White Nationalist Who sSaid Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting Was ‘Dry Run’ Arrested on Gun Charge

A self-described white nationalist who followed the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect on social media was arrested on a gun charge after concerned relatives called the police on him, The Washington Post reports. Jeffrey R. Clark Jr., a 30-year-old from Washington, D.C., was reportedly charged with “illegally possessing a firearm and a high-speed magazine” in a Tuesday court appearance in U.S. District Court in Washington. The Post reports that Clark was arrested on Nov. 9, after two family members alerted authorities about his increasingly worrisome outbursts, including allegedly saying the 11 victims of the synagogue shooting “deserved it.” He also reportedly told family the FBI might come looking for him because he followed synagogue shooting suspect Robert Bowers online. On the social media platform Gab, Clark wrote the synagogue shooting was a “dry run for things to come.”

The outbursts came after Clark’s brother, Edward, shot himself within hours of the Oct. 27 synagogue shooting, the newspaper reports. Family members told police both Edward and Jeffrey were involved in the alt-right movement—claiming they “fantasized about killing ‘Jews and blacks,’” according to the Post. In the brothers’ rooms, police allegedly found four guns, two bump-stock kits to convert semi-automatic weapons to fully automatic ones, two ballistic vests, two ballistic helmets, and two gas masks. Clark allegedly told the FBI he and his brother became interested in guns “because they believed there was going to be a civil war.” The newspaper reports one relative told authorities the brothers thought “there would be a race revolution and they wanted to expedite it.”