Neo-Nazi Troll Calls For ‘Flash Mobs’ Targeting Jews And Blacks During Richard Spencer Speech

Andrew Anglin

By Sam Kestenbaum October 19, 2017

The Neo-Nazi site the Daily Stormer is encouraging flash mobs at minority and Jewish institutions near University of Florida to coincide with a scheduled speech by white nationalist Richard Spencer later today.

Among the addresses posted by the neo-Nazi site were the local Chabad Center and the Institute of Black Culture.

“The entire campus is going to be crawling with security and cops,” the post, written by the site’s publisher Andrew Anglin, reads. The post is meant for those who are unable to actually attend Spencer’s speech.

“The point is to confuse the situation and to create public attention, to make it feel like the entire city is taken over by our guys,” Anglin wrote. “Flash demo should be ten minutes, tops.”

The University of Florida’s president has urged students to neither attend the event nor protest. Some campus groups are holding alternative events to coincide with the event, including the local Hillel, which is providing a “safe space” with security during the speech.

“This type of activity is dangerous,” the Anti-Defamation League wrote on Twitter alongside screenshots of Anglin’s call for flash mobs. “We encourage people to avoid this event all together. Showing up will only play into their hands.”

By 12:00pm, Anglin’s post had been removed. Anglin is known for his over-the-top provocation and mounting online “troll storms” against those he sees as enemies, but does not organize any real-world rallies or events. Last year, Anglin boasted of how he would organize an armed march in Montana, in part to target the Jewish community there, but failed to get a permit.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at kestenbaum@forward.com and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount