Bob Bingham
Raw StorySat, 31 Aug 2019 00:00 UTC
© UnknownImage of El-Paso shooter
Authorities have been aggressively investigating potential mass shooters since the white supremacist terrorist attack at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas.
"In the four weeks since a 21-year-old alleged white nationalist was charged in the slaughter of 22 people inside a Walmart in El Paso, Texas,
law enforcement authorities have arrested more than 40 people as potential mass shooters — an average of more than one per day," the Huffington Post
reported Saturday.
"A HuffPost survey of these arrests likely didn't capture every one, but it offers a snapshot of the types of cases that law enforcement officials face in a country with easy access to weapons capable of killing a lot of people quickly.
"The cases range from allegations of vague social media threats from juveniles that set parents on edge to well-developed plots from people who had access to weapons and appeared to authorities to have been planning a mass murder.
"There were roughly a dozen cases involving right-wing ideology. There were at least a dozen alleged threats against schools. There were half a dozen cases involving alleged threats against Walmarts."
Patrick Crusius was arrested for the El Paso attack, which killed 22 people and injured 24. He reportedly published a right-wing manifesto on 8chan shortly before the shooting.Read the
full report, which includes background on the individual cases.
Comment: More from
Huffington Post, 31/8/2019:
A number of the alleged threats, if carried out, would have qualified as instances of domestic terrorism. A top FBI official told reporters this year that domestic terrorism cases were "challenging" for the bureau.
The disparate handling of right-wing and Islamic terrorism has set off a debate over the need for a domestic terrorism law, and one prominent lawmaker has introduced such legislation, which has already raised objections from civil liberties advocates.
As of late July, FBI Director Christopher Wray told a Senate committee that the FBI had already been involved in 100 domestic terrorism-related arrests in the first three-quarters of the 2019 fiscal year, which began in October 2018.
The rapid pace of new cases suggests that the number of domestic terrorism-related cases in the 2019 fiscal year could outpace the 2017 and 2018 fiscal year figures. Bureau officials said they'll use any tool they can to take out a potential threat, and a review of the cases suggests the FBI was involved in a number of cases that resulted in local charges.
"It may not be evident in the face of the crime or who's involved working it that it's a domestic terrorism suspect who was arrested," an FBI official previously said. "We use anything [in federal law] we can that fits, that's appropriate."
See also:
Comment: More from Huffington Post, 31/8/2019: See also: