Hatewatch Tweets
Hatewatch is managed by the staff of the Intelligence Report, an investigative magazine published by the Alabama-based civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center.
FBI Arrests ‘Anarchists’ in Plot to Blow up Cleveland Bridge
Five self-proclaimed anarchists are in federal custody in Cleveland for taking steps to blow up a highway bridge after discussing bombing other targets, including a Ku Klux Klan gathering spot and a Federal Reserve bank.
The arrests came Monday evening after three members of the group “planted what they thought were two C-4 based explosive devices” at the base of the Route 82 bridge crossing from Brecksville to Sagamore Hills over the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, south of downtown Cleveland, the FBI said in a statement.
Court documents say the planned act of terrorism was intended to coincide with May 1 antigovernment, anti-establishment protests planned today in Cleveland and other U.S. cities. But there does not appear to be any connection with any international terrorist groups or the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported.
The suspects not only talked about the plot but “took specific and defined actions to further a terrorist plot,” U.S. Attorney Steven M. Dettlebach said in a news release issued by his office in Cleveland.
One of the alleged leaders of the group discussed “plans involving violence and destruction to physical property in a variety of ways in order to send a message to corporations and the United States Government,” a court document says.
The group’s intention to commit acts of violence came in the belief that leaders of the so-called Occupy or 1 percent movements “were working with corporate America and law enforcement” and that they should look for new anarchist recruits in homeless shelters and poor neighborhoods, the document says.
On Sunday, the suspects purchased two inert explosive devices, riot gear and smoke grenades from a man who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent, according to a 21-page affidavit accompanying a criminal complaint.
“The public was never in danger from the explosive devices,” the FBI said in its statement.
The group studied the Anarchist Cookbook in discussing various violent acts and talked about using a cell phone to detonate a bomb, court documents allege.
Those arrested were identified as Brandon L. Baxter, 20, Douglas L. Wright, 26, Anthony Hayne, 35, Connor C. Stevens, 20, and Joshua S. Stafford, 23, all of whom had been living in the Cleveland area.
The suspects discussed several potential targets over several days and some of those conversations were secretly recorded by an informant working for the FBI, according to the court documents.
In one conversation, Hayne discussed using a car bomb to destroy the Justice Center in Cleveland or a Homeland Security complex called the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center. Targeting ships, bank signs on tall buildings, mines and oil wells also were discussed.
At one point, the affidavit alleges, Wright even discussed becoming a suicide bomber. “Wright joked that he would wear a suicide vest and walk in and blow himself up, but advised he would have to be very drunk. Baxter advised at one time he (also) wanted to do a suicide attack, but agreed it would be better to live through the attack and fight another day.”
The affidavit alleges Baxter told about a Klan rally disrupted by rock-throwing anarchists, then “suggested looking to find out if there is a neo-Nazi or Klan headquarters in Ohio and see if they could blow that up,” the affidavit says.
That plan apparently was discarded when the anarchists learned the most visible Klan headquarters was in Southern Ohio, near Lodi.
on May 1st, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Yeah, they were as organized as anarchists always are.
on May 1st, 2012 at 4:38 pm
if the anarchists ever got together with the Neo-Nazis there is no telling to what sort of stupid plots they could come up with.
on May 1st, 2012 at 5:15 pm
According to Glenn Beck, they were actually a cell of AmeriCorps members.
on May 1st, 2012 at 6:12 pm
Good. I saw the mug shots of these five young men in the paper. They’re all white. Right now they’re sitting in jail where whites are a minority. They will discover it is not a good thing for whites to be a minority. It’s actually very bad for whites. When men in prison have it rough.
The prison environment is a good template to examine what it is like for whites to live as a small minority in any living environment. Also, it can lead us to conclusions of how America will be like in the future.
When whites are only 50% of the population, and then 30%, then 20%, and so on. And if we extrapolate this monotonically decaying function into the future. Imagine when whites are a tiny, tiny percentage of the population. How will this be a good thing for whites? Obviously it will not. That is my assessment. It will actually be very bad for whites living in America 100 years from now.
on May 1st, 2012 at 6:21 pm
At least the Anarchists share a common racial enemy.
on May 1st, 2012 at 9:39 pm
The White man is not always a “minority” in prisons or the county jail system, as Mr. Smith asserts. To exemplify his fallacy, one can look at the largest county in the U.S.—Maricopa County, where the senile Shurf overseas the massive jail complex in Phoenix. According to arpaio’s report on the racial make-up in his bloody gulag:
Whites 735
Hispanics 556
Blacks 415
Native Americans 79
Asians 15
Other 7
Perhaps the Dept. of Justices statistics could show Mr. Smith another story. In recent times, the number of Whites going to prison has increased two folds. Making them the second largest ethnicity within the prison population system.
