Neo-Nazi to face trial in killing of former high school classmate Blaze Bernstein
Neo-Nazi to face trial in killing of former high school classmate Blaze Bernstein
Sam Woodward, former member of Atomwaffen Division, was arrested in 2018 for murder of gay, Jewish pre-med student
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.
Sounds like the killer became a Neo-Nazi because he had to repress parts of his identity and couldn't stand being something he was "supposed" to hate.
This is why we need to be intolerant of intolerance.
If you can't self-accept then you might self-attack. But why self-attack when you can project and scapegoat?
He may have been jealous of someone that was able to freely live as themself.
Right. Thoughtcrime laws would never be used to instead lock up all the Jews for being Jewish, right? No one would ever do that, if we just abolished the 1A to make everything great.
"I can imagine something bad" is a worthless counter argument. I can imagine a bad outcome for any situation that anybody has ever found themselves in.
But your imagination isn't reality. There are so many steps between hate crime legislation and your fantasy land. Even the reality of the holocaust you're alluding to had absolutely no resemblance to your racist-enabling gibberish here.
You really need to take a critical look at the people who taught you this shit.
Thoughtcrime laws would never be used to instead lock up all the Jews for being Jewish, right?
That would be intolerance though
Why do these “master race” assholes always look like they’re rocking an extra chromosome?
Same reason Republican women who support banning abortion will willingly get an abortion and say it's not the same
And we'll do it again! Wah-pow!
This story reads kind of weird. At first they make it seem like it was some gay love affair gone wrong and it's quickly spins to his connection on some website to travelling to meet with potential murderers in different states? All over the course of what 1 year? Strange
Not strange if the angle they're going for is nazist manhunter squads.
What a piece of shit, but also does six years seem like a really long time between arrest and trial?
Woodward’s trial has faced similar lengthy delays. Woodward has switched defense attorneys several times since 2018, and his defense team has repeatedly highlighted his Asperger’s diagnosis as justification for why he should be declared unfit for trial.
In 2021, the then newly elected Orange county district attorney, Todd Spitzer, called the then three year delay (partially due to the Covid-19 pandemic) in Woodward’s case “unreasonable”, but was unable to advance the case until last summer. Jury selection was started and swiftly abandoned in early March after Woodward threw a cup of water at the judge.
and his defense team has repeatedly highlighted his Asperger’s diagnosis as justification for why he should be declared unfit for trial.
Oh that's nice. Some ambulance chaser is defending a Nazi who killed a minority by claiming another minority isn't capable of coherent thought. There is being a zealous advocate and then there is bigotry.
Totally off topic, and with respect for the dead, “Blaze Bernstein” sounds like a 90s action movie star.
Even more off topic: they're literally called Woodward and Bernstein, but instead of going after Nixon, one murdered the other.
Plot twist: the one we call Woodward is a body double under deep cover since no one in the Nixon sinking ship ever released him from duty.
We like to think that HB is the soul of nazi's in California, but Newport, just across the river, has it's share.
conservative Catholic family from Newport Beach.
Why hasn't the Pope condemned this action in Latin and English?