Intelligence Briefs: Spring 2018
Trolling for Trouble
In his mission statement, Joey Gibson likes to claim that his 鈥淧atriot Prayer鈥 organization is about 鈥渦sing the power of love and prayer to fight corruption,鈥 but when it organized right-wing rallies at locales along the West Coast this past year, the reality was decidedly different.
A number of 鈥淧atriot Prayer鈥 events 鈥 particularly a June 5 鈥渇ree speech鈥 rally in Portland, Oregon, held just one week after an unhinged man shouting 鈥渁lt-right鈥 epithets and harassing two young women of color on a Portland MAX commuter train had stabbed to death two men who attempted to intervene 鈥 attracted large contingents of counter-protesters. The results often included outbreaks of violence, particularly between black-clad 鈥渁ntifascists鈥 and some of the outright white nationalists who assembled under Gibson鈥檚 banner.
Patriot Prayer began organizing rallies in the Pacific Northwest in early 2017, built primarily around Gibson and his contingent of 鈥淧atriot鈥 militia supporters in the Vancouver, Washington-based American Freedom Keepers, which itself was primarily a group of antigovernment bikers and gun-toting 鈥減reppers.鈥 Its ostensible purpose was to advocate for 鈥渇ree speech鈥 for conservative points of view, but in short order, its rallies became a gathering point for white nationalists, skinheads, militiamen and Pepe flag-waving alt-righters and 鈥淧roud Boys.鈥
There were Patriot Prayer rallies in Seattle and Olympia, Washington, as well as several others in the Portland area. And it became clear as these events progressed that Gibson鈥檚 intent was actually a cynical form of trolling the liberal and antifascist left, deliberately attempting to provoke violence from counter-demonstrators so that he could attack them as 鈥渢he real fascists.鈥
Gibson鈥檚 activism reached its apotheosis with a weekend appearance in the Bay Area August 26 and 27, when he attempted to organize a rally at a city park in San Francisco, but then canceled at the last minute citing a fear of likely violence. The next day in Berkeley, however, Gibson led a contingent of Patriot Prayer followers into the middle of a huge crowd holding an antifascist rally in the city鈥檚 downtown. A group of 鈥渂lack bloc鈥 activists attacked them and chased them behind police lines; video of the encounter went viral, with conservatives offering it as proof of 鈥渓eftist violence,鈥 just as Gibson had long hoped.
Gibson (who is Japanese American) also began explicitly denouncing white supremacists at his rallies, even as some of his followers continued to indulge in acts of street violence with counter-protesters, as occurred in Vancouver two weeks after Gibson鈥檚 Bay Area appearance. Attendance sharply declined, and infighting among the leaders of the group was reported in the local press. And just as suddenly as Patriot Prayer appeared on the scene in the Northwest, it disappeared from view 鈥 at least for now.
Klansman convicted of sexual assault on medically impaired woman
His criminal record includes hate crime and firearms convictions. Now, the former Alabama leader of the International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan will be serving an additional 10 years in prison for sexual assault.
Steven Joshua Dinkle had been scheduled for release from federal prison in Louisiana in August after serving 15 months for being a felon in possession of a firearm. But in June, a jury convicted the 31-year-old former Klansman of sexually assaulting a medicated woman and videotaping the crime.
Dinkle did not take the stand in his own defense at trial, but has maintained his innocence and plans to appeal his latest conviction, his attorney told media outlets.
Dale County District Attorney Kirke Adams said the prosecution was 鈥渧ery thankful鈥 the judge gave Dinkle the maximum 10-year sentence and made it consecutive to his federal sentence.
While serving as the 鈥渆xalted cyclops鈥 of the Ozark chapter of the International Keystone Knights, Dinkle was arrested by the FBI in November 2013 in Mississippi on federal hate crime charges stemming from a 2009 cross burning in a predominantly black neighborhood in Ozark.
He pleaded guilty to those charges in February 2014, confessing that he 鈥渂urned the cross because of the victims鈥 race and color and because they were occupying homes鈥 in an Ozark neighborhood.
Dinkle was released from prison in 2015 for the cross-burning conviction, only to be arrested again for being a felon in possession of a .32 caliber pistol. He pled guilty to that federal firearms charge last year and was sentenced on June 30, 2016, to 15 months in prison.
