Law enforcement arrested a neo-Nazi leader and a woman who were allegedly planning a “racially motivated” assault on electrical substations in the Baltimore area, authorities said.
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The FBI captured two people, one of them a nationally known neo-Nazi leader, before they could launch an attack on Baltimore’s power grid that had the potential to “completely destroy this entire city,” authorities said Monday .
The suspects, Brandon Russell and Sarah Clendaniel, were arrested last week in Florida and Maryland, respectively, officials said.
Federal authorities described the alleged plot as “racially or ethnically motivated.” More than 61% of Baltimore residents are black.
Russell, 27, is a founder of the Atomwaffen Division, a neo-Nazi group determined to “start the collapse of civilization,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The group admires Charles Manson and supports “the idea of lone wolf violence,” according to the Anti-Defamation League.
The alleged plot was first flagged in June of last year after an FBI informant claimed to have been contacted by Russell, who wanted to “attack electrical substations and has provided guidance on how to cause maximum damage,” according to the criminal complaint filed against the couple.
Russell then connected the informant with Clendaniel, a Maryland resident, to hatch plans for an attack on stations in and around Baltimore, federal authorities said.
The couple and the informant worked with urgency as Clendaniel said he was terminally ill with kidney disease “and was unlikely to live more than a few months,” according to the criminal complaint.
Clendaniel, 34, had five stations targeted, officials said, in Norrisville, Reisterstown and Perry Hall, Md., and two more “in the vicinity of Baltimore,” the complaint said.
Attacks on all five would be a “‘ring’ around Baltimore, and if they succeeded in any of them on the same day, they would ‘completely destroy this whole city,'” Clendaniel allegedly said in a taped conversation, disclose the complaint.
Thomas J. Sobocinski, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Baltimore office, said the suspects were serious in their efforts to cripple the city of 580,000.
“The defendants were not just talking, they were taking action to carry out their threats and pursue their extremist goals. Russell provided instructions and location information. He described attacking the power transformers as the best thing anyone could do,” he said. Sobocinski told reporters in Baltimore.
“Their actions threatened electricity and heat to our homes, hospitals and businesses.”
Russell appeared on the FBI’s radar in 2018 when his Muslim roommate killed two other roommates who had taunted him about his faith, according to the complaint.
The murder investigation in Tampa, Florida, uncovered Russell’s connection to the Atomwaffen, federal authorities said. The suspect told investigators that Russell had been planning to attack power plants in Florida.
Russell was arrested and eventually convicted of possession of an unregistered destructive device.
It was not immediately clear Monday afternoon whether Russell and Clendaniel had hired or been assigned criminal defense attorneys who could speak on their behalf.
Clendaniel and Russell were scheduled to make their initial appearances before federal magistrates in Baltimore and Orlando, respectively, on Monday afternoon.
Erek L. Barron, the United States attorney for the District of Maryland, thanked local and state law enforcement agencies for their cooperation in making these arrests.
“Together we are using all legal means necessary to keep Marylanders safe and to challenge hate-fueled violence,” Barron said.
Attacks on the country’s power grid came into focus in December, following two high-profile incidents.
There were shootings at two electrical substations in central North Carolina in early December, officials said. At the peak of Duke Energy’s outages, more than 45,000 homes and businesses were in the dark.
That incident was followed by attacks on four electrical substations over the Christmas weekend near Tacoma, Wash., as about 14,000 homes and businesses were forced to go without power, officials said.
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