Philly Cop Exposed As Neo-Nazi After BLM Protest Photos Emerge

Photos sur­faced Wednesday on social media show­ing Philadelphia police offi­cer Ian Hans Lichtermann dis­play­ing his Nazi tat­too while work­ing the #BlackResistanceMarch dur­ing the Democratic National Convention in July. After the pho­tos were post­ed, local activists dis­cov­ered that the offi­cer had pre­vi­ous­ly been exposed as a mem­ber of a neo-Nazi orga­ni­za­tion who had quit the force, only to resur­face in uni­form once again at the anti-police bru­tal­i­ty rally.

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In the pho­tos that led to the dis­cov­ery, the police offi­cer had a large tat­too of an eagle and the famil­iar Nazi sym­bol, with German-style text read­ing “Fatherland” on his left forearm.

The pho­to showed the offi­cer, iden­ti­fied as Lichtermann based on his name patch, tat­tooed with an assault rifle and a U.S. flag on his right fore­arm accom­pa­nied by the text “For God and Country” — the mot­to of the American Legion, a U.S. vet­er­ans’ orga­ni­za­tion that open­ly sup­port­ed fas­cism pri­or to the Second World War.

The pho­tos, tak­en dur­ing the DNC, were shared by Evan P. Mathews and dat­ed July 28, 2016. In the accom­pa­ny­ing cap­tions, the Philadelphia police offi­cer is iden­ti­fied as Ian Hans Lichtermann.

The post also not­ed that among the tat­toos, an Iron Cross was vis­i­ble. The Iron Cross was an award that Hitler received dur­ing his ser­vice to the German Empire in the First World War that was also giv­en to Nazi sol­diers dur­ing World War II.

“The imagery on dis­play in the tweet is dis­turb­ing,” said Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney in a state­ment Thursday. “In this envi­ron­ment — in which open, hon­est dia­logue between cit­i­zens and police is para­mount — we need to be build­ing trust, not offer­ing mes­sages or dis­play­ing images that destroy trust.”

The police depart­ment said it will inves­ti­gate the pho­to and added it “does not con­done any­thing that can be inter­pret­ed as offen­sive, hate­ful or dis­crim­i­na­to­ry in any form,” but the pres­i­dent of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, John McNesby, said it’s “Not a big deal.”

“I see peo­ple with pan­thers on their arm. Doesn’t mean they are Black Panthers. People with cross­es on arms does­n’t mean they dis­like any oth­er reli­gion,” he said.

The march where the pho­tos were tak­en was held in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Black Lives Matter move­ment and was meant to counter the oppres­sion of Black peo­ple and oth­er peo­ple of col­or by police forces and the state. The action was orga­nized by com­mu­ni­ty groups includ­ing the Philly Coalition for REAL Justice and the Workers World Party.

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The post explained that Lichtermann was part of a detail of around 100 police offi­cers who blocked inter­sec­tions in Philadelphia dur­ing the protest march.

After the pho­tos were cir­cu­lat­ed online, a local antifas­cist blog not­ed that a 2010 hack of neo-Nazi web­sites exposed Lichtermann as a mem­ber of Blood and Honour, a net­work of neo­fas­cist white suprema­cist orga­ni­za­tions found­ed by Ian Stuart, front­man for U.K. skin­head band Skrewdriver.

In social media posts, the Philadelphia peace offi­cer made no secret of his dis­like for Solicalsts (sic) | Photo: Flickr /​Panzerhund0311

According to Philly Antifa, Lichtermann – an ex-marine – left the Philly police at some point fol­low­ing the expo­sure of his fas­cist activ­i­ty, although it is unkown whether there was a con­nec­tion between the expo­sure and his depar­ture. Lichtermann then worked as a pri­vate­ly-con­tract­ed mer­ce­nary in the Middle East before return­ing to the force and resur­fac­ing at the DNC protest.

The blog also post­ed damn­ing pho­tos depict­ing the Philadelphia offi­cer’s fond­ness for Third Reich mil­i­taria. In the pho­tos, Lichtermann can be seen role-play­ing, along­side fel­low hob­by­ists, in Waffen-SS uni­forms. The pho­tos, along with var­i­ous hard-right memes, were post­ed to his Flickr page under his account name – Panzerhund0311 (a German port­man­teau that trans­lates to “Tank-dog”).

Ian Hans Lichterman (left) with 2 fel­low Nazi reean­act­ment-hob­by­ist com­rades. | Photo: Philly Antifa

Lichterman (far right) and his fel­low WWII enthu­si­asts reen­act a Third Reich cer­e­mo­ny | Photo: Philly Antifa

The dis­cov­ery has led to out­rage online, with many Philadelphia res­i­dents ques­tion­ing Lichterman’s employ­ment with the Philly PD while not­ing the poor track record of police-com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions and the bru­tal treat­ment met­ed out toward the city’s neigh­bor­hoods of color.<p”>

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The dis­cov­ery comes months after Lorne Ahrens, one of 5 Dallas police offi­cers slain by lone gun­man Micah Xavier Johnson, was also dis­cov­ered to have been an afi­ciona­do of fas­cist and neo-Nazi iconog­ra­phy and tat­toos. The late offi­cer, a for­mer mem­ber of the noto­ri­ous Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department gang the Lynwood Vikings, was also a fan of the types of right-wing memes post­ed to Lichterman’s social media accounts.

A leader of the White Lives Matter Group recent­ly wrote that she wished that “Hitler were alive and well today.” The group was clas­si­fied as a hate group by the Southern Law Poverty Center, a hate-group mon­i­tor­ing orga­ni­za­tion. see rest of sto­ry here : http://​www​.telesurtv​.net/​e​n​g​l​i​s​h​/​n​e​w​s​/​P​h​o​t​o​-​E​m​e​r​g​e​s​-​o​f​-​P​h​i​l​l​y​-​C​o​p​-​F​l​a​u​n​t​i​n​g​-​N​a​z​i​-​T​a​t​t​o​o​-​a​t​-​B​L​M​-​M​a​r​c​h​-​2​0​1​6​0​901 – 0003.html