Ohio synagogue attack plan found on Discord leads to 13-year-old's arrest
A 13-year-old boy is charged with planning an attack on a synagogue in Ohio in September — before the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Meanwhile, a Swedish neo-Nazi website is hacked, revealing hundreds of clients from across the United States. The Air Force disciplines 15 people in connection with an online leak of classified material, and a conspiracy theorist who defamed the victims of school shootings gets back on X, formerly known as Twitter.
It's the week in extremism.
Teenager charged in Ohio synagogue attack plan
A 13-year-old boy has been charged with planning a mass shooting at the Temple Israel synagogue in Canton, just south of Akron, Ohio, the Canton Repository reported this week.
The boy, who has not been named because he’s a minor, shared his plans on the Discord messaging platform, according to a court filing. The “detailed plan to complete a mass shooting at the Temple Israel” required law enforcement response, public notification and disruption of the local school system, the filing said.
A Stark County sheriff’s report said the plans included maps of the synagogue, which may have been made by the boy and another person from Washington state, sent through Discord.
The national context: This alleged threat occurred prior to the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Antisemitic hate crimes and incidents have been steadily increasing throughout the year across the country, and have spiked considerably since the start of the war.
The threat was first detected by analysts at Discord itself. The company told USA TODAY that its report to the FBI is what led to the arrest. "We have a zero-tolerance policy against hate and violent extremism, and when we see it, we take immediate action," John Redgrave, Discord vice president of trust and safety, said in a statement.
Discord has been used in the past by mass shooters and other extremists. Including another case in the headlines:
Air Force disciplines 15 in Discord leak
The Air Force is disciplining 15 members of the National Guard after an investigation into Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira and the leaking of hundreds of classified documents online.
Teixeira, who was arrested in April, is accused of leaking the documents to a server on Discord. He has been indicted on six counts of willful detention of defense records, and has pleaded not guilty.
The Air Force Inspector General’s office conducted an inquiry into the leak which led to the 15 individuals being disciplined. The IG report says members of Teixeira’s unit and his leadership were made aware of his questionable activities at least four times.
The report also concludes the Air Force National Guard provided insufficient guidance on how and when supervisors should report questionable activity and which intelligence lower-ranking individuals should have access to.
“Our national security demands leaders at every level protect critical assets, ensuring they do not fall into the hands of those who would do the United States or our allies and partners harm,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in a statement.
As USA TODAY reported throughout this year, the military was directed to take on a raft of new anti-extremism initiatives after the Jan. 6 insurrection, but has little to show as a result of those efforts.
A study of extremism across the armed forces was completed last year but has yet to be released.
Swedish neo-Nazi website hacked
Anti-fascist activists this week leaked a spreadsheet of what it says are customers of Midgård, a Swedish website that sells neo-Nazi and white supremacist music and merchandise. The list includes hundreds of customers from the United States, some of whom have already been identified and outed by U.S. activists.
Researchers and journalists can search the database here.
The leak was posted online by the Twitter account @afasthlm or Anti-Fascist Action Stockholm.
Freelance journalist Steven Monacelli from Texas mapped out the alleged customers, many of whom were from California, Texas, New York and Pennsylvania. On a per-capita basis, Monacelli found customers were most concentrated in Vermont, Idaho, Alaska, Wyoming, and Rhode Island.
Statistic of the week: 1.8 million
That’s how many followers conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has on X. Jones, who was sued for defamation over his false statements about the Sandy Hook school shooting, owes his victims more than $1 billion. He returned to X over the weekend after owner Elon Musk held a poll on the site asking whether the account should be reinstated.
Jones has been “permanently” banned from Twitter in 2018.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Teen charged in synagogue attack plan; names in neo-Nazi website hack
