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From 2019 to 2020, the Anti-Defamation League tracked 193 incidents of hate, extremism and anti-Semitism in Connecticut, ranging from a July 2020 murder in Hartford in which the accused, Jerry David Thompson, claimed to belong toan extremist movement thatbelieves the government has no authority, to putting up fliers and disseminating propaganda.

Last year, ADL reported the highest level of white supremacist propagandacirculated in the U.S. in at least a decade, and reader Gary Trahan asked ifthere are active white supremacist or domestic extremist groups in the region and Connecticut. That question received the most votes in the latest round ofThe Day's CuriousCT feature.

The "biggest perpetrator" of propaganda distribution in Connecticut is the alt-right group Patriot Front,said Steve Ginsburg, director of the ADL's Connecticut office. In one incident reported by ADL on Dec. 31, 2020, Patriot Front distributed propaganda in Jewett City that read: "One nation against invasion," "America is not for sale," "Not stolen conquered" and "Life of our nation. Liberty of our people. Victory of the American spirit."

Ginsburg said the ADL also has reported activities by Connecticut members of the Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, both anti-government extremist groups thatare part of the militia movement.

Earlier this year, a group that identified itself as the far-right, male-only extremist group the Proud Boys attempted to donate more than 500 pounds of food to the nonprofit Hands On Hartford.

Related story: Sub base hits pause to talk about extremism in the ranks

ADL determines someone as "actively" involved in a hate group if they spread the group's ideology or help recruit new members, among other actions. While historically these groups convened in person, "now we are at a point where they can be sitting in basements and identifying themselves as part of these groups," Ginsburg said.

That makes it difficult"to know real total numbers," he said.

The actions taken by these groups and their members are not always violent, Ginsburg said, though those are the incidents ADL is most concerned about. Being active could mean planning a "banner drop" over a highway or a peaceful protest, he said.

"Our main point of concern is violence across the spectrum," Ginsburg said. "Most of the violence comes from white supremacist and what is called right-wing ideology."

Hate crimes in the U.S. rose to the highest level in more than a decade, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported last year.

The FBI also has seen a rise in domestic extremism nationwide in recent years, said Supervisory Special Agent Marcus Clark with the agency's New Haven division.

"On the domestic terrorism side, there's been anevolution away from the large group conspiracies that people often think of toward more of a lone offender attack without any clear affiliation to a group," Clark said."That makes it more difficult for us toidentifyand disrupt."

The agency relies on its partners, including state and local law enforcement agencies, and even nongovernment organizations and community groups, to help share information about suspected domestic extremists.

The internet and social media have helped to radicalize domestic terrorists, Clark said, given the speed and reach with which their messages and ideology can be disseminated online.

In Connecticut, Senate Democrats are seeking to create a new department within the state police focused on combating hate crimes and violent right-wing extremism.

Some of the perpetrators, but not all,involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol are accused of having ties to or expressing support for hate groups and antigovernment militias.

Ginsburg contrasted those involved in the Jan. 6 attack with participants in the "Unite the Right" rally that occurred in August 2017 in Charlottesville, Va., which was "almost purely a convening of extremists."

"That's what it was marketed as. That's who it appealed to," he said. "Even before they started marching, ADL shared with law enforcement half the people who were coming because we knew them because we follow these extremist groups."

ADL's investigators knew only a "small portion" of those involved in the Capitol attack, he said.

"A lot of them are not extremists. The question is: Did January 6 start a new type of extremist ideology called 'I'm just going to believe in Donald Trump'?" Ginsburg said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

j.bergman@theday.com

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Are there active hate groups in Connecticut? - News from southeastern Connecticut - theday.com

