Terror from the Right: Archives

January 28, 2017

Marq Vincent Perez set fire to the Victoria Islamic Center in Victoria, Texas, destroying the building.

Marq Vincent Perez sets fire to the Victoria Islamic Center in Victoria, Texas, destroying the building. A confidential juvenile witness testifies about aiding Perez in the attack, saying that Perez planned the arson days in advance and showed no remorse. In addition, stolen items from the mosque were found in 26-year-old man's home along with a homemade explosive device. In July 2018, a federal jury found Perez guilty on all counts, including a hate crime, in the burning of the mosque. Perez could serve up to 40 years in prison. A sentencing hearing has been set for early October 2018.

February 2017

White supremacist Benjamin Thomas Samuel McDowell, a 31-year-old from Conway, South Carolina, tells an FBI agent posing as a member of the Aryan Nations that he wants to commit acts of violence against religious and ethnic minorities. Inspired by neo-Nazi mass-murderer Dylann Roof, McDowell repeatedly expresses a desire to obtain a gun to perpetrate anti-Muslim, antisemitic and racist acts of violence. Soon after, McDowell, a felon prohibited from the possession of firearms, purchases a Glock in a controlled FBI set up and is arrested. McDowell is sentenced to 33 months in prison and three years of probation for possession of a firearm and ammunition as a felon.

February 2, 2017

William Christopher Gibbs, 27, a member of the racist Georgia Church of Creativity, is arrested for possession of ricin and probation violation. Authorities learn of Gibbs' ricin possession when he checks himself into a hospital after accidentally exposing himself to the substance. A field test on his car showed trace amounts of ricin present. If convicted, Gibbs faces up to five years in prison.

Feb. 22, 2017

Adam W. Purinton 51, of Olathe, Kan., is arrested in Clinton, Mo., after telling a bartender at an Applebee’s that he needed a place to hide after having killed two Middle Eastern men. Purinton allegedly shot two men in an Olathe bar, after telling them to “get out of my country.” One of the two men from India, 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla, dies. The other survives his injuries. Another bar patron was injured in the attack. Purinton is being held on $2 million bond and faces first-degree murder charges along with two counts of attempted first-degree murder. He has also been charged with a federal hate crime and could face the death penalty if convicted.

March 22, 2017

James Harris Jackson, 28, is arrested after he turns himself in at a Manhattan police precinct where he confesses stabbing Timothy Caughman, 66, to death with a "Roman short sword" on a city street on March 20 after traveling to New York City to allegedly hunt and kill black men. Jackson, who is white, allegedly stabbed Caughman, who was black, as a “practice run” to kill others and deter white women from race-mixing. To Jackson, interracial relationships were "an insurmountable problem." Jackson, an Army veteran, tells a media source following his arrest that “the white race is being eroded.” He is charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime but in a court appearance on March 27, the charges are upgraded to murder as an act of terrorism. He is also facing weapons charges and could face a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole if convicted.

May 16, 2017

Broadwater County, Montana, sheriff’s deputy Mason Moore, 42, is shot and killed near Three Forks, west of Bozeman, while involved in a pursuit of a vehicle he had attempted to stop for a traffic violation. The occupants of the vehicle engage Highway Patrol officers in gunfire through several counties while under pursuit until finally being stopped by tire deflation devices in Powell County. The vehicle’s passenger, Marshall Barrus, 38, continues to fire at law enforcement upon exiting the vehicle and is shot. He dies the next day. The vehicle’s driver, Lloyd Barrus, 68, the father of Marshall Barrus, surrenders at the scene. Lloyd Barrus has lived in Bakersfield, California, and posted pro-Trump materials on his Facebook page, as well as links to various antigovernment and conspiracy theory sites, including Alex Jones’ InfoWars. He also posted a photo of a massive Nazi rally from the World War II era, with the caption “no rioting going on in this picture.” In 2000, Lloyd Barrus was living in Idaho and involved in another high-speed chase and gunfight with law enforcement in the Nevada-California desert. Barrus and the vehicle’s two other occupants fired on a police helicopter, and managed to bring it down, though no crewmembers were injured. Barrus’ other son, Jeffrey, then 20, is still serving a 25-year prison term after pleading guilty to attempting to kill police officers. Lloyd Barrus also served time after that incident, and his antigovernment beliefs appear to have hardened while in prison. Lloyd Barrus’ bail is set at $2 million and he faces 16 counts of murder, 14 of which are for deliberate attempted homicide. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

May 20, 2017

Sean Urbanski, a 22-year-old white student at the University of Maryland, allegedly stabs and kills newly commissioned army Lt. Richard Collins III a 23-year-old black student who is visiting the campus.

Sean Urbanski, a 22-year-old white student at the University of Maryland, allegedly stabs and kills newly commissioned army Lt. Richard Collins III a 23-year-old black student who is visiting the campus. Officials described the attack as "totally unprovoked." Urbanski is arrested on murder charges, and later hate crime charges are added after authorities investigate his social media accounts, which reveal Urbanski's connection to a racist Facebook page called "Alt-Reich: Nation." If convicted Urbanski could face 20 years in prison, though prosecutors have said they plan to seek life without parole.

May 26, 2017

Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, is arrested after allegedly harassing two young women on a Portland, Oregon train. He told the women to “go back to their country” then allegedly stabbed three bystanders when they intervened. Two, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, and Ricky John Best, 53, died of their wounds. A third, Micah Fletcher, 21, survived. Christian served 13 months in prison in 2002 for having an illegal weapon in the Multnomah County Detention Center and was convicted in 2011 on federal charges of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He had also expressed a multitude of political views on his Facebook page, and appears to have adopted far-right extremist positions, including an admiration for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, support for a whites-only area in the Pacific Northwest and also support for the removal of mosques. He also gave Nazi salutes at an April “free speech” rally in Portland. Christian may have been involved in an altercation on another Portland train the day before the stabbings, in which he harassed a conductor, saying, "It looks like we have a Christian or Muslim (expletive) bus driver. I'll stab you, too, (expletive).” During his arraignment May 30, Christian shouted, "Get out if you don't like free speech. You call it terrorism, I call it patriotism. You hear me? Die." He currently faces several charges, including two counts of aggravated murder, attempted murder, two counts of second-degree intimidation and being a felon in possession of a restricted weapon.

July 14, 2017

Alt-right social media conspiracy theorist 33-year-old Lane Maurice Davis, also known as "Seattle4Truth," allegedly stabs his 73-year-old father, Charles "Chuck" Davis, to death at the family home in Skagit County, Washington, after accusing his father of pedophilia. Davis previously interned with former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos and ran his own YouTube page dedicated to various conspiracy theories. Davis pleads not guilty to one count of first-degree murder in an August 2017 hearing, and is held on $1 million bail. Davis is expected to appear in court again in September 2018.

August 12, 2017

Jerry Drake Varnell, 23, of Sayre, Oklahoma, is arrested after a months-long investigation by federal agents after he attempted to remotely detonate what he thought was a thousand-pound vehicular bomb outside a BancFirst building in downtown Oklahoma City. Varnell had expressed sympathy for so-called “III%” ideology, and wanted to start the next revolution. “I’m out for blood,” he allegedly told an FBI informant. “When militias start getting formed I’m going after government officials when I have a team.” Those who support the antigovernment III% movement incorrectly claim that only three percent of the original American colonists fought against the British during the Revolutionary War and therefore were the “true patriots” (estimates based on historical documentation put the number at closer to 20 percent). Supporters of the III% ideology have also been involved in anti-Muslim protests. Varnell allegedly discussed a number of potential targets, including the Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington, D.C., an IRS building in Maryland and a Bank of America center in Texas before settling on the BancFirst building in Oklahoma City. Varnell is charged with attempted destruction of a building used in interstate commerce by means of an explosive. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

August 12, 2017

James Alex Fields, 20, of Maumee, Ohio is arrested in Charlottesville, Virginia. after driving his car at a high rate of speed into a crowd of counter-protesters who were marching in opposition to a “Unite the Right” gathering of 500 to 1,000 neo-Nazis and other supporters of the so-called “alt-right.” Heather Heyer, 32, is killed and 19 others are wounded. After ramming his car into the crowd, Fields flees the scene and is apprehended later. Photographs show Fields rallying with the white supremacist group Vanguard America earlier in the day, and video footage shows him with the group chanting, “Fags, go home, you have no testosterone,” though Vanguard America claims he is not an official member. Fields has long held Nazi and racist views, according to a high school teacher. A Trump supporter and registered Republican, Fields allegedly expressed support for what he perceived were the president’s views on race and for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He attempted to join the military, was initially turned down but managed to enlist in the summer of 2015. According to the Department of Defense, Fields was on active duty for four months but was let go in December 2015 because of a failure to meet training standards. Fields’ Facebook page included white supremacist memes of the alt-right movement, including Pepe the Frog, along with historic photos of German Nazis and white supremacist symbols. Fields also has a history of violence toward his disabled mother, brandishing a knife at her in one instance while in another striking her head and covering her mouth with his hands. He is denied bail and is charged with second-degree murder, hit and run and three counts of malicious wounding.

