PHOENIX — A new report released Tuesday said there are 39 known hate and anti-government groups in Arizona.
The report, released by the Southern Poverty Law Center, identifies each of the groups, including a neo-Völkisch hate group that is getting more attention after a convicted killer turned massage therapist and his wife, who's a member of the Arizona National Guard, were exposed for their ties to it.
The group, the Asatru Folk Assembly, has recently grown across the United States. The SPLC reports 33 known Asatru Folk Assembly groups now, up from 31 in 2022.
"We continue in the United States to have a problem with an organized white supremacist movement, and it may not look exactly the same as what it did," Rachel Carroll Rivas, Interim Director of the Intelligence Project at the SPLC said.
The Arizona National Guard is looking into Sgt. Ashley Drago after allegations first came to light from Left Coast Right Watch, an online news site that monitors 'the Far-Right and politics'.
Drago and her husband were exposed as members of the Asatru Folk Assembly. Drago's husband, Ryan Aleksander Drago, formerly known as David Drake, was convicted of manslaughter in 2007 and now is a licensed massage therapist in Surprise.
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"What Asatru has done is the exact same thing as a Phinehas priest, but Odin has told these guys that you're warriors for the white race. You will defend the white race. You will build the white race. And anything that's not white needs to be pushed away and got rid of," Matt Browning, a retired Mesa gang detective, said.
According to the Arizona National Guard, Drago is still under investigation. Since joining the Arizona National Guard in 2020, the spokesperson said that Drago has been assigned to the 108th Army Band.
"SGT Drago will continue to report to her Guard duties during this investigation. Her duties will vary during this time as required by the unit’s mission requirements," Major Erin Hannigan with the Arizona National Guard said.
Browning said that solutions to fight hate, and the violence that comes from hate, is through education and exposure.
"You have to educate, you have to expose. Once we educate and expose it, that's where decisions can be made, and that's where choices can be made," Browning said.
Carroll Rivas said that resources and information can help prevent the radicalization of young people too.
"I don't think we will prevent those from existing, but we can prevent the response from people joining something that is not only dangerous to society, to people who are targeted, but probably damaging to them as well," Carroll Rivas said.
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