An anonymous transmission
Historical memory is often short on the left, but collective knowledge of the past is vitally important when it comes to histories of repression and those who collaborate with the State against other factions of a movement–snitches.
In recent months, some comrades have noticed the reappearance of Jesus Mares in cultural and activist spaces around Austin. This was a shock to those of us who have not seen Jesus in the 7 years since he disappeared from movement spaces after collaborating with the State. In good faith, we presume that the people inviting or hosting him in these spaces are unaware of his history of snitching. Some of us who remember have collaborated to document and share this history, so that our movements may act with better information to insulate our spaces from the risks that Jesus’s presence poses.
A Brief History
Jesus was an active participant in the milieu of organizations surrounding the Red Guards Austin (RGA) cult, a network of “revolutionary Maoists” who were prone towards internal authoritarianism; unprincipled destructive behaviors towards other groups on the Left; and militaristic “communist” aesthetics. In spring of 2018, a series of conflicts and political disputes between Jesus and his partner Angelica Clark and RGA leadership culminated in two RGA leaders, Jared Roark and Lisa Hogan, assaulting and threatening Jesus and Angelica. Jesus and Angelica responded by calling the police and then providing ongoing participation and cooperation with the police investigation. This police investigation, which Jesus initiated and actively supported, led to multiple arrests, a house raid, the search & seizure of many digital devices, state and federal charges against two people, and ultimately a federal prison sentence for one person. The events of this investigation threatened not just the Red Guards and their affiliated organizations but the wider revolutionary left in Austin and elsewhere.
Timeline
(the information in this timeline comes primarily from public court records from the state and federal criminal cases against Jared and Lisa)
- 2/9/2018 – Jesus and Angelica inform Lisa and Jared that they won’t attend a rally the following day that they had previously committed to.
- 2/10/2018 – Lisa and another person go to Angelica’s house in the evening but Angelica wasn’t home; Angelica and Lisa text with each other.
- 2/11/2018 – Early in the morning, Jesus and Angelica drive to Lisa and Jared’s apartment to return some books. According to them, Angelica is physically assaulted by Lisa and Jared puts a handgun to Jesus’ head; Angelica and Lisa text each other later in the day.
- 2/13/2018 – Jesus and Angelica call police to report the February 11 incident.
- 3/2/2018 – Jesus meets with 2 Austin Police Department (APD) detectives; APD obtains an arrest warrant against Jared for felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
- 3/3/2018 – APD arrests Jared on the aggravated assault warrant; during the arrest, APD does a “protective sweep” of Jared and Lisa’s apartment, and then obtains a search warrant to do a full seach of the apartment, resulting in the seizure 13 digital devices (4 cell phones, 4 computers, and 5 thumb drives).
- 3/7/2018 – Jesus and Angelica meet with 2 APD detectives; Jesus and Angelica both provide signed written statements against Jared and Lisa; Angelica also provides screenshots of text messages to APD.
- 3/8/2018 – Jared is released on bond on the aggravated assault charge; Lisa is arrested on warrant for misdemeanor assault causing bodily injury.
- 3/9/2018 – Lisa is released on bond for assault charge.
- 3/9/2018 – A federal criminal complaint is issued charging Jared with felon in possession of a firearm; Jared is arrested the same day.
- 3/14/2018 – APD obtains a search warrant to do a complete search of all 13 digital devices seized from Jared and Lisa’s apartment on March 3.
- 3/22/2018 – Jared is released on bond from federal detention.
- 9/20/2019 – Jared is sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for felon in possession of a firearm charge.
What this means about Jesus
Jesus’ decision to collaborate with the police was not made in the heat of the moment, from a state of imminent fear. It was made with thought, intention, and deliberation, and chosen over other potential responses.
Jesus called the police and reported the incident with the Jared and Lisa two days after the incident. Nearly a month after the initial report to police, Jesus met with detectives at least two additional times to provide written statements, additional information, and affirm his choice to continue pursing charges.
