White terrorirsts in the U.S. are called “hate groups” by the press and law officials. I say we call them what they are: TERRORISTS.
Former Klansman Daniel Schertz, a 27-year-old from the southeast Tennessee town of South Pittsburg, was indicted in June on charges of building pipe bombs to kill Hispanic immigrants. (More from TBO/AP story, July 29, 2005, via Raw Story, below.)
[On June 3, 2005] Alabama Public Service Commissioner George C. Wallace Jr. [opened] the first day of the annual national convention of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a group whose Web site has referred to blacks as “a retrograde species of humanity.” [H]is speech [received no] immediate coverage in the Alabama print or broadcast media. Southern Poverty Law Center
A gay couple’s home was torched as hate crimes based on sex preference escalate in Florida, officials said. Science Daily/UPI, July 29, 2005
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The Suffolk County Hate Crimes Bureau is looking for three young white males responsible for attacking a 61-year-old Hispanic male [on July 12]. The victim was pushing a shopping cart and collecting cans … when he was approached by three males and a female [who] asked the victim if he had a green card qualifying the assault as a hate crime [said police] because it was based on his national origin. They began punching and kicking him after he replied “yes.” Long Island {NY] Press, July 26, 2005
In Brownsville {Texas], a coastal town of about 140,000 people that sits next to the Texas/Mexico border, fire investigators are looking for an arsonist who torched a gay bar that had been open for only two months. Houston Voice, July 29, 2005
A Birmingham minister who is working with a Christian political action group that supports a Roy Moore candidacy for Alabama governor said Thursday that he has no current ties to [the controversial] Council of Conservative Citizens, a Confederate heritage group often criticized as an alleged white supremacist organization. Mobile [Ala.] Register
From the article on the growth of Hispanic “hate crimes”:
Imperial Wizard Billy Jeffery of the North Georgia White Knights denied any connection to the bomb plot and said he banished Schertz from the group, but he readily admits he isn’t happy with the flow of immigrants to the region.
“The blacks fought for their civil rights. These illegal immigrants are coming in here and having everything just handed to them,” Jeffery said.
Hate crimes against Hispanic immigrants have been common in other parts of the country, but Southern states saw their Hispanic populations boom in the 1990s. Arkansas’ Hispanic population rose by 337 percent during the decade, Georgia’s by 300 percent, Tennessee’s by 278 percent and South Carolina’s by 211 percent.One of the first signs of organized anti-Hispanic activity in the South occurred in Gainesville, Ga., in 1998, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama group that tracks hate crimes.
The American Knights of the KKK held a rally on Hall County Courthouse steps, followed by a cross-burning in nearby Winder. A few years later, in 2001, the nation’s largest neo-nazi organization, the National Alliance, staged a rally in Hall County.
Santos Aguilar of the Alianza Del Pueblo, an advocacy center for immigrants in Knoxville, said he believes the number of hate groups taking aim at immigrants continues to grow.
“The majority of the crimes are not reported to the law enforcement agencies,” he said.
While a member of the North Georgia White Knights, Schertz was caught by an undercover federal agent and a confidential informant. Court records show he took them shopping for bomb materials at a home improvement store.
“Once at Lowe’s, Schertz picked out five end caps and some silicone for the pipe bombs he was making,” the agent’s affidavit says. He then explained how to wire the explosives.
After returning to a shed at his home, Schertz gave instructions “down to the proper order of laying gun powder and shrapnel material.” He made five pipe bombs and sold them for $750, records show.
Schertz is charged with teaching and demonstrating how to make a weapon of mass destruction and interstate transport of explosive material with intent to kill or injure. He is being held without bond.
Schertz’s attorney, Mike Caputo, declined to comment on the charges, but said he was working on a plea agreement. He said Schertz is a military veteran and has no previous criminal record.
His Klan leader, Jeffery, said Schertz was thrown out of the Klan for unrelated disobedience in mid-May – weeks after the alleged bomb making and selling in April.
“We kicked him out for breaking his oath that he swore before God,” Jeffery, 43, said in a telephone interview. “We are not a violence-making group, and we don’t believe in that. This isn’t the ’50s and ’60s.”
Federal agents say hate groups always deny involvement when one of their members is charged with a crime.
“There are always a percentage of these people who are ready, willing and able to go off,” said James M. Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Nashville field division.
Cavanaugh said that “when the group burns the cross, worships under the swastika, you dehumanize the people … that has been a plague on the world for centuries.” … TBO/AP story, July 29, 2005, via Raw Story
What else are they but terrorists?
Is the common term “hate group” enough?
