Southern Poverty Law Center's report lists two hate groups in Lee

BONITA SPRINGS — The fatal shooting at a Wisconsin Sikh temple in early August by a man with supremacist affiliations sent communities around the country scrambling to learn which hate groups have roots in their own neighborhoods.

Of the 55 identified in Florida by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which maintains a national database of organizations with extremist views, two are in Southwest Florida.

"We do not take an active role in violence unless it is brought upon us first, then we will defend ourselves ..." wrote Paul Mullet, who heads the Ohio-based American National Socialist Party. "We stay within the limits of the law, but the law will be broken if our life or the lives of our family or our members are in danger, then violence will be and what happens will happen."

The group, which calls itself a "white pride" organization, has an active chapter in Bonita Springs.

The local American National Socialist Party affiliate joins the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, labeled a black separatist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, as the two organizations in Lee County that make the list of 1,018 active hate groups nationwide in 2011 that "attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics," according to the law center.

There are no hate groups documented in Collier County. The next closest organization is a Ku Klux Klan chapter in Englewood, according to the center.

The law center's listings "are based strictly on ideology, not on violence, criminal acts, or estimates of future potential for violence," according to Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the center who works on the hate groups project. Publications and websites, citizen and law enforcement reports, field sources and news reports, are all sources of information for the law center.

Despite their presence, there is no documentation of recent hate group activities in Lee and Collier counties, according to the respective sheriff's offices.

The American National Socialist Party admitted to distributing fliers supporting its ideology along a Bonita Springs street in early 2011, but there was no law enforcement repercussion.

"The white race needs to wake up and realize that the white race has no white rights," Mullet told the News-Press in Fort Myers at the time. "The media portrays us as a bunch of white supremacists, but we're not. We're a pride organization."

Wade Michael Page, the accused gunman in the Wisconsin shooting, described himself as a member of the Hammerskins Nation. The Anti-Defamation League, which also tracks extremist groups, said that group is present in Florida, especially in

the Orlando area, where it is believed to have several dozen members.

Page played with Definite Hate, a white supremacist band affiliated with Hammerskins. The Anti-Defamation League says that band has performed in Florida at least a half-dozen times in the past decade.

Six worshippers were killed at the temple before Page shot and killed himself.

A website for the American National Socialist Party posts several fliers. One asks, "We hear a lot about: Black Pride, Latino Pride, Jewish Pride, Gay Pride. What about WHITE PRIDE?" — encouraging members to "Celebrate Aryan Independence."

Citing lobbying disclosure records, Washington, D.C.-based news outlet The Hill reported in June that Mullet's group, Crusaders For Yahweh-Aryan Nations LLC, registered to become a lobbying organization. Mullet declined to answers questions regarding local and national membership figures.

A request for comment from the New York headquarters of the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ went unreturned.

Lee sheriff's Lt. Brad Hamilton, head of the sheriff's gang unit, told the Daily News via email: "Many of these groups have a presence in the jail systems but it is more of a survival issue of strength in numbers, while in custody. There are many levels of belief and hybrid groups emerge from time to time but we have not seen any sustained presence of any one group."

"This is not to say they do not exist," he added, "but we have not seen any large-scale influence in our area."

The law center's Potok explained that groups are removed from the list when they "explicitly change their ideology or become inactive in a given year."

A 2009 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center identified the Israelite Church's branch in the Iona-McGregor area south of Fort Myers, and the "neo-Confederate" group League of the South in Fort Myers and Alva as the area's hate groups. The latter is no longer on the list locally, but there are two active affiliates in Archer and Jacksonville.

This article contains material from The Associated Press.