Yellowstone shooters' white nationalist leanings 'nothing new,' community members say

JACKSON - The day after a gunman opened fire in Yellowstone National Park on the Fourth of July, Wyoming clergy sent a letter to the state's elected leaders, asking them to denounce a rising tide of political extremist rhetoric in the Equality State that they say could lead to violence.

The Rev. Mary Erickson, associate rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Jackson, was among the first to sign onto the letter, "denouncing antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry" and "combating calls for hate and political violence."

Erickson didn't know at the time that the gunman, Samson Lucas Bariah Fussner, a 28-year-old Floridian and employee of Xanterra Parks and Resorts, was motivated to commit "Pro White Nationalist Violence" and had "a history of expressing white supremacist and antisemitic views," according to an investigation federal officials unveiled in court documents Friday.

Fussner was shot and killed by park rangers after opening fire at the Canyon Lodge dining facility, where about 200 people were eating breakfast the morning of Independence Day.

"If we don't push back as a culture, as a society, on this kind of violence, it's inevitable that these things will happen," Erickson said Tuesday. "I'm not surprised. It breaks my heart."

Jewish leaders lamented Fussner's rhetoric - but said they weren't surprised.

The "views and ideations of the perpetrator, sadly, are nothing new to Jewish communities and individual Jews, especially after the Oct. 7 massacre," Mary Grossman, executive director of the Jackson Hole Jewish Community, said in a statement.

Grossman was disturbed by Fussner's plan to attack a Jewish kids' camp. The Jewish Community offers a summer camp of its own.

"It hits close to home," Grossman said about Fussner's rhetoric. "We are fortunate to have a robust security protocol at the JHJC. And local law enforcement are fantastic allies."

Neo-Nazi alignment

The documents filed Friday by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Wyoming in federal court revealed new details about the incident and the shooter, providing the first public view into the federal government's investigation of the gunman's motive.

While Yellowstone officials previously said Fussner intended to shoot up Fourth of July events outside the park, the U.S. Attorney's Office filing alleges Fussner had specifically aimed "to carry out a terrorist attack against the United States, its citizens and their property."

As evidence, they cite Fussner's online presence, texts with his brother and comments to a woman he held hostage on the night of July 3.

Terrorist attacks and plots have been rising nationwide since 1994, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Reuters reported that there have been 300 cases of U.S. political violence since 2021.

The documents allege that Fussner was an active member of the Vanguard News Network, which officials call "a website and forum dedicated to white supremacist and antisemitic viewpoints."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that tracks hate speech and extremism in the United States, deems Vanguard News Network a "Neo-Nazi hate group."

In March, Fussner posted on the website that he was "on the precipice of a breakdown" and "reiterated his belief in and desire for a white nation, while lamenting his inability to connect with others," court documents state. Fussner said that he "despises Christians" who "fraternize with race-traitors that support non-whites or Jews" and that he wanted to get a job in a "nice white mountainous area or state park" to expose himself to different white people. If he wasn't able "to make something of that experience," he told readers, they would likely see him in the news.

Fussner also told a woman he held hostage that immigrants, African Americans and Jews were "negatively affecting the country," that "all blacks were evil," and that he was racist toward "J-1s," people with nonimmigrant visas who are often camp counselors, resort workers and students.

Fussner was apparently "a vulnerable human being" whose mental illness, depression and isolation drove him toward the violent rhetoric he espoused online, Erickson said after reading the court filing.

As a reverend, she was particularly struck by Fussner's hatred toward Christians that he identified as "race traitors."

Erickson said the Christian faith that Fussner attacked is powerful and beautiful because it is accepting.

"It's about putting forward a worldview that is loving," she said. "And if you are convinced that the other is evil, the other is the root cause of all your life problems, then you're probably going to reject that world view regardless."'

The Christian nationalist movement espouses a lack of tolerance for Christians who accept people of all backgrounds, Erickson said, which is part of why clergy penned the letter in July. In that letter, clergy highlighted the rhetoric of people like far-right provocateur Nick Fuentes.

