St Charles White Supremacist Hijacked Amtrak Train, FBI Says

ST. CHARLES, MO — A 26-year-old St. Charles man, Taylor Michael Wilson, has been arrested after bringing an Amtrak train to an unexpected 2 a.m. halt in rural Nebraska in October. The criminal complaint was unsealed this week. Federal authorities say he illegally entered a restricted area of the train and engaged the emergency braking system. Passengers lunged forward in their seats and smelled the brakes burning, according to ABC-affiliate Nebraska.tv, and conductors rushed in to find Wilson playing with the train's controls.

"I'm the conductor, bitch," Wilson reportedly said, before train conductors wrestled him to the ground and restrained him. When Furnas County, Neb. Sheriff's Deputies arrived, they noticed a bulge in Wilson's pocket. A deputy asked, "What's in this?" and Wilson replied, "My dick," according to court documents.

Police found a loaded .38 caliber handgun, along with a speedloader, a device that reduces the time and effort necessary to reload a gun, usually a revolver. His backpack contained a box of ammunition, hammer and fixed-blade knife, among other items. Authorities also found business cards for the National Socialist Movement — a neo-Nazi organization — and Covenant Nation Church, a radical Christian Identity church in Alabama whose pastor believes "White people are part of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel." The church's card read: "Conquer we must, for our cause is just!"

The Christian Identity movement is a growing white supremacist faction that promotes a racist interpretation of Christianity. Among its beliefs are that Jews and African-Americans are "cursed" and that white people will rule the Earth after Christ's second coming. They have been tied to abortion clinic bombings, assassinations, and antisemitic and anti-black attacks across the country.

Wilson took part in the "alt-right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017, authorities said, bringing with him a homemade shield, bulletproof vest, and possibly one or more guns. President Trump later defended that rally, saying that both sides shared blame for violence that left one woman dead.

Wilson's cousin told law enforcement officers that Wilson was interested in "killing black people," especially during recent protests in St. Louis over the acquittal of Jason Stockley for shooting Anthony Lamar Smith. The FBI also believes that Wilson was the man who terrorized a black woman with a gun in St. Charles in April, 2016, during a road rage incident on Interstate 70, though he was not identified at the time.

When federal agents raided Wilson's home in St. Charles just before Christmas, they found a massive cache of weapons and ammunition, including an AK-47, M-4 and almost a dozen AR-15 assault rifles with drum-style magazines, plus handguns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. At least one of the weapons was fully-automatic and another had been shortened, in violation of federal law. They also found body armor, instructional books for making bombs, gunpowder and a pressure plate, which could have been used to set a booby trap or trigger an improvised explosive device.

Wilson is currently in federal custody. He is charged with planning a terrorist attack, making threats, interfering in federally protected activities, and violence against railroad carriers.

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