His mother, Pamela Morris, also a Klan member, was arrested on charges of lying to a grand jury about her son鈥檚 involvement in the cross burning. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but was released after serving only about a year, federal records indicate.
Hate group leader and pedophile Tony Alamo dies in prison
Evangelist Tony Alamo, whose anti-Catholic, gay-bashing rants attracted followers to a polygamous cult and made him a millionaire, has died in prison where he was serving a 175-year term for raping girls he called his child brides. He was 82.
His passing on May 2 at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina 鈥 only seven years into his life prison term 鈥 brought relief to some of his victims, including one woman who called him pure evil. But she and many others likely will be scarred for life by their encounters with the religious guru who headed Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.
The group鈥檚 cultish, hate-based activities and propaganda recruiting efforts live on in Los Angeles, New York and on the internet, despite his criminal conviction in 2009 and multi-million dollar civil judgments and insurance settlements against Alamo and his empire.
His once-lavish, 13,064-square foot mansion 鈥 built in the 1970s with a heart-shaped swimming pool, basement recording studio and dinner seating for more than 100 鈥 sits abandoned and vandalized on a 122-acre compound near Dyer, Arkansas, 16 miles northeast of Fort Smith.
Its new owner is having trouble finding a buyer for the eerie estate 鈥 a landmark where Alamo sexually abused young girls and beat boys until they bled, where he once kept his dead wife鈥檚 body on display for months and where he and his followers designed and made sequined denim jackets for Hollywood stars, including Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley.
Susan Groulx, who was an Alamo follower from age 18 until she was 43, told Intelligence Report she was relieved to hear of his death. 鈥淚 hope it brings about the dissolution of this destructive ministry,鈥 she said.
鈥淚 knew Alamo to be a delusional, narcissistic, unmerciful and evil man,鈥 Groulx said. 鈥淓ven behind prison bars, Alamo persisted in writing tracts, pastoring the church in his warped way, and controlling follower鈥檚 lives.鈥
鈥淗e has caused so much damage to so many lives and has caused relationships to be fractured,鈥 Groulx said, explaining that adult children who left the group have not been able to speak to siblings or parents for years.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a heartbreaking situation, and I鈥檓 hoping his death will bring reconciliation to families,鈥 she said.
鈥淚 no longer believe in hell,鈥 Groulx said, 鈥渂ut I鈥檝e never met anyone more deserving than Alamo of going there.鈥
Alamo鈥檚 empire began crumbling after the 澳彩开奖鈥檚 investigative journal, Intelligence Report, published a lengthy expose in 2007 detailing allegations of child rape, physical abuse of children and polygamy inside Tony Alamo Christian Ministries.
The 澳彩开奖 investigative report also described Alamo鈥檚 unorthodox belief in polygamy, which he claimed was permitted by the Holy Scriptures. He practiced what he preached, taking at least five wives, including girls as young as nine and 10, the article detailed.
A year after the report, FBI agents and Arkansas state police raided Alamo鈥檚 compound, searching for evidence of child abuse and child pornography. Authorities didn鈥檛 disclose if they seized stores of candy and Barbie dolls victims say Alamo kept as enticements in his bedroom where he sexually abused young girls for a period of 14 years.
Many of the victims and their families brought civil suits resulting in judgments and sealed insurance settlements totaling $525 million, according to one report.
鈥淚t was very substantial,鈥 said attorney David Carter, who represented some of the victims.
鈥淲e were able to sell off about 35 properties in Arkansas, including church buildings, gyms, businesses and homes,鈥 Carter said at the time of Alamo鈥檚 death. 鈥淭here are still a few properties in California, Kentucky and Florida we intend to sell to partially satisfy the civil judgments.鈥
Torture-murders defendant takes sovereign citizen defense
It took 14 years to bring accused double-murder suspect Steven Lorenzo to justice in Florida where he鈥檚 described as one of that state鈥檚 鈥渕ost notorious criminals.鈥
When he was arraigned on the murder charges, Lorenzo made it clear he鈥檚 now an antigovernment sovereign citizen.
鈥淚 am a sovereign man 鈥 not a public figure,鈥 he told a judge in Tampa at his arraignment in September on murders charges stemming from the sadistic killings in 2003 of two gay men who were drugged, raped, tortured and murdered.
