3 suspects in Kansas anti-Somali plot sought a 'bloodbath'

An alleged plot to blow up a Kansas apartment complex filled with Somali immigrants one day after the November elections aimed to create a "bloodbath" to "wake up" the country politically, according to one of three members of a militia group charged with domestic terrorism, federal authorities say.

Authorities said Friday that Curtis Allen and Gavin Wright, both 49 and from Liberal, Kan., and Patrick Eugene Stein, 47, of Wright, Kan., were members of a small, anti-Muslim group called the Crusaders that espoused sovereign-citizen, anti-government, anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant extremist beliefs.

They had allegedly been plotting since February to blow up the apartment complex and mosque in Garden City, a meatpacking town in western Kansas. Prosecutors said the thwarted attack was planned for the day after the November elections.

"These individuals had the desire, the means, the capability to carry out this act of domestic terrorism," Eric Jackson, FBI Kansas City special agent in charge, said in announcing the arrests in Wichita.

Acting U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said at the news conference in downtown Wichita that the plot "was imminent and ... these individuals, they were committed to carrying this out."

According to a federal complaint released after the arrests, Stein was surreptitiously taped in June referring to the Somalis as "cockroaches" and saying "the only (expletive) way this country's ever going to get turned around is it will be a bloodbath and it will be a nasty, messy (expletive)."

"Unless a lot more people in this country wake up and smell the (expletive) coffee and decide they want this country back ... we might be too late. If they do wake up ... I think we can get it done. But it ain’t going to be nothing nice about it,” Stein was recorded as saying, according to the federal affidavit.

Beall said the investigation involved an FBI probe “deep into a hidden culture of hatred, violence.”

Under the alleged plot, the three — described as architects of the scheme — planned to park vehicles loaded with explosives at all four corners of the apartment complex and detonate them using a cellphone.

Although authorities had been monitoring the group for months through a paid informant, police moved in Tuesday after Allen's girlfriend called Liberal, Kan., police to report a domestic battery incident. Stein also told the FBI informant that he was worried Allen’s girlfriend would go to the police and disclose the militia’s plans, Beall said.

She led police to a large stash of weapons and reported Stein had recently brought a white powdery substance into the house and had been watching YouTube videos on how to make explosives. Police officers estimated they found “close to a metric ton of ammunition in Allen’s residence,” the affidavit says.

Police later arrested Allen after stopping his vehicle on the highway.

In the Wednesday search of a mobile home center that Wright owned and where Allen lived, police found a possible detonator as well as items used to make improvised explosives, the federal complaint says.

Also found, according to the affidavit, was a yellow binder and paperwork labeled "The Anarchist Cookbook."