That’s hardly a “minority” according to Mr. Smith.
on May 1st, 2012 at 9:41 pm
I forget to cite the link to arpaio’s report:
http://www.azfamily.com/video/.....10565.html
on May 1st, 2012 at 10:42 pm
Shadow Wolf,
When I use your numbers I take 735 divided by the total, 1087, and I get 40.7%. That is less than 50% and hence a minority. What is the point of your post?
on May 1st, 2012 at 10:53 pm
“The prison environment is a good template to examine what it is like for whites to live as a small minority in any living environment. Also, it can lead us to conclusions of how America will be like in the future.”
Yes, because prison life is just like life on the outside. See this is why people call you a moron. If you’re part of the vanguard to “save the white race”, your “race” is doomed. I’ve got to wonder how it feels to get so much praise for your posts at places like Stormfront, only to come here and get your ass handed to you every, single, time.
on May 1st, 2012 at 11:51 pm
Really, Jason? What was it like when you were in the joint?
on May 2nd, 2012 at 2:53 am
I wonder who the “other” people are. Marvin the Martian?
on May 2nd, 2012 at 7:23 am
By definition, the people incarcerated for crime are far more likely to be criminals than the people not so incarcerated.
As a grad student, I lived in an area in Bedford-Stuyvesant not far from Eastern Parkway, and was probably one of five “white” people who lived in the square mile on that side of the Parkway. The only time I was ever actually threatened with violence was when I was visiting a white couple I knew in Manhattan (the husband was a vicious drunk).
on May 2nd, 2012 at 7:58 am
if I remember my political ideology, aren’t anarchists supposed to be opposed to having any government – hence shouldn’t anarchists be ideologically lazaise faire capitalists?
At the minimum, they do realize that if they really achieved their goal of no government, it would dramatically increase the power of the ultrawealthy because I’m pretty sure that Thomas Hobbes (and probably Hobbes the Tiger as well) was right about what would happen.
on May 2nd, 2012 at 9:30 am
Anarchists actually come in many stripes; left-wing anarchists who sometimes call themselves Libertarian Socialists/Communists are opposed to private property(most of it) and hierarchical authority. Granted, this leads to many contradictions in their theory, but usually pointing this out will earn you a torrent of condescending claims that you “just don’t get it”(despite the fact that one anarchist slogan is “anarchy is simple!”), and suggestions that you read the Anarchist FAQ, again, and again. Read the Anarchist FAQ until all the internal contradictions disappear and you embrace anarchism!
on May 2nd, 2012 at 11:08 am
Mr. Smith,
You juxtaposed all non-whites into the same boat, tells me that you know nothing about the racial complexity and divide behind prison walls. Do you actually believed a Mexican Mafia will bed in with a Muslim Brotherhood? No. Instead, you divide each racial segment into separate categories and you still have Whites as the majority.
on May 2nd, 2012 at 12:15 pm
If white people become a minority in America, how will that benefit white people?
on May 2nd, 2012 at 1:49 pm
How does it benefit America by having all white people? Keep in mind that America’s economic success was largely based on slave labor(both before and after the abolition of slavery; prison and debt slavery was used extensively in the South to industrialize that region), as well as immigrant labor from countries such as China.
Also. why would you compare minorities in prison with minorities outside of prison?
on May 2nd, 2012 at 4:11 pm
Ruslan, define ‘minority’.
on May 2nd, 2012 at 5:16 pm
A minority is an immutable group who, owing to either a lesser population than the dominant group or underrepresentation notwithstanding its numbers in the policy-making structure of the dominant society, winds up disadvantaged by its unequal bargaining power.
