STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT- Michael Herman, a former special agent for the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the bureau underestimates the extent of the threat posed by white supremacists in the country. However, numerous studies in recent years point to the idea of white supremacy as the biggest threat of domestic extremism in the United States.
The US Federal Bureau of Investigation is failing to tackle the growing problem of violence by white supremacists despite warnings that their actions pose the greatest domestic terrorism threat in the country.
In an interview with the publication, a former FBI special agent who infiltrated white supremacist groups in the 1990s, Michael German, noted that the bureau continues to underestimate the magnitude of the threat. This has left communities targeted by white supremacists and far-right groups, such as Buffalo, New York, where 10 people were killed in a shooting this week, left unprotected.
“ US law enforcement has failed, and has long failed, to provide affected communities like Buffalo with equal protection under the law. They are not actually investigating the crimes that are taking place,” Herman said.
The shooting in Buffalo was allegedly started by a white supremacist who chose Tops because it is located in an area dominated by black Americans. This is indicated by a 180-page online manifesto he published, in which the perpetrator stated that immigrants were ” displacing ” white Americans.
Numerous studies in recent years point to white supremacy as the biggest threat of domestic extremism in the US. The FBI itself is sounding the alarm: in 2020, former director Christopher Ray told Congress that the number of violent hate crimes is the main source of ideological killings, surpassing the threat from jihadists.
In an interview with The Guardian, Herman said that US law enforcement in general and the FBI in particular are behind the times. Despite a clear congressional mandate, the bureau has yet to provide statistics that reveal the extent of crimes committed by white supremacists.
“ White supremacists kill far more Americans than anyone else the FBI classifies as domestic terrorists, but the bureau still doesn’t document the crimes and deaths. I think this is a reflection of the lack of concern for the victims of this violence , ”the publication quotes him as saying.
After the tragedy in Buffalo, US Attorney General Merrick Garland promised to seek justice for the innocent victims. Garland stated that the Justice Department would treat the massacre ” as a hate crime and an act of racially motivated violent extremism “.
According to Herman, both of these definitions – “hate crime ” and ” racially motivated violent extremism ” – are problematic in terms of how they are usually applied to incidents involving white supremacists. Most of the acts that are considered hate crimes are referred by the Department of Justice to the state and city police for investigation, although 85% of them do not recognize hate crimes as a phenomenon, so ” incidents are lost .”
In recent years, surveys based on the experience of the victims of such crimes themselves have recorded more than 200,000 cases of hate crimes per year. At the same time, on average, the US Department of Justice initiates only 21 hate cases per year.
As a result, according to Herman, the attention that should have been focused on the growing threat from white supremacists is dissipating, and federal resources are being dispersed. Meanwhile, organized crime groups designed to maintain white power go largely unnoticed.
According to Herman, this contrasts sharply with the excessive surveillance of Muslim communities in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The former FBI special agent said it was baffling that an institution like the FBI, which became a de facto counter-terrorism intelligence agency after 9/11, is, on the contrary, so lukewarm about white supremacy.
Moreover, he claims that elements of this ideology have been infiltrating the bureau for decades, something Herman knows from personal experience . for my undercover operation, ” Herman said.
In 2006, the FBI produced a report that found “the presence of white supremacists among law enforcement officials is a cause for concern “. According to The Guardian, it was 16 years ago. So far, no national effort has been made to ” eradicate this contagion “.
