Peter Smith
Canadian Anti-Hate Network
Last week, a 33-year-old London man was arrested by London police as part of a criminal harassment investigation.
Bubba Christopher Michael Pollock is facing charges after travelling to the hospital room of an online critic’s terminally ill father. While the man slept, Pollock left flowers and a note, took a selfie, and posted the picture in the comments of the daughter’s Facebook account.
Further investigation has revealed that Pollock has attended the rally of self-described National Socialists, White Lives Matter, and is a member of several far-right and neo-Nazi online chats. The note he left says it is also from a prominent member of the Vinland Hammerskins, a racist skinhead gang with a decades-long history of violence.
Brittany Leroux says she first became aware of Pollock when he bragged online about organizing “60 patriots” to oppose a family-friendly drag story reading. He even offered to donate $1,000 to a local food bank if Wortley Pride would cancel the event.
Many drag events intended for adults take place in age-restricted venues and do feature sexualized performances and themes. Family-friendly drag events feature performers in colourful costumes and high-energy performances that are suitable for children.
A post to social media from the Bubba Pollock account. Source: Facebook
Leroux says approximately six protesters attended to oppose the Pride event, though reporting by the CBC places the number as high as 15. Media coverage and witnesses contacted by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network report Pollock among the crowd.
School board meetings, children's book readings and Pride events have become a focus of protests across the country. In Wortley, the city’s second annual Pride celebration was preceded by flyers falsely claiming that children could receive a “lap dance” from the drag queens during story readings and other similar Pride events in southern Ontario.
CBC reported that 12 of the flyers had been found in public and removed on June 8. On the chat app Telegram, an account named Schilling Zola shared a picture of the flyer on June 5 with the caption “5,000 of these posters.”
“Anyone else have a mega printer? Worst case I'll have my warehouse keep doing em,” they wrote.
Image shared on Telegram by the Schilling Zola account claiming to have been printing flyers spreading false information about a Pride event. Source: Telegram
Biographical information as well as pictures shared by the account of his face indicates that the Schilling Zola account belongs to Bubba Pollock. Even the screen name borrows from the names of Pollock’s two large dogs, a German Shepherd named Schilling and Zola, a Kangal and Presa Canario mix.
Attempts to contact Pollock for comment via his since-deleted Facebook account, publicly available email, and the Schilling Zola account have gone unanswered. The messages sent through Telegram are marked as received and seen by the account holder.
After the protest against Wortley Pride failed to garner the 60 promised patriots, Leroux, an active supporter and advocate for 2SLGBTQ+ people, called Pollock out online.
“Your plans failed. No amount of protest will ever stop us, you give us more reason to fight,” she wrote on Facebook, including a link to Pollock's since-shuttered account. “For that I thank you.”
The post sat largely undisturbed for a couple of days until Pollock responded with a picture of himself standing in the hospital room of Leroux’s father. Pollock is grinning widely, as the elderly man sleeps in the background, flowers laying at his side.
Leroux and her partner were married outside of the palliative care building that Pollock would later visit. The event was held there so her father could attend. She believes this is how Pollock was able to find the hospital.
“We got publicly married outside of the hospital and the news covered it so that Dad could wheel me down the aisle before he passed,” she told CAHN during an interview. “It was really, really beautiful. We had two drag queens as our witnesses.
“That's how they found out where he was, but how they found out his room number is what I need to know.”
She added overall she feels the hospital has taken their concerns seriously and is working with them after the incident.
A note allegedly left with the flowers raises more questions as pictures show it reading, “All the best to you, sir. Ryan Immel and Bubba Pollock (friends of Britt).”
Both names appear to be written in the same handwriting.
A picture of the note left in the hospital room. Source: Submitted
The only Ryan Immel known to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network is a member of the Vinland Hammerskins and a recruiter for the Oshawa chapter of Active Club Canada – a whites-only workout club founded by American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo.
Security footage from the hospital, according to Leroux, showed only Pollock approaching the hospital. Attempts to contact Immel and other Active Club recruiters to confirm his presence have gone unanswered. It is not known if Immel was there or even aware his name was added to the card.
No known images of Immel are available publicly that show his face, though he is regularly shown wearing a mask in propaganda for the Active Club. He is distinguishable by a sonnenrad (or black sun) tattooed on the back of his hand. While similar to the sun wheels of various cultures, the sonnenrad – which contains 12 radial sig runes – is a symbol unique to the early 20th century and was developed for use by Hitler’s Schutzstaffel or SS.
