Relative Threats: The ADL and Extremist Murders in 2017

The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) accounting of extremist killings in 2017 is out. Surprisingly, they included good news in their key findings: extremist killing are down from 2016 (due to the abnormally high numbers produced by the jihadist Pulse Nightclub attack) to 34 in 2017. Unsurprisingly, the report highlights a darker narrative in these new numbers: “a majority of the 2017 murders were committed by right-wing extremists, primarily white supremacists.” Equally alarming, the dreaded “alt-right…expanded its operations in 2017 from the internet into the physical world.”

Sounds scary, right? But is it true? Is America being overrun by Neo-Nazis? Well, let’s examine the details, because, as they say, the devil’s in the details.

On methodology: The ADL claims there were a total of 34 extremist murders in 2017, with white supremacists and far right extremists having committed 18 of them. I will examine those claims one-by-one, and in the order in which the ADL listed them in their report. While it appears that the ADL has a very low threshold for what constitutes an extremist murder, I will make my definition quite clear: I only count a murder as having been the result of ideological extremism when there is clear evidence that ideology inspired the murder. In other words, there are events discussed below in which people with some connection to extremist groups committed crimes that weren’t driven by ideology. While the ADL includes the latter in its statistics, I do not.

Also, I do not treat the existence of mental illness as cause for dismissing the possibility that ideological extremism was the prime motivator for a murder. As is discussed below, I’ve treated each murder on a case-by-case basis and attempted to determine the primary motive for each. I’ll let the reader decide which approach represents the more honest presentation of the facts.

Finally, I’ve decided, for the sake of keeping it simple, to accept the ADL’s inclusion of white supremacists/Neo-Nazis as part of a broad “far right” classification, despite the fact that I find that classification system to be highly problematic and misleading.

Lafayette, Indiana, January 16, 2017. Wesley Andrew Hampton was charged with the robbery and murder of John Byler in what appears to have been a drug-related robbery gone wrong. While it does appear that Hampton is indeed a self-declared white supremacist, it is unclear at this point if his crime reflected an ideological motivation. Conclusion: inconclusive. Remove one from the white supremacist/far right extremist column.

San Antonio, Texas, January 29, 2017. Ashton Lucas Lomas, who is connected to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, shot and killed Martin Gonzales, a hispanic man. The obvious motive in this heinous crime was robbery. There’s simply no clear indication that the attack was racially motivated, and yet the ADL included this in their far right extremism death tally. Conclusion: inconclusive. Remove one from the white supremacist/far right extremism column.

Denver, Colorado, February 1, 2017. A former U.S. soldier, muslim convert, and self-radicalized ISIS supporter, Joshua Andrew Cummings, shot and killed a Denver transit security guard. Comments Cummings made to other mosque attendees leading up to the attack, such as his desire to “establish the rule of Islam,” led to the attendees reporting him to local officials. It would appear that this was an ideologically motivated attack. Case closed: add one to the jihadist terrorism column.

Leadwood, Missouri, February 9, 2017. KKK leader Frank Ancona was apparently shot to death by…wait for it…his wife and stepson! The details of the murder remain unclear, but what is clear is that some would say it’s shoddy scholarship to include the murder of a white supremacist in the tally of white supremacist/far right extremist murders, but that’s just what the ADL did! Sheesh. Conclusion: remove one from the white supremacist/ far right extremism column.

North Judson, Indiana, March 3, 2017. Edward Blackburn shot and killed Cord Colgrove due to the latter having an amorous relationship with Blackburn’s ex-girlfriend. How did this make the ADL’s list of extremist killings? Apparently, Blackburn is a member of the white supremacist Aryan Circle gang. Here’s the catch–the guy he shot was white, and the murder appears to have nothing at all to do with far right extremism. Conclusion: remove one from the white supremacist/ far right extremism column.

New York City, New York, March 30, 2017. James Harris Jackson, a white supremacist, randomly stabbed and killed Timothy Caughman, a black man, as part of a broader plan to commit a series of racially inspired killings. In fact, Caughman drove to New York City from Baltimore for that purpose alone. Apparently, he hated interracial relationships. Conclusion: the ADL rightfully included this murder in their tally of white supremacist/far right extremist murders. Add one to the white supremacist/ far right extremism column.

