www.imv-report.org Open in urlscan Pro
198.49.23.145 Public Scan

Back to summary

Submitted URL:
http://imv-report.org/
Effective URL:
https://www.imv-report.org/
Submission: On November 15 via api (November 15th 2024, 10:02:31 am UTC) from US — Scanned from DE

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

INSTITUTE FOR SOCIAL POLICY & UNDERSTANDING | APRIL 2018

Scroll

EQUAL TREATMENT?
MEASURING THE LEGAL AND MEDIA RESPONSES TO IDEOLOGICALLY MOTIVATED VIOLENCE IN
THE UNITED STATES

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary PDF
Report Authors

Executive Summary

Share
Tweet
Email

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 2010, Justin Carl Moose, a self-described “Christian counterpart to Osama
bin-Laden,” planned to blow up an abortion clinic. He was in possession of means
to make explosives, including potassium permanganate, fuse wires, and metal
shavings to make the explosive TATP.

And in May 2013, officials arrested Buford “Bucky” Rogers, who reportedly held
white supremacist views and who law enforcement officials say cheered the Boston
marathon bombing. Rogers made homemade bombs with the military-grade explosive
PETN, crafted Molotov cocktails filled with “homemade napalm,” and had a loaded
SKS rifle. He discussed using the weapons locally.

Most people have likely never heard of these two men, possibly because their
plans received relatively little media coverage. Combined, the New York Times
and Washington Post ran just two articles on Rogers. They printed no stories
about Moose. Ultimately for their alleged plotted crimes, Rogers was sentenced
to 40 months (3.3 years) in federal prison, and Moose was sentenced to 30 months
(2.5 years).

Compare their cases to Antonio Martinez, who was alleged to have acted in the
name of Islam when he planned to bomb a military recruitment station outside
Baltimore and shoot personnel as they fled the scene. Law enforcement provided
Martinez a fake bomb. Together, the New York Times and Washington Post published
ten articles about Martinez. Martinez was charged with planning to use a weapon
of mass destruction and was sentenced to 300 months (25 years) in federal
prison.

This report seeks to explore whether and why these cases, and those like them,
have such different outcomes. More specifically, this report examines the extent
to which the perceived identity of an alleged perpetrator as either Muslim or
non-Muslim shapes both print media coverage and legal responses to ideologically
motivated violence (IMV) in the United States.

This report defines violence as ideologically motivated when the perpetrator of
violence is perceived by a) the media and/or b) law enforcement to be committing
the violence to promote an ideology. This report does not attempt to determine
perpetrator ideologies, nor does it endorse the accuracy of these assessments by
media or law enforcement. Rather, it analyzes what happens to perpetrators based
on the perception of their ideologies.

Our analysis of the examples examined in this report found that, for similar
plots, Muslim-perceived perpetrators received harsher legal charges and longer
prison sentences than their non-Muslim counterparts. Perpetrators identified as
Muslim also had qualitatively different media coverage than perpetrators not
identified as Muslim.

The differences were often stark:

* On average, prosecutors sought three times the sentence length for Muslim
perpetrators as for perpetrators not identified as Muslim for similar plots
of attempted ideologically driven violence (230 months vs. 76 months).
Additionally, Muslim perpetrators received four times the average sentence as
their non-Muslim counterparts for attempted plots of similar conduct (211 vs.
53).

* Moreover, undercover law enforcement or an informant provided the means of
the crime (such as a firearm or inert bomb) in a majority (two-thirds) of
convictions in plots involving a perceived Muslim perpetrator, but in a small
fraction (two out of twelve) of those involving a non-Muslim perpetrator.

* In terms of print media coverage, Muslim-perceived perpetrators received
twice the absolute quantity of media coverage as their non-Muslim
counterparts in the cases of violent completed acts. For “foiled” plots, they
received seven and half times the media coverage as their counterparts.

* Differences also extended to media references to a perceived Muslim
perpetrator’s religion as compared to ideologies of perceived non-Muslims,
mentions of specific phrases such as “terrorist” or “terrorism,” and coverage
of the ultimate prison sentences.

SUMMARY OF METHODOLOGY

PERPETRATOR CATEGORY DEFINITION

We divided our incident analysis into two categories, defined below, based on
media reports and publicly available legal documents and databases. We base our
categories on the law enforcement assessment of identity and motivation, but do
not endorse these assessments.

Categories

CATEGORY A

Individuals committing or plotting violent acts who are perceived to be Muslim
and allegedly acting in the name of Islam.

CATEGORY B

Individuals committing or plotting violent ideologically motivated acts who are
not perceived to be Muslim.

INCIDENT SELECTION

IMV incidents associated with perpetrators of both categories were selected from
existing, published datasets of ideologically motivated violence.

[1] Based on a combination of these existing datasets, United States-based IMV
incidents from 2002 to 2015

[2] resulting in two or more fatalities

[3] were included. We also included a set of violent ideological plots that were
prevented or foiled prior to completion, either by law enforcement investigation
or through a “sting” operation. The violent plots included bomb plots and
firearms plots. As used in this report “violent plot” and “plot” are
interchangeable. The goal of selecting this set of incidents was not to create a
new or comprehensive database of IMV acts. Instead, the purpose was to
facilitate as best as possible an “apples to apples” study, i.e., to compare
Category A and Category B perpetrators whose conduct and impact were similar in
severity and quality. Incident selection was done prior to any analysis and was
not changed after analysis began.

INCIDENT ANALYSIS

The IMV incidents were then analyzed to determine media and legal outcomes.

Media metrics included:

* Quantity and quality of coverage,

* Whether articles discussed religion of alleged perpetrators, and

* The frequency of usage of specific terms such as “terror” or “hate.”

Legal metrics examined included:

* What, if any, criminal charges were filed,

* What sentences were pursued and achieved, and

* What kind of media outreach was issued by law enforcement regarding the case.

This methodology is discussed in further detail below. The media analysis looked
exclusively at coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post. These outlets
were chosen for a number of reasons. First, we chose print media that enjoys
comprehensive archives with content that can be easily analyzed to facilitate
systematic analysis. Second, we chose the two most reputable and purportedly
“liberal” national newspapers which would have the best chance of fairly
portraying minority communities.

CHALLENGE: ARE WE COMPARING APPLES TO APPLES?

Some may suggest that differences in nature and scale of offenses may make it
difficult to analyze or draw inferences from the legal and media treatment of
the two categories of perpetrators. While we cannot rule out that such
differences might partly explain some differences in outcome, we have taken a
number of steps to ensure as close to an “apples to apples” comparison as
possible.

Here are the factors that have been recorded and accounted for in analyzing
incidents:

Factors

Fatalities

An incident resulting a greater number of fatalities is generally more severe
than one with fewer.

Weapon used

The weapon used in a violent incident or planned for use in a violent plot
indicates the intended scale of the violent act.

Intended outcome

The level of harm the perpetrator aimed to cause, as alleged by law enforcement.

Target of incident

The type of target is recorded in incidents, such as whether it is a religious
community, a racial or ethnic group, an LGBT individual or group, or the
government.

Existence of co-perpetrators

Where applicable, any accused co-perpetrators or co-conspirators are recorded.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Category A and Category B set contains a range of incidents of varied targets
and apparent motivations, from anti-government to racially- or
religiously-motivated, as well as incidents of both small and large scale.

Examples of Category A violent plots included planned efforts to bomb and shoot
military recruitment centers, to murder military employees with an AK-47, to
bomb city buildings, to bring a car bomb to an airport tarmac, to bomb a
Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, and to engage in mass shootings against
civilians.

Examples of Category B violent plots included plans to take over a courthouse
with an AK-47, to use assault rifles to murder civilians, to bomb federal
buildings and public infrastructure, to deploy the biological weapon ricin
against civilians, and to attack a Mexican consulate in St. Paul with a truck
bomb.

SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS

LEGAL OUTCOMES

* In relation to similar violent ideological plots, Category A perpetrators
were prosecuted with significantly more severe legal charges than were
Category B perpetrators. The differences in charging were a major factor in
sentencing averages. For instance, sentences were an average of 211 months
for Category A perpetrators and 53 months for Category B. The sentences
sought by prosecutors were on average 230 months for Category A and 76 months
for Category B.

[4]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Category A bomb plots that were not carried out were almost exclusively
charged as “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs). (Legally, the term “WMD” is
different from the common meaning of nuclear, chemical, or biological
weapons, as it applies to conventional explosives like bombs or grenades). On
the other hand, most of the Category B bomb plots that appear to have
qualified as WMDs, based on alleged facts, were not. The distinction is
important because the non-WMD defendants typically received less than five
years in prison, whereas charging a bomb plot as WMD usually led to over a
twenty-year sentence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Undercover law enforcement or an informant provided the means of the crime
(such as a firearm or inert bomb) in a majority of Category A plots, but in
very few (two) of the Category B cases. In another Category B case,
undercover law enforcement offered assistance in developing or modifying
weapons that the perpetrators were already acquiring or developing.

[6]

* Category B perpetrators were often charged with a lesser charge even when
they obtained or made their own military-grade explosives.

MEDIA OUTCOMES

* The report found that Category A perpetrators on average received more than
twice the media coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post. In cases
of violent ideological plots that were not carried out, coverage was 7.75
times greater for Category A perpetrators as Category B.

[7]

* The Category B violent plot receiving the most media coverage (six articles)
involved four members of a north Georgia militia planning to bomb federal
buildings and attack cities with deadly ricin. They were charged with
conspiracy to produce biological weapons. Yet, this media coverage was still
lower than the average number of articles written about a Category A incident
(7.5 articles).

* A large majority of articles referencing Category A offenders contained the
terror-focused terms “terror,” “terrorism,” and/or “terrorist” across all
subsets (ranging from 54% to 68%), compared to just roughly a quarter of
articles referencing Category B offenders, despite both categories of
offenders being alleged to have been ideologically motivated and mostly
targeting civilians.

* In contrast, only an extremely small percent (just 4% to 7%) of articles
referencing Category A offenders contained the term “hate,” while 24% to 35%
of articles referencing Category B offenders contained the term “hate.”

* The U.S. Department of Justice issued press releases from its national office
in the Category A violent plots examined six times more often than in the
Category B violent plots. Many factors may go into the publication of press
releases and the frequency of those releases may not necessarily be a metric
of prosecution priorities. The research team recorded the data and encourages
further investigation and discussion around this point. The difference might
be explained by the fact that Category A prosecutions, more often than
Category B, involved charges that require establishing a connection to or
ideology of a Foreign Terrorist Organization,

[8] which some Justice Department officials say is a more straightforward
case to make under existing laws than prosecuting domestic terrorism.

[9]

1. [1] START Global Terrorism Database, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Lone
Wolf Database, and The Intercept Terror Trials Database, further outlined in
the Methodology section below. ↩

1. [2] Incidents beyond 2015 were not included in the dataset as the START
Global Terrorism database did not yet contain 2016 data at the start of this
research project. Thus, significant incidents or plots perceived to be
ideologically driven such as the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting or Kansas
anti-Muslim “Crusaders” plot were not part of this study. ↩

1. [3] Incidents coded as one fatality in the existing databases were not
included as it often reflected a circumstance in which the perpetrator alone
was killed during the act. ↩

1. [4] This excludes cases where life sentences were sought or obtained. There
were more life sentences sought and obtained for Category A perpetrators
(two sought and two obtained for Category A, and one sought and not obtained
for Category B). Sentencing relies on a number of factors, including the
criminal history of the defendant, the jurisdiction, the judge, and others.
The report points out the correlation between heightened charges and higher
sentences but does not make any conclusions regarding sentencing procedures.
↩

1. [6] This report does not claim that law enforcement never engages in sting
operations of Category B perpetrators, but that these results were found in
the underlying data. ↩

1. [7] An instance of “media coverage” is defined as an article that references
an incident, using identifying metrics regarding the incident. ↩

1. [8] FTOs are non-U.S. organizations that are designated by the U.S. State
Department pursuant to section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act
(INA). ↩

1. [9] Ryan J. Reilly, “There’s A Good Reason Feds Don’t Call White Guys
Terrorists, Says DOJ Domestic Terror Chief,” Huffington Post, January 11,
2018. ↩

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BAckground

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SOCIAL CONTEXT: MEDIA, LAW, AND COMMUNITY

Ideologically motivated violence is undoubtedly a major concern to people living
in the United States. While all Americans are concerned about public safety, for
Muslims and other vulnerable communities, there is added angst knowing that, if
the next violent incident is committed by a perpetrator perceived to be Muslim,
there will be backlash against communities as a whole.