Lorenzo, using a line straight out of the sovereign citizen handbook, told the judge the court system and its laws were 鈥渇iction鈥 and that he would represent himself in court proceedings.
Judge Mark Kiser asked Lorenzo if he really understood what he was doing, the Tampa Bay Times reported, describing Lorenzo as 鈥渙ne of the most notorious criminals in Tampa Bay history.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 almost always unwise to represent yourself in court,鈥 the judge told the 58-year-old accused murderer, who steadfastly maintained he didn鈥檛 want a lawyer.
鈥淭his is a fiction, corporate court,鈥 Lorenzo told the judge. 鈥淚 am not a corporate person. I am a living, breathing being.鈥
Lorenzo refused to enter pleas to the two murders charges. 鈥淚 will not plea. I鈥檓 here to settle. I鈥檓 not here to plea.鈥 Nonetheless, the judge entered two not guilty pleas.
When Lorenzo appeared back in court in early November, the judge ordered a psychological evaluation of the defendant.
Lorenzo has been in federal prison, serving a 200-year term, since his conviction in 2005 on nine counts of administering a date-rape drug, GHB, and a 10th count of conspiring with Scott Paul Schweickert to commit violent crimes.
Last year, Schweickert pleaded guilty to murder charges brought in the deaths of Jason Galehouse and Michael Wachholtz, both 26, who were killed in 2003.
As part of a plea bargain, Schweickert agreed to testify against Lorenzo in exchange for a life sentence. Murder charges were filed against Lorenzo in 2017, and he was transferred from federal custody to face the state charges.
The brutality of the torture-murder, which included dismemberment, case has gripped Tampa Bay for 14 years.
Schweickert met Lorenzo online in 2003 and the two discussed their interest in 鈥渂ondage, torture and sadomasochistic sexual activity with men,鈥 Schweickert鈥檚 plea agreement said. The two developed a plan to meet single gay men and make them 鈥減ermanent slaves.鈥
鈥淎ccording to our plan and agreement, once we became tired of, or bored with, a 鈥榩ermanent slave,鈥 Steven Lorenzo and I would either sell the permanent slave to another practitioner of homosexual sadomasochism or kill鈥 him, the plea deal said.
Schweickert admitted helping lure Galehouse and Wachholtz, in December 2003, from a Tampa gay nightclub to Lorenzo鈥檚 home in Seminole Heights, where they were given drug-laced drinks, sexually tortured and killed, the Tampa Bay newspaper reported last year.
Schweickert told investigators he helped Lorenzo dismember Galehouse鈥檚 body with an electric saw and dispose of the parts in trash bins throughout the city. His remains were never recovered. Wachholtz鈥 body was found in his abandoned Jeep in an apartment complex.
The case sparked speculation that other gay men may have been victimized.
FBI Arrests McVeigh-Copycat in Oklahoma City Bomb Plot
An Oklahoma man faces a federal charge alleging he intended to carry out a copycat bombing of the 1995 attack by extremist Timothy McVeigh.
Jerry Drake Varnell was arrested in August after he twice dialed a cell phone that he believed would remotely detonate a van he helped load with 1,000 pounds of explosives before parking it outside a bank only six blocks away from the scene of the deadly 1995 terrorist attack, court documents say.
Varnell, 23, of Sayre, Oklahoma, initially was charged in a federal criminal complaint with malicious attempted destruction of a building used in interstate commerce by means of an explosive. He was formally indicted on the charge in October by a grand jury in the Western District of Oklahoma.
The indictment says Varnell 鈥渕aliciously attempted to damage and destroy, by means of fire and an explosive, the BancFirst building at 101 N. Broadway in Oklahoma City.鈥
The case was among a rash of 2017 arrests of extremists who carried out assorted crimes, including homicides, as they attempted to adulate and emulate the Oklahoma City bomber 鈥 a trend called 鈥淢cVeigh worship.鈥
In Varnell鈥檚 case, court records say the explosives he packed in a vehicle were inert 鈥 provided by an undercover FBI agent during an eight-month terrorism investigation.
The suspect鈥檚 family issued a statement following his arrest, claiming he is mentally ill, a condition the FBI knew about during its investigation. In contrast, charging documents show the suspect was asked repeatedly if he wanted to follow through with his plans to retaliate against the government 鈥 something the documents say he steadfastly reaffirmed over the months-long investigation.
