-Caveat Lector- The Philadelphia Daily News, August 12, 1999 http://www.phillynews.com/daily_news/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TWISTED MISSION Supremacists seek victory in a 'racial holy war' -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- by Myung Oak Kim and Barbara Laker Daily News Staff Writers He was a soldier of hate. In the van he drove from Washington state to Los Angeles earlier this week, Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr. kept large boxes of ammunition, an assault rifle, survival gear and a book that preaches hatred of Jews and minorities. Known as a racist by neighbors, Furrow, 37, had worked as a security guard for the Aryan Nations and had connections to another notoriously violent hate group called The Order. Last year, he reportedly told police he fantasized about killing people. When he surrendered to the FBI yesterday afternoon, Furrow told agents why he fired 70 rounds from his Uzi in the lobby of a Jewish Community Center in suburban Los Angeles, wounding five people, including three young children. The attack was "a wake-up call to America to kill Jews," he said. With those chilling words, Furrow revealed the frightening truth about his attack. It wasn't the random act of violence by a deranged man, but the latest example of white supremacists carrying out their mission. Furrow's rampage is yet another reminder that the hate movement is growing more destructive, more desperate and more willing to gun down its enemies: Jews, blacks and other minorities. "It is a racial holy war," said David Goldman, founder and director of the Web site Hatewatch.org that monitors hate groups. "They think they're carrying out a God-given directive," said Laurie Wood, a lead researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Project in Alabama, a group that monitors hate groups and hate crimes. "They think of God telling them to do this, so how they can lose." While membership in hate groups has not soared in recent years, several violent attacks show that some members are willing to act on their hate. Over the July 4 weekend, white supremacist Benjamin Nathaniel Smith went on a three-day shooting rampage, killing a black basketball coach, a Korean graduate student, and injuring nine other minorities and Jews in Illinois and Indiana. Smith killed himself after a police chase. Smith was a member of the World Church of the Creator, one of the fastest growing hate groups in the country, led by law school graduate Matthew Hale. Two men in northern California who kept Hale's literature are the prime suspects in the murders of two gay men and the torching of three synagogues in Sacramento. And Columbine High School shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were fans, if not followers, of neo-Nazis. These hatemongers are not crazy, said hate crime experts. Furrow "was extremely rational in his choice," Goldman said. "He said, 'I'm going to take my van, drive down the highway to Los Angeles and kill Jews.' It's grotesque. It's repugnant. Is it crazy? No." "We should feel disturbed because it can happen anywhere," Goldman said. "What it calls upon is not to say that this person needs psychological help. What it calls upon is that it's our duty to organize and respond to this kind of bigotry." By gaining the national spotlight with his attack at the Jewish center, Furrow became a hero in the white supremacy movement, much like Timothy McVeigh when he blew up a government building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people. "The high-profile hate crime is here to stay for at least awhile," Goldman said. "We will see more of this and we'll ask the same questions." Today's white supremacy movement is not significantly larger in terms of membership or number of hate crimes. The hundreds of hate groups across the country, many of which fight each other, have an estimated membership of 12,000 to 15,000, said Barry Morrison, director of the Philadelphia regional office of the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit group that monitors and works to combat hate crimes. But the hate movement is more destructive because of easier access to weapons, ability to make bombs and unlimited communication through the Internet, Morrison said. The movement is also more sophisticated because it is attracting people with high levels of education, he said. The hate movement is partly a backlash against the country's growing racial and ethnic diversity and tolerance toward minority groups, and another reflection of the violence in today's society, Morrison said. To protect their groups from investigation, hate group leaders encourage members to commit acts of violence on their own, said Ken Jacobson, assistant national director of the ADL. Many of the groups have similar ideology, and overlapping of members. Furrow was connected to the Aryan Nations, The Order and the Phineas Priesthood. In his van, police found the book "War Cycles, Peace Cycles" written by Richard Kelly Hoskins, one of the leading advocates of the Christian Identity. Hoskins and other white supremacy leaders believed that white Europeans were the chosen people and that Jews were the descendants of Satan and a threat to the white civilizations. They believe God won't return to earth unless all the non-white Christians are killed. Those who killed Jews and minorities in the name of the racial holy war were considered members of the Phineas Priesthood, a mythical group created by Hoskins. He spent 51/2 months in prison in Washington state for threatening a psychiatric worker with a knife. Court papers quote him as telling police he had fantasies of going on shooting rampages. What makes Furrow's attack unique, and especially vile, is that he targeted children. "One of the incredible things about haters is that they derive a particular pleasure from the greatest pain they can cause," said Ken Jacobson, assistant national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "When you go after innocent children, nothing can cause greater pain." Furrow has already gained notoriety, and to some, admiration. One Daily News reader called yesterday with a chilling message: "Buford Furrow is a hero to the national white Aryan resistence that will crush this nation to restore the white people and kick the n------ out of this country. "Heil Hitler." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- These venomous groups turn up the terror -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Buford O. Furrow Jr., the man accused of opening fire in a Los Angeles Jewish Community Center Tuesday, had connections to several hate groups, The Order, Phineas Priesthood and the Aryan Nations. Here are descriptions of those groups plus three other groups that are considered the most dangerous by monitoring groups. The Order Known as Bruder Schweigen or Silent Brotherhood, this was one of the most violent hate groups in the 1980s. The Order was responsible for the June 1984 murder of Alan Berg, a Jewish talk-show radio host in Denver. Members also were connected to various bank robberies and the bombing of a synagogue. Leader Robert Mathews died in 1984 during a shootout with federal agents. A former Philadelphia Housing Authority maintenance man led government agents to Mathews, who had once been his friend. Although the Order is now defunct, several members influence the hate movement from their prison cells. Every year, white supremacists meet on Whidbey Island, Wash., in a ceremony to honor Mathews. Phineas Priesthood The priesthood has a violent credo of vengeance that gained popularity among white supremacists and other extremists in recent years. Unlike other hate groups, this is not a membership group in the traditional sense. Extremists become members when they commit "Phineas" acts - any violence against non-whites. Ideological leader Richard Kelly Hoskins wrote the lengthy book, "Vigilantes of Christendom: Story of the Phineas Priesthood," in which he uses Bible passages to justify anti-Semitism and racist acts of violence. Those who follow the movement believe white Europeans are the chosen people and Jews are descendants of Satan. They regard blacks and other non-whites as sub-human or in their words "Mud People." Aryan Nations Based in northern Idaho, the group was created in the early 1970s by Richard G. Butler, who led an anti-Semitic church called Church of Jesus Christ Christian. The group vilifies Jews as the natural enemy of the white race, and refers to the federal government as ZOG (Zionist Occupied Government). They believe a battle is being fought today between the Jews, whom they call the children of darkness, and the Aryan race, whom they call the children of light. National Alliance In recent years, membership has soared into the thousands. Headed by William Pierce, the neo-Nazi organization based in West Virginia aggressively uses the Internet for recruitment. Pierce's goal is to ignite a worldwide race war and create a society free of Jews, blacks and other minorities. He describes Adolf Hitler as the "greatest man of our era." Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh reportedly was a zealous advocate of Pierce's race war novel, "The Turner Diaries." The book depicts a truck bombing remarkably similar to the Oklahoma blast. Pierce has warned of more terrorist attacks. The World Church of the Creator Based in East Peoria, Ill., it is one of the fastest growing hate groups in the 1990s. The group's goal is "making this an all-white nation and ultimately an all-white world." Their battle cry is "RaHoWa," or racial holy war. Group leader Matt Hale is a law school graduate who describes Jews as parasites with a "rat-like appearance." The church praises Adolf Hitler and calls the Holocaust the holohoax. Neo-Nazi skinheads The Skinhead movement began in the early 1970s in England with gangs of tattooed teens in combat boots and shaved heads. They wear Nazi symbols, such as swastikas tattooed on their arms, and express violent hatred of Blacks, Jews, gays and other minority groups. They are responsible for nearly 45 murders in the U.S. in the last two decades, including six people in Pennsylvania. The group is believed to have 3,000 to 4,000 members. - Myung Oak Kim and Barbara Laker -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A LONG LIST THAT CONTINUES TO GROW -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is a list of recent high-profile hate crimes that have claimed the lives of innocent people around the country: July 1999. Two gay men were slain in rural northern California. Two brothers, Benjamin Matthew, 31, and James Tyler Williams, 29, believed to be members of a white supremacist group, have been announced as suspects in the killings. The brothers also are suspects in the earlier torching of three synagogues in Sacramento. July 1999. Two people were shot to death and nine wounded in Illinois and Indiana. Nathaniel Smith, 21, a self-avowed white supremacist, is a suspect. April 1999. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 12 students and a teacher in their Littleton, Colo,. high school, before shooting themselves. They singled out blacks and jocks. February 1999. Billy Jack Gaither, 39, a gay construction worker in Alabama, had his throat slashed and was beaten to death, and his body burned on a pile of old tires by two skinheads. Both men were convicted this month in the murder. October 1998. Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was lured out of a Wisconsin bar, pistol-whipped and tied to a fence. One of his killers was sentenced to life in jail. June 1998. James Byrd Jr., the black man killed by three white supremacists in Texas, was chained to a pickup truck and dragged for three miles. One of his killers was sentenced to death. April 1995. The Oklahoma bomb planted by Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people. 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