October 22, 2017

White supremacist Taylor Michael Wilson triggers the emergency brakes on an Amtrak train, traveling from Sacramento, California, to Missouri after breaking into a secure area aboard the train.

White supremacist Taylor Michael Wilson triggers the emergency brakes on an Amtrak train, traveling from Sacramento, California, to Missouri after breaking into a secure area aboard the train. As Amtrak staff struggles to subdue the 26-year-old Wilson, he repeatedly reaches for a loaded handgun in his waistband. Wilson is arrested in October on charges of felony criminal mischief and use of a deadly weapon and is released in December on bail. Several days later, investigators search Wilson's home revealing more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition, racist "alt-right" and white supremacist writings and components commonly used to construct homemade explosive devices. Wilson is arrested for violating multiple federal laws. A relative told authorities that Wilson traveled with members of an alt-right neo-Nazi group to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier that year. According to federal documents, Wilson also allegedly pointed a gun at a black woman driving in Saint Charles in 2016 and vandalized restaurants in Saint Louis with "Whites Only" stickers. Wilson reportedly purchased a flight ticket to the Middle East with plans to fight with ISIS in Syria but decided not to go. In January 2018, Wilson is indicted in federal court on two counts of terrorism and in July pleaded guilty to one charge of terrorism. Wilson could be sentenced to life in prison. On Friday, October 5, 2018, he was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. The sentencing judge called Wilson a "gun-toting, angry, at times incoherent and other times uncooperative white supremacist."

December 4, 2017

Florida officers receive a tip that 69-year-old Bernandino Gawala Bolatete is planning to carry out a mass shooting at the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida. An undercover officer befriends Bolatete, who repeatedly expresses his hatred of Muslims and states his plans for the shooting. Bolatete is arrested in Jacksonville after he attempts to purchase a gun silencer from an undercover officer. He is charged with knowingly receiving and possessing a silencer not registered to him. In May 2018 Bolatete is found guilty by federal jury and the sentencing hearing is set for August.

December 17, 2017

William Edward Atchison disguises himself as a student at Aztec High School in rural New Mexico and opens fire in the hallway, killing two students before taking his own life. The FBI had previously opened an investigation on 21-year-old Atchison for posts he made on an online forum stating plans for a shooting. He was active on a white nationalist website, The Daily Stormer, where he glorified mass shootings and inquired about assault rifles. However, Atchison could not be charged due to lack of criminal evidence or gun ownership. A detailed schedule for the shooting was found in Atchison's home and an autopsy revealed a hand-drawn swastika and an inscription that read "BUILD WALL" on his body.

December 27, 2017

Nazi sympathizer Nicholas Giampa allegedly shoots and kills the parents of his ex-girlfriend in Reston, Virginia, before turning the gun on himself.

Nazi sympathizer Nicholas Giampa allegedly shoots and kills the parents of his ex-girlfriend in Reston, Virginia, before turning the gun on himself. Seventeen-year-old Giampa is rushed to the hospital with a brain injury and, after spending weeks in critical condition, is taken to a juvenile detention center on murder charges. While the teen is set to appear before juvenile court, he will eventually be tried as an adult in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Just months before the shooting Giampa mowed a swastika into the grass of a nearby community field. In addition, according to reports from Huffington Post, Giampa operated a Twitter account that posted far-right, neo-Nazi content including images glorifying Adolf Hitler.

December 31, 2017

Police respond to a disturbance at the residence of 37-year-old Matthew Riehl, several miles south of Denver, Colorado, where they are given keys to his apartment and permission to enter from an unnamed co-resident. Police enter the Riehls' home and attempt to speak with him but Riehl locks himself in his room and opens fire at the officers, killing Douglas County sheriff's deputy Zackari Parrish and injuring others before he is shot and killed himself. Later, it was discovered that Riehl shared a number of racist "alt-right" posts on his Facebook page.

April 10, 2015

Robert Doggart, 63, is arrested in Signal Mountain, Tenn., in connection with a plot to kill residents and destroy the school and mosque of Islamberg, a predominantly African-American Muslim hamlet in Hancock, N.Y. Doggart, who claims to be an ordained Christian minister in the Christian National Church (which appears to be an online ordination mill), was also a 2014 congressional candidate who ran and lost as an independent in east Tennessee. He is indicted on one count of soliciting others to violate federal civil rights laws by intentionally damaging or destroying religious property (or intending to do so) because of the religious character of the property. Federal agents began investigating Doggart in February 2015 after he posted on Facebook that a community outside Hancock was planning a terrorist attack and “must be utterly destroyed.” Doggart pleads guilty in May 2015 to a charge of interstate communication threats. He is indicted on a new charge of solicitation to commit a civil rights violation by intending to damage or destroy religious property.

June 17, 2015

Dylann Roof, 21, attends an evening Bible study class at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. He opens fire with a semiautomatic handgun, killing nine African-American worshipers, including the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, a state senator. Roof reportedly tells people in the church: “I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country, and you have to go.” Roof flees to North Carolina, where he is apprehended the next day. On his website, Roof left a manifesto in which he cites the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens for inspiring him. A Facebook photograph shows Roof wearing a jacket with patches representing the flags of apartheid-era South Africa and white-ruled Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). A variety of other photos show Roof with the Confederate battle flag. Friends say he had told them he wanted to start a race war. Roof is charged with nine counts of homicide and possession of a firearm during the commission of a violent crime, all charges that could lead to the death penalty.

June 25, 2015

Tyrone Paul Ponthieux, 55, of Las Vegas, is arrested by agents assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force after he allegedly inquires about obtaining a quantity of ammonium nitrate – the same fertilizer used in the Oklahoma City bombing. Ponthieux had, on Facebook in 2014, called for the shooting of “out of control congressmen and senators and Obama” and for using a tree chipper to finish the job. Ponthieux is indicted by a grand jury in November 2015 on one felony count of threatening the life of the president and one count of threatening to assault, kidnap and murder unnamed federal officials. Ponthieux pleads guilty in April 2015 to threatening the president and threatening federal officials.

July 23, 2015

John Russell Houser, 59, opens fire in a crowded movie theater in Lafayette, La., killing two and wounding nine before killing himself. Houser had posted dozens of comments on Internet message boards, including a forum dedicated to the New York chapter of Greece’s neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. Houser, who praised Adolf Hitler, promoted the discredited link between race and IQ, and viewed the United States as a “financially failing filth farm.” He also expressed interest in white power groups, anti-Semitism, the anti-LGBT Westboro Baptist Church, and a number of conspiracy theories espoused by the antigovernment right. In 2005, Houser registered to attend white supremacist David Duke’s European-American Unity and Rights Organization in New Orleans, and Houser lauded Duke as appearing at one time as “exactly what US [sic] needed.”

October 1, 2015

White supremacist Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer enters a classroom in Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, where he was previously enrolled, and opens fire on students and teachers, killing nine people before committing suicide. According to witnesses, 26-year-old Harper-Mercer asked students about their religious beliefs before shooting them, sparing one victim to deliver a message to the police. The messages, according to authorities, were full of racist hate and glorifications of mass murderers, including expressions of sexual frustration and animosity toward black men. It is widely speculated that Harper-Mercer was motivated by the racist "alt-right"; the Government Accountability office categorized Harper-Mercer's mass shooting as "white supremacist" in an April 2017 report.

November 8, 2015

Five suspects accused of plotting robberies and violence against minorities – including shooting or bombing the occupants of black churches and Jewish synagogues – are arrested in Virginia by the FBI. Arrested on state firearms charges are Robert C. Doyle, 34; Ronald Beasley Chaney III, 33; Charles D. Halderman, 30; Ronald Beasley Chaney Jr., 58; and the latter’s wife, Terry Gunn Chaney, 52. Halderman, who has 17 prior convictions, has ties to the Aryan Brotherhood, while Doyle and Chaney III are reportedly practitioners of a white supremacist version of Asatru, an offshoot of the racist Odinist religion. Both are charged with conspiracy to possess firearms after felony convictions, and Halderman is charged with conspiracy to commit robbery. All three plead not guilty in December 2015. Drug and gun charges are filed against Ronald Chaney; Terry Chaney faces drug charges and abetting a person to possess a firearm after felony conviction. Doyle pleads guilty to conspiracy, robbery, and firearms charges in February 2016. He is sentenced to 17 ½ years in prison in May. Chaney is sentenced in June 2016 to 105 months. Halderman is sentenced in July 2016 to seven years.