Jesus’ decision to snitch was a direct betrayal of the values and principles he had long professed to hold. When all this went down in the spring of 2018, Jesus had already been part of revolutionary and abolitionist social movements for several years–movements in which an opposition to police (and collaboration with them) was common sense; where we looked towards building community support and alternatives to relying on the police; where we certainly would not turn towards the police to address conflicts we have with each other. Jesus himself was regularly critical of local activist groups who did collaborate with the police in various ways (e.g. trainings, dialogues, community policing, or personal relationships with the APD leadership).
Additionally, Jesus and Angelica were dishonest and non-communicative to other comrades about their decision to pursue police action, and rejected other support that was offered to them to help them leave RGA and keep themselves safe.
Jesus and Angelica both had close relationships with other activists and organizations who were not part of the RGA network and who were aware of some of the problems and harmful behaviors that existed in the RGA orbit.
When these activists learned about the escalating conflict between Jesus and Angelica and RGA, they reached out to offer support with the situation. These efforts to provide support to Jesus and Angelica continued on and off through February, even after Jesus and Angelica had begun secretly collaborating with APD. At one point, activists asked Jesus directly about rumours that he was snitching; he lied, denying any involvement with police.
These activists were not made aware of Jesus and Angelica’s involvement with the police until after Jared was arrested and news came through other activists. When these activists reached out to Angelica and Jesus for clarity, they were completely ghosted– met with silence and avoidance. No one heard from Jesus or Angelica again.
Jesus’ decision to work with police was not made from a place of desperation, isolation impulsiveness, or lack of options. His actions of shutting out other friends and comrades and not seeking advice or counsel from them, refusing active offers of help and support, actively lying and avoiding transparency, and ghosting for the next 7 years all indicate a lack of trustworthiness and good faith.
We certainly have sympathy for people fearing retaliation from Maoist cults; many of us have faced similar fears and threats without ever turning informant. We even acknowledge that there may be extraordinary circumstances that might excuse such a severe breach of our shared principles (the people held against their will in the Black Hammer house in Georgia in 2022 is one example that comes to mind). But honesty and transparency with the people one purports to be in movement and community with is the bare minimum we should expect in these circumstances. Without it, no other trust, dialogue, accountability, or repair is possible.
Beyond this, we can only speculate about exactly why Jesus made the decisions and took the actions that he did, or what he expected to happen. Was he carrying out a vendetta or grudge? A police investigation or even prosecution does not bring any more personal safety, so continued collaboration could reflect simply a desire to see immense violence and harm inflicted on someone else as revenge. Did he have any inkling that his police report would lead to a house raid and search of digital devices that could have severe implications for people he’s never even met? Did he even care who was harmed by his actions?
Jesus is not a person who should be trusted or invited into movement spaces. We question, too, why he has returned now. Perhaps the new wave of right wing reaction has activated him to seek out activist spaces again. We can’t know, though, if there are other motives. We do know that he has collaborated with the police before, and has been dishonest and opaque about it, so we could not trust him to be honest about any other interactions or relationships with law enforcement. We do not want Jesus to receive information about our movements or its activities, because we don’t trust what he might do with that information (now or in the future). Whether that information is details of an action, knowing the membership of an organization, or even just mapping the informal networks of affinity and friendship that anchor our movements, we believe that any of that information in his hands is information at risk.
Why is snitching bad, even against the Red Guards?
It should go without saying that the police, prosecutors, courts, and such are enemies of our collective liberation. Revolutionary and abolitionist movements worldwide, as well as criminalized and oppressed communities, rightly view snitches as traitors and threats to our collective survival and liberation. Snitching reinforces the power and legitimacy of the State, both as a repressive force able to intervene and surveil our movements and as the only mediating system for “justice” via the police and courts.
When people snitch, it undermines the power of communities and movements to resolve conflicts autonomously. Snitches erodes trust and solidarity, instead fostering suspicion. As a member of a criminalized community or social movement, you cannot approach conflict resolution with honesty and openness if you are uncertain whether a party to a conflict will share information with your enemies, information that could be used to surveil, prosecute, or disrupt.
