Extremism, Anti-Semitism In Colorado: 84 Incidents In 2019

In 2019, there were 84 incidents of extremism and anti-Semitism in Colorado, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The figure for 2019 decreased from the 115 incidents reported in our state during 2018.

The occurrences in Colorado were among the 4,015 examples of extremist and anti-Semitic incidents that happened nationwide in 2019. The figure reported for 2019 is up almost 32 percent from the 3,052 incidents reported in 2018, according to the ADL.

Here are some of the most serious incidents in Colorado that the non-governmental organization included in its registry:

Terrorism Plot - November 2019:

Richard Holzer, 27, told undercover federal investigators that he was planning to blow up Temple Emanuel in Pueblo with dynamite and pipe bombs, according to a criminal complaint. Holzer referred to Jewish people and Temple Emanuel as "cancer to the community" and said, "I wish the Holocaust really did happen," the document shows. The FBI obtained photos of Holzer holding guns while wearing white supremacist and Nazi regalia.

Terrorism Plot - August 2019:

Wesley Gilreath, 29, of Boulder, posted a "hunting guide" online that listed the addresses of synagogues, mosques and refugee centers, federal authorities said. The "guide" was discovered during a child pornography investigation. Gilreath was taken into custody to prevent a possible terrorist attack, U.S. Attorney Jason Dunn said.

Vandalism - April 2019:

Swastikas were spray-painted on the outside of Church in the City-Beth Abraham, a Messianic Christian church in Denver, which was once a synagogue and still features Jewish iconography.

Harassment - September 2019:

During a soccer match between a non-Jewish school and a Jewish school in Denver, students from the non-Jewish school called the Jewish students "dirty Jews."

Harassment - September 2019:

A student in Greenwood Village posted a Snapchat image of three boys with the caption, "Me and the boys bout to exterminate the Jews."

The Anti-Defamation League tracks the incidents through news and media reports, government documents (including police reports), victim reports, extremist-related sources and the Center on Extremism investigations, according to a “Frequently Asked Questions” section on the ADL’s website.

The Anti-Defamation League’s interactive map includes information on incidents involving anti-Semitism, white supremacist propaganda, white supremacist events, extremist-police shootouts, terrorist plots and attacks and extremist murders.

Along with providing the first-of-its-kind interactive and customizable map detailing extremist and anti-Semitic incidents around the nation, the ADL also provides information on the annual quantity of white supremacist propaganda that gets spread throughout the country.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism reported 2,713 cases of circulated propaganda by white supremacist groups in 2019, compared with 1,214 cases in 2018.

Oren Segal, director of the League’s Center on Extremism, pointed to the prominence of more subtly biased rhetoric in some white supremacist material, emphasizing “patriotism.”

By emphasizing language “about empowerment, without some of the blatant racism and hatred,” Segal told the Associated Press, white supremacists are using a “tactic to try to get eyes onto their ideas in a way that’s cheap, and that brings it to a new generation of people who are learning how to even make sense out of these messages.”

The Anti-Defamation League, which was founded in 1913 to combat anti-Semitism as well as other biases, describes its mission as “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.”

You can find the complete interactive map on the ADL’s website.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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