Law center: Hate groups in United States at highest level in two decades
The U.S. had more hate groups last year than at any point in at least the past two decades, according to an organization that tracks white supremacists and other far-right extremists.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said Wednesday that the 1,020 groups it counted in 2018 is the most since 2011 and the highest number since the center broadened its survey of such groups in the 1990s. Last year’s tally also represents a 7 percent increase over the 954 groups that the Alabama-based law center counted in 2017.
Heidi Beirich, director of the law center’s Intelligence Project, said the count reflects an “enlivened American hate movement” that has been growing for the past four years.
“This time period dovetails with (Donald) Trump’s campaign and then his presidency, a period that has seen a 30 percent increase in the number of these groups,” she said. “In the three years prior to that, during the waning years of (Barack Obama’s) presidency, hate groups were actually on the decline.”
The law center, based in Montgomery, Alabama, defines a hate group as an organization that attacks or maligns an entire class of people. Beirich said the law center stands by its designations and denied its list unfairly targets conservative groups.
The number of white nationalist groups counted by the law center increased from 100 chapters in 2017 to 148 in 2018. But the number of Ku Klux Klan chapters dropped for the third year in a row, falling to 51 chapters in 2018 from 130 in 2016, according to the law center’s report.
“The KKK has not been able to appeal to younger racists, with its antiquated traditions, odd dress and lack of digital savvy. Younger extremists prefer Fred Perry polo shirts and khakis to Klan robes,” the report adds.
California teen charged with creating drug app
SAN FRANCISCO—A Northern California college freshman is facing felony charges for allegedly creating an iPhone app he dubbed the Banana Plug to sell illicit drugs. Collin Howard on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to federal drug charges in San Jose after a grand jury indicted him on Feb. 14. Howard, 18, had earlier pleaded not guilty to similar drug charges in Santa Cruz County where he was arrested in his dorm room at the University of California, Santa Cruz on Nov. 28.
The investigation began in November when a university campus police officer noticed one of many posters hung on campus advertising an app called Banana Plug, prosecutors said. The school’s mascot is the banana slug and plug is slang for a drug dealer.
Banana Plug could be downloaded from Apple’s online store and was advertised as a free game with the motto “We Have What You Want,” but users could place drug orders through the app, investigators said. The campus police and Department of Homeland Security agents said they launched an undercover sting operation that included four drug buys using the app.
UCSC spokesman Scott Hernandez-Jason said Howard is “no longer a student UC Santa Cruz.” Citing student privacy laws, Hernandez-Jason declined to say if Howard was expelled or voluntarily withdrew.
Suspect stuck in cuffs for 2 days after escape
CHARLOTTE, N.C.—The North Carolina man who made headlines on Sunday for allegedly slithering out the back window of a deputy’s patrol car apparently had less luck getting out of his handcuffs, according to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office.
Clarence Jackson Crutchfield was still wearing cuffs as bracelets when deputies tracked him down two days later at a Lincoln County home, 30 miles northwest of Charlotte, according to a press release from the sheriff’s office.
However, he did manage to cut the chain linking the cuffs, the release said.
Crutchfield, 50, was found Tuesday afternoon at a home in the small town of Denver, near Lake Norman, deputies said. Details of his capture were not released, but the police press release said he did not put up a fight.
The home where he was captured Tuesday is about 4 miles west of where Crutchfield was arrested Sunday, at the scene of a breaking and entering. Crutchfield is charged with felony breaking and entering, obtaining property by false pretenses, and three counts of possession of stolen goods, said a sheriff’s office release.
He was also charged with injury to personal property in connection with the escape, said a release.