November 24, 2015

Four Minnesota men are arrested after shooting and wounding five Black Lives Matter protestors in Minneapolis. The men – Allen Lawrence “Lance” Scarsella III, 23; Nathan Gustavsson, 21; Daniel Macey, 26; and Joseph Backman, 27 – initially connected online and participated in web forums where racist and antigovernment beliefs flourished. They appear to have carefully planned to disrupt the demonstration, and Scarsella appeared in a racially tinged video made a few days before the protest. His phone contained photos of him dressed in camouflage and brandishing guns with others alongside a Confederate flag. Scarsella was planning to livestream the protest to “rile things up.” According to several witness accounts, the men confronted protestors and were then chased into an alley, where one pulled a gun and shot into the group of protestors. After fleeing, Scarsella confesses to a police officers who is a former high school friend. He is charged with assault with a deadly weapon and armed riot. Macey, Gustavsson and Backman also face riot charges.

November 27, 2015

Robert Lewis Dear Jr., 57, armed with four rifles, opens fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., and holds it for five hours; he apparently intends to light propane tanks that he had brought. Three people die, including a campus police officer from a nearby University of Colorado branch campus, and nine others are wounded, including five police officers. Dear is taken into custody and makes statements to investigators about “no more baby parts,” an apparent reference to the controversy over a video accusing Planned Parenthood of selling fetal tissue and “parts of fetuses” for medical research. In court later, Dear claims he is trying to “protect the babies” and at one point calls himself a “warrior for the babies.” An ex-wife claims that Dear, who has had prior brushes with the law, had been opposed to Planned Parenthood for decades and had once put glue in the locks of a clinic near their home. Dear admits to the shootings, and faces 179 felony counts and a possible death sentence.

June 18, 2013

Glendon Scott Crawford, 49, and Eric J. Feight, 54, are arrested in upstate New York after a yearlong investigation and charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists for use of a weapon of mass destruction. Crawford is a member of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and an industrial mechanic with General Electric; Feight is an outside contractor for GE with engineering skills. Officials say the two men, who call themselves “The Guild,” are well along the way toward building a truck-borne radiation weapon could be turned on remotely and that they hoped to use in the mass murder of Muslims and others. Crawford, who was said to be angry at President Obama, allegedly referred to the device as “Hiroshima on a light switch.” The men are arrested after unsuccessfully seeking funding from Jewish groups and the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. In January 2014, Crawford is indicted for conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and related charges, while his alleged accomplice is reportedly in talks about a plea agreement that would involve testifying against Crawford.

Aug. 18, 2013

David Allen Brutsche, 42, and a woman described as Brutsche’s roommate, Devon Campbell Newman, 67, are arrested in Las Vegas after a months-long investigation into an alleged plot to kidnap and execute police officers. Both Brutsche, a convicted felon and registered sex offender, and Newman consider themselves “sovereign citizens” and have conducted recruiting seminars on sovereign ideology, officials say. Authorities say they intended to kidnap a police officer at random, detain the officer in a crude jail in a vacant house, “try” the officer in a “common-law” court, then execute the officer. The two are charged with felony conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and attempted kidnapping. Newman pleads guilty in December 2013 to conspiracy to commit false imprisonment, a misdemeanor, and is sentenced to a year of probation and ordered to have no contact with Brutsche. Brutsche, who renounces sovereign citizen ideology during court proceedings, pleads guilty in February 2014 to conspiracy to kidnap police officers and receives five years’ probation. In a separate case involving failure to register as a sex offender, he receives 188 days in jail in addition to time served.

Oct. 4, 2013

Iraq War veteran Jedediah Stout, 29, is arrested in Joplin, Missouri for attempted arson of the Joplin Planned Parenthood clinic. Stout admits to investigators that he is also responsible for a fire that destroyed the Islamic Society Mosque in Joplin in July 2012. Stout refers to himself as a “conservative Christian” and tells investigators that he doesn’t like Islam and doesn’t believe in abortion. He is sentenced in October 2016 to 63 months in prison.

November 1, 2013

Paul Anthony Ciancia opens fire at Los Angeles International Airport, killing U.S. Transportation Security Administration officer Gerardo Hernandez at a security checkpoint and injuring six others. According to police, Ciancia was carrying a bag packed with a semiautomatic .223-caliber Smith & Wesson M&P-15 rifle, five 30-round magazines and hundreds of additional rounds of ammunition. When he is arrested, Ciancia is found carrying a one-page "manifesto" that mentions "fiat currency" and the New World Order, both topics of high interest to the militia movement. Ciancia texted his sister the day of the attack claiming that he had to "stand up to these tyrants" and described himself as "a pissed off patriot trying to water the tree of liberty." In 2016, Ciancia pleads guilty to 11 felony counts, including murder, and is sentenced to life in prison.

Jan. 14, 2011

Jeffery Harbin, a member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, is arrested for allegedly building homemade grenades and pipe bombs.

Federal agents in Arizona arrest Jeffery Harbin, a member of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, for allegedly building homemade grenades and pipe bombs that he apparently intended to supply to anti-immigrant groups patrolling the Mexican border. A prosecutor says that Harbin constructed the devices, using model rocket engines and aluminum power, "in such a way as to maximize human carnage." Harbin is indicted on two counts of possessing a destructive device and a third of transporting destructive devices. Harbin is the son of Jerry Harbin, a Phoenix-area activist with past ties to the neo-Nazi National Alliance and the racist Council of Conservative Citizens. In September 2011, Jeffery Harbin pleads guilty to making and transporting bombs in a plea bargain and is sentenced to two years in prison.

January 14, 2011

Jason Walter Barnwell, 37, of Evening Shade, Arkansas, and Gary Don Dodson of Waldron, Arkansas, throw a Molotov cocktail through the window of an interracial couple's home in Hardy, Arkansas. Barnwell, described as a leader of a "combat division" of neo-Nazi skinhead gang Blood & Honour, pleads guilty to federal civil rights and firearms charges in 2011 and is sentenced to 20 years in prison. Dodson pleads guilty to similar charges later that year and is eventually sentenced to 15 years in prison. According to an FBI agent, Barnwell once hung a black Ken doll with a noose around its neck on his front porch.

Jan. 17, 2011

Bomb technicians defuse a sophisticated improvised explosive device (IED) found in a backpack along the Spokane, Wash., route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade with 1,500 marchers. Using forensic clues found in the dismantled bomb, officials about two months later identify and arrest Kevin William Harpham, a longtime neo-Nazi. Harpham had posted more than 1,000 messages to the neo-Nazi Vanguard News Network since 2004, when he was a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance. Harpham also had contributed to the white supremacist Aryan Alternative newspaper. He is indicted on one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of possessing an IED. Later, federal hate crime charges are added. In December 2011, Harpham was sentenced to 32 years after pleading guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and placing that bomb to carry out a hate crime.

March 10, 2011

Francis Schaeffer Cox, 28, is arrested and charged with plotting to kill or kidnap state troopers and a Fairbanks judge.

Six members of the antigovernment Alaska Peacemakers Militia, including its leader, Francis Schaeffer Cox, 28, are arrested and charged with plotting to kill or kidnap state troopers and a Fairbanks judge. The group already has a large cache of weapons, including a .50-caliber machine gun, grenades and a grenade launcher. Cox earlier identified himself as a “sovereign citizen.” Cox is convicted in June 2012 on nine counts, including conspiring to kill a judge and law enforcement officials. He is sentenced in January 2013 to almost 26 years in federal prison. Lonnie Vernon, 56, and his wife, Karen, 66, plead guilty in August to charges they plotted to kill a federal judge and an IRS agent involved in a tax case against them. The Vernons are also sentenced in January 2013. Lonnie receives almost 25 years in federal prison while his wife receives 12 years. Another member, Coleman Barney, 38, is found guilty of weapons charges and sentenced in September 2012 to five years in federal prison.

May 14, 2011

Three masked men break into the Madrasah Islamiah, an Islamic center in Houston, and douse prayer rugs with gasoline in an apparent attempt to burn the center down. Images of the men are captured on surveillance cameras, but they are not identified. The fire is put out before doing major damage.

