Dogpatch Press

Blood was drawn by violence between furries in California’s Huntington Beach, in a story that’s raising hype and misinformation. The hot-button term “nazi” is part of it. So is years of peaceful history for hundreds of members, even when a fight between a few of them is like red meat for media vultures who don’t care about the background. Here’s a story with witness evidence for readers who care.

The setting was the 11th annual Sunset Beach Bonfire meet on August 12, 2023. This event in Southern California is so popular, the attendance rivals entire furry conventions. Members of their nearly 1000-strong chat group go for grilling and fursuiting with so many friends, they need a megaphone for crowd control, like to organize group photos. This is a party for people who are full of love and fun who have been very successful at growing it.

In March, the official update channel announced they had reserved space: “It’s a private location with a volleyball playground.” Remember it was private access. Tents and a fursuit lounge were provided to keep cool in the sun. Nobody expected the chill vibes to heat up with a megaphone being used for a weapon, a scuffle on the ground, and an arrest with charges still to get decided in court.

A short video clip of the fight went viral, with context twisted by the hype. It started with accounts for fight videos, then went to sensational tabloid and right-wing “news” sources with trashy reputations:

• Man Attacked By Furry At Huntington Beach Meetup, Wild Video Shows – TMZ
• Furry Fight: Chaos Erupts At California Beach ‘Furmeet’ As Pirate Furry Drills ‘Chud’ With Megaphone – Outkick
• Bizarre moment man is attacked by FURRY after he’s caught filming fetish group in Huntington Beach – Daily Mail
• Pirate furry tackled by cops for attacking man with megaphone at ‘Furmeet’ – Dexerto
• Furious furries fight back after busting man filming them on beach – NY Post 
• Man filming fetish group attacked by furries on beach – Toronto Sun
• Furry Attacks Man at Huntington Beach – Total Frat Move
• VIDEO: Furries Attack Man At Beach – Barstool Sports

Those are archive links to deny traffic for stories of conjecture and regurgitated, third-hand info. They don’t care about accuracy because they have agendas. It’s implied that there was an “attack” on a random man for simply recording the group (but in fact, there were years of provocation by inside members causing a problem). Some of them wedge in malicious bias by mocking pronouns, using “fetish” innuendo, and for no sane reason, comparing furries to “street thugs” who do retail looting. There have even been bewares in furry groups about right-wing news trying to get inside. To help debunk the fake news, Dogpatch Press can provide direct info with cooperation from people involved.

Years of provocation – and why the Nazi term comes up

Apart from tabloid stories to blame the community, members tended to consider this to be community defense like a history of opposing neo-nazi infiltration in subcultures, from punks to furries. Were Nazi furries involved?

Quick points about the beach event:

• The location was private and reserved, not public, and access could be denied.
• Two people were banned from attending: Skaard and his boyfriend Renn (person hit with a megaphone).
• Skaard is known for being in the neo-nazi Furry Raiders and doing the type of harassment the group is known for.
• Dogpatch Press staff have been harassed by Skaard for reporting about neo-nazis, earning him a permanent block.
• Skaard’s behavior went on for over six years and caused prior bans from furry groups and events, and they applied to enablers too.
• Skaard and his partner knew they were banned from the beach meet, and picked the fight by going anyways.

Proof of years of provocation:

• 58 screenshots of group chats showing Skaard (AKA Valyrym) and Renn’s bans from groups and events.
• Skaard’s participation in neo-nazi activity, which he denies with common excuses spread by those groups.
• Thread of evidence and discussion.

A witness statement and the aftermath

A source from the Sunset Beach Bonfire event explained the fight (identity withheld for security.)

“There were two people involved, Skaard (Nazi) and Renn (boyfriend to Nazi). Renn was the one who got bonked.

They were told previously that the two of them weren’t allowed to attend this meet; they ignored warnings on purpose. They were also escorted off premises at a similar meetup a week prior by law enforcement during the FurBQ. They have been banned from numerous southern Californian furry events because of death threats and harassment campaigns to the members, most of which were done verbally with no recordings, along with affiliation with the Furry Raiders, a known Neo Nazi Furry group.

We had a reserved area on the beach, and the staff of the event organizers were allowed limited control of who was or wasn’t allowed there. During the beginning of the confrontation, these people were told that they were allowed to go anywhere else on the beach other than our area which we had a reserved permit for. We also didn’t want them interacting with our suit lounge, which was part of the permit.

This was incident #3, and the other 2 incidents had been handled without further trouble. Law enforcement told us earlier in the day when the first incident occurred that they either wouldn’t help us, or couldn’t be able to help us.