[10] In fact, a recent ISPU poll discovered that top policy concerns for Muslims
were civil rights and addressing bigotry, above national security. For Muslims,
having their civil rights violated and being subject to bigotry are often daily
challenges, with one in five Muslims reporting regular religious discrimination

[11] and as violent vigilante attacks against Muslims, others perceived to be
Muslim, and other communities of color become more commonplace.

[12]

Indeed, for Muslim-perceived individuals who are accused of criminality,
ideology and identity are often conflated. That means that the perception of
ideology—violence being done allegedly in the name of Islam—is coupled with a
perception that the perpetrator has a Muslim identity. The conflation of
ideology and identity makes collective guilt more likely and leads to public
acceptance of discriminatory policies.

[13]

As a point of contrast, a right-wing extremist ideology or white supremacist
ideology is rarely, if ever, attributed broadly to individuals with a white
identity

[14] or to those who adhere to a right-wing ideology more generally. This is, of
course, the appropriate outcome, yet it is often not the case for certain groups
in the United States, with unfair treatment of Muslims being a particularly
strong example.

[15] Collective guilt or punishment reinforces prejudices that an identity of
belonging to a particular faith makes one more predisposed to committing acts of
violence.

[16] These prejudices are of course discriminatory and dangerous.

The media play a significant role in developing and perpetuating social
prejudices and bias. Because the media set the national conversation on issues
both politically and culturally, the gatekeeper status bestowed on journalists
has far-ranging implications on the political, social, and legal ramifications
of IMV incidents. The various terms used to describe mass acts of violence
denote specific associations and often trigger unique value judgments, with
serious consequences for both perpetrators and, perhaps most importantly,
innocent communities.

[17]

Biases in media coverage have the potential to generate backlash against the
Muslim community, fuel government reactions against the community, and influence
the legal ramifications of an individual case.

[18] Conversely, there is a perception that when the suspect/perpetrator of an
ideologically motivated incident is non-Muslim, and particularly white, the
media denies “terrorism” status and thus devalues the victim, insulates the
perpetrator from scrutiny, and curtails preventative responses from the
government. A June 24, 2015 Washington Times headline, for example, illustrates
this double standard: Majority of fatal attacks on U.S. soil carried out by
white supremacists, not terrorists.

[19]

Indeed, violent acts motivated by an ideology are called by many different terms
in the media, and treated in many different ways in the legal system. Sometimes
they are called
“terrorism,” other times they are “hate crimes”;

[20]and other times they are acts committed by a “lone wolf” or “mass shooter.”
At times, these terms are used interchangeably in relation to the same
incident.

[21] Many of these discrepancies led the United Nations Educational, Scientific,
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to publish a handbook in 2017 for journalists
in response to concerns regarding the quality and fairness of coverage of cases
of terrorism.

[22]

These terms not only carry significantly varying amounts of political and moral
weight, but framing an act as “terrorism” is enough to amplify media coverage,
shift policy, and result in vastly increased legal sanctions and punishment.
Disparate terms also affect priorities in addressing extremism.

The choice of label for ideologically motivated violence may have severe
implications on the following:

* Due process for individuals: The distinction between a standard criminal
charge, a hate crime enhancement, and a terrorism prosecution, for example,
would be highly significant to a defendant. The potential sentences differ by
years, decades or even life in prison, as well more difficult defenses at
trial.
* Impact for communities: Investigative tools triggered by “terrorism”
investigations tend to have severe civil rights and other sociological
repercussions on affected communities

[23]. This includes free speech issues, covert surveillance, watch lists, and
imprisonment.

[24] Language and framing choices in news media also has been shown to
contribute to prejudice against Muslim communities.

[25]
* Public safety and sound policy: The visibility of the label “terrorism” in
public discourse makes the use of the term a priority setter for resources
and funding. Making sure that the label accurately represents threats to
public safety, not just biases, is necessary to ensure sound and effective
policy as well as avoid wasted resources.

WHY THIS REPORT

Ideologically motivated violence receives a wide range of responses in both the
legal system and media. The legal system may charge ideological violence as a
hate crime or under terrorism statutes, and the punishment can range from
capital punishment to no punishment. Media responses to ideologically motivated
violence can also vary wildly. Sometimes IMV incidents receive no coverage at
all. Other times, they dominate news cycles for days or weeks.

Questions we sought to explore through this study included whether a segment of
print media was more likely to 1) label an incident as “terrorism,” 2) cover the
incident more vigorously, or 3) frame coverage of perpetrators differently – all
based on the perpetrator’s perceived ideology or identity.

Similarly, we also sought to explore whether the legal system treats
perpetrators of violence differently based on identity or ideology including 1)
If law enforcement investigative strategies differ based on the identity of the
alleged perpetrators, 2) if and how law enforcement describe incidents of
violence differently or more aggressively, 3) whether prosecutors charge
suspects differently for similar alleged acts, and 4) whether sentencing
outcomes are different.

Finally, we sought to explore the interplay and potential links between the
media and legal systems and how potential biases within one system may reinforce
biases in the other.

As a whole, this report seeks to identify the extent to which the perceived
identity or ideology of a perpetrator of violence as either Muslim or non-Muslim
shapes both legal and print media responses.

This report specifically seeks to assess if, and to what degree, biases in
treatment of perpetrators of ideologically motivated violence exist in two main
spheres:

* In the print media, by examining two papers of record, the New York Times and
the Washington Post, and
* In the legal system, by examining legal proceedings in federal- and
state-level prosecutions and law enforcement statements to the press and
public.

Media bias in relation to perpetrators of violence who are perceived to be
Muslim, as well as to the Muslim community as a whole, has been researched
previously. For instance, a 2015 report by 416 labs found that New York Times
headlines including the words “Muslim” or “Islam” were predominantly negative,
even more so than headlines involving the word "cancer."

[26] A March 2017 academic report found that Muslim perpetrators of violence
receive 449% more coverage on average relative to non-Muslim perpetrators, even
controlling for differences in casualty sizes, coming to the conclusion that
media coverage of Muslim perpetrators of violence was disproportionate.

[27]

This report builds on but is also distinct from prior studies examining news
media coverage of incidents of mass violence. While our report examined
quantitative media coverage like the Kearns study, we focused on just two top
print news sources and drew our findings based on examining dozens of specific
sampled incidents. Moreover, we coupled a quantitative analysis with an
examination of qualitative coverage, including an analysis of framing and
language choices at the article level for a set of case studies. Finally, we
examined legal outcomes and related metrics separate and alongside media
coverage to explore another equally critical system. We believe, ultimately,
that our findings are consistent with the conclusions of prior reports exploring
media and other types of bias involving treatment of perpetrators of ideological
violence based on their perceived identity or ideology.

That said, this study does not attempt to achieve the following:

* It does not attempt to create a comprehensive database of every act of
ideologically motivated violence or engage in “counting” of all IMV
incidents;
* It does not attempt to define what “terrorism” or “hate crimes” are or what
incidents should or should not qualify, relying instead on existing datasets;
* It does not attempt to identify what ideologies or identities specific
perpetrators belong to, instead identifying what ideologies and identities
those perpetrators are perceived to have by law enforcement and media (as
identified by the databases used) and how treatment in media and legal
systems differ depending on that perception; and
* It does not seek to lay out specific policy recommendations.

WHY DO DISPARITIES IN HANDLING CASES OF IDEOLOGICAL VIOLENCE MATTER?

How crimes are labeled directly affects charging decisions, likelihoods of
convictions, and severity of sentences.

[28] The labels can also shape how the public thinks about IMV.

Many different ideologies have motivated violent acts in the United States,
including racial animosity, anti-government views, and anti-abortion or
religious extremism. In most cases, perpetrators have multiple reasons, both
ideological and non-ideological, for committing violence.

[29] Assessing why individuals commit violence is often a difficult task,
because the perpetrators may not subscribe to a clearly articulated ideology.

1. Addressing disparities can save lives.

Confronting violence across ideologies is, and should be, a critical aspect of
U.S. national security and law enforcement. However, the public narrative around
groups most responsible for such violence is often at odds with reality. For
example, according to a 2015 count by New America reported by the New York
Times, since September 11, 2001, nearly twice as many people have been killed by
perceived non-Muslim perpetrators with varying ideologies as compared to
Muslim-perceived perpetrators.

[30] In February 2016, Newsweek ran a piece echoing the argument that right-wing
extremists are a bigger threat to the U.S. than ISIS.

[31] In May 2017, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI issued a joint
bulletin highlighting the growing threat posed by white supremacists and white
supremacist-related violence.

[32] Further, no Muslim-perceived perpetrator of ideological violence has been
known to use or to have acquired biological or chemical weapons in the United
States, while over ten non-Muslim perceived perpetrators of ideologically
motivated violence have done so since 2001.

[33]

2. Disparities based on identity violate civil rights and fuel discrimination
against Muslims.

Disparities in handling cases of ideological violence in the legal system are
inconsistent with the guarantees of equal protection and due process provided
under the U.S. Constitution and under human rights law. They run afoul of the
basic concept that individuals should be held accountable based on the actions
that they commit rather than their identity or religion.

Disproportionately covering or punishing Muslims as perpetrators of
ideologically motivated violence assigns collective guilt and responsibility to
Muslims as a category of people. Doing so is discriminatory and puts those
communities, and those assumed to be associated with them, at grave risk.

[34] Indeed, research has shown that the media coverage of Muslims and portrayal
of Muslims in Hollywood is associated with a rise in violent crimes targeting
Muslims.

[35] Media coverage can also have dramatic psychological impact on communities.

[36] Moreover, perceptions of unfairness can also negatively impact
relationships between communities and law enforcement.

[37]

Communities of color in the United States, particularly Black people, have long
been subject to deep structural racial bias within legal systems, which
systematically manifests disturbing outcome disparities.

[38] Racial disparities have been identified at nearly every stage of the
criminal legal system, including policing and arrests, charges, bail
determinations, convictions, and sentencing.

[39] Extensive studies have shown that the media, including news coverage, has
perpetuated and fueled many of those biases in its treatment of Black people as
compared to other identity groups, especially whites.

[40] This report seeks to explore whether similar biases exist in relation to
how Muslim-perceived individuals involved in or suspected of criminality are
treated by these interconnected systems.

3. Biases in response leads to resource misallocations.

Biases in responding to ideological violence can lead to dramatic resource
misallocations. If media choices create the false impression that most, if not
all, “terrorism” is perpetrated by Muslims,

[41] it could mean that non-Muslim perpetrators of IMV do not receive
proportionate media attention or legal resources. Relatedly, focusing outsized
attention on Muslim-perceived perpetrators of ideological violence can lead to
biased outcomes for these individuals in media and legal systems, a point borne
out by the findings of this report. Distressingly, these outcomes can lead to
backlash and discrimination against Muslim communities and others perceived to
be Muslim.

Differential legal treatments can have lasting impacts on individuals and
communities. The decision to prosecute a case under terrorism statutes may carry
dramatically longer prison sentences and more severe restrictions and management
of communication in prison.

[42] “Terrorism” is an ambiguous term,

[43] yet a serious label that carries with it extreme stigma.

[44]

The difference in how law enforcement handles IMV depending on the perceived
identity of the perpetrator is not limited to language. It also includes the
choice of law enforcement operational strategy. For example, Human Rights Watch
and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute reported in a July 2014 report
titled Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S. Terrorism Prosecutions,
that U.S. law enforcement effectively participated in developing terrorism
plots, all involving Muslim perpetrators.

[45] Yet this approach was not used in cases involving non-Muslim perpetrators.
This type of finding has significant implications not only for the rights of
Muslims, but also on the effectiveness of resources being allocated towards
preventing ideological violence.

[46]

KEY STAKEHOLDERS OF THIS STUDY

Many different groups likely have a stake in the findings of this report:

* The print media industry, including primarily the New York Times and
Washington Post, the newspapers selected for examination in this study: The
news media strive to report accurately, fairly, and transparently to their
readership and the public. Students of journalism also have a stake in
adopting better and more self-reflective practices.
* Prosecutors and law enforcement: Disparate treatment or even perceptions of
disparate treatment can impact trust between communities and law enforcement.
The Justice Department is an important stakeholder, as prosecutors are
involved in charging decisions that heavily impact the outcomes of cases.
Investigators also make choices on how to respond to cases and whether or not
to provide weapons to individuals.
* The public: The public has a right to know whether the information they
receive from trusted sources accurately cover and frame news stories.
Similarly, the public needs to know how resources are being allocated to
address cases of ideologically motivated violence.
* Policymakers: Policymakers are responsible not only for allocating resources,
but also for setting priorities and directing public conversations.
Policymakers also play a central role in defining criminal laws and setting
(and limiting where appropriate) the tools available for law enforcement.
* Muslim communities: Muslims have an important, if not existential, stake in
the policies and attitudes that directly affect their community.

1. [10] See, e.g., Khaled Beydoun, “Islamophobia: Toward a Legal Definition and
Framework,” Columbia Law Review Online 116 (2016): 108–125. ↩

1. [11] ISPU American Muslim Poll 2016. ↩

1. [12] Bridge Initiative. ↩

1. [13] Emile Bruneau, Nour Kteily, and Emily Falk, “Revealing an Intergroup
Bias in Collective Blame Decreases Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hostility,”
Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University,
Chicago, IL, U.S. ↩

1. [14] See Haroon Moghul, “America’s Obsessive Fear of Islam Is Distracting Us
from the Real Problem of Gun Control,” Quartz, December 3, 2015. ↩

1. [15] See Brian Resnick, “All Muslims Are Often Blamed for Single Acts of
Terror. Psychology Explains How to Stop It,” Vox.com, November 30, 2017. ↩

1. [16] Shaun King, “The White Privilege of the ‘Lone Wolf’ Shooter,” The
Intercept, October 2, 2017; see also Kiana Fitzgerald, “The Danger in
Calling White Male Terrorists ‘Lone Wolves,’” Complex, October 5, 2017. ↩

1. [17] See, e.g., Doug Criss, “When Is a Crime a Hate Crime and When Is It
Terrorism?,” CNN, August, 14, 2017; Anne Godlasky, “When Is It Terrorism?
When Is It a Hate Crime?,” USA Today, November 6, 2017. ↩

1. [18] See Beydoun, “Islamophobia.” ↩

1. [19] Maggie Ybarra, “Majority of Fatal Attacks on U.S. Soil Carried Out by
White Supremacists, Not Terrorists,” The Washington Times, June 24, 2015. ↩

1. [20] Doug Criss, “When Is a Crime a Hate Crime and When Is It Terrorism?,”
CNN, August 14, 2017. ↩

1. [21] Colleen E. Mills, Joshua D. Freilich, and Steven M. Chermak, “Extreme
Hatred: Revisiting the Hate Crime and Terrorism Relationship to Determine
Whether They Are ‘Close Cousins’ or ‘Distant Relatives,’” Crime &
Delinquency (December 2015). ↩

1. [22] Jean-Paul Marthoz, Terrorism and the Media: A Handbook for Journalists
(UNESCO, 2017). “The key challenge for journalists is to inform with rigor
and responsibility in the middle of chaos and urgency,” said Marthoz. “In
such dramatic circumstances, journalists should be seen as trusted sources
of information, able to separate facts from rumors and opinions from
incendiary speech. The independent search for truth as well as the ethics of
respect for the victims are crucial.” “UNESCO Urges Terrorism Reporting Free
from Fear-Mongering,” UNESCO.org, March 23, 2017. ↩

1. [23] Conor Friedersdorf, “The Horrifying Effects of NYPD Ethnic Profiling on
Innocent Muslim Americans,” The Atlantic, March 28, 2013. ↩

1. [24] Arshad Ahmed and Farid Senzai, The USA Patriot Act: Impact on the Arab
and Muslim American Community (Institute for Social Policy and
Understanding, 2004). ↩

1. [25] Enny Dasa, Brad J.Bushmanab, Marieke D.Bezemera, Peter Kerkhofa, and
Ivar E. Vermeulena, “How Terrorism News Reports Increase Prejudice Against
Outgroups: A Terror Management Account,” Journal of Experimental Social
Psychology 45, no. 3 (May 2009): 453–59. ↩

1. [26] Owais Arshad, Varun Setlur, and Usaid Siddiqui, Are Muslims
Collectively Responsible? (416Labs, 2015). ↩

1. [27] Erin M. Kearns, Allison Betus, and Anthony Lemieux, Why Do Some
Terrorist Attacks Receive More Media Attention Than Others? (March 7, 2017).
This report argued that social identity is the largest predictor of news
coverage, while target type, being arrested, and fatalities will also impact
coverage. It looked to news coverage from LexisNexis Academic and CNN.com
for incidents in the United States between 2011 and 2015; see also Mohammed
El-Nawawy and Mohamad Hamas Elmasry, “Valuing Victims: A Comparative Framing
Analysis of the The Washington Post’s Coverage of Violent Attacks Against
Muslims and Non-Muslims,” International Journal of Communication 11 (2017):
1795–1815. ↩

1. [28] Joshua D. Freilich, Jeff Gruenewald, Steven Chermak, and William
Parkin, “Was the Orlando Shooting a Hate Crime or Terrorist Act? The Answer
Matters,” The New Republic, June 15, 2016. ↩

1. [29] START, Ideological Motivations of Terrorism in the United States,
1970–2016 (University of Maryland, 2017). (“Note that classification of
terrorist attacks by ideology can be unclear, particularly when perpetrators
of attacks identify with more than one ideological group or perspective,
which may or may not be relevant to the motivations for the attack itself.
The classification of terrorist activity by ideology does not characterize
an entire population or ideological movement as violent or predisposed to
use terrorist tactics to advance ideological beliefs.”) ↩

1. [30] Scott Shane, “Homegrown Extremists Tied to Deadlier Toll Than Jihadists
in U.S. Since 9/11,” New York Times, June 24, 2015. ↩

1. [31] Kurt Eichenwald, “Right-Wing Extremists Are a Bigger Threat to America
Than ISIS,” Newsweek, February 4, 2016. ↩

1. [32] “White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal
Violence,” May 10, 2017. ↩

1. [33] See Bipartisan Policy Center, “Jihadist Terrorism-A Threat Assessment,”
September 2013, 15–16; Michael Reynolds, “Homegrown Terror,” Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 60, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 2004), describing a case in Noonday,
Texas, where anti-government extremists were arrested with, among other
things, a cyanide bomb capable of killing up to 6,000 people; Barton
Gellman, “The Secret World of Extreme Militias,” Time, September 30, 2010,
citing another plot to detonate an explosive radiological dispersal device
(“dirty bomb”) by a Neo-Nazi sympathizer living in Belfast, Maine. ↩

1. [34] Marcy Wheeler, “Yes, Calling Only Muslims Terrorists Does Result in
Disparate Treatment of Muslims,” Emptywheel, December 5, 2015; see also
Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Project,
Muslim American Civil Liberties Coalition (MACLC), Asian American Legal
Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and Its
Impact on Muslim Americans (2012). ↩

1. [35] Alejandro J. Beutel, “Latest FBI Numbers Show Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes
Continue to Rise, Suggest Growing Shift Toward Violence Against People,”
SPLC.org, November 14, 2017; see also Craig Considine, “The Racialization of
Islam in the United States: Islamophobia, Hate Crimes, and ‘Flying while
Brown,’” Religions 8, no. 165 (2017). ↩

1. [36] See, e.g., Azadeh Aalai, “Media Framing Effects: When Is the
‘Terrorism’ Label Used?,” Psychology Today, June 21, 2017. ↩

1. [37] Jesenia F. Robles, “Islam Is the New Black: Muslim Perceptions of Law
Enforcement,” McNair Scholars Research Journal 13, no. 1, art. 16. (2017). ↩

1. [38] Robert J. Sampson and Janet L. Lauritsen, The Sentencing Project
(1997). See also Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow. ↩

1. [39] Andrew Kahn and Chris Kirk, “What It’s Like to Be Black in the Criminal
Justice System,” Slate.com, August 9, 2015; Christopher Hartney and Linh
Vuon, Created Equal: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the U.S. Criminal
Justice System (National Council on Crime and Delinquency, March 2009). ↩

1. [40] See, e.g., Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support
for Punitive Policies (The Sentencing Project, 2014); Brian Powell, “Fox
News’ Racial Crime Coverage Is Hurting People,” Media Matters for America,
August, 23, 2013; Roger D. Klein and Stacy Naccarato, “Broadcast News
Portrayal of Minorities: Accuracy in Reporting,” American Behavioral
Scientist 46, no. 12 (2003); The Opportunity Agenda, Media Representations
and Impact on the Lives of Black Men and Boys. ↩

1. [41] Media framing and legal outcomes are deeply interconnected. See, e.g.,
Ellen Nakashima, “60 Charged with Terrorism-Linked Crimes in 2015,”
Washington Post, December 27, 2015 (noting that the “Justice Department has
charged at least 60 individuals this year with terrorism-related crimes”
while citing IMV incidents involving only Muslim-perceived perpetrators). ↩

1. [42] 18 U.S. Code § 2339B (Providing material support or resources to
designated foreign terrorist organizations); Christopher S. Stewart, “Little
Gitmo,” NY Magazine, July 10, 2011. ↩

1. [43] See, e.g., Global Terrorism Database FAQs, accessed February 10, 2018
(“In the absence of a universally accepted definition of terrorism, GTD uses
several coded criteria to cover a broad range of definitions of terrorism
through a combination of inclusiveness and filtering. The goal is to have a
data set that is useful to as many interested users as possible.”); see also
FBI, “Terrorism 2002–2005” (“There is no single, universally accepted,
definition of terrorism. Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal
Regulations as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or
property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or
any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives”)
(citing 28 C.F.R. Sec. 0.85). ↩

1. [44] “Anti-Muslim Discrimination,” ACLU.org; Rebecca A. Clay,
“Islamophobia,”American Psychology Association 48, no. 4 (April 2017). ↩

1. [45] Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute,
Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S. Terrorism Prosecutions
(July 2014). ↩

1. [46] Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute,
Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S. Terrorism Prosecutions
(July 2014). ↩

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Methodology and Challenges

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The report examines two main categories of perpetrators, based on the perception
by media or law enforcement

[47] of their ideology:

Featured

CATEGORY A

Individuals committing or plotting violent acts who are perceived to be Muslim
and allegedly acting in the name of Islam.

