“I am a white supremacist. The Aryan Nation will rule the world!”

If you think that sounds like the words of a man who is about to be deservedly choked out, you’re partially right. But before 36-year-old Nicholas Arnold Schock got taken down by a group of brave bystanders in Nokomis Florida, he would do a lot more to deserve such aggressive treatment.

The viral video of the incident opens with a belligerent Schock, half-naked, shouting at the staff of Pop’s Sunset Grille to “call Donald Trump, he’s gonna come get me out of prison.” It’s not evident what sparked the confrontation—whether Schock was refusing to wear a mask in the popular open-air venue, or simply wanted to strip naked. Whatever the case, Schock was seemingly convinced that Donald Trump would have his back in the ordeal.

From there he quickly launched into his tirade about white supremacy, saying that, in the new world “people covered in tattoos are gonna be my closest relatives, I promise you.” He then indicated some of his own tattoos, which include a sword, a skull, some dragons, a variety of norse runes, his own last name in 400 pt Affliction font across his back, and—just in case you thought he was kidding about white supremacy—at least three swastikas in various sizes and styles.

Despite Schock’s aggressive racism and exposed pubic area, staff members seemed to be doing their best to handle him peacefully, corralling him away from other patrons. One man admonished him that “we got children here,” to which Schock responded “I don’t give a ****. Call Donald Trump, please.”

When the Ranting Turned to Violence

When that same man tried to lead him away from trouble Schock once again invoked our dear president, saying, “If you don’t know Donald Trump, I’m not going nowhere.” At that point Schock noticed the woman filming him, and his already erratic, frightening behavior ramped into high-gear.

He pointed at the camera and said “I will butt-**** this b**** on the table right now,” then walked around the corner and violently assaulted bartender Kisha Biche, who was blocking his way.

The sight of Schock rearing back to smack Kisha Biche across the face with his full force elicited an audible uproar from onlookers, several of whom rushed in to tackle Schock as he began throwing punches. Schock was quickly pinned down and put in a chokehold—which didn’t stop him from ranting but may have contributed to his increasing incoherence, going from, “I’ll ****ing kill you! Swear to God, I’ll do it!” to “Biggest dick in the world! My brother s***ed my dick!”

Sadly, Kisha Biche sustained a concussion before Schock was pulled away from her. There is now a GoFundMe page quickly moving toward its $25,000 stretch goal to help Biche and her family to pay their bills while she recovers.

At some point after the incident devolved into a relative calm, police showed up to take Schock away, and he did his best to reason with them, stating in another video, “I am the I am. I don’t give a **** what you do, I’m not being violent, I love you guys,” before once again invoking his friends in high places, asking them to “call the sergeant in Sarasota.”

Whether he actually has connections within the Sarasota police is unclear (they may be as real as his connections to Donald Trump), but Sarasota is exactly where Schock ended up in jail after being charged with battery and disturbing the peace. His bail is set at $55,000—possibly in response to public outcry at reports that it was initially set at just $620.

Nicholas Schock’s Criminal History

A resident of the small central Florida town of Wauchula, Schock has previously been arrested in 2005 for possession of cocaine and in 2016 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon—for which he served three years in state prison before being released in December of 2019.

It’s not yet known what substances Schock may have been abusing in the lead-up to his latest unhinged rampage, but what is clear is that the American prison system did little to reform him. In fact, it’s very likely that he received many of his tattoos—and the white supremacist ideology that goes with them—while locked up.

The Aryan Brotherhood, with membership estimated between 15,000 and 20,000, is undoubtedly the most famous of the white supremacist gangs operating within America’s prison system—possibly because of their disproportionate contribution to prison murders. But there are a number of similarly violent white supremacist gangs operating in American prisons, any one of which might have brought Schock into the fold and marked him with his various hate symbols.

For many prisoners, membership in a (usually racially segregated) prison gang is an essential part of self-preservation. American prisons are often so violent and so inhumane that there is little choice in the matter. This is by no means an excuse for Shock’s racism or violence, but it’s hardly a mystery that men crammed together in inhumane conditions and forced to join gangs to survive don’t come out of that situation as functioning members of society.

With over 27% unemployment rate among former prisoners as of 2018 (the figure is likely much higher now), is it any wonder that many former convicts turn to criminal connections they formed in prison to find them work? It would be libelous to assert that Schock is one of them, but…it’s also hard to imagine how else someone like him could be making money.

And considering the fact that white supremacist organizations have made a concerted effort to infiltrate state and local law enforcement throughout the country, it may be that Schock really does love the police, and he may even be friends with “the sergeant in Sarasota.”

In short, the racism that permeates America’s criminal justice system goes far beyond the horrifying brutality we saw in the case of George Floyd. It not only funnels the disproportionately Black and brown prison population into a hopeless cycle, it helps to bring white supremacist groups new members.

Inhumane Conditions in America’s Prison System

While it feels good to see a violent racist like Nicholas Schock get taken down and locked away from the public—it’s certainly a good thing that he won’t be assaulting people like Kisha Biche anytime soon—it’s important to note that many prison systems in the rest of the world are not like this.

They treat prisoners as human beings who have done something bad, rather than like monsters—like dangerous animals with no rights. They have enough space to have lives and privacy. They don’t run the risk of being isolated in solitary confinement for weeks on end—considered among the worst forms of psychological torture.

Prison administration encourages inmates to educate themselves and prepare for the outside world, rather than arbitrarily censoring books. Their spaces are kept sanitary, and they’re given access to proper medical care…

Last year Nicholas Schock filed suit against several sheriffs and a nurse for the unsanitary conditions and inadequate medical care that allegedly led him to develop a persistent bacterial infection on his body when he was jailed in 2016. Was that before or after his body was infected with symbols of hate?

If our institutions stopped dehumanizing prisoners so eagerly, would the prisoners themselves be so eager to dehumanize others?

Watching Schock assault an innocent woman, it’s easy to think of him as a monster. But if we keep treating men like him as monsters, they will continue to live up to those expectations. As a result of our harsh, inhumane treatment of prisoners like Schock, the United States has one of the highest rates of re-offense in the world—people get out of prison and head right back in.

How long will Schock stay locked up this time? And what will he do when he gets out?