Renn, who was recording the entire event the moment he walked onto the beach, after being talked to for over 5 minutes that they were not welcome, that they needed to leave, and that the person who owns the permit didn’t want them there, he basically said “Too bad, I’m not leaving.”

It’s regrettable that it came to violence, but there shouldn’t be regret about who it happened to. There was an attempt to just be loud at them using the megaphone to annoy them into leaving first. After Renn was hit, the alleged hitter was then tackled to the ground and pinned by a non-furry bystander. He didn’t resist being detained.”

The alleged hitter was arrested and booked at the county jail, then released after arraignment. The charge was Felony Assault with a Deadly Weapon, but it was reduced to a misdemeanor. The court ordered no contact by the accused with Skaard or Renn. A next court date is in September for the process of going to trial.

Editor’s opinion

This isn’t a story of furries confronting nazis using nazi symbols and trying to do hate crime at the event. It was inside conflict with people who refused to take “no” after bans. They happened to be a past nazi-sympathizer and enabler who wanted control to undermine healthy gatekeeping. It was up to the community to handle their intrusion after police wouldn’t. That’s about behavior more than politics, but can still count as community defense. If people want to cheer for punching nazis, it’s smart to consider the cost and try to avoid giving them what they want.

UPDATE 1: Bad media pays.

UPDATE 2: Dishonest apologism by Blocked and Reported podcast.

An attempted debunking was made to tell an alternative truth to the experiences of a community who put up with 6 years of bad actors pushing in. It’s a longwinded journey that starts with a pre-made conclusion – let’s forget how Skaard called himself a “nazifur”, these aren’t “nazis”, so calling them nazis must be the real problem. This sets up the end goal of whataboutism at fed-up people.

Along the way, the podcast elevates the bad actors by swerving through excuses, speculation, and dubious assertions. It couldn’t have kept a straight story anyways, because most of the community refused to talk for it. (The author wrote to me: “The SoCal furries have included me in their media blackout order, so I’ve only been able to pick up that side of things by secondhand reports”.) It doesn’t disclose that reason for partial results… and SoCal furries were right to be suspicious, when the whole thing was made to confuse cause-and-effect in the 6-year pattern with common denominators Skaard, and his enabler Renn.

6 reasons to skip the dishonest podcast:

1) Unreliable source. The author was previously most known by furries for doing a hoax that inflamed hate against furries from right-wing smear accounts. The hoax was excused with justifications that you can entertain if you want to indulge everything else wrong here. Blocked And Reported is also known for apologism about transphobia and overindulging obvious bad actors.

2) Bad faith. When bad actors push for 6 years, is it a surprise if someone pushes back? Or is the surprise that it took that long? Handwringing about reactions sets that aside. Then it goes back to say Skaard’s original offense was just “asking for rides.” That’s an obvious bad-faith reduction of disrespect, meltdowns, and threats that went along with it. The whole thing copes and swerves around such inconveniences, making a checkerboard of omissions to defend the two common denominators. They are absolved for problem after problem that got them dismissed from group after group over 6 years. Their feud with Golden State Fur Con is not even mentioned, where Renn got them dropped from staff for bad behavior, then attacked the con with bad faith claims that it was “stolen” from them! (The firing had nothing to do with calling them “nazis.”) This distorted defense goes up to dismissing a BBQ incident that got police/rangers involved, because if police wouldn’t help, it must not matter. If someone threatens you, how many chances do you give them, anyways? Zero is all you owe, period. You don’t owe justifying your “No” to behavior like Skaard’s. But the piece presumptuously declares, “there is no justification for treating someone as irredeemable based on their beliefs alone” — uh, bullshit. That’s not for us to decide for fed-up people, especially while minimizing threats by Skaard.

3) Poor excuses. The apologism all stands on one very unbelievable excuse. It’s fine to point out a confusing look of “not-nazis” acting leftish, but not while excusing the “not-nazi” Skaard for displaying swastikas… because… he was only 20 when he labeled himself a Nazifur. That’s not a child. Then we’re supposed to trust that the “not-nazi” who ranted against SJW’s for making him remove a swastika was just being an ironic edgelord, but somehow also an innocent “socialist” member of furry nazis to “spy” on them. A claim with zero evidence of spying. Real spies don’t use main accounts, and guess what? There were real spies, they were organized, they knew each other, and this person wasn’t one. I know because I was there reporting the real thing. Now we’re supposed to memory-hole how a not-nazi got pissed off about removing swastikas, because of posting leftish memes somewhere else. I would love to hear the math behind this: does a Bernie Sanders meme neutralize 2 swastikas and an n-bomb? Keep in mind that virtue-signalling by Skaard isn’t actually incongruent with nazism as claimed — and being a 9/11 conspiracy truther helps to show how little you can trust these people for anything at all.

