Dogpatch Press

Listen to Fur and Loathing here.

Here’s a wrap-up for the investigation of the Midwest Furfest 2014 chemical attack, by Nicky Woolf with help from Dogpatch Press. For the last episode, we recorded discussion of these points (although not all made the final cut…)

• Being a community under attack.
• The limits of the justice system, and how people can get away with crime, even if we know it.
• The need for community protection from inside.
• It can also take resources and reach we don’t have by partnership with outside help.
• Without public awareness and being fully informed, negligence can cause more harm.
• How different could things be if we had more transparency 10 years ago?

REVIEW: “Fur and Loathing is so fucking good.” – Podcast Promise

There are good and bad True Crime shows. Bad ones have sleazy stories with annoying hosts who giggle about suffering while milking it for views. But “Crime and Punishment” is the title of one of the greatest novels of all time. The good kind teaches about the justice system and the pursuit of resolution.

Fur and Loathing aimed to deliver original research with respect for the community. The producers of the show thought the great review at Podcast Promise really got everything they were trying to do:

I feel like most true crime is ultimately exploitative and antithetical to my politics and ethics.

But not all true crime is most true crime. Some true crime is anti-cop, anti-prison, and pro interrogating our carceral systems. Some true crime is made in partnership with its subjects, or the families. And some true crime, like Fur and Loathing, is made with deep reverence and contribution from maligned, largely disenfranchised communities.

I think Fur and Loathing is pretty much exactly what I want in true crime.

This approach will be followed for more Furry True Crime reporting to come… but we can’t talk about that yet. Stay tuned.

NEW WITNESS REPORT: “I stepped on a pile of what looked like fine white powder”

This tip recently came from a furry reader. This story of handling the crime scene certainly says something about the outcome…

Hello,

I just started watching the MFF 2014 coverage on the Fur and Loathing podcast. I have some first hand knowledge if this would help.

I literally stepped in (what I now understand to be) the cleared crime scene and I had no idea what it was at the time.

I walked up the stairwell after they let us back into the hotel after the all clear. The mess that was left was one floor under my room in a stairwell.

I stepped on a pile of what looked like fine white powder with small clear curved glass shards mixed in. From how much white powder and glass that was left I would guess that it would have filled a small glass mason jar. It looked almost like someone dumped baking soda and glass mixed together.

What blew my mind was that there was nothing in the hallway whatsoever to mark that this was evidence or anything of the sort. Plus that it was just left there. Not even a little yellow wet floor sign to indicate that a mess was on the floor.

It would not surprise me if some hotel cleaning staff swept it all into the trash the next day, while having no clue what it was.

I am sure that I was not the only person in the wee hours of the morning to step in it either as lots of us took the stairs to get to our rooms rather than waiting for the elevators.

That was a hell of a first furry con for me.

I don’t recall much more than that and in hindsight I wish I had gotten a picture of the mess. I was so tired that it did not cross my mind until I got home from the con. Thank you!

MORE READER REACTIONS (Spoilers)

Another reader wrote about the suspect Magnus Diridian, who has a news tag for background to this:

I had some discussions with family after they heard the last episode of Fur and Loathing (I got them hooked on the entire series). Magnus sounded very guilt ridden when questioned about the attack. I wonder if he had genuine remorse for making that Confederate fursuit. Or was just upset that it was received the way it was. Magnus’ behavior is the kind of stuff that a school shooter might be thinking: “I’m in pain, you’re hurting me, here is a message that is equivalent to what I’m feeling.”

Dogpatch Press replied:

Magnus has a past of being a chronic violent felon, alcohol abuse and guilt, and always wants to bury things but he can’t because he won’t admit his past. So he does a bunch of coping, contradiction and compartmentalizing. I think he just hates consequences, and he definitely wasn’t remorseful while bringing out the Confederate fursuit for years after 2017. Notice 2020 date in the photo.

Magnus’s stunts seemed reactive and trollish rather than supporting or organizing anything, apart from the Trump sign. So he didn’t have a manifesto. But the Confederate suit is a statement. He isn’t a sophisticated propagandist but we can call this political.

I wish the show could have gotten into threads that it didn’t. The fake Lemonade Coyote suit for example, made to piss people off by stealing from a dead guy. Or what was said by some witnesses who wouldn’t go on the record about what they knew. And allegations of violent crime that isn’t the stuff he was convicted for.

Magnus is an interesting guy in some ways. He was active for a long time with other interesting people. I don’t hate him so much as consider him messed up, but I don’t think we’ll ever have real justice about the attack, and don’t think he should be welcome at cons or in the fandom. He is currently active with nazifurs. That says a lot about what they do.

Why did the FBI’s Angelo Defeo fly from Chicago to Colorado to interview the well-known nazifur Foxler? And why did Magnus freak out when I asked him about Foxler in 2018, and admit knowing him for a long time (since before Foxler was grabbing notoriety?) That makes interesting questions about their association and how Foxler got charges dropped for his own crime case. So what did he have on Magnus?

I always wondered if there could have been others involved, but I don’t think there’s evidence of that, and Magnus is the only real suspect. He was known for using stink bombs in public. Why would he need someone else for an attack?

In 2018 I reported a witness from MFF 2014 saying that Magnus had an altercation with con staff there about running in the street in fursuit while drunk, and he got threatened with a ban. He was mad at staff, and that sounds like a motive.

The reader continued:

The show had one FBI person who had just learned of the event and the FOIA docs and even he was just as puzzled why this wasn’t taken seriously enough. ‘You’re missing something.’

Something missing could mean police hiding their own errors after mishandling the crime scene. Maybe the Rosemont police really didn’t want the FBI near. Chicago has a legendary history as one of the most corrupt places in the US. Corruption scandals have gotten federal oversight over local police departments before. We may never know more unless someone inside speaks.

OLD, FAKE NEWS

This review repeats misinformation that has plagued the fandom since the attack.

The claims can be killed by listening to the show, and they don’t even follow basic chemistry. Neoprene is rotted by chlorine. Latex chlorination is done by liquid, not powdered chlorine. That treatment isn’t activated with a device made to be smashed to mix 2 things into poison gas. The police ruled the attack deliberate from the beginning. Rumors about an accident were never valid.

FINAL THOUGHTS – How do we look at technical innocence?

A suspect was questioned many times and unable to clear himself. They couldn’t charge him, so police won’t stop him from going to events. It’s up to the community to beware. 

Innocent until proven guilty is a relationship between citizen and government. It’s technical, but not the whole truth. Outside of courts, we use personal judgement about character every day, like when letting someone in your house, paying or employing someone, dating, voting, or letting someone care for dependent kids or animals.    

“Technically innocent” applies to people like Casey Anthony, George Zimmerman, Kyle Rittenhouse, or OJ Simpson. Even when people like this are rejected, sometimes they grab for a kind of American anti-celebrity by capitalizing on notoriety. OJ tried to sell his “If I did it” book. George Zimmerman auctioned the gun he used to kill Trayvon Martin for a lot of money. Kyle Rittenhouse was supposed to be made a “hero” for politics (but is a failure with it). And of course America’s most successful anti-celebrity is currently trying to get back into the White House as a convicted felon. 

Fur and Loathing may not be able to show justice is done, but hopefully can make you think a lot about what happens when it isn’t.

MORE NOTICE

The ICYMI podcast about internet culture hosted Nicky Woolf; he covered the show, and extra background about how internet subcultures work and the place of furries in them. American Hysteria podcast (recorded after episode 2 of the show) covered Nicky’s career.

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