White supremacist Jeff Hall (with bullhorn) at an anti-illegal immigration rally in Riverside (Brian Levin/Cal State San Bernardino).
Neo-Nazi father murder: Did a violent life lead to a violent death at the hands of his 10-year-old?
(SCPR.org) For the next month, psychiatrists will evaluate a 10-year-old Riverside, California boy accused of murdering his neo-Nazi father.
Authorities say the young boy confessed to the killing during an interview with detectives.
The father was Jeff Hall, the leader of a local white supremacist group. His son had been steeped in his violent, neo-Nazi rhetoric. But there could have been a more basic motive: an attempt to stop beatings in the Hall home.
Authorities say that early on May 1, the boy took a loaded revolver from his parents’ bedroom, crept downstairs where his father was dozing on a sofa, and fired a single shot that killed him.
Court documents say the boy told a detective that he shot his dad to stop him from beating him and his stepmother.
“When we’re talking about a juvenile, especially one that is this young, we take into account the understanding that a 10-year old may not have the same ability to comprehend what his actions have done than an 18-year-old and so forth," said Riverside County prosecutor Ambrosio Rodriguez.
The boy had been thrown out of public school, apparently for his violent tendencies. Those tendencies, and the murder, might be the product of the father’s violent lifestyle. Jeff Hall led the West Coast chapter of the National Socialist Movement, an international neo-Nazi group, and Rodriguez expects the group's hate-filled cause to be part of the case. More
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