Daniel Gallant first tried to kill himself when he was 12 years old, a way to escape the trauma of being raised in a home filled with sexual and physical abuse. When that didn’t work, he ran away and spent the rest of his teenage years in the care of child services in British Columbia, psychiatric wards, and in juvenile detention for theft.
At 18, Gallant was living on the harsh streets of east Vancouver, squatting in abandoned buildings and doing whatever he could to feed his addiction to alcohol and drugs.
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His deep frustration with himself and everything around him played right into the hands of a group of skinheads and neo-Nazis he met one day while he was smoking a joint on Granville Street. Right away, Gallant felt like he belonged with the hodgepodge of men from the Klu Klux Klan, Heritage Front, and World Church of the Creator, all driven by the belief in a superior white race.
“They gave me an outline for who to blame for my life and for the state of the world,” said Gallant in an interview.
He proved his devotion and worth to the group by assaulting at least one person everyday. His record was beating up nine people in a single day.
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