Evidence is mounting that Boulder, CO spree shooter Ahmad Al Aliwi Al Issa (AKA Alissa) was motivated by a hatred of Whites and non-Muslims. For years, he constantly accused others of “racism” and “Islamophobia.” He was previously convicted of a misdemeanor assault in which he admitted a racial motive. He murdered ten White people. If a racial motive is confirmed, then Alissa may have carried out the deadliest racially motivated mass killing in modern US history.
Below are the 18 deadliest racially motivated mass killings in modern US history, not including the boulder shooting.
Notes: We defined “deadliest” as the most fatalities. In the case of a tie, the one who inflicted the most additional injuries is considered “deadliest.” We did not include Jihadist mass killers or the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting since the motivation was hatred over religion and politics rather than race. These mass shootings will be included in a separate report.
This list does not include racially motivated serial killings, such as the Nation of Islam-inspired “Zebra Killers” of the 1970s, or John Allen Muhammad who was a member of the Nation of Islam’s “Fruit of Islam” security force. We also did not include Christopher Harper-Mercer, who is half White and half Black, who murdered nine white people and injured seven others. Though he did express hatred of White women in his writings, as did the half White half Asian killer Elliot Rodger.
(9, 13) On December 31st, 1972, Mark Essex shot three police officers, killing two. Then on January 7th, 1973 he launched a second shooting spree targeting random white people inside a New Orleans hotel. He killed seven more people and injured another twelve. Essex said he wanted to kill “honkies” and carried a pan-African flag with him during the shooting. He was a member of the Black Panthers and had been involved in other black militant groups in the San Francisco area.
(9, 0) June 17, 2015, Dylan Roof shot and killed nine black people while attending a bible study at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, SC. Roof said that he wanted to kill Black people and sabotage American race relations. During his trial, he had his defense team sidelined because he didn’t want them to characterize him as insane. Federal prosecutors depicted Roof as being obsessed with Hollywood movies and an HBO documentary that featured neo-Nazi skinheads. When Roof was apprehended, he had a laptop with thumb drives full of video clips from movies and documentaries about skinheads. During his confession, he described his original plan to commit suicide which seemed to be a reenactment of the ending of the movie Higher Learning.
(8, 8) September 6, 1972, Ishmael LaBeet, Warren Ballentine, Raphael Joseph, Beaumont Gereau, and Meral Smith shot 16 people at the Fountain Valley Gold Course in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. The perpetrators were Black militants, who hated White people. Some of the perps allegedly believed they were going to the gold course to only rob White people when LaBeet suddenly yelled “I hate you White motherf@#$rs!” and opened fire. One Black employee was killed and seven White employees and tourists were killed. Another eight victims were wounded. It is known as the Fountain Valley Massacre. The ringleader Ishmael LaBeet would later highjack a commercial airliner while being transferred to Federal custody. He sought asylum in Cuba and is living in Cuba as a free man.
(8, 2) August 3, 2010, Omar Sheriff Thornton went on a shooting spree at the Hartford Brewery in Manchester, CT. Thornton worked at the brewery and accused his white co-workers of being racist. He shot ten and eight of them died. Right before the shooting, he falsely claimed a racist message was scratched into the bathroom wall. This alleged message was never found. Thornton called 911 and told the operator that his only regret was that he didn’t kill even more white people. Then he shot himself in the head. The owners of Hartford Brewery were a Jewish family that had financially supported charities benefiting black people.
(7, 4) December 8, 1995, Ronald James Smith, AKA Aboudima Moulika shot eleven people inside of Freddie’s Fashion Mart in Harlem, NY, and then set the building on fire. Seven victims died. There had been a series of protests in front of the store. Al Sharpton, the leader of the National Action Network, had sponsored the protests and attended at least one of them. Sharpton called the owners of the store “Jewish Interlopers.” Moulika attended some of these protests. During the protests, a black security guard was repeatedly berated with abuse. Moulika went into the store and ordered all black customers to leave, except for the black security guard. He shot the security guard and ten other White and Latino victims. Then he set the building on fire. Seven victims died. Four men with gunshot wounds escaped the fire. Smith died in the fire.
(6, 19) On December 7, 1993, Colin Ferguson began shooting people on a Long Island train car. He wanted to kill as many white people as possible. Ferguson had a history of making false accusations against white people. He also advocated violent retribution against the white race for perceived grievances. His defense lawyers argued that he went temporarily insane over “black rage.” Like Dylan Roof, he ended up firing his lawyers because he didn’t want to be characterized as insane.
(6, 4) On August 5, 2012, Wade Michael Page shot six people at wounded four at a Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Page had associated with neo-Nazi skinheads for many years and played in multiple different skinhead bands. Page committed suicide after the shooting. While the shooting was undoubtedly racially motivated, it is not known why he specifically picked Sikhs.
(6, 2) On November 21, 2004, Chai Soua Vang, an ethnic Hmong, opened fire on a group of White hunters. He killing 6 and wounding 2 others in the wilderness near Meteor, Wisconsin. He admitted a racial motive and said he was mad that White victims wouldn’t let him hunt on their private property. To this day, he blames his victims and accuses them of “racism.”
(6, 1) February 7, 2008, Charles Lee “Cookie” Thornton, 52, shot seven people inside the Kirkwood, MO City Hall. Thornton routinely attended city council meetings and went on tirades about White people. On this day, he was ordered to leave City Hall. Six victims died including the mayor, two police officers, two city council members, and the public works director. A reporter was wounded by survived. The local NAACP blamed the shooting on “discrimination” by the city of Kirkwood. Some members of the local black community even praised Thornton.
