Internet sleuths track down another bad penny from Charlottesville
Journalist Shaun King leads effort to identify skinhead shown on video throwing punches who is聽now 聽behind bars.
The long arm of the Internet finally caught up with Dennis Mothersbaugh.
Roaming the scene in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the violent 鈥淯nite the Right鈥� rally on Aug. 12, the 33-year-old skinhead with a long rap sheet apparently felt anonymous enough to begin punching some of the counter-protesters who showed up to oppose him and his fellow white nationalists.
Video recorded at the protest showed the man lashing out and hitting first one protester as he came down a set of stairs, and then moments later punching a woman protester directly in the face, knocking her to the ground. He then was quickly surrounded by men defending the victim, and he walked away.
That recording, however, created the impetus for a search by Internet sleuths to unearth his identity. Led by Brooklyn-based , the activists in short order in large part because of on Mothersbaugh鈥檚 head, a quote from rock star Kurt Cobain which reads: 鈥淚 am rather hated for who I am, than loved for something I鈥檓 not.鈥�
Mothersbaugh, who currently resides in rural North Vernon, Indiana, has a long and violent record from the 2000s, when he resided in the Portland, Oregon, vicinity. Among his more noteworthy arrests was in suburban Gresham for threatening three African-American men and attempting to assault them, as well as a previous 2003 for an assault on a black man.
He also sports a number of other tattoos indicating his membership in the Hammerskins skinhead organization, as well as the Inland Empire neo-Nazi prison gang.
Now Mothersbaugh is behind bars. Once identified, police in Charlottesville issued a warrant for his arrest on assault charges. Police in Indiana were notified, and once Charlottesville police issued a request for extradition, Mothersbaugh by deputies.
According to , he was being held in the Jennings County Jail. He will be extradited to the Charlottesville/Abemarle Regional Jail "in the near future.鈥�
King has led previous successful efforts to identify the violent white supremacists involved in criminal assaults on people at Charlottesville, including an African-American man, Deandre Harris, at a parking garage.
King thanked his readers on . 鈥淵ou helped make that happen. We identified him. Charlottesville issued the arrest warrant. The police in his hometown, who've been great by the way, wanted to arrest him, but Charlottesville had to request extradition.
鈥淲ell, they just did, and he is now in custody. He is the third聽white supremacist from Charlottesville that we have identified and lobbied for an arrest. Your hard work is paying off.鈥�
