MONDAY, AUGUST 19 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

BY MORGAN KRAKOW

A man stands with a rifle, shoot-

ing into the dark. Sirens and

screams can be heard in the back-

ground of the video posted to Ins-

tagram.

“Police identified the

Youngstown Jewish Family Com-

munity shooter as local white na-

tionalist Seamus O’Rearedon,” the

caption says. The geolocation on

the Instagram video was set to the

Jewish Community Center of

Youngstown, Ohio.

The attack never happened, but

police say they apprehended the

man they say made the threats — a

self-described white nationalist

with a significant arsenal.

On Saturday, police arrested the

alleged owner of the Instagram

account, 20-year-old James Pat-

rick Reardon, on charges of tele-

communications harassment and

aggravated menacing. The day be-

fore, authorities searched the New

Middletown home of Reardon’s

parents, according to WFMJ, and

seized a cache of weaponry, in-

cluding knives, two assault rifles

and a large amount of ammuni-

tion, as well as a gas mask and

bulletproof armor.

“This is a person that has de-

clared himself as a white national-

ist. With the hate crimes and ev-

erything else going on, we want to

make sure we did our part to make

sure this person was taken off the

streets very quickly,” Police Chief

Vince D’Egidio told WYTV.

The FBI said in a statement that

Reardon was being held on “local

charges” and that more details

could not be released because it’s

“an ongoing investigation.” Police

in New Middletown did not re-

spond to a request for comment.

The arrest comes less than a

month after a shooting at an El

Paso shopping center in which 22

people were killed and dozens

were injured. Before the shooting,

police believe, the alleged gunman

posted a declaration touting racist

ideals. Authorities are consider-

ing hate crime charges for that

alleged shooter.

It has been less than a year since

a gunman killed 11 people at the

Tree of Life synagogue in Pitts-

burgh after posting anti-Semitic

statements online. And in April, a

shooter opened fire at the Chabad

of Poway near San Diego, killing

one and wounding three others.

The suspect was charged with 109

federal hate crimes and civil rights

violations — making it possible for

him to face the death penalty, au-

thorities said.

WFMJ reports Reardon took

part in the 2017 Charlottesville

“Unite the Right” rally and was

interviewed for a documentary

about his views. In the video, the

interviewee says that he does not

consider himself a neo-Nazi but a

member of the alt-right, saying

that he wants “a homeland for

white people.”

Bonnie Deutsch Burdman, the

director of community relations at

the Youngstown Area Jewish Fed-

eration said Northeast Ohio has a

“very close-knit, very vibrant Jew-

ish community with a very vibrant

and active Jewish community cen-

ter.” The JCC and Federation also

have a Jewish nursing home, as-

sisted living facility and family

services division in addition to a

large campus in Youngstown,

Burdman said.

Andy Lipkin, the executive vice

president of the Youngstown Area

Jewish Federation, said his or-

ganization was made aware of

posts from an account, with the

username “ira_seamus,” Rear-

don’s alleged online pseudonym.

They quickly got in touch with

local law enforcement as well as

leaders from the local synagogues.

“We take very seriously the

need to be vigilant to ensure the

safety of all members of the local

Jewish community, as well as all

members and guests of our Jewish

Community Center and our other

agencies,” Lipkin said in a state-

ment. “Security has become a vital

part of the mission of the

Youngstown Area Jewish Federa-

tion, a mission from which we will

never waver.”

Reardon is being held at the

Mahoning County Jail. His bail

was set a $250,000.

[email protected]

Matt Zapotosky contributed to this

report.

