Orangevale man accused of leading online white supremacist group devoted to Dylann Roof
An Orangevale man who has reportedly led a secret online life as leader of a neo-Nazi movement that idolizes church shooter Dylann Roof is under investigation by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office in connection with racist graffiti and had a firearm seized earlier this month over fears that he might become a “lone wolf” attacker, court records say.
Andrew Richard Casarez, 27, has been under investigation since December ”regarding graffiti which appeared to be motivated by hate/race” and became the subject of an emergency gun violence protective order after an online website identified him as an online poster in white supremacy sites known as “Vic Mackey,” the purported leader of a group known as the “Bowl Patrol.”
“The ‘Bowl Patrol’ is an online group that endorses violence against minorities, they take their name from known domestic terrorist (Dylann) Roof who is known for killing 9 people at a prayer meeting in South Carolina,” according to a sheriff’s declaration filed in Sacramento Superior Court. “Roof is known in the white supremacists movement for having a ‘bowl cut haircut.’”
Casarez was first accused of being “Vic Mackey” by the website Anonymous Comrades Collective on July 7, which said an analysis of online posts by “Mackey” showed that “he inadvertently revealed numerous personal details about his location, family, employment, and education that would lead to his exposure.”
A Huffington Post investigation published last week also named Casarez as the author of the online posts by Mackey, a character in “The Shield” television series.
Court records show that the day after the Anonymous Comrades Collective post the Sheriff’s Office received information that Mackey had been identified as Casarez and that “looking into open source media it was found that Casarez was the leader of an online group known as the ‘Bowl Patrol.’”
Deputy: Potential for ‘lone wolf’ attack
The Sheriff’s Office declaration seeking seizure of Casarez’ handgun adds that “images recovered from the open source images found ideals for a violence against minorities and called for murder and rape of law enforcement and people of Jewish descent.”
The declaration by Sheriff’s Sgt. Nathaniel Grgich, a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, added that Casarez was looking to obtain materials to build an AR-15 that “would be unregistered and illegal in the state of California,” a weapon commonly referred to as a “ghost gun.”
“Based on my training and experience now that Casarez has been outed as a white supremacist and he has lost his anonymity there is a likelihood that he could become a ‘lone wolf’ attacker to prove his status to the cause,” according to the Grgich declaration, which is dated July 13.
Casarez could not be reached for comment; a phone message left at his parents’ home in Orangevale, where he lives, received no response.
Grgich wrote that detectives went to the Casarez home on July 7 but were told by his father “that if we wished to speak with Andrew we would have to go through his attorney, even though he had no known pending criminal charges.”
Court records show Sheriff’s Officials obtained a search warrant on July 13 and subsequently seized a black gun case with two empty magazines, a black shirt with “skull + crossbones w/ bowl cut printed on front and a 9 mm handgun.”
“The Sheriff’s Office has been investigating Andrew Casarez for about 3 weeks,” spokeswoman Sgt. Tess Deterding wrote in a message to The Sacramento Bee. “Detectives obtained a Gun Violence Restraining Order against him and served a search warrant at a residence ... where they seized a firearm.
“The investigation is continuing as we work with our federal and state partners.”
Boasts of connections to crimes
The Huffington Post investigation reported that Casarez, posting as “Mackey,” had “encouraged acts of domestic terror and called for violence against people of color.”
“On his podcast, he boasted about his alleged connection to Robert Bowers, who is charged with the deadly shooting of 11 people inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018,” the Huffington Post reported, adding that Casarez “has made a point to brag about real-world crimes in his area.”
“In 2017, synagogue Temple Or Rishon in Orangevale was defaced with more than a dozen posters praising Adolf Hitler, the white supremacist website Daily Stormer, and Roof, who murdered nine Black people in a Charleston, South Carolina, church in 2015,” the story reported. “Earlier this year, a newly opened Sikh temple in Orangevale was vandalized with a spray-painted swastika and the words ‘white power.’
“Casarez seemed particularly interested in the vandalism at the synagogue, posting a surveillance photo released by police that showed two white males with their faces covered approaching the building. Casarez had altered the image to give the two individuals bowl-style haircuts.”
The website reports say Casarez has worked as a restaurant manager and pizza delivery driver.
Court records indicate his only criminal record is a 2013 driving under the influence case in Sacramento that was resolved with a no contest plea to a misdemeanor charge and a 48-hour stint on the sheriff’s work project.
One scholar who has studied hate crimes for decades said the online character of “Vic Mackey” has been “one of the main purveyors of a type of accelerationism hate that glorifies, in particular, Dylann Roof, and he also maintains that he was in contact with Bowers, the Tree of Life killer.”
“Accelerationism is a broad movement across ideologies that wants to destroy society,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino. “He happens to be an accelerationist nazi. They’re kind of like anarchists. They just want to burn everything down.”
Hate groups hiding on private online platforms
Levin noted that his center had no independent information that Casarez was the individual posting as “Mackey,” but said white supremacists have in recent years moved online into hidden chat rooms rather than participate in Charlottesville-style rallies in the open where they can easily be identified.
“This is something we see routinely as antifacists and journalists expose Nazis living in plain sight,” Levin said. “In the past you used to go to a website, but now you go to smaller, more encrypted and more private platforms.
“A lot of the real action is taking place on these anonymous platforms where it’s really tough to see who the next terrorist is going to be because they’re not marching with swastika shields and racist signs.”
Sacramento has various exposures to hate crimes and white supremacist leaders, most notably the 1999 firebombings of three Sacramento-area synagogues by a pair of brothers from the Redding area who also killed a gay couple there.
In 2011, David Lynch, a nationally known skinhead leader and founder of the hate group American Front, was shot to death inside his Citrus Heights home.
And in 2016 a bloody confrontation at the state Capitol between neo-nazis and antifacist counterprotesters left five people stabbed and nine others injured.
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 8:18 AM.