Arizona Man indicted on gun charges planned a mass shooting of African Americans and other minorities to incite a race war ahead of the election

Mark Adams Prieto, 58, of Prescott, Ariz., was indicted on charges of firearms trafficking, transfer of a firearm for use in a hate crime, and possession of an unregistered firearm, the U.S. attorneys office in Arizona said in a release Tuesday.

Starting in January 2024, according to the U.S. attorneys office, Prieto began talking to two individuals he did not know worked for the FBI to “devise a plan to commit a mass shooting of African Americans and other minorities to incite a race war” ahead of the election.

The shooting was allegedly planned for an Atlanta concert May 14-15, according to the release. [Apparently Bad Bunny]

Prieto was stopped by law enforcement driving east from Arizona through New Mexico on May 14, and he was found to be in possession of seven firearms and was taken into federal custody

DaisyDay said:

What would be the benefit of a race war?

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Far-right accelerationist terrorism​

since the late 2010s, international networks of neo-fascists, neo-Nazis, White nationalists, and White supremacists have increasingly used the term "accelerationism" to refer to right-wing extremistgoals, and have been known to refer to an "acceleration" of racial conflict through violent means such as assassinations, murders, terrorist attacks and eventual societal collapse, to achieve the building of a White ethnostate.[9][10][11] Far-right accelerationism has been widely considered as detrimental to public safety.[32] The inspiration for this distinct variation is occasionally cited as American Nazi Party and National Socialist Liberation Front member James Mason's newsletter Siege, where he argued for sabotage, mass killings, and assassinations of high-profile targets to destabilize and destroy the current society, seen as a system upholding a Jewishand multicultural New World Order.[9] His works were republished and popularized by the Iron March forum and Atomwaffen Division, right-wing extremist organizations strongly connected to various terrorist attacks, murders, and assaults.[9][33][34][35] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks hate groups and files class action lawsuits against discriminatory organizations and entities, "on the case of white supremacists, the accelerationist set sees modern society as irredeemable and believe it should be pushed to collapse so a fascist society built on ethnonationalism can take its place. What defines white supremacist accelerationists is their belief that violence is the only way to pursue their political goals."[35]

Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the perpetrator of the Christchurch mosque shootings that killed 51 people and injured 49 others, strongly encouraged right-wing accelerationism in a section of his manifesto titled "Destabilization and Accelerationism: Tactics". It also influenced John Timothy Earnest, the perpetrator of the Escondido mosque fire at Dar-ul-Arqam Mosque in Escondido, California; and committing the Poway synagogue shooting which resulted in one dead and three injured, and influenced Patrick Crusius, the perpetrator of the El Paso Walmart shooting that killed 23 people and injured 23 others.

Man planned mass shooting of Black people to start ‘race war,’ feds say​

Prieto made the plans with them during meetups at gun shows across Arizona, fixating on the racist messages he wanted to send and the desire to “fight back” against Black, Jewish and Muslim people, according to the criminal complaint.

He “wanted it clear that the attack was racially motivated,” FBI Special Agent Ryan Harp wrote in the complaint. Prieto allegedly said he planned to leave Confederate flags at the shooting venue and to shout phrases including “Black lives don’t matter, White lives matter.”

“This case is symptomatic of the state of political violence and extremism in the United States today,” Lewis said. The idea of committing an “act of mass violence with the hopes that it will trigger a cascade of violence … is an increasingly common narrative within a lot of these far-right neo-Nazi spaces.”

According to the indictment, Prieto said his attack needed to happen before November’s presidential election. He allegedly spoke about a desire to incite a race war and his belief that the government would impose martial law after the election.