鈥淲hen militias start getting formed, I鈥檓 going after government officials when I have a team,鈥 the suspect said at one point during the investigation, noting he wanted to build a truck bomb 鈥渨ith what the OKC bomber [McVeigh] used 鈥 diesel and anhydrous ammonia.鈥
鈥淚 might have to make a distillery to process some stuff,鈥 the suspect said in one encrypted social media message, according to charging documents.
The Varnell investigation was opened in late 2016 when an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force developed information that the suspect 鈥渨as aspiring to bomb the Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D.C., in a manner similar to the Oklahoma City bombing,鈥 the court documents say.
The initial information came from an informant with a criminal record who was paid by the FBI and wore a body wire to secretly record conversations he had with Varnell, the documents say.
The informant鈥檚 information was 鈥渃orroborated through other investigative techniques including physical surveillance, consensually recorded conversations, administrative subpoenas, and searches of public records,鈥 the documents say. The informant subsequently introduced an undercover FBI agent, who posed as a bomb maker.
Varnell, the documents allege, 鈥渨as upset with the government and 鈥 seeking retaliation.鈥 He was in possession of firearms, wanted to organize and arm a small III%-style militia group. He also claimed to have a bunker 鈥渇or when the world (or United States) collapsed,鈥 the documents allege.
Over several months, the informant introduced Varnell to the undercover FBI agent 鈥 a reputed bomb-making expert called 鈥淭he Professor鈥 鈥 in meetings where audio or video recordings were made.
Discussions of various targets ranged from a Federal Reserve System building in Washington, D.C., to an IRS headquarters in Texas, the documents say.
During one meeting with the undercover FBI agent, Varnell said he 鈥渨anted to be a part of something and 鈥 wanted to use explosives and make a statement,鈥 the documents say.
When the suspect was asked if he was sure he wanted to carry out a McVeigh-style truck bombing, he 鈥渞esponded in the affirmative,鈥 telling the undercover FBI agent that he didn鈥檛 understand the 鈥渄epth鈥 of Varnell鈥檚 鈥渉atred for the government.鈥
The suspect also discussed developing a social media statement, to be anonymously posted after the bombing, to 鈥渆nsure that no other group, such as ISIS was able to take credit for the attack,鈥 the court documents say.
The documents alleged Varnell drafted this statement to be posted after his planned bombing:
鈥淲hat happened in Oklahoma City was not an attack on America, it was retaliation 鈥 retaliation against the freedoms that have been taken away from the American people.鈥
Varnell said he viewed McVeigh鈥檚 act of terrorism as 鈥渁 wake-up call to both the government and the people; an act done to show the government what the people thinks of its actions.鈥
鈥淚t is also a call to arms, to show people that there are still fighters among the American people. The time for revolution is now.鈥
Internet Sleuths Track Down Violent Charlottesville Neo-Nazi
The long arm of the internet finally caught up with Dennis Mothersbaugh.
Roaming the scene in Charlottesville, Virginia, during the violent 鈥淯nite the Right鈥 rally on August 12, the 33-year-old skinhead with a long rap sheet apparently felt anonymous enough to begin punching some of the counter-protesters who showed up to oppose him and his fellow white nationalists.
Video recorded at the protest showed the man lashing out and hitting first one protester as he came down a set of stairs, and then, moments later, punching a woman protester in the face, knocking her to the ground. He was quickly surrounded by men defending the victim before walking away.
That recording, however, created the impetus for a search by internet sleuths to unearth his identity. Led by Brooklyn-based freelance journalist Shaun King, the activists in short order figured out his identity in large part because of the unique tattoo on Mothersbaugh鈥檚 head, a quote from rock star Kurt Cobain which reads: 鈥淚 would rather be hated for what I am than loved for what I am not.鈥
Mothersbaugh, who currently resides in rural North Vernon, Indiana, has a long and violent record from the 2000s, when he resided in the Portland, Oregon area. Among his more noteworthy arrests was a 2005 bust in suburban Gresham for threatening three African American men and attempting to assault them, as well as a previous 2003 arrest for an assault on a black man.
He sports a number of tattoos indicating his membership in the Hammerskins skinhead organization, as well as the Inland Empire neo-Nazi prison gang.
