The militias of the Radical Right

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Private paramilitary activity is illegal, in New York and across the nation. 

Nevertheless, there are more than an estimated dozen militias active in the Empire State, and countless more elsewhere in the United States. These militias believe they’re entitled to use violence to advance their agenda, which is aligned with America’s Radical Right.

Western New York is home to perhaps the movement’s most infamous figures, Timothy McVeigh, whose bombing of a federal office building in 1995 killed 168 people and injured 680. That bombing helped expedite the growth of the militia movement.

ProPublica reported last week on one of the nation’s largest militias, the American Patriots Three Percent.

Its ranks included cops and convicted criminals, active-duty U.S. soldiers and small-business owners, truck drivers and health care professionals. Like other militias, AP3 has a vague but militant right-wing ideology, a pronounced sense of grievance and a commitment to armed action. It has already sought to shape American life through vigilante operations: AP3 members have “rounded up” immigrants at the Texas border, assaulted Black Lives Matter protesters and attempted to crack down on people casting absentee ballots.

Now with the presidential election less than 100 days away, AP3 members see the fate of their country turning on a turbulent, charged campaign. They’re certain that Democrats will try to steal — not for the first time, in their view — the White House from Donald Trump. “The next election won’t be decided at a Ballot Box,” an AP3 leader wrote several months ago in a private Telegram chat. “It’ll be decided at the ammo box.” He has said he is ready to force his way into voting centers if need be, or “whatever it takes.”

Earlier this month, the Adirondack Daily Enterprise published an investigation on the militia movement in New York, which it found concentrated in the North County. The story noted that militias have a presence in Western New York, as well.

We were able to interview … Josh Shoaff, who is a self-described Three Percenter and has traveled the country for major anti-government and far-right events in recent years. He was at the infamous Bundy standoff back in 2014 and led an armed, military-style group at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

Shoaff is based in Tennessee, but helps train militia members in New York, which he said are run on a military-style rank structure. 

“These groups are organized to the point that they have message boards, they have meetings of their own. And those things are put out so that, you know, hey, ‘If you want to come to a training, we’re having training on this and this date, this is the instructor or this is the location,’” said Shoaff.

In 2022, the Southern Poverty Law Center tracked 53 hate and anti-government groups that operate in New York State. Investigative Post has published several stories on their activities in WNY, including:

• The effort by local radical right groups to consolidate and coordinate their activities. 
• Only one county in the entire United States had more of its residents arrested for storming Capitol Hill on Jan. 6, 2021, than Erie County.
• New York has more law enforcement officers who are members of Oath Keepers than any other state in the country. 
• The Buffalo area is home to a small but growing cadre of right wing extremists who are making inroads at both the grassroots and electoral level. 

Finally, Wired magazine in May reported how militias are using Facebook groups to coordinate their activities.  

Investigative Post staff