CATEGORY B

Individuals committing or plotting violent ideologically motivated acts who are
not perceived to be Muslim.

The research team selected two newspapers of record, the New York Times and the
Washington Post for this exploratory study. These newspapers were chosen for
several reasons. They are among two of the top national newspapers by
circulation

[48] and newsroom size,

[49] which means that they have the resources to cover stories that other papers
and smaller regional outlets may not, and are therefore vital in setting
national tone. Further, these papers purportedly hold themselves to high
journalistic standards of fairness and objectivity.

[50] The New York Times and Washington Post are often labeled as having a
“liberal” tilt on issues of race and other social issues,

[51] and thus, given the topic of this report, were also chosen to explore
whether this tilt extended to more equitable portrayals of Muslim communities.
Finally, examining two newspapers whose articles are available in a single news
research tool, Nexis, allowed for deeper analysis and greater reliability in
assessing differences in print media coverage of Category A and Category B
perpetrators. The time period tracked for print media coverage was from the date
of each respective incident through April 30, 2016.

[52]

The research team compiled a collection of incidents from 2002 to 2015 by
pulling from respected databases that track ideologically motivated violence.
These databases included:

* START Global Terrorism Database,

[53] which is one of the leading open-source datasets available and is based
off analysis of more than four million news articles across 25,000 sources,
* Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Lone Wolf database,

[54] and
* The Intercept Terror Trial and Terrors Database.

[55]

These datasets were selected for several reasons. Each adheres to the broader
definition of violence committed in the name of an ideology. All three have
transparent methodologies. The START database includes a definition of
”terrorism” for coding incidents, requiring the violent acts contained in their
set to be aimed at a “political, economic, religious, or social goal.”

[56] The SPLC set is based partly on the START data as well as SPLC’s own data
collection and is similarly restricted to ideological violence.

[57] The Intercept’s Trial and Terror database is based on Justice Department
publications, court files, and Bureau of Prisons data, and has been an ongoing
project of journalist Trevor Aaronson for over eight years.

[58] It focuses exclusively on federal terrorism prosecutions. The first two
databases were used for all incidents, and the last two were used for plots,
since the START database does not easily differentiate between completed acts
and plots.

* Date range: The year range of 2002 to 2015 captured the most consistent and
available data set among the databases, and it reflects a time period across
two different U.S. presidential administrations.
* Violent in nature: Plots were excluded where they were nonviolent in nature,
such as travel, financial, or similar cases. The plots dataset also did not
include attempted crimes that failed, but rather included incidents where
perpetrators had a plan to carry out an act of violence but law enforcement
intervened to disrupt.
* Geography: Only incidents that occurred or were plotted to occur in the
United States were included. Incidents were excluded where they occurred in
or were plotted to occur in either New York City or Washington, DC, as the
media coverage in selected papers would necessarily increase for local
incidents, thereby potentially skewing results.

[59]
* Inclusion of violent plots: Plots—i.e., the planned commission of offenses
that are not carried out—were the most reliable dataset that included
completed legal proceedings. Many completed instances of ideologically
motivated violence result in the death of the perpetrator, which means that
there are no formal legal proceedings. The inclusion of plots requires that
there was a prosecution, meaning that there could be many cases where violent
plots are thwarted but there is insufficient evidence to bring a prosecution.

The cases were divided into three categories:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Primary incidents (18 total)

“High-intensity” incidents (six total)

Violent Plots (28 total)

Two or more fatalities [1] (one fatality excluded as it typically meant just the
death of the perpetrator)

All such incidents from databases were incorporated.

Upper extremity of combined fatalities and injuries in the set

At least seven fatalities or at least 50 injuries

Grouped to allow better comparison

All SPLC database plots (one Category A and 13 Category B)

Random sampling of Category A drawn from Intercept database to reach a
comparable set [2]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] As a result, every completed incident analyzed in this report’s dataset
involved at least one fatality at the hands of a perpetrator, but for the May
2015 Garland, TX, shooting, which resulted in the deaths of two perpetrators and
injury to a law enforcement officer.

[2] Three incidents were not included in the legal analysis, as the legal
proceedings were still ongoing as of the preparation of the report.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Each incident was run through a legal and media analysis, under which numerous
metrics were coded for each incident (a full list of the metrics is contained in
the appendix).

CHALLENGE: METHODOLOGY LIMITATIONS

Relying on established datasets enhances the objectivity of the report, but it
also means that the report is constrained by the same limitations as those
datasets. Namely, no dataset will be 100% comprehensive or void of subjective
elements, but the methodology outlined aims to objectively sample the universe
available.

The dataset does not include incidents past 2015, as the START database only
contained incidents through 2015 at the start of this research project in early
2017.

[62] The dataset covered by the report, however, covers both Republican and
Democratic administrations, to ensure that any findings are not partisan in
outcome.

The violent plots included were ones that were prosecuted (otherwise there would
be no court documents to reference). However this also means that the study did
not examine violent plots that were not prosecuted—i.e., were thwarted but there
was insufficient evidence to bring a prosecution.

CHALLENGE: THE CONFLATION OF IDEOLOGY AND IDENTITY FOR MUSLIM-PERCEIVED
PERPETRATORS

Ideology is a belief that serves as the basis for motivating or justifying
action, whereas identity is a characteristic of an individual or population,
often immutable, that defines how that individual or population is perceived by
society. A major challenge in this report is the concern that for Category A
perpetrators, ideology and identity are often conflated. That means that the
perception of ideology—violence being allegedly done in the name of Islam—is
coupled with a perception that the perpetrator is a Muslim. Thus, a factor of
identity, in this case a person’s faith, is also perceived to be the basis for
ideologically motivated violence for Category A perpetrators. This is in
contrast with Category B perpetrators, where this is not necessarily the case.
Many perpetrators in the Category B set have perceived ideologies that are
disconnected from their race or religion.

This conflation of ideology and identity makes it easier to attribute collective
guilt and leads to public acceptance of discriminatory policies.

[63] As a point of contrast, a right-wing extremist ideology or white
supremacist ideology may not necessarily be attributed to all individuals
sharing either right-wing political views or individuals who are white. Doing so
with some groups more than others reinforces prejudices that an identity of
belonging to a particular faith makes one more predisposed to committing acts of
violence.

[64] These prejudices are of course discriminatory and dangerous.

CHALLENGE: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LAW ENFORCEMENT AND MEDIA

The U.S. legal system and the media do not operate in vacuums. The two are
intimately linked. The media looks closely to law enforcement to see how it
should report on coverage; and media attention often accompanies the allocation
of law enforcement resources and prosecution decisions.

[65] This report hopes to encourage further investigation into this
relationship.

One of the goals of the report from the onset was to explore not just the
individual roles that the media and law enforcement play in addressing cases of
IMV, but to examine their relationship. This is difficult to do in a complex
media landscape, and so is attributing causal relationships for media coverage.

To explore this relationship, the research in this report went beyond evaluating
the media and legal analysis as separate bubbles. The report attempted to
identify if and when metrics reflected in the legal and media analyses were
correlated with one another. Some of the relationships examined included the
relationships of the quantity of media coverage to the nature and severity of
charging, as well as whether the increased references to “terrorism” in media
coverage were correlated with a case being prosecuted as such.

Another way the legal and media aspects came together was through analyzing the
existence and frequency of law enforcement press releases. Such releases are
interactions between prosecutors and the media, and can indicate how a case is
presented.

[66] As part of the legal analysis of plots, the research recorded when a
federal press release was issued at either the local or national level. This
meant that sometimes releases were issued by a local federal prosecutor office
or FBI field office, and at other times they were issued by the Justice
Department’s Office of Public Affairs. Many factors may go into the publication
of press releases, and the issuance of a national release may not necessarily be
a metric of prosecution priorities.

[67]

1. [47] The usage of the phrase “perceived to be” addresses the inherent
problem in identifying a perpetrator’s ideology with any certainty.
Oftentimes, perpetrators may not subscribe to clear ideologies, or they may
be motivated for a range of reasons. In other instances, an individual may
claim to subscribe to an ideology, but this claim may be disputed by other
members of that ideology or community. The research team is not in a
position to determine who belongs to what ideology or identity. Instead the
perception of a perpetrator’s ideology or identity is drawn from the
underlying datasets, court documents, such as criminal complaints, that
accuse an individual of belonging to an ideology, or media stories that
portray an individual of being motivated in a certain way. ↩

1. [48] The Associated Press, “Circulation Numbers for the 10 Largest
Newspapers.” ↩

1. [49] Joe Pompeo, “Taking Stock of Newsroom Head Counts,” Politico, December
1, 2014. ↩

1. [50] Washington Post Staff, “Policies and Standards,” January 1, 2017; New
York Times Company, “Standards and Ethics,” 2018. ↩

1. [51] See, e.g., Jim Kuypers, Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame
Controversial Issues (Praeger, 2002); Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo, “A
Measure of Media Bias,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 120, no. 4
(November 2005). ↩

1. [52] This date was chosen to coincide with the start of this report’s data
collection in May 2017 and to maximize the amount of news coverage available
for review, including a period that covers the start of the presidential
administration of Donald Trump. ↩

1. [54] Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Lone Wolf Report, February 11,
2015. The report is based on incidents of domestic terrorism. ↩

1. [53] National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism (START), Global Terrorism Database (GTD). ↩

1. [55] Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams, “Trial and Terror,” The Intercept,
April 20, 2017. ↩

1. [56] Global Terrorism Database (GTD), Data Collection Methodology. ↩

1. [57] The SPLC set looked at “terrorism inspired by antigovernment, Islamist
and various forms of race or group hatred.” Southern Poverty Law Center
(SPLC), Lone Wolf Report, “The Study,” February 11, 2015. ↩

1. [58] Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams, “Trial and Terror,” The Intercept,
April 20, 2017. ↩

1. [59] The only primary or high-intensity incident removed due to this
geographical consideration was that of Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, the
gunman who ambushed and murdered two New York City Police Department
Officers in December 2014. A handful of plots involving targets within New
York City or Washington, DC, that arose during during the generation of the
plots dataset were also excluded. ↩

1. [62] Some high-profile incidents—such as the Orlando nightclub shooting, or
several other notable incidents of 2017—do not appear as a result of the
date restriction. ↩

1. [63] Emile Bruneau, Nour Kteily, and Emily Falk, “Revealing an Intergroup
Bias in Collective Blame Decreases Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hostility,”
Annenberg School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University,
Chicago, IL, U.S. ↩

1. [64] Shaun King, “The White Privilege of the ‘Lone Wolf’ Shooter,” The
Intercept, October 2, 2017; see also Kiana Fitzgerald, “The Danger in
Calling White Male Terrorists ‘Lone Wolves,’” Complex, October 5, 2017. ↩

1. [65] Bennett Gershman, “The Prosecutor’s Duty of Silence,” Albany Law Review
79 (2016): 1183–1219. ↩

1. [66] Ryan J. Reilly, “Sessions’ DOJ Charged a White Supremacist with
Terrorism. They Just Didn’t Tell Anyone,” Huffington Post, January 9, 2018.
↩

1. [67] Ryan J. Reilly, “Sessions’ DOJ Charged a White Supremacist with
Terrorism. They Just Didn’t Tell Anyone,” Huffington Post, January 9, 2018.
↩

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Incidents List

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perpetrator Name

Perp. Category

Incident Summary / Alleged Ideology (for Category B cases) [1]

Fatalities

Sentence (“-“ indicates killed in act)

# of Articles

Hesham Mohamed Hadayet

Handgun shooting at LAX Airport ticket counter of El Al

3 (2 victims + 1 Perp)

Ali Muhammad Brown

Multiple handgun killings in Seattle, Washington and West Orange, New Jersey /
Self-described “‘jihadi”’

