Imperial Dukes

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The Imperial Dukes are the main antagonists of Season 4 of the TV series S.W.A.T. They are a white supremacist terror group.

A more radical offshoot of the Ku Klux Klan, the Imperial Dukes are neo-Nazis who plan to ignite a race war in America so that they can take over the country and exterminate everybody who isn't a white Christian nationalist. The Dukes consist of multiple independent cells made up of between four and eight members each; three cells appear throughout the season.

The Dukes appear in five episodes: "Fracture", "Crusade", "Next of Kin", "Reckoning", and "Veritas Vincit".

Overview[]

The Imperial Dukes is a decentralised organisation with cells all across the country. They mainly operate online and use their social media presence to spread their message, recruit new members and manipulate the public. The Dukes have a variety of methods - all of them violent - that they use to try and achieve their ultimate goal: a race war and the destruction of all racial, ethnic and religious minorities. Perhaps the most twisted aspect of their beliefs is that the Dukes believe themselves to be serving their country and race by killing innocent people; one Duke claims that his only crime is "being proud of my heritage" when he's arrested.

History[]

The Imperial Dukes were founded at some point in 2020 by neo-Nazis in California who split off from the KKK, believing that the Klan were not radical or militant enough. During the events of "Crusade" in January 2021, the Dukes have hundreds of cells all over America, three of which are in Los Angeles. They are anonymously led by a white supremacist named Marc Stargher who uses the Dukes' chat forum to give orders to each cell. Members of the group can be identified by their Iron Cross tattoos, provided by Jedd Barstow.

The Dukes use at least two internet forums. One forum is publicly accessible and used by Stargher to post misinformation and racist rants. It is also used to radicalise and recruit new members. This forum, as seen in the episode "Fracture", has been infiltrated by Russian trolls who try to incite violence by falsely taking credit for murders of minority business owners. They also have an encrypted forum which can only be accessed through burner phones, which they use to plot their terrorist attacks.

The first cell of Dukes that appears is based at Chevalier Tattoo, where the Dukes have set up a twisted "church" to discuss their plans for the race war they believe is coming. They also have another base, a compound that contains a military-style training course used to prepare for the war. Under orders from Stargher they carry out a series of attacks against immigrant and minority-owned businesses in LA. Wearing bandanas with the American flag on them, the cell members rob several businesses before either shooting the owner or setting the building on fire. At least three of the victims are killed and two more are injured; the Dukes plan to escalate from robberies and arsons into carrying out full-scale terror attacks. The plot is discovered when one Duke is captured and another is killed by an off-duty cop, and SWAT identify and capture the rest of the Dukes over the next two episodes. However, the Dukes get one small victory when a Black officer named Erika Rogers is killed by Abel McConnell; her death becomes a symbol of what the Dukes are trying to achieve.

Another cell which appears in "Reckoning" is more focussed on propaganda, spreading racist misinformation online to radicalise people into joining their cause. The Dukes are arranging a plot to carry out a massacre at Camden College during a ceremony to rename a building named after a slave owner, which will be attended by black community leaders. This plot is referred to as "the Reckoning". They plan to kill everybody at the ceremony using a gas called methyl isocyanate that will destroy their lungs. SWAT discover their existence after they recruit a man named Jared Lewis who was suspected of being part of the first cell.

The second cell is based at a warehouse owned by a man named Kyle Falley. After SWAT raid it they discover the Dukes' encrypted forum and try to use it to find out what the Reckoning is, but the other Dukes see through the deception and send SWAT on a wild goose chase around the city. Eventually SWAT deduce the attack's target and arrive just in time to prevent the Reckoning and arrest the cell members. The remaining Dukes delete everything from their forum and go dark, but not before sending an ominous final message to the LAPD.

In the season finale, "Veritas Vincit", the Dukes hire a black man to bomb a police station in LA, murdering him afterwards and planting evidence to frame Black Justice Now activist Kevin Hilliard. This leads to tension between black communities and the police, which the Dukes exploit by disguising themselves as police officers to kill protestors at a civil rights march. Stargher himself leads the operation because the Dukes have been weakened by SWAT's investigations. The plan gets off to a good start when the Dukes manage to throw stun grenades into the crowd which harms the protestors and almost turns things violent. Fortunately, Hilliard and Leroy Henderson manage to calm the situation down and SWAT soon capture the remaining Dukes. Stargher makes one final attempt to provoke the police into firing on the protestors, but this too fails and he is arrested. As the Imperial Dukes were never heard from again after this episode, it is presumed that Stargher's defeat brought the group to an end.

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