“White
vigilantes and far-right actors have shown up
to oppose Black Lives
Matter protests in the U.S.
at least 497 times this year.”
– Alexander
Reid Ross, doctoral fellow at the
Center
for Analysis of the Radical Right
Data shows a broad threat
of gun violence at protests long before Kyle Rittenhouse allegedly
opened fire on anti-racist protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, killing
two and severely injuring another.
Alexander Reid Ross began
gathering data on May 27, two days after police in Minneapolis killed
George Floyd, and continued through this week. The dataset, which
Ross shared with HuffPost, documents a staggering amount of
violence directed at protesters by the far-right, including 64 cases
of simple assault, 38 incidents of vigilantes driving cars into
demonstrators, and nine times shots were fired at protesters.
All told, six protesters
were hit by vigilante bullets in this summer’s violence. Three died
from their wounds.
Ross’ dataset also
includes 387 incidents of intimidation, such as people using racist
slurs, making threats and brandishing firearms. Ross says …
“There just isn’t
really anything to compare it to. I’ve never seen anything like
this in my life.”
The data – which Ross
gathered from social media posts, news reports and the ACLED US
Crisis Monitor with help from Political Research Associates and the
the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights – includes
some harrowing tales of violence.
(Christopher Mathias.
“White Vigilantes Have Always Had A Friend In Police.”
HuffPost.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/white-vigilantes-kenosha_n_5f4822bcc5b6cf66b2b5103e August 28, 2020.)
The violence included the
following:
* A U.S. Army sergeant,
who had previously posted tweets about targeting Black Lives Matter
activists, shot and killed a protester in Austin, Texas.
* Black Lives Matter
protesters marching through a rural part of Bedford County,
Pennsylvania, say a white man opened fire on them at night, striking
one protester in the face.
* A man in Iowa City,
Iowa, allegedly drove his car into a crowd of protesters and,
according to a criminal complaint, later justified the attack by
telling police the protesters needed “an attitude adjustment.”
Such stories this summer
have coincided with story after story of cops and national guardsmen
openly supporting or collaborating with fascists and white
vigilantes.
Ross said his dataset
includes about two dozen incidents of vigilantes receiving approval
or support from law enforcement. For example …
- A sheriff in Arizona announced he would form a “civilian posse” to help “suppress lawlessness” during a time of “widespread unrest.”
- In California, a sheriff’s deputy was spotted wearing a “III Percenters” militia patch on his uniform while policing a protest, while in Portland, Oregon, cops let the neo-fascist gang the Proud Boys attack protesters in the streets.
- A police chief in Sioux Rapids, Iowa, was suspended for two weeks after writing a Facebook comment encouraging people to drive their cars through Black Lives Matter demonstrators. “HIT THE GAS AND HANG ON FOR THE SPEED BUMPS,” he wrote.
(Christopher Mathias.
“White Vigilantes Have Always Had A Friend In Police.”
HuffPost.
August 28, 2020.)
There has been a
“tremendous increase” in right-wing paramilitary activity this
year. Boogaloo Bois, III Percenters, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and
white nationalists have become a regular fixture of right-wing
counterprotests.
Other armed mobs of mostly
white men who have appeared after online calls to defend their
communities from mostly imaginary threats of left-wing looters being
bused into town. They are not part of any recognizable organized
group.
“If you
get counterprotesters showing up who are armed, cops are almost
always facing towards the Black Lives Matter and racial justice
protesters, not towards the armed counterprotesters.”
– Steven
Gardiner, a research analyst at Political Research Associates
Trust in the police
remains low among people of color, who are often victims of police
violence and abuse and are disproportionately underserved as victims
of crime. The FBI’s 2015 Counterterrorism Policy Directive and
Policy Guide warns that “domestic terrorism investigations focused
on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign
citizen extremists often have identified active links to law
enforcement officers.”
“The
failure of law enforcement to adequately respond to racist violence
and hate crimes or properly police white supremacist riots in cities
across the United States over the last several years has left many
Americans concerned that bias in law enforcement is pervasive.”
