Law enforcement agencies nationwide are far more concerned of the threat posed by the right-wing extremism that inspired Dylann Roof's murderous rampage in Charleston than they are of Islamic extremism. That's what a recent
survey of 382 law enforcement agencies found. Catherine Thompson
reports:
Charles Kurzman, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who helped conduct the survey, told TPM in a Friday phone interview that what we know now about the suspect in the Charleston shooting, a white, 21-year-old man named Dylann Roof, indicates that his crime fits into a larger mosaic of right-wing extremist threats that law enforcement agencies are most concerned about. That remains the case even as attacks linked to Islamic extremists, like that on the "Draw Mohammad" contest last month in Garland, Texas, dominate headlines.
The survey, conducted last year by Kurzman and David Shanzer of Duke University, in collaboration with the Police Executive Research Forum, found that 74 percent of law enforcement agencies ranked anti-government extremism among the top three terror threats they faced.
By contrast, threats linked to groups like al-Qaeda registered at that same level among only 39 percent of the 382 agencies surveyed.
Time to start rethinking who the bigger threat to the U.S. is. Republicans have a bunch of big plans related to ISIS and so-called "Islamic terrorism." But they spent the entire weekend
ducking the real issues underlying Roof's rampage.
It took Jeb Bush three tries Friday to evolve from "I don't know what was on the mind or the heart" of Roof to finally naming him "a racist." Now that's leadership you can believe in.