Country prosecutors charge Cameron Brunson Blake
By Sam Catanzaro
Prosecutors have charged a man who shared links of a neo-Nazi organization for defacing a West Los Angeles synagogue and yelling anti-Semitic slurs at and threatening a Jewish man and his infant daughter in a Santa Monica park.
On August 27 the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against 34-year-old Cameron Brunson Blake with one count each of vandalism of religious property, hate crime and criminal threats.
Prosecutors accuse Blake of carving an anti-Semitic slur into a door at a synagogue on August 10. Two days later, he allegedly hurled an epithet at a man and his infant daughter at Palisades Park in Santa Monica and threatened to injure or kill them.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Blake screamed “das Juden”, which is German for Jew, among other slurs at the two victims.
Investigators discovered links on Blake’s social media accounts to Atomwaffen Division, a neo-nazi organization linked to violence throughout the state and country. It is unclear if Blake is formally a member of the group.
Prosecutors are recommending bail be set at $1 million. If convicted as charged, Blake faces a possible maximum sentence of six years and eight months in state prison.
According to the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations’ 2017 Hate Crimes Report, while overall religious motived hate crimes did not rise, anti-semitic crimes rose four percent from 2016. In addition, 72 percent of all religious hate crimes were targeted at the Jewish community.
On March 3 of 2018 a serial vandal spray-painted, “Jew Rat” on a bank and a kosher market in West Los Angeles. A synagogue is located across the street from the bank.
In November of 2018, a man yelled religious epithets out of his car window at two men leaving a mid-city synagogue and then attempted to hit the men, who were walking on a sidewalk.
