Tuesday, October 18, 2016
BY TOBIAS SALINGER
(L-R) Gavin Wright, 49, Curtis Allen, 49, and Patrick Stein, 47, face charges of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. (SEDGWICK COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE VIA AP)
Family members of one of three Kansas men accused of targeting Somali immigrants in a bomb plot are “extremely grateful” he was caught, they said Monday.
FBI agents said Curtis Allen, 49, Gavin Wright, 49, and Patrick Stein, 47, planned to blow up four car bombs at a Garden City apartment complex and mosque. The three men linked to a militia cell called “The Crusaders” were charged Friday with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction.
Stein’s family asked for privacy in a statement released through their attorney Monday but thanked all law enforcement agencies involved with foiling the attack.
“The Stein family is shocked and devastated by the news we received last Friday,” his family said. “We do not support discrimination of any sort and have never advocated or condoned violence as a solution to differences.”
Magistrate Judge Gwynne Birzer appointed the three men lawyers and scheduled detention hearings Friday for Stein and Wright during the trio’s first federal court appearance. Allen will return to court next Monday.
Magistrate Judge Gwynne Birzer appointed the three men lawyers and scheduled detention hearings Friday for Stein and Wright during the trio’s first federal court appearance. Allen will return to court next Monday.
Allen, Wright and Stein must remain behind bars at least until the hearings that will decide their bond status, Birzer ruled. Federal prosecutor Anthony Mattivi argued the men pose a danger and requested that they be incarcerated for their whole trial, The Wichita Eagle reported.
Defense attorneys declined to comment following the short hearing in Wichita’s federal courthouse Monday.
Investigators said the Crusaders had been discussing for months how to attack the area’s Muslim immigrants, whom the three men referred to as “cockroaches.” They chose a 120-resident apartment complex home to Somali immigrants as their target, according to a criminal complaint.
A paid informant alerted the FBI in February, and the tipster had been recording their meetings ever since, investigators said. FBI agents said they had stockpiled guns and ammunition, gathered explosive components and planned to release a manifesto.
FBI agents said the three men planned to blow up four car bombs at this Garden City, Kan., apartment complex and mosque home to Somali refugees. (KWCH-TV)
The agents working the case went “deep into a hidden culture of hatred and violence,” acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said last week. “Many Kansans may find it as startling as I do that such things could happen here.”
The Western Kansas town of 27,000 people has drawn refugees from 10 different African countries, including 500 Somalis, Kansas State University professor Dr. Debra Bolton told the Eagle.
Many of the refugees work at a local Tyson Foods beef slaughterhouse, and students at local schools speak 35 languages and dialects other than English, according to Bolton’s research.
“So many of them say it’s a struggle to be here but worth it for not having the violence they lived with day to day,” Bolton said. “They came here for the peace and quiet and love it, and knowing that this violence could have happened to them is devastating.”
FBI officials and local police spoke to a crowd of hundreds of people Saturday morning outside the mosque converted from an apartment, the Eagle reported.
“The only answer I can give you about why this happened is that they wanted to attack your religious beliefs,” Garden City Police Chief Michael Utz said. “But you need to know that whether you are an immigrant or not, you are all Garden Citians.”
He continued, “Some of you have said you can’t go to your mosque to pray or that you can’t go to your homes because you are afraid. But we and the sheriff and the FBI are here to say that you are safe in Garden City and safe in the United States of America.”
With News Wire Services.