KC Proud Boys had big role in Capitol riot and may be growing. ‘It’s a huge concern’
To join, prospective members must proclaim their “Western chauvinism” and recite the names of five breakfast cereals while being pummeled by at least five men.
Once initiated, they’re to refrain from masturbating and limit porn to once a month. Then comes the required tattoo — or branding, if so desired — displaying the name of their organization.
And to attain the highest “degree” in the hierarchy, they must be involved in “a major fight for the cause.”
These are the Proud Boys, the far-right organization that became a household name when President Donald Trump told them during the first presidential debate in September to “stand back and stand by.”
Now, they’re at the forefront of the federal investigation into the deadly U.S. Capitol insurrection. FBI agents have rounded up nearly 20 Proud Boys from around the country, including several in leadership positions, on charges ranging from disorderly conduct to conspiracy to assaulting a federal officer.
Of those, six have connections to a Kansas City-based group. And according to arrest affidavits filed in their cases, there may be more.
Kansas City has a significant number of Proud Boys, said Leonard Zeskind, founder of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, which has tracked extremist groups for decades.
“Last summer, my organization counted about 3,000 of them nationally and more than 40 of them in the Kansas City area,” Zeskind said. “It’s a huge concern. That number is three times larger than the White Knights Klan group we had so much trouble with here 30 years ago.”
The Kansas City Proud Boys have been in the national spotlight since their recent arrests in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. Photos of one have blanketed social media, a bearded man dressed in tactical gear and using an ax handle to prevent metal barriers from sealing off part of the Capitol from invaders.
Another can be seen pushing barricades against police as they try to prevent an angry mob from swarming the locked-down building.
And one later celebrated in a Snapchat video about breaching the seat of American democracy, bragging that “Dude, people were willing to follow ... We f------ did it!”
Prosecutors say all were part of a coordinated effort to obstruct congressional proceedings and interfere with law enforcement officers.
William “Billy” Chrestman and Christopher Kuehne, both of Olathe, Louis Enrique Colon of Blue Springs, Ryan Keith Ashlock of Gardner and siblings Felicia and Cory Konold from Arizona were indicted by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia on Friday on conspiracy charges and other offenses.
Chrestman, an Army veteran and unemployed union sheet metal worker, also is charged with threatening to assault a federal law enforcement officer and carrying a wooden ax handle while in the Capitol building and on the grounds.
The charges indicate that prosecutors believe Chrestman is among the key players, working in conjunction with Proud Boys leaders Joseph Biggs of Florida and Ethan Nordean of Seattle to breach the Capitol.
If convicted of all charges, Chrestman — who has been dubbed #Axehole on Twitter — faces a maximum of 46 years in prison and more than $1 million in fines.
A probable-cause affidavit supporting Ashlock’s charges offered more details about the alleged conspiracy. It said Ashlock spoke to federal authorities on Feb. 11 and admitted driving to Washington, D.C., with some members of a Kansas City Proud Boys group, lodging with some of them and coordinating their efforts to march on the Capitol on Jan. 6.
The affidavit alleges that all six in the Kansas City group wore strips of fluorescent orange tape on their headgear or backpacks, and Kuehne was carrying rolls of the tape with him. Chrestman, Kuehne and Colon wore tactical style gear, including helmets and gloves, and Chrestman arrived at the Capitol with a respirator and a wooden club or ax handle disguised as a flag, it says.
Court documents say the six were among a large group that included Proud Boys who were marching toward the Capitol. “The group was engaged in various chants and response calls, including ‘F*** Antifa!’ and ‘Whose streets? Our streets!’” the affidavit said.
After pushing through one set of police barricades, it said, Chrestman stood directly in front of officers and yelled, “You shoot and I’ll take your f------ ass out!”
Prosecutors allege that Felicia Konold, of Tucson, Arizona, bragged on a Snapchat video that she had just been recruited into a Kansas City Proud Boys chapter. She said she’d been told that even though she wasn’t from Kansas City, she was “with them now,” according to the affidavit.
On the video, Felicia Konold displayed a two-sided “challenge coin” that appeared to have markings designating it as belonging to the Kansas City Proud Boys, the affidavit said. The “KC” on the coin is identical to the Kansas City Royals’ logo.
Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism, said the Proud Boys pose a serious threat.
“There have been incidents of political violence and street violence associated with the Proud Boys from New York to Oregon for the past several years,” Segal said. “And in the months and weeks before January 6, they were involved in violence in D.C. as well.”
Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio was arrested days before the insurrection, he noted, for allegedly burning a Black Lives Matter banner stolen from a historic Black church in Washington following a Trump rally in December.
“I don’t think anybody should downplay the significance of people who have a long history of violence, including participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection,” Segal said. “In fact, the Proud Boys to some degree were disproportionately represented in the Capitol siege in terms of the extremists that were there.”
The lifeblood of extremist groups like the Proud Boys, Segal said, is their ability to connect, reach and recruit in online spaces.
“So they’re able to create groupings, sort of virtual cells, and then have those planned activities result in actions on the ground,” he said.
While some may see them as a bunch of buffoons, it would be a mistake to dismiss the Proud Boys as harmless, said Don Haider-Markel, a University of Kansas political science professor and expert on extremism.
“Historically, I’m concerned about far-right extremism in Missouri, period,” he said when asked about the Kansas City-based group. “It’s a long and varied history. But it’s not just their size. So many of these folks seem to have trained professional experience in coordinating their activities.”
The typical far-right extremist, Haider-Markel said, tends to act on his own with little planning or attention to logistics. But groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have a significant number of members with military and law enforcement backgrounds.
“So whenever you see this level of coordination,” he said, “I’m concerned that they’ve kind of flown under the radar a little bit and that maybe law enforcement hasn’t really understood the threats from these groups.”
Earlier this month, the Canadian government designated the Proud Boys a terrorist entity, citing members’ key role in the Capitol insurrection. The U.S. has made no such declaration, but the White House notes that a review of domestic violent extremists is underway.
When asked if they’d had any interaction with Proud Boys in the area, Kansas City police said the FBI would be the agency handling that issue.
FBI spokeswoman Bridget Patton’s response: “At this time, the FBI does not have any comment on matters which may be related to pending litigation.”
‘Western chauvinists’
Founded in 2016 by Gavin McInnes, the Proud Boys describe themselves as a “pro-Western fraternal organization for men who refuse to apologize for creating the modern world; aka Western Chauvinists.”
The group has become known for street-level violence and confrontations with anti-fascists at protests.
Proud Boys often wear the colors yellow and black, and their apparel — including their trademark Fred Perry polo shirts, to that company’s dismay — is adorned with Proud Boys-related logos and emblems, such as POYB, which stands for “Proud of Your Boy.”
McInnes, co-founder of Vice Media — he left the company in 2008 — introduced the organization in a Sept. 15, 2016, column in Taki’s Magazine. He denied that the group promoted white supremacy, saying “Western chauvinist” includes all races, religions, and sexual preferences.
Those who monitor far-right groups, however, say Proud Boys leaders and members regularly spew white nationalist and misogynistic rhetoric and associate with known extremists.
McInnes said membership in the Proud Boys was divided into three “degrees.”
To achieve the first degree, he wrote, a man must publicly declare that he is a Proud Boy: “This means you make your Western chauvinism public and you don’t care who knows it.”
For the second degree, the initiate “must get the crap beaten out of you by at least five guys until you can name five breakfast cereals.”
The rationale, McInnes said, is to demonstrate “adrenaline control” because “both physical fighting and arguing require you to maintain your composure…”
“Defending the West against the people who want to shut it down is like remembering cereals as you’re being bombarded with ten fists,” he wrote. And, he said, “The bonding and camaraderie this violence produces is inspiring.”
A YouTube video of one man’s initiation shows him stating: “I am a proud Western chauvinist, and I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world.” Next, several men surround him and repeatedly punch him while he says, “Trix. Cheerios. Wheaties. Frosted Flakes. Raisin Bran.”
Such videos have been ridiculed by critics who point out that the “beatings” aren’t nearly as savage as McInnes described.
The other part of the second degree, McInnes wrote, limits the men to porn once a month and says “a man can only ejaculate if he is within one yard of a woman with her consent.”
