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Home , David Duke, Joseph Paul Franklin, Stormfront (website)

WHITE HOMICIDE WORLDWIDE , the leading white supremacist Web forum, has another distinction — capital of the

BY HEIDI BEIRICH Stormfront.org A typical murderer drawn to the racist forum a Filipino-American postal worker. is a frustrated, unemployed, white adult male living with his Eight months later, on April 28, 2000, mother or an estranged spouse or girlfriend. She is the sole just days after exchanging E-mails and a phone call with a woman he met on provider in the household. the Stormfront “Singles” page, Richard Forensic psychologists call him a “wound collector.” Instead of Scott Baumhammers shot and killed his building his resume, seeking employment or further education, he next-door neighbor, a 63-year-old Jewish woman. Next, he drove to the victim’s syn- projects his grievances on society and searches the Internet for an agogue, shot out the windows and painted excuse or an explanation unrelated to his behavior or the choices two large red on the front of the he has made in life. building. And then Baumhammers went on a shooting rampage, specifically target- His escalation follows a predictable of isolation the terrorist can indulge his ing minorities and murdering five people. trajectory. From right-wing antigovern- ideology” without the restrictions of the A sixth victim would die of his injuries ment and conspiracy hatcheries, routines of daily life. several months later. he migrates to militant hate sites that Then there is a trajectory from idea When Baumhammers’ connection blame society’s ills on ethnicity and shift- to action. to Stormfront was pointed out in media ing demographics. He soon learns his Though on any given day, fewer reports, Black denied any responsibility. He race is endangered — a target of “white than 1,800 registered members log on claimed Baumhammers “had been previ- genocide.” After reading and lurking for a to Stormfront, and less than half of the ously diagnosed as something worse than while, he needs to talk to someone about site’s visitors even reside in the United schizophrenic.” But Black did note that it, signing up as a registered user on a rac- States, a two-year study by the Southern attention to the killings had more than dou- ist forum where he commiserates in an Poverty Law Center (SPLC) shows that bled the number of “hits” to his . echo chamber of angry fellow failures registered Stormfront users have been Furrow, 37, and Baumhammers, 34, where , gays, minorities and mul- disproportionately responsible for some were both unemployed and still living ticulturalism are blamed for everything. of the most lethal hate crimes and mass with their parents at the time of the kill- Assured of the supremacy of his race killings since the site was put up in 1995. ings. The next Stormfront user to commit and frustrated by the inferiority of his In the past five years alone, Stormfront murder was also living with his parents. achievements, he binges online for hours members have murdered close to 100 This one was in the ninth grade. every day, self-medicating, slowly sip- people. The SPLC’s research shows that On April 19, 2002, Ian Andrew Bishop, ping a cocktail of rage. He gradually gains Stormfront’s bias-related murder rate a 14-year-old so-called “Stormfront Youth” acceptance in this online birthing den of began to accelerate rapidly in early 2009, killed his brother by striking him repeat- self-described “lone wolves,” but he gets after became the nation’s edly in the head with a claw hammer, no relief, no practical remedies, no sug- first black president. allegedly because he thought 18-year-old gestions to improve his circumstances. For domestic Islamic terrorists, the Adam Bishop was gay. “He said his brother He just gets angrier. breeding ground for violence is often was a faggot,” said a 15-year-old witness. And then he gets a gun. the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire and its “He said he wanted to kill his parents, too.” It is a myth that racist killers hide in affiliated websites. For the racist, it Bishop’s activity on Stormfront the shadows. Investigators find that most is Stormfront. included downloading and distributing offenders openly advocated their ideol- Third Reich images while promoting ogy online, often obsessively posting on Making Excuses his racist views in the neighborhood. racist forums and blogs for hours every Investigators find that most offenders Described as a “racist bully with neo- day. Over the past two decades, the larg- openly advocated their ideology online Nazi views,” Bishop’s attorney cited his est hate site in the world, Stormfront.org, for lengthy periods while sucking up the activities on Stormfront as evidence Ian has been a magnet and breeding ground hatred around them. Yet Stormfront’s was “troubled” and “drawn to the skin- for the deadly and the deranged. founder, former Klan leader head philosophy.” There is safety in the anonymity of the Stephen Donald “Don” Black, shrugs off Again, Black denied any responsibil- Web, and comfort in the endorsement responsibility for what he has wrought. ity in the Bishop case, claiming “Bishop others offer for extreme racist ideas, The homicidal trend began just killed his older brother because he argues former FBI agent Joe Navarro, four years after the site went up. On thought his parents liked him better. But who coined the term “wound collector.” Aug. 10, 1999, Buford O’Neil Furrow, a we’re ‘responsible’ for that too,” he added “Isolation permits the free expression of known user of Stormfront, left his par- sarcastically, “since he was a ‘good kid’ ideas, especially those which are extreme ents’ home in Tacoma, Wash., and drove before visiting SF.” and which foster passionate hatred,” to Los Angeles, where he shot and Navarro, who helped found the FBI’s wounded three children, a teenage girl The Body Count Skyrockets Behavioral Analysis Division, wrote in and an elderly woman at a Jewish day The would keep on coming, 2011 in Psychology Today. “In this cocoon care center. Furrow then shot and killed their frequency accelerating. On Feb. 19,

