SEATTLE — When Kaleb J. Cole landed at Chicago O’Hare International Airport after a trip to Europe last year, federal officials were waiting at the gate for a chance to question him. In his luggage was the trefoil flag of a neo-Nazi hate group. On his phone, a photo of two people posing at the site of the Auschwitz death camp.
The officials did not charge Cole with any crimes that day, or in the months to come, despite information that he was a leader of the Atomwaffen Division, one of the most violent extremist groups in the country. But last month, according to records provided by a prosecutor’s office Thursday, the authorities in Seattle moved to seize a cache of weapons from Cole, using a state law intended to prevent gun violence.
“This was an individual who had access to firearms and was preparing for a race war,” Kimberly Wyatt, a prosecutor in King County, Washington, said Thursday.
The move was part of a larger effort by investigators around the country, including the FBI, to crack down on members of Atomwaffen, as officials seek to counter the rising threat from hate groups. The Atomwaffen Division has been linked to a series of killings.
The group’s members are scattered in cells nationwide, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which describes the group as seeking a societal collapse and race war to achieve its goals.
In petitioning to seize Cole’s weapons, law enforcement officials said Cole was believed to be the cell leader of Atomwaffen’s chapter in Washington state. They wrote that Cole had participated in firearms training and recruiting at “hate camps,” where members performed military-style exercises and wore skull masks over their faces. In a video, they chanted anti-Semitic slurs and “race war now.”
Officials seized the firearms using a so-called red-flag law, which in a number of states including Washington allows law enforcement or civilians to get a court order to confiscate weapons when there is evidence that people are at high risk of harming themselves or others. Wyatt said the law provided a temporary intervention, allowing the seizure of the guns for up to a year.
At the end of 2018, Cole went on a 25-day trip that took him throughout Eastern Europe, according to the records filed by Seattle officials. He told federal officials who stopped him on his way home that the main reason was to see historical architecture and museums.
In a report filed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection about that day, officials wrote that Cole identified himself as an Atomwaffen member who had fascist ideology and that he had been carrying the group’s flag.
Federal officials also examined Cole’s cellphone, finding a recent image of a group of people performing Nazi salutes while holding the Atomwaffen flag, and another of two people standing on the railroad tracks leading into the complex that housed the Auschwitz concentration camp operated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
Seattle officials filed their petition on Sept. 26 and seized the guns from Cole in Snohomish County the same day, Wyatt said. He did not show up for a subsequent hearing. Cole could not be reached for comment Thursday and did not appear to have an attorney.
Wyatt said law enforcement officials have continued discussing what criminal laws might apply to Cole’s case. She said criminal statutes focus on threats made to an intended victim.
“What do you do when there’s a general threat versus one specific individual?” Wyatt said. She said officials were discussing their options under state law.
Federal investigators have also faced this issue as they struggle to balance First Amendment protections that allow hate speech and actions that could be an indicator of future violence. In some cases, the FBI has turned to local prosecutors to handle the cases.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
© 2019 The New York Times Company
https://youtu.be/miLk32l_4VU
What, the FBI arresting their own again, in order to give them credibility among the retards that engage in these neo-nazi BS Groups… Which are all mostly run by the fkn feds anyway… what a joke.
Regardless who it is, No “Due Process” equals naked tyranny….you don’t get to violate anyone’s rights to protect them from thought crimes or otherwise…. This authority can not exist.
You tards in uniforms are creating your own self-fulfilling prophesy…by following or using these new criminal red flag “Laws”…..either the people have due process and our bill of rights (with common law) or we are at war and under naked aggressive tyranny… there is no in-between… or compromise…
and still you call yourselves Americans, how disgusting.
Feds arresting their own assets so they can lump us in together with people like them for anybody who is jew wise.
EXACTLY WHAT TIMOTHY MCVEIGH WAS. ALL OF BILL CLINTONS WHITE WATER EVIDENCE WAS MOVED INTO THE MURRAH BUILDING THE WEEK BEFORE THE OKLAHOMA BOMBING.(they say, but we know the documents are digital) AND LIKE EPSTEIN ESCAPING INCARCERATION BY FAKING DEATH,, MCVEIGH WAS NEVER EXECUTED….
HE WAS A PAID PATSY WORKING FOR THE FBI ON OPERATION “PAT CON”.
McVeigh said he was an intelligence asset to his sister. Yeah so many lies and crimes committed against the people.
Henry covered this subject yesterday on the broadcast from a different article.
One different bit of info is that they ” they chanted anti-Semitic slurs and “race war now.”
Oh man! No way! Can’t have that!
These red flag laws are for taking guns from anyone who possess a threat to themselves or others?
So cops, and abortion clinic workers? what about fast food employees and anyone who sells pharmaceuticals?
What about people driving unsafe? Mma fighter? Boxers? Tattoo artists?
nothing but open subject matter and total tyranny.
“This was an individual who had access to firearms and was preparing for a race war,” Kimberly Wyatt, a prosecutor in King County, Washington, said Thursday.”
LIAR!
The so-called ‘government’ has been doing it’s damnedest to start a race war in this country for many years now.
If this @ssclown was REALLY going to ‘start a race war’, he would have been encouraged, not stopped.
“What do you do when there’s a general threat versus one specific individual?”
You mean like the entire so-called ‘government’ against one American national in an Admiralty/Maritime ‘court of law’???