Online influence, violent rhetoric: UNO experts worry about increase in violence this week
Three incidents drove concern this week: the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, a gunman in Cincinnati and an attack on a popular author in New York.
Three incidents drove concern this week: the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, a gunman in Cincinnati and an attack on a popular author in New York.
Three incidents drove concern this week: the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago, a gunman in Cincinnati and an attack on a popular author in New York.
Counterterrorism experts at the University of Nebraska-Omaha describe this week as a boiling pot.
The FBI searched for top secret documents at Donald Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago, prompting a surge in online rhetoric. Gina Ligon, director of the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center (NCITE), says online influence is stewing the potential for violence.
"When you see key leaders or people who maybe aren't even violent, stoking violence and others, and we are seeing a lot of extremist groups kind of picking that up and seeing that is sort of a call to action," Ligon said.
She and psychologist Sam Hunter are part of the research lab studying how to prevent anti-government, anti-authority, and violent extremists.
"I think that's an important goal for us here at NCITE," Ligon said. "A lot of things that we have been seeing simmering for a long time now feel like they're all bumping into each other."
Hunter wants to know how much security was present at a New York lecture hall where author Salman Rushdie was stabbed.
"One of the things that made it unique from an attack perspective was sort of the unanticipated nature of it," Hunter said.
Hunter, Ligon, and their students study incidents to help law enforcement partners and the US Department of Homeland Security stay a step ahead of bad actors.
"There's not a ton of research and science around there, which is why we're being asked by the Department of Homeland Security to provide recommendations and summaries around soft targets," Hunter said.
Checking mobilization indicators, the only counterterrorism center in the country is seeing more white nationalist and white supremacist extremism since January 6. Ligon says the Cincinnati gunman who tried to breach an FBI office expressed a specific plan and target online.
"One of those was when he was talking about FBI being in Mar Lago and he told everyone, if they approach, you shoot them," Ligon said. "So that's a specific target and a specific technique that he wanted to go over."
Ligon said those alleged and unverified posts were online for at least three days. It's their goal to understand as many violent plans and indicators as possible.
She says NCITE is now suspicious of rhetoric surfacing on TikTok following the search at Mar-a-Lago.