The battle of Pine Street Plaza in Centralia was won with pride last Saturday.
On one side, there was a neo-Nazi fight group — a self-proclaimed white supremacist, Swastika-sporting “active club” that, according to Pacific Northwest-based anti-racist investigative group Stumptown Research Collective, hosts nationalist themed mixed martial arts competitions to entice new recruits.
On the other side were Lewis County locals, members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies who were celebrating Pride Month in an event organized in part by the Lewis County Dignity Guild, a nonprofit that describes its goal as “intersectional social welfare,” community building and “placemaking.”
The battle? A push-up contest. In a video shared by the research collective, a crowd cheers as a member of the known hate group, the “Evergreen Active Club,” fails to keep up.
Most of the group’s members wore face-coverings. But, the group’s leader, according to Stumptown Research Collective, was identified as Daniel Rowe, who was convicted of stabbing an interracial couple in 2016.
In the wake of Saturday’s events, from before and after the push-up contest, the Dignity Guild made a statement that can be found on its Facebook page or read in part in previous reporting by The Chronicle. And, at Chehalis, Centralia, and Lewis County council and commission meetings, elected officials made their position clear: The hate group does not represent their community’s values.
‘Centralia Needs to Have Some Conversations’
At a Centralia City Council meeting on Tuesday night, councilors took turns making statements about the events at Saturday’s Pride celebration after the topic was brought up both in public comment and in discussion on a proclamation about Juneteenth. A celebration for the holiday is set to take place at George Washington Park in Centralia on Saturday at 10 a.m.
“This hate group proceeded to physically shove me and my friend, with their bodies and backpacks, into the road by repeatedly telling me to ‘watch out for the road, fatty,” said one meeting attendee, Chelle Wilder, in public comment.
She went on to describe disappointment with the Centralia Police Department’s response, saying when she signaled for help from a nearby officer, they drove away.
In a prepared statement, Wilder said of the police, “They left us there, alone, to fend for ourselves against a group with a known violent history.”
She said one commander scolded her to “‘stay out of the road,’ ignoring the aggressors who were shoving me into danger,” and that one officer had a private conversation with the active club’s leaders. According to a public records request by the Dignity Guild’s founder, Kyle Wheeler, no body camera records exist from the time period including that conversation.
“I am very curious to know why Officer Roberts turned off his body camera for this private conversation with a known hate group,” Wilder said to the council.
Centralia Police Chief Stacy Denham addressed these concerns in an interview with The Chronicle on Wednesday, including the body camera footage, the officer driving away and a concern by Wilder from the message log between dispatchers where it appeared to say “the (hate group members) are multiplying,” followed by a responding “LOL.”
Denham has not yet been able to debrief with the officers who were on duty at the time, but said the entire department will be sitting down to “dissect” the events and “make sure we will not allow it to happen again.”
He couldn’t speak to any specifics of the officer driving away after searching and not being able to find footage of that happening. Denham said, “I have no reason to disbelieve (Wilder). … This kind of surprised us in a way that caught us flat-footed.”
He said there was a vetting process for security at Lewis County Pride, but that there was never any “buzz” caught on the counter-protestors’ plans.
Of the body camera footage, he said the officer never turned off the camera to speak with the hate group’s leaders. Instead, the camera was never on in the first place.
“It should have been on, but it wasn’t. It could have answered a lot more questions,” Denham said, calling it “frustrating. … It would have obviously been valuable.”
Before speaking to a reporter, Denham said, he reviewed the Spillman report, where messages between law enforcement and dispatchers are summarized, to understand the “LOL” message.
For those who reviewed the report, he said, he understands how they came to see that as a response to the hate group’s presence, but the report is closer to a message “dump” than a perfect timeline, he said. Putting the message in chronological order, Denham said he realized it was in response to a message that the Lewis County Sheriff was handling a collision out on Jackson Highway at the same time.
“(The officers’ response) was no different to if I was handling the collision. It would be, ‘LOL, the chief is actually handling a collision.’ If you put the timelines together, it makes more sense,” Denham said. “It really had nothing to do with that.”
With the celebration of Juneteenth upcoming on Saturday, Denham wanted it to be on the record that his team is preparing an action plan and will be ready for any similar events.
