Neo-Nazi Bill White Arrested in Mexico

Authorities arrested neo-Nazi Bill White in Mexico on June 8, after he allegedly spent nearly a month on the run.  He is reportedly back in the United States and being held in Miami, Florida.

A federal arrest warrant was issued for White after it was discovered that he was no longer in Virginia, where he was on probation.  A federal jury had convicted him in December 2009 on four counts, including making threats on the Internet and witness intimidation. White, who served over two years in prison, was released in April 2011.

White may have feared being sent back to prison. His appeal of his conviction on First Amendment grounds led a federal appeals court to uphold the conviction in March 2012. However, the court also ruled that White should have received a stiffer sentence on one of the counts involving intimidating letters he sent to the African-American residents of a Virginia Beach housing complex who were filing a discrimination suit against their white landlord. The U.S. government, which had originally indicted White, asserted that because at least one of the tenants had young children, White should have received an enhanced sentence for targeting an especially vulnerable population. The appeals court agreed with the government’s argument. White had been scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Roanoke, Virginia, in May for resentencing in the case.

Since his release from prison in April 2011, White had been writing for two anti-Semitic publications, the conspiracy-oriented American Free Press (AFP) and The Barnes Review (TBR), a Holocaust denial publication. Both are published by long-time anti-Semite Willis Carto.

More recently, in March 2012, AFP announced that it was hosting a book release dinner in honor of White’s new book, Centuries of Revolution: Democracy, Communism, Zionism. The event was co-hosted by TBR and the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens.

White is the former head of the now-defunct American National Socialist Workers Party, and a former leader in the National Socialist Movement.

Arizona White Supremacist And Border Vigilante J.T. Ready Identified As Perpetrator In Mass Shooting

Update: The Anti-Defamation League has uncovered Ready’s final on-line messages, revealing that, even in the final hours before he took his own life and the lives of those closest to him, he was busy spewing hatred and anti-Semitism. 


The Arizona Republic reported on May 2 that the perpetrator behind a shocking mass shooting in Gilbert, Arizona, was J. T. Ready, a prominent neo-Nazi and border vigilante activist.  Ready reportedly shot and killed four people, including his girlfriend and an infant child, before killing himself as well.

Information is still emerging about the shooting incident itself, which will make headlines in the Phoenix area for weeks to come, but what is certain about J. T. Ready is his notorious past.  For almost a decade, J. T. Ready has been significant as a key nexus between the white supremacist movement and the extreme wing of the anti-immigration movement, able to move freely within both spheres.

J. T. Ready stepped onto the public stage in 2004 as an anti-immigration activist, associated with Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce as well as the border vigilante Minuteman Project. His ability to gain mainstream support suffered considerably after April 2007 when the Phoenix New Times and the Anti-Defamation League outed Ready as a white supremacist and neo-Nazi. Following this, he became openly involved with the National Socialist Movement, a prominent neo-Nazi group.

More recently, Ready parted with the NSM to concentrate more on anti-immigration and border vigilante activities, forming his own group, the U.S. Border Guard, which conducted numerous armed vigilante patrols along the Arizona-Mexico border.  These patrols attracted neo-Nazis from as far away as California. 

The Border Guard’s web page prominently quotes Ready as saying “Some of us have our fingers on the triggers; Soap box. Ballot box. Ammo box. These were given to us by our founding fathers and mothers.  We have just about depleted the first two options.”

FBI Arrests Minnesota White Supremacists on Weapons, Drug Charges

Following a nearly two-year undercover investigation, the FBI arrested two Minnesota white supremacists last week on weapons and drug charges, respectively, in connection with what authorities have suggested was an embryonic plot to attack the U.S. government, minorities, and “left-wing” targets. 

Samuel Johnson, 31, from Austin, Minnesota, was charged with being a convicted felon in possession of weapons.  Johnson, who had several convictions on charges such as robbery and attempted robbery, was allegedly found to be in possession of at least five firearms.  Joseph Thomas, 42, of Mendota Heights, was indicted on drug charges related to alleged possession of methamphetamine. Both men face the likelihood of lengthy prison sentences if convicted; it is possible more charges may follow.

According to a search warrant affidavit, the two white supremacists may have had violent plans.  The affidavit alleges that Johnson was trying to form a new group, the Aryan Liberation Movement, with the goal of committing violent acts against government or minority targets.  It also claims that Thomas told the undercover officer that he had tried to obtain explosives and automatic weapons in order to “conduct attacks on left-wing individuals.”

The Anti-Defamation League had been tracking Johnson for several years, ever since he and another white supremacist, Robert Hester, formed a small southern Minnesota chapter of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement and began holding a series of local anti-immigration protests in 2009. 