4) Platforming liars. To bolster the spy excuse, the apologism quotes Foxler, a person known for running the organized-crime-like Furry Raiders, claiming to be into bestiality, and child sex offending. Gosh if you ask a creep like that for the truth what do you think will happen? In another section it presents lying about me from someone going by “HeWhoRoarks” (about a story I didn’t write.) The results of this were…

5) Bad assertions. The apologism for Skaard claims complete truth based on half-assed, impossible to confirm information. Searching a Furry Raiders Telegram group for messages from the “spy” didn’t find any, so they say, (if we’re being charitable about how many accounts in their groups go through deletion for malicious behavior.) But Furry Raiders were also on Discord during Skaard’s membership. A gamer would be on Discord and so would a spy, when the worst activity was there. It was so bad that Discord repeatedly banned and deleted their groups for malicious behavior along with a wider sweep of terrorist groups. This wasn’t even considered for the narrative, and the excuse about learning this later was special pleading about not getting Discord records after not asking for them. While hypocritically failing to show evidence of “spying”. Which takes this back to reason #3.

6) Bad priorities. The big reason to skip it is how the whole thing treats nazi threats as overblown and just about personal spats. When cons have been canceled because of malicious activity by nazi-furs, and they have terrorist organizers and mass shooters, don’t waste your time looking for the list of leftists who do any of that. But the priority is to excuse a 6 year pattern from bad actors who picked a fight, in order to do whataboutism at a threatened community. Based on the effort already expended to defend bad actors, you won’t see anything better from these apologists than lip service about the big picture. They just don’t care about all this evidence, because when you break down all the feigned bad-faith “reasonable” “centrism” as I’ve just done, what you’re left with is the ugly dishonesty at their hearts. It wasn’t journalism – it was counterprogramming made to manipulate people and get them complacent about bad actors, including the ones doing the apologism. If you ever see a source like Blocked And Reported come posing as reliable media again – beware!

UPDATE 3: A persistent, unrepentant nuisance.

A rant was sent in by Skaard, where he admits offenses but wants to justify them. With that horse long since beaten dead, there’s no point in airing argumentative manipulation. Let’s just summarize it:

• Denies being a nazi sympathizer, with zero accountability for labeling himself “nazifur” for all to see.
• Blames a 16 year old for giving him swastika art, with zero accountability for attacking people who found it offensive.
• Says he was never involved with Furry Raiders, while blaming the founder of Golden State Fur Con for getting him involved.
• Instead of owning Renn’s bad behavior that got them let go from GSFC staff, doubles down on attacking the founder.
• Admits harassing Dogpatch Press before this story with zero provocation, doubles down on attacking without apology.
• Pity tripping about being immature and reactive, still with no apology to anyone except feeling sorry for himself.
• “Whatabout” attacks at a long list of enemies, where he is the only common denominator.
• Rules-lawyering about boundaries, like the “I’m not touching you” game to justify flouting them for years.

A strong definition of Creep isn’t just someone who crosses a boundary, but manipulates offenses to be everyone else’s fault while persisting with it. That isn’t going to interfere with the truth here.

UPDATE 4: A pattern of provocation at Golden State Fur Con, and more nuisance litigation threats.

Below are posts by Skaard found in a group he runs covering the past 6 years. The deleted Telegram account (@vincescritters) is a minor child who claims to be co-founder of Golden State Fur Con with Renn and Skaard after they were fired for cause, and wants to conspire with them for revenge.

Skaard admits “ghosting” the con; entering without a welcome and refusing to pay for membership, while using facilities for members. Ghosting after being fired is provocative and malicious, while being hard to regulate. This shows clear violation of boundaries because he could get away with it.

When this behavior has consequences and people make boundaries, Skaard escalates against them with threats of nuisance litigation. This is the kind of threat that’s very hard to stop because it uses the system itself.

Skaard’s threats were unable to make a real case, showing ongoing intimidation for years before he finally provoked a real fight. When you see dishonest outsiders join in enabling and escalating it for opportunistic views, you can see why it’s so important for the community to make boundaries.

