Self-declared skinhead gets 7-year term on weapons charge

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/A2517352D599164886257388000F598E?OpenDocument

By Robert Patrick
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
11/03/2007

ST. LOUIS — A self-described neo-Nazi skinhead caught agreeing to sell automatic weapons in the St. Louis area was sentenced Friday to seven years in federal prison.

Michael P. "Shade" Driver — who calls himself a "pro-white skinhead" and "Aryan soldier" — was nabbed by undercover agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives earlier this year after agreeing to take three guns on consignment. He suggested he would offer them to people in the skinhead "movement" or to a local biker gang, according to investigators' notes and an Oct. 18 jailhouse interview with Driver.

In that interview, Driver, 30, speculated that police and federal agents began investigating him because of his appearance and beliefs. Before his arrest, he frequently sported a swastika T-shirt and trademark skinhead boots with red laces. Driver, of St. Louis, also has a swastika tattoo on his chest and a spider web tattoo on his elbow, among others.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors white supremacist groups, says that red laces typically signify that the wearer has shed blood for the skinhead movement and the spider web means he has murdered for the movement. Driver told a reporter that the tattoo had no special significance.

Driver may have attracted even more attention from authorities because his then-girlfriend told investigators that he claimed to be involved in the shipment of 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate. At least once, he allegedly told her that the compound was bound for a white supremacist compound in Arkansas.

[IntravenousDemilo]

1. Well, while he's cooling his heels in prison, how about...

...having him forcibly restrained (or anaesthetized if necessary) and then lasering the swastika tattoo off his chest?

[BuyingThyme]

2. I have a big problem with cops targeting people for their views,

but I'm not so sure about the stuff about spilling blood. Is it the same as going around telling people you rolled somebody? I'm not familiar with this.