Our previous investigation found the Vinland Hammerskins serving as recruiters for Active Club chapters across Canada.
A picture of Ryan Immel taken during a meeting of the Active Club. Source Telegram
Pollock is also pictured at a rally for the protest group White Lives Matter. Members typically wear face coverings and dress in all black for these events. Pollock is pictured wearing a “White Lives Matter” T-shirt, standing beside neo-Nazi Tomas Liko, both of whom are unmasked.
The organizer of WLM in Toronto, a man who goes by the online pseudonym Mcleafin, and whose first name is Spencer, would not confirm if Pollock is or was a member of WLM.
“He attended one rally. That is all I have to say on the matter,” Spencer said when reached for comment.
A rally of White Lives Matter Toronto. Bubba Pollock is standing in the centre wearing a shirt reading "White Lives Matter." To his right is Tomas Liko and to his left is Andrew Benson. Source: Telegram
Besides attending the recent Pride event in Wortley, Pollock has appeared at several protests outside drag story time and Pride-related events. Witnesses speaking to CAHN on background allege that he was being aggressive and confronting parents and their children attempting to enter by shouting “groomer” and “pedophile.”
Sky Holbrook, a victims advocate that works with the organization Diversity Ed, confronted Pollock online. During the argument, screenshots provided by Holbrook show Pollock listing the names of her family members, attempting to contact them, and trying to add Holbrook’s mother on social media.
At another protest in Ingersoll, Ontario, Pollock also confronted counter-protesters.
“I saw him at the Ingersoll Library. We got to Ingersoll a little bit later than we would've liked. And when we arrived, the protestors were there in force and had seized the front door, shall we say,” Patricia Ginn, a member of a group that organizes community defence for drag story time and Pride events, told CAHN in an interview.
“We rode up and we had some cars behind us as well, and the cars split off. And I rode right up on the sidewalk, right up to Bubba.”
For the rest of the event, Pollack’s comments to Ginn were “pretty much always sexual.”
“You know, ‘I know you want me, I know you want me just keep screaming my name,’ and I'm like, ‘oh, Bubba,’” she added.
Pollock was also arrested by London police in 2018, after being charged with two counts of obtaining sexual service for consideration, sexual assault, and publishing an intimate image online without consent.
In May of this year, Pollock was pictured outside of a London courthouse with Shane Marshall, the man convicted for throwing gravel at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during an election campaign stop in 2021.
Marshall, who was once listed as the CEO for a riding office of the People’s Party of Canada, pled guilty to a charge of assault. He was sentenced to 90 days of house arrest and a year of probation.
Besides a stint at a Toyota manufacturing plant in Woodstock, Ontario, Pollock claims to be an entrepreneur and small business owner. Images and classifieds listings across a number of inactive web pages and social media accounts show an industrial cannabis operation and mentions of a rental property.
Pollock also mentions having “worked with elite K9s for four years” and providing K9 security for PPC leader Maxime Bernier. As proof, Pollock shared video from inside a K9 training facility showing him working with what appears to be a German Shepherd.
Screencapture of a message and video shared by the Schilling Zola account. Source: Telegram
“Bubba Pollock was never employed here, he was only a client for a course with his dog,” the training facility said when contacted. “He was removed from our facility for attempting to sell clients fake vaccine passports in my business parking lot. He also began to attack our business once he discovered we were refugees from a different country.
“He has no training or experience in K9 work or handling and his dogs were never trained in any personal protection work.”
Pollock also had his own recent run-in with the prime minister, though only tossed verbal stones. During a stop in Woodstock, Ontario, Justin Trudeau was met by supporters and detractors outside. As the PM moved through the crowd, footage from the event recorded and posted by Pollock online show him repeatedly shouting sexual statements about Trudeau’s wife.
Despite being approximately an arm's length away from Pollock, Trudeau ignores him and other protesters.
Footage from other individuals at the event, as well as his reflection in a store window, confirms Pollock is holding the camera.
Despite the incident with her father, Brittany Leroux wants the queer youth in her community to know people are willing to fight to keep them safe.
“I don't want them to be afraid. I don't want them to be worried. This is gonna be okay, we're gonna get through this because love is louder.”