Thread by @UR_Ninja

NEW Investigation:
A Unicorn Riot investigation uncovered dossier records from a privately curated database of Romani people in the US, and a web of training programs; many of these have been canceled due to pressure from activists and concerned citizens.
unicornriot.ninja/2022/police-us…

Unicorn Riot found a pattern of trainings from multiple law enforcement training academies and police departments, 10 records from a privately maintained database of Romani people, spoke with an Academy Director in Fredericksburg, VA, & activists who monitor anti-Roma bias in USA

A former Illinois police officer, along with a 501c3 nonprofit private national policing organization, has been teaching Law Enforcement Officers to racially profile & think of Romani People in racialized terms, our investigation of two decades of policing trainings has revealed.

(Content advisory: we are including the derogatory term for #Roma people only in direct quotations).
In late December 2021, a group of activists stumbled across a Tumblr post featuring a flier from 2010 titled, “‘The perfect victim’ Criminal Gypsies/Travelers and the elderly.”

The flier claimed a “criminal gypsy element” had “invaded every metropolitan area,” and that the training provided by Gryphon Training Group would help show law enforcement “how these predators work.”

This discovery and tipoff led to a year-long Unicorn Riot investigation into Gary Nolte, the former law enforcement officer, & NABI, an org he worked as a part of.
Nolte used "[e-mail]" as business email address, a clear indicator he sees the ethnic group as a target.

Much like Jewish people, Roma have been the target of hate crimes & discrimination for centuries, both being victims of the Nazis during the Holocaust. To this day, Roma face forced sterilization, segregation, discrimination, & police brutality from government entities worldwide.

April 2022: Roma in Greece Face a History of Exclusion, Exploitation and Racism unicornriot.ninja/2022/roma-in-g…

The word “G*psy” that Nolte plasters throughout his /many/ course fliers is an exonym and a slur that refers to the Romani people, but is also sometimes used to refer to another community of nomadic people from Ireland called Travelers.

In the US, antiziganism (anti-Roma sentiment) has manifested as archaic laws specifically designed to discriminate, as well as “G*psy police task forces.”
National Association of Bunco Investigators, NABI, is specialized in training police departments to profile Romani people.

In the past, Nolte’s classes have gained the attention of the public, and as a result Nolte’s classes have been canceled several times. In October 2016, the Bellevue Police Department canceled one of his #Roma courses after public outcry erupted on Twitter.

In November 2016, Clackamas, Oregon County Sheriff’s Department also canceled their course after it was brought to public attention. On Feb. 24, 2022, the Kansas City Police Department announced that they would be canceling hosting one of Nolte’s courses.

The Private Database of #Romani Individuals
One of the primary resources utilized by officers that have attended Nolte and NABI’s courses is, in Nolte’s own words, “a data base [sic] containing suspects of all Gypsy descents,” that is hosted and maintained by NABI.

This database includes a field if the subject is Romani: “G” for g*psy or “W” for white, sex, a physical description, Social Security number, arrest report numbers. Vehicles and sensitive intelligence tracking numbers from the FBI & NCIC (National Crime Information Center) also.

One man was logged in the database under a “feud” heading after a charge was levied by a relative. Another individual’s listed reason for being in the database was for pawning an expensive watch.

The database sample obtained by Unicorn Riot also includes a list of license plate numbers from family members of “suspects” in NABI’s database that were obtained by law enforcement members of NABI stalking a #Romani wedding.

Unicorn Riot talked to one of the hosts of @romaunraveled podcast about the dehumanization of Roma people in America:

@romaunraveled Additional Docs - Unicorn Riot has more data on NABI and Nolte activity
- anti-Roma police trainings 2007-2022. Data collected by @therealjaume, Fen Kovach, Cristina, Michael Borner and others. (XLSX spreadsheet)
- Event flyers 1999-2022 (ZIP)
- Very bigoted website screenshots

Unicorn Riot reached out to multiple law enforcement training officials. We learned more about how some courses were canceled and considerations about how biased these trainings are against #Roma people.
See the story for details: unicornriot.ninja/2022/police-us…

Unicorn Riot has covered databases linked to law enforcement's NCIC system. (2019)
#Icebreaker Pt 7 – ICE Case Management Handbook Based on Federal Law Enforcement “System of Systems”
unicornriot.ninja/2019/icebreake…

The Rocky Mountain Information Network (RMIN) is a Regional Information Sharing Systems (RISS) #fusioncenter network sponsored by the federal government, mentioned briefly in a Denver Police document we released in 2016. ( unicornriot.ninja/wp-content/upl… PDF page 75)

Another report refers to NCIC police databases in leaked Homeland Security agent manuals obtained by Unicorn Riot in full.
#Icebreaker Pt 3 – Confidential Homeland Security Fugitive and Compliance Enforcement Handbooks (2018) unicornriot.ninja/2018/icebreake…

This investigation into NABI, Nolte, and anti #Roma police training programs took nearly a year to sort out. Support our investigative journalism here: unicornriot.ninja/donate