May 25, 2011

A man with a long history of menacing abortion clinics is arrested on weapons charges after he accidentally shoots a pistol through the door of a Madison, Wis., motel room. Ralph Lang, 63, tells police he planned to kill a doctor and workers at a nearby Planned Parenthood clinic. Lang is sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2013.

July 21, 2011

Self-described "Moorish national" Joseph M. Tesi opens fire on a Colleyville, Texas, police officer who followed him to a nearby town, but instead is shot himself, in the face and the foot, by the officer after they exchange gunfire. The officer recognized Tesi as the man who had sent a court a note threatening "deadly force" against officials in a long-running dispute over traffic tickets. In his writings, Tesi used obscure language favored by sovereign citizens, arguing that police had no right to regulate his travel. He is found guilty of aggravated assault on a public servant in 2012 and sentenced to 35 years in state prison.

August 24, 2011

Cody Seth Crawford, 24, is arrested on federal charges accusing him of the Nov. 28, 2010, arson of the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center in Corvallis, Ore.

Cody Seth Crawford, 24, is arrested on federal charges accusing him of the Nov. 28, 2010, arson of the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center in Corvallis, Ore. The firebombing occurred two days after a former Oregon State University student was arrested in a plot to detonate a car bomb during Portland's annual tree-lighting. Crawford had ranted about Muslims and described himself as a Christian warrior after the arson. In early 2014, Crawford was still awaiting trial.

October 5, 2011

Holly Ann Grigsby is arrested along with her boyfriend after going on a murderous rampage through three states.

White supremacist ex-convict David "Joey" Pedersen, 31, and his girlfriend, Holly Ann Grigsby, 24, are arrested in California after a murderous rampage in three states. Grigsby tells police that she and Pedersen "were on their way to Sacramento to kill more Jews." The first killed were Pedersen's father and stepmother in Everett, Wash. Another man was killed in Lafayette, Ore., because the pair thought he was Jewish. An African-American man was found shot to death in Eureka, Calif. Pederson earlier served time for threatening to kill the federal judge who handled the Ruby Ridge case of white separatist Randy Weaver. Pederson pleads guilty in March 2012 to killing his father and stepmother, and receives two life sentences. He still faces federal charges in all four murders. Grigsby pleads not guilty and awaits trial.

November 1, 2011

Four members of an unnamed North Georgia militia are arrested in an alleged plot to bomb federal buildings, attack Atlanta and other cities with deadly ricin, and murder law enforcement officials. The men – Frederick Thomas, 73, Samuel J. Crump, 68, Dan Roberts, 67, and Ray H. Adams, 65 – allegedly discussed "taking out" a list of officials to "make the country right again" and scouted buildings in Atlanta to bomb. Authorities say the plot was inspired by an online novel, Absolved, written by longtime Alabama militiaman Mike Vanderboegh. Thomas, the accused ringleader, and Roberts plead guilty in April 2012 to charges of conspiring to possess explosives and firearms. Each is sentenced in August 2012 to five years in federal prison for conspiring to obtain an unregistered explosive device. Crump and Adams are convicted in January 2014 of conspiring to produce a toxic agent to poison government officials. In November 2014, they are each sentenced to 10 years in prison.

December 10, 2011

Four Army soldiers at Fort Stewart, Ga., later identified as members of the terror group Forever Enduring, Always Ready (FEAR), are arrested in the murder of 19-year-old former soldier and FEAR member Michael Roark and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Tiffany York. The two were apparently killed because FEAR leader Isaac Aguigui, 22, feared Roark would talk about the group’s plans to take over the Army base, overthrow the government, assassinate a future president, and blow up a dam and poison the apple crop in the state of Washington. Pfc. Aguigui funded the group, buying $87,000 in weapons and a large amount of drugs with a $500,000 insurance payment he received after the death of his pregnant wife. Pfc. Michael Burnett pleads guilty and agrees to testify against his FEAR comrades. In 2012, seven more people are arrested in connection with FEAR’s activities. In April 2013, the Army charges Aguigui with killing his wife, whose death was initially ruled accidental, and their unborn child. In July 2013, Aguigui pleads guilty in the murders of York and Roark, and is sentenced to life in prison. Two other soldiers, Pvt. Christopher Salmon and Sgt. Anthony Peden, are expected to be tried in the double murder in 2014. A court martial for Aguigui in his family’s death was also expected.

December 18, 2011

Far-right survivalist Eli Franklin Myers III shoots two Pennsylvania state troopers after they pull him over and cite him for expired vehicle registration and no proof of insurance. Immediately after being cited, Myers steps out of his car and begins firing at the two officers. John David Dryer, a 46-year-old part-time officer, is killed in the encounter, and a second officer, Robert V. Caldwell III, is badly injured. Myers then flees back to his home where a police sharpshooter kills him during a 10-hour standoff.

January 21, 2009

After allegedly murdering two African immigrants, Keith Luke showed up in court with a swastika carved into his forehead.

On the day after Barack Obama is inaugurated as the nation's first black president, Keith Luke of Brockton, Mass., is arrested after shooting three black immigrants from Cape Verde, killing two of them, as part of a racially motivated killing spree. The two murders are apparently only part of Luke's plan to kill black, Latino and Jewish people. After being captured by police, he reportedly says he planned to go to an Orthodox synagogue near his home that night and "kill as many Jews as possible." Police say Luke, a white man who apparently had no contact with white supremacists but spent the previous six months reading racist websites, told them he was "fighting for a dying race." Luke also says he formed his racist views in large part after watching videos on Podblanc, a racist video-sharing website run by longtime white supremacist Craig Cobb. When he later appears in court for a hearing, Luke, charged with murder, kidnapping and aggravated rape, has etched a swastika into his own forehead, apparently using a jail razor. He is convicted of first-degree murder in May 2013 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

April 4, 2009

Richard Poplawski was accused of killing three police officers, drawing scores of backup officers to his Pittsburgh home.

Three Pittsburgh police officers — Paul Sciullo III, Stephen Mayhle and Eric Kelly — are fatally shot and a fourth, Timothy McManaway, is wounded after responding to a domestic dispute at the home of Richard Andrew Poplawski, who had posted his racist and anti-Semitic views on white supremacist websites. In one post, Poplawski talks about wanting a white supremacist tattoo. He also reportedly tells a friend that America is controlled by a cabal of Jews, that U.S. troops may soon be used against American citizens, and that he fears a ban on guns is coming. Poplawski later allegedly tells investigators that he fired extra bullets into the bodies of two of the officers “just to make sure they were dead” and says he “thought I got that one, too” when told that the fourth officer survived. More law enforcement officers are killed during the incident than in any other single act of violence by a domestic political extremist since the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Poplawski is convicted of three counts of first-degree murder in 2011 and sentenced to death.

April 25, 2009

Joshua Cartwright's wife told investigators that her husband was "severely disturbed" that Barack Obama had been elected president.

Joshua Cartwright, a Florida National Guardsman, allegedly shoots to death two Okaloosa County, Fla., sheriff's deputies — Burt Lopez and Warren "Skip" York — at a gun range as the officers attempt to arrest Cartwright on domestic violence charges. After fleeing the scene, Cartwright is fatally shot during a gun battle with pursuing officers. Cartwright's wife later tells investigators that her husband was "severely disturbed" that Barack Obama has been elected president. He also reportedly believed the U.S. government was conspiring against him. The sheriff tells reporters that Cartwright had been interested in joining a militia group.

May 31, 2009

Scott Roeder allegedly assassinated an abortion provider in Kansas.

Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist who was involved with the antigovernment “freemen” movement in the 1990s, allegedly shoots to death Kansas late-term abortion provider George Tiller as the doctor is serving as an usher in his Wichita church. Adherents of “freemen” ideology claim they are “sovereign citizens” not subject to federal and other laws, and often form their own “common law” courts and issue their own license plates. It was one of those homemade plates that led Topeka police to stop Roeder in April 1996, when a search of his trunk revealed a pound of gunpowder, a 9-volt battery wired to a switch, blasting caps and ammunition. A prosecutor in that case called Roeder a “substantial threat to public safety,” citing Roeder’s refusal to acknowledge the court’s authority. But his conviction in the 1996 case is ultimately overturned. In the Tiller case, Roeder is convicted of first-degree murder in January 2010 and is sentenced to life in prison.

June 10, 2009

James Von Brunn was accused of shooting a Washington, D. C., museum security guard.

