Police: Pennsylvania’s Boneheads Attack A Black Man in Pittsburgh-Area Bar

We haven’t talked about Keystone United, formerly Keystone State “Skinheads” in a while, but just like old times, the KSSholes managed to get themselves in the crosshairs again.

AVALON, PA – Police say reputed members of Keystone United were detained but as of yet not charged in an assault on a Black man in a local bar, saying to him that they will “eradicate blacks one-by-one.”

According to CBS News, the incident is being investigated as a hate crime, but the attorney for Paul Morris, a patron of the Jackman Inn, questions why at the very least those who attacked his client wasn’t at least charged, with not just assault but also ethnic intimidation. According to police, Morris, who is Black, walked into a backroom where they were playing pool. They allegedly used a racial epithet against the victim sparking a confrontation that prompted the bartender to ask the group to leave. At that point, according to bar manager Jackie Scanlon, that was when they attacked Morris.

“Eight of them jumped Paul,” she said. “He was hit in the face. He bent down to pick up his glasses. He was hit again.”

News reports say that Morris was later able to identify one of the men who assaulted him from a group photo posted on the Keystone United Web site. According to Avalon Mayor Tom Lloyd, at least one of the men apprehended by police was wearing a t-shirt that indicated an affiliation with a hate group.

“This is a hate crime, there’s no doubt about it,” Morris’ attorney Fred Rabner told CBS News. “I would hope that they’re going to get it right. I think that they should know that we’re not going to go away, so if they don’t get it right, they’ll deal with us.”

In April, Keystone United said in an article that 2018 was an “active year” for the group, noting how they held a flash mob demo on the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol Building in Harrisburg and how they organized banner drops around the state. “2018 is turning out to be the year of activism for Keystone United, and with summer approaching you can expect more to come,” the article read. But 2018 has also seen the organization formerly known as Keystone State “Skinheads” (KSS) take a particular hit from Twitter who banned their account in a purge last December of accounts promoting neo-Fascism. In addition, they must hold events without promoting them online due to fear of opposition, a fear that was most notably realized in 2013, when their annual “Leif Erickson Day Celebration” in Philadelphia was met with over 200 persons facing off with a significantly smaller group of fascists they assembled. They still hold the events year after year in October, but antifa were able to oppose them again last year when they learned of their plans.

In recent years, the group has tried to angle themselves in more palatable circles, although often still particularly far right. They have made alliances with militia groups in Pennsylvania, most notably in anti-immigration campaigns, and have even won elections within the Republican Party. KU founding member Steve Smith has been a Republican Committeeman in Luzerne County for the past six years, while another member, Ryan Wojtowicz joined him on the same committee in 2017.

This latest incident however, recalls the history of the organization that since 2001 has engaged in various violent situations and have worked with those that have or would later eventually be murderers. Wade Page, the Hammerskin Nation associate who shot and killed six people in a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin in 2012, once performed with the neo-Nazi band Youngland at a 2003 KSS-sponsored event. In 1998, KSS associates Charles Marovskis and Kenneth Hoover while part of another neo-Nazi crew called Blood and Honour, joined with two others and murdered a 62-year-old homeless man, beating him and stabbing him with a tire iron, then a 44-year-old man who was also homeless, with an ax. Both who were arrested in 2007 later pled guilty to the crimes and are currently in prison. Marovskis was living in West Pittston, PA where Steve Smith resides. Smith himself served 30 days in prison in 2003 for attacking a Black man in Scranton, PA.

Charges are expected to be filed later this week. No names of the defendants have been released to the public at the time of this article.