Source: Sean Pavone / Getty
On Monday, we reported that the FBI announced the arrests of two apparently disgruntled white people who allegedly conspired to attack Baltimore, Maryland’s power grid in what is believed to be a “racially motivated” plot. One of the would-be domestic terrorists, Brandon Russell, of Orlando, is the founder of Atomwaffen Division, an international neo-Nazi group. Unsurprisingly, the other half of the white rage duo, Sarah Clendaniel, of Catonsville, Maryland, is somewhat of a neo-Nazi herself, according to her own family members.
From CBS Baltimore:
Sarah Beth Clendaniel, who believed her days were numbered because of serious health conditions, allegedly conspired with a Florida-based neo-Nazi leader, planning to shoot out several electrical substations around Baltimore and create chaos in the majority-Black city.
“She’s going out with a bang,” her nephew Daniel Clites told The Associated Press.
“She would have no problem saying she’s racist,” Clites said. “She wanted to bring attention to her cause.”
Clites said he disagreed with her extremist views, as did her mother, Lanette Clendaniel. They said her descent into neo-Naziism occurred against a backdrop of mental health issues and drug addiction that sometimes landed her in prison.
“I knew what she believed, and she knew what I believed,” said Lanette, who’s raising two of Clendaniel’s children. “There was nothing I could do.”
She said arguing with her daughter was useless. “But my philosophy is that we all live on this planet, so we better get along,” she added.
Clendaniel’s family members say she actually befriended a number of white supremacists over the years, including her partner in angry Caucasian crime, Russell.
At the time of her arrest, Clendaniel was already on parole from a 2016 robbery she was convicted of. In fact, just like Russell had a history of conspiring to destroy power grids, Clendaniel had her own criminal past, which, to no one’s surprise, involved fellow white supremacists.
More from CBS:
As a teenager, Clendaniel was arrested for robbing a Cecil County convenience store with a butcher knife. Arresting officers noted “track marks, cuts and infections” on both her arms. She was pregnant at the time, and her attorney said she was receiving methadone treatment, according to The Cecil Whig.
She gave birth to her first child behind bars.
“The prison system is just a revolving door, just another fallen system,” Lanette said. “There’s no real help” for people facing addiction.
Sometime after her release in 2008, Clendaniel moved to Iowa. There, she dated a man with substance abuse issues and white supremacist connections, court records show. In their shared apartment, police once found an estimated 2,000 syringes, some with the needles exposed, in the presence of a child. After her boyfriend landed in federal prison, Clendaniel returned to Maryland.
In 2016, she was arrested at the same convenience store in her hometown, this time for brandishing a machete and demanding cash. Police said she had a crack pipe, hypodermic needles and various pills in her possession. She later pleaded guilty to robbery and was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Lanette also mentioned that, despite their differences, she and her daughter maintained a bond over their mutual support for former President Donald Trump.
Whaaaah? A white supremacist is also a conservative Trump supporter? You don’t say. It’s almost as of Republicans have created a political atmosphere that makes it impossible for them to keep neo-Nazis and other white supremacist constituents out of their Klanbase…I mean, fanbase.
Sad.
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