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Buffalo Attack Highlights Most Lethal Domestic Threat: Racist, Extremist Violence  (Kevin Johnson, USA Today)
The details emerging from America’s latest mass shooting were as stunning as they were familiar. A lone gunman, allegedly driven by long-simmering racial animus, opened fire at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, with the apparent purpose of taking Black lives. The 18-year-old, white suspect, dressed in body armor and armed with a rifle, killed 10 and wounded three, police say. It is a grim scenario that has rattled federal, state and local law enforcement officials for years as racially motivated extremists have taken lives in Charleston, South Carolina; El Paso, Texas; Pittsburgh; Charlottesville, Virginia; and now Buffalo, New York.  FBI Director Christopher Wray, in testimony last year before a Senate committee, offered perhaps the most daunting assessment of an increasingly toxic threat, saying racially motivated attackers represented the most deadly and “biggest chunk” of an estimated 2,000 open domestic terror investigations. Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, called the surge in hate crimes targeting Blacks, Asians, Jews and others as “a fire season all year long.” An examination of hate crimes in major U.S. cities tracked by Levin’s group and set to be published this year found a nearly 39% increase in such offenses from 2020 to 2021.

Buffalo Shooting: Sites Yank Videos Faster, but Not by Much  (Haleluya Hedero, AP News)
Social platforms have learned to remove violent videos of extremist shootings more quickly over the past few years. It’s just not clear they’re moving quickly enough. Police say that when a white gunman killed 10 people and wounded three others — most of them Black — in a “racially motivated violent extremist” shooting in Buffalo Saturday, he livestreamed the attack to the gaming platform Twitch, which is owned by Amazon. It didn’t stay there long; a Twitch spokesperson said it removed the video in less than two minutes. That’s considerably faster than the 17 minutes Facebook needed to take down a similar video streamed by a self-described white supremacist who killed 51 people in two New Zealand mosques in 2019. But versions of the Buffalo shooting video still quickly spread to other platforms, and they haven’t always disappeared quickly. In April, Twitter enacted a new policy on “perpetrators of violent attacks” to remove accounts maintained by “individual perpetrators of terrorist, violent extremist, or mass violent attacks,” along with tweets and other material produced by perpetrators of such attacks. On Sunday, though, clips of the video were still circulating on the platform.

The Far-Right Is Doxxing Judges and Calling for Their Assassinations  (Ben Makuch. Vice)
Pro-choice activists have been camping out near homes of Supreme Court justices in protest over Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, some on the far-right fringes are calling for assassinations of Democrat-appointed judges. Their posts, which appear on a far-right Telegram channel, feature the names and addresses of federal court judges (among other public figures perceived as enemies to the far-right) alongside a bio and a slick red graphic with a Kalashnikov rifle.

Prevalence of Racially Motivated Extremists in Law Enforcement Demands Drastic Change  (Hassan Kanu, Reuters)
A Reuters investigation on May 6 indicates that a significant number of U.S. police instructors have ties to a constellation of armed right-wing militias and racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) hate groups, a report that adds to a fast-growing body of evidence showing a deadly threat inside U.S. police departments. The analysis found that some of the instructional information presented by police trainers was explicitly racist, and that some instructors endorsed and interacted RMVEs criminal groups such as the Proud Boys. The investigation adds to mounting academic research, government audits and news reporting that demonstrates the pervasiveness of RMVEs in U.S. law enforcement, and a continuing series of incidents documenting the presence of extremist groups and views among law enforcement. More and more, the evidence suggests the RMVEs “infiltration of law enforcement” that the FBI warned about back in 2006 is getting worse. And it points to a desperate need for policies – departmental and legislative – to prohibit people who engage in racist conduct or join RMVEs groups from becoming police officers or remaining on the force.

Threat of Violent Extremism Rising in Canada, MPs Told  (Elizabeth Thompson, CBC)
The threat of violent extremism has increased in Canada during the pandemic — fueled by misinformation and resulting in threats to politicians and public servants — top security and policing officials told members of Parliament on Thursday. But while police and intelligence agencies are taking steps to detect extremists and prevent them from carrying out attacks, the government must also work proactively to counter the extremism in the first place, they added. Testifying before the public safety and national security committee, Cherie Henderson, assistant director, requirements for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) described the rise of ideologically motivated violent extremism (IMVE) over the past two years. “Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, IMVE activity has been fueled by an increase in extreme anti-authority and anti-government rhetoric, often rooted in the weaponization of conspiracy theories,” Henderson told the committee. “CSIS has noted a marked increase in violent threats addressed at elected officials and public servants.” Henderson said CSIS has moved more resources to monitor IMVE.