Neo-Nazi who played role in 'swatting' plot that targeted Arlington mosque gets prison time
Police officers were speaking to the congregation at the Dar El-Eman Islamic Center in Arlington during a family-night event when panic swept across the gathering.
Someone had called 911 from a blocked number claiming to have a pipe bomb. The caller said he was going to kill everyone inside the mosque during the November 2018 incident. The bomb threat turned out to be a “swatting call” — a dangerous form of harassment intended to get police SWAT units to respond to a target’s location.
On Tuesday, an alleged neo-Nazi from the Houston area was sentenced to 41 months in federal prison for his role in that swatting conspiracy — the nation’s largest ever, according to prosecutors. The defendants targeted 134 different locations across the U.S., mostly for racist reasons, authorities say.
John Cameron Denton, 27, of Montgomery was the leader of Atomwaffen Division in Texas, a violent, white-supremacist extremist group that prosecutors say is “linked” to several murders. Denton pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit interstate threats to injure and had faced up to five years in prison.
Read more: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crime/2021/05/04/neo-nazi-who-played-role-in-swatting-plot-that-targeted-arlington-mosque-gets-prison-time/