He says in his intro he took part in one of the most violent cells in the movement and eventually oversaw cells that carried out violence.
Yeah, I guess my point included how that doesn't imply very much without the details, much like the modern KKK and Black Panthers who are boogeymen more than legitimate threats, let alone the common gangs. Yeah, there's assaults, murders, etc. But many of these are so small, so localized and often internal beefs between the gangs, etc.
But then I've read a lot about these truly radical groups and always kinda laugh at how blown up as a threat they often become in the media, especially long down the road or especially when they're charged. This is from the SPLC's article on him, describing this MERGER OF THE MOST VIOLENT GROUPS he performed:
At 16, with Martell locked up in prison for at least the second time, Picciolini became the leader of the gang. He eventually merged CASH with the notoriously violent Hammerskins after a drunken organizing meeting just outside Chicago that was held in a small shabby apartment crammed with as many as 30 skinheads from Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas and Illinois. “Nazi flags draped the walls,” he writes. “Armbands with swastika insignias were plentiful. Some tough-looking skinhead girls hung onto the arms of some of the bigger guys, making it easy to see who the important players were.”
Arno Michaelis, a neo-Nazi skinhead from Milwaukee, was at the meeting and was impressed by Picciolini. “Christian was ridiculously good-looking back then,” says Michaelis, who is now a dedicated anti-racist and peace advocate. “He was very outspoken and articulate. When we met kids like that, we’d say this guy is going to be a great leader.”
When he first started recruiting for CASH, there were likely fewer than 200 racist skinheads in the U.S. By 1989, when he was convicted of home invasion, aggravated battery and robbery and sentenced to 11 years in prison, there were more than 3,000.
It sounds like a lot until you think about it for half a second.
To clarify, not saying these groups can't be serious problems, can't perform terrible crimes. But they're generally localized threats of "common" crime, not about to take over the DHS to issue a coded press release, let alone lead a wave of mass violence against entire classes of people. Arresting them under normal process, even if that might need to be stepped up or reformed or their associates cleaned out (much like any gangs really), destroys the bulk of their real power.
