Suspect in Two Canadian Hate Bombings Arrested

After a two-hour standoff at a home in Winnipeg, police arrested a notorious Canadian neo-Nazi who’d been on the lam for weeks after two bombing attempts in Calgary.

Kyle Robert Mckee, 24, was taken into custody early yesterday and faces two counts of attempted murder, along with weapons charges. Police began searching for him after they found two homemade bombs outside an apartment in northeast Calgary. A 17-year-old who also faces charges in connection with the Nov. 21 attempted bombing was arrested two days later as he stepped off a bus in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. (That individual cannot be named under Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act.)

McKee has been a key member of the Aryan Guard, a neo-Nazi group that garnered considerable media attention for annual “white pride” marches through downtown Calgary in 2008 and 2009. Shortly after the failed bombings, the group announced on its website that it was disbanding, then reversed itself in a subsequent online posting. The first statement suggested that a romantic spat led to the bombing that allegedly involved McKee. “A boiling point was reached among the group when a bombing attack was launched against the former girlfriend of the obsessed John Marleau – an associate of the Aryan Guard,” read the notice. “We were further disappointed when allegations surfaced against one of the founding members [McKee] for their alleged role in the attack. It’s sad to see how a group founded on hard work and good intentions of so many can be spoiled by the rash actions of so few.” (In a post on the blog Anti-Racist Canada, Marleau said he was investigated after the attack, but does not currently face charges.) Although Aryan Guard members have been linked to violent attacks on minorities, none of that was mentioned in the announcement, which waxed nostalgic about the group’s “family camping trips, barbecues … and even karaoke at the local pub.”

Several days later, a second notice appeared on the group’s website announcing that it was not folding after all. “The recent statement of dissolution by a few rogue ex-council members in no way heralds the end of the Aryan Guard,” it said. “If anything, we will function far more efficiently without the bureaucratic, half-assed diplomacy of three tired old farts who have no stomach for street life.” The new leaders adopted a more militant tone than their predecessors, lashing out at immigrants and race traitors and promising “a new day of carnage and brutality.”

That’s if the group manages to stay together. Founded in 2006 with help from Canada’s two most prominent white supremacists, the Aryan Guard has been dogged by infighting; it almost collapsed in late 2008. Earlier this year, one of its members was convicted of assaulting a Japanese visitor.