"Fuentes has praised Adolf Hitler, called for 'holy war' against the Jews and has been vocal about his bigotry towards women, Muslims, the LGBTQ+ community, disabled people and others," the letter said. "While some of Fuentes' followers do not openly identify themselves as white nationalist, but rather as 'Christian conservatives,' we reject any attempt to cloak bigotry in religious language and we ask you to do the same."

Erickson said it seemed as if Fussner "bought into" similar beliefs.

Texting his brother

Leading up to July 4, Fussner texted his brother continuously and revealed his plans to commit a mass shooting. Many of these texts were quoted in the court documents.

Fussner apparently began planning the shooting on July 1, after telling his brother that he needed to apply to new jobs or else he would go "postal."

"I can't do it anymore," the gunman texted his brother that day. "I think 4th of July would be a good time. Lots of crowds and they'd think it was fireworks."

"Yeah maybe," his brother responded. "Fireworks allowed in Yellowstone?"

Fussner said fireworks weren't allowed in the park, but there would be shows nearby and he wanted to shoot "during the fireworks cus crowds there will be easy targets."

The next day, July 2, Fussner used racial slurs to describe the demographics in Yellowstone: "Whites seem to have disappeared," he wrote. "Very odd hellscape i'm in."

The court documents said Fussner blamed Jewish people for "transferring this 'extreme system' to him and his kind." Fussner then told his brother about the hostage he planned to take, saying he was "obsessed with her" and describing her as of "German stock."

The night before Independence Day, Fussner made it clear in texts to his brother that he was seeking out his own death.

The final texts included in court documents were sent early on Independence Day. At 1:18 a.m. on the morning of July 4, he texted his brother that he "snapped and did something dumb, :p," ending his text with an emoji sticking out its tongue.

"'I should have waited until July 4th and just done a crowd but something compelled me otherwise,'" Fussner texted. "I kinda wanted to 'break the script' so to speak and it worked kinda but I faltered in the plan of full hostage doh! 'You aren't gonna be happy when you wake up lol but maybe I can do something funny.'"

'Nothing new'

For members of the Jackson Hole community, Fussner's words and actions were anything but funny. Grossman, of the Jackson Hole Jewish Community, was disturbed by what court documents described as Fussner's "plans to go to a 'jew camp' and shoot Jewish kids."

Grossman said a day, or even an hour, doesn't go by that she doesn't read some threat of violence against Jewish people across the globe. She hopes people don't go numb, but she also said concern shouldn't be just about the Christian white nationalist movement.

"It should be understood that these kinds of dangers also came from left-wing radicals - like threatening attacks on synagogues; both extremes find unity over hatred of Jews," Grossman said. "It's all sort of Hitlarian Race theory from both sides: Jews are deemed not white enough for White nationalists and too white for left-wing extremists. Jews are blamed for all the perceived ills of society."

Advocates of all backgrounds and faiths are trying to take a stand and show solidarity in the wake of the federal investigation's revelations about the shooter's motivations.

"Bigotry in all its forms must be repudiated by our nation's leaders and by ordinary Americans," said Ibrahim Hooper, communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization.

The brand of bigotry Fussner espoused was xenophobic and targeted people of all different faiths, ethnicities, races and communities, Hooper said. Last year the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned hate propaganda by a white supremacist group in Wyoming. Hooper told the Jackson Hole News&Guide that he was just as unsurprised as Grossman.

"Unfortunately, we've seen the rise in white supremacist, racist, neo-Nazi, antisemitic, Islamaphobic, you-name-it rhetoric and ideologies," Hooper said, adding that he could make a daily public comment condemning violent cases like the Yellowstone shooting.

He said isolation seems to be a common threat.

"They only come into contact with certain people," Hooper said. "Any way to broaden people's experience, to bring them into contact with people of diverse backgrounds, I think that helps."

Erickson said she doesn't have an answer, but the community can help: "It is how we treat one another," she said. "It is how we welcome people into our communities that make the difference."