“Though the press likes to focus on the coded racism it insists lurks within the group, most Proud Boys will cite #NoWanks as what’s improved their life the most,” McInnes wrote. “It gets young men off the couch and talking to women and it gets married men away from their computers and back into bed with their significant other.”
The third degree requires getting a Proud Boys tattoo, McInnes wrote.
“One man got it on his forehead and another covered his forearms with it,” he said. “If someone has a problem with tattoos, branding is permitted, and at least one man has done exactly that.”
In later interviews, McInnes has talked about a fourth degree as well, which involves getting into “a major fight for the cause.”
The Proud Boys’ quirky rituals aren’t that uncommon for extremist groups today, Haider-Markel said.
“The strategy has been recruitment through acting like the group doesn’t take itself that seriously,” he said. “They attract people online through memes and humor rather than just pushing at them with the central message. And then once they’re pulled in, that’s when they’re fully ready to be inoculated with the ideas.”
The KC ‘boys’
Much of what can be gleaned about the Kansas City-area Proud Boys comes from court documents.
Records show that Chrestman, Kuehne and Colon all have experienced financial struggles in recent years. All three filed for bankruptcy in 2013.
At the time of his filing, Colon indicated that he’d been a lineman for KCP&L for seven years. He reported an annual income of $116,585 in 2012 and was paying child support of $1,813 a month for two children and four stepchildren who at the time were ages 5 through 16.
Court records show that Colon, a former Blue Springs police officer, was involved in a contentious divorce in 2009. The amount of child support he owed was increased from $1,300 a month to $1,819 after his ex-wife took him back to court in 2013. She said she needed more child support because his conduct had caused her to lose four jobs since their breakup. That conduct, she said, included phoning and texting her daily, phoning her employer directly and threatening him and picketing her place of business “with a sign indicating the employer ‘hires thieves and liars.’”
Kuehne’s 2013 bankruptcy filing listed a monthly gross salary of $9,518 and take-home pay of $7,209, with monthly expenses of $7,202. That included $3,800 a month in alimony or support to others and $540 a month for child care.
At his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, on the Capitol riot charges, Kuehne told Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge James O’Hara that he was born in Chicago and his highest level of education was a master’s degree. The retired Marine captain and Purple Heart recipient said he was being treated at the Department of Veterans Affairs for PTSD, a traumatic brain injury and multiple injuries to his neck.
Chrestman made his first court appearance at the same time as Kuehne. He told O’Hara that he was born in Oxnard, California, had a high school diploma and had attended some college and completed a trade school. He said he was currently on pain medication for nerve damage to his lower back and legs.
Chrestman said he couldn’t afford a lawyer. He said he’d been employed as a union sheet metal worker making in the $30-an-hour range but had been laid off for a year. He estimated his annual salary in 2019 at about $40,000.
Court records show his house in a southern Olathe subdivision is in foreclosure and his HOA is suing him for $1,864 in unpaid dues, assessments and attorney fees. The last docket entry on the foreclosure case was on Dec. 30 — one week before the Capitol riot.
Chrestman told O’Hara he had about $10,500 stashed in a safe in his house. He planned to use it, he said, to get his mortgage caught up and remodel his bathroom shower.
Chrestman’s public defenders told the judge that he should be released pending trial. They said Trump, not rioters, was to blame for the insurrection. Their court motion requesting Chrestman’s release said he had three children, ages 6, 17 and 19.
“He’s a family man,” attorney Chekasha Ramsey said, motioning to several people sitting in the courtroom. “His family is here to support him today.”
Zeskind said the Proud Boys have started to splinter at the national level because of the recent pressure from authorities.
“Some chapters have started moving in a more hard-core, white nationalist direction,” he said. “Others will probably lose members. But they will continue to be a problem in the future.”
The ADL’s Segal agreed.
“You have a group with a history of violence, you have a group that has kind of presented itself in opposition to the left — not just pro-Trump — and now you have a new administration,” he said. “So I don’t view what we saw on January 6 as the end, but rather the beginning, of ongoing efforts by groups like the Proud Boys.”