Fresno, California, April 18, 2017. Nation of Islam member, and schizophrenic, Kori Ali Muhammad, was wanted in connection to a shooting just days earlier when he went on a shooting spree in downtown Fresno, California, that left three dead. He told authorities that he targeted his victims because they were white, and in order to “draw attention to the plight of black women and children who have been kidnapped, raped, and killed by white people.” Case closed–this was an ideologically driven crime. Add four to the black nationalist/supremacist column.

Dallas, Texas, May 1, 2017. Derick Lamont Brown, the national head of the New Black Panthers’ armed militia, shot and killed his black roommate (and sixty-six year-old godfather), and shot and wounded a neighbor and a paramedic before turning the gun on himself and committing suicide. The ADL included this in their tally of black nationalist murders. Here’s the problem–there’s no indication that his affiliation with black nationalist organizations played any role in the incident. Brown, due to his ties to black nationalist organizations, was already under FBI surveillance and part of an active investigation when the shooting occurred. Yet, no clear motive for the shooting has been revealed by authorities. Conclusion: remove one from the black nationalist/supremacist column.

Broadwater County, Montana, May 16, 2017. Anti-government extremists Lloyd Barrus and Marshall Barrus killed a sheriff’s deputy as part of a “suicide mission” to get into a shootout with police. Their insane wish was granted, and Marshall Barrus was subsequently killed in a shootout with police, while Lloyd Barrus was captured alive. If one accepts the ADL’s premise that the “far right extremist” category should include anti-lawenforcement groups, then this is a clear-cut case of an ideologically driven murder. Conclusion: add one to the white supremacist/far right extremism column.

Tampa, Florida, May 19, 2017. The ADL included Neo-Nazi Devon Arthurs’ murders of his Neo-Nazi roommates in the far right extremist tally. Here’s the catch–Arthurs killed them for making fun of his recent conversion to Islam! Arthurs won’t face the death penalty, however, due to: mental illness. Conclusion: add two to the jihadist column, or exclude them due to obvious mental illness. You make the call. I’ll provide final estimates with and without these murders below.

Portland, Oregon, May 26, 2017. Jeremy Christian killed two on a Portland public transit rail. I’ve documented this case in a previous blog post:

Despite initial media reports that indicated that the Portland stabber, Jeremy Christian, carried out a Trump-inspired right-wing terrorist attack, it quickly emerged that Christian was actually another Bernie Sanders supporter with a history of social media posts broadcasting his hatred of both Trump and Clinton. He also bizarrely claimed to be a white supremacist and was harassing Muslims at the time of his killing two and injuring a third. While this is clearly a case of hateful, ideologically-driven terror, Christian’s schizophrenic worldview does not neatly fit the definition of left-wing or right-wing terror. Therefore, the deaths and injuries from this attack will not be included in my assessment.

While I chose not to include this incident in my previous analysis for the reasons noted above, the ADL chose to include it in their tally as another far right extremist attack. Conclusion: inconclusive. Remove two from the white supremacist/ far right extremism column. However, for the sake of avoiding unnecessary criticism, I’ll provide a side-by-side analysis below with and without these murders.

Putnam County Georgia, June 13, 2017. Inmates Ricky Dubose and Donnie Russell Rowe killed two corrections officers while fleeing a prison bus. What does this have to do with far right extremism? Yes, once again we have a strained connection–Dubose is a member of the Ghost Face Gangsters prison gang, which has white supremacist and anti-lawenforcement inclinations. The question is, did they kill the corrections officers to further ideological ends, or did they kill them in order to escape prison. The obvious answer is the latter, and yet these two miscreants somehow made their way onto the ADL’s tally of far right extremist murders. Conclusion: remove two from the white supremacist/far right extremism column.

Century Correctional Institution, Florida, June 19, 2017. A white Florida corrections inmate, Robert Hunt, stabbed and killed a black inmate, Jorge Slaughter. According to the ADL, Hunt’s tattoos are the evidence that this was an ideologically motivated murder. Tattoos! However, neither the guards nor the inmates that either witnessed the attack or knew either individual involved mentioned race or ideology as a factor. In fact, while all agreed that Hunt was the aggressor, the other inmates suggested that the attack represented a reprisal for theft. Nevertheless, the ADL included this murder in its tally of deaths due to “far right extremists.” Conclusion: remove one from the white supremacist/ far right extremism column.

