A leaked list of customers of a purveyor of neo-Nazi, white supremacist music contains the name of a Racine police officer, Madison365 has learned.
The list, obtained and posted online by the antifascist group AFA Sweden in December, lists about 20,000 customers who purchased albums or other merchandise from late 2017 to mid-2022 from the Swedish company Midgard. The list also details the items customers purchased and includes personally identifying information such as mailing addresses.
The name Gregg Pellegrino appears on the list four times, with shipping addresses that correspond to the home address of City of Racine police officer Gregg Pellegrino. The list indicates that Pellegrino, or someone using his name, purchased three albums by the Minnesota-based band Bound for Glory and one by the band West Wall between December 2020 and September 2022.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Pellegrino said, “It’s not true,” and hung up. He did not respond to follow-up text messages asking how his name got on the list or whether someone else may have ordered the albums in his name.
The data leak was first reported by Vice in December, with additional details and analysis published earlier this week by Hatewatch, an online publication of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
What is Midgard?
Jeff Tischauser, a senior research analyst at the SPLC and co-author of the report on the leak, said Midgard has been selling hate music and other merchandise since the 1990s. The site also sells shirts and other merchandise from brands like European Brotherhood, Keep it White, FasciNation and Ansgar Aryan.
Most of the site’s inventory is albums by hate music bands, many of which have been around since the 1980s and 90s, Tischauser said. He said they were more influential in the white power movement before the advent of the internet and social media, but still play an important role in recruiting and retaining people in hate movements.
“It’s something to sell their supporters with,” Tischauser said. “It’s not just joining a political group. You’re joining a community, you’re joining a culture … come and join us, get some sense of belonging. And oh, by the way, let’s drink some beers and listen to some power chords.”
What did Pellegrino allegedly buy?
Tischauser said he is confident in the accuracy of the list.
“We’ve verified it by comparing the information that was found on the list with data brokers that we have access to,” he said. He also said the people on the list whom he was able to contact didn’t deny that they’d purchased music from the site. Tischauser said even Pellegrino did not explicitly deny the purchases when contacted.
According to the list, Pellegrino, or someone using his name, purchased the Bound for Glory album Ironborn on December 20, 2020; the West Wall album On My Shield on August 18, 2021; the Bound for Glory album Glory Awaits on August 24, 2022; and the Bound for Glory album Last Act of Defiance on September 1, 2022.
A review of the lyrics on those albums reveals violent rhetoric with racist themes.
For example, the Bound for Glory song “Musical Terrorists” contains the lines:
We’re musical terrorist, angry White males
We’re the true Minnesota Vikings
From St. Paul we hail
We like it hard, we like it loud
We shout it out, cause we’re White and proud
The song “Glory Awaits” contains the lines:
I am a celt, in defial
of the invasion of my celtic isles
I’m the teuton, the Germanic one
uniting my tribes against the hun
I’m a vandal, a visigoth
giving Atilla all I’ve got
The song “One Shot One Kill” contains the lyrics:
Dreadlocked bastard, gangster rapper
Raping white women is all that he’s after
You’ve fooled the rest, but I know what you’re about
Your threats will fall silent when you’re the body countI’m a soldier of the revolution
Electing bullets for ballots is my solution
And with this hollow point round,
I’m gonna take you down
Tell me how is the view from six feet underground
Tischauser said SPLC records do not indicate any connection between Pellegrino and known hate groups or far-right extremists. Tischauser obtained Pellegrino’s personnel file through an open records request, as well as documentation of Pellegrino’s service calls in the days before and after he purchased the albums, and shared those records with Madison365. The records indicate Pellegrino has not been disciplined for any racist incidents or excessive force.
Still, Tischauser said it’s concerning for a police officer to seek out violent, racist music.
“Particularly with officers, particularly with people in positions of authority, we want the best, we want the people who have the highest moral integrity, who know good from bad and neatly right, and have a good sense of the world,” he said. “I, honestly, as a human being and an analyst at the SPLC just do not get how someone could listen to Bound for Glory as a police officer and not have it impact him in some way.”
The Racine police department did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
