Leaked ‘III% Security Force’ Chats Show Fractured Militia Thirsty for Violence
Douglasville, GA – Leaked chats from inside the III% Security Force (III%SF), one of the main factions of the loose-knit Three Percenter movement, provide a look inside one of the more violent far-right militias active in the USA. While voicing a desire to attack and kill their opponents, such as Black Lives Matter and ‘antifa’, the III% Security Force has also attempted to legitimize itself with new tax-exempt non-profit status and by doing charity drives and local outreach. The militia has suffered from infighting, with some members recently breaking away to form a new group, but far-right militants in the Three Percenter milieu will continue to threaten the safety of their perceived enemies.
Taking their name from the false historical claim that “3 percent” of American colonists participated in the Revolutionary War, the Three Percenter militia movement emerged in 2008 amidst populist right-wing racial anxiety during the start of the Obama presidency. Three Percenters typically avoid the overt racism of white supremacists and neo-nazis, yet have common enemies with these more openly bigoted groups. With an emphasis on Islamophobic and pro-Trump rhetoric, the Three Percenters (‘threepers’ for short) often seek to target religious minorities, immigrants, Black liberation activists, anti-fascists, and Democrats.
According to Hampton Stall, a researcher with Militia Watch, “the overall national ‘Three Percent’ milieu is kind of broad and disconnected” and “more of an adherence to aesthetics around a political and lifestyle choice rather than a cohesive militia group.” The III% Security Force, whose chat logs Unicorn Riot obtained for this report, is one of the foremost organized national groups within the Three Percenter milieu.
The III% Security Force is mostly concentrated in Georgia, where its volatile, spotlight-seeking leader Chris Hill lives in McDonough in Henry County. (Hill uses the alias ‘Gen. BLooDAgenT‘ on Discord and also often refers to himself as ‘General Bloodagent’ both on and offline.) Numerous Three Percenter factions have distanced themselves from Chris Hill, but remaining members of Hill’s ‘security force’ hail from around the USA. (State III%SF chapters are designated with abbreviations like TXSF, ALSF etc.)
In Discord chat logs obtained by Unicorn Riot, 81 members and prospective recruits were involved in messaging activity. (Not all of the Three Percenters in Hill’s group were active on Discord, so actual membership numbers are likely higher). Chat records obtained by Unicorn Riot from inside the ‘III% Security Force’, stretching from January into late April 2021, show the routines, temperaments, and topics that animate the group’s membership.
While Chris Hill is the public face of the III% Security Force, often reveling in the negative attention he receives, many logistical aspects of the group, including its new nonprofit status, were taken care of by Jayme Dawson of Douglasville, GA (‘Sgt. Dawson GSF III%‘ on Discord). Dawson broke away from Hill to form his own militia, Patriot Defence Force, in May.
“The overall national “Three Percent” milieu is kind of broad and disconnected and more an adherence to a kind of aesthetics around a political and lifestyle choice rather than a cohesive militia group“
– Hampton Stall, Militia Watch
Three Percenters have been tied to a number of violent incidents in recent years. Members of affiliated militias were involved in the violent neo-nazi rally in Charlottesville, VA in 2017, which ended in the death of Heather Heyer. Six men tied to the Three Percenters were also recently indicted for their role in violence at the U.S. capitol on January 6 of this year. Others have turned up in bombing plots foiled by federal agents.
The leaked Discord messages (browse them here) show that the III% Security Force militia struggles with infighting and near-constant deplatforming from online services, but still holds regular armed Field Training Exercises (‘FTXs’ in threeper parlance). While it may be tempting to dismiss the Threepers as disorganized, tech-challenged baby boomers, they still display a degree of coordination and their chats show some members harbor an active interest in violence, including targeted murder. Exemplifying this mindset, a list of ‘Patriot’ heroes circulated within the militia’s chat included the name of Timothy McVeigh, who killed 168 people in the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City.
“Guns Up”
While the militia network still using the ‘III% Security Force’ label is prone to infighting and inflated egos, those still affiliated with it show a worrying appetite for violence. With real-life events being scarcer due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the FTXs seem to have been the main activities of the III% Security Force apart from online recruitment, chats and meetings.
III% Security Force Discord chat records show that in April and May 2021, militia members organized FTXs in Georgia, Ohio, and North Dakota. Armed FTX meetups in other states like Virginia, Illinois and Hawaii were also discussed, but it’s unclear if they took place.