Samish Island, Washington, July, 2017. On July 14, 2017, Lane Maurice Davis, who the ADL refers to as an “alt-lite conspiracy theorist,” stabbed and killed his father over a political disagreement. He was subsequently sentenced to seventeen years in prison. A forensic psychiatrist determined during the court proceedings that Davis’ psychological problems (dissociative disorder and Asperger’s syndrome) contributed to the killing. The nature of the disagreement seems to have sprung from a conversation about “leftist pedophiles.” During the disagreement, the father apparently called the younger Davis a Nazi and a racist. The younger Davis subsequently stabbed him with a kitchen knife. Although this type of ranting by the younger Davis, and the disagreement that followed, appears to have been a regular scene in the Davis household, this time it ended tragically. One must suspect mental health issues as the deciding factor. There is no evidence Lane Davis murdered his father to accomplish an ideological goal. Nevertheless, the ADL included this murder in their “far right extremists” death tally. Conclusion: remove one from the white supremacist/far right extremism column.

Charlottesville, Virginia, August, 2017. On August 12, 2017, James Alex Fields Jr., a white supremacist with Neo-Nazi views, killed Heather Heyer and injured nineteen others when he drove his car into a crowd of counter-protestors at a “Unite the Right” rally. Although Fields pled not guilty to the federal hate crimes charges, the evidence points to his probable guilt. While Fields has indicated in court proceedings that he suffers from bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety and A.D.H.D., and has been medicated for those problems, it would appear (pending trial) that Fields was driven by ideological motivations to ram his car into those he opposed on ideological grounds. Therefore, this is a clear-cut case of a white supremacist terror attack that resulted in one death. Conclusion: add one to the white supremacist/far right extremism column.

Greeley, Colorado, 2017. On August 16, 2017, Kelly Raisley shot and killed his uncle Randy Baker. Baker’s wife, Kelly Baker, paid Raisley to kill his uncle. In addition to the murder charge that Raisley confessed to, Kelly Baker and two others are being charged as accessories. The motive appears to have been personal gain–the conspirators planned to divide up Randy Baker’s belongings. A truly heinous crime. One must wonder, however, why the ADL included this as part of the “white supremacist” death tally? Well, because Raisley was part of a white supremacist gang, “the 211 Crew.” That’s right. Although the crime had no ideological motive, the ADL included it. Conclusion: remove one from the white supremacist/far right extremism column.

New York, October, 2017. Uzbek immigrant Sayfullo Saipov carried out a premeditated attack that left eight dead and eleven wounded when he drove a truck into a crowd of New York City pedestrians. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in New York City since September 11, 2001. In a pretrial conference, Saipov explained to the court that he carried out the attack in order to further the Islamic State’s (ISIS) war to “impose Sharia on earth.” Here we have a clear-cut case in which an extremist ideology was the driving force in premeditated murder. Case closed: jihadist terrorism. Conclusion: add eight to the jihadist column.

New Mexico, December, 2017. On December 7, 2017, twenty-one year-old William Atchison committed the premeditated murder of two New Mexico high school students before turning the gun on himself–a tragic event better known as the Aztec High School shooting. Atchison had previously been investigated by the FBI (in 2016) for online comments suggesting that he was planning a mass shooting, but they came to the unfortunate conclusion that he was a teen troll without serious real world objectives. The ADL concluded that Atchison was a “white supremacist,” and, without explanation, included the three deaths produced by the attack in its “right-wing extremist” death tally of 2017. When one delves a bit deeper into the details, however, one finds good reason to suspect that Atchison’s motives do not fit neatly into an ideological category. A more realistic explanation of his motives reveals that he was a psychologically troubled (a history of self-harming) and socially isolated young man that dabbled in a number of extremist points of view (including criticisms of his own “redneck” mother), but was ultimately just suicidal and seeking fame and notoriety.

So what motivated him to go on a shooting spree at the high school he once attended? Investigators, at first baffled for a motive, thought Atchison may have selected the timing of the shooting to coincide with the date of the World War II Pearl Harbor attack. At first glance, there would appear to be good evidence that Atchison was, on some level, motivated by ideological extremism. His autopsy revealed that he had fading pen marks on his body that included a swastika, “SS,” “AMOG,” and “build wall.” The Daily Beast claims Atchison lived a double-life, with a prolific online presence as a contributor to pro-Trump Reddit feeds and The Daily Stormer. However, while he made several racist remarks in his posts, the thrust of his online comments seems to have been an obsession with mass shooters of a variety of backgrounds, including jihadist Omar Matin of the Pulse nightclub attack.