Eighty-eight-year-old James Von Brunn, a longtime neo-Nazi, walks up to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and shoots to death security guard Stephen Johns before he is himself shot and critically wounded by other officers. Von Brunn, who earlier served six years in connection with his 1981 attempt to kidnap the members of the Federal Reserve Board at the point of a sawed-off shotgun, has been active in the white supremacist movement for more than four decades. In the early 1970s, he worked at the Holocaust-denying Noontide Press, and in subsequent decades, he comes to know many of the key leaders of the radical right. A search of von Brunn’s car after the museum attack turns up a list of other apparent targets, including the White House, the Capitol, the National Cathedral and The Washington Post. A note allegedly left by Von Brunn in his car reads: “You want my weapons; this is how you’ll get them … the Holocaust is a lie … Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America’s money. Jews control the mass media.” Von Brunn is charged with murder but dies in 2010 while awaiting trial.

June 12, 2009

Shawna Forde, leader of a nativist group, was charged with planning the murder of a Latino family, including 9-year-old Brisenia Flores

Shawna Forde — the executive director of Minutemen American Defense (MAD), an anti-immigrant vigilante group that conducts “citizen patrols” on the Arizona-Mexico border — is charged with two counts of first-degree murder for her role in the slayings of a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter in Arivaca, Ariz. Forde orchestrated the May 30 home invasion because she believed the man was a narcotics trafficker and wanted to steal drugs and cash to fund her group. Authorities say the murders, including the killing of the child, were part of the plan. Also arrested and charged with murder are the alleged triggerman, MAD Operations Director Jason Eugene “Gunny” Bush, and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 42, a local member of MAD. Authorities say that Bush had ties to the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations in Idaho, and that Forde has spoken of recruiting its members. Forde is sentenced to death in February 2011, and Bush is sentenced to death in April 2011. Gaxiola is sentenced to life in prison.

June 25, 2009

Longtime white supremacist Dennis Mahon and his brother Daniel are indicted in Arizona in connection with a mail bomb sent in 2004 to a diversity office in Scottsdale that injured three people. Mahon, formerly tied to the neo-Nazi White Aryan Resistance (WAR) group, allegedly left a phone message at the office saying that "the White Aryan Resistance is growing in Scottsdale. There's a few white people who are standing up." In a related raid, agents search the Indiana home of Tom Metzger, founder of WAR, but he is not arrested. On the same day, white supremacist Robert Joos is arrested in rural Missouri, apparently because phone records show that Dennis Mahon's first call after the mail bombing was to Joos' cell phone. Joos is charged with being a felon in possession of firearms and is sentenced in May 2010 to 6½ years in prison. Dennis Mahon is found guilty of three bombing charges in February 2012. He is sentenced to 40 years in prison. Daniel Mahon is acquitted of the one charge against him.

August 4, 2009

George Sodini, a 48-year-old male supremacist, walks into a women's dance class at the LA Fitness center in Collier Township, Pennsylvania, with several concealed firearms. Sodini turns off the lights, takes out two handguns and opens fire on the women in the room, killing three and wounding nine others. According to police, Sodini fired 52 shots before taking his own life. On his website, Sodini chronicled years of sexual frustration and romantic rejection by women, along with a nine-month account of plans to carry out the shooting.

April 26, 2007

Bonnell Hughes

Five members of the Alabama Free Militia are arrested in north Alabama in a raid by federal and state law enforcement officers that uncovers a cache of 130 homemade hand grenades, an improvised grenade launcher, a Sten Mark submachine gun, a silencer, 2,500 rounds of ammunition and almost 100 marijuana plants. Raymond Kirk Dillard, the founder and “commander” of the group, pleads guilty to criminal conspiracy, illegally making and possessing destructive devices and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Other members of the group — Bonnell “Buster” Hughes, James Ray McElroy, Adam Lynn Cunningham and Randall Garrett Cole— also plead guilty to related charges. Although Dillard, who complained about the collapse of the American economy, terrorist attacks and Mexicans taking over the country, reportedly told his troops to open fire on federal agents if ever confronted, no shots are fired during the April raid, and the “commander” even points out booby-trap tripwires on his property to investigators. Dillard draws the harshest sentence, and is released in May 2012. Cole is released in December 2009; Cunningham in June 2009; Hughes in January 2009; and McElroy in August 2010.

January 1, 2005

22-year-old Steven Michael Ekberg was found with terrorist-associated literature, including the Unabomber's manifesto, how-to manuals on various ways to kill people, as well as ricin, castor beans and various other unspecified chemicals.

A former roommate tips off authorities that 22-year-old Steven Michael Ekberg might have illegal biological materials and firearms. A week later law enforcement officers trail Ekberg to a nightclub in Ocala, Florida. An undercover officer strikes up a conversation with Ekberg, wherein he reveals that he always carries three guns. Ekberg shows the officer a gun in a holster on his ankle. He is arrested on charges of violating the terms of his concealed carry permit. A search of Ekberg's residence uncovers terrorist-associated literature, including the Unabomber's manifesto, how-to manuals on various ways to kill people, as well as ricin, castor beans and various other unspecified chemicals. Ekberg accepts a plea deal that includes a 26-month prison sentence, two years of probation and drug-counseling sessions.

June 10, 2005

Daniel J. Schertz, a former member of the North Georgia White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, is indicted in Chattanooga, Tenn., on federal weapons charges for allegedly making seven pipe bombs and selling them to an undercover informant with the idea that they would be used to murder Mexican and Haitian immigrant workers. The informant says Schertz demonstrated how to attach the pipe bombs to cars, then sold him bombs that Schertz expected to be used against a group of Haitians and, separately, Mexican workers on a bus headed to work in Florida. Schertz eventually pleads guilty to six charges — including teaching how to make an explosive device; making, possessing and transferring destructive devices; and possessing a pistol with armor-piercing bullets — and is sentenced to 14 years in prison. He is to be released in 2017.

July 13, 2005

Arizona man Denys Ray Hughes, a 58-year-old survivalist with far-right anti-government views, is pulled over for a traffic violation in Kansas. Authorities notify police in Arizona that Hughes could be involved in dangerous activity. A search of his cabin quickly reveals 43 guns, along with materials needed for the manufacture of ricin, including production formulas, six bottles of castor beans and dimethyl sulfide. A search of his residence in Phoenix also reveals several castor bean plants, a pipe bomb, bomb-making components and an unregistered silencer. Hughes is convicted in 2006 and sentenced to 87 months in prison. However, after several years behind bars, Hughes is allowed to serve out the rest of his sentence in a halfway house. While being transported back to Wisconsin, in May 2011, Hughes escapes custody and is a fugitive before his corpse is discovered in Western Nebraska in April 2012, nearly a year later. The body's identity is publicly confirmed in April 2013. Authorities believe Hughes died of prior health complications.

January 8, 2003

Two supporters of imprisoned neo-Nazi leader Matt Hale attend a rally in his behalf.

Federal agents arrest Matt Hale, the national leader of the neo-Nazi World Church of the Creator (WCOTC), as he reports to a Chicago courthouse in an ongoing copyright case over the name of his group. Hale is charged with soliciting the murder of the federal judge in the case, Joan Humphrey Lefkow, who he has publicly vilified as someone bent on the destruction of his group. (Although Lefkow originally ruled in WCOTC's favor, an appeals court found that the complaint brought by an identically named church in Oregon was legally justified, and Lefkow reversed herself accordingly.) In guarded language captured on tape recordings, Hale is heard agreeing that his security chief, an FBI informant, should kill Lefkow. Hale is found guilty and sentenced to serve 40 years in federal prison; he is not expected to be released until 2037.

January 18, 2003

James D. Brailey, a convicted felon who once was selected as "governor" of the state of Washington by the antigovernment Washington Jural Society, is arrested after a raid on his home turns up a machine gun, an assault rifle and several handguns. One informant tells the FBI that Brailey was plotting to assassinate Gov. Gary Locke, both because Locke was the state's real governor and because he was Chinese-American. A second informant says that Brailey actually went on a "dry run" to Olympia, carrying several guns into the state Capitol building to test security. Eventually, Brailey pleads guilty to weapons charges and is sentenced to serve 15 months in prison. He is released in 2004.

February 13, 2003

In Pennsylvania, Klan leader David Hull tried to buy hand grenades to blow up abortion clinics but was arrested instead.

Federal agents in Pennsylvania arrest David Wayne Hull, imperial wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and an adherent of the anti-Semitic Christian Identity theology, alleging that Hull arranged to buy hand grenades to blow up abortion clinics. The FBI says Hull also illegally instructed followers on how to build pipe bombs. Hull, who published a newsletter in which he urged readers to write Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh "to tell this great man goodbye," is found guilty of weapons violations and sentenced to 12 years in federal prison. He is released in July 2012.

