Above: Eugene's Whiteaker neighborhood, a vibrant arts and entertainment district attracted a rash of Nazi-inspired graffiti in February. Residents and business owners also awoke during that time to find the area leafleted with recruitment fliers that proclaimed, “Diversity is a code word for white genocide.”



By NOELLE CROMBIE and SHANE DIXON KAVANAUGH

The Oregonian | OregonLive



Looking back, things did seem a bit out of balance with successful marijuana entrepreneur Bethany Sherman.



She shared an open contempt for Eugene and its renowned left-wing politics. She gloated about the election of Donald Trump. She made sure to note that she'd given her baby a German name.



But few who knew Sherman expected to read an antifascist expose´ accusing her of neo-Nazi sympathies. They were even less prepared for Sherman's immediate and enthusiastic declaration of white pride, though she disavowed any connection to neo-Nazis.



Within a day of the allegations, Sherman found her carefully cultivated image as a well-connected and savvy businesswoman in tatters. She closed the marijuana testing lab that she had worked for years to establish. The industry condemned her and customers left in droves.

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Above: Jacob Laskey and his family operate Wolfclan Armory, a military surplus store in Creswell, just south of Eugene.



The extraordinary episode has fed community anxieties about a new boldness among a relatively small but steady number of white nationalists, members of an old movement galvanized by Trump's ascendancy to the presidency.



The upheaval also has trained a spotlight on Eugene, an overwhelmingly white city with its own deeply racist past and where hate crimes are on the rise.



Sherman was quickly embraced by two Lane County men viewed by national groups tracking extremists as fixtures of the region's white nationalist movement.

Jacob Laskey, who spent more than a decade in prison for desecrating Eugene's largest synagogue, took to YouTube to praise her. "Bethany Sherman is a hero because she doesn't have white guilt," he said.



Jimmy Marr, infamous for driving a truck around the state with racist and anti-Semitic messages emblazoned on the sides, wept as he discussed the negative reaction Sherman encountered.

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Above: Jimmy Marr, a notorious racist who thinks white people are under attack, lives in a modest ranch-style home in Springfield, where earlier this year a few men gathered in front of signs declaring the Holocaust a hoax.



At the same time, Sherman's stunning fall from grace has underscored the muscular role of the anonymous activists known as antifa in not only tracking and outing far-right partisans but pushing back on their efforts to intimidate people.



"Eugene is a still a heavily contested place," said Alexander Reid Ross, a lecturer at Portland State University and author of the book "Against the Fascist Creep."



"You have these far-right elements among the hippies and the new-agers. Then sometimes they fuse together and we suddenly have this Nazi weed situation."

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Above: Antifa activists claim that Jimmy Marr, pictured here, and Jacob Laskey, who lives in Creswell, south of Eugene, have hundreds of followers and supporters nationwide. The men, they said, serve as "public icons" of the white nationalist movement and "their unchallenged existence" inspires others.



Kitty Piercy, a former Eugene mayor, was one of the few people who would talk on the record about the turmoil.



Many others who spoke to The Oregonian/OregonLive said they were afraid of drawing attention to themselves in a climate they described as hostile toward ethnic minorities, people of color or anyone who might challenge the virulent element.



"My biggest fear right now," said Piercy, "is that people who hate and do this kind of thing are beginning to feel empowered."

EUGENE LEADS IN HATE CRIMES REPORTED



That a woman enmeshed in Oregon's cannabis industry, in a city celebrated as a liberal bastion, stands accused of associating with white nationalists — including baking cookies in the shape of swastikas to honor Adolf Hitler's birthday — seems at odds with Eugene's socially conscious self-image.



The home of the University of Oregon has drawn generations of left-leaning college students and counterculture icons like author Ken Kesey, the namesake of a public plaza downtown. Oregon's second-largest city became a West Coast center for 1960s Vietnam War protest and gave birth to "Green Anarchy," a magazine that touted primitivism and radical environmentalism.

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Above: Jacob Laskey, of Creswell, is heavily tattooed. Among his tattoos: a swastika and the words "white power" along his jaw. Laskey said he no longer associates with white supremacists.

But the city, like the state itself, has a dark past marked by troubling displays of white power.



In the 1920s, Eugene boasted an energized chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, which drew its members from local leaders, the middle class and a leading UO classics scholar, Frederick Dunn. The group burned crosses on prominent Skinner Butte and targeted local Catholics, according to a report commissioned in 2016 by the university after students and faculty pressed for the renaming of a building named for Dunn and another for Matthew Deady, who supported slavery in the 1850s.



As a result of the report, the university stripped Dunn's name from a campus dorm but opted to keep Deady Hall. Lane County itself is named for the first governor of Oregon Territory, Joseph Lane, who according to the Oregon Encyclopedia was a vigorous defender of slavery.