An immutable group is one in which membership can be neither acquired nor disowned by the member (such as either a physical characteristic or a status [such as untouchability] assigned by the dominant group), or one in which to do so would violate conscience (such as religious affiliation).
on May 2nd, 2012 at 5:37 pm
People who are currently minorities, moron. Now answer the question. What is the virtue of America being majority “white”?
on May 2nd, 2012 at 5:51 pm
SPLC,
Word was just released today that Arizona’s well known neo-Nazi J.T. Ready has committed murder-suicide. It was believed that he shot 2 women and 2 men including a child before turning the gun on himself. J.T. Ready was prominent figure in the local neo-Nazi movement, including the National Socialist Movement. Neo-Nazi J.T.Ready had also flirted with running for a Senate seat in Pinal County[?], as a Democrat. The shooting occurred today after 1pm:
http://www.azcentral.com/commu.....-abrk.html
Quite a shocker. Didn’t expect J.T. Ready to do this. Stay tuned for the Feathered Bastard’s report soon.
on May 2nd, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Jason, define “white.”
on May 2nd, 2012 at 6:11 pm
Earlier this morning, I posted at Front Page the comment that the case raised legitimate concern about Provocateurism by the FBI. For that post I got five downvotes and two snarky replies.
on May 2nd, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Just goes to show that very few people (including the clowns in the story) have a very shallow understanding of anarchism. There have been many forms of it over the years.
on May 2nd, 2012 at 10:50 pm
Who needs C4 when the Cuyahoga River is a flammable liquid
on May 3rd, 2012 at 2:27 am
Another Fed sting operation, did you see the article mentioning, Fed’s caught again staging false terror? Go search it.
on May 3rd, 2012 at 8:21 am
You’re probably right about provocateurism. I don’t think these poor shytes could have organized a refrigerator shelf without somebody who wasn’t an anarchist telling them how.
(Earnest Hemingway did say that cats are the best anarchists in the world, but they bury their messes. Ask God, if you don’t believe me. She is a Cat.)
on May 3rd, 2012 at 9:56 am
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of some connection to Oberlin College. And while I adore Oberlin (my brother is graduating from their Classical Voice program on the 27th of May), I do know the campus is a hotbed of some fairly kooky ideas.
Of course, you could have also claimed that being the country’s first integrated, co-educational school of higher learning was also pretty kooky. So I’m not really in a position to judge…
on May 3rd, 2012 at 3:00 pm
Doesn’t matter the color, what matters is that they are no good lefty bums . Booya!
on May 3rd, 2012 at 3:36 pm
Funny how no mention of Baxter being an early steadfast member and co-op director of Cleveland OWS. More biased reporting SPLC. Present ALL the facts next time, not the convenient ones.
http://img41.imageshack.us/img.....rd011y.jpg
on May 3rd, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Baxter used to be a member of OWS, then he went on to do this. Your point?
Besides, we can just dismiss this the same way right wingers dismiss their people who commit acts of terrorism(like the guy who shot up the Tides Foundation or the other dude who attempted something similar in a Unitarian Church back in 2008). They were just some crazy individuals!!!
on May 4th, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Why do so many extreme fringe groups or just plain twinkie farm residents seek to recruit “the homeless” and other potentially disaffected groups?
First of all there is no “homeless”. No community of homeless persons, no esprit de corps, not even a flag to wave. We are simply homeless, and the reasons for that are a diverse as in any population. We are not shambling zombies, waiting for leadership, nor are we sheep to be used as pawns. We are simply Sin Hogar… without homes. It is implied that this is a temporary situation.
Find your cannon fodder elsewhere, stooges.
on May 5th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
the most successful economic period of this country took place following WWII. Returning GIs went to college using the GI bill and middle class saw an unrivaled growth. Renters became homeowners, men who would have worked for others were able to start their own businesses, many women remained in the workforce, and urban sprawl and the growth of the suburbs helped to spread the wealth. Slavery had very little to do with the greatest economic boom in US history.
I do not deny that the south made millions on the backs of slaves but I also do not ignore that the north made double and triple that after the civil war through downright theivery and by the monopolization of resources after the war.
but to state that the US owes all of their wealth and success to slavery is naive at best, simplistic at worst…
on May 6th, 2012 at 1:19 pm
Everytime “anarchists” try to blow things up there always seems to be an FBI handler present to provide materials… this reminds me so much of the 2008 republican national convention.
on May 9th, 2012 at 6:51 am
” Slavery had very little to do with the greatest economic boom in US history.”
That particular boom, no, but the US existed due to the discovery of tobacco in the South, which provided England with a profitable colony. Later on the cash crop would be cotton, and then after the end of slavery the industrialization of the south would also be accomplished through legal slave labor(via the use of prison labor). That industrialization was crucial to the US participating in WWI and then emerging as a world power in WWII.
So yes, the economic foundation of the US was largely dependent on slavery.