Aryan Nations denies role in downtown bomb placement

A leader of the Aryan Nations on Saturday issued a statement denying involvement with a bomb left at Spokane’s Martin Luther King Jr. Unity March on Monday.

Morris Gullett, a longtime racist identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the leader of the Aryan Nations, e-mailed a video news release to Spokane and Idaho media. In it he said, “We absolutely do not condone this type of activity, but emphatically do condemn the use of force and terror such as the sort that is being implied was committed by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Aryan Nations, in Spokane …

A leader of the Aryan Nations on Saturday issued a statement denying involvement with a bomb left at Spokane’s Martin Luther King Jr. Unity March on Monday.

Morris Gullett, a longtime racist identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the leader of the Aryan Nations, e-mailed a video news release to Spokane and Idaho media. In it he said, “We absolutely do not condone this type of activity, but emphatically do condemn the use of force and terror such as the sort that is being implied was committed by white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Aryan Nations, in Spokane.”

He further said, “Any of our members who are known to be caught up in that kind of activity will no longer be members of the Aryan Nations.”

While he decried violence that could harm innocent people, children especially, he reiterated that his is a racist group, concerned only with the survival of “our people.”

Gullett, based in Louisiana, assumed leadership of the Aryan Nations last year, the SPLC reports, but has been active in racist groups since the 1990s.

Staff reports