2 splc intelligence report and “p0p633.” An aspiring skinhead, Poplawski posted his “Iron Eagle” Nazi tattoo under his p0p633 user name in 2007, about 16 months before the killings. The worst mass murder was still to come. On July 22, 2011, set off a truck bomb in front of a government building in downtown Oslo, Norway. The blast killed eight and injured hundreds more. Dressed as a police officer and armed with a Ruger Mini-14 assault rifle and a Glock pistol, Breivik then boarded a ferry to Utoya Island, where a Workers Youth League summer camp was being held. There, Breivik shot and killed 69 people, most of them teenagers. When he was taken into custody by a SWAT team without incident, Breivik calmly told authorities that he blamed the government for allowing Norway to be “invaded” by Muslims. At the time of the killings, Breivik had The hatemaker: Don Black, the former Alabama Klan been a registered member on Stormfront leader who founded and still runs Stormfront, provides for almost three years. Under the user- an electronic home and breeding ground for racists who name “year2183,” Breivik introduced have murdered almost 100 people in the last five years. himself in October 2008. In one post he To this day, he remains fiercely unapologetic, even as he wrote, “Feminism, corrupt treacherous rakes in donations from his forum members. politicians, a corrupt treacherous media, pro- Jewry and a corrupt academia is the hole in the ‘dike,’ while Muslims are the water flooding in.” After a rant about Islamic enemies, Breivik 2008, James “Yankee Jim” Leshkevich, Pa., police officers, and wounded a fourth. was warmly welcomed by close Black who had posted more than 5,000 times to Poplawski, 22, was unemployed and liv- confidant Freeland Roy Dunscombe, or Stormfront in the preceding four years, ing with his mother when an early morning “TruckRoy”: “glad to have you here.” beat and strangled his wife to death in the argument escalated between the two and Hours before he began his terror living room of the home they shared in resulted in her calling 911. Poplawski campaign, Breivik E-mailed a copy of West Hurley, N.Y. Then he hung himself. waited just behind the front door with his his racist manifesto to two other influ- Similarly, a little over two years later, AK-47 assault rifle and shot and killed the ential Stormfront members, Billy Joe on April 21, 2010, Curtis Boone Maynard first three police officers who responded. Roper and Timothy Gallaher Murdock, shot and killed his ex-wife outside her Another officer was injured before a SWAT who runs the racist WhiteRabbitRadio. Lake Jackson, Texas, home. He then shot team shot and wounded Poplawski and net. In his manifesto, Breivik claimed he his 16-year-old stepdaughter in the face, then took him into custody. was banned from Stormfront, though a severely wounding her, before killing Fifteen weeks before the murders, search shows no suspension. Breivik himself during a subsequent police chase. Poplawski, who went by the name later admitted he was not removed as a Maynard had posted almost 900 times “Braced for Fate” on Stormfront, wrote registered member. on Stormfront before he was banned for that he kept his AK-47 “in a case within “I was never kicked out of publishing personal information about a arms reach.” He’d been a registered Stormfront,” he said last September. black woman who had voted as a juror to Stormfront member for 20 months prior “Instead, I attacked them in the compen- acquit a black murder suspect. to the murders, but with a Web footprint dium in order to protect them … [as] an In April 2009, a few months after going back to at least 2001. He started army of leftist journalists otherwise would Obama’s inauguration and less than four on pro-Second Amendment forums, strike hard.” hours after logging on to his Stormfront moved to conspiracy pages and finally Breivik’s large purchases of chemicals account, Richard Andrew Poplawski landed at Stormfront, where he had at before the attack had been reported to ambushed, shot and killed three Pittsburgh, least two user names, “Braced for Fate” the authorities, who took no heed because