The ‘III% Security Force’ Discord chat logs obtained by Unicorn Riot begin in January 2021, and run until late April, when the Discord company shut down the chat. The group used Discord at times for vetting and recruitment, but also makes use of various other apps such as Signal, Zello, and various conference call platforms to conduct business. Recruit interviews as well as ‘headcount’ member check-ins were alternately held either over Discord or other voice platforms such as FreeConferenceCall (which later banned the Three Percenters). Members regularly hold Christian prayer services online, with Christianity seeming to be the only religion represented in the militia (Three Percenters are rabidly anti-Muslim, and don’t really mention Judaism or other faiths.)
The militia also has a private group on Gab, the social media service which often touts its tolerance for hosting violent rhetoric and incitement, preferred by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter Robert D. Bowers. Some members are active on the lesser-known social media site MeWe; militia member ‘Beaker GSF III%‘ (Gary DeWayne Turner of Suwanee, GA) posted about being in a ‘Georgia Gun Trader’ MeWe group.
Members of the militia frequently used the Discord to share small talk about their lives, show off their guns and ammo, and compare specs on their Ham radio and Baofeng walkie-talkie setups. They often complained about antifascist infiltration frustrating their efforts, and suspension of their online accounts used for fundraising and organizing. One member proposed “setting up a shell corporation to process payments” after discussing their own financial deplatforming woes as well as those faced by the Oathkeepers militia.
The Three Percenters show some affiliation with the more extreme wing of the GOP, with militia members taking part in a call-in campaign to support Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene. III% Security Force Discord chat participants also encouraged each other to call into Congress to oppose impeachment proceedings against former President Trump.
Three Percenters are avid Trump followers, with some participating in the January 6 capitol attack that sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Some militia members regularly attend Trump rallies. “Yes, sir. I was at every rally in November, December and January….” Virginia III% Security Force member ‘Little Bit‘ told the Discord chat. “I will be there when he returns!“
Others expressed concern that III% Security Force leader Chris Hill was mentioned by name during hearings investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol. “General being mentioned at the frikkin impeachment trial is NOT a good thing folks,” wrote LCpl Honey_Badger (Anne Hyatt) “…They’re coming for us.”
While Three Percenters are “fairly pro-GOP in most cases“, Stall from Militia Watch told Unicorn Riot that because “Georgia’s Governor and Secretary of State (both Republicans) [refused] to overturn the Georgia election results in favor of Trump, the relationship has been a lot more hostile, with Chris Hill and his cohort making thinly-veiled threats about [Governor] Kemp and [Secretary of State] Raffensperger.”
– Hampton Stall, Militia Watch
Deplatforming Goes Both Ways
The III% Security Force’s Discord logs show that online account suspensions have largely hampered their efforts, with the group often working to adjust to using a new service for online meetings after having just been booted from another. “The social media removal of the III% Security Force is perhaps one of the clearest case examples of how deplatforming can disrupt a group,” Militia Watch’s Stall told Unicorn Riot. Due to having “limited people-hours to spend,” repeated suspension of the militia’s online accounts “leads them to prioritize spending hours on re-establishing communications lines and recruitment rather than activism or threats.“
In chat records obtained by Unicorn Riot, the III% Security Force discusses being banned from various online services such as CreateAForum.com, FreeConferenceCall, several web hosting companies, as well as t-shirt vendor companies Bonfire and Custom Ink. Several members also mentioned being suspended from Facebook and other social media sites. Their Discord server was also taken offline for violating Discord’s terms of service in late April 2021.
The ‘III% Security Force’ has also engaged in attempted deplatforming campaigns of their own. They shared nonprofit registration info for the Black Lives Matter Foundation and encouraged each other to file IRS complaints against the foundation. Some Threepers tried to get web hosting services canceled for the Atlanta Antifascists’website and encouraged each other to mass report the Atlanta Antifascists twitter account; they also tried to get an antifascist t-shirt fundraiser page taken offline. (Atlanta Antifascists is one of the more in-depth sources for public information about the III% Security Force; some of their published research has informed this reporting.) Several militia members also shared the personal details and employment information of an antifascist researcher in an attempt to get them fired from their job. A number of Three Percenters expressed an interest in infiltrating or hacking anti-fascist groups, but didn’t appear to have any success along these lines.
The III% Security Force sometimes discussed surveilling and disrupting left-wing protest activity, particularly in Georgia. Discord user ‘Pfc Scorpion GSF‘, (John M. Engrisch of Dallas, GA) shared links to a Twitter account announcing protests in Atlanta, as well as a ‘Resist Atlanta’ page on Meetup.com, offering both links as “intel” to his militia comrades. The Three Percenters’ monitoring of left-wing protesters is hardly benign, and has previously led to violent attacks against anti-racist activists.
