1999 Independence Day weekend shootings
Benjamin Nathaniel Smith was a spree killer who targeted Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, and Jews in a thirty-six hour spate of drive-by shootings during the weekend of July 4, 1999 in Illinois and Indiana, USA. Smith murdered former Northwestern University basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong who was walking with his children. Smith also killed 26-year-old Korean graduate student Won-Joon Yoon, who was shot as he was entering the Korean United Methodist Church.
Smith wounded eight others and shot at and missed another nine people. Finally, Smith tried to kill himself as officers pursued him down a southern Illinois highway. After shooting himself twice he crashed his automobile into a tree. He then fatally shot himself again, in the heart.
It is generally held that Smith's crimes were related to his affiliation with the white supremacist organization called the World Church of the Creator, which views him as a martyr. The group argued that Smith believed himself to be a soldier of the Racial Holy War Movement and, as a student at Indiana University at Bloomington, he was known for promoting racism.