• As Trump Warns of Leftist Violence, a Dangerous Threat Emerges from the Right-Wing Boogaloo Movement

    A far-right extremist movement born on social media and fueled by anti-government rhetoric has emerged as a real-world threat in recent weeks, with federal authorities accusing some of its adherents of working to spark violence at largely peaceful protests roiling the nation. Craig Timberg writes that at a time when President Trump and other top U.S. officials have claimed — with little evidence — that leftist groups were fomenting violence, federal prosecutors have charged various supporters of a right-wing movement called the “boogaloo bois” with using the protests as cover for killing, or plotting to kill, police officers and other government officials. “The numbers are overwhelming: Most of the violence is coming from the extreme right wing,” said Clint Watts, a former FBI agent who studies extremist political activity for the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a think tank in Philadelphia.

  • Trial of Two Neo-Nazi Suspects in Killing of German Politician Begins

    A German court on Tuesday began hearing the legal case against two neo-Nazis accused of killing a regional German politician last year – the first political assassination by the far-right in Germany since the Second World War (there were several assassinations of leading businesspeople in the 1970s, carried out by left-wing terrorists). The crime shocked Germany and highlighted the steadily growing threat of far-right violent extremism in the country.

  • Blind Networks in the Extreme-Right

    A potent combination of technology and a fractured extreme-right is producing innovative organizations that are harder to police. Anonymous networks can draw on a pool of ready-politicized recruits and offer internet-bound activists an opportunity to get involved in physical activism at minimal cost and seemingly with little risk. The scope for more coordinated forms of direct action seems limited under this organizational arrangement, but this type of activity is a good opportunity for those looking to make the leap from digital-only to real-world activism.

  • Firearm Use, Storage Restrictions Associated with Reduction in Firearm Deaths

    Three common types of gun laws are associated with changes in the rate of firearm deaths, with the most-restrictive combination of the laws estimated to result in an 11 percent reduction in firearm deaths, according to a new study.

  • Police Unions Are One of the Biggest Obstacles to Transforming Policing

    There’s a major, and usually insurmountable, obstacle to reform: police unions. Research suggests that these unions play a critical role in thwarting the transformation of police departments. Across the United States, police are shielded from both public and departmental accountability by multiple layers of contractual and legislative protections. Nearly all of these measures reflect the political will and political might of police unions.

  • Closed and Open Cases: Two Untimely, and Unsolved, European Deaths

    The untimely death more than thirty years ago of two leading European politicians still haunts the continent. The killing of Sweden’s prime minister Olof Palme in February 1986, and the mysterious death of Uwe Barschel, the rising German politician, in October 1987, occurred within a year-and-half of each other. Both cases have remained unsolved to this day. On Wednesday, Swedish prosecutors announced that they were closing the Palme case. The Barschel case is still officially open.

  • Militias Evaluate Beliefs, Action as President Threatens Soldiers in the Streets

    So-called “militias” and “patriot groups” have different beliefs and viewpoints, but most of these citizen-focused organizations share a concern about government infringement on individual liberties. The protests over the killing of George Floyd saw largely peaceful demonstrations being met by well-armed police, often equipped with military gear, and National Guard troops. That puts these groups in a curious position. Their public activity has long championed the importance of individual constitutional rights, and they believe in the right to use armed resistance against government overreach. But many of these groups’ members have also been supporters of the president, who is now speaking openly of taking the sort of far-reaching government action these groups have long warned against.

  • Invoking “Terrorism” Against Police Protestors

    President Trump on Sunday tweeted that the United States should designate Antifa, a movement of leftists radicals prone to violence, as a “terrorist” organization. Shirin Sinnar writes that leaving aside the fact that current law does not grant the president the authority to designate the movement a terrorist organization, the deeper issue is this: “The sad irony in all this is that, over the past two years, some on the left have vocally supported an expansion of domestic terrorism frameworks” – calls which neglected the many concerns that civil rights groups.

  • Department of Homeland Security Law Enforcement Agencies Require Expanded Oversight

    Hundreds of Department of Homeland Security officers have been called up to serve along with other federal law enforcement officers and the National Guard to provide security within the District of Columbia. The question is whether the deployed officers are adequately trained and prepared for the current tense environment. “Repurposing law enforcement officers to work in a tense civic moment is not as easy as it might sound,” Carrie Cordero writes. If they are not well prepared, “the consequences can range from the embarrassing to the dangerous.”

  • Trump's “Antifa” Accusations Spark Debate in Germany, the Movement's Birthplace

    After Donald Trump claimed most protesters in the U.S. were “antifa,” Germany’s Social Democrats rushed to declare solidarity with the movement. But which movement? And why did other politicians object? What the word means is simple enough in German. Antifa is short for antifaschistisch, or anti-Fascist. In the most literal sense, one might hope this label could apply to almost all modern German people and politicians. But does antifa refer to all those opposed to fascism, or does it refer only to black-clad anarchists and leftists staring down German police in the streets?

  • Militarization Has Fostered a Policing Culture that Sets up Protesters as “The Enemy”

    The militarization of police departments has been a feature of U.S. domestic law enforcement since the 9/11 attacks. What is clear from the latest round of protest and response, is that despite efforts to promote de-escalation as a policy, police culture appears to be stuck in an “us vs. them” mentality.

  • Riots, White Supremacy and Accelerationism

    White supremacists are gleeful as police violence and the resulting rioting tear apart cities, Dan Byman writes. “Even if the unrest ends in the weeks to come, they may look back at the violence as a win for their side,” he writes. “Even if the violence declines, it may bolster an increasingly important white supremacist concept—’accelerationism.’”

  • “Domestic Terrorist Actors” Could Exploit Floyd Protests, DHS Memo Warns

    The DHS intelligence unit has sent out a memo to law enforcement officials around the country warning of the mobilization of far-right domestic terrorists and violent extremists in the context of a national crisis. Betsy Woodruff Swan and Natasha Bertrand write that this is at least the fifth DHS has sent out to law enforcement officials in the last two months warning of the growing danger of far-right violent extremists.

  • The Killing of Walter Lübcke: One Year Later, Some Questions Remain

    One year ago, Walter Lübcke, a member of Angela Merkel’s conservatives, was shot and killed in his garden, allegedly by a far-right extremist. Germany stepped up measures at tackling extremism, but has it been enough?

  • Far-Right Infiltrators and Agitators in George Floyd Protests: Indicators of White Supremacists

    Mia Bloom, a Georgia State professor and an expert on political violence and terrorism, writes that the demonstrations in honor of George Floyd have been infiltrated by white nationalists who adhere to the accelerationist ideology, and that at least part of the violence and destruction – as clearly seen on TV screens – have been perpetrated by these extremists. “The accelerationists, if you have never heard the term, are an extreme subset of white nationalism whose goal is to bring about chaos and destruction,” she writes. Since Western governments are inherently corrupt, “the best (and only) thing supremacists can do is to accelerate the end of society by sowing chaos and aggravating political tensions.”