From the bail hearings of three men arrested on gun charges, whom police claim were members of the white nationalist group The Base: the men planned on using the gun rally in Virginia to start a civil war by gunning down their fellow pro-gun demonstrators, and they discussed murdering police officers in order to obtain arms and tactical equipment.
The three men — Brian Lemley, Jr., William Garfield Bilbrough IV and Patrik Jordan Mathews (a Canadian who apparently crossed illegally into the USA) — were arrested four days before the rally. At their bail hearing, prosecutors entered evidence from a “sneak-and-peek” raid on the Delaware house that Lemley and Mathews share, including recordings made by hidden cameras and mics planted by officers during the raid.
The evidence included the parts to make a fully automatic assault rife as well as 15,000 rounds of ammo; literature from the Base; and Mathews’ videos which “espouse violent, anti-Semitic, and racist language.” It also included a video Mathews made in which he exhorts the viewer to commit acts of mass murder, including derailing trains and poisoning the water supply, concluding that “If you want the white race to survive, you’re going to have to do your fucking part.” In the video, Mathews wears a gas-mask that hides his features and distorts his voice.
The hidden camera recordings captured Mathews and Lemley fantasizing about murdering people, with Lemley telling Mathews that “I literally need, I need to claim my first victim.” Lemley mooted ambushing and murdering police officers in order to steal their weapons and tactical gear, using language reminiscent of someone narrating a playthrough of Grand Theft Auto (“If there’s like a PoPo cruiser parked on the street and he doesn’t have backup, I can execute him at a whim and just take his stuff … He literally has zero chance of not being ganked”).
They were also recorded planning acts of violence calculated to create the conditions for civil war, including opening fire on the heavily armed attendees at the rally, which Mathews asserted “kick off the economic collapse of the US within a week.” The men discussed “literally hunting people” in the crowd.
William Bilbrough was recorded comparing the Base to al Qaeda, and boasting that the Base was more militant and dangerous than ISIS.
“Here’s the thing to, you want to create f***ing some instability, while the Virginia situation is happening, make other things happen, derail some rail lines, f***ing like shut down the highways, oh road block, great lets [sic] shut down the rest of the roads, you know, you can kick off the economic collapse of the U.S. within a week,” Mathews allegedly told Lemley on December 21.
“I need to claim my first victim”: Alleged white supremacists hoped Virginia rally would spark civil war, documents allege [Victoria Albert and Clare Hymes/CBS]
That Pro-Gun Rally in Virginia Wasn’t Exactly “Peaceful” [Talia Lavin/GQ]
(via Naked Capitalism)