The Republic of Florida attended Dick Spencer’s University of Florida Appearance

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims of yesterday’s shooting in Parkland, Florida, and we gotta say, the connections the more violent people in fascist circles keep having to Spencer is getting real old.

The Republic of Florida, a White Supremacist group who’s spokesperson claims Nikolas Cruz, 19-year-old man suspected of fatally shooting at least 17 people Wednesday at a Parkland, Florida, high school, is one of their members, has been particularly active in the state, most notably being seen when White Supremacist Richard Spencer spoke at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

In a YouTube video that has since been taken down along with their other videos, Jordan Jereb, the leader of a cell of the ROF and its most prominent spokesperson, said that members were in attendance during Spencer’s October appearance at the University. The event resulted in three of Spencer’s supporters  being arrested for shooting at counterprotesters, and the video was an attempt to shift blame from those arrested to an antifascist protester. “While I’m not ready to release any extensive statement about our involvement in the festivities of Gainesville, I am willing to admit that we did have boots on the ground in Gainesville,” Jereb said in the video. “The extent of our involvement in what was going on in Gainesville is not something I’m willing to talk about at this particular juncture. I will however say we did in fact have boots on the ground in Gainesville, and there were things we were doing in Gainesville during the time of the Richard Spencer speech. We did have individuals working privately, quietly in the background, while the surface chaos of the event unfolding.”

According to the Anti-Defamation League, when  self-described ROF members claimed on the discussion forum 4chan that Cruz had also been a member, the organization called the ROF hotline and spoke with an ROF member who identified himself as Jordan Jereb and said that Cruz had participated in one or more ROF training exercises in the Tallahassee area, where Jereb is based, carpooling with other ROF members from South Florida.

In 2016, Jereb was arrested on charges of threatening a staffer in the office of Florida Governor Rick Scott because he was reportedly angry at the staffer’s son.

In the wake of the tragic events of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va, Jereb spoke with local media and said he expected a civil war in the United States within five years.