Elton Simpson; Nadir Hamid Soofi; Adbul Malik Abdul Kareem

Shooting with rifles and handguns at Mohammad cartoon event at Curtis Culwell
Center in Garland, Texas

2 (2 Perps only)

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez

Shootings (AK-47 and shotgun) at military installations in Chattanooga,
Tennessee

6 (5 victims + 1 Perp)

Jim David Adkisson

Shooting (shotgun), Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church /
Anti-liberal

Life without parole

Richard Andrew Poplawski

Shooting (semi-automatic rifles, shotgun) of police during domestic disturbance,
Pittsburgh / Gun rights and anti-Jew

Death

Joshua Cartwright

Shooting (handgun) of police officers in pursuit in Defuniak Springs, Florida /
Anti-government

3 (2 victims + 1 Perp)

Shawna Forde;

Home invasion and shooting of Latino family including 9-year old daughter in
Tucson, Arizona / Minutemen American Defense (MAD), anti-immigrant vigilante
group

Death

Jerry Kane, Joseph Kane

Shooting (AK-47) of police officers in West Memphis, Arkansas, after traffic
stop / Anti-government, sovereign citizen

4 (2 victims + 2 Perps)

David Pederson; Holly Ann Grigsby

Shooting of family, Black Americans, and perceived Jews in several states
including Oregon and California / White supremacist, anti-Semitic

Multiple life sentences

Isaac Aguigui

Soldier at Fort Stewart, Georgia, kills fellow member of militia and girlfriend
over fears of exposing plan / Forever Enduring, Always Ready (FEAR),
anti-government militia planning to overthrow the government, assassinate a
future president, blow up a dam and poison the apple crop in Washington state

Life without parole

Jake England, Alvin Watts

Drive-by shootings of African American men in Oklahoma / White supremacist

Life without parole

Brandon Nielson, Jeremy Triche , Scott Boyington, Terry Lyn Smith

Ambush and shooting of St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff's deputies, near New
Orleans / sovereign citizens

Varied

Frazier Glenn Miller

Shooting with shotgun and handgun at a Jewish community center and a Jewish
retirement community in a suburb of Overland Park, Kansas / anti-Semitic, former
leader of both the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Patriot
Party

Death (pled guilty)

Jerad and Amanda Miller

Las Vegas shooting of police officers / anti-government “Patriot” movement

5 (3 victims + 2 Perps)

Craig Stephen Hicks

Chapel Hill shooting of three Muslim students by neighbor / anti-Muslim

John Russell Houser

Shooting (handgun) at movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana / Anti-government,
anti-feminist, anti-Semitic

3 (2 Victims + 1 Perp)

Robert Lewis Dear, Jr.

Shooting at Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs / Anti-abortion

Indefinitely confined to mental hospital

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] The inclusion of a perpetrator or listing of an alleged ideology in this
report is not a confirmation that said individual acted according to, or was
motivated by, any ideology. It represents that the incident was included as
ideologically motivated by the underlying datasets used in the report. Listed
ideologies were obtained from the underlying datasets, charging documents,
and/or reporting. Category B ideologies are specifically noted, while Category A
offenders by definition are those perceived to be allegedly acting in the name
of Islam.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HIGH INTENSITY INCIDENTS

Perpetrator Name

Perp. Cat

Incident Summary / Alleged Ideology

Fatalities

Sentence (“-“ indicates killed in act)

# of Articles

Tsarnaev Brothers

Bombings at Boston Marathon

3 (>200 injured)

Death

1340

Syed Farouk; Tashfeen Malik

San Bernardino shooting (semi-automatic weapons, pipe bombs)

16 (14 victims + 2 Perps)

684

Nidal Hasan

Shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, military base

Death

562

Wade Michael Page

Handgun shooting at Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin / White supremacist

7 (6 victims + 1 Perp)

Elliot Rodger

Isla Vista stabbings, shootings, and striking students with car near University
of California, Santa Barbara / Racist, white supremacist

7 (6 victims +1 Perp)

Dylann Roof

Shooting of African Americans at church in Charleston, South Carolina / White
supremacist

Death

557

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

VIOLENT IDEOLOGICAL PLOTS

Perpetrator Name

Perp. Cat

Incident Summary / Alleged Ideology (for Category B)

Sentence

# of Articles

Imran Mandhai

Bomb to attack a National Guard armory and a power substation near an airport in
South Florida - although did not create bombs, as well as attempt to acquire an
AK-47

168

Antonio Martinez

Bomb military recruitment station outside Baltimore, planned to set off a car
bomb, and shoot people as they were running out.

300

David Daoud Wright and Nicholas Alexander Rovinski

Plot to behead New York political activist Pamela Geller and police officers.

Ongoing

Munir Abdulkader

Purchasing AK-47 with intent to kill specific military employee who he was
stalking, as well as discussing knife for beheading

240

Terry Lee Loewen

Attempted to bring fake car bomb onto airport tarmac.

240

Shain Duka

Plot to shoot military personnel at Fort Dix using M16s and AK-47s

Life plus 30 years

Adel Daoud

Parked a Jeep with a fake bomb outside a bar in downtown Chicago

Ongoing

Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif

Armed attack on a military recruiting station in Washington using assault rifles
provided by FBI

204

Harlem Suarez

Amassed assault weapons, body armor, and plotted to bomb a stretch of beach in
Key West

Life

Burson Augustin

Conspired to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI office in Miami

Matthew Aaron Llaneza

Brought fake car bomb to a bank in San Jose

180

Alexander Ciccolo

Purchased three rifles and a handgun from the informant as part of a sting
operation

Ongoing

Ahmed Hassan Al-Uqaily

Purchased machine guns, four hand grenades, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition
from undercover agent

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi

Drove a car containing inert explosives into the underground parking garage of
the 60-story Fountain Place building in Dallas

288

Mohamed Osman Mohamud

Setting off a car bomb at Christmas tree lighting

360

Matthew Fairfield

Storing explosives and napalm in home / Oath Keepers, radical anti-government
organization

108 months (state court)

Darren Huff

Planning armed takeover of courthouse with .45 handgun and an AK-47 /
Anti-government, anti-Semitic

Wayde Lynn Kurt

Possession of several firearms (including assault rifles), plot to assassinate
President Obama / Anti-government

156

Justin Carl Moose

Planning to blow up an abortion clinic - possession of means to make TATP, an
explosive material / Anti-abortion

Jeffery Harbin

Building homemade grenades and pipe bombs that he intended to supply to
anti-immigrant groups patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border. / White supremacist

Frederick Thomas, Samuel J. Crump, Dan Roberts, Ray H. Adams

Plot to bomb federal buildings, obtain assault rifles, attack Atlanta and other
cities with deadly ricin, and murder law enforcement officials / Anti-government

Joseph Benjamin Thomas Samuel James Johnson

Plan to attack minorities and the Mexican consulate in St. Paul with a truck
loaded with flaming barrels of oil and gasoline / White supremacist

Richard Schmidt

Possession of AR-15 assault rifles, body armor, with intent to go after specific
Jews and African Americans / White supremacist

Buford “Bucky” Rogers

Homemade bombs made with military-grade PETN, Molotov cocktails (filled with
“'homemade napalm,”), and loaded SKS rifle at father's home. / Anti-government

Glendon Scott Crawford, Eric J. Feight

Building a truck-borne radiation weapon that can be turned on remotely and that
they hoped to see used in the mass murder of Muslims and others / Anti-Muslim

360

David Allen Brutsche, Devon Campbell Newman

Intended to kidnap a police officer at random, detain the officer in a crude
jail in a vacant house; “try” the officer in a “common-law” court, then execute
the officer. / Anti-government

Robert James Talbot Jr

Plotting to use C-4 explosives and weapons to rob banks and armored cars, kill
police officers, and blow up government buildings and crowded mosques /
Anti-government, anti-Muslim

John David Huggins

Building a grenade-like bomb and discussing plans to kill police officers in
Tremonton, as well as blowing up bridges and infrastructure to prevent help from
coming / Anti-government

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Case Studies

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Case studies were selected in order to provide in-depth comparisons, analysis,
and context that data alone cannot provide. Relatedly, comparative case studies
and specific news coverage provide a starting point to discuss areas of possible
bias in media and law enforcement that underpin some of the quantitative
findings in the section that follows. The data reinforces the trends highlighted
by the case studies.

Case studies were picked based on similarities of facts between cases that
allowed for deeper comparisons. We based our assessment of whether or not cases
could be compared on a number of factors, including the number of fatalities,
the type of weapon used, the intended target, and the intended scale of the
incident.

Some may suggest that differences in nature and scale of offenses may make it
difficult to compare the legal and media treatment of the two categories of
perpetrators. We cannot rule out that such differences might partly explain
aggregate differences in outcome. Nonetheless, we note that several of our case
studies with analogous severity are quite often treated differently.

WHEN ARE BOMB PLOTS CHARGED AS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION?

The offense for prosecuting “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs) is much broader
than the common understanding of the offense. It is written broadly enough to
include conventional explosives like bombs or grenades, crime against property
that affects interstate commerce, crime that affects interstate commerce, or
crimes in which the perpetrator traveled across state lines. As a result, it is
often a discretionary decision to charge with the WMD offense that can carry
decades in prison versus a lesser charge such as possession of explosives which
carries just years of incarceration.

[69]

In 2010, Justin Carl Moose, a self-described “Christian counterpart to Osama
bin-Laden” planned to blow up an abortion clinic. He was in possession of means
to make explosives, including potassium permanganate, fuse wires, and metal
shavings to make the explosive TATP.

In 2013, Buford “Bucky” Rogers, who was perceived to have white supremacist
views and who law enforcement officials say cheered the Boston marathon bombing,
made homemade bombs with the military-grade explosive PETN, Molotov cocktails
filled with “homemade napalm,” and had a loaded SKS rifle. He discussed using
the weapons locally.

in 2010, Antonio Martinez, perceived to be acting in the name of Islam, planned
to bomb a military recruitment station outside Baltimore and shoot people as
they were running out. Law enforcement provided Martinez a fake bomb.

Of the three, Martinez, a Category A offender, was the only one who received a
weapons of mass destruction charge. Moose and Rogers received 30- and 40-month
sentences, respectively. Martinez’s sentence was 300 months. In the New York
Times and Washington Post, Moose had zero and Rogers had two articles total. The
same sources published a combined ten articles about Martinez.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Justin Carl Moose

Buford “Bucky” Rogers

Antonio Martinez

Location

Concord, North Carolina (2010)

Montevideo, Minnesota (2013)

Baltimore, Maryland (2010)

Perpetrator Category

What was alleged

Justin Carl Moose planned to blow up an abortion clinic. He was in possession of
means to make explosives, including potassium permanganate, fuse wires, and
metal shavings to make the explosive TATP.

Buford “Bucky” Rogers made homemade bombs with the military-grade explosive
PETN, molotov cocktails filled with “homemade napalm,” and a loaded SKS rifle.
He discussed using the weapons locally.

Antonio Martinez planned to bomb a military recruitment station outside
Baltimore and shoot people as they were running out.

Notable facts

Moose was a self-described “Christian counterpart to Osama bin-Laden”

Rogers cheered the Boston marathon bombing.

Type of plot

Explosives

Explosives, firearms

Acquired or made own weapons

Yes

No (provided by law enforcement as part of a sting)

Charges

Distribution of information relating to explosives

Felon in possession of a firearm

Attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction

Press

None

Two articles

Ten articles

Sentence

30 months

40 months

300 months

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, compare the cases of Joseph Benjamin Thomas and Matthew Aaron Llaneza.
Both involved car bomb plots, although only one of the cases was charged under
the WMD statute.

