A member of the neo-Nazi group The Base instructed his peers to vandalize synagogues, then gave up those comrades’ names when questioned by the FBI, court documents allege.
Richard Tobin, 18, was arrested last week on allegations of conspiring to vandalize synagogues across the country. Tobin was allegedly a member of The Base, a white supremacist group that encourages violence and terror tactics. Although the The Base prizes secrecy, Tobin appears to have named two other members and accused them of crimes during an interview with an FBI agent. His arrest comes amid a series of law enforcement crackdowns against far-right extremists, suggesting increased scrutiny of the movement.
On consecutive days in late September, Beth Israel Sinai synagogue in Racine, Wisconsin, and Temple Jacob in Hancock, Michigan, were vandalized with anti-Semitic graffiti.
Though separated by state lines, both attacks allegedly originated with Tobin, who lives in New Jersey. According to a criminal complaint, Tobin called the campaign “Operation Kristallnacht,” a reference to a two-day pogrom in Nazi Germany that destroyed Jewish homes and businesses and left more than 90 dead.
Calls to violence within the group are common in The Base, which organizes itself into loose cells across the U.S. and Canada. The group adopts explicitly neo-Nazi imagery and trains members in violence at “hate camps.” Although Tobin is not accused of personally vandalizing the synagogues, he admitted to instructing two fellow Base members to carry out the attacks.
And he gave up those members’ names in an Oct. 30 interview with the FBI, according to a criminal complaint.
He also told investigators that he’d considered becoming a suicide bomber, and thought about violence when he saw a Pride Parade, or African-Americans.
“Tobin stated that there was a time when he was at a mall in Edison, New Jersey, and there were so many African Americans around that it ‘enraged’ him,” the complaint reads. “That day, he had a machete in his car, and he wanted to ‘let loose’ with it.”
Read more: MSN
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