Photo via Gainesville Police Dept.
L-R: Colton Fears, Tyler Tenbrink, William Fears
Two brothers, 30-year-old William Fears and 28-year-old Colton Fears of Passadena, TX join 28-year-old Tyler Tenbrink of Richmond, TX in Alachua County Jail on charges of attempted homicide, according to a Gainesville Police Department press release.
The trio of white nationalists jumped out of a Jeep around 5:30 Thursday to argue with people protesting Spencer's event. According to police reports, they made Nazi salutes and shouted chants about Hitler at the group. Tenbrink was the one to pull out a handgun.
According to the Alachua County Sheriff’s arrest report, the Fears brothers enticed Tenbrink to pull the trigger “I’m going to f—— kill you,” they allegedly yelled. Also “Kill them,” and “Shoot them."
Tenbrink fired the gun and missed the group, striking a nearby building. The trio then fled in their Jeep.
Violence like this has almost become synonymous with alt-right speeches, but if you saw this interview with William Fears shortly before the shooting, you probably wouldn't guess he would be the one to make it all boil over.
He just wanted to be a part of something huge.SPENCER SUPPORTER: Houston resident William Fears was in Charlottesville now here @UF to see #RichardSpencer speak @news6wkmg pic.twitter.com/QWyK3Xxqdh
— Nadeen Yanes (@NadeenNews6) October 19, 2017
But this certainly isn't Fears' first foray into alt-right rabble-rousing. William Fears was in Charlottesville on Aug. 12 to participate in the white supremacist rally that left one woman dead — and had such a prominent role in the protest that the Chicago Tribune included him in a follow-up feature story.
In the story, he said he was willing to die "for the movement," and okay with becoming a martyr.
"If there is going to be a violent race war, maybe we should do it, maybe we should escalate it," he told the Tribune in August.
William also went to jail in 2009 for kidnapping his ex-girlfriend in his car and proceeding to stab her in the face, arms and legs. More recently, he set up shop in Dallas' Oak Lawn Park to protest the city's decision to remove a Robert E. Lee statue. (The statue was still removed).
In a September interview with the Dallas Morning News about the statue, he outright labeled himself a Nazi.
“Nazi is like the N-word for white people,” William said. “And I just embrace it.”
The trio were finally caught, four hours after the altercation, by a joint manhunt by local law enforcement. All three remain in jail facing $1-3 million bond, according to GPD.
It's not a place Fears is too comfortable in, based on past interviews with the self-proclaimed Nazi.
"I don't think any race experiences racism in the modern world the way that white people do in a jail," he told a UT Tyler publication, the Patriot Talon in 2009. "In jail, whites come last."
