Testifying today before the House Judiciary Committee, Rodney Monroe, Chief of Police of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department, warned members of Congress that, “Terrorism is a real threat that we face every day – both the Sheriff and I face threats of attack at public shopping malls in our communities. Domestic terrorism is prevalent. It’s not something that is simply going to disappear… As the number and variety of terrorism incidents and cases shows, violent extremism can be found everywhere.”
Is Rodney Monroe right?
Is domestic terrorism prevalent?
Prevalent is a word with specific meaning. When something is prevalent, that means it prevails. Something prevalent is not present absolutely everywhere, but the chances are that, if you look for it in a place, you’ll find it easily. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word “prevalent” as something “widely or commonly occurring, existing, accepted, or practiced.”
In the first ten years after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, only 30 people were killed inside the United States as a part of what might broadly be called domestic terrorism. That’s a rate of death from domestic terrorism of less than one millionth of one percent of the population per decade.
Among these incidents of domestic terrorism were attacks from right wing Americans. These include two people murdered by right wing Minutemen militias along the U.S. border, two people killed when when a man upset with the IRS purposefully crashed his small airplane into a government office building, and an abortion provider murdered in Wichita, Kansas.
Does Rodney Monroe face threats of attack at public shopping malls in Charlotte, North Carolina? Perhaps there may be some threats, but probably not. Last autumn, there were reports that someone who liked the Islamic State had a Twitter conversation in which he talked about wanting to die some day in the way Islamic State fighters do. During that Twitter conversation, the person with that Twitter account also mentioned that he knows of a mall in Charlotte. Though the conversation never actually threatened an attack against the shopping mall in Charlotte, rumors began to spread that such a threat existed.
The FBI statement about this case was as follows: “The FBI is unaware of any specific, credible threats to the U.S. or the Charlotte area at this time. The FBI works around the clock with our partners in the law enforcement community to share and assess information. As always, we encourage the public to remain vigilant and to report any suspicious activities to your local police or the FBI.”
Likewise, this week, it was reported that someone had issued a threat of a terrorist attack against a shopping mall in the United States. Later, it was revealed that no specific, credible threat actually existed.
So, what it looks like is that Rodney Moore faces rumors of threats of terrorist attacks at shopping malls in Charlotte, North Carolina. Does the Charlotte Mecklenberg Police Department actually need help from the Department of Homeland Security just to deal with false rumors?
What about Rodney Monroe’s contention that “violent extremism can be found everywhere”? What he says is true, if we consider that every human being entertains thoughts of violent extremism every now and then. People who think about violent extremism are, indeed, everywhere. However, it’s not the job of the police to punish people for thinking bad thoughts. If we consider violent extremism in terms of people actually committing criminal acts of terrorism, then it’s clear that violent extremism is almost nowhere at all in the United States of America.
Rodney Monroe says he deals with threats of terrorist attack in Charlotte, North Carolina every day, but the fact is that there has not been a single terrorist attack in Charlotte in this century. The closest thing to a real threat of a terrorist attack in Charlotte was a right wing conspiracy theory spread last year by someone using the pseudonym Truther, claiming that Barack Obama was going to bomb the Bank of America headquarters there. “It appears that an Oklahoma City-like bombing is planned for the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. Although the attack could transpire at any time, one potential date is Father’s Day, June 15, 2014,” Truther said. Like everything that Truther predicts, the false flag terrorist attack in Charlotte never actually took place.