The truth about the myth that “Deo Killed RMFC” – guest post by Harper.

by Patch O'Furr

It’s very possible you’ve heard the assertion that Deo (DeoTasDevil) is responsible for the demise of Rocky Mountain Fur Con. There’s been a lot of back and forth about it, and allegedly she’s the main and even sole party responsible.  Let’s put aside the various instances of the fallout and just examine the sequence of events pertaining to Deo’s participation.

  1. In January 2017, Deo tweets “can’t wait to punch these nazis.”
  2. She receives a reply from someone that they would be amused if she were shot in response to her purported action.
  3. Deo responds asking if this person was threatening to bring a gun to RMFC.
  4. Deo contacts RMFC security to inform them of a potential issue.

^ A lawyer’s opinion.

In April, three months later, the C&D letter and SovCit business happens. RMFC reveals that the hotel and local police have been called numerous times to make various threats (before and after Deo’s January tweet.)  This concerns the hotel so much that they demand RMFC pay an additional $22,000 for increased police presence at the property.  Shortly after the cost demand, RMFC announces they’re shutting down.  Elsewhere, Deo is accused of having made at least some of the calls to the hotel and police, if not having orchestrated the entire phone-based attack. Essentially, some group of people mass called the hotel of the venue to make bogus threats and fake safety/publicity concerns, which led to the hotel asking for extra funding to be provided for increased security (months after Deo’s tweet.)

(Patch:) To update the April article that preceded the closing of RMFC – a clarification was recently added by request.  Deo gave an accurate quote of emailing the con only.  She didn’t contact the hotel or police in Colorado.  At the time it was written, there wasn’t a group dedicated to blaming Deo, so that wasn’t made entirely clear.

Fast forward a few months and Califur experiences the same problem. People begin calling the hotel– though this time regarding the content of one of the panels featured at Califur– making fabricated concerns and threats.  The hotel demands a hefty fee for additional security. However, the individuals behind this attack are members of “Alt-furry”. They even discuss formulating a plan to attack AC in a similar fashion.

Coincidentally, the people claiming that Deo orchestrated the attack on RMFC are also members of Alt-furry. This makes two conventions that have been attacked in this way with a third planned (though no word on whether or not AC was actually attacked has been given). Assuming we don’t know the identities of who attacked RMFC, we do know that Alt-furry went after Califur. Both follow the same MO, yet we’re told that Deo is guilty by the very people caught redhanded in the second and potentially-third attack.

This is an immediate red flag that the accusation against Deo is little more than deception. The more likely scenario is that members of the Alt-furry group executed both attacks and are attempting to use Deo as a scapegoat, following her sudden notoriety from her tweet being thrust into the public eye. If you add in various things that I’ve skipped over (RMFC’s loss of tax exempt status, the owner’s sex offense record, the poor handling of pseudo-nazi instigation)… it just doesn’t add up that Deo managed to sink RMFC with a vague threat lacking credibility.

Perhaps you’ve heard a different account of the debacle surrounding RMFC, but regardless of what, there’s no denying the suspicious actions from members of Alt-furry that undermine their claims.

Consider this:  Your house is burglarized. Not long after, your neighbor’s house is burglarized, but your neighbor manages to catch the burglar. You find out that the thief was planning to rob another home. When you ask, the thief claims that they weren’t the one that robbed you. Would you believe it?

– Harper, July 2017

Further reference: 

NOVEMBER 2019 UPDATE BY PATCH: FOUR ESSENTIAL PIECES OF CONTEXT TO DEBUNK THE MYTH.

 

1) Furry Raiders targeted RMFC 2016’s room block first.

The “Deo threatened violence” claim is a piece of bad-faith scapegoating that lingers on and on, like a zombie that won’t quite die. Of course, her tweet fell after months of conflict, including altfurry/Furry Raiders interfering with the room block of the previous year’s con, RMFC 2016. Deo wasn’t involved until MONTHS after they started first provocation — and in 2019 we know a LOT more about what they were doing to harm cons.

April 2016 post showing that Furry Raiders jumped the room block opening to take rooms before con goers, akin to hoarding pizza at a party just for their friends.

 

January 27, 2017 — The same day as Deo’s infamous Tweet. Hers wasn’t widely seen until April, so this was largely overlooked and few remembered by then.

2) The “Can’t wait to punch these Nazis” tweet was a reference to Richard Spencer.

Was Deo’s tweet first and foremost, a threat? In context, that doesn’t make sense, because it was already a trending news topic that same week. On January 21, 2017, an actual punch landed on Richard Spencer, the neo-nazi spokesperson for the alt-right, spawning millions of views and one meme/reference by Deo.

Spencer went on to organize the “Unite The Right” hate march in Charlottesville in August 2017, where a nazi killed a woman with a car. Altfurries promoted and attended the march and even praised violence they saw there.

In November 2019, Spencer trended again on Twitter. A new piece of audio of him was released by his former ally, alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos. (It was to discredit Spencer and help a different alt-right group). It’s a hateful screaming rant from right when Spencer learned about the death at the 2017 march.

Nazis are the real source of violent threats here and they have a body count.

 

3) Altfurries keep trying to ruin cons in 2018-2019, including by targeting room blocks.

In August 2018, the first Denfur convention took the place of RMFC. Furry Raiders founder Foxler tried to go, but got kicked out. Why?

A witness came forward prior to the con, revealing that Foxler had a large amount of stolen registration data (possibly sourced from RMFC staff, or from security flaws detailed here: Furry Website Leaks Real Identities.) And he had many stolen credit cards. And he’d been using them with a group of altfurry helpers to make fraudulent hotel bookings. The goal was to stick Denfur with tens of thousands of dollars of unsold rooms on the day of the con, financially ruining it. The con found out about Foxler’s fraud scheme and redid the booking process.

This info took quite a while to piece together afterwards, but it was known early to Denfur security, thanks to the witness who went to them. Over time it also came out from more altfurries who broke ties with Foxler’s Furry Raiders.

In September 2019, this info was published in an article I wrote for LGBTQNation, because the Furry Raiders started more of this activity by bringing disgraced Gamergate/alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos into their group. The goal was to troll Midwest Furfest.

Who ruins cons? It never happened from one tweet by Deo. We’ve got years of experience to know by now.

4) It was a problem in 2015 before anyone spoke up.

Even when they aren’t ruining cons, altfurries were never very safe to allow there before any “politics” about them. Foxler is due to go on trial soon for a sex offense against a child, from an offense date that coincided with RMFC 2015. And Foxler’s friend Sneps — who you can see replying to Milo in the above screen — was arrested in 2019 for trying to intimidate a witness in Foxler’s case and throw attention off. Which is the reason that Deo was targeted with an intimidating letter and all of this scapegoating for all this time.

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