Police: Man threatened

Jewish center in Ohio

BY ANNIE LINSKEY

columbia, s.c. — At services
Sunday morning, a pastor mis-
identified Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s
husband. The day before, the man
introducing Warren at the Black
Church PAC presidential candi-
date forum in Atlanta inaccurate-
ly said she was from the “great
state of New Hampshire.”
The mistakes were minor, but
they show the Massachusetts
Democrat is struggling to intro-
duce herself to black voters, even
after eight months of nonstop
campaigning.
Other candidates, including
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and
South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete
Buttigieg, also tried to expand
their appeal among nonwhite vot-
ers this weekend, as they cam-
paigned in South Carolina and
Georgia.
Black voters are key to winning
South Carolina, the fourth nomi-
nating contest in the Democratic
calendar, along with the slew of
Southern primaries where Afri-
can Americans also represent
large shares of the vote. Hillary
Clinton won the 2016 Democratic
presidential primary here be-
cause of her support among black
voters.
Buttigieg, whose support
among blacks has been too small
to measure in some polls, spent
his Sunday morning glad-hand-
ing at Bethel AME church in
Georgetown, S.C. Later, during an
interview on CNN’s “State of the
Union,” he made an appeal to
blacks, saying President Trump’s
supporters are “looking the other
way on racism.”
Sanders used his trip to release
a wide-reaching criminal justice
plan. “This state is a state which
has an even more broken criminal
justice system than the country,
and the country is pretty bad,”
Sanders said.
His plan would end for-profit
prisons, abolish the death penal-
ty, set national standards for the
use of force by police officers and
cut the prison population in half.
“We have the wealthiest coun-
try in the history of the world, and
yet we have more people in jail
today — 2 million people — than
any other country on Earth,”
Sanders said at a partitioned-off
area at a luncheon hosted by
Brookland Baptist Church in
West Columbia.

Although black churchgoers

ate nearby, Sanders delivered his

remarks to a group of mostly

white voters who came just to see

him. Several Sanders supporters

insisted they shouldn’t have to

pay for the luncheon since they

had come only to hear the candi-

date.

The overall effect — a crowd of

largely white outsiders descend-

ing on a weekly lunch for a black

church — alienated several

churchgoers.

“I was eating when he spoke,”

said Maxine Moses, an African

American woman. Although she

sat with her son just feet from

Sanders, she didn’t go listen to

him. “I might have gone and lis-

tened to him if he had attended

the Sunday service,” she said.

Sanders was better received

the day before in Atlanta, when he

briefly diverted from his typical

stump speech to talk about his

opposition to racism.

“I’m Jewish. My family came

from Poland. My father’s whole

family was wiped out by Hitler

and his white nationalism,” Sand-

ers told a mostly young black

audience in Atlanta.

“Our job is to fight racism at

every level,” Sanders continued.

“We will go to war against white

nationalism and racism in every

aspect of our lives.”

Sanders has made inroads

among blacks, with a recent Fox

News poll showing he’s the first

pick of 18 percent of black voters.

Warren was the first choice

among 8 percent of black voters.

But in South Carolina, Warren

and her team appeared to be navi-

gating the racial landscape more

astutely than Sanders. Among the

speakers warming up a crowd for

her Saturday evening in Aiken,

S.C., was Lessie Price, a local black

leader and the first vice chair of

the state’s Democratic Party.

Warren’s message, Price said,

speaks to African Americans.

“Oftentimes, it’s getting that mes-

sage out over and over and over,

and someone starts hearing it,”

said Price, who is staying neutral

in the primary.

Speaking to a black church is

particularly sensitive, she said.

“The church in the past has been a

rallying point to really see what a

candidate is truly about,” Price

said. “You have to change your

message in that setting.”

And Warren adjusted her rhet-

oric when she stepped up to the

pulpit at a sparsely attended serv-

ice at Reid Chapel AME Church

on the other side of Columbia on

Sunday morning. Rather than her

usual firebrand stemwinder, she

talked about her hardscrabble bi-

ography, including an anecdote

about how she once struggled to

control an unruly fifth-grade Sun-

day school class.

“They cut each others’ hair dur-

ing the art project,” Warren said,

adding touch of Southern ca-

dence to her voice. “Oh! They

spilled things on each others’

clothes. It was wild. The boys

climbed out the window.”

Warren said she used the story

of Noah and the ark to capture the

imagination of the class. “I start-

ed asking the kids about duty,

about what we owe to each other,”

Warren said. Eventually, she said,

a student landed on the answer,

saying, “We owe each other that

everybody gets a turn,” a com-

ment that fits into her rationale

for running for president.

Warren was traveling with the

Rev. Miniard Culpepper, the pas-

tor at Boston’s Pleasant Hill Mis-

sionary Baptist Church, whom

she referred to as a “spiritual

adviser.”

Culpepper said he has known

Warren since she ran for Senate in

2012, and he said he’s not worried

about the perception that she’s

lacking black support. “They’ll be

there,” he said in a brief interview.

“She’s just hitting her stride.”

[email protected]

Warren works to connect with blacks

MEG KINNARD/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sen. Elizabeth Warren meets with parishioners at Reid Chapel AME Church on Sunday in Columbia,

S.C., after speaking from the pulpit. She noted she once had to struggle to control Sunday schoolers.

Authorities arrest

self-described

white nationalist

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