Furthermore, when we collaborate with the police we don’t have any control with how the information we give to the State is used. It’s quite possible that Jesus thought the information he and Angelica gave to police would not impact anyone besides Jared and Lisa. But we see that their report led to a full search of Jared and Lisa’s apartment and all the digital devices inside, thus turning over huge troves of data to the state involving untold numbers of people who might or might not have been directly involved in Red Guards (for example, former RGA members who may have left for reasons similar to Jesus; people who were tangentially affiliated; activists who had at any point collaborated with RGA; other left-wing activists who were opposed and targeted by RGA, etc). Even if this data didn’t directly incriminate other activists, it bolsters law enforcement strategies of repression and counterinsurgency that depend on intelligence and social mapping of movements and communities.
Some may say, “OK, we get that police are bad, but isn’t RGA also bad?” We, of course, condemn the wide-ranging authoritarianism, abuse, and cult-like behavior that took place within RGA and which their leadership inflicted on other participants. And we have no doubt that being assaulted and threatened with a gun was a deeply frightening and traumatic experience. But we don’t believe these circumstances justify or excuse the collaboration with law enforcement that Jesus and Angelica undertook in response. Importantly, none of the dozens of other members of that cult who abandoned it and exposed it beginning in 2023 turned to collaboration with the police, even members who experienced much longer, protracted, and intense abuse. We presume many of those members, unlike Jesus, understood that turning to the police would also risk criminalizing themselves, their fellow survivors, and strengthening the State’s ability to repress revolutionary social movements.
Even though the Red Guards leadership revealed themselves to ultimately be enemies of anyone committed to freedom and liberation, we must remember that the enemy of my enemy isn’t always my ally. We would never collaborate with fascists against the state (for example, we wouldn’t join them in storming the US Capitol). It’s also hard to argue that a small maoist cult is a bigger threat to our communities than the entire policing apparatus.
There are many examples of principled refusals of cooperation with the state, even against fascists (who we might say are an even bigger threat than small Maoist cults). After Hex was shot in the chest by a right-winger while protesting an Alt-Right event on Trump’s first inauguration day, he refused to cooperate with the police investigation and prosecution. Survivors of the fascist car attack in Charlottesville also resisted a federal grand jury investigation that was ostensibly targeting the fascist organizers of the rally. Despite the threats posed by fascists, these activists understand that there is little to be gained and much to be lost through collaborating with the police because they are never on our side. You can not use the police to seek safety; you can only offer yourself up to be used by police to advance their own goals (social control, oppression and repression of resistance).
We should believe people when they tell us who they are. When people snitch, they reveal that they are untrustworthy, lacking in principles, and have bad judgement. These are not qualities we seek to cultivate in movements for liberation, abolition, and autonomy autonomous. We should set firm boundaries to insulate our communities from snitches like Jesus and the damage they can do. We hope this document is useful for our movements in that regard.
Fuck snitches, cops, and the Red Guards too
–some concerned comrades who remember
Source Documents:
PUBLICLY AVAILABLE SOURCE MATERIALS
- https://struggle-sessions.com/2023/02/06/the-collapse/ – restrospective on Red Guards as a whole and its collapse; has account of what led to confrontation, and mentions the sustained surveillance in the wake of Jesus’s actions.
- https://redguardsaustin.wordpress.com/2018/03/14/defend-comrade-dallas-and-fight-for-his-freedom/ – wild nonsense allegations of long-term informing, provocation, etc.
- https://www.redspark.nu/political-prisoners/red-guards-austin-but-who-controls-the-guns/ – nonsense regurgitation of RGA piece
- https://utaustinasn.wordpress.com/2018/04/17/mistakes-abound-in-austin-reflections-on-recent-events/ – statement/criticism/self criticism at the time written by the Autonomous Student Network, which includes some details about the support offers and communication between ASN members and Jesus/Angelica in February 2018.
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