US family disowns white supremacist son after rally

CHICAGO, USA – A family in a rural US state has renounced one of its own, after he participated in a violent white supremacist rally over the weekend.

Peter Tefft was identified on Twitter through photographs taken at the rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman was killed and 19 others injured. 

His family reported that it has since been threatened and harassed, according to the North Dakota newspaper The Forum. 

In an open letter Monday, August 14, to the newspaper, the man’s father, Pearce Tefft, said his son would no longer be welcome until he renounces his beliefs. 

“I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son’s vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions,” Tefft wrote. 

“We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home.”

Another member of the family went further, telling the newspaper that they were afraid of the avowed white nationalist. 

“We don’t feel safe around him, and we don’t know how he came to be this way. My grandfather feels especially grieved, as though he has failed as a father,” Jacob Scott told The Forum in a statement. 

Peter Tefft had previously been the target of a campaign by some in his hometown of Fargo to publicly shame him for his beliefs, according to the newspaper.

“I’m a white Christian and 100% pro-white,” he told The Forum in February.  – Rappler.com