White supremacist murders more than doubled in 2017: ADL

style=”font-size:10.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Symbol;mso-fareast-font-family:Symbol;
mso-bidi-font-family:Symbol;mso-bidi-language:HE”>· Every year, adherents of a variety of extreme movements and causes kill people in the United States; ADL’s Center on Extremism tracks these murders.

· In 2017, extremists killed at least 34 people in the United States, a sharp and welcome decline from the much higher totals for 2016 and 2015, but still the fifth deadliest year since 1970.

· Unlike 2016, a year dominated by the Pulse nightclub shootings in Orlando, Florida, committed by an Islamic extremist, a majority of the 2017 murders were committed by right-wing extremists, primarily white supremacists, as has typically been the case most years.

· The white supremacist murders included several killings linked to the alt right as that movement expanded its operations in 2017 from the internet into the physical world—raising the likely possibility of more such violent acts in the future.

· An Islamic extremist still committed the single deadliest incident in 2017: the New York City bike path vehicular homicide attack, which killed eight people. Adherents of several different extremist movements, including white supremacists, anti-government extremists, and black nationalists, have also used vehicles to commit attacks in the U.S. in the past several years.

· The year 2017 was the second year in a row in which black nationalists have committed murders in the United States. Combined with other violent acts by black nationalists in recent years, these murders suggest the possibility of an emerging problem.

· Firearms remain the most common weapon of choice for extremists committing deadly acts in 2017, followed by vehicles and stabbing/cutting implements.

· Two corrections officers and one police officer were killed by extremists in 2017, highlighting the threat that extremists pose to the safety of law enforcement officers.

— Read more in Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2017 (ADL, January 2018)