Hate crimes

Neo-skinheads set up shop

by Seth Gitell

As police continue to investigate the beating by skinheads of a Muslim Harvard University student last Tuesday night, experts note that members of the World Church of the Creator, an extremist far-right group, are operating in the Boston area.

The group first gained notoriety when member Benjamin Nathan Smith went on a shooting spree last summer in Chicago, killing two people and wounding nine others. Experts say the Boston area has seen a rash of extremist activities by affiliates of the racist group.

Natick police are investigating the placement of several of the group's fliers on the door of Temple Israel earlier in September. Similar materials have been found in Framingham. In addition, men with shaved heads, wearing T- shirts promoting the group, have been spotted in Kenmore Square. On the front, the T-shirts feature the group's symbol of a crown with the letter "W"; on the back, they display a photo of Smith with the caption OUR FREE SPEECH MARTYR.

"These people are bad news," says Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Political Research Associates, which monitors the actions of extremist right-wing groups. Berlet describes the group's creed as a mixture of paganism, Odinism, and the tenets of Nietzsche; Adolf Hitler is seen as a "saint." "This is a very militant and aggressive ideology in which violence is revered," he says.

Andrew Tarsy, the civil-rights counsel at the New England office of the Anti-Defamation League, confirms the Natick and Framingham incidents. But he cautions against connecting the group with the Harvard Square attack. Likewise, Frank Pasquarello, the public information officer of the Cambridge police, says his office is not sure that the culprits in the Harvard attack were affiliated with the Church of the Creator or any other skinhead outfit. "We would like to make an arrest," Pasquarello says. "Maybe there is someone who knows who did this and will come forward."