KKK leader Frank Ancona tells Anonymous his group 'is all about stopping violence'

Alex Poucher, a self-professed member of the collective Anonymous, sat down with Frank Ancona, leader of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, to discuss threats allegedly made by Ancona against both Anonymous and other protesters in Ferguson, Missouri.

According to the letter attributed to Ancona, the Klan decided that if Anonymous wanted "war, we will give you war, not online, but on the streets, we will hunt you down and tear those masks from your face. You'll be strung up next to the chimps. On display for the whole world to see. The Klan is to be feared, not threatened. Turn away, or face the consequences."

This alleged threat was in response to Anonymous taking control of the Klan's official Twitter account and revealing the identities of KKK members living in and around Ferguson.

When Poucher asked Ancona about these threats, the Klan leader accused the "corrupt mainstream media" of inflating the story. "They put out a headline that said, 'KKK is going to use "lethal force" against peaceful protesters,' so they totally twisted around what was said...they took that headline, and instead of putting it in the message in the flier, so they had to put it like, 'the Klan's going to come down there and start shooting peaceful protesters.'"

"Now I bet if I reached over and started strangling you, I bet your buddies," Ancona said, looking nervously around, "I bet they'd start pulling me up and trying to stop me, somebody, from committing violence. That's exactly what [the KKK's] about."

"Are you promoting violence against violent protesters, then?" Poucher asked.

"I think the victims of this violence," Ancona responded, referring to the initial protests following the shooting of Michael Brown, "they've got a right to defend themselves too. Because there are people sending us messages, you know, that they're scared to come out of their houses. Some of them are -- I mean, probably more elderly type people. So they're afraid they're going to be a victim of it under Missouri law."

"I got a message just last night," he continued, "about carloads of guys going around doing street robberies on people. It seems to me there's a really strong effort to try and destroy our organization."

Poucher then changed the subject, asking Ancona whether his organization's decision to change their profile pictures to ones stating "I am Darren Wilson" was meant to be a threat.

"We just wanted to show support for Darren Wilson," he replied. "I know you all, you support -- you believe Darren Wilson was in the wrong. But I've come around to the belief that Darren Wilson might have been justified. You know, I still haven't seen the evidence, I've only heard from the media -- who I don't trust -- and the government."

"Do you have any plans to take arms and defend Ferguson?" Poucher asked.

"We've got people who live there who are going to defend their homes and their businesses, but we're not sending an army to Ferguson to come down there and start a bunch of trouble," Ancona said.

"In fact, no one's even going to know we're there. I mean, we don't hide," he concluded, lifting up his jacket to reveal a "KKK" belt buckle.

Watch the entire interview below via News2Share on YouTube.