Charleston shooting: timeline of US far-right linked attacks

When nine people were shot dead in a church in South Carolina they added their names to a shameful list of those murdered in hate crimes, many by far right terrorists, in the US.

According to the Extremist Crime Database (ECDB), published by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, right-wing extremists carried out 145 murderous attacks, resulting in 348 deaths,between 1990 and 2010. 168 of these resulted from the Oklahoma City bombing.

Other figures from the New America Foundation, say that right wing extremists have killed 34 people in the United States for political reasons since 9/11.

Dylann Roof pictured with flags of apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia

Although the number of such far right groups were appeared to be on the wane suring the 200s the Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC), which monitors right-wing extremists, has noted a soaring in popularity following the election of Barack Obama and the economic downturn.

In 2013, the most recent year for which federal data is available, the FBI identified 3,563 victims of racially motivated hate crimes.

Black victims constituted 66 percent of the total. 21 percent were victims of anti-white bias. 4.6 percent were victims of anti-Asian bias. And 4.5 percent were victims of anti-Native American bias.

The President of the far-right monitoring group, Southern Poverty Law Center, said; “A white man who admires apartheid walks into a black church and kills nine people.

“According to an eyewitness, he says that he has “to do it” because black people “rape our women” and are “taking over our country.”

“It’s an obvious hate crime by someone who feels threatened by our country’s changing demographics and the increasing prominence of African Americans in public life.”

Jewish Community Center in Greater Kansas City, April 2014
Three people were killed in two shootings committed by a lone gunman at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement community. 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. of Aurora, Missouri, originally from North Carolina was arrested and will go on trial in August this year.

Wisconsin Sikh Temple , August 2012
Wade Michael Page killed six people in a shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Page was a member of a white supremacist band and associated with the Hammerskins, a white supremacist group. Page committed suicide during the attack.

Arizona double killing, May 2009
Anti-illegal immigration activists Shawna Forde, Albert Gaxiola, and Jason Bush raided a house killing Raul GLores, a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter during a 2009 vigilante raid.
The attackers said the burglary was to finance their anti-immigration vigilante group, Minutemen American Defense.
Forde and Bush were convicted and sentenced to death. Gaxiola was sentenced to life in prison.

Murder of Dr. George Tiller, May 2009
Abortion doctor George Tiller was shot dead at a church in Wichita, Kansas. He was one of the few doctors in the US who pefromed late term abortions and had been vilified by anti-abortionists.

Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church shooting, July 2008
During a youth performance of Annie Jr. a man opened fire on the 200 strong audience killing two people.
After his arrest Jim David Adkisson, a former private in the United States Army from 1974 to 1977, said that he was motivated by hatred of Democrats, liberals, African Americans and homosexuals.

Oklahoma City bombing, April 1995
Twenty years ago this year disaffected veteran Timothy McVey drove a truck full of explosives into downtown Oklahoma City and destroyed a federal building. He killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others
McVeigh, a man with deep ties to far-right militant circles, was executed in 2001 for the crime.

The Centennial Olympic Park bombing, July 1996
The blast was the first of four by Eric Rudolph, a protest to what considered to be the government’s sanctioning of “abortion on demand”. With the bomb which killed on and injured 111 he said he wanted to cancel the Olympics.