Damien Patton, CEO of tech surveillance company Banjo, once helped KKK shoot up a synagogue: Report

Xeni Jardin

from on 2020-04-29 01:37 (#52T11)

"We believe that the Blacks and the Jews are taking over America, and it's our job to take America back for the White race," Patton testified at trial, describing his beliefs while carrying out the crime - beliefs he said he no longer held.

Banjo CEO Damien Patton has admitted to being a Neo-Nazi skinhead in his youth. But until today, the extent of his activity had not yet been reported, in part because of multiple spellings of his name used over the years.

At Medium.com's One Zero, a report claims that Patton, CEO of a Softbank-backed surveillance technology firm, has in the past identified as a Nazi, and was involved in a drive-by synagogue shooting with a KKK leader.

"Patton's association with racist groups extended into adulthood; in testimony he provided against Brown, Patton admitted to fraternizing with skinheads while serving in the U.S. Navy."

The Utah Attorney General's Office will "fully review" a massive state contract with @Banjo after a news report showed its founder, Damien Patton, was once an active participant in a white supremacist group and was involved in the shooting of a synagogue.https://t.co/NnxAdA8t1g
- The Salt Lake Tribune (@sltrib) April 28, 2020

Clients including the state of Utah ditched Banjo today after the revelations were published.

Maybe we shouldn't have U.S. city, state, and federal law enforcement agencies entering into multimillion dollar contracts

with sketchy extreme right wing figures who run dystopian spyware and machine intelligence firms [AHEM CLEARVIEW AI] to built a vast panopticon and pandemic surveillance system?

Just a thought.

Excerpt:

In grand jury testimony that ultimately led to the conviction of two of his associates, Patton revealed that, as a 17-year-old, he was involved with the Dixie Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. On the evening of June 9, 1990 - a month before Patton turned 18 - Patton and a Klan leader took a semi-automatic TEC-9 pistol and drove to a synagogue in a Nashville suburb. With Patton at the wheel, the Ku Klux Klan member fired onto the synagogue, destroying a street-facing window and spraying bullets and shattered glass near the building's administrative offices, which were next to that of the congregation's rabbi. No one was struck or killed in the shooting. Afterward, Patton hid on the grounds of a white supremacist paramilitary training camp under construction before fleeing the state with the help of a second Klan member.
Patton was charged with - and pled guilty to-acts of juvenile delinquency in connection to the incident, while the two Klansmen were charged with conspiracy to "prevent or hinder" the free exercise of another person's constitutional rights, which is a federal hate crime, and accessory after the fact. One of the Klansmen, Leonard William Armstrong, took a plea agreement. Another, Jonathan David Brown, went to trial and was convicted of accessory after the fact to a conspiracy to violate civil rights, as well as two counts of lying to the grand jury. During testimony prior to Brown's trial, Patton admitted to having been a member of the Nashville-area Dixie Knights. He also admitted to being a skinhead, a group that acted as "the foot soldiers for groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations," Patton said.
Patton also admitted to participating in white supremacist talks and meetings, where, according to his own testimony, speakers advocated for the elimination of Blacks and Jews, among other beliefs built around racism and religious discrimination.

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