Rival Skinhead Clans Declare Truce

Hammerskin Nation and the Vinlander Social Club have negotiated a truce ending a bloody three-year feud between America’s two largest coalitions of racist skinhead gangs, according to a remarkable declaration published last week by Vinlanders co-founder and Hoosier State Skinheads leader Brien James on the Vinlander Social Club website.

“I salute the people on both sides who had the courage to initiate this peace, and the people who had the maturity to look past our egos and our grudges,” James stated. “We will die fighting together for self-determination and self-respect in a world that has turned its back on natural law and common sense.”

James and another infamous thug, Eric “The Butcher” Fairburn formed the Vinlander Social Club in 2004 as a direct challenge to the authority of Hammerskin Nation (HSN), a nationwide skinhead syndicate that has asserted dominion over U.S. skins since 1988. HSN’s power has waned in recent years as growing numbers of local skinhead “crews” have declared allegiance to the Vinlanders, a skinhead “warrior clan” devoted to drinking, fighting and a racist variant of the Viking pagan religion Odinism. A detailed history of the feud and its impact on the criminal sub-culture of racist skinheads is available here.

James offered no explanation for the sudden and unexpected cessation of hostilities. “Vinlanders and the Hammerskin Nation have been conducting meetings and parties on both sides have decided to declare peace,” he wrote. “Nothing official has been written up and signed, and we all understand that there may be individuals that will feel they still have grievances they can’t let go,” he wrote. “These people may choose to handle these problems as individuals, but as far as the ‘crew war’ or ‘gang war’ that has brought our enemies so much pleasure all these years, it is over.”

The full Vinlanders statement can be viewed here.