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Above: Jimmy Marr, of Springfield, said someone recently tossed this brick at his car, which was parked at his home. Marr, an avowed racist who wants Jewish people to be exterminated, is a frequent target of antifa activists.



That stubborn legacy of bigotry persists in Eugene, where city officials this year have recorded nearly 60 hate crimes, up from 44 last year. Officials said vandalism and graffiti made up 20 percent of the hate crimes reported between January and October.



Statewide, hate crimes were up 60 percent in 2016 from the previous year, representing one of the largest increases of any state, according to an analysis of federal data by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.



In 2016, Eugene had more hate crimes than any other place in Oregon, said Brian Levin, director of the center. (The Oregonian/OregonLive has partnered with ProPublica and newsrooms nationwide to track hate crimes and bias incidents. You can use this form to tell us about a suspected hate crime incident.)



Eugene officials attribute the city's disturbing lead position to a unique and longstanding system that encourages residents to report hate crimes. Starting this year, Eugene police officers have been strongly encouraged to record instances of hate-related graffiti they encounter during their work.



Levin added that better reporting systems as well as an active regional group or "serial offenders" "can all drive local hate crime reporting way up."

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Above: Jacob Laskey told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he’s no longer involved in the white power movement or affiliated with any white supremacist groups. He added that he does not renounce his past.



This year has seen a flurry of racist and anti-Semitic activity across the city. Vandals have struck cars, storefronts and public property with painted swastikas. Repugnant messages and symbols have defaced schools, churches and the federal courthouse.



One employee of a local business told authorities that he came into work to find two nooses and a slur scrawled on his locker.



The vandalism and other hostility represent "an attack on the entire community, regardless of people's race or religion," said Margot Helphand, chairwoman of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Lane County.



"We are definitely affected by it," she said. "If it hits our community, it hits everyone."



The city's Whiteaker neighborhood, a vibrant arts and entertainment district, attracted a rash of Nazi-inspired graffiti in February. Residents and business owners also awoke during that time to find the area leafleted with recruitment fliers that proclaimed, "Diversity is a code word for white genocide."



Emily Nyman, an owner of Old Nick's Pub in the neighborhood, said her bar became one of the vandalism targets because she had previously banned a group of patrons who espoused white supremacist views. She has also been outspoken in support of the antifa movement and its activism.



A swastika was painted on the outside of her bar along with the message, "We're watching you."

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Above: Jacob Laskey spent 11 years in prison after he threw swastika-etched bricks through Temple Beth Israel in Eugene and now helps operate his family's business in Creswell.



In recent months, Nyman said she has been further harassed and intimidated online by white nationalists, prompting her to hire a lawyer and speak with both the Eugene Police Department and the FBI.



Nyman said she now brings her dog, a timberwolf hybrid, with her to work for protection. She added that many in the Eugene area, especially ethnic minorities and people of color, have been silenced by the uptick in outward racism. "As a white businesswoman who has less to fear I feel like I owe it to the people in my community who can't speak out," she said.

DIFFICULT TO GET FIX ON SCOPE OF MOVEMENT



It's hard to say how extensive the white power movement is in the Eugene area or in Oregon in general.



The collection of unnamed antifa activists who released the detailed information about Sherman on the Eugene Antifa website said they reviewed online chats among 30 people who organized white nationalist activities in the Pacific Northwest. The activists said they found communications from Matthew Combs in that review. Sherman and Combs live together and are expecting their second child.

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Above: Antifa activists have released personal information about Jacob Laskey and his family members, drawing his ire. He routinely rants about antifa in Youtube videos and has made sweatshirts with anti-antifa logos.



In general, experts said, the past two decades have seen the movement drift from organized formal groups, like the Klan and Volksfront, a now-defunct white supremacist organization founded in Portland, toward the idea of "leaderless resistance."



Laskey, according to the Anti-Defamation League, was a member of Volksfront when he carried out the attack on the Eugene synagogue in 2002.



Extremists today coalesce around social media and racist message boards, helping them not only to elude law enforcement but to recruit, said Randy Blazak, chairman of the Oregon Coalition Against Hate Crime.

Their public message, too, has shifted in recent years from declarations of white supremacy to white pride, said Ryan Lenz, a senior investigative writer for Southern Poverty Law Center.



"They will just say 'I am just proud to be white. Being proud of being white is not hateful.' The understanding of the movement and the feeling is, well, it's time we stand up for white people when everyone else is standing up for their own ethnic groups," Lenz said.



"What they don't understand," he said, "is that the rise of relevance and prominence and acceptance of different types of people does not mean they are forfeiting or giving up a level of any social status or any cultural relevance."