“The tactics (the Evergreen Active Club) used, is, what happens next is we have two groups going against each other. We have emotions at stake here … with people who wanted their opportunity to celebrate without being overshadowed by this, what I will refer to as a hate group,” Denham said. “This is kind of new for us. It’s a huge lesson for us. I apologize to all the folks who were involved because we just didn’t see this coming and that’s on us, that’s on me. … We’ll definitely do better moving forward.”
Centralia Mayor Kelly Smith Johnston, noting it was her daughter’s graduation weekend, said she’d intended to briefly stop by the Pride celebration. Upon seeing the hate group’s presence, Smith Johnston said, she felt compelled to stay.
“It was dangerous. It was ugly. And it was profoundly disturbing. Those folks were there to intimidate. To attempt to dominate. Going forward, I do think the City of Centralia needs to have some conversations … I’m sad to say I expect that we will see more as we have more visibility for people who are a minority population. Whatever (population) that is, unfortunately, that usually brings some pushback. But, for those of you who felt scared for your safety, who felt demeaned or dehumanized, I want to express my deepest sorrow … and my commitment to do everything I can to make sure we are striving for inclusivity and acceptance and belonging in Centralia.”
Centralia Councilor Cameron McGee said he’d heard people noting the hate group’s members were not from Lewis County, but said their actions nonetheless encourage similarly-minded folks who are from the community.
“People coming from out of town, like this, emboldens that behavior. It recruits. That is the entire goal of it, outside of just, you know, being awful,” McGee said. “We can’t let that ideology have a foothold in this community.”
Chehalis City Councilor Kate McDougall in a Monday night meeting also said she’d attended Pride and made a statement on the situation that occurred.
County Response
Lewis County Commissioner Lindsey Pollock made a statement in a Tuesday morning business meeting, citing historical figures of the Republican Party. She and her seatmates all ran as Republicans.
“Would Lincoln or Reagan have supported this intimidation? Of course not. Hatred is the shared currency of the ignorant and the insecure. Hatred is the Devil’s seductive drug,” Pollock said, later adding, “They were there to intimidate a minority group and hijack the legitimate effort of parents to eliminate political coercion from our public schools. When leaders of our Republican Party make common cause with Nazis, they forfeit their claim to speak for us. Their leadership is malignant, repulsive and deserving of public repudiation.”
In this, she was apparently referring to a petition by the leaders of the Lewis County Republican Party who’d established a pop-up tent in downtown Chehalis Saturday. Brandon Svenson, the party chair, said the intent was to garner signatures on an initiative to overturn a recently-passed Senate bill that creates confidentiality between shelters, parents and transgender children leaving home to seek gender-affirming care. The bill has seen backlash, especially from conservatives, who feel it removes parents from long-term decision making with their kids.
Svenson, in a follow-up interview, wanted to make it very clear that the booth was not affiliated with the neo-Nazi counter-protestors from Saturday. He’d never heard of the group and did not believe it was based in Lewis County.
Though his party, too, set up the pop-up tent in a form of counter-protest to a Pride event, putting it near a drag show at McFilers Chehalis Theater, Svenson was staunchly opposed to the stance and behavior of the Evergreen Active Club.
“You have to bring light. If you’re going to show up with that kind of hate and anger in your heart, you’re going about it in the wrong way. I don’t condone that,” Svenson said. “That’s not some political statement. I don’t care what side you’re on, you can’t show up with hate in your heart and expect to make any progress.”
Pollock said attendees at the McFilers show told her they felt uncomfortable with the party leaders’ “presence and photography.”
Asked about the photography, Svenson confirmed one party member had been taking photos.
“I don’t know why that individual took pictures,” he said. “I recommend against this sort of thing. I don’t expect it should happen again.”
He said he was initially feeling hostility from passersby who got into arguments with he and other Republican Party members. Some people, he said, were “filming us and flipping us off.”
“But, to be fair,” Svenson said, upon later learning about the white supremacist group in Centralia, “it finally dawned on me,” people may have thought the Republicans were affiliated with the active club.
Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope sent a commentary to The Chronicle on Tuesday expressing similar sentiments.