Joseph Benjamin Thomas, and Samuel James Johnson

Matthew Aaron Llaneza

Location

Mendota Heights, Minnesota (2011)

San Jose, California (2013)

Perpetrator Category

What was alleged

Joseph Benjamin Thomas and Samuel James Johnson, 31 and 42, planned to attack
the Mexican consulate in St. Paul with a truck loaded with flaming barrels of
oil and gasoline.

Matthew Aaron Llaneza expressed interest in joining the Taliban. He was provided
a fake car bomb by the FBI which he delivered to a bank in San Jose.

Notable facts

The pair planned to create an “Aryan Liberation Movement” to attack minorities
and government officials. Johnson was a former leader of the neo-Nazi National
Socialist Movement.

At the time of the FBI operation, Llaneza’s family was trying to get Llaneza,
who was mentally ill, psychological help.

Type of plot

Explosives

Acquired or made own weapons

Yes

Charges

Intent to distribute methamphetamine; felon in possession of weapons

Attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction

Press

None

One article

Sentence

Thomas: 71 months, 60 months supervised released; Johnson: 71 months, 36 months
supervised release

180 months

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following are a collection of media coverage for bomb plots that were
charged with weapons of mass destruction.

AMONG BOMB PLOTS THAT WERE CHARGED AS WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION, CATEGORY A
PLOTS RECEIVED MORE MEDIA COVERAGE THAN CATEGORY B PLOTS.

[70]

Name

Cat

# Articles

Plot Description

Antonio Martinez

Attempted to set off a fake car bomb at a military recruitment center.

Terry Lee Loewen

Attempted to bring fake car bomb onto airport tarmac.

Harlem Suarez

Amassed assault weapons, body armor, and plotted to bomb a stretch of beach in
Key West using an inert bomb that he attached nails to.

Matthew Aaron Llaneza

Brought fake car bomb to a bank in San Jose. Family sought mental health
support.

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi

Drove a car containing inert explosives into the underground parking garage of
the 60-story Fountain Place building in Dallas

Mohamed Osman Mohamud

Attempted to set off a fake car bomb at Christmas tree lighting.

AVERAGE # OF ARTICLES

6.8

Glendon Scott Crawford, Eric J. Feight

Plotted to build a truck-borne radiation weapon that could be turned on
remotely.

Frederick Thomas, Samuel J. Crump, Dan Roberts, Ray H. Adams (charged with
biological weapons)

Plot to bomb federal buildings, attack Atlanta and other cities with deadly
ricin.

AVERAGE # OF ARTICLES

4.5

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Media coverage of bomb plots dropped significantly in Category B cases when WMD
charges were off the table, despite the severity of the plots.

Name

Cat

#Arts

Plot Description

Imran Mandhai

Plotted to bomb a National Guard armory and a power substation near an airport
in South Florida

AVERAGE # OF ARTICLES

John David Huggins

Building a grenade-like bomb and discussing plans to kill police officers and
blow up bridges and infrastructure to prevent help from coming

Robert James Talbot, Jr.

Plotted to use C-4 explosives which he purchased from government, and weapons,
to rob banks and armored cars, kill police officers, and blow up government
buildings and crowded mosques

Buford “Bucky” Rogers

Created homemade bombs with military-grade PETN, and Molotov cocktails (filled
with “homemade napalm”) with intention of using them against the government

Joseph Benjamin Thomas, Samuel James Johnson

Planned to bomb the Mexican consulate in St. Paul, Minnesota, with a truck
loaded with flaming barrels of oil and gasoline

Jeffery Harbin

Building homemade grenades and pipe bombs that he intended to supply to
anti-immigrant groups patrolling the Arizona-Mexico border

Justin Carl Moose

Planned to blow up an abortion clinic - possession of means to make TATP, an
explosive material

AVERAGE # OF ARTICLES

1.5

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CASE COMPARISON: TWO “EXECUTION-STYLE” PLOTS

David Allen Brutsche, Devon Campbell Newman

Munir Abdulkader

Location

Las Vegas, Nevada (2013)

Cincinnati, Ohio (2015)

Perpetrator Category

What was alleged

David Allen Brutsche and Devon Campbell Newman intended to kidnap a police
officer at random, detain the officer in a crude jail, “try” the officer then
execute him or her.

Munir Abdulkader purchased an AK-47 with the intent of killing a specific
military employee.

Notable facts

Brutsche and Newman considered themselves sovereign citizens and conducted
recruiting seminars on sovereign ideology.

Abdulkader planned to travel to Syria to join ISIS.

Type of plot

Firearms

Acquired or made own weapons

Yes

No (provided by law enforcement)

Charges

No federal charges

Conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization

Press

Yes

Yes (and two national DOJ press releases)

Sentence

One year and five years probation, respectively

300 months (25 years)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE PRESS RELEASE EXCERPTS

The research team logged the publication and content of prosecutor press
releases because they were a data point that raised both legal and media issues.
That is, they present insight as to how prosecutors view a case, and they are a
trackable interaction of prosecutors with the press. Press releases are often
issued at critical moments in the criminal justice process such as the arrest,
judgment, and sentencing. They can highlight successful prosecution and often
include commendations to specific departments or officials who were involved in
the case. Prosecutor press statements can impact public and media perceptions of
a case.

[71]

Many factors go into the publication of press releases, including factors that
may not address the merits of any specific case, such as a press officer being
off the desk.

[72] This report’s discussion of press releases does not attempt to explain why
they may be issued in some cases and not others or why certain cases receive
press from the Washington, DC, press office while others receive local press.
However, it highlights data that is worth further investigation.

The findings section indicated that perpetrator ideology was mentioned in press
releases in both Category A and B cases. But the ways they are presented are
often very different. The excerpts below illustrate examples of how Category A
press releases on both the local and national level are directly framed as cases
of ideologically motivated violence.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Perpetrator Name

Category

Excerpt

Type

Source

Shain Duka

“Five Radical Islamists Convicted of Conspiring to Kill Soldiers at Fort Dix”

Headline

DOJ National Security Division

Ahmed Hassan Al-Uqaily

“Nashville Resident Arrested on Charges of Possessing Machine Guns in Plan for
Jihad Attack”

Headline

DOJ Criminal Division

Hosam Maher Husein Smadi

“Today’s guilty plea underscores the continuing threat we face from lone actors
who, although not members of any international terrorist organization, are
willing to carry out acts of violence in this country to further the terrorist
cause.”

Second Paragraph

U.S. Attorney, Northern District of Texas

Munir Abdulkader

“Munir Abdulkader, 22, of West Chester, Ohio, was sentenced to 20 years in
prison and lifetime supervised release, for plotting to murder a military base
employee and attack a Cincinnati area police station in the name of the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated foreign terrorist
organization.”

...

“Using social media to communicate with the now-deceased Syria-based ISIL
terrorist Junaid Hussain, Abdulkader coordinated and planned violent murders of
military members and police officers,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General
McCord. “Identifying and stopping such ISIL-directed and inspired plots is and
will remain one of our highest priorities.”

First and third paragraphs

DOJ Office of Public Affairs

John David Huggins

“John Huggins, 48, of Tremonton, Utah, was sentenced to 27 months in federal
prison for possession of an unregistered destructive device, announced Assistant
Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin and U.S. Attorney Carlie
Christensen of the District of Utah.

In July 2014, Huggins was charged in an indictment with possession of an
unregistered destructive device, possession of an explosive by a restricted
person, and unlawful distribution of information relating to the manufacture and
use of explosives or destructive devices. Huggins pleaded guilty in February
2015 to possession of an unregistered destructive device.”

First and Second Paragraph

DOJ Office of Public Affairs

John David Huggins

“A further search of Huggins’ trailer yielded notebooks containing entries
ranging from anti-government ideology to a system to watch and track police
officers.”

Seventh paragraph

DOJ Office of Public Affairs

John David Huggins

“Utah Man Sentenced to 27 Months in Federal Prison for Possession of
Unregistered Destructive Device”

Headline

DOJ Office of Public Affairs

Jeffery Harbin

“Valley Man Sentenced to 24 Months for Possessing and Transporting Improvised
Explosive Devices”

Headline

U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona

Jeffery Harbin

“This sentencing sends a clear message to all individuals like Harbin, that
there are severe consequences for possessing a highly explosive destructive
device,” stated FBI Special Agent in Charge James L. Turgal Jr., Phoenix
Division. “The FBI’s number one priority is to protect the public from another
terrorist attack.”

Fourth paragraph

U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Arizona

Buford “Bucky” Rogers

“The FBI believes that a terror attack was disrupted by law enforcement
personnel and that the lives of several local residents were potentially saved.
The terror plot was discovered and subsequently thwarted through the timely
analysis of intelligence and through the cooperation and coordination between
the aforementioned agencies.”

Third paragraph

FBI Field Office, Minneapolis Division

Samuel James Johnson

“Austin Felon Indicted for Possessing Firearms” [1]

Headline

U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Minnesota

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Johnson was part of an “Aryan Liberation Movement” and planned to attack
minorities.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One of the exceptions in a Category B case being strongly framed in language of
“terrorism” came in the case of Glendon Scott Crawford, who plotted to kill
Muslims using a radiological device. U.S. Attorney Richard S. Hartunian said,
"Glendon Scott Crawford is a terrorist who would have used a weapon of mass
destruction to kill innocent members of our Muslim community were it not for the
good judgment of citizens who quickly alerted law enforcement to his diabolical
plan and the outstanding work of the Albany FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

[74]

MEDIA CASE STUDIES OF COMPLETED INCIDENTS (PRIMARY & HIGH INTENSITY)

These case studies were completed by an intensive review of responsive articles
to identify the presence of certain additional measurements that would not be
available via Boolean text searching, including references to a perpetrator’s
perceived ideology or mental health, militant organizations related to a
perpetrator’s perceived ideology, and whether community or family members were
interviewed. Case studies also included notable article excerpts referencing the
perpetrators that suggest and demonstrate certain biases in Category A print
news coverage.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WADE MICHAEL PAGE

RELEVANT HIGHLIGHTS/FINDINGS:

– The relatively low total amount of articles referencing this incident (72)
compared to other incidents of similar or fewer fatalities and injuries

– The relatively low total number of articles, as well as low-percent use of the
term “terror,” when the perpetrator targeted a minority group/religious
institution and had verified connections to white supremacist organizations and
background

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LOCATION

– Oak Creek, Wisconsin

WHAT WAS ALLEGED

– Murder of six, four others injured; followed by self-inflicted gunshot wound

LEGAL CHARGES

– n/a (deceased) - Girlfriend detained and released following day without
charges

PERPETRATOR CATEGORY

– Category B

NOTABLE FACTS

– Opened fire inside of Sikh Gurudwara (house of worship), also shot police
officer

TYPE OF PLOT

– Firearms

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRESS

Total articles

% articles w/ “terror”

33%

% articles w/ “hate”

35%

% articles w/ “extremism”

18%

% headlines w/ “terror”

% headlines w/ “hate”

% articles reference perp’s ideology

38%

% articles reference militant orgs

17%

% articles where community/neighbors interviewed

14%

% articles where family interviewed

% articles referencing mental health/psych. issues

Breakdown of news vs. opinion coverage

News 82% ; Opinion 18%

CHOICE OF TERMINOLOGY TO DESCRIBE IMV IDEOLOGIES:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

US Attorney suggests lack of motive:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reinforcing language and use of quotations. The use of quotes here around “white
power” but not around Islamist terrorism suggests the concept of “Islamist
terrorism” (compared to “white power”) is widely understood and uncontroverted.
To the contrary, both the accuracy and sensitivities of lexicon related to
descriptions of Islam when describing terrorism are of serious significance and
debate.