– Matt
Coker, Los Angeles Times
In 2017, the FBI reported
that white supremacists posed a “persistent threat of lethal
violence” that has produced more fatalities than any other category
of domestic terrorists since 2000. Alarmingly, internal FBI policy
documents have also warned agents assigned to domestic terrorism
cases that the white supremacist and anti-government militia groups
they investigate often have “active links” to law enforcement
officials.
(Federal
Bureau of Investigation and Department of Homeland Security, Joint
Intelligence Bulletin. “White Supremacist Extremism Poses
Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence.”
May 10, 2017.)
(Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Counterterrorism Division, Counterterrorism Policy
Directive and Policy Guide. April 1, 2015 – Updated November 18,
2015)
Obviously, only a tiny
percentage of law enforcement officials are likely to be active
members of white supremacist groups. However, evidence of overt and
explicit racism within law enforcement since 2000 is strong. Law
enforcement officials with alleged connections to white supremacist
groups or far-right militant activities have been exposed in Alabama,
California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan,
Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, and elsewhere.
(Becky Bratu. “Two
Alabama Officers Put on Leave for Alleged Ties to ‘Hate Group.’”
NBC News. June 17, 2015,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts/two-alabama-officers-put-leave-alleged-ties-hate-group-n377421;
Michael Winter. “KKK Membership Sinks 2 Florida Cops.” USA
Today. July 14, 2014,
Research organizations
have uncovered hundreds of federal, state, and local law enforcement
officials participating in racist, nativist, and sexist social media
activity, which demonstrates that overt bias is far too common. These
officers’ racist activities are often known within their
departments, but only result in disciplinary action or termination if
they trigger public scandals.
(Rashad Robinson.“We
Can’t Trust Police to Protect Us from Racist Violence. They
Contribute to It.” Guardian. August 21, 2019)
Message From the Top
The Trump campaign has run
over 2,000 advertisements on social media since June 2, warning about
“Dangerous MOBS of far-left groups,” some versions of which
featured a point-down red triangle, an image used to identify
political enemies in Nazi concentration camps.
Over the summer, Trump has
repeatedly referred to Black Lives Matter protesters as “thugs,”
and in June ordered peaceful demonstrators to be tear-gassed and shot
with rubber bullets.
Now, seventeen-year-old
Kyle Rittenhouse, who has described himself as a militia member and
who appeared in videos next to other armed men linked to a local
militia group known as the Kenosha Guard, has been arrested and
charged with killing two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse
himself is a Trump supporter who attended one of the president’s
rallies earlier this year, according to BuzzFeed.
Trump and his allies have
not condemned armed vigilantism. "How shocked are we that
17-year-olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no
one else would?" Tucker Carlson asked on his Fox News program.
The opening night of the
Republican National Convention (RNC) prominently featured a speech by
Patricia and Mark McCloskey, the wealthy white couple who illegally
brandished firearms at Black Lives Matter protesters in St. Louis,
Missouri.
Consider what followed …
Then, just one day after
the McCloskeys’ RNC speech, a white gunman killed two people and
injured a third at a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha,
Wisconsin.
Seventeen-year-old
Kyle
Rittenhouse
was likely influenced by the glorification of vigilante violence that
is endemic to the far right.
Militia and right-wing
vigilantes agree with the call to take up arms against the “radical
left.” They are bringing their guns to towns all around America.
This dark path of violence is advocated by Make America Great Again
supporters, White Nationalists, and systemic racists.
“While the explicit
formula for staving off an impending 'socialist utopia,' as Tim Scott
phrased it, is to win the election, the RNC, many Trump supporters,
and their far right and fascist fellow travelers are simultaneously
engaging in racist rhetoric about the need for a militant defense of
'quiet neighborhoods' from mobs of immigrants and 'radical leftists,'
hellbent on 'replacing' America (reminiscent of the Charlottesville
chant 'Jews will not replace us').
“The paradoxical call
to subvert the law in order to uphold the law is quintessentially
fascist. It’s a fascistic worldview that is apparent in the police
embrace of the logo of the Marvel superhero The Punisher: a strongman
unconstrained by the 'weak' and 'effeminate' limits of bourgeois
legalism in his pursuit of transcendent justice.”
(Mark Bray. “RNC Gave
Prime Time to Vigilantes. The Next Day a Gunman Shot BLM Protesters.”
truthout.com. August 26, 2020.)
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