Feds: White Supremacists Hoped for 'Civil War' After Rally

Prosecutors want members of The Base to be kept detained
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Jan 21, 2020 3:27 PM CST
Feds: White Supremacists Hoped for 'Civil War' After Rally
This undated photo provided by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shows Patrik Mathews.   (Royal Canadian Mounted Police via AP)

A hidden camera captured members of a violent white supremacist group expressing hope that violence at a gun rights rally in Virginia this week could start a civil war, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday. Former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Jordan Mathews also videotaped himself advocating for killing people, poisoning water supplies, and derailing trains, a prosecutor wrote in urging a judge in Maryland to keep Mathews and two other members of The Base detained in federal custody. The Canadian national didn’t know investigators were watching and listening when he and two other group members talked about attending the Richmond rally in the days leading up to Monday's event, which attracted tens of thousands of people and ended peacefully.

Last month, a camera installed by investigators captured Mathews talking about the Virginia rally as a “boundless” opportunity, the AP reports. “And the thing is you’ve got tons of guys who are just in theory should be radicalized enough to know that all you gotta do is start making things go wrong and if Virginia can spiral out to (expletive) full blown civil war,” he said. FBI agents arrested Mathews and two others—Brian Mark Lemley Jr., 33, of Elkton, Maryland; and William Garfield Bilbrough IV, 19, of Denton, Maryland—last Thursday as part of a broader investigation of The Base. Authorities in Georgia and Wisconsin also arrested four other men linked to the group. Detention hearings for Mathews and Bilbrough are scheduled Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland.

(More white supremacism stories.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X