summer 2014 3 The killers: A rogue’s gallery of the men who inhabited Stormfront J.T. Ready for years before they murdered includes these nine men.

Buford Furrow

Anders Breivik AP IMAGES/ LAURA RAUCH (FURROW); CORBIS/ NATALIE KEYSSAR (READY); AP IMAGES/ FRANK AUGSTEIN (BREIVIK); TRIBUNE-REVIEW/ AP IMAGES/ SCOTT SPANGLER (BISHOP); FEREX/ AP IMAGES/ REX FEATURES registered users ever on the forum. In the Wade Michael Page 24 hours after the killings, 4,481 mem- bers were online, a record that stands to this day. Alexa, which monitors Web traf- fic, shows that Stormfront visits spiked globally on the day of the Oslo attacks. Richard Scott Ian Andrew This means money to Black, whose ban- (MAGNOTTA); THIS IS ZIONISM WEBSITE (LESHKEVICH); AP IMAGES/ JASON MINICK (POPLAWSKI); AP IMAGES/ KEITH SRAKOCIC (BAUMHAMMERS); CONTRIBUTED (PAGE) Baumhammers Bishop ner ads pay him by the click. A year after the Oslo terrorist attacks, in mid-summer 2012, more media came Black’s way from two more mass killings and a bizarre mutilation murder attrib- utable to registered members. On May 2, 2012, less than six hours after logging in and posting on Richard Poplawski Luka Rocco Stormfront, Jason Todd Ready shot James Leshkevich Magnotta and killed four people, including an infant, before killing himself. Ready, he claimed he was a farmer. If they had Breivik as a “hero” and a “P.O.W.” 39, was unemployed and living with his looked at Breivik’s posts on Stormfront, Black provided his own commentary estranged girlfriend, Lisa Mederos. He they might have felt differently. His racist on Breivik. “Unfortunately, I happened shot and killed her, her daughter Amber vitriol and posts suggesting overthrowing upon this thread this morning, just and her 15-month-old granddaughter, his government almost certainly vio- before our radio show. This makes me Lily. Ready then shot and killed Amber’s lated Norway’s laws against . want to pull the plug on this place and 24-year-old fiancée, Jim Hiott, before Following the pattern for so-called “lone never look back,” Black wrote, before lay- turning his gun on himself. Ready had wolves,” he had broadcast his violent ing out a stark assessment of those on his made 678 posts on Stormfront in the intentions ahead of time on Stormfront. site: “We attract too many sociopaths.” two years prior to his death, often rais- A year later, in August 2012, after ing funds for his armed anti-immigrant Breivik was convicted and sentenced to Monetizing Murder militia group, U.S. Border Guard. 21 years in prison, a Stormfront thread Although Stormfront posters eventually Also in May, Black was taking media announced the sentence and included a grew critical of Breivik’s actions, the pub- heat over a Canadian murder suspect photograph of Breivik defiantly raising lic interest the attack generated on the known as Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, his fist in the air. Some posters lauded site resulted in the highest number of who had posted on Stormfront under

4 splc intelligence report 10 Signs of an Imminent Race Killer STORMFRONT.ORG Daily Reach In a two-year study of almost 100 murders by racist extrem- ists, the Intelligence Report identified 10 unique characteris- tics of killers who were active online: Unemployment: All offenders were unemployed at the time of the killings. 2011 2012 2013

