At 33, Leyden has seen it all before. In fact, he has lived it: His life in violent neo-Nazi movements was launched at the age of 14, when he began punching out kids at punk rock concerts.

But unlike Smith's story, Leyden's is one of transformation. Four years ago, after watching his small son recoil in revulsion at the "niggers" on television, he quit the movement and his marriage to a fellow skinhead. Today, he is a full-time consultant to the Task Force Against Hate at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, monitoring racist groups and, more importantly, trying to extract young men and women from them. In fact, while Smith was prowling the suburbs of Chicago and Bloomington, Ind., last weekend, Leyden was at a rally of skinheads in Las Vegas -- this time as an enemy within their midst, hoping to reach some youth before they end up on a rampage like Smith.

In the wake of the weekend's violence, Leyden spoke to Salon Mothers Who Think about the vulnerability of youth, what he learned from his own children and his dealings with Benjamin Smith's mentor, Matthew Hale, the head of the World Church of the Creator.

What kind of person is Matthew Hale?

I've never met him, but I used to talk to him on the phone when we were organizing concerts and festivals. We'd network. He's smart, a good talker and a great propagandist. He's only 29. He knows how to manipulate the whole thing, like saying he's a white separatist, not a white supremacist. That's a lie. They believe in RAHOWA -- the Race Holy War -- that you have to cleanse the world of all non-Aryans. The COTC, as they call it, is really starting to grow over the last couple of years, they're in 35 cities now. That's partly because of Matt.

What effect will last weekend's events have on his movement?

In one way, it's bad for Matt because it's brought to light a lot of stuff that he'd preferred not to have come to light. But in other ways, it's good: There will be kids who say, "This group is actually doing something, they're not just big talk." And they'll join. That's what Matt wants, and that's what he'll get. In some way, Benjamin Smith will become a martyr.

You spent 15 years in some of the most violent skinhead movements, mostly the Hammerskins of Southern California. Didn't the violence ever bother you?

When I first got involved, I didn't really like the violence. But after a while, nah, it didn't bother me at all. It was just something we did: violence, fighting. At first, we wouldn't beat up a lot of people; we'd just recruit more and more kids. Then we started getting into violence. We would beat up white kids in the neighborhood who weren't involved, or blacks and Latinos who weren't supposed to be there. We used to call it a bonus if we got blacks and Latinos -- if they came into our neighborhood, they'd get beaten up.

One kid that we fought -- he was white -- we cracked his ribs, separated his shoulder, kicked four of his teeth out and broke his jaw. And I broke the kid's thumb; it shattered when I kicked it. Supposedly he tripped a skinhead girl -- or that's what she said. I don't know if he did. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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