Armstrong “took out a black case, which I knew he had in my car,” Patton said. “It contained a TEC-9 assault pistol. And he took it out and that’s when I proceeded down again in front of the West End Synagogue.” Patton said that Armstrong rolled down the window, “leaned over, kind of back into my lap” — so the shell casings from the pistol wouldn’t shoot out into the street and make the shooter’s fingerprints easily identifiable — “and let out a little bit less than, I’d say, ten rounds” into the building.

Following the shooting, Patton turned off the car’s headlights and drove away from the scene. By his own testimony, Patton and a group of fellow skinheads then ordered pizza “and drank a lot,” before heading to a nearby store to purchase hair clippers to shave their heads.

Around dawn, according to Patton’s testimony, an officer from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department knocked on Patton’s apartment door for unrelated reasons: complaints about a car being broken into and an all-night party. Officers took Patton in that morning. He was subsequently released to Brown, who moved Patton out to the farm in Pleasantville.

The apartment where Damien Patton resided at the time of the June 1990 shooting of the West End Synagogue. Photo: Matt Stroud

The shooting immediately sent a shudder through the West End Synagogue community. The Anti-Defamation League and the synagogue put up a $5,000 reward for any information related to the shooting.

“Given the seriousness of the incident, we hope that anyone with information will come forward,” Roth told The Tennessean on June 16, 1990. “Apprehension and conviction of the criminals will be a clear signal that Nashville will not tolerate such hateful criminal acts.”

Days after the shooting, Brown received a visit from FBI agents and Metro police looking for Patton. They had an arrest warrant for Patton. “One of them had to do with a violation of civil rights, and a desecration of a holy place,” Patton testified.

Brown and Patton hatched a plan to get Patton out of the state. They purchased 10 cans of black spray paint from a local Walmart and placed Brown’s Tennessee license plates on Patton’s car. Brown gave Patton $500, and Patton wore a pair of overalls “to look more of a farmer or an Amish-type individual,” Patton said. “[The authorities] weren’t going to be looking for a black car. They weren’t going to be looking for that license, a Tennessee license plate and they certainly weren’t going to be looking for someone who looked like a respectable adult, or an Amish person, a farmer.”

Brown gave Patton $500, and Patton wore a pair of overalls “to look more of a farmer or an Amish-type individual,” Patton said.

Patton and his girlfriend at the time fled the area and headed west. They spent a few weeks in Las Vegas and then moved into the back of Patton’s mother’s house near Los Angeles.

But five months later, in the late fall of 1990, Patton returned to Tennessee. Undetected by federal authorities, he began working on Brown’s compound.

Patton and Brown had a dispute over wages, and Patton left the farm to live with Armstrong. That living situation didn’t work for Patton either, Patton testified, so, after Christmas 1990, he contacted his father, who was living in Hawaii at the time. His father invited Patton to join him there so Patton could get back on his feet.

In early 1991, an 18-year-old Patton left Tennessee for Hawaii and then enlisted in the Navy toward the end of the first Persian Gulf War. In magazine interviews, Patton often begins his narrative here.

But Patton does not mention that, by his own testimony, he continued to socialize with white supremacists while in the Navy. Patton told prosecutors that he gathered with skinheads while stationed in Virginia for training. “I had known some of the Skinheads there from prior rallies in Tennessee and because of not knowing anybody there, I ended up meeting with them and hung out with them for some time,” he said.

Patton received a subpoena to testify before a federal grand jury regarding the West End Synagogue shooting while he was still in the Navy, ultimately giving his first testimony in the case in September 1991.

In addition to the shooting, Patton was implicated in at least one other hate crime that occurred during his time in Tennessee. According to an affidavit of probable cause filed by a Nashville-area FBI agent in support of a search for Patton and his residences, Patton allegedly defaced the Greater Bethel AME Church in Nashville, an African American Methodist denomination. By his own grand jury testimony, Patton admitted to spray-painting buildings in the area with “KKK” and swastikas. The affidavit also alleges that Patton also impersonated an FBI agent to uncover spies among the skinheads he associated with.

Patton pled guilty to a charge connected with the synagogue shooting, and did so, he said in trial court testimony against Brown on August 12, 1992, in an effort to receive a “more lenient” sentence from the judge. Patton did not, as part of his conviction, receive any time behind bars.

After an eight-day trial, a jury convicted Brown of perjury and accessory after the fact to a conspiracy to violate civil rights. A judge sentenced him to 27 months behind bars and 36 months of supervised release, in addition to a $10,000 fine. According to Brown’s Facebook page, he died on September 27, 2016, of an apparent heart attack.

“[The shooting made] it clear that there were Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members who were really intent on their hatred of Jews that they wanted Jews dead.”

Leonard William Armstrong signed a plea deal admitting to two federal charges: a firearm charge and conspiracy to threaten the free exercise of another person’s constitutional rights. He served 42 months in a federal penitentiary.

In an interview with OneZero about the West End Synagogue shooting, Armstrong expressed remorse and took sole responsibility for the incident.

“I was the guy who was at the root of this whole thing,” he said.

Armstrong remembered Patton as “a pretty nice young man… He was educated, very intelligent, smart.” Armstrong said that he had not met Patton before the night of the incident. He also indicated that he has not been in touch with Patton since the incident, though he did express a desire to apologize to him for the events of that night.

“This was not something that had been plotted or planned out,” Armstrong said. “I was a drunken idiot acting spontaneously, and I got him into trouble. He didn’t know that I was going to do the thing that I did.”

Armstrong said he’s since renounced his white supremacist beliefs. “I can be remorseful, and I’ve done my time and my penance,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s still there, you know?”

“My way of life has changed 180 degrees,” he said. Armstrong said that he has, in recent years, joined Life After Hate, a Chicago-based nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups and reconcile their past. He said he’s participated in fundraisers that help kids with cancer and autism and provide dogs for veterans.

Though Armstrong has expressed remorse, the incident still resonates among those connected to the West End Synagogue.

The synagogue’s Rabbi Roth remembers the event to this day. “[The shooting made] it clear that there were Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members who were really intent on their hatred of Jews that they wanted Jews dead,” he told OneZero.