In December 2020, Chris Hill and other III% Security Force members assaulted four anti-fascist activists, beating them at gunpoint after ambushing them near Georgia State University as they were leaving a protest. Hill posted a video bragging about the attack, stating that he”knew where they were meeting prior to the rally, so we headed there…they’re all guilty in my book…I kicked you in the ass an put your face into the side of a building.” (Local authorities reportedly opted not to prosecute Hill for the assault.)
Appetite for Conspiracy
At times, Three Percent militia members in the chat seemed quite vulnerable to misinformation, with some apparently buying into fake or joke posts shared by others. ‘Pfc Scorpion GSF’ appeared to fall for a fake ‘Antifa HR’ Twitter account, and others apparently believed a fake CNN screenshot that said ‘antifa’ was behind the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6. ‘Little Bit‘ agreed that “1/6 was an antifa operation for sure.“
Chris Hill and others in the militia also discussed watching ‘Absolute Proof’, a film made by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that falsely claims the 2020 election was ‘flipped’ by Chinese hackers. When the militia chat was discussing the ongoing trial of Derek Chauvin in April, Illinois-based Three Percenter ‘Redrooster45‘ falsely claimed that George Floyd “wasn’t really dead” and “got moved to another country.”
‘WNDWLKR III%DEMON‘ insisted that COVID-19 “is a deliberately released and controlled tool of NWO [New World Order]”; several Three Percenters in the chat also posted about being infected with the coronavirus and many of them stated they would never get vaccinated against COVID-19. ‘Little Bit‘ also shared that she and her husband refused to participate in contract tracing after getting the virus.
“How long until the real shooting starts?”
Those making up the III% Security Force often fantasize about violence, either in targeted individual acts or in a large-scale eruption of armed political conflict. While some of their chatter may be dismissed as posturing, it may also show genuine intent and should be taken seriously, as Three Percenter affiliates have repeatedly been tied to plots to carry out bombings and assassinations. This year, some in the III% Security Force Discord chat expressed an impatience and a desire to accelerate political conflict to the point of violence. “I’m getting concerned because things are not happening fast enough…”, ‘Traveller HISF III%‘ wrote in February. “I have no problem being the spark…”
Also in February, Ohio Security Force member ‘WNDWLKR III%DEMON‘ shared a list of heroes to be celebrated, entitled “Blood of Patriots”. The list included members of the Aryan Nations-supporting Weaver family killed during the botched federal raid in Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992, as well as LaVoy Finicum, killed by police during the Bundy militia’s occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016, and Ashli Babbitt, the Qanon believer shot dead by officers at the U.S. Capitol during the pro-Trump insurrection on January 6, 2021. Also on the list, off to the side from the others, was written “Timothy McVeigh?“, the name of the white supremacist responsible for killing 168 people (including 19 children) in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. No III% Security Force members objected to McVeigh’s inclusion in the ‘Blood of Patriots’ heroes list shared in their chat.
Alongside the “‘patriot’ list that included McVeigh, ‘WNDWLKR III%DEMON‘ called for violence while aping a Thomas Jefferson quote often used to call for right-wing non-state violence: “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,,plenty of patriots executed time for tyrants to pay.”
Some militia members in the Discord chat also made thinly veiled comments about shooting police who enforced gun laws. When the chat was discussing police confiscating firearms under Red Flag laws, one Three Percenter, posting on Discord as ‘Cpl Iceman OHSF III%‘, asked eagerly, “how long until the real shooting starts[?]”
Annemarie Hyatt (Discord user ‘LCpl Honey_Badger‘) shared an “ANTIFA hunting permit” meme, symbolizing her to shoot and kill people who oppose fascism. (While the Three Percenters do not openly identify as fascists, their rhetoric and aims fall along similar lines to actual fascists, with a desire to see a right-wing military dictatorship take power and imprison and kill their political opponents.) The group also expressed support for Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse. In 2018, the III% Security Force released a video with an implied threat to shoot and kill Georgia Democratic politician Stacey Abrams.
When the man behind a mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado was revealed to have a Muslim name, Three Percenters quickly seized on the moment to invoke anti-Muslim sentiments (“The shooter is a God Damn Muslim. There’s your motive. Muslims want to kill Infidels… Muslims and Isis is probably cheering for what he accomplished.“)
Another militia recruit in the III% Security Force Discord described stalking a Muslim family as he watched them shopping at a grocery store.