[76]

Moreover, note the use of inclusion of “terrorism” in the phrase “Islamist
terrorism” but no similar reference in describing the other ideology referenced
in the paragraph.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Governmental officials confirming why language critical in perceptions of
threat (“just a mass shooting”):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MUHAMMAD YOUSSEF ABDULAZEEZ

RELEVANT HIGHLIGHTS/FINDINGS:

* A relatively low total amount of articles referencing a Category A offender
given the number of fatalities and injuries
* A significant majority of articles referencing incidents including term
“terror” and Islam/Muslim
* A small minority of articles referenced perpetrator’s mental health despite
family’s description that he suffered from significant psychological
illnesses and substance abuse struggles

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LAW ENFORCEMENT STATEMENTS

On December 16, 2015, FBI Director James Comey said that the FBI investigation
had concluded that “there is no doubt that [Abdulazeez] was inspired, motivated
by foreign terrorist organization propaganda.”

[77]

TYPE OF PLOT

Shooting

LOCATION

Chattanooga, TN

WHAT WAS ALLEGED

Individual opened fire at two military bases, six killed including perpetrator,
two others injured

LEGAL CHARGES & SENTENCE

n/a (deceased)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRESS

Total articles

% articles w/ “terror”

62%

% articles w/ “hate”

% articles w/ “extremism”

29%

% headlines w/ “terror”

% headlines w/ “hate”

% articles reference religion

58%

% articles reference perp’s ideology

37%

% articles reference militant orgs

20%

% articles where community/neighbors interviewed

17%

% articles where family interviewed

% articles referencing mental health/psych. issues

13%

Breakdown of news vs. opinion coverage

94% News, 6% Opinion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A balanced article with nuance, but years later and in news analysis rather than
news coverage:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Compare to this excerpt (suggesting without real explanation why incident was
similar to San Bernardino shooting):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ROBERT LEWIS DEAR

RELEVANT HIGHLIGHTS/FINDINGS:

* A relatively high number of articles for a Category B offender given lower
amount of fatalities (but high number of injured, plus perpetrator arrested
and faced prosecution)

* A relatively high percent of articles with the term “terror” and “extremist”
in articles for a Category B offender (but not always in reference to Dear;
see below)
* A significant percent of articles which described perpetrator’s ideology
(anti-abortion)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PERPETRATOR CATEGORY

Category B

LEGAL CHARGES & SENTENCE

Murder

Deemed unfit to stand trial - Indefinitely confined to a mental hospital

LAW ENFORCEMENT STATEMENTS

The FBI issued a statement to law enforcement agencies in September 2015 warning
that Planned Parenthood facilities may require protection from arson attacks
from “the pro-life extremist movement.”

[78]

LOCATION

Colorado Springs, CO (Planned Parenthood Shooter)

WHAT WAS ALLEGED

Mass shooting, three dead including police officer, nine injured

NOTABLE FACTS

Perpetrator involved in 5-hour standoff, ultimately surrendered; allegedly told
investigators “no more baby parts” while being questioned

TYPE OF PLOT

Mass Shooting

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRESS

Total articles

% articles w/ “terror”

47%

% articles w/ “hate”

18%

% articles w/ “extremism”

39%

% article citing religion

21%

% headlines w/ “terror”

% headlines w/ “hate”

% articles reference perp’s ideology

60%

% articles reference militant orgs

% articles where community/neighbors interviewed

% articles where family interviewed

13%

% articles referencing mental health/psych. issues

23%

Breakdown of news vs. opinion coverage

83% news, 17% opinion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Favorable description:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only use of “terror” in this article about Dear, a Category B perpetrator, is in
conjunction with “Islamic” perpetrators; also see passive voice describing
Category B incident as compared to calling out Category A perpetrators:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DYLANN ROOF

RELEVANT HIGHLIGHTS/FINDINGS:

* A higher percent of articles referencing the term “hate” as compared to
“terror,” and only a small percent of articles including the term “extremism”
* A relatively high percent of articles were opinion (nearly a quarter)
* A low percent of articles included references to militant organizations or
associations despite his own stated membership of….

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PERPETRATOR CATEGORY

Category B

LEGAL CHARGES & SENTENCE

State charges: Murder, attempted murder, possession of a firearm during
commission of a felony

Federal charges: Hate crimes

Death (Federal)

Life in prison (State)

LOCATION

Charleston, South Carolina

WHAT WAS ALLEGED

Mass shooting inside of Black church

NOTABLE FACTS

Perpetrator escaped and was later apprehended without incident

TYPE OF PLOT

Shooting

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRESS

Total articles

557

% articles w/ “terror”

24%

% articles w/ “hate”

37%

% articles w/ “extremism”

% headlines w/ “terror”

% headlines w/ “hate”

% articles reference perp’s ideology

47%

% articles reference militant orgs

% articles where community/neighbors interviewed

4.7%

% articles where family interviewed

% articles referencing mental health/psych. issues

Breakdown of news vs.. opinion coverage

77% news, 23% opinion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Class/mental capacity humanize, priorities in description

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

First article about incident; no mention of “terror.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NIDAL HASAN

RELEVANT HIGHLIGHTS/FINDINGS:

* A low percent of articles referencing perpetrator’s mental health and use of
term “hate,” but significantly high percent of articles referencing “terror”
(a strong majority) and “extremism” (more than a quarter)

* A significantly high percent of articles with headlines using the term
“terror”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PERPETRATOR CATEGORY

Category A

NOTABLE FACTS

Perpetrator was Army Psychiatrist

LEGAL CHARGES & SENTENCE

Court-martial: Murder and attempted murder

Death

LOCATION

Fort Hood, Texas

WHAT WAS ALLEGED

Shooting inside military base

TYPE OF PLOT

Shooting

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PRESS

Total articles

562

% articles w/ “terror”

60%

% articles w/ “hate”

% articles w/ “extremism”

29%

% articles referencing perp religion

59%

% headlines w/ “terror”

12%

% headlines w/ “hate”

% articles reference perp’s ideology

46%

% articles reference militant orgs

33%

% articles where community/neighbors interviewed

% articles where family interviewed

% articles referencing mental health/psych. issues

Breakdown of news vs. opinion coverage

86% news, 14% opinion

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Media framing the strict dichotomy of a Category A perpetrator as either having
mental health issues or simply being a “terrorist”

1. [69] Spencer Ackerman, “Let’s All Stop Saying ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’
Forever,” Wired, March 29, 2013. ↩

1. [70] One Category A bomb plot, that of Burson Augustin, was charged as
material support and thus is not included in this list. ↩

1. [71] Bennett Gershman, “The Prosecutor’s Duty of Silence,” Albany Law Review
79 (2016): 1183–1219. ↩

1. [72] Ryan J. Reilly, “Sessions’ DOJ Charged a White Supremacist with
Terrorism. They Just Didn’t Tell Anyone,” Huffington Post, January 9, 2018.
↩

1. [74] Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of New
York, “Upstate New York Man Convicted for His Role in Attempting to Acquire
a Lethal Radiation Device,” August 21, 2015. ↩

1. [76] See, e.g., John McWhorter, “The Big Problem with Calling It ‘Radical
Islam,’” CNN, July 11, 2016. ↩

1. [77] Kristina Sgueglia, “Chattanooga Shootings ‘Inspired’ by Terrorists, FBI
Chief Says,” CNN, December 16, 2015. ↩

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Results and Analysis

This section presents key results of the empirical analysis of the IMV cases
examined.

* Category A cases received over twice the amount of media coverage overall as
Category B cases. The portion of the cases that were violent plots in
Category A cases received 7.5 times more coverage than Category B.

VIOLENT PLOTS

Category A violent plots were referenced in a ranged from one to 24 articles,
with an average of 7.7 articles referenced per incident. Category B plots ranged
from zero to six articles, with an average of one article per incident (and with
most Category plots receiving no coverage in either newspaper). The most-covered
incident in the set of Category B incidents (which had six articles written)
involved a plot to spread a biological agent via ricin in the case of Frederick
Thomas. The total of six articles referencing this incident was still less than
the average of 7.7 in Category A cases.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* For plots, Category A cases received 7.75 times the coverage on average. For
all other incidents, it was at least twice the coverage.

Primary Incidents (Completed acts with less than seven fatalities and less than
50 injuries)

On average, Category A primary incidents were referenced by the media at more
than twice the rate of articles referencing Category B primary incidents.
Category A primary incidents ranged from one to 79 articles, with an average of
36.5 articles per incident. Category B primary incidents ranged from zero to 83
articles, with an average of 15.8 articles.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

High-Intensity Incidents (seven+ fatalities or 50+injuries)

Category A high-intensity incidents were referenced at more than four times the
rate than Category B high-intensity incidents were referenced. Category A
high-intensity incidents had the following coverage: 562 articles (Nidal
Hasan/Fort Hood), 684 articles (Syed Farook; Tashfeen Malik/San Bernardino), and
1340 articles (Tsarnaev brothers/Boston). Category B high-intensity incidents
had the following coverage: 72 articles (Wade Michael Page/Oak Creek), 36
articles (Elliot Rodger/Isla Vista), and 557 articles (Dylann Roof/Charleston).
Most striking here is the relatively minimal coverage of the both the Isla Vista
and Oak Creek incidents. Both incidents involved seven fatalities with multiple
others wounded.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Use of certain terms in articles

[79]

* A large majority of articles referencing Category A offenders contained the
terminology of “terror,” ”terrorism,” and “terrorist”

[80] across all subsets, compared to nearly one in four articles referencing
Category B offenders.
* In contrast, only an extremely small percent of articles referencing Category
A offenders contained the term “hate,” while articles referencing Category B
offenders contained the term “hate” significantly more.

TERROR

A large majority of articles referencing Category A offenders contained uses of
the terms terror, terrorism and/or terrorist across categories (77.46% of
plots), (68.5% of primary incidents), (55.9% of high-intensity incidents).
Articles referencing Category B offenders contained the term strikingly less
often: (54% of plots); (29% of primary incidents), (24.8% of high-intensity
incidents. One point of note: as explored in the Case Studies section, when the
term appears in articles that reference Category B offenders, it is often
deployed to describe Category A offenders (and not the specific Category B
offender) or in media analysis exploring when the terms should be utilized. For
examples, these two articles, respectively:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HATE

A relatively small portion of articles referencing Category A offenders
contained uses of the terms “hate”/”hateful” across categories (7% of plots,
4.4% of high-intensity incidents, and 6.9% of primary incidents). Articles
referencing the Category B offenders contained the term across two categories at
a significantly higher rate (34.7% of high-intensity incidents, and 24.4% of
primary incidents).

This disparity is at least partially driven in part by newspapers reporting that
some of the Category B offenders were under consideration to be, or were in
fact, charged and/or prosecuted under hate crimes statutes unlike Category A
offenders.

[81] But it also reflects the framing choices made by the media, as articles
referencing Category B offenders raised the specter of the perpetrator’s
“hateful” persona. Disparately, writers often include the term “terror” in a
majority of Category A articles and rarely include the term “hate.” Articles
referencing Category B incidents include the terms “terror” and “hate” at
similar rates, albeit still in a minority of those articles.

The description of an incident as a hate crime versus terrorism can have legal
implications. For instance, hate crimes (if they are charged as such) can lead
to a maximum of ten years in prison or life if attempted murder is involved.
Terrorism charges typically carry higher maximum sentences of 20 or more years
without attempted murder.

