Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2005

A Counterattack on Neo-Nazis

For more than a year, a band of white supremacists known as the Order has waged its own private war against the "Zionist Occupation Government" of the U.S. In Seattle last week, federal officials continued their all-out attack on the neo-Nazi gang, announcing the indictment of 23 members under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The indictment charges that members of the Order were responsible for crimes including counterfeiting, armored-car robberies and two murders, one of them the assassination of radio Talk-Show Host Alan Berg in Denver. It was the first time the RICO statute, which has been used frequently against organized crime, has been applied to a far-right hate network.

Four of those charged were still at large, and the hunt for them immediately turned bloody. A man believed to be fugitive Order Member David Tate, 22, killed a state trooper and wounded another when his van was stopped for a routine license check near Branson, Mo. At week's end the unarmed Tate was seized by police about ten miles from the murder scene.