The American Knights of the KKK held a rally on the Hall County Courthouse steps, followed by a cross-burning in nearby Winder. A few years later, in 2001, the nation’s largest Neo-Nazi organization, the National Alliance, staged a rally in Hall County.
Santos Aguilar of the Alianza Del Pueblo, an advocacy center for immigrants in Knoxville, Tenn., said he believes the number of hate groups taking aim at immigrants continues to grow.
“The majority of the crimes are not reported to the law enforcement agencies,” he says.
While a member of the North Georgia White Knights, Schertz took two men shopping for bomb-making materials at a home improvement store, unaware that the two were an undercover federal agent and a confidential informant.
Schertz is charged with teaching and demonstrating how to make a weapon of mass destruction and interstate transport of explosive material with intent to kill or injure. He is being held without bond.
Schertz’s attorney, Mike Caputo, declined to comment on the charges, but says he is working on a plea agreement. He says Schertz is a military veteran and has no previous criminal record.
His Klan leader, Jeffery, says Schertz was thrown out of the Klan for unrelated disobedience in mid-May — weeks after the alleged bomb making and selling in April.
“We kicked him out for breaking his oath that he swore before God,” Jeffery, 43, says. “We are not a violence-making group, and we don’t believe in that. This isn’t the ’50s and ’60s.”
— Associated Press
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