Now Mothersbaugh is behind bars. Once identified, police in Charlottesville issued a warrant for his arrest on assault charges. Police in Indiana were notified, Charlottesville police issued a request for extradition and deputies arrested Mothersbaugh at his home.
King has led previous successful efforts to identify the violent white supremacists involved in criminal assaults on people at Charlottesville, including the four men who attacked an African American man, Deandre Harris, at a parking garage.
King thanked his readers on social media. 鈥淵ou helped make that happen. We identified him. Charlottesville issued the arrest warrant. The police in his hometown, who鈥檝e been great by the way, wanted to arrest him, but Charlottesville had to request extradition.
鈥淲ell, they just did, and he is now in custody. He is the third white supremacist from Charlottesville that we have identified and lobbied for an arrest. Your hard work is paying off.鈥
Holocaust Denier Behind Twitter Threats Gets Probation
In what may be the first case of its kind, a Michigan man has been acquitted of two felonies for using Twitter to spew a variety of hate 鈥 everything from denying the Holocaust to threatening to kill school children and Jews.
While David Joseph Lenio escaped conviction on felony charges of aggravated stalking and use of a computer to commit a crime, he was convicted by a jury in his hometown of Grand Rapids in July of malicious use of telecommunication services, a misdemeanor.
At sentencing the following month, a judge banned the 31-year-old self-described white nationalist and Holocaust denier from using Twitter, other social media and the internet for two years.
Lenio, who once said his ideal job would be operating a human gas chamber, also must undergo mental health treatment and not go within 1,000 feet of schools or Jewish synagogues. He was fined $1,000 and ordered to have no contact with Jonathan Hudson, a Maryland communications consultant who first brought a hate-and-violence series of Lenio鈥檚 Twitter threats to the attention of the FBI in 2015.
鈥淕od forbid that you would ever act out some of these things,鈥欌 Kent County Circuit Court Judge Mark Trusock told Lenio at sentencing, describing him as a man with 鈥渟ome very serious mental health issues.鈥
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 any place in society for the things that you鈥檙e saying,鈥欌 the judge told the 31-year-old defendant.
The man who wouldn鈥檛 stay silent on Twitter had nothing to say at his sentencing hearing. He chose not to address the court or offer any public apology or explanation for his behavior.
An itinerant cook and son of a wealthy, influential Michigan banker, Lenio initially was arrested on Twitter-threat related charges in Flathead County, Montana, in 2015. But for unexplained reasons, the Montana prosecutor elected not to take the case to trial, deferring the criminal charges, allowing Lenio to return to his parents鈥 home in Grand Rapids.
But within weeks, Lenio returned to Twitter, firing off hate-filled, antisemitic tweets, asking at one point how much it would cost to buy a gun with enough ammunition to kill 99 school children. In early 2017 he tweeted that he would rather see 500 American Jews beheaded than to see one Holocaust denier spend five minutes in jail.
鈥楽eattle4Truth鈥 Charged With Murdering His Father
Lane Maurice Davis is a well-known and, at times, popular 鈥渁lt-right鈥 social-media figure who uses the nom de plume 鈥淪eattle4Truth,鈥 even though in reality he lived in rural Skagit County near the town of Bow, on Samish Island in Puget Sound, about 75 miles away. His YouTube videos frequently have garnered thousands of views, and he wrote for the popular alt-right site The Ralph Retort. At one time, he was reportedly employed as a researcher for Milo Yiannopoulos.
Last summer, the 33-year-old stabbed his 73-year-old father 鈥 Charles 鈥淐huck鈥 Davis, a highly regarded civic leader in the Skagit County area and longtime attorney 鈥 to death during a heated argument over the younger Davis鈥 obsessive beliefs in conspiracy theories.
According to witnesses, Davis accused his father of 鈥減edophilia鈥 鈥 based not on anything he had experienced, but on his belief in conspiracy theories that liberals are secretly organizing nefarious pedophilia rings around the globe (and in one case, even on Mars). Earlier this year, one of his 鈥淪eattle4Truth鈥 videos described 鈥減rogressive ideology鈥檚 deep ties to pedophilia.鈥
The stabbing occurred on July 14, and Davis was arraigned in his father鈥檚 murder the next day. However, it wasn鈥檛 until after his August 10 plea hearing, at which he pleaded not guilty, that he was recognized on social media as none other than 鈥淪eattle4Truth.鈥
According to documents filed at Skagit County District Court, the younger Davis picked a fight with his parents on July 14, calling them 鈥渓eftists鈥 and 鈥減edophiles.鈥 Charles Davis recorded one of the arguments on his cellphone, and it made clear that Lane threatened several times to kill his father.