Public Activism: By protesting, leafleting, or attending racist skin- Events like the attacks by Anders Breivik in head concerts or gatherings, all offenders publicly participated Norway result in spikes of traffic to Stormfront, according to Alexa tracking. in racist activity or outreach (though most remained anonymous prior to the killings.) murder, on Aug. 5, 2012, Wade Michael Home Crime Scene: Triggering events are personal. More than half Page shot and killed six people at a Sikh of offenders began killing in or around their homes, with family temple, including an 84-year-old woman, and wounded four others before killing members often the first victims. himself during a shootout with police. Multiple Platforms: Page, a longtime racist skinhead, had Almost all offenders posted on more than one been a registered user on Stormfront, racist blog or Web forum. under various user names, for more than 10 years. Sustained Activity: Almost all offenders had been active on racist forums or blogs for more than 18 months at the time of the killings. Motivational Culpability A haggard-looking Don Black appeared Oppositional Behavior: Almost all offenders were seen to be argu- on a CBS News affiliate’s newscast three mentative or antagonistic with others on the racist forums. Some days after the Sikh Temple killings. While were eventually banned in the months leading up to the killings. attempting to minimize Page’s activities on Stormfront, Black said Page’s actions Posting Variation: Most offenders exhibited a notable change in were “counterproductive” but then added, “We think the Sikhs should be their posting frequency in the days and weeks leading up to the back in Punjab.” killings — either a significant increase or decline in posts. Several As Alexa Internet Inc. shows, though were active on the racist Stormfront forum in the hours leading Stormfront’s online popularity had been up to the killings. in a gradual decline over the previous two years, the August 2012 Sikh temple Discussion of Violence: Most offenders discussed violence as an killings resulted in one of the highest and acceptable means of conflict resolution in their postings. most significant spikes of the year for the online forum (there also was a notable Weapons: Most offenders discussed firearms online. and rapid decline following the Sikh tem- ple killings). And Stormfront appears to Identification of an “Enemy”: Most offenders specifically identified have benefited financially from the pub- licity that summer. Monthly donations an enemy in their writings. Though many named minorities, most to the site rose from $6,545 in August identified the U.S. government, or “ZOG” (for Zionist Occupation 2012, to $8,028 in September to $10,032 Government), as their primary opposition. in October of that year. A strong argument could be made that Stormfront is, in effect, monetizing murder. And Black’s personal history two usernames in the 12 months prior to blacks get their own countries, chinese undermines the argument that he had no the torture and dismemberment killing [sic] get their own countries ... if white reasonable way to know how his website of a Chinese immigrant. In September people want their own countries then we and the hatred he hawks was attracting 2011, eight months before the murder, are denied that right.” Magnotta, whose and motivating a new breed of unstable, Magnotta complained: “It was unfare real name is Eric Clinton Kirk Newman, sociopathic killers. That ugly reality has [sic] that every country in the world was also followed Black on . been a recurring theme in Don Black’s able to have their heritage protected, Three months after the Magnotta life for almost half a century.

