Dillon Hopper, the self-styled “commander” of Vanguard America, is a recently retired marine staff sergeant and veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Hopper, 29, has been using his former name, Dillon Irizarry, when appearing in public for Vanguard America. Fields had been photographed standing among members of Vanguard America earlier in the day. Like Identity Evropa, a similar white nationalist group, Vanguard America seeks to recruit clean-cut, more professional white men, rebranding racist organizing in a preppier image. The Vanguard America spokesman objected to links between made between Collins’s stabbing and the white nationalist posters that had appeared on campus.

Source: The Guardian August 14, 2017 20:51 UTC