Previous III% Security Force gatherings involving Chris Hill have included militia members “making racial gestures and destroying a replica of a mosque during a training exercise,” according to a report by Jordan Green for Triad City Beat. In 2016, members of the III% militia successfully harassed commissioners in Newton County, Georgia into delaying a local Muslim community’s plan to build a Mosque. In 2019, members of a III% militia splinter group called ‘the Crusaders’ were sentenced to decades in prison after plotting to murder Muslim and Somali immigrants.
One III% Security Force member posting as ‘Deadwood‘ in the Discord chat expressed a particular interest in carrying out an assassination. “On my bucket list of things to do before the end of life is just to sit outside of some assholes house who desperately needs killed…”, Deadwood wrote on March 26. “As soon as he walks out the door plaster his brains all over his living room wall with a 308… Dental records removed!” (Deadwood would repeat his bloodthirsty reference to removing “dental records” elsewhere in the leaked chats.)
Based on his leaked message history, Deadwood has been active in or near Sardinia, Ohio. He discussed organizing a Three Percenter ‘FTX’ in Ohio in May.
In January 2020, Jason Hawk of the Amherst News-Times reported that a man associated with the Three Percenters had his home in Amherst, Ohio raided by the FBI after he allegedly made threats online. Hawk’s report for the News-Times also noted that a “source also told police the militia groups have a training site in a wooded area in Sardinia, Ohio.“
‘WNDWLKR III%DEMON‘, also in Ohio, was another militia chat participant eager to call for violence – he posted that immigrants “should be shot” and also called for the murder of alleged members of ‘antifa’ (“kill them all“.)
Online Militia Infrastructure
The III% Security Force’s website, which boasted of “patriotic political activism…in conjunction with local Law Enforcement if and where applicable” is hosted by the web company Epik, whose CEO Rob Monster has previously spoken out in support of social media sites that tout a permissive stance towards hate speech such as Gab, which Epik also hosts. The III% site also enjoys protection from the web registrar privacy company Anonymize, Inc., an Epik subsidiary. (Anonymize, Inc. did not respond to a request for comment.) As of May 2021, the III% Security Force site’s front page praised Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, stated that “masks are for slaves“, “vaccines are suicidal“, and boasted that the group’s “mission” was to “locate, close width, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver.“
Epik’s SVP for Strategy and Communications, Robert Davis, sent Unicorn Riot an 11-paragraph email responding to a request for comment about Epik doing business with the violent far-right milita. Davis indicated that Epik would continue to host the militia website but said he had reached out to Chris Hill about removing some of the more inflammatory language. After Unicorn Riot contacted Epik for comment, the language about “destroy[ing] the enemy by fire“, as well as the anti-vaccine messaging, disappeared from the III% Security Force site.
The Three Percenters don’t appear to be very desirable customers, often getting booted by their web hosts and then exhorting each other to harass vendors that decline to serve them – “Pester the eff out of them“… “Use their online chat to pester them“…”email, text chat support, open up tickets“… “if [we’re] going to be labeled criminals them maybe we need to act like them.” After the militia “lost a lot of source code” because a web host shut down their account, ‘LCpl Honey_Badger‘ / Anne Hyatt promised “that company is going to pay one way or another for what they’ve done.” As time went on and the Three Percenters continued to be banned from other services, Hyatt’s revenge fantasy never seemed to materialize.
The III% Security Force militia’s current web forums, used for recruitment and organizing amongst members, are hosted by Israeli company Wix Sites, whose Terms of Service forbid “harassing, threatening, incendiary, abusive, racist, offensive, deceptive or fraudulent,… criminal or harmful conduct.” Wix Sites has not responded to a request for comment about hosting the III% Security Force’s forums.
Courting Support
Apart from firearms trainings and working to oppose leftists and anti-racists, some in the Three Percenter worked to create an air of legitimacy and cultivate bases of community support for their militia.
Jayme Dawson (‘Sgt. Dawson GSF III%‘) used the Facebook page for his home renovations company, Big and Tall Services, to promote the Three Percenters. In March, he started promoting a campaign “delivering Easter baskets for less fortunate children in West Georgia.” A fundraising graphic circulated by Dawson indicated sponsorship for the charity drive by Big and Tall Services, LLC Residential Remodeling, Paulding County Patriots (a possible reference to a local high school football team), and the III% Security Force. Dawson also used his business’ Venmo and CashApp accounts to solicit donations on behalf of the Three Percenters. (CashApp as well as Venmo and its parent company PayPal have not responded to requests for comment.)
Three Percenter militia groups often enjoy support or sympathy from law enforcement officers, active or retired military members, and government employees. In 2018, Michael Roberts at the Denver Westword reported that Denver Police officer Michael Traudt, who shot and killed Rosebud Sioux tribal member Paul Castaway in 2015, has a tattoo of the Three Percenter logo on the back of his left hand.
