SPLC says deadly attacks by white supremacists are growing

By Frederick H. Lowe
Contributing Writer

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder revitalizes group to monitor domestic terrorism

(Special from The NorthStar News & Analysis) – The recent murders in Nevada constituted the second act of domestic terrorism by antigovernment extremists within four days, Richard Cohen, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center, wrote in a letter to supporters dated June 9.

On June 8, Jared and Amanda Miller, two white supremacists who were members of the anti-government Patriot party, shot and killed three people, including two police officers, in Las Vegas.

The previous Friday, June 6, an extremist attacked with guns and explosives people inside the Forsyth County Courthouse in suburban Atlanta, apparently intent on taking hostages.

Dennis Marx, who described himself as a ‘Sovereign Citizen,’ wounded a deputy before being shot to death, Cohen said. Marx was due in court to face weapons and marijuana charges.

Those violent acts follow a deadly shooting this spring.

In April, Frazier Glenn Miller, a Ku Klux Klan leader, was arrested for three deadly shootings outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and the Village Shalom, a senior living home. Both facilities are located in Overland Park, Kan.

“These attacks do not occur in a vacuum. They are the predictable result of a toxic climate of racism and far-right extremism that encourages and emboldens potential terrorists,” Cohen wrote.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which is based in Montgomery, Ala., has documented a dramatic resurgence of militias and like-minded Patriot groups — a more than 600 percent increase—since 2008, the year President Barack Obama was elected the first African- American president.

Last week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced the revitalization of the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, which will focus on domestic terrorism.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, had urged the committee’s revitalization six months before Timothy McVeigh, militia movement sympathizer, detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, that killed 168 people.

“In his recent announcement about the revitalized Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, Attorney General Holder echoed many of our points. The many attacks, plots by far-right extremists in recent years —remind us that the threat is very real,” Cohen said.

This article originally published in the June 16, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.