Illinois Senate Asks Police To Treat Neo-Nazis Like Terrorists
By Emma G. Gallegos in News on Aug 14, 2017 3:20PM
Photo: Tyler LaRiviere
The Illinois state Senate has passed a resolution asking law enforcement to treat white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups as domestic terrorist organizations. The resolution comes on the heels of a deadly attack on anti-racist counter protestors in Charlottesville, Virginia over the weekend. Yesterday hundreds of Chicagoans marched in solidarity with the victims of the brutal attack, who included Heather Heyer, 32, who was killed when a driver plowed into a crowd of protestors. The alleged driver, James Alex Fields Jr., 20, of Ohio, faces a charge of second-degree murder.
The resolution asks police to "recognize these white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups as terrorist organizations, and to pursue the criminal elements of these domestic terrorist organizations in the same manner and with the same fervor used to protect the United States from other manifestations of terrorism." That is, to treat it the same way it might treat, say, ISIS.
The Senate calls out white nationalism, neo-Nazism and the "alt-right" for its intimidation and violence against individuals on the basis of their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and immigration status. It recognizes that these sorts of groups are "continuing to grow."
"It is vital that we stand in total opposition to the hatred, bigotry and violence displayed by the white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups in Charlottesville this past weekend," sponsoring Sen. Don Harmon, D-Oak Park told the Chicago Tribune. "They are the heirs to the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. We fought two bloody wars in opposition to their ideologies. We must continue to fight those same twisted ideologies today."
Since Trump's candidacy, there has been increasing visibility of these sorts of groups around Chicago. One white nationalist group called Identity Evropa left flyers around the Loop and the University of Chicago. One church in Pilsen has been vandalized several times over the last year by extremists, and it even received a visit from a suspected white supremacist who also vandalized a synagogue. Its pastor complained that police didn't seem to take their complaints seriously.
If you're curious about this kind of domestic terrorism, you can check out the Southern Poverty Law Center's map of hate groups in your very own back yard.