Domestic terrorism incidents have soared to new highs in the U.S., driven chiefly by white-supremacist, anti-Muslim and anti-government extremists on the far right, according to a Washington Post analysis.
Kenneth Robinson, pastor of Briar Creek Road Baptist Church in Charlotte — one of severalattacked in the spring and summer of 2015 — said some members remain apprehensive.Both far-left and far-right attacks hit groundbreaking levels in 2020, the database shows, with far-right incidents still the much larger group.
The Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol spurred renewed national attention on domestic terrorism and on hate-driven violence. Data released by the CSIS on Monday includes the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol as one of 11 far-right terrorism incidents that month — the most for any January in the database. The attacks and plots on U.S. soil are bucketed as far right, far left, religious or “ethnonationalist,” which supports nationalist goals that often include dividing society along ethnic lines. Under the CSIS system, the attacks on 9/11 are in the religious category because the perpetrators were Islamist terrorists.
Bishop Jacquelyn Gordon, senior pastor at the New Shiloh Christian Center, says she is “always on high alert” after three fires and car vandalism in 2015 at the church in Melbourne, Fla. “It’s really hard. Shocking, shocking to see,” he said. “I’m at a loss when I think about that. Violence toward innocent people is just something I can’t get my head around.”
But a large majority of perpetrators appear from the data to be operating independently, a defining characteristic of many recent attacks, counterterrorism researchers have said. Some of those loners are prolific users of social media out of which they assemble a jumble of personal beliefs or ideologies, researchers said.
Perpetrators beat BLM activists in the streets and attacked them with mace, knives, guns or explosives, records show. Right-wing extremists used their vehicles as weapons against activists, plowing into crowds of racial justice demonstrators on at least nine occasions over the past six years, according to The Post’s analysis.
“No one should feel like they have the audacity to go try and burn someone’s building,” she said. “And just because they’re mad.” The trend peaked in 2020, with 24 incidents that The Post could identify. That represents about one out of five incidents of right-wing violence in that year. On Oct. 22, 2017, Wilson slipped into the engine compartment of an Amtrak train and pulled the brakes in a remote stretch of Nebraska. At the time, he was carrying a .38-caliber handgun, ammunition speed-loaders and a knife. He also had with him a business card for the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement, court records show.
There have been 15 anti-immigrant-related incidents since 2015, resulting in 27 fatalities and dozens of injuries, a review of the CSIS cases shows. Some of those attacks drew national attention, including an, by a gunman who authorities say posted a manifesto railing against a “Hispanic invasion” of Texas. The shootings left 23 people, including eight Mexican nationals, dead and two dozen others wounded.
Popp retrieved a rifle from his room, told them, “You guys got to go,” and shot dead Jesus R. Manso-Perez, 40. He kicked down the door to another unit that belonged to a Hmong family. Popp found them hiding in a bedroom and killed Phia Vue, 36, and Mai Vue, 32. Post analysis of arrests related to the riot. More than a dozen were current or former law enforcement officers, including police and corrections officers.
Wilson, a father of four who worked for a time at a charitable organization after his Navy stint, communicated with other extremists through an encrypted chat app, the affidavit shows. He shared bombmaking techniques, boasted about his arsenal of guns and ammunition, and talked about recruiting potential collaborators, according to the affidavit.
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