Police probe slain man's racist beliefs
'Sucked into vortex of hatred' after swarming, parents say

Andrew Seymour
The Ottawa Citizen

Thursday, April 20, 2006

The parents of an Ottawa man slain at a Collingwood house party approached the Ottawa police hate crime unit nearly 18 months ago out of fear their son had become a white supremacist.

It was after sitting down with detectives that Stephen Long's father, Murray Long, and stepmother Peggy Land learned police were already well aware of their son's racist beliefs and involvement in the "movement."

"They met with us and told us our fears were well-founded," Mr. Long said yesterday, describing how he never realized how active his 22-year-old son had become in the "evil power" of the white supremacist movement until after his death Sunday at the hands of a bat-wielding attacker.

Christopher Broughton, 27, of Hamilton has been charged with first-degree murder.

[color="Red"]Yesterday, three OPP officers and an Ottawa police hate crime section visited Mr. Long's bedroom at his grandmother's house and seized his computer and address books as well as photographs of white supremacist gatherings, posters and other hate literature.

"I was shocked by some of the stuff we found in there," said the elder Mr. Long.

With clearly visible white power tattoos on his hands and neck -- or "mitts" and "necklace" as his son used to call them -- Mr. Long and Ms. Land said they knew their son held strong beliefs and was not afraid to tell others.

What they didn't realize until yesterday was how well he had kept hidden his "double life" on the Internet as a regular visitor to the Canadian section of the http://www.stormfront.org message boards.

Under the user name "Longer" and sometimes signing off messages with "White Power," Mr. Long wrote about topics ranging from U.S. civil rights matriarch Rosa Parks' death, to the movie American History X, and whether the Ku Klux Clan was active in Ontario.

He expressed an interest in organizing group meetings for other white supremacists in Ottawa. In the days leading to his death, Mr. Long planned to attend a gathering of as many as 40 other area white supremacists, scheduled for today to coincide with Adolf Hitler's birthday, at a Byward Market bar. According to message boards at stormfront.org, the event has been postponed.

"He was very much involved in trying to organize things," said his father. "He was sucked into this vortex of hatred."

According to his father, Mr. Long's hatred of other races seemed to have increased in the last two years. It appears to have stemmed from a pair of alleged incidents.

When he was 17, he was allegedly swarmed by a group of five or six black males who split his scalp open after striking him on the head with a bottle and threatening to kill him. He escaped the beating by running away.

More recently, a friend had allegedly been sexually assaulted by a black male.

[color="red"]"I tried to remind Stephen you don't take a traumatic event to be an excuse to be mad at an entire race or culture of people," said Mr. Long.

In his first post on the website in January 2004, the younger Mr. Long claimed it was the "actions caused by the negroes" that "really makes them disliked."

"The skin colour does allow our eyes to identify the differences in values and goals and actions and crime which are pulling down white societies," he wrote. "So whites should not feel guilty for their natural white instinct given to them by our forefathers to be defensive of our white woman and land and faiths and blood because it's ours to be defensive about."

Online friends posting to a stormfront message board painted a picture of Mr. Long not as a white supremacist, but a "political activist" who was "dedicated to a life of peaceful, law abiding activism."

It was the actions of one man, and not Mr. Long's beliefs, that led to his death, they said.

"Longer was an active member within the European Canadian community; he was a member of Stormfront.org. He believed in what he was doing with respect to ethnic activism, not out of hatred for others, but love for his own," wrote Unconditioned Canuck in response to a Citizen post.

According to his father, who drove Mr. Long to the bus terminal Saturday for the trip to Toronto, Stephen arrived at the Collingwood party with the man who would eventually be accused of killing him.

According to Mr. Long, friends indicated that his son embarrassed Mr. Broughton in front of other party guests by telling him he no longer wanted to hang out with him. Several hours later, his son would be attacked as he slept, his head smashed in with a baseball bat.

"I find it an incredible irony that he is murdered (allegedly) by someone in a group he identified with and someone he thought was a friend in that group," said Mr. Long. "I am amazed that Stephen would even know him and associate with him."

Mr. Long said his son had recently pleaded guilty to a weapons charge and was given 12 months probation.

Mr. Long blamed persuasive white supremacists who used the "tentacles" of the Internet to "brainwash" his son into a lifestyle filled with hate.

"I almost have to wash my hands after touching the keyboard after visiting some of those sites," said Mr. Long, who always hoped he could gradually direct his son away from his white supremacist beliefs.

However, it was difficult to talk with him about immigration policies or Holocaust denial, the father said.

"We can all identify problems, but I could never accept Stephen's solutions," said Mr. Long, who would tell his son, "I love you, but I do not love your values."

There were signs he was changing, his parents said.

His father said he had started to realize the tattoos were a challenge to future employment. Ms. Land said he told his grandmother it would be his last trip to Toronto to visit his white supremacist friends.

[color="red"]Mr. Long asks anyone making donations in his son's memory to do so to the Canadian Race Relations Foundation.

"I thought we were building bridges. I thought there was growth taking place in terms of the relationship."

aseymour@thecitizen.canwest.com