As the U.S. grapples with domestic extremism in the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, warnings about more violence are coming from the FBI Director Chris Wray and others. The Conversation asked Matthew Valasik, a sociologist at Louisiana State University, and Shannon E. Reid, a criminologist at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, to explain what right-wing extremist groups in the U.S. are doing. The scholars are co-authors of Alt-Right Gangs: A Hazy Shade of White, published in September 2020; they track the activities of far-right groups like the Proud Boys.What are U.S. extremist groups doing since the Jan. 6 riot?Local chapters of the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Groypers and others are breaking away from their groups national figureheads. For instance, some local Proud Boys chapters have been explicitly cutting ties with national leader Enrique Tarrio, the groups chairman.Tarrio was arrested on federal weapons charges in the days before the insurrection, but he has also been revealed as a longtime FBI informant. He reportedly aided authorities in a variety of criminal cases, including those involving drug sales, gambling and human smuggling though he has not yet been connected with cases against Proud Boys members.When a leader of a far-right group or street gang leaves, regardless of the reason, it is common for a struggle to emerge among remaining members who seek to consolidate power. That can result in violence spilling over into the community as groups attempt to reshape themselves.While some of the splinter Proud Boys chapters will likely maintain the Proud Boys brand, at least for the time being, others may evolve and become more radicalized. The Base, a neo-Nazi terror group, has recruited from among the ranks of Proud Boys. As the Proud Boys sheds affiliates, it would not be surprising for those with more enthusiasm about hateful activism to seek out more extreme groups. Less committed groups will wither away.How does that response compare with what happened after 2017s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville?Neither the Capitol insurrection nor the Charlottesville rally produced the response from mainstream America that far-right groups had hoped for. Rather than rising up in a groundswell of support, most Americans were appalled some so much that they have abandoned the Republican Party.Additionally, right-wingers have been hit hard by the post-insurrection actions by large technology companies like Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Google and Amazon. They took down far-right group members accounts and removed right-wing social media platforms, including permanently blacklisting Donald Trumps Twitter account and temporarily blocking all traffic to Parler, a conservative social media platform. Those steps are more significant than earlier moderation and algorithm changes those companies had undertaken in previous efforts to curb online extremism.Another major difference is the lack of regret. Nobody on the right wanted to be associated with Charlottesville after it happened. Figureheads of the far right who had initially promoted that rally saw the negative public reaction and distanced themselves, even condemning the Unite the Right rally.After the insurrection at the Capitol, their response was different. They did not split and blame other right-wing groups. Instead, conservative and extreme-right circles have united behind a false claim that they did nothing wrong, and alleged, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that left-wing activists assaulted the Capitol while disguised as right-wingers.Are extremist groups attracting new members?Some members have left extremist groups in the wake of the Jan. 6 violence. The members who remain, and the new members they are attracting, are increasing the radicalization of far-right groups. As the less committed members abandon these far-right groups, only the more devout remain. Such a shift is going to alter the subculture of these groups, driving them farther to the right. We expect this polarization will only accelerate the reactionary behaviors and extremist tendencies of these far-right groups.Right-wing pundits and conservative media are continuing to stoke fears about the Biden administration. We and other observers of right-wing groups expect that extremists will come to see the events of Jan. 6 as just the opening skirmish in a modern civil war. We anticipate they will continue to seek an end to American democracy and the beginning of a new society free or even purged of groups the right wing fears, including immigrants, Jewish people, nonwhites, LGBTQ people and those who value multiculturalism.We expect that these groups will continue to shift more and more to the extreme right, posing risks for acts of violence both large and small.Have far-right extremists views toward the police changed?With a Democratic administration and attorney general, the far right will no longer view federal law enforcement agencies as friendly, the way they did under the Trump administration. Rather, they view the police as the enemy.Even before Joe Biden took office and the Republicans officially lost control of the U.S. Senate, the Capitol riot showed this divide between right-wing extremists and police. A Capitol Police officer was assaulted with a flagpole bearing an American flag, and some members of the mob were police officers and military personnel. Many more were military veterans.Its not clear what this different view of law enforcement means for police officers, active-duty military and veterans who are members of right-wing groups. But we anticipate that only those who are most zealously committed to far-right causes will remain active. That, in turn, will push those groups even farther to the extreme right.Has anything changed for militias since Biden has become president?In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning about the growing membership in far-right groups, including their active recruitment of military veterans. Shortly after the report was released, Republicans in Congress pushed for the report to be retracted and for dramatically reducing the federal effort to monitor far-right groups in the U.S. This permissive atmosphere allowed far-right groups to grow and spread nationwide.The Trump administration further served far-right groups by failing to pay out federal grants for grassroots counterviolence programs, by refusing to help local law enforcement agencies with equipment or training to deal with these groups, and by routinely downplaying the violence perpetrated by these white power groups. Essentially, far-right groups were unpoliced for the past decade or more.But that approach has ended. Merrick Garlands appointment as Bidens attorney general is a big signal: In his career at the Department of Justice before becoming a federal judge, Garland supervised the investigations of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing.These were two of the most noteworthy acts of far-right domestic terrorism in the nations history. Garland has said that he will make fighting right-wing violence and attacks on democracy major priorities of his tenure at the head of the Justice Department.In January, Canada designated the Proud Boys and other right-wing groups as terrorist organizations, which puts pressure on U.S. law enforcement to reconsider how they evaluate, investigate and prosecute these extremist groups. Beyond law enforcements treating these far-right groups like street gangs, there are also laws in place to combat violence associated with domestic terrorism.It appears that U.S. prosecutors may finally begin to take seriously the violent actions of Proud Boys, especially as more and more members are being charged with coordinating the breach of the U.S. Capitol Building.But as police power comes to bear on these violent right-wing groups, many of their members remain at least as radicalized as they were on Jan. 6 if not more so. Some may feel that more extreme measures are needed to resist the Biden administration.The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.