summer 2014 5 A Lifetime of Hate In many respects, Don Black resembles the prototypical killers that seem to be drawn to Stormfront. Black, 60, is a frus- trated, unemployed white adult male living with an ideologically estranged wife, Chloe Hardin Black, who has pub- licly denounced the racist movement. She is the sole provider in the household. Black spends hours every day online, utterly convinced of the supremacy of his race while expressing frustration with the inferiority of his outcomes. He occa- sionally complains about the sociopaths Stormfront seems to attract or laments 1996. “We’re reaching tens of thousands that his only son, Derek, recently pub- of people who never before had access to licly denounced . our point of view.” Black’s 46-plus years of involvement He was right. with the racist movement started at the In January 2002, Stormfront had a age of 15, when, like the fratricidal Ian mere 5,000 members. But only a year Andrew Bishop, he began distributing rac- later, membership had more than dou- ist fliers around his high school. That he bled to 11,000; and a year after that, in was involved with a subculture of socio- early 2004, it had reached 23,000. By this paths would become quite obvious, given year, membership had hit about 286,000 who Black met while on his very first A young Don Black (seen here in Klan robe) registered users, though most were inac- “movement” road trip at the age of 16. has known most key racist leaders in his life, tive. These numbers didn’t include the including (in tie); Jerry Ray (with In the summer of 1969, Black traveled cigarette), the brother of Martin Luther King many people who simply read Stormfront to a World Union of National Socialists Jr. assassin James Earl Ray; and Joseph Paul postings without actually joining up meeting in Arlington, Va., in the back Franklin, a racist who was executed (becoming a member allows one to post seat of a beat-up Chevy Chevelle, sit- last year. messages and also to view personal infor- ting next to a 19-year-old James Clayton mation.) Stormfront also became home to Vaughn for more than 12 hours. Neo-Nazi By 1975, Black was a rising leader other hate sites that shared its servers and and soon-to-be Klan leader David Duke in the Alabama wing of David Duke’s advertised their wares. was driving. As Black recollects, Vaughn Knights of the , a posi- After a life basically monetizing eth- was the very first person he met in the tion he kept for the next 12 years. But nic hatred and death, Don Black, who “white nationalist” movement to which his ambitions went beyond the robe walks with a cane from a 2008 stroke, he would devote his life. and hood. On April 27, 1981, Black was has become increasingly philosophi- Vaughn, who would change his name arrested with nine other white suprem- cal. On the Stormfront page eulogizing THE TENNESSEAN/ JIMMY ELLIS (DUKE/BLACK) ; AP IMAGES/ MARK HUMPHREY (RAY); AP IMAGES/ AL BEHRMAN (FRANKLIN) to , later became acists as they prepared to board a yacht serial killer Franklin, he wrote: “I may be probably the most prolific racist serial to invade the tiny Caribbean island of the only person here who actually knew killer in U.S. history, targeting interracial , oust its black-run government, Franklin. I’ve been contemplating how couples and killing as many as 20 people and transform it into a “white state.” my life would have been different had he in several states between 1977 and 1980 Black’s resulting three-year federal remained the only ‘White Nationalist’ I’d (he was convicted of eight murders). prison sentence was time well spent tak- ever met. I’d have quit in disgust. I had Franklin was executed last year. ing classes in computer programming. just turned sixteen, and maybe I could Black’s exposure to the worst of the He eventually set up a dial-up bulletin have then led a ‘normal’ life.” racist movement continued the following board service for the and, With nearly 100 bias-related homi- year. He spent his 17th birthday in the hos- in March 1995, that service evolved into cides attributable to registered members pital with a bullet wound in his chest after Stormfront.org, the Web’s first and best- of his site since 2009, a great many “nor- being caught trying to steal the mailing list known hate site. Black saw clearly that mal lives” are no longer being led. of the racist National States Rights Party. with this new technology, white suprem- Still, Black remains defiant. The The shooter, Jerry Ray, was the brother acists might finally bypass the mainstream theme song for his daily radio program of Martin Luther King Jr. assassin James media and political apparatus he felt had on the Rense Radio Network is a remake Earl Ray. Jerry Ray was prosecuted for long restricted the racists’ message. of Johnny Cash’s “I Won’t Back Down.” attempted murder but acquitted after “The potential of the Net for orga- His wife, his son, and those who cared claiming self-defense. Black pleaded nizations and movements such as ours for the victims of racist killers connected guilty and received one year of probation. is enormous,” Black told a reporter in to Stormfront probably wish he would. s

6 splc intelligence report THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER is a nonprofit organization that combats hate, intolerance and through education and litigation. Its Intelligence Project, which prepared this report and also produces the quarterly investigative magazine Intelligence Report, tracks the activities of hate groups and the nativist movement and monitors militia and other extremist antigovernment activity. Its Teaching Tolerance project helps foster respect and understanding in the classroom. Its litigation arm files lawsuits against hate groups for the violent acts of their members.

MEDIA AND GENERAL INQUIRIES Mark Potok or Heidi Beirich Southern Poverty Law Center 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, Ala. (334) 956-8200

www.splcenter.org

The SPLC is supported entirely by private donations. No government funds are involved. © Southern Poverty Law Center. All rights reserved.

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