UPDATE 5: Continuing dishonesty with Blocked And Reported author in September 2024

Opportunistic enablers have no boundaries, but the Blocked and Reported author is now having a hard time pushing them. Onlookers are finding him to be an unreliable narrator, a year after the beach incident.

Both Skaard and his enablers had the same access to Dogpatch Press as everyone else in this report. They unsuccessfully used it to try selling bullshit. Abusing that access results in boundaries set. They wanted to be Blocked And Reported and they got it.

After being subject of reporting about 6 years of provocation, Skaard is STILL justifying sneaking into Golden State Fur Con. He uses retaliatory counter-accusation to excuse failing to stay away from those who fired him.

So you’re entitled to sneak in instead of leave them alone?

UPDATE 6: Evidence of pre-planning to provoke the beach incident, with collusion inside.

Chronic nuisance behavior made people expect Skaard to stay away until he stops it. They would have the same frustration as anyone who’s experienced a stalker, but can’t get help from police, who won’t intervene if it doesn’t quite meet the line that stalkers push. Only the aftermath was hyped up by dishonest sources while the 6-year nuisance was ignored.

Now, Skaard has published private messages about being fully aware of what he was doing. It shows plotting to sneak past boundaries with an event organizer, predicting it would provoke a fight, and motive to undermine others for revenge. Skaard knew what he was doing wrong even while posing as a victim.

Plotting sneaking in and revenge, predicting a fight and posing as victim.

Claims by the Blocked and Reported author make it likely that he saw this a year ago, but ignored how damaging it is. Bizarrely, Skaard acts like it shows him in a good light. Decoding:

• Skaard treats a secret plot with “owner” Mokie as permission to flout boundaries of the rest of staff and attendees. Yet Skaard also treated the beach as a place where nobody needed permission, as if other staff didn’t represent the event. Pick one.
• Furry events run by volunteers are by and for the community. A single organizer plotting against others is selfish and fatal to his credibility. If you’re ever in a position to favor a friend in a way that betrays a community group, stop. It’s your job to draw a line even if you lose the friend.
• Mokie does the both-sidesism fallacy towards a 6-year provoker who is the only common denominator in countless earned bans. That’s incompetent and negligent. It’s his job to identify provocation for event security.
• Skaard: “They’ve taken so much from me” is the voice of a stalker.
• “If there’s a fight they’ll be the ones that start it”… something said while researching which fight videos get the most views.
• Hiding in a secret fursuit: “I have a different suit, they won’t even know”. Mokie enables this creepy security-compromise; a cause to resign immediately.
• “I’d have blown my head off… make me kill myself.” Textbook suicide-baiting manipulation. “Threatening suicide is very manipulative, and the other person is expecting you to yield to his demands.” – Psychcentral
• Mokie: “We’ve got to be tactical about this… remove them from power”. There it is. A manipulative revenge motive.

A trusted organizer colluded with a stalker to violate boundaries of people he was supposed to protect, who were fed up with 6 years of nuisance and trying to protect their community. This collusion helped kill the Sunset Beach Bonfire event.

Deja vu

The end of Sunset Beach Bonfire is a reminder of the headline-making death of another event.

The owner was secretly colluding with a notorious nuisance, who was feeding him instructions to ignore community protest about his behavior. Provokers posed as victims while they threatened critics who cared about their community.

That was the 2017 death of Rocky Mountain Fur Con, 12 hours after a Dogpatch Press report exposed corruption within. The owner was RMFC’s CEO Kahuki, favoring the nazifur Foxler (who Blocked and Reported consulted for deceptive apologism for Skaard). Kahuki was a convicted sex offender, and Foxler was arrested for sex offending at the convention. A child victim paid the cost of their corruption.

At Sunset Beach Bonfire, Skaard’s boyfriend and the event paid the cost. Mokie could have drawn a line and saved it. There’s a lot we can learn from this.

But Skaard and his enablers learned nothing.

History keeps repeating. Both-sidesing and favoring known nuisances leads to disaster. In many cases it comes down to an individual facing a simple binary choice: draw a line, or enable the causes of their own misfortune. Be they nazifurs, or just plain unhinged manipulators with a little nazi-sympathizing in their irrational past and an expectation of enabling. It just needs a little pattern recognition for the kind of history documented in this story.

UPDATE 7: Skaard’s dangerous paranoia

The deja vu pattern makes an ever-growing list of enemies and grievances, from a supposed conspiracy against the sole common denominator, with zero self-reflection about how disconnected enemies don’t know each other.

Imagine antagonizing a hobby group this hard, and still pushing against people who fired you and want you to leave them alone…

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