The Minds of Florida Nazi Groups

In the realm of life meets art meets Sunshine State weird fiction, a tragic event occurred in New Port Richey, Florida last week that could have come directly from Carl Hiaasen’s “Lucky You.”  I include issues regarding neo-nazi groups in this blog because their doctrine would have all of those of us born with birth defects, regardless of race, creed, color or national origin exterminated.  As I’ve mentioned in a previous item, I wouldn’t go so far as to kill the skinheads, I’m a pacifist after all, but I do feel strongly that they are the pee in the gene pool and should be rendered incapable of reproduction.

Hiaasen’s story takes place somewhere in Central Florida and involves a group of bungling neo-fascists who kidnap a black woman who holds a winning lottery ticket.  The real life story takes place in New Port Richey, Florida, nearer the beach than the town in Hiaasen’s story but, as if taken straight from “Lucky You,” it also involves drunk and stoned white supremacists, an African American, inept law enforcement and, tragically, a number of comical statements that appear in the St. Petersburg Times coverage on the crime page of the paper.

The article titled, “Nazi describes ordeal as one of betrayal” includes a description of a woman who received multiple stab wounds and her son’s friend who died from repeated stabbings at the hand of the neo-nazi group who’s headquartered itself in the mobile home next to her in a Pasco County trailer park.  Two members of the white’s only men’s club, 33 year old Shawn A. Plott,, the groups leader and 20 year old John Ditullio currently sit in the county lock up on charges related to the attack.  Ditullio made himself available to the press and gave what I believe the most bizarre description of a horrible crime that I ever heard.

"I felt like I loved them, that they really had my back," started DeTulio, an obvious poor judge of character.  The article continues, “He became a recruit for the white-men-only American Nazis only a couple of weeks ago. He was proud of his race, he said, and joining the group seemed like the right thing to do.”

Hell, I’m proud of growing up in New Jersey but I’m not willing to become militant about it.  If we Jersey refugees all took on people who malign our home state, we’d have no one but ourselves to talk to and we don’t really like each other that much anyway.

The group “gave him a red recruit T-shirt. It said ‘Blood, honor, loyalty.’ They hung out in a mobile home on Teak Street in New Port Richey. Four Nazi flags
flew outside,” continues the description in our local paper of record.

DeTulio claims, “We weren’t a violent group, just into name calling.  But, name calling with the next-door neighbor, Patricia Wells, heated up last week.”  Heated name calling, in the opinion of Blind Confidential remains a form of speech.  It may be stupid, childish and hateful speech but, in my mind, does not involve knives.  These nazi kids, though, broke into Wells’ home early Thursday morning and stabbed her in the face and hands.  They also attacked Kristofer King, a friend of Wells’ teenaged son, who later died from his injuries at Bayfront Hospital in downtown St. Petersburg.

DeTulio held a press conference on Friday in which it appeared as if the police investigation focused on, “Ditullio's boss and fellow neo-Nazi, Shawn A. Plott.”

The article continues, "’I've taken care of them forever,’ Ditullio recalled Plott saying,” early on Thursday morning.

At this point, the story switches from a heinous crime into one that even Carl Hiaasen’s incredible grasp of the weird that only happens in Florida or, sometimes, Germany, takes over.  Prepare to enter the sunshine zone…

“Wednesday night was supposed to be one of celebration. The Nazis' club president was returning from a trip, and his fellow members were drinking in honor
Of his return,” says the Times.  Demonstrating the true friendship and camaraderie among the group, someone spiked Ditullio's whiskey with Xanax, a strong sedative, a practice he said, “Was a typical practical joke played on recruits.”

The Times article, demonstrating its grasp of the obvious,  reports that, “He grew groggy.”  Other than death on some occasions, sleepiness usually follows mixing Xanax with booze.  In his stupor, DeTulio cannot remember Plott leaving the trailer but seems to have a vague memory of his return as Plott rattled the front gate and, “was acting all strange.”

"Something's going down, man," the vice president of the nazi group said, according to Ditullio, “who didn't know how to spell the vice president's name.”  The VP, showing the acumen of any great executive, gave DeTulio three guns and left him alone in the trailer with the orders, to hold down the fort,” and “to shoot at the cops (if they came)."  DeTulio, still whacked by the mickey, promptly fell asleep.

