Feds: White supremacist group discussed bombing Pa. Capitol rally
Members of a white supremacist group with ties to the Lehigh Valley discussed setting off a suicide bomb to kill counter protesters expected to show up at a November 2016 neo-**** rally at the Pennsylvania Capitol, a court filing says.
Confidential witnesses working with state and federal law enforcement reported the discussion took place during a fall 2016 meeting at the Potter County property of Aryan Strike Force president Ronald “Dozer” Pulcher, the filing says.
At the meeting, members of the group also trained to use weapons, according to the document in a federal drug and gun trafficking case against other members of the group.
It says members of Aryan Strike Force, including founder Joshua Steever of Phillipsburg, discussed the plan with members of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-**** group that held a Nov. 5, 2016, rally at the state Capitol. Cooperating witnesses told investigators that an Aryan Strike Force member who had a life-threatening disease told the group he was willing to blow himself up. The intended targets of the bomb, which was to be hidden inside the ailing Aryan Strike Force member’s oxygen tank, were anti-facist protesters expected to oppose the neo-**** rally, according to the court filing.
The U.S. attorney’s office cited the bomb plot as support for its argument that Aryan Strike Force was a violent criminal enterprise involved in drug distribution, illegal weapons possession and other crimes before the undercover operation.
Among other incidents cited by prosecutors in the filing is a racially motivated fight Steever instigated outside a Wilson strip club in December 2016. Steever and other members of the group went to the club intending to assault a woman who had threatened members of the group, the filing says.
Steever came out of the altercation with serious injuries after he was stoned in the street by a group of black men who he antagonized with a racial epithet and a **** salute, police said.
The men who assaulted Steever were not identified and no one was charged, but it was clear from witnesses and security video that Steever was looking for a fight, said Wilson police Detective Jason Hillis, who investigated the incident.
“I would say that he had a lot to do with it. He was standing up in the middle of the bar doing a Heil Hitler salute. That was instigating,” Hillis said.
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