Monthly: Jun 25 - MilitiaWatch

Greetings, MW reader! Here’s hoping your summer is off to a great start. Not to bring down the mood, but here’s another MW Monthly covering June 2025. This time, there are a few notable stories:

Texas militia members almost forgot the Alamo, didn’t
Vetbro Spec Ops/Super-Operator org may have caused NC emergency response panic, withdrawal
Cops keep covering their faces

In case you wanted to read the previous MW update, it covers two months and is here:

BiMonthly: Apr-May 25

Militia Shows in San Antonio, New Reporting On Helene Explains State Retreat

This is Texas Freedom Force and another non-state actor org make headlines

On June 14, members of the This is Texas Freedom Force (TITFF) militia showed in San Antonio to “Defend the Alamo” in response to planned local anti-ICE mobilizations. What unfolded was a chaotic scene involving a slew of armed TITFF members running among members of the protest. The mobilization coincided with San Antonio’s “No Kings” protest.

New reporting from the aftermath of the Hurricane Helene relief efforts (and militia counter-campaigns) reveals that North Carolina Emergency Medical Services executed their withdrawal from their field clinic at Big Creek Free Will Baptist Church after men claiming to be part of a nearby non-state actor asked their associates where they lay their heads at night. The leader of the group is claiming that the men who confronted emergency services were people posing as members of his network. The response to Helene was deeply difficult and was hindered by many loud and confrontational militia groups and cells of informal (and armed) dudes. Militia threats caused significant disruptions to both local and federal aid responses.

Police Continue to Look like Paras

Who can blame people for confusing their local authoritarians?

It is worth mentioning a noted spike in the observance of police officers and federal agents covering their faces with masks over the past few months, especially in the month of June. Last month, MW described confusion over ICE agents who either looked like well-known militia leaders, wore sketchy insignia, or began to look like “Secret Police” by wearing masks (New York Democratic Representative Dan Goldman even described their behavior as “Gestapo-Like”). A new bill in California and another in the US House seek to make law enforcement hiding faces against the law.

Tom Homan claims that ICE officers have been “doxxed by the thousands”, but offered no evidence to support his claims. Accountability towards individual officers and departments or agencies alike is extremely difficult under our current legal system, and agents obscuring their identities deeply inhibits an admittedly very weak lever for exercising power towards state accountability. It’s important to note that state crackdown feeds directly into right-wing revenge narratives, something well articulated by the SPLC’s Cassie Miller recently.

Other Updates:

J6er given life sentence, Jack Dawson probably should have let go of this dinner

On July 2, Judge Thomas A. Varland sentenced J6 participant Edward Kelley to life in prison after his November conviction for planning to murder federal employees and federal agents who worked to convict him for his role in the riot at the US Capitol Building. His co-conspirator, Austin Carter, previously pled guilty and will be sentenced in a month. The day before J6, Kelly wore a sweatshirt emblazoned with “TCAPP” (a reference to The Church at Planned Parenthood, an extremist group that recently had to pay nearly a million dollars in legal fees over their extended harassment campaigns). Several militia groups found a deep affinity for TCAPP throughout the last few years.

In a strange bit of celebrity news, Leonardo Di Caprio attended a dinner with Bruce Blakeman, who has been trying his best to set up a government-sanctioned militia in Nassau County.