When white nationalists met up in a small city in north Texas to participate in yet one more battle evening occasion, we set about finding the place it happened.
Billed because the third in a sequence relationship again to 2022, the occasion was hosted by white nationalist group Patriot Entrance. Final 12 months, Bellingcat geolocated an occasion to a fitness center area within the Los Angeles metropolitan space.
On March 8, 2024, a Telegram channel related to US far-right extremist Robert Rundo posted eight images of the fight sports activities occasion (Bellingcat will not be naming the outlet to keep away from amplification). The outlet promised {that a} promotional “documentary” movie of the occasion could be “coming quickly” and claimed the occasion happened in north Texas. As well as, the outlet claimed that Rundo’s far-right vogue model was answerable for organising the occasion.
Bellingcat solely wanted the very first picture within the put up, and some minutes of internet looking out, to geolocate the occasion to a corridor obtainable for hire in Muenster, a city of fewer than 2,000 individuals in north Texas.
Right here’s how we did it:
The primary trace was the American flag.
In a Telegram chat discussing the occasion, one particular person commented on the presence of the big US flag hung within the constructing. Somebody who claimed to have attended the occasion replied “it was a part of the venues [sic] ornament so it couldn’t actually be eliminated.” This led Bellingcat to imagine that different public images of the venue would seemingly have a big American flag hanging inside.
The second trace — and the one which led Bellingcat proper to the venue — was a small element on the desk within the entrance of the picture.
The letters ‘MVFD’ are seen on the desk (although the other way up), suggesting that the desk belongs to a volunteer hearth division (i.e., ‘VFD: Volunteer Hearth Division’).
With this clue, Bellingcat then looked for ‘MVFD Texas’.
We discovered outcomes for a number of cities starting with the letter ‘M’ in north Texas whose hearth departments used that abbreviation, and checked obtainable photographs from these cities to see if something resembled the venue seen within the images.
Scrolling outcomes from Muenster, Bellingcat observed a photograph of a similar-looking venue, together with an analogous ceiling, home windows and two doorways at one finish.
Subsequent, we looked for “corridor Muenster Texas” and located extra images of a venue — Fuhrmann Corridor on the Heritage Park Occasions Middle, a venue obtainable to the general public to hire.
We have been in a position to match the the big American flag, the ceiling, the air conditioners and the sunshine fixtures and doorways to the photographs posted in Telegram.
Thus, Bellingcat was in a position to find the Patriot Entrance occasion to the Fuhrmann Corridor situated an hour’s drive from the Dallas-Fort Value Metroplex.
Bellingcat contacted the Heritage Park Occasions Middle and requested them whether or not they have been conscious that that they had rented their services to representatives of a far-right community. We had not obtained a response at time of publication.
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