And this is where a potential ideological motive becomes muddied–Atchison posted “praise be to Allah” on social media the day before he carried out the attack. Atchison’s thumb drive suicide note doesn’t mention anything whatsoever about race or a specific ideological motivation. In it, he insists that, “If things go according to plan, today would be when I die. I go somewhere and gear up, then hold a class hostage and go apeshit, then blow my brains out.” He continues by writing that, “work sucks, school sucks, life sucks. I just want out of this shit,” which is hardly the manifesto of a ideologically driven terrorist. The only consistent theme in Atchison’s otherwise schizophrenic worldview seems to have been the desire to die while committing a mass shooting.

You guessed it–the ADL included these three deaths in the far right extremist tally. Conclusion: inconclusive. Insanity? Remove three from the white supremacist/far right extremism column.

Reston, Virginia, December of 2017. An teenaged boy (unnamed because he is a minor) murdered his girlfriend’s parents for forcing an end to the teen fling. Apparently, the parents ended the relationship over the boy’s Neo-Nazi views. Although the accused’s mother claims the seventeen-year-old boy suffered from a prolonged struggle with mental health issues (a suicidal loner who suffered from autism, depression, and an anxiety disorder), the teen’s online presence leaves little doubt that he was a self-professed Neo-Nazi. While there is little doubt that he held these heinous views, some explanation of why this murder is included as part of an ADL report that examines ideologically motivated attacks seems necessary. In other words, while it may be accurate to call him a Neo-Nazi, there’s no evidence whatsoever that this ideology motivated him to kill his girlfriend’s parents. He killed them because he was mentally ill and they ended his relationship with their daughter. That’s not the same thing as, say, killing another person because they are Jewish, or Black.

Including these deaths in the ADL’s far right extremists tally is a obvious stretch, but that’s just what they did! Conclusion: remove two from the white supremacist/far right extremism column.

Cowboy’s conclusion: So what are we left with once we take a closer look at ADL’s data? In 2017, using only the incidents included in the ADL’s report (one must wonder what incidents weren’t included!), there were a total of 16 murders (21 if you count Devon Arthur and Jeremy Christian) that were motivated by ideological extremism. They break down as follows: 9 murders by Islamic extremists (11 if you count Devon Arthur), 3 murders by white supremacists/far right extremists (5 if you include Jeremy Christian), and 4 murders by black nationalists/supremacists.

One must wonder, were there any cases that the ADL may have overlooked?

What are the relative threats extremist groups pose to American society?
How significant of a threat are Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, anyway? The largest and best organized Neo-Nazi group, the National Socialist Movement, has an estimated national membership of 400. The SPLC estimates current KKK membership at between 5,000 and 8,000 members. ADL estimates of KKK membership in 22 states are at 3,000. Of course, the numbers of the KKK and other white supremacist groups are notoriously difficult to track due to the desire of most chapters to inflate their numbers, as well as the transient nature of hate organizations, which results in wild swings in membership rosters from year to year.

So, a ballpark estimate of all Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups (the ADL’s “far right”) combined would total about 10,000 people.

How do Antifa and other radical leftists groups compare? It’s difficult to say, due to the masks and all, but the New York Antifa Twitter page has 18,000 followers, and one of the movement’s top websites gets between 10,000 and 20,000 hits per day. The Nation of Islam has an estimated 10,000 to 50,000 members. Estimates of New Black Panther Party membership ranges from several hundred to thousands.

So, a ballpark estimate of membership in far left extremist groups ranges somewhere in the tens of thousands.

The relative numbers of dedicated extremists on the far left and the far right seem somewhat minuscule when we consider that the United States is a nation of over 320 million. Still, the question on many minds is, are we witnessing the mainstreaming of extremist ideologies as a byproduct of polarization? Perhaps.

There’s no indication that I’ve seen, other than oft-repeated partisan media exaggerations, that would suggest that a substantial portion of the American electorate (in either party) holds a favorable view of Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, which makes them likely to remain marginalized groups. However, the same can not be said of socialism. It is no longer hyperbole to suggest that millions of Americans now hold a favorable view of socialism–an ideology that, if implemented, would be fundamentally incompatible with a constitutional republic, private property, and the rule of law. In fact, socialism has proven itself to be the deadliest ideology in human history. Socialist regimes killed over 100 million of their own people in the twentieth century.

Relative threats…