April 3, 2003

Federal agents arrest antigovernment extremist David Roland Hinkson in Idaho and charge him with trying to hire an assassin on two occasions in 2002 and 2003 to murder a federal judge, a prosecutor and an IRS agent involved in a tax case against him. Hinkson, a businessman who earned millions of dollars from his Water Oz dietary supplement company but refused to pay almost $1 million in federal taxes, is convicted in 2004 of 26 counts related to the tax case. In early 2005, a federal jury finds him guilty in the assassination plot as well. He is not expected to be released until 2040.

April 10, 2003

Texas extremist William Krar was found with a terrifying arsenal — including components of a deadly sodium cyanide bomb.

The FBI raids the Noonday, Texas, home of William Krar and storage facilities that Krar rented in the area, discovering an arsenal that includes more than 500,000 rounds of ammunition, 65 pipe bombs and remote-control briefcase bombs, and almost two pounds of deadly sodium cyanide. Also found are components to convert the cyanide into a bomb capable of killing thousands, along with white supremacist and antigovernment material. Investigators soon learn Krar was stopped earlier in 2003 by police in Tennessee, who found several weapons and coded documents in his car that seemed to detail a plot. But Krar refuses to cooperate, and details of that alleged plan are never learned. He pleads guilty to possession of a chemical weapon and is sentenced to more than 11 years in prison, where he dies.

October 10, 2003

Police arrest Norman Somerville after finding a huge weapons cache on his property in northern Michigan that includes six machine guns, a powerful anti-aircraft gun, thousands of rounds of ammunition, hundreds of pounds of gunpowder, and an underground bunker. They also find two vehicles Somerville calls his “war wagons,” and on which prosecutors later say he planned to mount machine guns as part of a plan to stage an auto accident and then massacre arriving police. Officials describe Somerville as an antigovernment extremist enraged over the death of Scott Woodring, a Michigan Militia member killed by police a week after Woodring shot and killed a state trooper during a standoff. Somerville eventually pleads guilty to weapons charges and is sentenced to six years in prison. He is released in August 2009.

Dec. 8, 2003

Abbeville, S.C., Police Sgt. Danny Wilson and Constable Donnie Ouzts are shot to death by antigovernment “Patriot” Steven Bixby at the Abbeville home of his parents, Arthur and Rita Bixby. Wilson, and later Ouzts, had gone to the home after state workers who were surveying for a road-widening project that would have taken a few inches of the Bixbys’ front lawn complained that they were threatened by the family. After a day-long shootout, Steven and Arthur are arrested. Steven is charged with murder and criminal conspiracy, and his father is eventually sent to a mental institution. Rita, who was not in the house, is arrested later and charged as an accessory. Steven is sentenced to death in 2007 and remains on Death Row; his father is never tried and dies in the mental institution in 2011; and Rita is sentenced to life in 2007 and dies in prison four years later, six days after her husband.

March 1, 2001

As part of an ongoing probe into a white supremacist group, federal and local law enforcement agents raid the Corbett, Ore., home of Fritz Springmeier, seizing weapons, racist literature and marijuana-growing equipment. They also find a binder notebook entitled “Army of God, Yahweh’s Warriors” containing what officials call a list of targets that include a local federal building and the FBI’s Oregon offices. Springmeier, an associate of the anti-Semitic Christian Patriots Association, is eventually charged with setting off a diversionary bomb at an adult video store in Damascus, Ore., in 1997 as part of a bank robbery carried out by accomplice Forrest Bateman Jr. Another 2001 raid finds small amounts of bomb materials and marijuana in Bateman’s home. Eventually, Bateman pleads guilty to bank robbery and Springmeier is convicted of the same charges. Both are sentenced to nine years. Springmeier is released in March 2011; Bateman in September 2011.

April 19, 2001

Leo Felton, who liked to pose for photos as an “Aryan” warrior, had a terrible secret. The self-described white supremacist, who tried to bomb black and Jewish landmarks in the Boston area, had a black father.

White supremacists Leo Felton and girlfriend Erica Chase are arrested following a foot chase that began when a police officer spotted them trying to pass counterfeit bills at a Boston donut shop. Investigators quickly learn Felton heads up a tiny group called Aryan Unit One, and that the couple, who had already obtained a timing device, planned to blow up black and Jewish landmarks and possibly assassinate black and Jewish leaders. They also learn another amazing fact: Felton, a self-described Aryan, is secretly biracial. Felton and Chase are eventually convicted of conspiracy, weapons violations and obstruction, and Felton is also convicted of bank robbery and other charges. Felton, who previously served 11 years for assaulting a black taxi driver, is sentenced to serve more than 21 years in federal prison, while his one-time sweetheart draws a lesser sentence and is released in 2007.

August 22, 2001

Anti-government extremist Larry Peck, after being pulled over at a routine traffic stop, flees police and barricades himself in a small bungalow in Reno, Nevada. As authorities begin to surround Peck, he uses a high-powered firearm to exchange fire with the armed cops. Officer John Bohach is fatally shot with armor-penetrating bullets. Peck surrenders after a four-and-a-half-hour standoff with the authorities. In April 2003, Peck is convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to two life terms without parole. The 62-year-old man is found dead in his prison cell on October 4, 2013.

September 15, 2001

Self-described white supremacist Mark Anthony Stroman, a reported member of the Aryan Brotherhood, sets out on an anti-Muslim shooting spree to "avenge" the 9/11 attacks. On September 15, Stroman murders a Pakistani Muslim man by shooting him in the head; the man had recently relocated to Dallas, Texas. Several days later, on September 21, Stroman shoots and wounds Raisuddin Bhuiyan in a convenience store, leaving him partially blind. On October 4, Stroman enters a Mesquite, Texas, gas station and demands money from the cashier, Vasudev Patel. Stroman then fires at Patel and attempts to open the cash register as his last victim lies dying. In April 2002, Stroman is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. According to prosecutors, Stroman thought his victims were of Middle Eastern descent and was motivated by a "patriotic" impulse to protect the country from "terrorists." Bhuiyan, the sole survivor of Stroman's shooting spree, pleads with courts to stay the execution, saying it is against his religious beliefs. The execution is delayed by two hours as judges hear Bhuiyan's final appeals. On July 20, 2011, Stroman is executed by lethal injection in Hunstville, Texas.

October 14, 2001

A North Carolina sheriff's deputy pulls over Steve Anderson, a former "colonel" in the Kentucky Militia, on a routine traffic stop as he heads home to Kentucky from a white supremacist gathering in North Carolina. Anderson, who is an adherent of racist Christian Identity theology and has issued violent threats against officials for months via an illegal pirate radio station, pulls out a semi-automatic weapon and peppers the deputy's car with bullets before driving his truck into the woods and disappearing for 13 months. Officials later find six pipe bombs in Anderson's abandoned truck and 27 bombs and destructive devices in his home. In the end, Anderson apologizes for his actions and pleads guilty. He is sentenced on a variety of firearms charges to 15 years in federal prison.

December 11, 2001

Jewish Defense League chairman Irving David Rubin and a follower, Earl Leslie Krugel, are arrested in California and charged with conspiring to bomb the offices of U.S. Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) and the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City.

Jewish Defense League (JDL) chairman Irving David Rubin and a follower, Earl Leslie Krugel, are arrested in California and charged with conspiring to bomb the offices of U.S. Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) and the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City. Authorities say a confidential informant taped meetings with the two in which the bombings were discussed and Krugel said the JDL needed "to do something to one of their filthy mosques." Rubin later commits suicide in prison, officials say, just before he is to go on trial in 2002. Krugel pleads guilty to conspiracy in both plots, and testifies that Rubin conspired with him. Krugel dies in prison in 2005.

January 29, 1999

Paul Warner attempts to rape and and then kills a friend for having a black boyfriend. He is executed by electric chair on March 18, 2010.

White supremacist Paul Warner Powell attempts to rape his 16-year-old friend Stacie Reed after confronting her for having a black boyfriend. When Reed fights off his sexual advances, Powell stabs her to death, turns to her 14-year-old sister, whom he rapes, assaults and leaves for dead. Powell is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death in the Virginia Supreme Court, but the verdict is thrown out on appeal after the court decides there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that Powell attempted to rape Stacie Reed. Powell, believing he no longer faces the death penalty, writes a number of letters boasting about his crimes - including the attempted rape of Stacie Reed - to the prosecutor. In a second indictment based on new evidence from his confession to attempted rape, Powell is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. He is executed by electric chair on March 18, 2010.

