By Demetrius Dillard
The recent passing of the fourth anniversary of the infamous Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was a grim reminder to the nation and the world of the atrocities of domestic terrorism.
The latest act of domestic terrorism that has dominated national headlines over the last few weeks was what transpired in New Orleans on New Year’s Day.
Early on the morning of Jan. 1, an individual identified by federal authorities as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar killed at least 10 people and injured dozens more after ramming a pickup truck into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, whom authorities suggest may have been a member of a terrorist organization, fired gunshots at law enforcement after hitting the crowd and exiting the vehicle. The subject was pronounced dead after officers returned fire, but two law enforcement officials were injured and transported to a local hospital.
Back to the Jan. 6 insurrection — some still argue that it was not an act of terrorism, but was rather a spirited protest or demonstration. By definition, the Jan. 6 Capitol riots was indeed a terror attack.
Domestic terrorism takes on several forms and doesn’t necessarily have to result in death — though the Capitol attacks did reportedly lead to a few individuals dying. The U.S. Department of Justice reported there were approximately 140 police officers assaulted during the Jan. 6 riots. That alone is a federal offense.
The FBI defines domestic terrorism as the use of violence to intimidate, coerce or influence the U.S. government or civilian population. It is also characterized as “violence committed by Americans to achieve goals” motivated by domestic or extremist ideologies. This could not be a clearer indication of what transpired on Jan. 6, 2021.
The Department of Justice’s Fiscal Year 2022 budget request that addressed domestic terrorism said the “January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol is but the most recent and visible example of the [domestic terrorism] threat. The deluge of electronically stored information from the January 6 event, and the increasing number of cases and defendants, have demonstrated that the Department’s DT response capability requires additional resources to protect public safety.”
The budget request at the time included more than $100 million in investments to counter the domestic terrorism threat.
“Large-scale [domestic terrorism] incidents have increased significantly over the past several years. In FY 2020, the FBI assessed the greatest terrorism threat to the United States was from lone actors… who typically radicalize online and look to attack soft targets with easily accessible weapons. The underlying drivers, including socio-political conditions, racism, and anti-Semitism remain constant,” the budget request said.
Some scholars and national security experts have emphasized what domestic terrorism looks like for Black Americans and other minorities. Some examples would be the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (1963), the Charleston church shooting (2015), and most notably, the utter destruction of Black Wall Street (1921).
Again, domestic terrorism can be executed in a variety of ways — especially as it relates to minority populations. It doesn’t necessarily have to involve the use of gun violence or explosive threats, though these qualities are traditionally associated with terrorism.
James Piazza, a political science professor at Pennsylvania State University, has done extensive research focusing on terrorism and political violence. He authored a scholarly piece entitled “Poverty, minority economic discrimination, and domestic terrorism” (2011) that draws a correlation between minority economic discrimination and domestic terrorism.
Piazza’s thorough study “revisits the relationship between poverty and terrorism and suggests a new factor to explain patterns of domestic terrorism: minority economic discrimination.”
He used data from the Minorities at Risk project to “determine that countries featuring minority group economic discrimination are significantly more likely to experience domestic terrorist attacks, whereas countries lacking minority groups or whose minorities do not face discrimination are significantly less likely to experience terrorism.”
The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report in 2023 on the rising threat of domestic terrorism and the federal efforts to combat it. The report cites research indicating that between 2010 and 2021, there were 231 domestic terrorism incidents.
“Of these, about 35% (the largest category) were classified as racially- or ethnically-motivated. These attacks were also the most lethal,” the report says.
In May 2022, an incident that left 10 victims dead in Buffalo, N.Y., is a recent instance that shows the deleterious effects of domestic terrorism on minority communities. The perpetrator of the shooting was a racially motivated individual.
Concurrently, the National Institute of Justice published a report that conveys the detriment of domestic terrorism on minority communities. Many of these attacks, especially over the last 30 years or so, are increasingly motivated by racial and political ideologies, and target vulnerable populations.
“Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism. Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists, including 227 events that took more than 520 lives,” the NIJ research paper says.
“A recent threat assessment by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security concluded that domestic violent extremists are an acute threat and highlighted a probability that COVID-19 pandemic-related stressors, long-standing ideological grievances related to immigration, and narratives surrounding electoral fraud will continue to serve as a justification for violent actions.”
