Yesterday, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz murdered 17 people and injured 14 others in a high school shooting in Parkland Florida. Now we are learning he has ties to White Supremacists. He has been charged with multiple counts of premeditated murder, which in Florida, carries the death penalty.
The Anti-Defamation League, a non-profit dedicated fighting Antisemitism, bigotry, and advancing civil rights has learned that the Parkland shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was involved with a Florida white supremacist group. Shocking.
In a report released on Thursday, the ADL stated that "Nikolas Cruz, alleged perpetrator in the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, was associated with white supremacist group Republic of Florida & participated in the group's training exercises, according to the group's leader." The ROF describes itself as a "white civil rights organization fighting for white identitarian politics" to create a "white ethnostate" in Florida.
According to the ADL report, the leader of Republic of Florida, who calls himself Jordan Jereb, "said that Cruz was associated with ROF, having been "brought up" by another member. Jereb added that Cruz had participated in one or more ROF training exercises in the Tallahassee area, carpooling with other ROF members from south Florida." Jereb also explained that Cruz chose Valentine's Day for the school shooting because he had "trouble with a girl" and that Cruz "acted on his own behalf of what he just did, and he's solely responsible."
Since the election of President Donald Trump, white nationalism, including people who self-identify as Nazis, has been on the rise in the United States. But it's not a new phenomenon. The American Nazi movement dates back to at least the 1930s.
But what is so striking about this, are that people who claim to be patriots are branding themselves to an ideology over which a World War was fought (we won) and between 60 and 100 million people perished, including 6 million Jews in German concentration camps during the Holocaust. In Illinois, a Holocaust denier is poised to win the Republican nomination for a US House seat, though it's widely believed he will get blitzkrieged in the election.