April 3, 1999

White supremacist Jessy Joe Roten shoots a semi-automatic firearm at the home of an interracial family. The bullet enters the bedroom of four young children in the Mance family, killing one six-year-old twin and seriously injuring the other. The bullet also nicks the ear of a third sister, who was sleeping in the same bed. In an initial police interview, Roten claims that he belongs to an anti-racist group called Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP); he later denies this affiliation. While Roten initially seeks to distance himself, and his incriminating tattoos, from Nazi ideology by claiming association with the non-racist SHARP group, it becomes clear that this was an initial cover-up for what police later discover in Roten's home. According to detectives, various Nazi and white supremacist items are found in Roten's room, along with an inscription on the back of his bedroom door that reads, "Someone had to — for Race and Nation — Jessy Roten, to all my brothers, see you in Valhalla." Roten is sentenced to three concurrent life terms for second-degree murder and three counts of hate crimes.

June 10, 1999

An Anniston Star article details Alabama plumber and Neo-Nazi Chris Scott Gilliam's plans to "kill everybody."

Officials arrest Alabama plumber Chris Scott Gilliam, a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, after he attempts to purchase 10 hand grenades from an undercover federal agent. Gilliam, who months earlier paraded in an extremist T-shirt in front of the Southern Poverty Law Center's offices in Montgomery, tells agents he planned to send mail bombs to targets in Washington, D.C. Agents searching his home find bomb-making manuals, white supremacist literature and an assault rifle. Gilliam pleads guilty to federal firearms charges and is sentenced to 10 years in prison. He is released in early 2008.

July 1, 1999

Brothers Matt and Tyler Williams shot a gay couple to death and burned synagogues.

A gay couple, Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder, are shot to death in bed at their home near Redding, Calif. Days later, after tracking purchases made on Mowder's stolen credit card, police arrest brothers Benjamin Matthew Williams and James Tyler Williams. At least one of the pair, Matthew Williams (both use their middle names), is an adherent of the anti-Semitic Christian Identity theology. Police soon learn that the brothers two weeks earlier carried out arson attacks against three synagogues and an abortion clinic in Sacramento. Both brothers, whose mother at one point refers in a conversation to her sons' victims as "two homos," eventually admit their guilt — in Matthew's case, in a newspaper interview. Matthew, who at one point badly injures a guard in a surprise attack, commits suicide in 2002. Tyler, who pleads guilty to an array of charges in the case, is given two sentences amounting to 50 years to be served consecutively.

July 2, 1999

Illinois officials’ refusal to grant neo-Nazi leader Matt Hale a law license provoked a deadly rampage by a Hale follower.

Infuriated that neo-Nazi leader Matt Hale has just been denied his law license by Illinois officials, follower Benjamin Nathaniel Smith begins a three-day murder spree across Illinois and Indiana, shooting to death a popular black former college basketball coach and a Korean doctoral student and wounding nine other minorities. Smith kills himself as police close in during a car chase. Hale, the "Pontifex Maximus," or leader, of the World Church of the Creator, at first claims to barely know Smith. But it quickly emerges that Hale has recently given Smith his group's top award and, in fact, spent some 16 hours on the phone with him in the two weeks before Smith's rampage. Conveniently, Hale receives a registered letter from Smith just days after his suicide, informing Hale that Smith is quitting the group because he now sees violence as the only answer.

August 10, 1999

In California, former Aryan Nations member Buford Furrow shot children at a Jewish community center and murdered a Filipino American postal worker.

Buford Furrow, a former member of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations who has been living with the widow of slain terrorist leader Bob Mathews, strides into a Jewish community center near Los Angeles and fires more than 70 bullets, wounding three boys, a teenage girl and a woman. He then drives into the San Fernando Valley and murders Filipino-American mailman Joseph Ileto. The next day, Furrow turns himself in, saying he intended to send "a wake-up call to America to kill Jews." Furrow, who has a history of mental illness, eventually pleads guilty and is sentenced to two life terms without parole, plus 110 years in prison.

September 1, 1999

Anti-abortion extremist Clayton Lee Wagner is arrested after escaping from prison. He escapes again in 2001 and mails more than 550 hoax anthrax letters to abortion clinics.

Anti-abortion extremist Clayton Lee Wagner, who nine months earlier escaped from an Illinois jail while awaiting sentencing on weapons and carjacking charges, is arrested in Cincinnati, Ohio. Wagner's odyssey began in September 1999, when he was stopped driving a stolen camper in Illinois and told police he was headed to Seattle to murder an abortion provider. He escaped in February 2001 and, while on the lam, mailed more than 550 hoax anthrax letters to abortion clinics and posted an Internet threat warning abortion clinic workers that "if you work for the murderous abortionist, I'm going to kill you." Wagner is eventually sentenced to 30 years on the Illinois charges. In Ohio, he is sentenced to almost 20 years more, to be served consecutively, on various weapons and car theft charges related to his time on the run. In late 2003, he also is found guilty of 51 federal terrorism charges. He is scheduled to be released in 2046.

November 5, 1999

FBI agents arrest James Kenneth Gluck in Tampa, Fla., after he wrote a 10-page letter to judges in Jefferson County, Colo., threatening to "wage biological warfare" on a county justice center. While searching his home, police find the materials needed to make ricin, one of the deadliest poisons known. Gluck later threatens a judge, claiming that he could kill 10,000 people with the chemical. After serving time in federal prison, Gluck is released in early 2001.

December 5, 1999

Two California men, both members of the San Joaquin Militia, are charged with conspiracy in connection with a plot to blow up two 12-million-gallon propane tanks, a television tower and an electrical substation in hopes of provoking an insurrection. In 2001, the former militia leader, Donald Rudolph, pleads guilty to plotting to kill a federal judge and blow up the propane tanks, and testifies against his former comrades. Kevin Ray Patterson and Charles Dennis Kiles are ultimately convicted of several charges in connection with the conspiracy. In 2002, Patterson is sentenced to 24 years and five months in prison; Kiles to 22 years.

December 8, 1999

Donald Beauregard, head of a militia coalition known as the Southeastern States Alliance, is charged with conspiracy, providing materials for a terrorist act and gun violations in a plot to bomb energy facilities and cause power outages in Florida and Georgia. After pleading guilty to several charges, Beauregard, who once claimed to have discovered a secret map detailing a planned UN takeover mistakenly printed on a box of Trix cereal, is sentenced to five years in federal prison. He is released in 2004, a year after accomplice James Troy Diver is freed following a similar conviction.

January 16, 1997

Two anti-personnel bombs — the second clearly designed to kill arriving law enforcement and rescue workers — explode outside an abortion clinic in Sandy Springs, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta. Seven people are injured. Letters signed by the "Army of God" claim responsibility for this attack and another, a month later, at an Atlanta gay bar. Authorities later learn that these attacks, the 1998 bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing, were all carried out by Eric Robert Rudolph, who is captured in 2003 after five years on the run. Rudolph avoids the death penalty by pleading guilty in exchange for a life sentence, but simultaneously releases a defiant statement defending his attacks.

January 22, 1997

Authorities raid the Martinton, Ill., home of former Marine Ricky Salyers, an alleged Ku Klux Klan member, discovering 35,000 rounds of heavy ammunition, armor piercing shells, smoke and tear gas grenades, live shells for grenade launchers, artillery shells and other military gear. Salyers was discharged earlier from the Marines, where he taught demolitions and sniping, after tossing a live grenade (with the pin still in) at state police officers serving him with a search warrant in 1995. Following the 1997 raid, Salyers, an alleged member of the underground Black Dawn group of extremists in the military, is sentenced to serve three years for weapons violations. He is released from prison in 2000.

March 26, 1997

Militia activist Brendon Blasz is arrested in Kalamazoo, Mich., and charged with making pipe bombs and other illegal explosives. Prosecutors say Blasz plotted to bomb the federal building in Battle Creek, the IRS building in Portage, a Kalamazoo television station and federal armories. But they recommend leniency on his explosives conviction after Blasz, a member of the Michigan Militia Corps Wolverines, renounces his antigovernment beliefs and cooperates with them. He is sentenced to more than three years in federal prison and released in late 1999.

April 1, 1997

James Dalton Bell, a member of Oregon's "Multnomah County Common Law Court," a sovereign citizen group, sets off a stink bomb at a Vancouver, Washington, Internal Revenue Service (IRS) office in retaliation for his car being seized for failure to pay taxes. Subsequently, the IRS searches the home of Bell's parents. The search reveals a cache of chemicals including sodium cyanide and a precursor to sarin nerve gas. Authorities also find anti-government militia literature and explosives manuals. According to a federal criminal complaint, Bell authored an essay that advocated for the creation of a digital currency and electronic payment system to facilitate the assassination of government employees and "specifically mentioned Tax Collectors as part of his plan."