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Above: Jimmy Marr recently discussed his white nationalist views in the living room of his Springfield home, which he shares with his wife, Judy, and their dogs, Dieter (pictured) and Greta.



TWO MEN ARE MOST PROMINENT



The Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism has closely tracked the statements and activities of Jacob Laskey and Jimmy Marr.



"Those guys have been hanging around the movement for years," said Carla Hill, an investigative researcher with the center.



She's seen no evidence that either have gained followers, she said, but they're taking advantage of the historical moment as white supremacy emerges from the shadows.



"They see this as this is their time," Hill said. "This is their opportunity to make these changes they dream of."



Marr, known by some of his supporters as "Genocide Jimmy" for his support of a conspiracy theory that the government is actively working to get rid of white people, has gained notoriety for driving the Interstate 5 corridor in his sign-festooned pickup.

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Above: Eugene is known for its liberal politics and counterculture vibe, but Oregon's second-largest city, like the state itself, has a racist past.



On a recent weekend, Marr, wearing a Santa hat, joined three other people at an Interstate 5 overpass in nearby Springfield, where they dropped a banner declaring, "It's OK to be white."



During Holocaust Remembrance Day in April, a small group of people in Nazi regalia gathered outside of Marr's home in Springfield, which sits across the street from a children's playground and is a block away from an elementary school, with swastika flags and a sign that read, "The Holocaust is Hokum."



"Frankly, and I'll tell you this right now. I'm interested in the counter-extermination of the Jews," Marr told The Oregonian/OregonLive, seated in his living room reclining chair with his dog Dieter in his lap.



Marr and another man staged a public demonstration at the University of Oregon on Hitler's birthday, according to the Daily Emerald, the university's student-run newspaper.



Laskey, who spent 11 years in prison after he threw swastika-etched bricks through Temple Beth Israel in Eugene, has not shied away from building a public profile since his release in late 2015.



Books he penned behind bars, including one that claims the Holocaust was a hoax and another that serves as a primer for members of the American Front, a white power group, became available on Amazon in recent months.



Laskey also has become a prolific YouTube video blogger, where he has delivered lengthy diatribes against antifa activists and talked about his doubts that the Earth is round and whether the International Space Station is a Hollywood movie set.



He told The Oregonian/OregonLive that he's no longer involved in the white power movement or affiliated with any white supremacist groups. He added that he doesn't renounce his past.

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Eugene Antifa

Above: During Holocaust Remembrance Day in April, a small group of people in Nazi regalia gathered outside of Marr’s home in Springfield, which sits across the street from a children’s playground and is a block away from an elementary school, with swastika flags.



"Yes, I'm proud of my race. Yes, I'm proud of my heritage," Laskey said during an interview at Wolfclan Armory, a military surplus shop he runs with his family in Creswell, just south of Eugene. "I'm not a fascist. I'm an American. Why can't we put America first?"



ANTIFA ACTS AS COUNTERPOINT



Antifa activists claim that Laskey and Marr have hundreds of followers and supporters nationwide.



Antifa groups, of which there are now dozens in the U.S., routinely publicize personal information of those they deem threats to people in their communities, a practice called doxing. They also watch individuals, on and offline, and organize demonstrations against people they believe have ties to hate groups or publicly espouse bigoted views.



Both Marr and Laskey are frequent targets of antifa activists. On social media, Eugene Antifa called Laskey, whose tattoos include the words "white power" along his jaw, a "walking hate crime." It also told followers that Laskey planned to attend an event at a local high school, for example. It published Marr's home address and identified his adult children.



The antifa members refused to meet with reporters from The Oregonian/OregonLive, citing potential retribution from white supremacists but answered a series of written questions via email.



Using leaked chats and other unidentified sources, they've disclosed the dynamics of white nationalists in the region and ties among Laskey, Marr, Sherman and Combs. The four socialized this year, according to antifa activists. Sherman and Combs, antifa said, attended Laskey's wedding.



Eugene Antifa published detailed dossiers on Sherman and Combs on its website. The post relies on online chats, social media posts and direct messages on Twitter to show what the couple was involved in and with whom they were associating.



The antifa account shows Combs using slurs to describe African-Americans and gay people. It includes a photograph of a masked Combs giving a Nazi salute. In another image that antifa claims to be Combs, he's holding a container of pesticide, noting that anyone who approaches will be sprayed before "confinement and transportation to the camps!"



In a screenshot of a tweet, Combs refers to what antifa said is Sherman's twitter handle, @14th_word, saying she baked swastika-shaped cookies for a Hitler birthday celebration earlier this year.



The account is a reference to "14 words," a white supremacist slogan meaning, "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." The attached bio notes the account holder is a "nationalist mommy" and that "our children deserve to be raised in a wholesome environment free of oppression against whites."