When he woke up on Thursday morning, he looked at the home security monitors and saw,” deputies, then members of
The special weapons and tactics team, their guns trained on the clubhouse.”  An example of Florida’s finest in action.

DeTulio, somewhat stressed out by all of the cops and the SWAT team,  did, doing what any highly trained member of a domestic terrorist group would do under such circumstances, “took four more Xanax tablets, then smoked marijuana. After about 45 minutes, he passed out.”

Meanwhile, outside the highly fortified and well protected Nazi compound, the SWAT team, “stayed outside for what appeared to be a standoff.”

Finally, “At 1:45 p.m., the SWAT team stormed the mobile home. Ditullio said he didn't wake up until the officers were in his face, yelling at him to put his hands
Behind his head.”

The Times article quotes a grinning DeTulio as saying, "It was funny ... You've got all these cops out for little old me. I didn't do nothing, man."  

DeTulio continued to say that he didn’t want law enforcement to catch Plott because he respected Plott for “Doing what he believed in.”  Obviously, what Plott believed in included leaving DeTulio behind as the patsy.  The thought hadn’t yet entered DeTulio’s pea brain that this part of the belief system landed his butt in jail.

Plott, as further described by DeTulio, had once been an officer of a biker gang called the “Iron Coffins.”  Plott was “kicked out for being too mean.”  Too mean for a group of motorheads who call themselves the Iron Coffins?  

Throughout my life, I have had the opportunity to meet and spend time with people from all walks of life.  This human menagerie includes the criminal element.  I’ve known guys with names like Evil and Blowfish.  I’ve known Hell’s Angels, Italian mobsters, ugly skinheads and at least one true sociopath who will spend the rest of his life in Attica, an incarceration that definitely benefits society.  I’ve known drug dealers, gun nuts, whacked out Viet Nam vets who live in the woods but, including all of these and a few others who I cannot think of at the moment, none rose to the level of “too mean” for an organization called the Iron Coffins.  This Plott must be someone truly special to be that mean and maintain the loyalty of his friend DeTulio, who he left to take the murder rap for him.

DeTulio completed the interview by describing how he had been beaten up in the jailhouse after his story hit the news and then, as if nothing had happened, he, “popped open his blue jumpsuit to reveal a swastika tattooed on his chest. He said talking to a reporter would get him killed. I don't care," he said. "I still believe in my race.”

These people want to exterminate us blinks.  Hopefully, their obvious stupidity will keep them from succeeding.  Plott, the leader, demonstrated some common sense by trying to stick DeTulio with the rap but he got caught anyway.  DeTulio seems so stupid that, after taking a jailhouse beating, he tempts fate by showing off his swastika tattoo.

As this event happened so close to my home and because this particular group, a spin-off of the Arian Nation, has numerous members in Florida, my shopping list now definitely includes that Mossberg M9 with the halogen blinding light affixed atop it.  If the Nazi who comes after me is loaded on whiskey, Xanax and pot, I think my chances of taking him out increase dramatically.  Sorry skinheads, I’m still willing to shoot it out anytime you care to come for me, one of my blink brothers or sisters or any other person you dislike.  If I have a weapon, I’ll go down just to take some of you guys out of the breeding pool.

(I will not attack any white supremacist who simply delivers his hate literature in a peaceful manner.  I hold that as free speech and accept that all ideas deserve the right to dissemination.  I do not think my using a shotgun against these lunkheads is incongruent with my pacifist beliefs.  I will only take action in self defense or to defend the life of a neighbor threatened by one of these truly evil people.  If they just hang out in their clubhouses, swear allegiance to their race and get drunk and high, so be it.  It makes these evil bastards look a bit like Bevis and Butthead but, intellectually, they don’t reach even the level of a pair of heavy metal cartoon dudes.)

Afterward

I’m still looking for ideas for a smart house for blinks, please send in your concepts and, hopefully, we can make them a reality.

As for the question as to whether our proposal will be published.  The answer is yes because it is a proposal for a Federal grant and sunshine laws require that all such proposals be open for public viewing, it will show up that way.  Because the vision component is a small component of a very large proposal, though, I will probably do an article either for Blind Confidential or a more reputable publication about the concepts we’re proposing which will likely be of greater interest to a blind audience as it will leave out the pan-disability stuff as well as all of the language which is required in a grant proposal but reads like the phone book but even less interesting.