTSI, TBI, Despair, and anxiousness.”
Irish Angel’s social media accounts often put up photos of the “Skinny Blue Line” flag, and messages with the phrase “Blue Lives Matter” — frequent symbols in regulation enforcement communities throughout the nation that had been developed as a racist retort to the Black Lives Matter motion.
Donnelly often posts this sort of pro-police propaganda on his personal social media accounts.
He additionally appeared at a fundraiser for Irish Angel as just lately as September 2021, in accordance with a photograph posted to Twitter that exhibits him posing with the group’s founder, Amanda Coleman.
A short while after HuffPost emailed Irish Angel about proof of Donnelly’s white supremacist activism, the group eliminated his image from its web site.
“We’re completely disillusioned and appalled in gentle of this info,” Jorey Herrscher, the group’s treasurer, advised HuffPost on Thursday. “We actually had no data of that happening, or in any other case he by no means would’ve been in that place. It’s a tragic factor that teams like those he belonged to can infiltrate one of the best of organizations.”
Herrscher mentioned Donnelly was “instantly eliminated” as president of Irish Angel and that an investigation has been launched to make sure his white supremacist actions didn’t affect the group’s mission.
Earlier than Donnelly was a cop, earlier than he was an actual property agent, and earlier than he was the president of a police nonprofit, he labored along with his father at Precision Level Firearms.
The corporate’s web site describes it as “federally licensed producer and supplier of firearms” in Massachusetts. In keeping with the vanished LinkedIn web page, Donnelly was an element proprietor of the corporate, in addition to a “lead firearms teacher” and “professional witness” till January 2017.
Images from Precision Level Firearms present Donnelly attending totally different gun gala’s and posing with massive weapons.
And one put up, from early August 2017 — per week earlier than Donnelly flew right down to Charlottesville — exhibits a pistol on the market subsequent to a Precision Level Firearms-branded sticker.
“BLACK GUNS MATTER,” the sticker mentioned.
Anti-Fascists To Unite The Proper Attendees: We Will Discover You
Within the weeks main as much as the Charlottesville rally, Donnelly coached future attendees how to not be doxxed.
When you’re nervous about being recognized, Donnelly wrote to members of the group chat, attempt to be “low key.” Don’t put on T-shirts with slogans or carry indicators that may entice the eye of photojournalists.
He additionally tried to place the white supremacists relaxed.
“[Anti-fascists] can overview all of the footage they need, however except there’s a huge effort, they’re not going to have the ability to doxx each particular person there,” Donnelly wrote.
5 years later, Donnelly has been doxxed by exactly that form of huge effort.
Ignite the Proper is a coalition of nameless anti-fascist researchers that shaped on the five-year anniversary of the rally in Charlottesville this previous August.
When it launched, the coalition implored individuals in communities throughout the nation to ship them ideas that would assist them ID individuals who attended Unite the Proper.
The coalition now has the pictures of 529 individuals who attended the rally on its web site. Two-hundred eighty-one of them have been recognized, a spokesperson mentioned, whereas one other 248 nonetheless should be ID’d. (Once more, HuffPost has not independently verified these IDs.)
Among the many dozens of white supremacists the coalition claims to have uncovered over the previous couple of months was a pc science professor at Furman College in South Carolina. The professor, Christopher Healy, has been placed on depart pending an investigation by the varsity.
In an announcement to HuffPost this week, Ignite the Proper emphasised that it’ll by no means cease its search to seek out the fascists who terrorized Charlottesville.
“A girl was murdered at Unite The Proper by a white supremacist compatriot of neo-Nazi cop John Donnelly,” the assertion mentioned. “The white supremacists who attended Unite The Proper are an ever-present hazard to their communities. We can’t tolerate Nazi cops and Nazi gun sellers having the authority to execute or imprison individuals. All his instances should be reviewed.”
“White supremacists function in any respect ranges of society, together with enterprise, academia, and authorities,” the assertion continued. “We’ll by no means cease looking them down and exposing them.”
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