Data leak reveals Tampa Police officer’s stepson as member of neo-Nazi group

On Jan. 21, the journalist collective Unicorn Riot leaked archived chats from the white supremacist organization Patriot Front, a rebrand of the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America, which attended the violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville.

According to the chats, one Patriot Front member and organizer, Calvin Stow-Ortiz, appears as “Arthur FL,” and is a student at Florida State University, as well as the stepson of Tampa Police Department officer Antonio Ortiz-Saldana.

The Tampa Police Department confirmed to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that 
"The Tampa Police Department does not condone any organization or group that believes in hateful ideology. Ortiz-Saldana is a respected Detective with no significant disciplinary history," said Public Safety Information Coordinator Jamel Lanee.

CL also left a voicemail for Ortiz-Saldana and will update this post if he gets back to us.

Stow-Ortiz was easily identified in the chats after he essentially doxxed himself through the metadata of a Word document. The document was sent to Patriot Front leader Thomas Rousseau, and outlined lyrics for a “marching song” Stow-Ortiz hoped the group would adopt at future gatherings.
In other chats, the “Arthur FL” account claimed to have participated in and helped organize multiple Patriot Front events, including a Georgia run where “we hit Bainbridge, Thomasville, then Valdosta” with propaganda, and a Nov. 20 training session in Tallahassee to prepare for the Dec. 4 “Reclaim America” march in Washington D.C., where he was then assigned to "shield duty."

The messages also show that Stow-Ortiz hoped to participate in upcoming banner drops, and said that he plans on “absolutely destroying the Tampa-St. Pete area,” with the group’s neo-Nazi propaganda.

The messages also show that Stow-Ortiz hoped to participate in upcoming banner drops, and said that he plans on “absolutely destroying the Tampa-St. Pete area,” with the group’s neo-Nazi propaganda.

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One chat reveals the hate group has renovated a house in the Tampa area where multiple members currently live. Though it’s unclear how involved Stow-Ortiz was with that particular project.

These messages, as well as others doxxing members of the group were archived by the Atlanta Antifascsist group. The authenticity of data was later verified by Rousseau during a podcast hosted by neo-Nazi Joseph Jordan on Jan. 28. On the show, Rousseau downplayed the importance of the leaks, and took responsibility for exposing the identities of his members.

“They do these things to inspire paranoia and hysteria, right. They want you to be afraid,” said Rousseau.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Patriot Front often calls for the formation of a white ethno state, and is "explicit in its exclusion of people of color from its conception of pan-European identity.”

Over the past year, Patriot Front members have committed multiple acts of racist vandalism. In June, 2021, Patriot Front vandalized a George Floyd statue in Brooklyn, New York, and in October destroyed an Arthur Ashe mural in Richmond, Virginia.

Florida has seen a recent uptick in hate group activity. Last weekend, the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi group whose leader is based in Florida, organized multiple demonstrations in Orlando, which sparked swift outrage from local leaders. However, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did not directly condemn the hate group, instead he referred to them as “some jackasses.”

On top of this, yesterday six historically Black universities around the country were evacuated, including Bethune-Cookman University in Daytona Beach, after a neo-Nazi group called in bomb threats.

Massive Leak Exposes Neo-Nazi Group Patriot Front from Unicorn Riot on Vimeo.