The suicide of a teenager in Colorado exposed the existence of a neo-Nazi Facebook group whose members talked about killing Blacks and Jews and recruited in high schools across the state.
Its members posted messages referring to Hitler’s ethnic cleansing and promoting white power sentiment and movements.
“You can hang Jews on trees, shoot them right in the knees,” wrote one group member. “Gas as many as you please.”
The racist Facebook group was called the “4th Reich’s Official Group Chat” since its members believed that they were the ideological descendants of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, the Nazi regime in Germany from 1936 to 1945 that killed 11 million people, including six million Jews—two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe.
According to police, the existence of the group was known after their leader killed himself on Sept. 21 “to show his allegiance to the Nazi party and the killing of Jewish people,” said a police report.
The teen, whose name was not published in the report, was known online by the handle, “The Fuhrer,” and attended Boulder Preparatory high school.
The Nazi group had members from other schools like Boulder High, Centaurus High in Lafayette, Monarch High in Louisville, Pomona High in Arvada and Colorado Mountain College. The group members encouraged members to recruit other teens so they could “complete” their “mission.”
Colorado police didn’t press charges against any of the teens since according to them there was no credible threat of violence, but all the students identified as members of the group were expelled from their respective schools.