On Monday, the FBI announced they had arrested a 27-year-old suspected white supremacist on Friday who was reportedly going to bomb a Colorado synagogue.
The suspect was allegedly targeting Temple Emanuel in Pueblo, according to ABC News. The synagogue, dedicated in 1900, is Colorado’s second oldest synagogue and has a small community of 30 families, according to its website.
According to an arrest affidavit, the suspect told an undercover FBI agent that he wanted to poison the members of the synagogue, adding that he paid a “Mexican cook to hex and poison” members of the synagogue by putting arsenic in the water pipes. The suspect reportedly saw a Facebook account that indicated the agent was a white female sympathetic with white supremacist views, prompting the suspect to allegedly write that he was “a skinhead” and former member of the Ku Klux Klan along with photos of him dressed in symbols related to white supremacy.
The FBI reported that the suspect posted in a group chat, “I wish the holocaust really did happen … they need to die.” An October 3 post showed the suspect claiming he was preparing for a racial holy war, adding that he was going to the temple to “scope it out.”
CBS News reported, “The next day, he sent a video showing a woman outside the temple in which he used anti-Semitic language, according to the complaint. A video he allegedly sent earlier that day showed Nazi propaganda, knives and masks, the complaint says.” On October 17, three undercover FBI agents met the suspect at a Colorado Springs restaurant, according to the complaint, the suspect gave the agents white supremacist paraphernalia as “gifts” and “repeatedly expressed his hatred of the Jewish people.”
ABC News added that court documents attest that the suspect initially planned to use Molotov cocktails, but after his plans changed to use something more lethal, agents told him they could supply him with pipe bombs and dynamite. On October 31, the suspect told undercover agents that November 1 was his target date. The affidavit noted the suspect “said that he wanted to put the Synagogue on the ground and demolish it.”
ABC News noted, “On Nov. 1, (the suspect) met three undercover FBI agents at a hotel. They showed him pipe bombs and dynamite. That is when he was arrested, at which point (the suspect) allegedly waived his Miranda rights and confessed.” The Washington Post reported, “He was wearing a Nazi armband during the meeting and carrying a copy of ‘Mein Kampf,’ FBI Special Agent John W. Smith wrote in the filing.”
According to CBS News, when the undercover agents met the suspect, they had false bombs that could not cause damage. The suspect, seeing the phony bombs, pronounced them “absolutely gorgeous,” suggesting the attack should happen the next day to avoid police.”
ABC News reported, “When asked what he would have done if someone had been inside the synagogue during the bombing, he allegedly said he would have gone through with the attack because anyone inside would be Jewish.”
Michael Atlas-Acuna, the president of Temple Emanuel, told ABC News, “We take our security very seriously here. We have been since what happened in Pittsburgh … we’re not going to be victimized and we’re going to defend ourselves. I’ve never been naive to think that it couldn’t happen to us because there’s been other things that have happened in small communities like shooting churches, so I’ve never been that naive. I think that all Jewish communities have to continue to protect themselves. Make sure they have armed guards, make sure they have security. We don’t like the idea that [in] America that we have to deal with this, but again, it’s just a reality of where we live right now.”