Family: Suspect in power grid plot embraced racist ideology
NORTH EAST, Md. (AP) — A woman accused of plotting an attack on Baltimore’s power grid wanted to draw attention to the white supremacist ideology she embraced during years spent in prison, where she acquired a Swastika tattoo and increasingly radical, racist views, family said.
Sarah Beth Clendaniel, who believed her days were numbered because of serious health conditions, allegedly conspired with a Florida-based neo-Nazi leader, planning to shoot out several electrical substations around Baltimore and create chaos in the majority-Black city.
“She’s going out with a bang,” her nephew Daniel Clites told The Associated Press.
Clendaniel’s recent arrest thwarted the planned attack, but the case has garnered national attention as authorities say the American power grid could become a vulnerable target for domestic terrorists.
In announcing charges against Clendaniel and her co-defendant earlier this week, federal authorities referenced “hate-fueled violence” but declined to specify how the suspects sought to fulfill a racist motive. Recent comments from Clendaniel’s relatives provide more insight.
“She would have no problem saying she’s racist,” Clites said. “She wanted to bring attention to her cause.”
Clites said he disagreed with her extremist views, as did her mother, Lanette Clendaniel. They said her descent into neo-Naziism occurred against a backdrop of mental health issues and drug addiction that sometimes landed her in prison.
“I knew what she believed, and she knew what I believed,” said Lanette, who’s raising two of Clendaniel’s children. “There was nothing I could do.”
She said arguing with her daughter was useless. “But my philosophy is that we all live on this planet, so we better get along,” she added.
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