Sam Woodward, former member of Atomwaffen Division, was arrested in 2018 for murder of gay, Jewish pre-med student

Six years after his arrest, a former member of the Atomwaffen Division will face trial in a southern California courtroom over the killing of his former high school classmate – a murder that rocketed the neo-Nazi group to international notoriety and highlighted the wave of violence by far-right American extremists during the presidency of Donald Trump.

Sam Woodward was arrested on 15 January 2018 and charged with the murder of Blaze Bernstein, a former fellow student at the Orange County School of the Arts. Bernstein, a gay and Jewish pre-med student, had been missing for a week before his body was discovered in a shallow grave.

On the night of 10 January 2018, the two men met at Borrego Park in the Orange county city of Lake Forest, according to Orange county sheriff’s reports. Bernstein was home from the University of Pennsylvania on winter break, and re-established contact with his former high school classmate through Tinder, where the two had previously connected.

Bernstein did not hide his identity as a gay man. Although Woodward was not open about his, while in high school he made passes at more than one of his male classmates, according to reporting in Mother Jones.

Bernstein’s body was found with 19 stab wounds. Investigators’ attention quickly turned to Woodward, the well-off son of an observant, conservative Catholic family from Newport Beach.

    • iopq@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I defend their right to speak that they want to genocide Jews. I just ask their visas to be cancelled to let in non-hateful people. Visas are given on a voluntary basis, there’s no right to visit the US or Canada

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I never said they should be charged with a crime, how am I backtracking? They have the right to say they that they advocate for Jewish genocide. But you have to face consequences for your actions.

            • iopq@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              That’s the point, we have to be intolerant of intolerance like anti-Semitism

              But I’m a citizen so you can’t

                • iopq@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  Yes, the ones that are citizens you can’t deport. But we’re cool with deporting anti-Semitic people on visas then?

                  • Madison420@lemmy.world
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                    7 months ago

                    No. The Constitution protects citizen and non citizen alike or it wouldn’t be of use if it didn’t.