Washington Hate Groups: Map Shows Local Extremist Organizations

Image: This July 8, 2017 photo shows members of the KKK escorted by police past a large group of protesters during a KKK rally in Charlottesville, Va.

SEATTLE, WA - There are at least 11 active hate groups operating in Washington state, from a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Vancover to a neo-Nazi group in Spokane, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Those 11 groups are among the close to 1,000 SPLC has mapped across the U.S.

Hate groups have never gone away, but images out of Charlottesville of neo-Nazis marching with tiki torches - and the ensuing ISIS-like attack on counter-Nazi protesters that left 32-year-old Heather Heyer dead - has brought the issue front-and-center.

One of the extremist groups in Washington state might be familiar to locals. The group ACT For America held a "March Against Sharia" in Seattle in June, which was organized locally by Anthony Parish of Kent. The SPLC alleges that ACT is an anti-Muslim group. ACT has chapters in this state, but is based in Virginia.

Here are the other extremist groups operating in the state, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center:

• Bremerton - American Vanguard, white nationalists
• Seattle - Sicarii 1715, black separatist
• Bellevue - Faith Freedom, anti-Muslim
• Vancouver - White Knights of the Ku Klux Kan
• Bellingham - Fortress Of Faith, anti-Muslim
• Colville - Our Place Fellowship, Christian identity movement
• Spokane - The Daily Stormer, neo-Nazi website
• Chattaroy - Truth In Love Project, anti-Muslim
• Spokane Valley - Act For America, anti-Muslim
• Statewide - Firm 22, racist skinheads
• Statewide - ACT For America

There's evidence of other hate-groups operating in the state. In March, Olympia police arrested 32-year-old Frank Glen Cole Jr. for armed robbery. Cole allegedly has ties the group Hakenkreuz Skinheads, according to the Anti-Defamation League. One of Cole's associates, Daniel Brett Rowe of Richland, was arrested in 2016 after allegedly stabbing an interracial couple in an Olympia bar.

Also in 2016, Brent Ward Luyster, 35, was arrested near Vancouver, Wash., after he allegedly murdered three people. Luyster was called a neo-Nazi by the SPLC, which published photos of Luyster covered in racist tattoos.

In 2015, a Seattle photographer snapped a photo of a man riding on a ferry sporting a swastika armband. And, according to the website for the international racist group Crew 38, several administrators of the group's forum are located in Washington state.

In one of the most notorious cases, Spokane police in 2011 arrested a man named Kevin William Harpham of Addy for planting a pipe bomb along the route of the Martin Luther King Jr. parade in that city. The bomb never went off and Harpham is serving a 32-year prison sentence. He was found to have ties to the National Alliance white supremacy group.

You can view SPLC's map here.

Image via Steve Helber/Associated Press