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Commentary: After the insurrection, America's far-right groups get more extreme - pressherald.com

Footage of the January 6 Capitol insurrection revealed hundreds of references to 1776in signs and in speeches, on t-shirts and hats and stickers. 1776 was chanted in the Capitol halls by leading figures within the so-called alt-right, including some who had also participated in the racist riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, and by those who believed themselves participants in the dawn of the next American revolution. The Proud Boys, too, cite this date; they sell their merch through a store called 1776.

We are researchers of media manipulation and disinformation at the Harvard Kennedy Schools Shorenstein Center, and we wanted to know more about how 1776 became the battle cry of the insurrection. Our research reveals that the popularity of 1776 owes in part to keyword squattinga tactic by which right-wing media have dominated the keywords 1619 and critical race theory and enabled a racialized disinformation campaign, waged by Trump and his acolytes, against Black civil rights gains.

1776 on Google Trends. Screenshot via authors.

According to Google trends data for the past five years, 1776 showed an annual spike around July 4. But after the publication of The 1619 Project, the New York Times journalistic series that tells the history of Black Americans role in creating the nation, 1776 became a popular conservative rejoinder. In September 2020, Trump formed the 1776 Commission to support what he termed patriotic education. (The commission was part of a series of racist retaliations against Black civil rights organizing and educators pledging to teach a more comprehensive, diverse, and inclusive US history; Trump later signed an executive order banning critical race theory from federally funded organizations.) When he announced the commission, Trump explicitly targeted critical race theory and the 1619 Project, calling both toxic propagandaideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together.

On January 18, 2021Martin Luther King Jr. DayTrump released The 1776 Report, a long screed meant to wipe away academic and journalistic efforts to reconcile Americans history of violence, displacement, and racial and ethnic trauma. The report recast the racist roots of American education; for instance, in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan promoted a public-school curriculum that emphasized Americanizing all foreignersan effort, in part, to prevent Catholics and immigrant groups from establishing their own schools and curricula in non-English languages. Klan members ran successfully for school board positions across the country, popularizing the slogan of America Firsta phrase which, coincidentally, featured prominently at this years Conservative Political Action Conference, and appears in the name of a far-right political action conference. The report fizzled in the wake of the Capitol riot; still, its an exemplary piece of racialized disinformation that claims to identify problems with contemporary American education, but often espouses color-blind racism by minimizing how racial inequalities shape educational outcomes in the US.

So, why was Trump so invested in retaliating against the 1619 Project? The project unsettled the education systems dominant narratives. It pieced together the history of slavery in the US from the perspective of those who were enslaved. It brought into the present day the continuing consequences of slavery as well as the contributions of Black Americans over a 400-year period. It also offered a damning critique of whiteness as a social constructone whose scope, over time, has broadened to include Germans, Greeks, Irish, Italians, and Spaniards to maintain structural barriers that keep power concentrated in the hands of a few. Teachers became excited about using materials from the project in their classrooms and began sharing curriculum online; recently, the Pulitzer Center announced a program called the 1619 Project Education Network to train educators in media literacy and racial justice.