III% Security Force member Anne Hyatt (Discord user ‘LCpl Honey_Badger‘, of Douglasville, GA) claimed to know an older SWAT sergeant in the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department who she said was under investigation for an excessive force incident. The Gwinnett County Sheriff has not responded to a request for comment.
WNDWLKR III%DEMON also claimed to be reaching out to the U.S. Veterans MC Ashtabula, a motorcycle club based in Ashtabula, Ohio. The U.S. Veterans MC Ashtabula chapter has not responded to a request for comment.
‘Gunner GSF III%‘ (Chris Tuten of Douglasville, GA) proposed soliciting donations from gun stores as another way for militia members to garner local support.
‘PATRIOTONE‘, a potential Three Percenter recruit in Minnesota, applied to join the militia but was eventually denied membership after he claimed to have done financial investigations for government agencies, including the CIA. Some in the group later regretted denying him membership, speculating that he “may have been the money tree.”
Facebook Front Groups and Nonprofit Status
While being repeatedly banned from Facebook, the Three Percenters still use the social media site to try to pull in sympathetic conservatives as recruits. Leader Chris Hill encouraged members to set up informal Facebook groups to use for promotion and recruitment for the Three Percenters. “Start up FB Groups. Call them Mobile 2A Sanctuary States / Cities… Like GA Mobile 2A Sanctuary…Just post links to our shit[,] our Gab, our website. what state do you live [in]? Will you defend 2A here or there or anywhere[?] Get something going.“
One Facebook front group used by the III% Security Force, called ‘Constitutional Sanctuary Org‘ had been administrated in part by militia member Annemarie Hyatt (LCpl Honey_Badger on Discord) of Oxford, GA. Hyatt’s Facebook account was banned following her participation in the January 6 attack on Congress, according to research first shared by Atlanta Antifascists.
Douglasville, GA resident Jayme Dean Dawson (‘Sgt. Dawson GSF III%‘ on Discord’) also used the Facebook group to try to recruit new members. Dawson is the Registered Agent on the ‘III% Security Force, Inc.’ nonprofit paperwork filed with the state of Georgia in April 2021.
On April 7, Dawson told the militia group’s Discord chat that “we, the III% Security Force, is hereby known in the state of Georgia as a Non-profit 501c3 organization, known as ‘Three Percent Security Force, Inc.‘…” Dawson also made sure to note that “to the public we are a company that provides military style survival training and disaster preparation training,” indicating that the group’s legal registration would shy away from the thirst for blood privately expressed by its members. Dawson also noted that “my business, Big and Tall Services LLC will be making the first donation to the company.”
However, the militia’s new nonprofit status did not guarantee smooth sailing for the Three Percenters, who don’t always get along nicely with each other. In May 2021, Dawson broke away from Chris Hill to form his own III% Security Force splinter group called ‘Patriot Defense Force.’ According to a message from Dawson shared by Atlanta Antifascists, “I dissociated myself from Chris Hill. He’s egotistical and unstable. I also filed an amendment to change the non-profit.” Despite the announced split, current online Georgia nonprofit filings still show Chris Hill, Jayme Dawson and Timothy Johnson (‘Sgt. Nightmareborn78 GSF III%‘ on Discord) listed together as Incorporators of the Three Percent Security Force legal entity.
Dawson’s Patriot Defense Force group has a website with a symbol similar to the Three Percenters logo, and similar language about survival prepping and ‘self-defense’ as used on Hill’s site. Patriot Defense Force is selling t-shirts to raise money online; their online store is enabled by online vendor company AbanteCart. (AbanteCart has not responded to a request for comment. internet.bs, a web company based in the Bahamas listed as the registrar for Dawson’s site, told Unicorn Riot they would continue to provide web services to Dawson’s militia. Advania, the Nordic web host company enabling the Patriot Defence Force site, did not respond to a request for comment. Givebutter, a crowdfunding site hosting a fundraiser for Dawson’s new Patriot Defense Force, also didn’t respond.)
Stall observed that “the III% Security Force is no stranger to schisms,” but Dawson’s departure means that
“the incorporated body that Hill and Dawson created together was swept out from under his feet…There is an ever growing number of militias and other right-wing groups that have publicly expressed their distaste at working with Hill in the future, and I think this schism represents another cohort looking to cut ties with him. These breaks and the drama do appear to impact Hill’s drive to continue this work, and he has described this most recent break as him being ‘cancelled’ by the Patriot Movement.”
– Hampton Stall, Militia Watch
–Browse the leaked III% Security Force Discord chat logs (8,358 messages, January – April 2021)
