Reno police unit will track extremist groups

For the first time in 10 years, Reno Police Chief Jerry Hoover said he's creating a special intelligence unit to track extremist groups in the region capable of violent acts, in part in response to the recent attempted fire-bombing of a Reno synagogue.

"It's not just an issue for midnight, Dec. 31," Hoover said at the police command post late Friday night as the new year approached.

"Terrorism is going to be an issue for the entire year of 2000. The millennial groups - fringe extremists with some agenda - understand the millennium does not end until next year," he said.

Hoover said his past study of extremist groups and cults makes him confident they believe the end of the next millennium starts Jan. 1, 2001, not a day ago.

"I know those folks know the difference," he said in an interview.

Is the West more vulnerable to these kinds of groups than other regions?

"I want to find out the answer to that question," he said.

Hoover said his concern grew after the November attempted fire bombing of the Temple Emanu-El in southwest Reno. Five white supremacists have been charged in that case.

A Molotov cocktail thrown at a temple window shattered the glass, but the bomb fell to the ground and only singed the building.

Hoover said he hopes to have the new intelligence unit up and running within two weeks.

"I want to find out what kinds of political extremist groups we have, militias, constitutionalist groups," he said.

For example, he said there are a large number of supremacist groups in northern Idaho, while religious cults are more prevalent in Boulder, Colo.

"In Reno we know we have Hells Angels and we have drug problems. But nobody keeps track of the fringe groups," he said.

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