Three Houston Area Richard Spencer Supporters Arrested For Attempted Murder

Richard Spencer, a white supremacist, gave a talk at Florida State University in Gainsville, and three men from Houston made the long road trip to see him speak. They aren't going to be coming back on their own, though. At least not for a while.

William Henry Fears, 30, of Pasadena, Texas; Colton Gene Fears, 28, also of Pasadena; and Tyler Eugene Tenbrink, 28, of Richmond, Texas; were charged with attempted homicide and held in the Alachua County jail. Tenbrink was also charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon.

There was an altercation that ended with shots being fired, allegedly by Tenbrink.

At 5:20 p.m. Thursday, a vehicle with William Fears, Colton Fears and Tenbrink pulled up to a bus stop at 3315 SW Archer Road where a small group of people were sitting. One of the men began cheering Adolf Hitler and chanting. 

The victim hit the vehicle’s rear window with a baton, and the car sped away before abruptly stopping. 

Tenbrink got out of the car with a handgun. William Fears and Colton Fears yelled, “I’m going to f---ing kill you,” and “Shoot them.”

Tenbrink fired one shot at the victim. The shot missed and struck the building that was directly behind the victim.

The three Houstonians drove away, but police later caught up with them. Tenbrink's bond is set at $3 million, and the Fears brothers each have a $1 million bond. 

Wesley Durrance, a 27-year-old Gainesville resident, told The Gainesville Sun several of his friends were shot at because they were carrying anti-Nazi signs protesting Spencer’s UF visit.

Durrance said his friends told him the people in the car the shots were fired from shouted “Sieg Heil” after asking them if they had seen someone named “Kyle.”***

I'm trying really hard not to groan at the "Kyle" joke, because neo-Nazis are in no way funny and even giving them a groan feels wrong. 

“It’s always been socially acceptable to punch a Nazi, to attack people if they have right-wing political leanings,” Fears said. “Us coming in and saying we’re taking over your town, we’re starting to push back, we’re starting to want to intimidate back. We want to show our teeth a little bit because, you know, we’re not to be taken lightly. We don’t want violence; we don’t want harm. But at the end of the day, we’re not opposed to defending ourselves.”

Fears was arrested in 2009 on an aggravated kidnapping charge after abducting a female acquaintance in Texas, media reports show.

The other Fears brother, Colton, was a part of the local music scene as a singer for the now defunct band Between Parallells. The band only broke up in early August, but appeared to still be working on music, posting just days ago "American nationalism metalcore coming soon".

I messaged Fears' Between Parallels bandmates and one of them told me he's not surprised this happened. In fact, the band broke up "because of his [Fears'] political views". 

On Oct. 17th, two days before the shooting and arrest, Colton Fears posted this video to YouTube. He's maybe regretting including this one specific screenshot. 

***Colton Fears made comments on the Between Parallels Facebook page denying that he's a Nazi, which is a strange stance from someone who yells "Seig Heil" and wears Nazi SS pins on his clothing, as noted by CNN. Colton did an interview where he said the pin is to provoke people.

UPDATE: Colton Fears did an interview the day of the Richard Spencer talk where he said there would be no violence as long as Antifa didn't show up. Looks like he was wrong. 


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