Posted on 04/15/2006 11:28:54 AM PDT by EternalVigilance
DANBURY – There are no Grey Wolves. The man who claimed to be the Wolves' spokesman is, by his own admission, "an idiot."
"I'm a fool," the man said Friday. "I apologize to the people of Danbury."
The man, who refused to give his name to The News-Times, had disrupted plans by Christian groups to hold a rally on Danbury Green by claiming that the neo-Nazi Grey Wolves would join in to support the rally's aim – to dissolve the barriers between church and state in the United States.
In fact, the man admitted, he made up the name of the group as a prank.
"There are no Grey Wolves," the man said ruefully on Friday. "I feel terrible about this."
With the threat of neo-Nazi violence removed, Danbury police said Friday they would issue the Christian groups a permit to hold the rally on Tuesday. However, the groups said they would move the rally to the Amber Room in Danbury.
"We do not anticipate any problems with this event," Danbury police said in a statement Friday. "But we will have appropriate resources on hand to deal with any crowd control concerns."
Danbury police said Friday night that the man is in his 40s and from the Danbury area, but declined to reveal anything more about the man.
The brouhaha began Wednesday when The News-Times posted a brief article on its Web site announcing that Minutemen United, an Ohio-based Christian organization, planned a rally on the Danbury Green. The group believes the walls between church and state must be removed.
Shortly thereafter, the man – who identified himself as Rick Renage on the phone and Rick Regado in e-mails – contacted The News-Times to say three busloads of Grey Wolves would show up to support Minutemen United. He described the group as having about 200 members who dressed in "black pants, black boots, red sox with black jackets and the swastika branded on the back."
"I personally am not looking for any confrontations, but if we are provoked, we will react very strongly," Renage/Regado wrote.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups in the United States, said Wednesday it had no knowledge of the Grey Wolves. "We follow these things very closely," Mark Potok, director of the Center's Intelligence Project said Friday. "We never heard of this guy."
This is understandable, since the group does not exist except, briefly, in the mind of a man who says he lives in southern Fairfield County.
When the Danbury Police Department tracked him down Friday, he said he came to the police department immediately to apologize profusely. After going public with his story, he was not charged with any crime.
Through the police, the man then called The News-Times to apologize both to reporter Elizabeth Putnam, whom he lied to, and to the entire newspaper. "I read it all the time," he said. "It's a great paper."
The man described himself as "a liberal, a Democrat and a Christian. It's hard to be all three nowadays."
After reading about the rally, he said, he became incensed.
"I'm sick of people mixing politics with Christianity and Christianity with politics," he said. "I have very strong convictions about the separation of church and state. These people want to create a theocracy."
As a prank, he said, he e-mailed the paper about the Grey Wolves. "I'm an idiot," he said. "Sometimes I do things that just don't make sense."
"It's a prank?" Potok said disdainfully "What's it supposed to accomplish? What did he think? That when he contacted the newspaper and said the Nazis were going to rally, they wouldn't report it?"
Potok said the Southern Poverty Law Center has tracked many hate groups that claim to have thousands of members "but end up being one guy, his computer and his dog." He said the center also has dealt with "people who claim to be Nazis, but are Jewish or gays – the type of people the Nazis would have killed.
"But I have to say, in 10 years of doing this work, this is a first for me," Potok said.
When he read the first account of the Grey Wolves in the News-Times on Thursday, Renage/Regado said, "I hoped it would end today." By Friday, when he learned the city was planning to withdraw the rally permit, he said, "I felt terrible."
The man apologized not only to the city, but to the ministers planning the rally. "I've been through hell and I deserve what I got," he said.
Contact Robert Miller
at bmiller@newstimes.com
or at (203) 731-3345.
read the article, and then gaijin's take in posts 53 and 54...
he might have the right idea
The "Grey Wolves Guy" is one of "Intelligence Project Director" MARK POTOK's buddies.
That, or Potok himself.
that wouldn't surprise me - it is hardly unknown for mediots to inject their own views into "news" by incanting the mantra "it is said that..." or "some say that..."
what you suggest would be a mere logical extension of a known mediot/leftist tactic.
Thanks for the ping.
I always wanted to show up at a Democratic National Convention with a mohawk and a fake spider web tattoo on my face, "representing" the White Aryan Democrats (WAD). Make it a point to get up in the media's face, be unavoidable and obnoxious to the point that they had to report on me. Claim to be as legitimate as the day is long and so forth. Richard Nixon had a name for that kind of activity. Can you guess what it is?
anytime, G
If some reporter calls up the Danbury PD asking for details about this case, all they're going to get is, "No comment", or, "We're not going to tell you that".
The PC authorities there will assign a higher level of secrecy on the details of this case than on what goes on at Area 51, or something, because THE STORY IS BS and more importantly, the truth of that will EMBARRASS the SPLC.
I mean honestly, you've got allll these illegals swinging Mexican flags around, and *they're* the ones who took that guy's ranch away and gave it to ILLEGALS....?
This is "sprucing up" work so they can look kinda American-ish.
Bumpity bump!
P.S. I have an early primary for Congress in the 11th District of North Carolina, 2 May, less than a month away. visit my website in the tagline, and help however you can.
Congressman Billybob
Might. But sometimes, a cabage is just a cabage. The SPLC should be ruled a criminal enterprise under the RICO statutes, just on general principles.
Do tell!
What a drama queen! Neo-Nazis and the left have a lot in common.
oh boy... MSM just keeps sinking lower and lower
It sure is...it seems more likely that he's the first two and not the latter.
Every one of us will have to give account for every idle word.
You are absolutely correct. Not only do they ascribe James' words to Paul, but they have cited one of the verses that probably formed the basis of the correction James was attempting to make about the difference between coming to Christ versus living in Christ.
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