Trial for neo-Nazi chief accused of combating exterior drag queen occasion begins

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Christopher Hood, of neo-Nazi group NSC-131, was allegedly in an altercation with a counter-protester exterior a drag queen story hour occasion in Jamaica Plain final summer time.

The trial for the chief of an area neo-Nazi group started this week, nearly a 12 months after he allegedly bought into an altercation with somebody exterior a drag queen story hour occasion in Jamaica Plain final July. 

Christopher Hood, a distinguished member of the group often called NSC-131, was charged with affray, or placing concern in somebody by combating in a public area, based on Suffolk County District Legal professional Kevin Hayden’s workplace.

Hood beforehand pleaded not responsible. Jury empanelment began Tuesday and testimony started Wednesday, based on Hayden’s workplace.

The incident

On July 23, a gaggle of about 20 masked males gathered exterior the Loring Greenough Home, a historic mansion that hosts quite a lot of occasions, to protest a youngsters’s story hour hosted by drag queens, The Boston Globe reported on the time. 

Boston Police reportedly alerted the venue beforehand that the occasion might turn into a goal for teams like NSC-131, and organizers postponed the occasion for just a few days. 

On the morning of the occasion, officers had been stationed exterior the constructing earlier than the story hour started, and a lot of the attendees had gone dwelling by the point protesters confirmed up, based on the Globe. 

Boston Police didn’t present details about the incident when contacted by Boston.com Wednesday. 

The group that gathered there wore clothes with the NSC-131 brand, chanted the group’s identify, and displayed a banner that learn “pedo scum off our streets,” the Globe reported. 

The NSC-131 members had been adopted by a gaggle of counter-protesters, a lot of which rode bikes, as they left the realm. That’s when Hood allegedly bought right into a combat with a counter-protester that needed to be damaged up by officers. Two counter-protesters initially confronted fees referring to the incident, however these had been later dropped by prosecutors. 

“It’s clear that Boston is a approach level within the campaign of hate launched 5 years in the past in Charlottesville,” Hayden stated in an announcement on the time. “Society in all places is focused by these teams, and society in all places should reject them.”

About NSC-131

NSC-131 is a neo-Nazi group with white supremacist beliefs, based on the Anti-Defamation League. The group distributes propaganda, organizes public demonstrations, and trains its members on easy methods to harass the group’s enemies. These perceived enemies are primarily a “hostile, Jewish-controlled system that’s intentionally plotting the extinction of the white race,” based on the ADL. 

Hood helped discovered the group in jap Massachusetts in late 2019. Small chapters had been established across the nation, however in 2021 NSC-131 disbanded all chapters exterior New England. The group is now solely targeted on spreading hateful concepts in New England, based on the ADL. 

This incident was not the primary, or most up-to-date, neo-Nazi exercise within the area.

In Could 2021, NSC-131 demonstrated exterior the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston. Later that 12 months, individuals related to the group held a banner over a Cambridge overpass with the message “Refugees not welcome.”

Members of NSC-131 gathered exterior Brigham and Ladies’s Hospital in January 2022 to protest so-called “preferential well being care insurance policies for non-white sufferers.” They appeared on the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Boston just a few months later, displaying their brand and a banner that learn “Maintain Boston Irish.”

This January, members of the group took credit score for interrupting a drag queen story hour in Taunton. 

New England has seen an alarming rise in exercise from hate teams like NSC-131. The ADL discovered that the area skilled a collective 96% enhance in white supremacist propaganda in 2022. Massachusetts, particularly, noticed 465 incidents in 2022, a rise of 72% from 2021. Solely Texas had extra incidents of recorded propaganda actions than Massachusetts did in 2022. 

NSC-131 has targeted recruitment efforts on faculty campuses, and New England is dwelling to many faculties and universities, ADL New England Interim Regional Director Peggy Shukur advised Boston.com earlier this 12 months. The realm can be seen by a few of these teams as having symbolic worth due to its vital function within the American Revolution.