‘Criminal subculture’ follows ex-convicts, hard to escape

James Todd Sapp: a recap

James Todd Sapp, a convicted felon who claims ties to a white supremacist group, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree attempted murder, first-degree robbery and unlawful possession of a firearm after allegedly shooting Officer Dustin Goudschaal (below) during a traffic stop Monday. Sapp remains in the Clark County Jail on $10 million bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday. Goudschaal, part of Vancouver Police Department’s motorcycle unit, continues to recover at home.

The Portland-Vancouver area is a mixed bag for hard-core racists and violent white supremacists looking to get organized, if online discussions posted at sites such as Stormfront are any indication. Those discussions tend to bemoan the difficulty of finding like-minded people; they also betray ideological squabbling and name-calling over who truly grasps the white power picture.

Here’s a typical April 2014 post: “Being a skin, Portland was pretty high up on my list of places to move, but after going up there a couple times, I couldn’t wait to leave, it was full of non-Whites in almost every part of the city I went.”

May 2014: “Are whites even waking up? Here in Portland no one seems aware of anything.”

“I’ve been around a while and seen various groups come and go in Portland, and across the river in Vancouver,” another April 2014 post says. “(T)he punks, hard-core kids and people around Portland are insanely leftist.”

Randy Blazak, a sociologist and criminologist who teaches at Portland State University, said hatred of authority and gang membership may be among many factors driving the criminal behavior of convicted felons such as James Todd Sapp, who was arrested on suspicion of shooting a Vancouver police officer during a traffic stop Monday.

According to police reports, Sapp, 48, claimed to have joined the Aryan Brotherhood, a white prison gang, during an earlier stretch behind bars.

But the whole picture is far more complex than that, Blazak said.

People who get out of prison are more or less still living in prison, Blazak said. They have to “check the box,” he said — that is, on job and rental housing applications they are required to fess up to criminal convictions. Landlords, employers and nonprofit agencies have every right to turn them down. They’re stuck at the fringes of society with few options.

“Those guys, no matter what their background, have the cards stacked against them. It’s hard to find a job or a place to live,” Blazak said. “That keeps those people in the subculture of the criminal world. You’re still in prison even when you’re out.”

During the peak of the war on drugs and mandatory sentencing guidelines, he said, American prisons filled up with minorities. “We were pretty vigorous about putting people away, just locking them up. Incarceration rates quadrupled. But 95 percent of those guys walk out one day,” Blazak said.

Not before they’re faced with life on the inside, though. And white offenders who find themselves in the minority in prison — where ethnic gangs are in control — may well join white gangs such as the Aryan Brotherhood for protection, Blazak said.

“It’s a protection racket,” Blazak said. “They’ll protect you, but there’s a price to pay. Nothing is free in prison. You’re going to have to pay it back, either while you’re in the joint or after being released. You don’t leave prison politics behind. It follows you onto the street” where, among your other challenges, there may be other ex-inmates who remain gangsters, whether friends or foes.

Blazak said he applied for a grant to help white ex-prisoners tolerate a multicolored world — called the LIDS program, for Living In Diverse Society — but the grant wasn’t funded.

“Yeah, $50,000 to help white guys not be racist,” was the reaction, he said with a chuckle. “We’re trying to rethink that one in a way that works for funders.”

Staying stealthy

“Portland, Oregon use to be the skinhead capitol of the US. Up until the Seraw death in 1988. Then all the protests started,” says one posting from January 2014. “There is no East Side White Pride or PUSH (Portland United Skinheads) anymore!”

Mulugeta Seraw was a college student from Ethiopia who was murdered by three skinheads in Southeast Portland in 1988. The crime became infamous, and the legal fallout a bellwether; even after the arrest of the perpetrators, civil rights groups successfully sued idealogue Tom Metzger of the White Aryan Resistance for inspiring the murder, and won millions for the Seraw family. Meanwhile there were mass protests against racism and violence in Portland.

Search for White Aryan Resistance online today and you’re directed to a website called The Insurgent. It’s topped with a warning about getting formally organized: “Membership groups have become as obsolete as WWII aircraft carriers, making excellent targets.” Whereas The Insurgent is a “stealth submarine,” it says.

James Todd Sapp may claim “membership” in the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood — and police have said he does sport a large swastika tattoo and the words “White Pride” across his lower back — but it’s impossible to say whether that network of prison gangs claims him back. Law enforcement reportedly believes the Aryan Brotherhood has infiltrated most federal and state prisons in the country.

If Sapp’s claim was boast rather than fact, Blazak said, “the real guys are going to have some words with him, to say the least,” if and when he meets them in prison.

Kim Kapp, spokeswoman for the Vancouver Police Department, wouldn’t comment on white supremacist and hate group groups in Vancouver while the investigation of Monday’s shooting is underway. Police in Portland didn’t return a call from The Columbian. Neither did the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks and fights racist organizations; SPLC’s interactive “hate map” does list 10 groups in different Washington state locations, including one in Vancouver, but without any detailed information.

Staying vigilant

Ayn Sandalo Dietrich, a public affairs officer with the FBI in Seattle, said information about hate groups and trends amounts to “intelligence that isn’t something we can share. If we’re trying to monitor or take down an organization, our intelligence gathering is going to be classified.”

But, Dietrich pointed out, lone actors with extreme beliefs often don’t communicate nor coordinate with anybody else. She mentioned the attempted 2011 bombing of a Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane by a single person, acting alone.

“That’s what’s terrifying about the climate today: Whether it’s a hateful attitude, a ‘Sovereign Citizen’ agenda, or just downright crankiness, we’ve seen individuals who’ve concocted violent plans on their own. It makes it difficult to detect them. They might not have told their roommate or their friends online,” she said.

“That’s why law enforcement at all levels is being extremely vigilant. Suspicious behaviors might be our only indications of somebody planning something. The public really is our best eyes and ears.”