Police Investigating Colorado Teen’s Suicide Discover His Neo-Nazi Facebook Group

Image by Reuters
After a Boulder, Colorado high school student took his own life, police found a neo-Nazi chat group that involved him and more than a dozen other students.
“You can hang Jews on trees, shoot them right in the knees. Gas as many as you please,” wrote one commenter on the Facebook conversation, titled “4th Reich Official Group Chat,” a reference to Nazi Germany’s Third Reich. According to Boulder’s Daily Camera news site, the students also celebrated “white power” and called for the murder of African-Americans.
Police learned of the group after the September suicide of its ringleader, who according to police reports attended Boulder Preparatory High School and took his own life “to show his allegiance to the Nazi party and the killing of Jewish people.” It remains unclear if he was himself Jewish, and none of the students involved have been identified because they were minors.
According to law enforcement, up to 15 students, attending different high schools in the area, participated in the group chat. As of the Daily Camera’s Tuesday report, at least five of them had been expelled from school, though the police have announced that no charges will be filed. The police learned of the group from a concerned parent.
This presidential election has seen the growing popularity of the “alt-right,” the contemporary white supremacist movement that is backing Donald Trump and has incorporated anti-Semitic appeals into its rhetoric. Much of the movement’s energy comes from online, where hate sites like the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer draw millions of unique visitors each month.
Anti-Defamation League Regional Director Scott Levin told the Daily Camera he thought the schools and police had adopted the right course of action. Nonetheless, he said, “it’s very disheartening when you hear this type of thing is taking place.”
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Jerusalem Post editor Zvika Klein, arrested in ‘Qatar-gate,’ says he’s being unfairly prosecuted for his reporting
-
Fast Forward Trump fires national security officials, reportedly at urging of Laura Loomer, far-right Jewish ‘Islamophobe’
-
Fast Forward Display honoring Jewish women graduates of naval academy removed ahead of Hegseth visit
-
Yiddish טשיקאַוועסן: מיידעלע געפֿינט 3,800־יאָריקע קמיע לעבן בית־שמש, ישׂראלTIDBITS: Little girl finds 3,800-year old amulet near Beit Shemesh, Israel
אַן עקספּערט פֿון פֿאַרצײַטיקע קמיעות האָט באַשטעטיקט אַז די קמיע איז געלעגן אויפֿן אָרט פֿונעם אַמאָליקן לאַנד כּנען.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.