Man Sought in Shootings of Minorities Kills Self

After apparently killing two people and wounding seven others in an outburst of racist violence over the Fourth of July weekend, a 21-year-old man with ties to a white supremacist church fatally shot himself late Sunday while fleeing police in a stolen van.

Benjamin Nathaniel Smith of Northfield, Ill., who one year ago to the day railed against minorities in an article in his college newspaper, crashed on a back road after shooting himself in the head in rural Southern Illinois. He was pronounced dead at a hospital, the FBI said.

Two handguns found with his body, a .22-caliber and .380-caliber, were consistent with the weapons used in the rampage that began Friday night in Chicago when an African American man was shot to death while jogging with his children, six Orthodox Jews were wounded and an Asian American couple were fired on in their car.

Hundreds of police and federal agents had been searching for Smith since early Sunday, when he was named in an arrest warrant issued after a fatal shooting outside a Korean church in Indiana. He also had been the primary suspect in two Saturday shootings in Central Illinois, as well as the Friday night shootings.

The Sunday attack, the last one connected to Smith, took place just after 11:30 a.m., as parishioners filed out of the Korean United Methodist Church in Bloomington, Ind.

Witnesses said a man in a blue Ford Taurus fired four shots into a group of men. Won-Joon Yoon, a 26-year-old doctoral student at Indiana University, was struck twice in the back and killed.

“He was apparently parked at the corner and waited for these people to come out of church and then fired,” Bloomington Police Chief Jim Kennedy said.

Police also believe Smith was responsible for two Saturday shootings.

In the first, a young white man in a light blue Taurus with its passenger window shot out fired several shots at two black men in Springfield, Ill. Neither was hit. In the second, a gunman fired at a group of college students of Asian descent near the Champaign-Urbana campus of the University of Illinois, wounding one in the leg.

The descriptions of Smith and his car--similar to ones witnesses gave in the earlier attacks--helped law enforcement officers to tie the shootings together.

Smith attended Indiana University in Bloomington and the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. He studied English and was known for his racist views.

“I think it is pretty clear that our government has turned against white people,” Smith wrote in Indiana University’s student newspaper, in a story that appeared July 4, 1998.

Earlier in the day Sunday, Elizabeth Sahr, a former girlfriend of Smith’s, told the student newspaper at the University of Illinois: “This is his Independence Day from the government, from everything. He is not going to stop until he is shot dead.”

Smith was a former member of the World Church of the Creator, authorities said. The group, based in East Peoria, Ill., believes whites to be a superior race, “unique and sacred above all others,” according to its doctrine.

The church’s Web site is decorated with Nazi-style salutes and skulls, and is filled with derogatory remarks about Jews, African Americans and “the mud races.”

The World Church of the Creator is a successor group to the Church of the Creator, a group that was headed by the late extremist Ben Klassen.

Several members of the original Church of the Creator were among a group of eight individuals arrested by federal and local police agents July 15, 1993, on charges they were plotting to instigate a race war by bombing the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles.

According to the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, the World Church of the Creator is the fastest growing white supremacist organization in the United States.

“It has 35 identified chapters around the country,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Wiesenthal Center, which had offered a $25,000 reward Sunday for the arrest of the gunman. Several other reward offers were put forth in the hours before Smith’s death.

The World Church of the Creator is led by the Rev. Matt Hale, whose quest to join the Illinois state bar has brought his group considerable attention in recent months.

Hale, who preaches white supremacy but says he does not promote violence against other races, passed the bar exam but was rejected earlier this year for admittance; the bar said his racist and anti-Semitic beliefs made him ill-suited to practice law. On Friday, a state hearing board rejected Hale’s appeal of the ruling.

Hale could not be reached for comment Sunday, but he told CNN that Smith was a member of his church from June 1998 until May, when Smith moved to the Chicago area.

“He was a thoughtful, dedicated person who believed essentially in our creed, our religion,” Hale said. “I never had any information or inkling he would do anything illegal or violent.”

The first shots in the rampage rang out at 8:20 p.m. Friday in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. Home to the city’s largest concentration of Orthodox Jews, the streets were filled with people in traditional clothing walking to and from temple.

Driving slowly and stepping from his car at least once, the gunman fired dozens of shots at six locations in the neighborhood, wounding five men and a 15-year-old boy. Most had been released from area hospitals by Sunday, and all were in good condition.

At 8:52 p.m., police say, the gunman rolled up behind Ricky Byrdsong, a 47-year-old African American, and two of his four children, who were out for an evening jog in the nearby, predominantly white, suburb of Skokie. The gunman fired at least seven rounds from a .22-caliber pistol, one of them striking Byrdsong in the back. His children were not injured.

Byrdsong, the former basketball coach at Northwestern University, died four hours later during surgery.

Shortly after that, the man fired five shots at an Asian American couple who had honked and tried to pass his car because it was moving slowly, police said. Neither was hit.

The shootings continued Saturday in Springfield and Champaign-Urbana, and then in Bloomington.

Authorities had combed much of the Midwest for Smith on Sunday--some hinting that they, too, believed he would not stop until he was captured or dead.

And many minorities had avoided Independence Day festivities and stayed indoors.

“I’m a scared person,” said Joel Ligue, a 22-year-old Indiana University student from Ivory Coast. “I’m too scared to go to the fireworks.”

*

Times staff writer Kenneth Reich in Los Angeles, researcher Greg Beckham in Chicago and Times wire services contributed to this story.

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Midwest Shootings

Here is a chronology of the shootings that started late Friday.

All times are local

FRIDAY

8:20 to 8:35 p.m. Six Orthodox Jews are wounded as they leave synagogue in Chicago.

8:52 p.m. Ricky Byrdsong, the black former basketball coach at Northwestern University, is killed while walking with his children in Skokie, Ill.

9:21 p.m. An Asian American couple in Northbrook are fired at while riding in a vehicle. Neither is hit.

SATURDAY

11 a.m. Two black men are fired upon in Springfield, Ill. Neither is hit.

11:30 p.m. In Champaign-Urbana, Ill., shots are fired at six men of Asian descent standing on a corner near the University of Illinois. One man is hit in the leg but not seriously hurt.

SUNDAY

11:30 a.m. A 26-year-old Indiana University student is hit twice in the back and killed outside a Korean church in Bloomington, Ind.