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November 04, 2019 12:32 PM UTC

"Very Fine Person" Plotted To Blow Up Pueblo Synagogue

  • 11 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Richard Holzer.

UPDATE: The Denver Post’s Saja Hindi:

Richard Holzer allegedly met undercover agents Friday at a motel with plans to ignite explosives at Temple Emanuel in the wee hours of the morning. The undercover agents brought two pipe bombs and 14 sticks of dynamite that Holzer intended to use on the synagogue. He brought a knife, a mask and a copy of “Mein Kampf” with him, the affidavit said.

He called the plan his “mountain” and referred to Jews and the synagogue as a “cancer,” according to the affidavit.

“Like, this is a move for our race,” the affidavit quotes Holzer as saying to agents at the motel. “One of these days, we’re probably gonna do something where one of us, couple of us even, probably won’t come back.”

—–

Denver7 reporting, thank goodness we’re reading about an arrest instead of something much worse:

A white supremacist from Pueblo was arrested Friday when he met up with three undercover FBI agents in an attempt to bomb the Temple Emanuel synagogue in Pueblo as part of what he called a “racial holy war” and to wipe the synagogue “off the map” in what the FBI says amounts to “domestic terrorism.”

Richard Holzer, 27, will make his first court appearance at 2 p.m. Monday at the U.S. District Court of Colorado. Court records show he faces one count of attempting to obstruct religious exercise by force using explosives and fire.

According to a criminal complaint , undercover FBI agents had been talking with Holzer since September and had been tracking multiple Facebook accounts of his in which he talked to other white supremacists through private messages about attacking Jewish people and other minority groups.

We’ll update as we learn more. Semper vigilans.

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11 thoughts on ““Very Fine Person” Plotted To Blow Up Pueblo Synagogue”

  1. The count of "attempting to obstruct religious exercise by force using explosives and fire" seems awfully less-than-appropriate to me. Any legal experts out there who know if that's really the best the law can do for plotting actions that could certainly lead to massive injuries or deaths?

    1. The more general crime of "attempting to obtain the rank of A**hole Supreme by force using explosives and fire designed to cause injury and death" has been ruled insufficiently religious under the current DoJ guidelines.

    3. It's probably the best they can do under federal law at this time. As Pseudonymous correctly notes, that could change based on further investigation, and might result in additional charges somewhere down the line. Looks like the potential jail time for the offense cure

      Under state law, conspiracy to commit first degree arson comes to mind. The Colorado Sun article doesn't indicate that any state prosecution or investigation is under way or contemplated, though.

  2. Great that the FBI sniffed out another instance of home-grown, non-Islamic domestic terrorism. Hope the three undercover FBI agents don't have to be revealed for this one operation — I'm betting they can continue to discover other RWNJs with violent fantasies and jump in when there is any action to make the fantasy into real-world action.

  3. "The undercover agents brought two pipe bombs and 14 sticks of dynamite"

    So, if the FBI had not brought the explosives how would he have blown up the synagogue? Just asking.

    And, why dynamite? Why not RDX? Much better.

    1. According to the FBI affidavit, Holzer had already made threats with guns, said he had held a ritual in front of the synagogue and put arsenic in the water system for the building, and had contemplated welding the doors shut.  He suggested Molotov cocktails and extensive vandalism, sufficient to cause the city to condemn the building.  And then he moved on to pipe bombs and dynamite.

      He sounds like a multi-dimensional (and confused) threat. 

    1. Unfortunately, "moron who proclaimed to the world that Sandy Hook was a hoax" doesn't narrow it down much. The country is lousy with such morons, sad to say.

      However, Pueblo was indeed the home of at least one such moron.

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