NH getting serious about neo-Nazi threat

Kristofer Goldsmith, Founder and CEO of Task Force Butler Institute. Photo/LinkedIn


New Hampshire’s Attorney General’s Office plans to meet with members of Task Force Butler, the anti-fascist group that has been investigating the neo-Nazi terror organization known as NSC-131.

News of the meeting comes days after a member of NSC-131, Kyle Morris, was sentenced to federal prison for owning machine guns. Morris allegedly planned violent attacks on minorities, including suicidal mass shootings and a terror attack that would end with blowing up the Massachusetts State House.

Kristofer Goldsmith, founder of Task Force Butler, said his group’s 300-page report detailing the crimes committed by NSC-131 has so far been ignored by other law enforcement agencies in New England where the neo-Nazi gang is operating.

“This is the first law enforcement agency (local, state, or federal) to request a meeting, so New Hampshire is definitely ahead of the rest,” Goldsmith said via email.

Morris, 23, was sentenced to 18-months in prison on charges of unlawful possession of machine guns. He had two fully-automatic assault rifles in his Salem home, along with 20 other guns, according to court records. In his home, investigators found “various Nazi paraphernalia, including a Nazi uniform, two Nazi flags, and a framed photo of Adolf Hitler.”

During the investigation, Morris’ online chats showed he planned to kill Muslims, Jews, minorities, and others.

Goldsmith is unsettled by Morris’ relatively short prison sentence. With credit for any time served since his arrest last year, Morris will be a free man soon, Goldsmith said.

“If the FBI and DOJ understood the threat that NSC-131 poses, I don’t think they would have allowed Morris to plea down to 18 months,” Goldsmith said.

New Hampshire’s state law enforcement does appear to be taking the threat seriously, though. Michael Garrity, communications director for the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office, said the agency works with state, local, and federal law enforcement to keep tabs on hate groups like NSC-131, and bring them to justice.

The Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division is currently prosecuting NSC-131 leaders Christopher Hood and Leo Anthony Cullinan under the state’s civil rights laws.

“The New Hampshire Department of Justice works very closely with our local, state, and federal law enforcement colleagues to identify and respond to hate-motivated acts,” Garrity said.

“Hate-motivated” does not begin to cover what NSC-131 is up to, according to Task Force Butler’s report on the group, titled Project Husky.

“NSC-131 remains a violent terrorist gang that primarily functions to plan, train, and obtain weapons for the explicit purpose of engaging in acts of violence and harassment against religious, racial, and ethnic minorities, the LGBTQIA+ community, and others deemed ‘enemies’ by NSC-131’s leader Christopher Hood of Newburyport, MA,” the report states.

Hood has ties to other armed and dangerous white supremacist groups, and for the past few years he has been sending NSC-131 out on a campaign of violence and harassment throughout New England, according to Project Husky.  The report details dozens of violent acts committed by NSC-131 members in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.