For the right-wing, criticizing the project became a cause clbre, taken up by figures like New York Times Opinion columnist Bret Stephens, who termed 1619 a failed project, and Newt Gingrich, who remarked, during a Fox and Friends interview, The whole project is a lie. Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Times journalist who conceived of the project, endured racist harassment and death threats across social media.

As researchers, we wanted to assess the pervasiveness and tactics of racialized disinformation. Using Media Cloud, a tool created by MIT and Harvard for analyzing news, we compared coverage of 1619 by right-wing media (including The Federalist, Fox News, Daily Wire, and the National Review, among others) and left-wing media (including The Root, Daily Kos, Salon, and The Grio, among others) in the US. According to our analysis, right-wing media wrote nearly three times as frequently about 1619 than the left-wing media did. Similarly, between September 2020 and February 2021, right-wing media covered critical race theory twice as frequently as left-wing media. This asymmetrical coverage is indicative of keyword squatting, a networked propaganda strategy that ensures the counter viewpoint is steadfastly tethered to these keywords across a range of platformsincluding Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, and especially on the front page of Google Search.

Keyword squattingdefined by the Media Manipulation Casebook as the practice of creating online contentaround a specific search-engine-optimized term so as to dominate the search results of that termhas been leveraged by right-wing media to extend the duration of attention to propaganda campaigns, including those linked to controversial keywords like antifa or the caravan. And it works: Googles top news stories on critical race theory reflect ongoing bombastic headlines, like Chinese Americans mobilize against critical race theory, from Fox News, or Critical Race Theory is Indoctrination, not History, from Real Clear Politics. Likewise, searching for 1619 on YouTube returns a video from conservative outlet PragerU titled, Whats wrong with the 1619 project?

Media Cloud analysis of 1619 coverage. Screenshot via authors.

Media Cloud analysis of Critical Race Theory coverage. Screenshot via authors.

Had Trump won reelection, his 1776 Report would have been called up by conservatives as an authoritative source on Americas foundingas if the thousands of history books, written from the perspectives of white people, were not enough. Instead, Trump lost the election. Within hours of taking office, Bidens team removed the 1776 Report from the active White House website. (It remains on the archived site of the Trump administration.) In search engines, the report has been buried by the American Historical Associations statement of condemnation.

Count this as a temporary win. It is not possible for our nation to move forward without repairing the damage of a history erased by slavery and denied by those who seek to rewrite US history. What makes a nation strong is not its ability to tell a unified story of its founding, but rather its efforts to grapple with the sum of us, so that we may forge our collective identity through self-determinationand so that we may realize our highest moral duty to fix this divided house.

ICYMI: What the pandemic means for paywalls

TOP IMAGE: Outside the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo

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How a racialized disinformation campaign ties itself to The 1619 Project - Columbia Journalism Review

The Southern Poverty Law Center says there are 68 known hate groups active in Florida. That's only four less than California, which has twice the population. Of them, 47 are White supremacy groups, like those involved in the insurrection at the U.S Capitol in January.

Extremism in Florida, however, isn't confined to one ideology. The center says 21 of the hate groups involve Black separatists.

Most of the White supremacist groups existed deep in the shadows until January's insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Scott Ernest was intimately familiar with these white supremacy groups now in the national spotlight.

He was a student at the University of South Florida when he moved to Montana 10 years ago, lured by a group that wanted to create a whites-only community. There, he was a moderator for Stormfront, a discussion board for white nationalists and the alt-right.

At one point, the West Palm Beach group had more than 300,000 members.

"As someone who actually recruited for it and ran a hate group that was on that map that was just taken off this year because it's dead," he said.

ALSO READ: These Are The Floridians Among Those Facing Charges In The Capitol Siege

Ernest left the movement several years ago because he identifies as LGBT, something that didn't exactly mesh with the beliefs of most people in that group. He says the final straw was when one of the white nationalists he was working with was arrested for threatening to shoot local school children.

"That was my own personal Capitol insurrection," Ernest said. "That was where I kind of realized I'm not on the right path here. And I do see other people having that very same thing."

Today, Ernest splits his time between Montana and Florida, trying to lead people out of the wilderness of hate.

Lori Hall is a professor specializing in race-based hate groups at the University of South Florida's St. Petersburg campus. She says the number of groups in Florida are growing slightly, and existing groups are gaining members.

