US white nationalist who ran for Senate arrested in Florida

An American white nationalist who ran for the US Senate in 2016 has been arrested on charges of kidnapping, domestic violence and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence.

Augustus Sol Invictus, 36, was arrested Monday at a mall in Melbourne, Florida, by Brevard County Sheriff's deputies on a warrant issued from the state of South Carolina, public information officer Tod Goodyear said Wednesday.

Jail records described Invictus as an “out of state fugitive” and show that he is being held without bond and is to appear before a judge on January 15.

Jail records described him as an “out of state fugitive.”

The Miami Herald newspaper said the news of the arrest was first reported on Twitter by the journalist Nick Martin, who focuses on covering "hate and extremism" in the US.

During his 2016 Senate bid to unseat US Senator Marco Rubio, he got widespread attention for claiming that he killed a goat and drank its blood as part of a pagan ritual. He failed, however, to win the nomination from Florida's Libertarian Party to challenge Rubio.

Invictus, an attorney based in the Orlando area, has urged for violent uprisings in the US in recent years. He was featured speaker during the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the white supremacist convergence that ended with three deaths.

White nationalist Richard Spencer, who organized the deadly Charlottesville rally had credited Invictus with drafting the core tenets behind the rally.

Invictus had been under surveillance since Christmas Day, when South Carolina authorities notified officials in Florida that Invictus may be in the area.

Polls show sour views of race relations in Trump’s America

Most Americans consider race relations in the United States to be generally bad and say that Trump has been making them worse.

Thousands of white supremacists, KKK members and neo-Nazis descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, for a “Unite the Right” rally in August 2017. The march soon turned violent. A 20-year-old man plowed a vehicle into a group of anti-hate demonstrators protesting against the white supremacist rally, killing a woman and injuring 20 others.

Trump first blamed the violence "on many sides", but after pressure against him piled up, he declared that “racism is evil,” singling out white supremacists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan for the violent rally.

He later said that "we must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence."

The rally and Trump’s subsequent comments convulsed the nation and sparked condemnation across the political spectrum and was one of the lowest moments of Trump’s first year in office.

Throughout his presidency, Trump has stoked racial and ethnic division building on his election campaign promise to secure the border and country.

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