Members of a white supremacist group, who were arrested last week, were captured by a hidden camera voicing their hope that a gun rights rally in Virginia that was planned for Martin Luther King Day would result in violence ending in a “full blown civil war,” according to court documents filed by federal prosecutors.
According to the Associated Press, in the court filing, prosecutors argued that Patrik Jordan Mathews, a Canadian national, and two other members of the white supremacist group “The Base” should be kept in federal custody.
Mathews, prosecutors also noted, had recorded himself calling for other acts of violence including killing people, poisoning water supplies and derailing trains.
Last month, Mathews referred to the contentious Virginia rally, that was scheduled on Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a “boundless” opportunity.
Investigators captured the conversation between him and two other group members on a closed-circuit television camera and microphone that they installed in a Delaware home.
“And the thing is you’ve got tons of guys who … should be radicalized enough to know that all you gotta do is start making things go wrong and if Virginia can spiral out to (expletive) full-blown civil war,” Mathews said, according to the report.
The three men, which also included Brian Mark Lemley Jr., 33; and William Garfield Bilbrough, 19, were taken into custody last Thursday prior to the event and charged with multiple firearms and immigration-related offenses.
Four other men linked to the group were also arrested by authorities in Georgia and Wisconsin.