Damien Patton (born July 11, 1972) is known for being a founder of the American software company Banjo and as a NASCAR mechanic. He is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. After Patton's links to the KKK were discovered, in 2020, Banjo had several contracts suspended. He also resigned as CEO in May of that year. He is a Navy veteran.

Biography

Early life

Patton was born July 11, 1972.[1]

Patton says he lived under the freeway in Los Angeles from age fifteen on. He shaved his head and affiliated with white supremacist Skinheads. Texas KKK member Jesse Albert Johnson took him to Tennessee; Johnson wanted to move the James O. Pace organization there and open a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.[2]

Patton has confirmed his membership in the KKK, Aryan Nations, and involvement with the white power skinheads, which he called "the foot soldiers for groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the Aryan Nations", and admitted to painting swastikas and "KKK" on buildings, as well as impersonating an FBI agent. OneZero republished a picture printed in The Tennessean of Patton at an Aryan Nations meeting where he and other members are giving the Nazi salute.[3][1] He also built a house for Christian music producer Jonathan David Brown, and worked as a "maintenance man" at an apartment complex, where he purchased weapons for Brown.[4][1]

After attending an Aryan Nations meeting with Brown.

In June 1990, when Patton was seventeen, he was involved in a drive-by shooting of a synagogue as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He drove Grand Knight Leonard William Armstrong during a drive-by shooting with a TEC-9 on the West End Synagogue. Police arrested Patton and confiscated an AK-47. He was then released and shortly fled the state. In November, he returned to Tennessee.[1]

Patton joined the U.S. Navy in February 1991.[1] In a 2015 Inc. profile, he said he wanted to enlist after seeing the 1990 Gulf War on TV. He said he rose up the ranks on the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, leaving after two tours, ending up in San Diego, California.[5] By 1992, he was on the aircraft carrier USS America (CV-66).

He admitted to fraternizing with Skinheads in the Navy during Brown's 1992 trial over the KKK shooting. In the trial he indicated he pled guilty to a juvenile offence in exchange for providing testimony.[1]

Patton said he had a "building and construction company I started as a kid", and sold it when in his mid-20s.[6]

After starting on a NASCAR pit crew in 1993, he became the chief mechanic on a NASCAR team sponsored by Lowe's. His NASCAR career lasted eight years. Patton told Inc. that he got his degree from University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Bryant School of Business in three years while working for NASCAR, graduating magna cum laude.[4][5][6]

He then was a crime scene investigator for Davidson, North Carolina Police Department while still working full-time.[7][8][5][6][4]

Later a profile said he moved to Hawaii and got into wood flooring, including manufacturing, selling it in 2006.[4][5][6][8]

By 2009 Patton was taking graduate classes at MIT, commuting from Las Vegas to Boston.[5]

Banjo

After hackathons in 2010 and 2011, Patton founded Banjo, then called Peer Compass, as a localized friend-finding app. By 2014 Banjo had pivoted to AI event detection of surveillance video for public safety, gaining a $20 million contract for the State of Utah in 2019 and attention from privacy advocates. When Patton's ties to the KKK were uncovered in April 2020, the company experienced significant negative publicity, and their government contracts with Utah and Indiana were suspended.[9]

In April 2020, Matt Stroud of OneZero uncovered CEO Patton's involvement with the Nashville, Tennessee-based Dixie Knights chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.[1]

On May 8, 2020, Patton resigned from the board and as CEO of Banjo, removing all his decision making authority.[10][11][12][13]

Personal life and interests

Patton was married to Lynn Battistelli of Memphis,TN and had one child - at the time of his grand jury testimony in September 1991.[1][14][15]

By 2015, Patton was married to Jennifer Peck, who worked at Banjo.[16]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Stroud, Matt. "CEO of Surveillance Firm Banjo Once Helped KKK Leader Shoot Up a Synagogue". Medium. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
  2. ↑ 1992 Brown trial; page 73
  3. ↑ Williams, Phil (23 August 1992). "Will still use farm for white causes- owner". The Tennessean.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "What 8 Years In A NASCAR Pit Crew Taught Banjo's CEO About Pivoting". Fast Company. Retrieved 1 May 2020.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Will Bourne (April 2015). "The Most Important Social Media Company You've Never Heard Of". Inc.com. Retrieved 1 May 2020.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Friedman, Lindsay (12 July 2016). "The Boston Bombings Inspired This Entrepreneur to Use His Application to Make a Difference in the World". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 1 May 2020.
  7. ↑ "About Damien". Damien's World. 4 September 2008. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
  8. 1 2 "FindAnyFloor biography" (PDF). corporate.findanyfloor.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 October 2020. Retrieved 1 May 2020.
  9. ↑ "Tech company's ties to white supremacism trigger debate on surveillance algorithms". 4 May 2020.
  10. ↑ "Banjo CEO resigns to preserve the company's AI surveillance deals". Engadget. 10 May 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  11. ↑ "Banjo Blog". Banjo. Archived from the original on 11 May 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020. (5/8/20) Banjo, Inc announced today that the company's current CEO and founder, Damien Patton has resigned and that the company will be transitioning to a new, reconstituted leadership team effectively immediately. Banjo's new CEO will be Justin R. Lindsey, the current CTO of the company. "I'm deeply honored to have worked alongside the Banjo team and am proud of all we have accomplished thus far," Patton said. "As CEO, I'm looking forward to continuing Banjo's dedication to technology solutions that protect privacy." (4/29/20) Following yesterday's announcement by the Utah Attorney General's Office, Banjo has decided to suspend all Utah contracts by not ingesting any government data or providing any services to government entities until an independent third party audit has been contracted and completed. Banjo believes that any company working with the government should be subject to audits and oversight.
  12. ↑ "Banjo CEO steps down as fallout from revelations of past ties to KKK continues". Deseret News. 8 May 2020. Retrieved 11 May 2020. When asked about what structural changes might be in store to ensure Patton's functional disconnection from the company, a Banjo spokesman described the former CEO's status as one in which he "is not an employee, no longer on the board and has no operating capacity on the company."
  13. ↑ "Banjo CEO steps down after news of past KKK membership". The Salt Lake Tribune. Retrieved 11 May 2020.
  14. ↑ 1991 Patton grand jury; pp. 6,13
  15. ↑ 1992 Brown trial; pp. 41-42,47,53-54,109-111,121-122
  16. ↑ "Surveillance Firm Banjo Used a Secret Company and Fake Apps to Scrape Social Media - VICE". vice. 9 March 2020. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
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