According to statements Lane Davis gave police, his father attempted to kick him out of the house, and had told his son that he had called police to eject him. The younger Davis claimed Charles Davis called him a racist and a Nazi, an affidavit filed in the case states. Grabbing a kitchen knife, Lane Davis then stabbed his father in the chest multiple times. Charles Davis was dead when police arrived.
Davis was noted mainly for digging up all kinds of arcane 鈥渆vidence鈥 of ostensibly nefarious conspiracies from the archives of a number of technology companies, especially Microsoft, discussing their strategies for software generally and the gaming industry in particular. His most popular YouTube video, with nearly 50,000 views, was a three-hour 鈥渄ocumentary鈥 about the gaming industry pseudo-scandal 鈥淕amerGate,鈥 purportedly demonstrating the controversy was actually an evil plot cooked up by Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates and others on behalf of a scheme to brainwash American children through education reform.
Another Black Crime Myth Beloved by Bigots Bites the Dust
The Justice Department鈥檚 statistics-crunching arm just blew up a whole stack of white supremacist myths about the nature of interracial crime and violence committed by minorities.
In an October, 2017 report titled 鈥淩ace and Hispanic Origin of Victims and Offenders, 2012-2015,鈥 the DOJ鈥檚 Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) found that a majority of violent crimes are committed by people who are the same race as their victims. Indeed, the rate of white-on-white violent crime, it found, is about four times the rate of black-on-white crime.
White supremacists frequently like to manipulate crime statistics in order to claim that nonwhite minorities, particularly African-Americans, are far more crime-prone and the source of most violent crime against whites. Indeed, it is a core belief that this is the case, and many white nationalist ideologues 鈥 including politician and pundit Patrick Buchanan, Jared Taylor of American Renaissance, and the Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC) 鈥 all have made considerable hay out of proffering 鈥渟tudies鈥 laden with risibly bad statistics and other evidence to make their case.
The BJS study debunks their case. White perpetrators committed some 57 percent of crimes involving white victims, while black perpetrators committed only 15 percent, and 11 percent by Hispanics. Black crime victims fell along similar racial lines, with 63 percent of the crimes committed by black perpetrators, while 11 percent were committed by whites, and 6.6 percent by Hispanics.
Overall, the BJS reported, 鈥渢he percentage of intraracial [that is, same-race] victimization was higher than the percentage of interracial victimization for all types of violent crime except robbery.鈥
Moreover, it explained, 鈥渢he rate of white-on-white violent crime (12 per 1,000) was about four times higher than black-on-white violent crime (3.1 per 1,000). The rate of black-on-black crime (16.5 per 1,000) was more than five times higher than white-on-black violent crime (2.8 per 1,000). The rate of Hispanic-on-Hispanic crime (8.3 per 1,000) was about double the rate of white-on-Hispanic (4.1 per 1,000) and black-on-Hispanic (4.2 per 1,000) violent crime.鈥
This is consistent with previously collected data, including a National Crime Victim Survey in 2000 that showed that 73 percent of white violent crime victims were attacked by whites, and 80 percent of black victims were targeted by black perpetrators. This pattern is even clearer in the category of murder.
That hasn鈥檛 chastened the people promulgating the distorted statistics. Buchanan, citing Taylor鈥檚 fake statistics in 2007, wrote: 鈥淭he real repository of racism in America 鈥 manifest in violent interracial assault, rape and murder 鈥 is to be found not in the white community, but the African-American community.鈥
Nor have the smears faded at all: In 2016, then-candidate Donald Trump retweeted a graphic that originated on a neo-Nazi website trotting out statistics mainly lifted from Taylor and the CofCC.
The false beliefs that arise from these smears have consequences, too: Dylann Roof, the domestic terrorist who killed nine members of a Charleston church鈥檚 black congregation in June 2015, shouted at his victims his belief that they were 鈥渒illing us.鈥 In his manifesto, he specifically cited the CofCC鈥檚 website and Taylor鈥檚 smear pamphlet as the sources of his information.
