WINONA, Minn. – The Cotter Schools neighborhood has been hit with anonymous and somewhat obscure messages from white supremacists. Police learned of one packet outside the Winona Arts Conservatory at the Cotter campus and then another nearby. A third turned up on the East End. It was believed more zip baggies were dropped around town — and likely thrown away unopened by people clearing trash from their lawns. The baggies contained birdseed apparently to weigh them down to prevent them from blowing away. “No one appears to be targeted and it all seems to be random,” said police spokesperson Nick Quimby. He said that investigators had found an online post on the Winona MN Community Group site with a photo of half a dozen zip baggies in a pile with the Aryan Freedom Network message. Quimby said there were no explicit indicators of anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant or anti-Catholic sentiments. “Currently we have no leads on who is littering them in the neighborhoods,” he said. For now, he said, police have not elevated the investigation to taking fingerprints or reporting the indents to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Who can join. Must be 100% of White European ancestry: Nordic, Slavic, Mediterranean, Celtic or Germanic. Must be 18. Must have high School diploma or equivalent. Unlike KKK and some hate groips, AFN invites Catholics to jon. Among those unacceptable: Islamists, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists
Aryan Freedom Network profile
The Aryan Freedom Network is an upstart neo-Nazi group founded in 2018 and based in DeKalb Texas, population 1,500 and 35 miles west of Texarkana. The group’s membership is not known but is dsrbed on the AFN online sit as as “small but growing” with cells in 25 states. AFN claims “hardline white supremacist views” and directs its self-proclaimed “vitriol” at Jews, Blacks and gays. In 2023, the group launched a $150,000 crowd-funding campaign to construct a white supremacist museum and venue to host pro-white events.
Totenkopf logo
“Totenkopf” is German for “death’s head” — a skull-and-crossbones image. The image was used by Hitler’s Totenkopfverbande SS branch in the 1930s and 1940s was to guard Nazi concentration camps. After World War II neo-Nazis and other white supremacists resurrected the Totenkopf as a hate symbol, usually with acorns and oak leaves to convey willingness to defend white racial purity.
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For family memory albums? Unsavory or not, everyone poses for group photos at Aryan Freedom Network gatherings. Faces blotted.
KKK links
The pioneering Anti- Defamation League has assembled ta biography if Aryan Freedom Network. The bio says that AFN is led by Tonia Sue Berry (a.k.a. Daisy Barr) and Dalton Henry Stout (a.k.a. Brother Henry). Berry’s father was the late Indiana Ku Klux Klan wizard Jeff Berry. Her brother, was Anthony Berry, the Indiana state grand dragon. He was a speaker at the 2018 Arklatex White Unity Conference organized by Stout. AFN is the latest white supremacist group created by Stout. Prior to 2018, Stout led the White Knights of Texas and organized the Texas State Skinheads. He registered a web domain name now used by Aryan Freedom Network