As alluded to earlier, the police shooting of 15-year-old Tyler Cassidy in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote last night (Thursday, December 11) has particular significance at FDB: Tyler was a member of the racist youth network Southern Cross Soldiers (SCS).
The SCS initially came to the media’s attention in November, when Liam Houlihan published an article in the November 23 edition of the Sunday Herald Sun: Victorian police vow crackdown to stop ‘another Cronulla’. The slackbastard blog provides some additional commentary, and a number of SCS members were moved to denounce the article, S.C.S Melb Leader commenting:
The pro-Cronulla riot videos released onto youtube then added to our myspace had more than just racism about them, they showed a whole army of my fellow countrymen and women standing up for themselves, for something they believe in, and most importantly standing up for there country. They were not put there to glorify the cronulla riots in any way, just merely a well compiled video of plenty of aussies and australian flags, that really caught my eye and made me feel good
In keeping with the Cronulla tradition, the previous weekend — the third anniversary of the Cronulla riot — the Melbourne chapter of the group held a party.
Publicly disavowing ‘racism’ is in keeping with the more general response of SCS members and followers to such accusations: SCS are not ‘racist’, merely ‘patriotic’. However, a closer look at some of the members reveals an explicitly racist stance. Thus ASH (S.C.S ENFORCER) writes:
SPECIAL THANKS TO CRONULLA BOYS AND GIRLS
FUCK YOU TO THE GREASY WOG CUNTS YOU DESERVED IT
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE OI OI OI
A Facebook page dedicated to the Cause (which currently has over 150 members) describes its ‘Positions’ in the following terms:
1. love it or leave
2. save a whale harpoon a leb
3. whats the diference beween a trampoline n a leb??? you have to take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline hahahahahaha
Clearly then, many SCS members are motivated by ethnic and racial antagonism towards those who are not ‘White’, and who therefore — in the eyes of SCS — ado not qualify as being authentically ‘Australian’.
As for Tyler, an article (Shot teen Tyler Cassidy a member of ‘white pride’ group) by Mark Dunn in the December 12 edition of the Herald Sun states:
…One of those who knew him, and attests to his violent temper, told the Herald Sun that unless the police shot Tyler, he would have made good on his threat to kill the officer.
Tyler fell in with the wrong crowd and had befriended a group of skinheads, the former friend said.
He said Tyler was known for his sporadic violence, but other than an assault charge had no significant criminal history.
“Minor things such as randomly attacking people he did not like the look of or acting tough and starting fights with anyone he could,” the former associate said.
“He was always angry and after trying to help him out for longer than anyone else I know more than anyone I know he was beyond help.
“His poor mother would always try to help him and do her best as a parent and he would only ever respond with anger and hatred towards her.
“Since he joined the SCS and started hanging out some mates he called “skinhead mates” he started drinking excessively and getting much more violent.
“The officers that shot him most definetly [sic] had good reason with the way he was and if they didnt do what they did he wouldnt have stopped.”
The Northcote location where he was shot - The All Nations Park - appears to have been a gathering ground for like-mided [sic] racists, possibly because of its name.
A sticker for the Creativity Movement - another white supremicist [sic] group - is plastered beneath the All Nations sign. Similar stickers have been bobbing up throughout Melbourne…
Leaving aside the accuracy of the claims made by Tyler’s anonymous former friend — and, it should be said, All Nations Park has never been noted for its role as a gathering point for racists — there is some evidence of an affiliation to ’skinhead’ culture on Tyler’s myspace page: a photo of a skinhead (whom he describes as his twin) and a link to nationalistic Sydney band R.U.S.T., one of several largely apolitical ’street punk’ bands with links to various more straightforwardly right-wing and xenophobic networks.
As for the ‘Creativity Movement’, it’s a one-man band based in Melbourne, and centred on Patrick O’Sullivan, a neo-Nazi skinhead with a violent criminal history — in 2002, O’Sullivan was sentenced to two years and nine months’ jail for intentionally causing injury and intentionally causing serious injury — and a former associate of the neo-Nazi murderer Dane Sweetman.
O’Sullivan specialises in cultivating relationships with ‘troubled youth’.
NB. Generally speaking, within the skinhead sub-culture, where not actively fought, racism is actually frowned upon. Traditional or ‘trad’ skins refer to racist skinheads as ‘boneheads’, and argue that the racists betray the sub-culture’s bi-racial (black and white) roots, and ongoing history. While the sub-culture has its origins in the 1960s, organised racism only made its first real inroads into skinhead sub-culture in the UK in the late 1970s, and skinheads have been fighting back ever since. In Europe, and especially Russia, this struggle has assumed some very violent forms.
Roddy Moreno of Welsh skinhead band The Oppressed explains the evolution of SHARP: Skin Heads Against Racial Prejudice. Excerpt from the Swiss documentary film Skinhead Attitude (2005):