Johnson has previously expressed that violence is a viable tactic.  In an on-line post he made in December 2010, he asked “Why don’t we stand up and save ourselves?  Why will we not make the first attack?”  He finished his screed with “Are you ready to fight for your Race and Nation?  THEN WHY ARE YOU STILL SITTING HERE?  GATHER YOUR ARMIES!!!!!”    In July 2011, Johnson began trying to recruit for his would-be Aryan Liberation Movement, posting on one white supremacist site that “we are trying to get some good actions going in this state.”

After Johnson's arrest, Hester posted an angry message to a social networking profile created by the undercover officer:  “Did your dirty work and took a brother, [expletive] u agent.”

American Nazi Party Seeks Attention with “Lobbyist” Publicity Stunt

Nobody can squeeze fifteen minutes of infamy out of the Internet like a neo-Nazi group can, a fact demonstrated recently by a flare-up in the blogosphere after South Carolina neo-Nazi John Taylor Bowles registered as a Congressional lobbyist on behalf of the tiny American Nazi Party (ANP).

Within a few days of the April 10 filing, Bowles’ name appeared in dozens of newspaper articles and thousands of blogs as the “first ever” Nazi lobbyist. That it was merely a publicity stunt seemed to have occurred to relatively few observers. However, the ANP is miniscule even by neo-Nazi standards, with only around two dozen active members. Led by Rocky Suhayda of Michigan, the ANP holds few events and does little more than publish a crude newsletter.

The lobbyist stunt might have been out of character for Suhayda, but was typical of Bowles, who has frequently sought the spotlight over the past decade. Bowles is a long-time neo-Nazi who first became involved with the National Socialist White People’s Party as a teenager in Baltimore in the 1970s. In the 1980s he reportedly spent four years in prison on an arson conviction, something that didn’t prevent him from subsequently working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a meat inspector.

Bowles eventually returned to neo-Nazism by joining the National Socialist Movement in 2003 and becoming one of its more active members. By 2005, Bowles was the group’s Virginia state leader; he subsequently became state leader for South Carolina. It was there he orchestrated his first major publicity stunt, issuing a press release in December 2006 announcing that he was running for president.

Over the next year and a half he used this position as “presidential candidate” to help him get attention from both within the white supremacist movement as well as from the media—even though his name was not on any ballots and Bowles himself was ineligible to run (by virtue of his conviction). During this time, Bowles also exploited anti-immigration sentiment for publicity by organizing an anti-immigration rally in South Carolina and announcing a trip to the Texas-Mexico border he dubbed “Operation Throw Back the Wetback.”

Bowles’ exploits did garner him publicity, but also the negative attention and jealousy of fellow NSM members, who kicked him out of the group in late 2007. In response, Bowles formed his own splinter group, the National Socialist Organization of America, which never had more than a handful of members and fell apart about eight months later, after Bowles suffered a heart attack.

After recovering, Bowles joined his fourth neo-Nazi group, the American Nazi Party, in 2009, writing for its newsletter, the White Worker, and organizing events in South Carolina. His lobbyist stunt seems to have been an attempt to regain the “glory” of his faux presidential bid—the only lobbying issue he even put on his registration form was “ballot access laws.”

Terry Jones Latest Extremist Threatening to Join Fray Around Trayvon Martin Case

Terry Jones

Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, a virulently anti-Muslim, anti-gay apostolic church based in Gainesville, Florida, has joined the growing list of extremists who are enflaming the situation surrounding the shooting death of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida.

Jones announced in a press release that he would hold a rally in front of the Seminole County Courthouse on April 21 in support of “the Constitutional Rights for George Zimmerman and Treyvon [sic] Martin” because “America is being corrupted, controlled, and manipulated.” Martin’s family and their supporters are demanding that police arrest Zimmerman, who is allegedly in hiding due to threats made against him after the shooting.

Other extremists have also announced that they will go to Sanford in the wake of the shooting. In a posting to their Web site, the National Socialist Movement (NSM), the largest neo-Nazi group in the country, claims that they will carry out armed patrols in Sanford to protect local white citizens from alleged “racial violence” taking place there. Sanford police, however, have denied that the neo-Nazis are patrolling the streets there.

The NSM asserted in the same Web posting that they are taking action in response to the activities of the New Black Panther Party (NBPP), which offered a $10,000 reward for the “capture” of Zimmerman. The NBPP has also promoted a number of other activities in Sanford since the shooting, including a "National Day of Action" and community patrols “to protest against racial violence and attacks.”