The account has since been deleted but not before antifa archived the feed, which includes an image of white men giving a Nazi salute and another quoting the president of the American Nazi Party.

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Above: In this 2014 Oregonian file photo, Bethany Sherman picks up cannabis-infused products purchased by the news organization for analysis. The Oregonian/OregonLive hired her company to test the products for potency.



Activists said they knew the addition of Sherman and Combs would shock many who know them, making careful documentation of their white nationalist ties essential.



"What is most stunning to the public is that this couple has been able to successfully conceal their extreme racist views and white ethnostate organizing from almost everyone," the group said in an email. "In a sense, they have been playing Jekyll and Hyde."



They said explosive public reaction centered less on Combs, who while an owner of the cannabis lab wasn't actively involved in its operations, and more on the secret views of "an outwardly normal looking" woman like Sherman.

FALLOUT WAS SWIFT



Sherman had established herself as an articulate expert on the complexities of marijuana testing. She brought an air of professionalism to an industry transforming itself from an illegal market to a legitimate one.



She organized regular get-togethers for cannabis enthusiasts at a Eugene pub. She had the ear of state regulators as a member of a subcommittee on testing.



She is the CEO of her company, OG Analytical, according to state records. Sherman this year had privately expressed a desire to sell the business to spend more time with her family.



The lab was reputable and did business with growers and processors from Eugene and beyond. In 2015, The Oregonian/OregonLive hired the lab to test hash oils for an investigative series on pesticide-tainted cannabis.

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Above: In this 2014 Oregonian file photo, Matthew Combs packs cannabis-infused products purchased by The Oregonian/OregonLive for analysis at OG Analytical.



Sherman's views on race, which associates and acquaintances said she never shared, left many speechless.



"Heartbroken is what I am hearing from a lot of people," said Josh Taylor, a syndicated cannabis columnist whose work appears in the Portland Mercury and owner of Oregon Cannabis Concierge, an event-production company. "It's a small community. Most of us knew Bethany and had done work through OG Analytical and for a lot of people they were, I think, the industry standard for testing."



Few who know the couple agreed to speak on the record, worried about being linked in any way to Sherman and her company.



They described Sherman and Combs as loving parents who were often seen walking to a local market for coffee or beer with their young daughter in a stroller. One acquaintance said it wasn't uncommon for Combs to carry a baseball bat; it was for protection, Combs claimed.



People recalled visiting the couple at their westside Eugene home, where nothing seemed amiss.



It's clear, according to those who knew Combs and Sherman, that Combs panicked once the information became public. He reached out to people to ask if they'd read the antifa post and at first declared it all a lie, though acquaintances and associates said the photographs taken of the demonstration at Marr's house are of Combs.



One of his acquaintances then scoured the anonymous Twitter account that antifa said was Combs' and found a post from last year announcing Sherman's and Combs' newborn daughter, identified by name and captioned: "Who knew fighting #whitegenocide would be so beautiful."



Combs has declined multiple requests to comment but during the past week has changed his profile on Twitter and has resumed tweeting from the account. The account bio now shows Combs and his young daughter with the words, "Love yourself. Love your family. Love your nation." He describes himself as a "Cascadian nationalist."



On Dec. 21, Combs tweeted that antifa's disclosures have brought an end to his formerly underground "life lived in fear, frustration, and compromise."



In response to the disclosures, Sherman issued a series of statements in which she embraced white pride and strongly objected to being described as a neo-Nazi.



The "world is tapestry of beautiful colors, each one full of a wealth of cultural heritage, and that each culture has a right to be proud of their heritage, and an obligation to protect and preserve that culture," she wrote.



With her beliefs in the open, she said, she can "pursue the life I've been longing for" and no longer must hide her views to protect her company.



Sherman declined to answer a series of follow-up questions from The Oregonian/OregonLive, though she did reply to one question asking if she shares Marr's view that Jewish people should be "exterminated."



"No," she wrote in an email, "I do not support the extermination of any people. I'm not interested in answering any of your other questions because they're not newsworthy." In a text, she indicated her company is for sale.



Like Combs, Sherman also changed her Twitter bio after the antifa allegations surfaced. She now says she is proud of who she is. "Cherish who you are and where you came from. It's okay."



Sherman and Combs were frequent customers of the David Minor Theater in Eugene. Owner Josh Goldfarb was stunned by recent characterizations of the couple.



"We thought they were liberal progressives," Goldfarb said. "We really did."



On a recent visit to the couple's home, the interior was illuminated with Christmas tree lights. A Santa decoration hung on the door. No one was home.

-- Noelle Crombie

ncrombie@oregonian.com

503-276-7184

@noellecrombie

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503.294.7632

@shanedkavanaugh