"It's not that it's not occurring other places," Hall said. "It's that we're not seeing it other places as much as we're seeing it here. And there's a lot more movement in Florida for various reasons whether that be tourism, whether that be Southern culture, whether that be because we're a Republican state."

She says the Sunshine State is home to White supremacist groups such as the KKK, Proud Boys and Neo-Nazis, racist skinhead groups and neo-Confederates. It's also home to Black separatist movements such as the Nation of Islam and the New Black Panther Party.

Sicarii 1715 is a San Diego-based anti-Semitic and racist fringe religious group whose followers believe that Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans are the true descendants of the 12 Tribes of Israel.

Of Florida's 68 hate groups identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center, 14 are statewide. The rest are groups with chapters, nestled in urban, suburban and rural communities.

Hall says the members come from all walks of life.

"They're lawyers and they're construction workers and they're all of these different people that hold power within society, and they're making decisions about other people based on their bigoted beliefs," she said.

"That is the invisible harm that occurs," Hall said. "The things that we see visibly we can understand and we can quantify. But the things that we don't see are where the real harm and the perpetuation of inequality occurs."

One of those people, Kelly Meggs of Dunnellon, heads the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers. It's a militia composed of current and former military, police, and first responders and are considered white supremacists. Meggs, his wife and another man from Englewood were charged with domestic terrorism in February for storming the U.S. Capitol.

There's also Sharkhunters International, a southwest Florida group that organizes tours to sites that were historically important to the Third Reich. And the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division came to light in 2017 when one of their former members was accused in a double murder in Tampa.

Because of our First Amendment rights of freedom of expression, the U.S. is one of the few developed countries that doesn't outlaw hate groups.

Radicalization, she says, occurs in different ways for different people.

"Some people hold these beliefs, and they go out looking for solace and they find it," Hall said. "Then, there are some people who lack education on topics, and they go out looking for education, and they find it in the wrong places. And then, they get kind of what we call infiltrated. Their mind starts to get all of the same imagery and the same messages and they buy into this, and they become radicalized."

While Hall says the numbers of groups in Florida is growing, Scott Ernest believes acts like the Capitol insurrection are a lashing out from what he describes as a "last gasp."

"I don't see the movement as growing," Ernest said. "A lot of what I'm seeing right now like the Capitol breach it's the last gasp of a dying movement. They know that people are moving on from hate. People are becoming more tolerant."

But when people think they're backed into a corner, they lash out. Ernest says we can expect more outbursts like the Capitol insurrection as they perceive their movement to be weakening.

"Just like Trump lashing out, it was a very similar situation, whereas Trump's ideology is a dying ideology. So he lashes out. And because he lashes out, his cultists lash out also," he said. "And that's just what's been happening in Florida, that's what's happening all over the place."

But Ernest believes there will be a time when these hate groups will become so marginalized that we'll see fewer organized marches like in Charlottesville, for instance, and more acts of violence.

He says hearing a lot lately from people want to escape the cauldron of never-ending hate, They're reaching out to his group called Hands of Eir. It's named after a Norse goddess who heals people.

"You know, sometimes they're not necessarily trying to have big changes in their lives. Sometimes, they just want to do things better," Ernest said.

"A lot of them are probably ones that they may be racist themselves, but they prefer the dog whistles, rather than the outright racism. I think that there have also been people that have woken up after the insurrection and have basically decided, hey, I need to change," he said.

"Yeah, we've been getting quite a few. It's been crazy."

Ernest says he's helping people turn their lives around, one person at a time.

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Florida Is Home To Second-Most Hate Groups In The U.S. A Former Member Explains Why - WJCT NEWS

Authorities investigating the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol say two extremist groups that traveled to Washington along with thousands of other Trump supporters weren't whipped into an impulsive frenzy by President Donald Trump. (March 10) AP Domestic

Government documents leading to the arrest of an East Naples man linked to violence at the U.S. Capitolclaim heis a memberof the far-right group, theProud Boys.

Christopher Worrell, 49, was arrested after FBI agents executed asearch and arrest warrant by 6 a.m. Friday in the 200 block of Stanhope Circle, according to the FBI.

In a statement of facts filed in courtby an unidentified FBI officer who is assigned to the Fort Myers Resident Agency of the Tampa Field Office, the officer outlines his probable cause to charge Worrell in a Jan. 6 incident in Washington, D.C.