(5, 7) On July 7, 2016, Micah Johnson opened fire on police officers at a Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas, Texas. Johnson killed five people and injured another eleven. All of the fatalities were police officers. It was the biggest loss of police lives in a single incident since 9/11. Police eventually used a bomb disposal robot to blow up Johnson with C-4. Johnson had stated that he wanted to kill white people, especially white police officers. Johnson was a former member of the New Black Panther Party [NBPP]. Johnson attended the Nation of Islam run Mohammed Mosque No. 48 in Dallas.
(5, 0) On February 9, 1996, Clifton McCree went on a workplace shooting spree targeting White co-workers, whom he called “racist devils.” He fired thirteen shots killing five and wounded another. It took place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He committed suicide aftward.
(4, 3) February 3, 2013, Christopher Dorner shot seven people over a period of a few days. Four of them died. The victims were law enforcement and family members and friends of law enforcement. Dorner was a former LAPD officer who had been fired. Dorner wrote a manifesto expressing hatred for whites and Asians. He eventually was cornered inside a remote cabin. The cabin burned down with him inside it during a shootout with police. Some blacks supported Dorner. Columbia Professor Marc Lamont Hill went on CNN and said Dorner “was like a real-life superhero to many people.” Hill went on to say “it’s almost like watching Django Unchained in real life, it’s kind of exciting.”
(4, 1) April 18th, 2017, Kori Taylor AKA Kori Ali Muhammed killed three random White men and injured a fourth in Fresno, CA. Police say he was motivated by racial hatred. He espoused racial hatred and Nation of Islam theology on Facebook. He was homeless and killed a Black security guard a few days earlier. He told police that after he was identified as the suspect he decided that he wanted to be known for killing White people instead of being known for killing a security guard.
(4, 0) March 21, 2009, Lovelle Mixon murdered four Oakland police officers. Three were white and one was Asian. He was eventually killed by police. The killer was motivated by racial hatred. Several Black militant groups openly celebrated the killings. About sixty people held a march in Oakland where he was praised as a hero. About 500 people attended his funeral, which was led by a local Nation of Islam leader.
(4, 0) On September 15, 1997, Hastings Arthur Wise was fired from his job in Aiken, South Carolina. He returned later that day with a gun and killed four White co-workers whom he accused of “racism.”
(4, 0) On November 29, 2009, Maurice Clemmons entered a coffee shop in Lakewood, Washington State, and shot four White police officers who were taking a break inside. All four were killed. He admitted the shooting was racially motivated. Five other people were convicted of crimes for helping Clemmons elude capture.
(3, 7) October 5, 2011, Shareef Allman opened fire on his co-workers. He killed three and wounded six. Then he wounded a female jogger. He eventually killed himself. Allman was a high-profile member of the California NAACP. He had a Black Power public access tv show, in which he repeatedly interviewed Jesse Jackson. He accused his white and Latino co-workers of mistreating him.
(3, 3) July 17, 2016, Gavin Long killed three police officers and wounded three others in Baton Rouge, LA. The shooter lived in Kansas City, MO but traveled to Baton Rouge. He presumably picked Baton Rouge because of ongoing Black Lives Matter protests. Long was finally shot and killed by police. He wrote a very short anti-police manifesto that he e-mailed to a small-time rapper in Ohio. Long stated that he had previously been a member of the Nation of Islam in Youtube videos.
It is probably true that white spree shooters, on average, kill more people than black shooters. However, blacks commit spree shootings in extreme disproportion to other races. That includes racially motivated spree shootings. Blacks make up about 14% of the US population, but constitute a large majority of the mass shooters in the USA. If you think we have made a mistake, please send us a message.
Other killings of note:
On, July 15, 2011, Nkosi Thandiwe, an African immigrant went on a spree shooting in Atlanta, Georgia targeting young White females. One was killed, one paralyzed, and another seriously injured. During his trial, he told the court that his professors at a local community college taught him to hate White people and made him feel justified in targeting Whites for murder.
On September 16, 2013, Aaron Alexis, the so-called “Navy Yard Shooter,” went on a shooting spree at the Washington Navy Yard, in Washington, D.C. He killed 12, most of them White, and left three others wounded. The official motive is “mental illness” and “blackout rage.” He was also on several psychotropic drugs. However, co-workers also say he routinely complained about alleged “racism” by White people.
On August 4th, 2019 Conner Betts murdered nine people in Dayton, Ohio. He was active, both online and in real life, in far-left movements. He described himself both as a socialist and Antifa on social media. He participated in a violent Antifa riot in Dayton that occurred just months before his massacre. Betts shot a total of twenty-six people, nine of whom died. Another ten people were injured by being trampled. He began his rampage by murdering his sister. Then he went to a Dayton bar and opened fire on the crowd. Six of the fatalities were Black. Another Black male was arrested for helping Betts illegally obtain the gun used in the shooting.
On March 26thy, 2018 Jennifer and Susan Hart, a lesbian couple who were high profile Black Lives Matter activists, murdered their six adopted Black children. The couple had previously transported the children to left-wing protests around the nation as props, and they were feature by numerous media outlets. They killed the oldest children and then placed the youngest in a van and drove the van off of a cliff. None survived.