In July 1997, Bell strikes a plea deal and is sentenced to 11 months in prison, plus additional supervision upon release. Several months after his release in April 2000, Bell's residence is searched again, with authorities discovering many of the same chemical materials found during his 1997 arrest. He is rearrested in June for stalking federal officials and their family members, violating his probation conditions. Nearly two weeks later, Bell is arrested again and is found guilty on two counts of stalking government officials. He is sentenced to 60 months of prison for each count and is released on December 20, 2009.

April 22, 1997

Three Ku Klux Klan members are arrested in a plot to blow up a natural gas refinery outside Fort Worth, Texas, after local Klan leader Robert Spence gets cold feet and goes to the FBI. The three, along with a fourth arrested later, expected to kill a huge number of people with the blast — authorities later say as many as 30,000 might have died — which was to serve, incredibly, as a diversion for a simultaneous armored car robbery. Among the victims would have been children at a nearby school. All four plead guilty to conspiracy charges and are sentenced to terms of up to 20 years. Spence enters the witness protection program. Carl Jay Waskom Jr. is released in 2004, while Shawn and Catherine Adams, a couple, are freed in 2006. Edward Taylor Jr. is released in early 2007.

April 23, 1997

Neo-Nazi Todd Vanbiber got a face full of shrapnel when the bomb he was building to attack approaches to Florida’s Disney World went off in his hands.

Florida police arrest Todd Vanbiber, a member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance's Tampa unit and the shadowy League of the Silent Soldier, after he accidentally sets off pipe bombs he is building, blasting shrapnel into his own face. He is accused of plotting to use the bombs on the approach to Disney World to divert attention from a planned string of bank robberies. Vanbiber pleads guilty to weapons and explosives charges and is sentenced to more than six years in federal prison. He is released in 2002. Within two years, Vanbiber is posting messages on neo-Nazi Internet sites boasting that he has built over 300 bombs successfully and only made one error, and describing mass murderer Timothy McVeigh as a hero.

April 27, 1997

In California, William Robert Goehler (far right) was arrested with 500 pounds of petrogel explosives. Goehler associated with movement hard-liners like James “Bo” Gritz (third from left) and Randy Weaver (center).

After a cache of explosives stored in a tree blows up near Yuba City, Calif., police arrest Montana Freemen supporter William Robert Goehler. Investigators looking into the blast arrest two Goehler associates, one of them a militia leader, after finding 500 pounds of explosives — enough to level three city blocks — in a motor home parked outside their residence. Six others are arrested on related charges. Goehler, with previous convictions for rape, burglary and assault, is sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. He is later accused of stabbing his attorney with a shank and charged with attacking prison psychologists.

May 3, 1997

Antigovernment extremists set fire to the IRS office in Colorado Springs, Colo., causing $2.5 million in damage and injuring a firefighter. Federal agents later arrest five men in connection with the arson, which is conceived as a protest against the tax system. Ringleader James Cleaver, former national director of the antigovernment Sons of Liberty group, is accused of threatening a witness and eventually sentenced to 33 years in prison, with a release date of 2030. Accomplice Jack Dowell receives 30 years and is scheduled to be freed in 2027. Both are ordered to pay $2.2 million in restitution. Dowell's cousin is acquitted of all charges, while two other suspects, Ronald Sherman and Thomas Shafer, plead guilty to perjury charges in connection with the case.

July 4, 1997

Militiaman Bradley Playford Glover and another heavily armed antigovernment activist are arrested before dawn near Fort Hood, in central Texas, just hours before they planned to invade the Army base and slaughter foreign troops they mistakenly believed were housed there. In the next few days, five other people are arrested in several states for their alleged roles in the plot to invade a series of military bases where the group believes United Nations forces are massing for an assault on Americans. All seven are part of a splinter group from the Third Continental Congress, a kind of militia government-in-waiting. In the end, Glover is sentenced to two years on Kansas weapons charges, to be followed by a five-year federal term in connection with the Fort Hood plot. The others draw lesser terms. Glover is released in 2003, the last of the seven to get out.

August 19, 1997

65-year-old Carl Drega killed two state troopers, a judge and a newspaper editor before being shot and killed by police.

Armed with a semiautomatic rifle, 67-year-old Carl Drega, a self-described sovereign citizen, kills state troopers Scott Phillips and Les Lord in the parking lot of a supermarket in Colebrook, New Hampshire. Drega then steals one of the troopers' vehicles and heads to the office of Colebrook District Court Judge Vickie Bunnell. Drega purposely seeks out Judge Bunnell for revenge over a years-old property ruling. He shoots the judge in the back from a distance and uses a second firearm to shoot an editor at the Colebrook News and Sentinel who attempted to disarm Drega, killing both the editor and the judge. Drega again flees in the trooper's car, shooting another state officer in the arm as he plows through a police checkpoint. He is chased into the woods, with armed authorities from New Hampshire and Vermont in pursuit. Drega opens fire on multiple state troopers and a U.S. Border Patrol agent and engages in a shootout with several officers before he is eventually killed. In his vengeful rampage and subsequent shootout, Drega murders four individuals and injures three.

December 12, 1997

A federal grand jury in Arkansas indicts three men on racketeering charges for plotting to overthrow the government and create a whites-only Aryan People's Republic, which they intend to grow through polygamy. Chevie Kehoe, Daniel Lee and Faron Lovelace are accused of crimes in six states, including murder, kidnapping, robbery and conspiracy. Kehoe and Lee will also face state charges of murdering an Arkansas family, including an 8-year-old girl, in 1996. Kehoe ultimately receives a life sentence on that charge, while Lee is sentenced to death. Lovelace is sentenced to death for the murder of a suspected informant, but because of court rulings is later resentenced to life without parole. Kehoe's brother, Cheyne, is convicted of attempted murder during a 1997 Ohio shootout with police and sentenced to 24 years in prison, despite his helping authorities track down his fugitive brother in Utah after the shootout. Cheyne went to the authorities after Chevie began talking about murdering their parents and showing sexual interest in Cheyne's wife.

April 19, 1995

At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a 7,000-pound truck bomb, constructed of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and nitromethane racing fuel and packed into 13 plastic barrels, ripped through the heart of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

The explosion wrecked much of downtown Oklahoma City and killed 168 people, including 19 children in a day-care center. Another 500 were injured. Although many Americans initially suspected an attack by Middle Eastern radicals, it quickly became clear that the mass murder had actually been carried out by domestic, right-wing terrorists.

The slaughter engineered by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, men steeped in the conspiracy theories and white-hot fury of the American radical right, marked the opening shot in a new kind of domestic political extremism — a revolutionary ideology whose practitioners do not hesitate to carry out attacks directed at entirely innocent victims, people selected essentially at random to make a political point. After Oklahoma, it was no longer sufficient for many American right-wing terrorists to strike at a target of political significance — instead, they reached for higher and higher body counts, reasoning that they had to eclipse McVeigh's attack to win attention.

July 28, 1995

Antigovernment extremist Charles Ray Polk is arrested after trying to purchase a machine gun from an undercover police officer, and is later indicted by federal grand jury for plotting to blow up the Internal Revenue Service building in Austin, Texas. At the time of his arrest, Polk is trying to purchase plastic explosives to add to the already huge arsenal he's amassed. Polk is sentenced to almost 21 years in federal prison.

October 9, 1995

An Amtrak passenger train derails in Arizona, killing one and injuring 70. AP Images/Eric Drotter

Saboteurs derail an Amtrak passenger train near Hyder, Ariz., killing one person and injuring about 70 others. Several antigovernment messages, signed by the "Sons of Gestapo," are left behind. The perpetrators remain at large.

November 9, 1995

Oklahoma Constitutional Militia leader Willie Ray Lampley, his wife Cecilia and another man, John Dare Baird, are arrested as they prepare explosives to bomb numerous targets, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, gay bars and abortion clinics. The three, along with another suspect arrested later, are sentenced to terms of up to 11 years in 1996. Cecilia Lampley is released in 2000, while Baird and Willie Lampley — who wrote letters from prison urging others to violence — are freed in 2004 and 2006, respectively.

December 18, 1995

Joseph Martin Bailie is led away in handcuffs after being arrested for trying to bomb an IRS building in Nevada.

An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee discovers a plastic drum packed with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil in a parking lot behind the IRS building in Reno, Nev. The device failed to explode a day earlier when a three-foot fuse went out prematurely. Ten days later, tax protester Joseph Martin Bailie is arrested. Bailie is eventually sentenced to 36 years in federal prison, with a release date of 2027. An accomplice, Ellis Edward Hurst, is released in 2004.