There are a number of violent, neofascist organizations in the United States that would deny that description fits them—like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the Republican Party—but that’s not really the case when it comes to Atomwaffen. With uniforms and banners loaded down with swastikas and swastika substitutes, a professed goal of bringing on civilizational collapse, and an organizational statement that declares their admiration for Charles Manson, Atomwaffen seems to exist mostly so all those who feel that time denied them an opportunity to punch a Nazi can get a second chance.
This is an organization with a to-do list that includes attacking Jews, gays, Blacks, Latinos, “frail whites,” and whoever else it can get its pasty fingers on. It’s also dedicated to destroying the government, regularly conducts ceremonial burnings of the Constitution, and has engaged in plots to (in no particular order): destroy the power grid, overthrow the government through terrorism, and blow up nuclear plants. If all this sounds like a bunch of a-holes out to luxuriate in the protections the U.S. provides while they play at bringing on the end times, it is. But it’s also an organization connected to at least eight very real murders, along with numerous rapes, assaults, and kidnapping. Sorry, make that kidnapping and torture.
As David Neiwert reported last fall, a dedicated program of threats and harassment aimed at journalists—particularly journalists who are women and/or Jewish—earned much of Atomwaffen’s leadership a conspiracy conviction. On Friday, the follow-up to that original conviction brought down a whole stack of federal charges on 25-year-old Kaleb Cole.
And this time, the conviction got him seven years in a federal prison.
As the Houston Chronicle reports, Cole, along with his fellow Nazis, was charged with mailing threatening communications, cyberstalking, and interfering with federally protected activity based on religion.
Other Atomwaffen leaders got sentences much shorter than the one handed down to Cole. There’s a reason for that. Despite pleas from Cole’s grandmother that he was “a good man” and claims from his attorney that the hate campaign had not really been Cole’s idea, there was this:
It’s hard to know if Shea’s expression of grief was real or simply convenient. However, Cole didn’t even offer that much. He apologized for none of the threats and racist statements that were introduced during the trial. Cole was “promoted” to leader of the Washington faction of Atomwaffen after the previous leader there was sentenced on explosives charges.
As a counter to the words of his grandmother, several of those who had been on the receiving end of Cole’s threats, which included posters covered in skulls, swastikas, and images of Molotov cocktails being thrown into homes, attended court to testify to the terror and disruption he had brought to their lives. Along with the threats, Cole had also led the group in “swatting” journalists and critics of Atomwaffen by reporting violent crimes underway at their locations, causing police to respond with the expectation that they were stopping a murder or kidnapping in progress.
“That was his identity,” said U.S. attorney Thomas Woods. “His life's work to this point: hate, targeting people to instill terror. And it worked.”
It’s hard to find anything “good” in Cole, other than the fact that no one will have to deal with him for some time.
This is an organization with a to-do list that includes attacking Jews, gays, Blacks, Latinos, “frail whites,” and whoever else it can get its pasty fingers on. It’s also dedicated to destroying the government, regularly conducts ceremonial burnings of the Constitution, and has engaged in plots to (in no particular order): destroy the power grid, overthrow the government through terrorism, and blow up nuclear plants. If all this sounds like a bunch of a-holes out to luxuriate in the protections the U.S. provides while they play at bringing on the end times, it is. But it’s also an organization connected to at least eight very real murders, along with numerous rapes, assaults, and kidnapping. Sorry, make that kidnapping and torture.
As David Neiwert reported last fall, a dedicated program of threats and harassment aimed at journalists—particularly journalists who are women and/or Jewish—earned much of Atomwaffen’s leadership a conspiracy conviction. On Friday, the follow-up to that original conviction brought down a whole stack of federal charges on 25-year-old Kaleb Cole.
And this time, the conviction got him seven years in a federal prison.
As the Houston Chronicle reports, Cole, along with his fellow Nazis, was charged with mailing threatening communications, cyberstalking, and interfering with federally protected activity based on religion.
Other Atomwaffen leaders got sentences much shorter than the one handed down to Cole. There’s a reason for that. Despite pleas from Cole’s grandmother that he was “a good man” and claims from his attorney that the hate campaign had not really been Cole’s idea, there was this:
It’s hard to know if Shea’s expression of grief was real or simply convenient. However, Cole didn’t even offer that much. He apologized for none of the threats and racist statements that were introduced during the trial. Cole was “promoted” to leader of the Washington faction of Atomwaffen after the previous leader there was sentenced on explosives charges.
As a counter to the words of his grandmother, several of those who had been on the receiving end of Cole’s threats, which included posters covered in skulls, swastikas, and images of Molotov cocktails being thrown into homes, attended court to testify to the terror and disruption he had brought to their lives. Along with the threats, Cole had also led the group in “swatting” journalists and critics of Atomwaffen by reporting violent crimes underway at their locations, causing police to respond with the expectation that they were stopping a murder or kidnapping in progress.
“That was his identity,” said U.S. attorney Thomas Woods. “His life's work to this point: hate, targeting people to instill terror. And it worked.”
It’s hard to find anything “good” in Cole, other than the fact that no one will have to deal with him for some time.