Burning Hate: Bond Review
This is an update in the Burning Hate series - stories of the men who marched with tiki torches on August 11, 2017. Read the introductory piece here. Read the first, second, and third installments.
Scott Dykes was staring down at the photos in his hands when the prosecutor asked him if the man in the pictures looked like his son. "Looks like it could be," he said reluctantly.
Tyler Dykes' father was sitting in front of Judge Claude Worrell in Albemarle Circuit Court. Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Lawton Tufts had just passed the witness several printed out stills from security camera footage showing a tall, dark-haired young man putting up fliers with swastikas on them in Sumter, SC in November 2020. According to Tufts, Dykes was a suspect.
Tyler Dykes, who has been in custody at the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail for a week since his extradition from South Carolina, is facing a felony charge of burning an object with the intent to intimidate. That charge, indicted in February, is for his participation in a torchlit rally nearly six years ago on August 11, 2017. Scott Dykes made the trip from South Carolina this week to testify that he would be able to supervise his son at home if he were released on bond. The elder Dykes, a retired accountant in his 80s, was not aware that his son was a suspect in the antisemitic flier incident and was unable to answer a question about why his son was discharged from the Marines last year.
Dykes' attorney Bryan Jones said his client was a young man with a stable income and was only 19 years old in 2017. Now he's a 25 year old small business owner with three rental properties and parents who have agreed to ensure he returns for his next court date. And while Judge Worrell said he didn't feel Dykes was a flight risk, he denied the motion for bond after hearing proffered evidence from the Commonwealth. According to Tufts, Dykes may have been 19 at the time of the offense, but he has remained active in white nationalist organizing up to the moment of his arrest last month.
Calling the blog "a source the Commonwealth would not normally rely on," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney Lawton Tufts presented evidence drawn from a report published yesterday by Atlanta Antifascists about a months-long infiltration effort into a white supremacist group called the Southern Sons Active Club. Tufts emphasized that since reading this information yesterday, his office was able to confirm key details with law enforcement, authenticating the report's publication of leaked chats from Dykes and other members of the group. Tufts did not specify which law enforcement agencies he spoke to about Dykes, only that they were able to confirm the authenticity of the leaked messages and that Dykes was being actively investigated for other conduct.
The Atlanta Antifascists writeup tells the story of the day of Dykes' arrest from a unique perspective: Dykes' own. With an infiltrator inside the private Telegram chat of the Southern Sons, they had an inside look at Dykes' St. Patrick's day plans. He and other members of the group intended to hang a banner from an overpass near Savannah, GA. These banner drops are a popular propagandizing effort by white supremacist groups, with other chapters of these "active clubs" engaging in similar activity across the country. But Tyler Dykes did not make it to the banner drop that day - he was bitten by a dog. Instead of unfurling a "White Lives Matter" banner over an interstate, Tyler Dykes went to the emergency room. Hospital visits for dog bites require a police report, which resulted in an officer running Dykes' name and seeing the fugitive warrant.
After a demoralized string of messages to the chat about the dog bite, the hospital visit, and calling off the banner drop, Dykes sent one final message: "I'm arrested by Virginia. Nuke my account."
It was Dykes' own messages in the chat the day of his arrest that landed him back in jail today - mere hours before his arrest, he was demonstrating 'consciousness of guilt,' as the prosecutor put it, in attempting to evade the police to find an overpass, which he planned to use tools to damage for the purpose of unfurling a racist banner. Upon learning of his arrest, he demonstrated a willingness to destroy evidence, asking other members of the white supremacist group to erase his participation.
In his ruling, Judge Worrell told Dykes, "This court can't believe you'll be on good behavior" if released from custody. Tyler Dykes was returned to the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail. No agreement was reached on a trial date today, but the defense stated on the record they object to any waiver of speedy trial, so the trial will have to take place in the next few months. For now, there is a status hearing docketed for June 5.
Dallas Medina, another of the three currently indicted torch marchers, had a bond hearing on Thursday, but it didn't appear on the docket in time for me to attend. At his first appearance on Tuesday, Judge Higgins would not address the issue of bond until Medina had retained counsel. Instead, he was released on his own recognizance but prohibited from leaving the state, leaving him in limbo until his next scheduled hearing on May 5. Medina was able to secure representation by Mike Hallahan before Thursday and was able to get back before the judge. Instead of being stuck here in Virginia, he was allowed to return home to Ohio until his next hearing on June 5.
Wil Smith, who has been sitting in the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail since January, was also scheduled to have a bond hearing today. After Dykes' hearing, Smith's case was called and the defendant was brought into the courtroom in his gray and white striped jail uniform. His lawyer, a Richmond-based defense attorney named Cody Villalon, requested some time to speak with his client prior to the hearing. After Smith conferred with his attorney for some time, the hearing was rescheduled for May 3. Smith remains in custody at this time.