By the Numbers
Hate crimes were up by nearly five percent in 2016 鈥 a year that saw Donald Trump fire up white nationalists during a successful run for the presidency. But the number may be misleading as the majority of participating law enforcement agencies didn鈥檛 report any hate crimes in their jurisdictions.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates that an average of 250,000 hate crimes occur each year, about 40 times the number the FBI reported. Here鈥檚 what the FBI鈥檚 statistics reveal:
6,121: Number of hate crimes reported in 2016
5,818: Number of hate crimes reported in 2015
58.9%: FBI estimate of hate crime victims targeted because of their ethnicity, race or ancestry
21.1%: Victims attacked because of their religious affiliation
16.7%: Victims attacked because of the offenders鈥 sexual-orientation bias
381: Anti-Muslim crimes, up more than 25 percent from the 301 reported in 2015
834: Anti-Jewish crimes reported in 2016, up 20 percent from the 695 reported in 2015
Blotter
May 16
An arsonist with an apparent racist鈥檚 agenda set fire to a rural home in upstate New York where a couple and their five children narrowly escaped.
A Nazi swastika and a racial slur were found painted on the Schodack, New York, home of Laquan and Jennifer Madison, who are black. Investigators found the markings when they responded to the overnight blaze in the garage.
Schodack Police Chief Joseph Belardo said the family was emotionally traumatized. Belardo said the hate crime came 鈥渙ut of the blue鈥 because such incidents are 鈥渘ot something that happen very often out here.鈥
No arrests have been made.
May 27
Police say a Portland, Oregon, man who slashed the throats of two men and stabbed another person used hate speech during the attack.
Jeremy Christian also praised Timothy McVeigh on his Facebook page on April 19, the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Christian stands charged with attacking two men who were coming to the aid of a Muslim woman being harassed by Christian.
Christian鈥檚 Facebook page included multiple references to Nazis, the idea of creating a white鈥檚 only area in the Pacific Northwest and anti-Muslim sentiments.
At a bail hearing on November 16, Christian鈥檚 attorney alluded to his client possibly having mental issues.
June 24
An author, speaker and Islam critic known as 鈥淲ild Bill for America鈥 was arrested at a Canadian airport and charged with 鈥渟muggling hate speech鈥 on his iPad.
The author, whose real name is William Finlay, had been invited to speak at the 鈥淧atriotic Unity Mega Festival鈥 in Calgary. The event, which was called off for lack of a permit, was sponsored by Canada鈥檚 Worldwide Coalition Against Islam, a group with chapters in Europe and Australia.
Finlay鈥檚 Facebook features posts about tearing down statues commemorating President Barack Obama and anti-immigration rants. Under the 鈥渁bout鈥 heading it said, 鈥淲ild Bill is America鈥檚 leading 鈥楲iberologist鈥 and is working to cure liberalism in our time.鈥
Sept. 18
A Pittsburgh-area white supremacist was charged with engaging in multiple activities in violation of his probation from a federal weapons conviction in 2010.
Hardy Lloyd took part in passing out fliers, stickers and cards on behalf of the Church of Creativity, a neo-Nazi group with a reputation for violence founded in 1973 on the premise of white superiority and 鈥渃reativity.鈥
Lloyd also appeared at a protest in Mount Lebanon, Pennsylvania, against U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy. Attending the protest was a violation of Lloyd鈥檚 probation.
Federal officials said Lloyd also had a hatchet, switchblade knife and a punch knife.
Lloyd, who spent time in prison for harassment and weapons possession, is scheduled to be sentenced on the probation violations on Dec. 12.
Oct. 26
One person was arrested after police at the University of Minnesota used pepper spray to break up three fights outside an event featuring alt-right organizer and speaker Lauren Southern.
Police said the fights were between protestors and counter protestors, who showed up after student groups Collegians for a Constructive Tomorrow and Students for a Conservative Voice invited Southern to speak on campus.
Nov. 15
Police in New Jersey say a rash of hate crimes involving racist and antisemitic graffiti struck the town of Cinnaminson.
Swastikas, 鈥淜KK,鈥 鈥666鈥 and racists comments were spray-painted on sidewalks, streets and basketball courts in the township鈥檚 Palmyra Extension section.
