Police: Georgia men part of white supremacist group planning murder

Authorities in North Georgia said they have arrested three men who belong to a white supremacist organization that was plotting to kill a Bartow County couple, overthrow the government and start a race war.

Floyd County Police allege the three are members of “the Base,” described as a violent organization that has a substantial presence south of Rome in the rural Silver Creek community. The group’s goal, police said, is to “establish a white ethno-state.” The men — Michael John Helterbrand, 25, of Dalton; Jacob Kaderli, 19, of Dacula; and Luke Austin Lane, 21, of Silver Creek — plotted in North Georgia last year with a fourth member of the same group, a Canadian national named Patrick Jordan Mathews, according to Floyd police.

Federal law enforcement authorities arrested Mathews, a former combat engineer in the Canadian Army Reserve, and two other Base members in Maryland and charged them with firearm-related offenses this week. Mathews had discussed participating in a pro-gun rally Monday in Richmond, Va., where state lawmakers are considering gun control measures, The New York Times reported. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam instituted a temporary ban on firearms on Capitol grounds ahead of the rally, citing intelligence that extremist groups were threatening violence. A Virginia Circuit Court judge upheld the order in a ruling Thursday.

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