NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A neo-Nazi from East Tennessee has been indicted on civil rights charges following an antisemitic stunt he pulled earlier this month at Nashville's Gordon Jewish Community Center.
Travis Keith Garland, 31, from Blount County, was charged Thursday in a two-count indictment with civil rights intimidation. It follows an incident on Jan. 13 where he entered the community center wearing a Halloween costume intended to look like an Orthodox Jewish rabbi. He was originally charged with assault and criminal trespassing.
Davidson County General Sessions Judge Melissa Blackburn also declined a request Thursday to reduce Garland's $250,000 bond on the original charges.
According to online chatter reviewed by NewsChannel 5 Investigates, the suspect is affiliated with the neo-Nazi Goyim Defense League, the group that spent a couple of weeks on Nashville streets last summer, pushing its crude antisemitic, racist and homophobic messages.
In the group’s internal chats on the Telegram messaging app, we discovered videos and social media posts that appear to be from Garland, revealing more about his plans and his reaction to being forced off the Jewish Community Center property at gunpoint by a security guard.
“I wore the rabbi costume and went into their jew building harassing them," said a person who uses the handle “kitchenwaffen.”
During a preliminary hearing before Blackburn, witnesses described how Garland entered the Jewish Community Center on Percy Warner Boulevard between 7:30 and 7:45 p.m., wearing a fake beard, fake curls and clothing to make him appear as an Orthodox Jew.
The front desk receptionist, Jody Dobrin, testified that Garland entered the lobby, asking to see a rabbi. When she told him there were no rabbis present, Garland began heading to an open door that would have led further into the facility and was blocked by two men.
"He was determined," Dobrin said. "I believe I felt that he was determined to go see if there was a rabbi there — and he seemed to be a bit belligerent to listen that there's no rabbi."
Security guard Jonathan Low told the court that when he arrived in the lobby, Garland accused the JCC of "false advertising" when told there was no rabbi present.
"I assumed he was an emotionally disturbed person. I asked him to leave," Low testified, calling Garland "loud and disruptive."
That's when, according to Low, Garland looked to the pistol that the security guard was carrying on his hip.
"So I put my hand on my pistol to hold it in my holster as a weapons-retention technique I had learned, and I moved toward him," Low continued. "I was going to push him out the door with my right hand, but he moved back through the doors, and we went out at the parking lot."
NewsChannel 5 Investigates obtained video showing Garland livestreaming the confrontation in the parking lot.
"At one point, he turns around and charges me," Low testified, saying that led him to pull the gun from its holster.
"I told him to stop and to go out the front gate. And the people on his phone were telling him, ‘Get to the car, get to the car.’ So I started thinking he's got weapons or something in the car, and I'm not going to let him get to the car. So I ushered him out the front gate."
Metro police Detective Michael Esposito testified that he interviewed Garland after he was arrested in Blount County and that the suspect claimed the incident was a prank that he decided to pull while waiting to pick up his girlfriend from Nashville International Airport.
Yet, police found evidence on Garland's phone that he had been planning it all for some time.
"So his statements to me were that it just was a spur-of-the-moment funny joke, but in reality, this was a planned, targeted act that he thought about prior to even departing his residence out in East Tennessee," Esposito said.
Garland's public defender, Jeff Woods, argued that members of the public are allowed to enter the Jewish Community Center and that Garland did comply with orders to leave. He suggested Garland was only trying to get back to his car when Low perceived his move as a "charge."
"I would submit his conduct didn't substantially interfere with the owner's use of the property," Woods argued. "While Mr. Low did put his hand on his weapon, my client retreated at all times, meaning that he left the premises upon request."
Garland is the third member of the Goyim Defense League to be arrested here in the last six months.
Ryan Scott McCann, a neo-Nazi from Canada, was arrested on assault charges back in July as a result of a skirmish between GDL members and a downtown bartender. McCann was caught on video jabbing the bartender with the flagpole of the swastika flag he was carrying.
In September, Texas member David Aaron Bloyed was arrested on federal charges for making an online threat to kill DA Glenn Funk.
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Do you have information that would help me with my investigation? Send me your tips: phil.williams@newschannel5.com
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