More: East Naples arrest could have connection to Capitol Riots and Proud Boys. Here's what we know

More: FBI: Man arrested at East Naples home in connection with Capitol riot

Read: 'Zip tie guy' Eric Gavelek Munchel charged in connection to Capitol invasion has ties to Lee County

The officer states that Worrell violated multiple laws including:

entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority,

knowingly and with intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business,

knowingly engaged in any act of physical violence against a person or property in any restricted building or grounds,

used orcarried a deadly or dangerous weapon in relation to his violations,

willfully and knowingly uttered loud, threatening or abusive language, or engaged in disorderly conduct at any place in the grounds or in any Capitol Buildings with the intent to impede, disrupt or disturb the session of Congress or either House of Congress.

On Jan. 13, a tipster contacted the FBI to report that they believed Worrell traveled to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, and potentially participated in the riot. The details are included in the FBI statement of facts a federal magistratesigned March 10.

Christopher Worrell of East Naples at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a photo included in an FBI statement of facts a federal magistrate signed March 10, 2021.(Photo: Photo courtesy of the FBI)

The tipster said they are an acquaintance of Worrell's live-in girlfriend.

During a raid Friday, FBI agents arrested Worrell at a home owned byTrish Priller. Worrell's Facebook Page says he and Priller are in a relationship.

Priller, who declined comment Saturday, isan executive assistant at the Naples Daily News. As of Saturday, Priller'ssupervisors could not be reached for comment.

In the report, Priller is not identified, but thetipster saidthe girlfriend told them that Worrell is a Proud Boy and that she and Worrell went to Washington, D.C., to be there on Jan. 6, according to the statement of facts.

The tipster also told the FBI that they had seen a video on Worrell's Facebook page that showed him participating in the riots.

On Jan. 18, the officer interviewed Worrell and askedif he had participated in the U.S. Capitol riots. The report indicated he was agitated that the FBI was at his house, but admitted that he was at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Hedenied entering the Capitol building and denied criminal conduct.

He also was agitated when asked about the Proud Boys, stating, "the Proud Boys were not a racist white supremacist group like the media tries to portray."

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The Proud boys were established in 2016 and "are self-described 'Western chauvinists'who adamantly deny any connection to the racist 'alt-right.'They insist they are simply a fraternal group spreading an 'anti-political correctness'and 'anti-white guilt'agenda," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

As of Feb. 3, USAToday reported six people charged for their involvement in the Capitol riots were linked to the Proud Boys, stating they arean extremist group with ties to white nationalism.

The investigator also found images of Worrell on various Twitter accounts, but noted he does not know the credibility of the information posted on the account.

In some of those photos, Worrell wears what looks to be a Proud Boys patch on his tactical vest, which appears to be the same vest he wore at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, the statement of facts states.

Worrell was also identified in multiple images and videos showing the events of Jan. 6, and placing him within the restricted area.

In those images it shows Worrell with a canister clipped to his vest that appears to match paper spray gel and is later seen in a photo spraying a substance from a canister.

It is not certain who the target was that Worrell was spraying, but in other photos and videos from that time of day, law enforcement officers are positioned where he appears to direct the pepper spray, according to the statement of facts.

As of Saturday, Worrell's attorney could not be reached for comment.

Worrell on Friday appeared in federal court, where a judge in the Middle District of Florida ordered him released. The Justice Department appealed and a chief judge in Washington, D.C., federal courttemporarily halted his release pending further review.

A videoconference hearing to determine whether to release Worrell is set for 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.

In 2009, Worrell was arrested for impersonating an officer after he followed and pulled up toa woman onU.S. 41 East and Guilford Road in East Naples trying to get her to pull over for running a red light, according to his arrest report.

He had a loaded handgun, handcuffs, knives, boxes of ammunitionand a fake badge in his possession when deputies arrested him.

In May 2010, Worrell was sentenced to three years probation and two years of community control for his charge of impersonating a law enforcement officer.

Read or Share this story: https://www.naplesnews.com/story/news/crime/2021/03/13/capitol-riot-east-naples-man-arrested-involvement-believed-proud-boy/4679842001/

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East Naples man arrested for involvement in Capitol riot believed to be 'Proud Boy' - Naples Daily News