Police Released Neo-Nazi Hours Before Apparent Mass Shooting Attempt
A picture of Atomwaffen members posted on Twitter. Image by Twitter
By Josh Nathan-Kazis November 21, 2018
Hours after police released a neo-Nazi arrested at a murder scene in 2017, he was caught in a car with an arsenal of weapons headed to what police suspected was an intended mass shooting, according to a major investigation from ProPublica and Frontline published on Tuesday.
The investigation reveals how officials failed to investigate a violent neo-Nazi group called Atomwaffen after one of its founders killed two of its members and then offered to help police prevent future violent attacks.
According to ProPublica, police quickly released one of the Atomwaffen members arrested at the scene of the murder. Hours later, he was arrested again, this time in a car full of weapons and ammunition.
“When we found all the weapons, we were convinced that we had just stopped a mass shooting,” Deanna Torres, one of the officers who arrested the Atomwaffen member told ProPublica.
ProPublica reports that experts see the handling of the Atomwaffen case as a sign that the federal government are lagging in confronting white supremacist terrorist groups.
Contact Josh Nathan-Kazis at [email protected] or on Twitter, @joshnathankazis
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
