Anti Defamation League says Skinhead Group has Violent History
Thursday, May 10, 2012
By: Tom Parkinson

The alleged members of a white supremacist group arrested in Osceola County last weekend are part of what civil rights organizations say is a loosely organized but extremely violent nationwide racist organization.

Most Central Floridians may have never heard of the American Front before police raided their fortified rural compound last week in Osceola County. But Mark Pitcavage of the Anti-Defamation League says the group has been on their radar screen for a number of years.

“They are one of a handful of what we consider hardcore, racist skinhead groups,” says Pitcavage.

Investigators say group members were involved in petty vandalism and violent hate crimes but they stopped the gang before it could carry out its larger scale plans to attack Orlando City Hall and to ambush members of a rival skinhead group in Melbourne.

Pitcavage says the group has a reputation for violence.

“The American Front does have, throughout its history, a track record of association with violence that has ranged from petty hate crimes up to far more serious and brutal assaults,”  he says.

The Osceola County arrests follow a two year investigation by the FBI, the Metropolitan Bureau of Investigation and local police.