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.

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
    84·
    8 months ago

    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.

    • VubDapple@lemmy.world
      27·
      8 months ago

      If you can’t self-accept then you might self-attack. But why self-attack when you can project and scapegoat?

    • quindraco@lemm.ee
      245·
      8 months ago

      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.

      • WamGams@lemmy.ca
        301·
        8 months ago

        The person said we need to be intolerant of intolerance and you immediately jumped to targeting Jews as a reaction.

        Why did you make that specific leap when nobody else here did, and what does it say about you that it doesn’t say about us?

        • quindraco@lemm.ee
          219·
          8 months ago

          Sure, let’s pretend you’re asking this in good faith.

          Why did you make that specific leap when nobody else here did

          1. Neither you nor I have any idea how many people who read that comment made the same leap. Since you’ve asked me about leaping to conclusions based on available information, surely you can see how weird it is, in context, for you to leap to such a conclusion based on no evidence at all, as you and I have no access to the minds of anyone who read this thread, cast no votes, and moved on.
          2. Now, if you’re asking why I made that leap when you did not, you must also acknowledge that I have no access to your inner mind. I can discuss with you why and how I made my leap, but I simply am not privy to why you did not make the same leap I did.
          3. So reducing your question to the only one I can answer, which is “why did I make that specific leap”, it’s because I am a member of several minorities, including being ethnically Jewish, and I have both studied hiatory and lived my life, the circumstances of which wholly agree with each other: every time someone tries to set up a policy whereby people are punished purely for the ideas they have in their head, I get the short end of the stick, because I tend to have unpopular ideas in my head, and the people trying to punish ideas are trying to punish the unpopular ones.

          what does it say about you that it doesn’t say about us?

          1. It could say many things, because people can disagree for many reasons. For example, a cis hetero white male neurotypical Christian who was born in the USA has, with high likelihood, gone his entire life not once being discriminated against based on the topic at hand. Of course he might not reach the same conclusion I have - he’s never known any differently. But this is one example of infinite - I could sit here all day trying to answer you and I would never be done, because people are all so different from each other. Perhaps I gave you the right answer for Adam, but Bob’s answer is that he was too tired to think seriously about it and hence reached no conclusions at all, and Carl’s answer is that he has utter faith in the government to always choose the right ideas to punish. And so on.
          • WamGams@lemmy.ca
            141·
            8 months ago

            So you support intolerance because you are Jewish?

            Yeah, I doubt that.

      • PoliticalAgitator@lemmy.world
        211·
        8 months ago

        “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.

      • Evkob@lemmy.ca
        162·
        8 months ago

        Yes, being intolerant of homophobia that habitually results in murders such as the one we’re discussing is totally equivalent to being intolerant of people practising the Jewish faith peacefully!

        • quindraco@lemm.ee
          117·
          8 months ago

          Sure, we can use your logic and pick a religion that causes more murders - after all, without many Jews, there aren’t many Jewish murderers. Would you prefer we swap to Islam or Christianity?

          And don’t think I missed you saying “peacefully”. The proposed idea is that we incarcerate “peaceful” homophobes. That’s the whole topic here, because we already incarcerate the violent ones.

          • Evkob@lemmy.ca
            7·
            8 months ago

            Hate and prejudice for a group of people cannot be peaceful, “peaceful homophobia” is an oxymoron.

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
        13·
        8 months ago

        Thoughtcrime laws would never be used to instead lock up all the Jews for being Jewish, right?

        That would be intolerance though

    • iopq@lemmy.world
      349·
      8 months ago

      I agree. I can start with the Palestinian protestors who are anti-Semitic. Deport them all

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
        25·
        8 months ago

        Yeah, anti-Semitism is intolerant. But protesting against genocide is just being intolerant of intolerance.

          • otp@sh.itjust.works
            8·
            8 months ago

            Ok? I’m not sure what you’re getting at.

            Intolerance is bad, except intolerance of intolerance. It’s a bit paradoxical, but not especially complicated (imo).

            • iopq@lemmy.world
              214·
              8 months ago

              That’s my point, look at how badly I’m downvoted here for being intolerant of intolerance

              • otp@sh.itjust.works
                7·
                8 months ago

                I think the problem is that your initial comment sounded like plain old intolerance.

                “Deport them”…and what if they’re citizens?

                Why bring up Palestine at all, as if it were some sort of gotcha?

                There’s a genocide happening in the world, and people are protesting it. That’s a good thing to protest.

                I’ve heard some of the chants, and they’re mostly stuff about freeing Palestine. Not about genociding back. Some protesters are marching with Jewish people who condemn the acts of Israel.

                I’ve even seen plenty of individuals, shared graphics, etc. of people clarifying that they do not hate Jewish people, but they hate the Israeli government and its actions.

                If you cherry-pick the people who are racist, then sure. But your comment almost makes it seem like you’re suggesting they’re the majority in those protests.

                • iopq@lemmy.world
                  28·
                  8 months ago

                  I posted a video of a Muslim just talking about how Jews killed Jesus. This goes beyond Gaza, it’s anti-Semitism. These people hate the Jews and people are downvoting me for pointing it out

                  • Glytch@lemmy.world
                    3·
                    8 months ago

                    That guy in the video you posted certainly hates Jewish people, it’s not hard to find individuals full of hate. The problem (and the downvotes) comes when you make blanket statements talking about everyone in a particular ethnic group or religion such as “these people hate the Jews”. Just because you found one member of such a group who spews antisemitic vitriol doesn’t mean everyone in that group does the same.

                    For example I wouldn’t say that everyone you associate with is Islamophobic just because you are.

        • iopq@lemmy.world
          224·
          8 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
              112·
              8 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
                  17·
                  8 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