Alabama white supremacist charged for plot to blow up black and gay students
Russell County Sheriff Heath Taylor on Sunday said that Derek Shrout had been arrested after a teacher turned over a journal which indicated that his homemade grenades were just “a step or two away from being ready to explode,” according to the Ledger-Enquirer.
A Friday search of Shrout’s home turned up bomb-making materials, including dozens of tobacco cans and two large cans filled with pellets to be used as shrapnel. The two large cans were labeled “Fat Boy” and “Little Man,” a reference to the atomic bombs that the U.S. dropped on Japan during World War II.
Reports indicated that the 17-year-old student, who was part of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC), had gotten mixed up with a white supremacist group after moving from Kansas to Fort Benning with his military family.
“At first through JROTC, he was confident, well-rounded, but as time went by, he was doing the whole white power thing,” senior class president David Kelly told WTVM.