Feds: Woman and neo-Nazi plotted to attack power grid
A Maryland woman spent months conspiring with her neo-Nazi boyfriend based in Florida to plan an attack on Baltimore’s power grid, hoping to further their racist mission, law enforcement officials said.
The plan was thwarted when both suspects were arrested last week, adding to a growing list of similar cases as authorities warn the American electrical grid could be a vulnerable target for domestic terrorists.
Sarah Beth Clendaniel, 34, was working with Brandon Russell, who founded a small Florida-based neoNazi group, to plan a series of “sniper attacks” on Maryland electrical substations, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Monday. The document also included a photo of a woman authorities identified as Clendaniel wearing tactical gear that bore a swastika and holding a rifle.
There was no evidence the plot was carried out or any record of damage to local substations.
U.S. Attorney Erek Barron praised investigators for disrupting hate-fueled violence.
“When we are united, hate cannot win,” he said at a news conference announcing the charges.
Authorities declined to specify how the planned attack was meant to fulfill a racist motive but suggested the defendants wanted to bring attention to their cause. Russell had discussed targeting the grid during cold weather “when most people are using max
electricity,” authorities alleged.
According to the complaint, Clendaniel was planning to target five substations situated in a ring around Baltimore, a majority-Black city mostly surrounded by heavily white suburban areas.
Residents remain away from homes
It’s unclear when evacuated residents might be able to return home to the area where officials released and burned toxic chemicals from the wreckage of a derailed train, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday.
Residents near the site in East Palestine, close to the Pennsylvania line, were ordered beforehand to leave because of the risk of death or serious injury from toxic fumes. Flames and black smoke billowed into the sky Monday evening when crews released and burned vinyl chloride from five derailed tanker cars that were in danger of exploding.
DeWine said on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday morning that officials are closely monitoring the air quality
outside the immediate area and that it’s “so far, so good.” Ohio National Guard members wearing protective gear are expected to be sent into the area closer to the site with sensors to check the air, he said.
Residents just outside the evacuation zone in East Palestine and in neighboring Beaver County, Pennsylvania, were urged to stay indoors as a precaution.
Authorities believed most, if not all, residents in the danger zone had left. They went through the area three times trying to get people out before releasing the vinyl chloride, DeWine said.
2 children found year after abduction
Two abducted children who had been missing from Missouri for almost a year were found in a central Florida grocery store with their noncustodial mother,
who was taken into police custody, authorities said.
Kristi Gilley was arrested last Wednesday on an outof-state fugitive warrant. Court records show Gilley, 36, remained in jail.
High Springs police officers found Gilley and the two children in a Winn Dixie super market after running a routine vehicle tag check that indicated the vehicle’s owner was a fugitive, the High Springs Police Department said in a news release.
High Springs is located about 22 miles northwest of Gainesville, Florida.
The children had been missing from Clay County, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City, since March.
The High Springs Police Department said the children were turned over to the Florida Department of Children and Families and would be reunited with family members in Missouri.