Blotter: Updates on Extremism and the Law
MARCH 21
FBI agents arrested Michael Conrade Sibley, 67, of Marietta, Ga., after he allegedly confessed to leaving two homemade pipe bombs in a backpack at Vickery Creek Park in Roswell in November 2014, and charged him with attempting to damage federal property. Sibley, who described himself as a 鈥減atriot,鈥� is said to have also put in the backpack a Koran, a book about Kuwait and a map with a Jewish center in Atlanta circled, along with writing a Muslim-sounding name on its label 鈥� an apparent attempt to frame Muslims for an attempted terrorist attack.
MARCH 24
Steven Timothy Snyder, a 38-year-old Michigan man believed to have been a member of a violent skinhead gang called the Fond du Lac Boot Boys in his teens, robbed a bank in Wausaukee, Wis., apparently killed a 59-year-old man he encountered while fleeing, and then died in a shootout in Fond du Lac with Trevor Casper, a 21-year-old state trooper who was also killed. A man with the same name and birth date as Snyder was arrested in March 1996 after attacking a Fond du Lac home. He was tattooed with the words 鈥淲hite Power鈥� and was carrying literature from the National Alliance, the leading neo-Nazi group of the period.
APRIL 7
Genesee County, Mich., officials announced the arrest of a couple, both of them local school bus drivers, for embezzling at least $50,000 from the woman鈥檚 mother and using it to amass an arsenal of 30 weapons, including a .50-caliber machine gun and 17,000 rounds of ammunition, hidden in a secret basement bunker. Steven and Sarah Nick of Davison Township were tied to the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia and had marked a bulletproof vest with the words 鈥淲e Kill For Peace.鈥�
APRIL 29
Two men who worked for the Florida Department of Corrections in Lake Butler and were also members of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan pleaded not guilty to conspiring to murder a black former inmate with whom they had quarreled. Charles Newcomb was a dismissed corrections trainee and David Moran was a correctional officer before their arrests. A third man, a guard and Klan member named Thomas Driver who had worked with Moran at the DOC鈥檚 Reception and Medical Center, was arraigned earlier on the same charges.
MAY 15
Rejecting arguments that he had been led astray by his older brother, a federal jury sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, to death in the Boston Marathon bombing. The attack, which left three dead and more than 260 wounded in April 2013, was meant as retaliation for what Tsarnaev reportedly called 鈥淯.S. crimes鈥� in Muslim countries like Iraq and Afghanistan. His older brother, Tamerlan, died during the attack.
JUNE 2
Two members of the St. Louis chapter of the New Black Panther Party pleaded guilty to conspiring to use bombs to attack the police chief of Ferguson, Mo., the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, and a local police station during protests over the August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by a Ferguson police officer. Brandon Orlando Baldwin, 24, and Olajuwon Davis, 23, were each expected to be sentenced to seven years in prison after agreeing to plead guilty to four felony counts.
JUNE 7
A man with an 18-year history of hating the government killed his wife, three small children and himself in their remote cabin in Montana鈥檚 Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest. Officials found 鈥渃辞苍蝉迟颈迟耻迟颈辞苍补濒颈蝉迟鈥� and other antigovernment literature in the truck of Augustine 鈥淢ike鈥� Bournes, who former friends said had been furious at the government since being acquitted of false imprisonment in 1997.
JULY 9
A father and son, described by the local sheriff as 鈥渁nti-police, antigovernment, radical extremists,鈥� allegedly lured a 70-year-old, armed Yavapai County, Ariz., Sheriff鈥檚 Office volunteer to their home and shot him three times. Officials said Gregory Niedermeyer, 49, opened fire first with a .50-caliber sniper鈥檚 rifle and was then joined by his son, Jason Niedermeyer, 24. The volunteer survived. The motive was unclear, but officials found a marijuana farm at the Niedermeyer home.
JULY 22
The FBI arrested three men in Phoenix who allegedly were planning to steal drugs and money from cartel members trafficking across the Mexican border. Two of the three 鈥� Robert Deatherage and Parris Frazier 鈥攂elonged to the Arizona Special Operations Group, a border militia that has provided security to Jon Ritzheimer, who led an armed anti-Muslim rally outside a Phoenix mosque in May.
