The unsolved murders this April of two undocumented immigrants near Eloy, Ariz., coupled with four remarkably similar 2007 killings in the same area, have again raised the specter of a possible campaign by U.S. vigilantes to murder Latino border crossers. One recently retired police detective warns of “a lot of angry, militant white men on the border sitting like hunters waiting for these people to come across.”
Just outside the city limits here lies the Midwest Amusement Park and USA International Raceway, its vacant grounds and winter-worn buildings evoking the same kind of eerie feeling that makes off-season attractions such good settings for horror films.
For years, law enforcement agencies have been warning of the dangers of “paper terrorism,” a common tactic of members of the so-called “sovereign citizens” movement, comprised of people who believe that they do not have to pay taxes or obey most laws.
On a rural plot of land in central Florida, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by two pit bulls, Marcus Faella prepared his small band of neo-Nazi skinheads for what he considered an “inevitable race war.”
The Feb. 26 shooting death of Trayvon Martin inflamed extremists of many stripes, as groups on both sides of the racial divide threatened armed protests and radical black separatist leaders suggested vigilante justice for the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot the unarmed 17-year-old in Sanford, Fla.
The high-profile federal case against Michigan’s Hutaree Militia came to an abrupt end in March when a federal judge dismissed most charges against seven members charged with plotting to murder police officers in an effort to ignite a revolution against the federal government.
Rejecting Schaeffer Cox’s claim that he was merely exercising freedom of speech when he spoke of killing a judge and law enforcement officials, a federal jury this summer convicted the boyish Alaska militia leader of heading a murderous conspiracy against the government.
Lunchtime diners at a normally sedate restaurant in a Chicago suburb were treated to a rude shock on May 19 when 18 intruders, dressed in black and wearing masks, stormed in and began swinging steel batons, hammers and chairs. Their targets: white nationalists who were holding a strategy session.
It’s no secret that Michael Hill, president of the neo-Confederate hate group League of the South (LOS), is a racist with a deep-seated contempt for black people and a more-than-rosy view of his “Anglo-Celtic” landsmen.
The growing influence of far-right conspiracy theorists on mainstream politics has come into sharp focus this year with a spate of laws, ordinances and resolutions opposing Agenda 21, a non-binding plan for global sustainability seen by many antigovernment hardliners as a Trojan Horse for socialist global government.
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