Page 296 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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276———The Order

However, Mathews stayed involved with white of the National Alliance and Frazier Glenn Miller of
supremacists through meetings of the Aryan Nations the White Patriot Party.
and the National Alliance. In October 1983, at his fam- In April 1984, shortly after the Seattle armored car
ily compound in Metaline Falls, Washington, he and robbery, Pierce and another Order member, Jack
eight other men—some neo-Nazi militants and others Kemp, decided to go out on their own and commit a
participants in the racist Christian Identity movement— crime without first telling their associates. They drove
took an oath to work toward a white supremacist to Boise, Idaho and planted a homemade bomb in
society, and the Order was born. an empty synagogue. The resulting blast did little
To finance their group, members of the Order damage and ultimately angered the other members.
turned to crime; initially they targeted pimps, drug Mathews was especially angry as he saw the action as
dealers, and anybody else they judged had no morals, an unnecessary risk considering little damage had
convincing themselves they were doing God’s work. been done and nobody was hurt or killed.
Their first heist was a pornographic video store, where Then in May, the Order committed its first murder:
the total take was $369.10. After that disappointing Walter West, an Aryan Nations member, had become
start, they escalated to counterfeiting and bank rob- a security threat. It was believed he was drinking
bery. In December 1983, several members began “the and talking about the Order’s activities in local bars.
revolution” by passing phony money in stores near West was killed and buried in a wooded area by four
Spokane, Washington, when one member, Bruce members—Kemp, Randy Duey, David Tate, and
Pierce (no relation to William Pierce), was discovered James Dye.
passing bad currency and arrested. Released on bail, The following month, Mathews enlisted his lover’s
he became a fugitive, continuing to work with the mother, Jean Craig, to track Denver radio show host
Order until his capture in 1985. Alan Berg and prepare a detailed dossier of the popu-
From shortly after Pierce’s arrest in December 1983 lar radio personality’s habits and movements. Berg
through the summer of the following year, the group was targeted because he was Jewish and a vocal oppo-
engaged in a very profitable crime spree. They pulled nent of right-wing extremism. Informants later con-
off two bank robberies that netted them $24,952 and firmed that David Lane drove Mathews, Pierce, and
$3,600, respectively. Finding those funds insufficient Scutari to Berg’s home, where Pierce shot Berg several
to bankroll a full-scale revolution, they invested in a times with a machine gun. The Order had an assassi-
more sophisticated counterfeiting scheme. For this, nation list that included Morris Dees, who operated the
they recruited Robert Merki, a counterfeiter who had Southern Poverty Law Center, and Norman Lear, a
been arrested and fled while released on bail. They producer of television programs that often showed
chose also to engage in a more daring and elaborately blacks in a positive light. None of these other assassi-
schemed source of income—armored car robbery. nations were carried out.
Their first attempt took place in March and earned While seemingly a huge success, in the long term
them $43,000. For the second armored car robbery, in the Ukiah robbery proved a failure in one respect.
April, they first set off a bomb in a pornographic movie Mathews made a crucial error, dropping the gun he
house in Seattle in order to create a diversion for was using in the back of the armored car. The gun,
police. The take was $230,379 in U.S. currency, plus found at the scene by police, was traced to another
checks and some Canadian currency. member of the Order, Andrew V. Barnhill. That put
In July, a third armored car robbery, in Ukiah, the FBI on a trail that led to several members, forcing
California, netted them $3.8 million. The money was the group underground.
divided among the members for salary and various Their ultimate downfall began when Thomas
enterprises. One member, Randall Rader—a survival- Martinez was arrested in Philadelphia for passing
ist trainer formerly of the Covenant, the Sword, and the counterfeit money that Lane had brought to him
Arm of the Lord (CSA)—was given enough money to shortly after the Berg assassination. When it came time
build and outfit a militia training camp in Priest River, for his trial, Martinez cooperated with authorities, and
Idaho. Richard Scutari, the group’s security expert, in November 1984, tricked Mathews into meeting with
was given money to invest in security equipment. him in Portland. Gary Yarbrough was also at the meet-
Allotments were also dispersed to various heads of ing. Wanted by the FBI for shooting at several agents,
right-winged extremist groups, such as William Pierce a search of Yarbrough’s home turned up the gun that