Donald Trump and his white supremacist friends want Americans to be terrified of black and brown people. Specifically, they have spent the last two-plus years warning us that immigrants from Mexico and black identity extremists are dangerous criminals who pose a threat to law and order. They’ve done a great job whipping up their base into a frenzy—so much so that hate crimes targeting these groups are on the rise. They have, however, conveniently forgotten to mention that we should really be afraid of far-right extremists. Because despite Trump’s insistence that these folks are “very fine people,” it turns out that they are shooting and killing police officers—even though no one is talking about it.
Data gathered by ThinkProgress shows that between 2007 and 2017, at least 33 officers were shot by individuals either actively involved with or affiliated with far-right extremism. These include white supremacists, sovereign citizens, and lone wolf attackers.
The data shows that far-right extremists pose a consistent threat to law enforcement, particularly in more rural areas away from the national media spotlight. But even at a time of renewed focus on the far-right, discussion of these killings has been muted.
It’s easy to wonder why Trump’s Justice Department hasn’t done anything about this. After all, given the obsession that Jeff Sessions has with protecting and respecting police lives and upholding the reputation of the profession (to the detriment of the citizens they are supposed to protect), it would seem like they’d jump all over cases where domestic terrorists are gunning down cops. But, nah. White supremacists get a free pass from this administration. So cop killing, as long as it’s not done by black and brown folks, goes unchecked.
This might be the ultimate irony. At the end of 2017, law enforcement leaders across the country made a very big deal of stating that they have never, ever had a better champion than Donald Trump—whom they credited with reducing crime and the fact that line-of-duty deaths were down. Except their beloved advocate and his friends won’t actually stand up for police lives at all and bring attention to the fact that far-right extremists pose a threat to police safety.
When it comes to policing and safety, Trump and Sessions are far too busy normalizing racism and making people afraid of nonexistent problems caused by people of color rather than tackling real problems caused by whites.
Of the 23 separate attacks examined between 2007 and 2017, close to half (10 killings, or 44 percent) were carried out by white supremacists, with anti-government extremists responsible for six, and sovereign citizens three. Eleven officers were killed during police ambushes, nine when they were raiding a house or serving a warrant, and six during a shootout. Florida had by far the most incidents of any individual state — five. Colorado, Louisiana, Utah, and Pennsylvania each had two.
“If you take the number of far-right extremist-related murders and compare to the total number of U.S. murders it’s insignificant,” Mark Pitcavage, an expert on right-wing extremism for the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), told ThinkProgress. “But if you take the far-right murders of law enforcement and compare that like-for-like [with the total number of law enforcement officers killed] it’s a much more substantial minority. They would be a slice of the pie on those murders.”
Extremism is on the rise during Trump’s presidency and it’s nothing to ignore. This includes a rise in black nationalist groups, whose activity has spiked and is now the most it’s been since the 1980s. But we can only imagine why that is. If black nationalists didn’t have proof before that America is hostile to black people, they most surely have it now with this administration. Still, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the threat posed by black nationalists isn’t nearly on the same scale as white supremacists.
But, according to Pitcavage, the militant resurgence from black nationalists still doesn’t compare to the dangers law enforcement face from the far-right. “This is most significant amount of black nationalist activity we’ve had since the 1980s, you have to acknowledge it,” Pitcavage said. “But it’s not anywhere close to the far-right. You have to keep it in perspective. It’s fine to act on it but it doesn’t take away from the dangers of right-wing extremism.”
It’s important to remember that Donald Trump did not invent white supremacy or right-wing extremists. He is, if anything, a symptom of a larger cause. And while they’ve been targeting police for longer than he has been a politician, he is certainly their champion, ally and enabler. And he has assembled a cabinet and administration of equally horrible human beings who legitimize white supremacy through policy and practice. So, it isn’t a surprise that police are being killed on his watch and that nothing is being done about it. This was an issue during the last administration too. The difference is that the last guy who sat in the Oval Office didn’t try to con the American people into thinking that Nazis were good people and that black and brown people were responsible for bringing violence and murder to our doorsteps. We can firmly give credit for that lie to our current Racist-in-Chief.