Police: White supremacists beat black DJ in Lynnwood bar

LYNNWOOD — At least eight people with alleged white supremacist ties are accused of stomping a DJ at a Lynnwood-area bar while shouting racial slurs, according to police reports.

One man began using the DJ’s gear without permission around 12:30 a.m. Saturday at the Rec Room Bar & Grill north of Lynnwood on Highway 99, the court papers say. The DJ, an African-American man from Everett, tried to stop the man but was overwhelmed by a group of white men. He turned off the music and told the men to leave.

“The gang members refused and surrounded” the DJ, the police reports say. “The white supremacist gang members then threatened to beat (him).”

Seven men and one woman were booked into the Snohomish County Jail. In a news release Monday, the sheriff’s office described them as “self-professed members of a neo-Nazi skinhead group.” At least two were released from Washington state prisons this year.

The men called the 37-year-old DJ the N-word, beat him to the ground and stomped him, police reports say. The attackers allegedly said, “We will see you, (N-word),” and “It’s over for you.”

The DJ “was in complete fear for his life,” a sheriff’s deputy wrote in the report. The DJ suffered a swollen left eye that would barely open and other injuries from the beating. Another Everett man, 35, who is Asian-American, was assaulted too, deputies said.

At least one 911 caller reported hearing gunshots. Two days later, that has not been confirmed. At least a dozen people were at the bar Monday. None wished to talk. The owner and DJ were not present.

On social media, one of the alleged attackers, Travis Condor, 34, of Pittsburgh, has a history of praising Robert J. Mathews, who died in a gun battle with the FBI at a cabin on Whidbey Island on Dec. 8, 1984, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that tracks hate crimes.

Mathews’ white terrorist group, The Order, plotted to assassinate judges, poison water supplies and blame the poisoning on black people to start a race war in the 1980s, according to testimony in federal court. Modern members of the racist right gather at the site of Mathews’ cabin, to remember a man they consider a martyr.

Saturday marked the 34th year since his death. It was also a day after a jury convicted Unite the Right protester James Fields of crashing into a crowd of people in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing Heather Heyer.

According to the SPLC, Condor was photographed with members of the violent group Hammerskin Nation at the same rally in August 2017.

A half-mile from the bar early Saturday, sheriff’s deputies stopped a white Toyota Tundra, with a woman and five men inside, including Condor. All were arrested for investigation of felony harassment and malicious harassment, as defined by the state’s hate crime law.

Condor’s attorney told the judge that his client had been in the bar — but he was only present, and not a participant in the assault.

Everett District Court Judge Tam Bui set bail at $25,000.

The others in the Toyota were:

• Cory Colwell, 34, of Eugene, Oregon, the driver. The truck had Oregon license plates. Colwell was released from jail on a promise to show up to his next court hearing.

• Daniel Dorson, 23, of Corvallis, Oregon. He was arrested in 2013 for assaulting a 70-year-old store employee in Portland. The employee was washing the sidewalk when he told Dorson and others to move. Dorson beat the man unconscious with a skateboard, according to The Oregonian. Dorson later pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree assault and spent time in prison. Bui set his bail at $100,000.

• Leah Northcraft, 25, of Raleigh, North Carolina. A probable cause statement states, “No assault but did use slurs and threaten to kill.” Her bail was set over the weekend at $15,000.

• Randy Smith, 38, of Eugene, Oregon. Deputies noted he had blood on his hands. His bail was initially set at $15,000.

• Nathaniel Woodell, 32, of Woodstock, Illinois. His bail was $25,000.

All except for Northcraft are accused of fourth-degree assault.

Lynnwood police caught two more suspects, Guy Miller III, 37, of Tacoma, and Vincent Nutter, 28, of Bothell, at a Jack in the Box. They were fleeing in a dark sedan. The ID of the alleged driver was still at the bar. Nutter was arrested for investigation of driving with a suspended license and driving under the influence. Both men are accused of joining in the attack.

In 2013, Nutter was sentenced to a long prison term. He’d been convicted of illegal gun possession, drug slinging and dodging the cops, and he had vowed to “shoot it out with police and exercise his Second Amendment rights” rather than be sent back to prison.

At the time, police found him hiding 40 feet up a Douglas fir tree in a neighbor’s yard. Nutter shouted at the cops to shoot him and refused to come down. He changed his mind after firefighters sprayed him with a few blasts of water from a fire hose.

In court papers, he was listed as being part of the Aryan Brotherhood, which as been described as a white prison gang and organized crime syndicate in the United States with thousands of members in and out of prison. Nutter was released from prison Jan. 8.

His bail was set at $100,000.

Miller, the sedan passenger, just finished two years in prison in June.

In 2015, he tried shooting another man at a house party in the town of Rainier, according to The Olympian. The two men were fighting when Miller got the other in a headlock, pressed a gun up to his head and pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t fire and party guests knocked the gun away. Miller is still under supervision for that conviction.

Miller’s bail was set at $150,000.

Attorneys for several of the defendants argued police reports weren’t specific about the allegations against their clients, or that they didn’t actually participate in the attack.

The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office plans to partner with the FBI in its investigation. Security footage and other witnesses have confirmed the DJ’s account of the attack, according to deputies.

“We do not and will not ever tolerate acts of hate in Snohomish County,” Sheriff Ty Trenary said in a statement Monday morning. “The violent behavior directed at members of our community over the weekend simply because of their race is disgusting.”

Janice Greene, president of the Snohomish County branch of the NAACP, said it is important to send out a collective message that hateful behavior won’t be accepted here.

“It’s up to the community,” she said. “None of us can turn our head and look away.”

Reporters Zachariah Bryan, Rikki King and Eric Stevick contributed to this story.

Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.