This whole time, a pizza delivery man has been the forefront of a confederation of Neo-Nazi’s called the “Bowl Patrol.”
Andrew Richard Casarez, a 27-year-old white supremacist, has been identified as the leading voice of the group that formed its name off the bowl-style haircut of Dylann Roof, a white supremacist who walked inside a Charleston, South Carolina church and took the lives of 9 black church members in 2015.
According to an exclusive HuffPost report, Casarez has used the alias “Vic Mackey” to disguise his true identity and lead a group of nearly 1,000 followers via podcasts, videos, and social media to commit hate crimes, and threaten activists and journalists with rape and violence. He has also celebrated white nationalist massacres, including Christchurch, New Zealand, El Paso, Texas, Poway, California, and others, cowardly behind his secret identity.
It’s hard to say how many people Casarez AKA Mackey has influenced, but the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation league labeled him as the leader in this network of extremists casa, which include members that have already been arrested in connection with threats or plans of actual physical violence while honoring Roof’s name.
Many white nationalists were recently exposed, including cops, soldiers, and politicians; however, Mackey has remained elusive. Thanks to the recent work by the anti-fascist research group, Anonymous Comrades Collective, Mackey’s online history was traced. The group believes his true identity is Andrew Richard Casarez, a 27-year-old pizza delivery driver. He resides in Orangevale, a wealthy and predominately white area in Sacramento, California.
HuffPost also confirmed his identity via photos, videos, audio clips, and interviews with people who know him as Casarez. Unsurprisingly, Casarez has failed to respond on his behalf.
The timing of unmasking the true identity of Mackey couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time, considering the growing number of threats by violent right-wing extremists amid America’s heightened racial climate. A report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies found that between 1994-2020 there were nearly 900 terrorist attacks and plots in America; nearly 60% of those were carried out by right-wing extremists. In 2019 alone, domestic terrorists killed at least 42 people in the U.S., making it the sixth deadliest year on record for domestic extremist-related killings since 1970.
With the help of Trump’s white supremacist rhetoric, his highly supportive Fox News bullhorn, the growing economic instability due to the pandemic, and the political tension amid the upcoming election, violent extremism is predicted to grow, CSIS reports.
The FBI also sensed the possibilities and elevated the threat of racial extremism to a “national threat priority” for the fiscal year 2020. FBI Director Christopher Wray informed the House Judiciary Committee that the new distinction has place white supremacist violence alongside “Isis and homegrown violent extremists.”
As Dylann Roof appeared in a South Carolina court, Casarez, 22 at the time, was on the other side of the country, developing an iconic obsession for him, all while living at home with his parents after a stint in college. As time followed, entrenched in his worship of the murderer, he focused on building a like-minded racist base who shared his dangerous ideology.
He chose to use Discord, a chat app used by gamers but frequented by right-wing extremists, to create the group “Bowl Patrol.” According to leaked chat logs obtained by an independent media collective, the group showed postings as early as 2017, just ahead of that year’s deadly “Unite the Right” white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia Unicorn Riot.
Many members wanted to see lynchings and used racial slurs while one member photoshopped himself in front of a pile of dead bodies at a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust. And from what may have been “Mackey” himself, was a post made by someone claiming to be the founder, discussing how the group’s memes would help condition people to carry out mass murders.
Casarez chose the name Vic Mackey due to its connection to the racist, corrupt cop character on the TV show “The Shield.” Under this name, he titled his position as “Head Bowl in Charge” and transformed a group into Dylann Roof worshippers. Eventually, Discord dismantled the group from its platform, but the group relocated to the Gab and Telegram.
Mackey and a few others then started the podcast, “Bowlcast.” In a December 2018 episode, Mackey praised Robert Bowers’ attack on the Tree of Life synagogue that killed 11 people in Pittsburg, saying it had “totally reinvigorated” him.
“The night before that wonderful thing happened, before Saint Bowers went to synagogue, me and some other bowls on bowl patrol were talking with each other and saying … It’s a shame that there hasn’t been a Saint Roof event, another ‘take me to church’ event and that we’re really due for another one,” Mackey said. Mackey claimed Bowers was one of his followers on Gab and said they had interacted.
“Robert Bowers is not going to be the last, not by far, he’s not gonna be the last,” Mackey said. “There is going to be a million Bowers flowers blossoming.” Since that episode, they have praised many other accused white nationalist mass shooters, showing them honor by placing the word “saint” to their names.
“Vic Mackey’s biggest contribution to the white power movement has been to normalize violence and glorify acts of terrorism,” Cassie Miller, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told HuffPost recently. Miller believes that Mackey and the creation of the group displays how American white nationalists have grown to embrace “accelerationism.” And also believes people like Mackey were not going to “vote themselves into an ethno-state” by instead promoting violence.
Due to the hard work by anti-fascist activism, de-platforming by social media platforms, and crackdowns by law enforcement, white supremacist groups have fallen significantly since the Charlottesville rally. However, Mackey and the Bowl patrol continue their quest for accelerationism via podcats, Gab, and Telegram.
“All the members of the Bowl Patrol are emboldened by the fact that people don’t know who they are,” Miller said, adding that Mackey, in particular, uses anonymity in his favor, “if his name and face are out there, he can’t do it anymore.” But anonymity didn’t work in his favor, because of the curiosity of who he really was exceeded the group’s intentions.
Calls to the numbers associated with Casarez have gone unanswered. Messages to Vic Mackey’s Telegram account, which showed recent activity this month, are also unanswered.
The FBI’s DOJ policy prohibits their acknowledgment or unawareness of the situation. However, a spokesperson for the agency said, “when it comes to domestic terrorism, our investigations focus solely on criminal activity of individuals—regardless of group membership—which appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce the civilian population or influence the policy of the government by intimidation or coercion.”
“The FBI does not and will not police ideology,” the spokesperson said. If that ideology evolves into real-world crimes, however, the FBI could investigate.
In his hometown of Orangevale, two places of worship have been confirmed targets of hate crimes. A synagogue, which was covered with posters of known racists in 2017, and a Sikh temple that was vandalized with the words “white power” the following year. Social media posts by Mackey seem to mock the incident but didn’t take credit. The local sheriff’s office, which handled both incidents, did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment about whether Casarez is a suspect. However, during the same timeframe, a chat discussion in Discord promised: “many more pranks to come.”
On June 3, San Francisco streets filled with peaceful protesters as a result of the killing of George Floyd. Almost exactly a year prior, Casarez was on the same streets, live-streaming himself antagonizing people as he posed as a “citizen journalist.”
He was seen approaching several people, claiming he works for a Tucker Carlson of Fox News, but most didn’t stop to talk. He baited them with false statements that Trump signed an executive order for the release of Dylann Roof. Still, people largely ignored him. He continued probing people’s thoughts on Roof and was later ignored by a black man. When the man was out of earshot, Casarez turned to his camera and said, “Talk about an Uncle Tom. He doesn’t even care about Dylann Roof being free and killing n******.”
As for now, we know that Vic Mackey plays a tough guy persona, leading a large following, while Casarez is alone and a coward.
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