[82]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Use of term “hate” or “hateful” in articles

Category A

Category B

Plots

***(not examined due to low number of articles)

High Intensity

4.4%

34.7%

Primary

6.9%

24.4%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

EXTREME

The use of the term “extreme,” (as in extreme views) “extremist,” or “extremism”
followed a trend similar to the use of the term “terror” in comparing the two
sets of offenders. A portion of articles referencing Category A offenders
contained the term “extreme”/”extremist”/”extremism” across categories (17.5% of
plots, 18.0% of high-intensity incidents, and 28.8% of primary incidents).
Articles referencing Category B offenders contained the term somewhat less: 8.6%
of high-intensity incidents, and 19.8% of primary incidents. (Category B plots
were not examined due to low number of articles).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Use of term “extreme,” “extremism,” or extremist” in articles

Category A

Category B

Plots

17.4%

*****(not examined due to low number of articles)

High Intensity

18.0%

8.6%

Primary

28.8%

19.8%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

USE OF “TERROR” IN HEADLINES

A portion of articles referencing Category A offenders contained the term
“terror”/”terrorism”/”terrorist” in their respective headlines across categories
(26% of plots, 7.3% of high-intensity incidents, and 13.0% of primary
incidents). Articles referencing Category B offenders contained the term
remarkably less across categories: just 2.2% of high-intensity incidents and
1.1% of primary incidents (Plots not examined due to low number of articles).

[83]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Use of term “terror,” “terrorism,” “terrorist” in headlines

Category A

Category B

Plots

27.0%

*** (not examined due to low number of articles)

High Intensity

7.3%

2.2%

Primary

13.0%

1.1%

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One point of note: as explored further above and again in the Case Studies
section, when these terms appears in articles and headlines of articles
referencing Category B offenders, they are often used in a type of meta-analysis
to pose questions about media coverage and language, rather than directly
describing an offender.

[84]

Compare to headlines of articles referencing Category A offenders such as:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Article regarding July 2002 LAX Airport Shooter Hesham Mohamed Hadayet)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

With article headline predominantly about Category B offender Dylann Roof:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF ARTICLES REFERENCING CATEGORY A OFFENDERS INCLUDE THE
WORD “ISLAM” OR “MUSLIM.”

A significant portion of articles referencing Category A offenders include the
term “Islam” or “Muslim”: 63.5% of plots, 40.1% of high-intensity incidents, and
63.0% of primary incidents. The terms were used in conjunction when describing a
perpetrator’s ideology and identity, and sometimes both. A much smaller amount
of articles referencing Category B offenders included the term “Christian” or
“Christianity” (8.9% of high-intensity incidents, 10% of primary incidents),
despite the fact that a significant portion of Category B offenders were alleged
to have acted in the name of their perceived Christian faith. (Plots not
examined for Category B perpetrators due to low number of articles.)

THE NEW YORK TIMES VS. WASHINGTON POST

No significant difference in the data findings between the New York Times and
Washington Post was found.

LEGAL CONSEQUENCES

The legal analysis focused on violent plots, because the violent plots were the
incidents that had the most comparable legal data available. The plots were
primarily charged in federal court. Traditional criminal offenses like murder
are typically charged at the state level, but offenses that violate federal laws
or cross state lines are charged federally. Incidents in the primary database
often did not lead to legal proceedings at all where the perpetrator was killed.
Otherwise the cases leading to deaths were charged as murder on the state level.
And the penalties (usually life imprisonment or death across the board) provided
little data to compare. The violent plots set provided the ability to have more
“apples to apples” comparisons.

Most Category A perpetrators of violent ideological plots received more severe
legal charges than Category B perpetrators.

Federal charges for plots were divided into two categories. “Less severe”
offenses included possession of a firearm while a felon, possession of
explosives, and solicitation to commit a crime of violence. These offenses
generally carry prison terms of less than ten years. “More severe” offenses
included “weapons of mass destruction,” “material support,” and other offenses
that can carry prison terms from decades to life. “More severe” offenses also
tend to fall under federal terrorism statutes. The legal consequences of these
offenses can lead to harsher conditions of confinement, such as at maximum- or
super-maximum-security facilities, subjection to Special Administrative Measures
(SAMs), and restrictions on communications and visitation.

As discussed in the “apples to apples” section, both sets contained comparable
severities of conduct and targets.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The severity analysis of violent plots across both Categories show the sets to
be comparable across a range of metrics.

Category A

Category B

More Severe Charges

- Material support of terrorist organization

- Weapons of mass destruction [1]

83% (10 of 12)

17% (2 of 12)

Less Severe Charges

- Possession of a firearm as a felon

- Possession of means to make explosives

17% (2 of 12)

83% (10 of 12)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] Does not require “WMDs” in a traditional understanding of nuclear,
biological, or chemical weapons, but can apply to conventional explosives like
small bombs and grenades.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note that this discrepancy is not necessarily the result of prosecutor
discretion: “material support” requires a connection, at least by ideology, to a
Foreign Terrorist Organization. By nature most of the Category B offenders will
be ineligible for material support, because domestic ideologies are generally
not connected to a “designated” Foreign Terrorist Organization.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The average sentences reflected the charging decisions of prosecutors, because
more severe charges carry longer sentences. Sentencing depends on several
factors (including jurisdiction and personal and criminal history), and the
report does not attempt to make any generalizations about sentencing across all
cases.

The sentences sought were an average three times the length for Category A as
Category B perpetrators (230 months for Category A perpetrators and 76 months
for Category B). The sentences issued were on average four times the length for
Category A as Category B (211 months for Category A and 53 months for Category
B). These numbers do not include cases where life sentences were sought or
achieved, as they are difficult to quantify. It excluded the case of Robert
James Talbot, Jr., where a sentence of 78 months was issued but the government
sentencing memorandum was sealed and thus inaccessible.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Category A bomb plots were provided the bombs more often by law enforcement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Category A bomb plots were charged as “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs)
more than three times as often as Category B plots. Most of the Category B
bomb plots appear to qualify as WMDs but were not charged as such. (The legal
standard for “WMD” is broad and not limited to nuclear, biological, or
chemical weapons. It can includes conventional explosives, including small
bombs and grenades.)

[86]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Law enforcement provided weapons, including assault rifles and inert explosives,
for two-thirds of the Category A plots, while eight out of ten of the Category B
perpetrators acquired their own weapons.

In most Category B cases (except two), the perpetrators obtained or made their
own weapons or bombs. One of the two exceptions was that of Frederick Thomas,
which involved a plot to bomb federal buildings and murder federal officials and
in which an FBI informant sold the suspect some materials - a silencer and
materials that were supposedly C-4 explosive. In an additional Category B case,
law enforcement assisted the perpetrator in developing the instrumentality (as
opposed to providing a weapon). In the case of Glendon Scott Crawford, which
involved an attempt to build an x-ray weapon of mass destruction, an FBI
informant provided the suspects with x-ray specifications and technical
assistance.

The figures are different on the Category A side. Law enforcement provided
Category A perpetrators weapons, including assault rifles and explosives, in
two-thirds of the cases (eight of 12).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Category A violent plots were significantly more likely to be prosecuted as
terrorism cases.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Category A perpetrators had terrorism-related charges in about five-sixths of
cases (10 of 12). Compare this to Category B perpetrators who experienced
terrorism-related charges in about one out of six cases (two of 12). Prosecutors
may not have the same charges available to use in every case. However, at least
six of the Category A cases involved WMD charges that conceivably could receive
lesser charges, as was the case with Category B cases.

Cases that involved terrorism enhancements

[87]—optional boosts to sentences that prosecutors can pursue if they argue a
case was terrorism—accounted for about two-thirds of the Category A set (seven
of 12) and only a quarter (three of 12) of the Category B set.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Featured

U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery said to Buford Rogers, a self-proclaimed
member of the anti-government militia Black Snake Militia, that “I don’t think
you are a terrorist or part of a conspiracy.” Rogers was charged with making
homemade bombs using military-grade PETN, crafting Molotov cocktails (filled
with “homemade napalm”), and possessing a loaded SKS rifle. He cheered the
Boston marathon bombing and discussed using the weapons locally. The case was
initially investigated as a terrorism case based on initial evidence, with the
FBI stating that it "believes that a terror attack was disrupted by law
enforcement personnel and that the lives of several local residents were
potentially saved." Ultimately however, Rogers was charged with being a felon in
possession of a firearm and sentenced to three years and four months in prison.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Criminal charging documents referenced Muslim-associated ideologies in all of
the Category A violent plots, but referenced ideologies in half of the Category
B violent plots.

Criminal charging documents (such as a complaint or indictment) are filed before
a court to formally accuse a person of a crime. They are usually the first step
in criminal proceedings and the first public information available in a case.
They are often accompanied by sworn statements by investigating officers who set
forth the facts of the case. As such, they can be an important reference for the
public and press in understanding what is alleged against a defendant.

Muslim-associated ideologies were mentioned in every Category A violent plot.
Six of the 12 Category B cases referenced perpetrator ideology. The six that did
not simply referenced the conduct plotted by the perpetrator without discussing
the ideological intent. These facts either came up in the proceedings or were
otherwise reported by the press.

On average, the national Justice Department issued six times as many press
releases in Category A violent plots. Releases coming from local FBI field
offices and U.S. Attorney offices were more consistent across both Category A
and Category B.

Prosecutor press releases can be issued for a variety of reasons, but they are
one way for prosecutors to get a message about the case to the press. Press
releases provide basic case information that gets reported in the press, so the
way issues are framed in releases contributes to the way they are reported. If
releases omit discussion of a perpetrator’s ideology, it is less likely that
reporting of that story will include that information.

Further, releases can present insight as to how prosecutors view a case. They
are often issued at critical moments in a prosecution such as the arrest,
judgment, and sentencing. They can highlight successful prosecution and often
include commendations to specific departments or officials who were involved in
the case. Prosecutor press statements can impact public and media perceptions of
a case.

[89]

Many factors go into the publication of press releases, including factors that
may not address the merits of any specific case, such as a press officer being
off the desk.

[90] The discussion of press releases does not attempt to explain why releases
may be issued in some cases and not others or why certain cases receive
attention from the Washington, DC, press office while others receive local press
releases. However, the discrepancies between Categories A and B in some
instances merit further investigation.

Average # of Press Releases per Violent Ideological Plot

Category A

Category B

Local FBI Field Office or U.S. Attorney Office

1.33

1.17

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs

1.50

0.25

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Percentage of Cases with Press Releases for Violent Ideological Plots

Category A

Category B

Local FBI Field Office or U.S. Attorney Office

75% (nine of 12)

83% (10 of 12)

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs

83% (10 of 12)

17% (two of 12)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Justice Department national press releases referenced ideology more often in
Category A violent plots.

Total # of Press Releases for Violent Ideological Plots

Category A (12 cases total)

Category B (12 cases total)

Local FBI field office or U.S. Attorney Office

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About half of national releases described Muslim-associated ideologies in either
the headline or first paragraph of the release. Only a quarter of the Category B
plots had releases, and all three mentioned the perpetrator’s identity further
into the release. The majority of press releases referenced perpetrator ideology
at some point in the release.

One example of a Category B national release raised ideology in the seventh
paragraph, in the case of John David Huggins: “A further search of Huggins’
trailer yielded notebooks containing entries ranging from anti-government
ideology to a system to watch and track police officers.”

Contrast a Category A in the case of Munir Abdulkader, where ideology was
mentioned in the first paragraph. Both releases came from the Justice Department
Office of Public Affairs: “Munir Abdulkader, 22, of West Chester, Ohio, was
sentenced to 20 years in prison and lifetime supervised release, for plotting to
murder a military base employee and attack a Cincinnati area police station in
the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a designated
foreign terrorist organization.”

The placement of ideology in a headline or first paragraph generally indicates
that it is an important fact in the release.

[91]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DOJ More Likely to mention Ideology of Category A Violent Plots in First
Paragraph

Category A

Category B

Local FBI Field Office or U.S. Attorney Office

25% (four of 16 releases)

36% (five of 14 releases)

Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs

53% (10 of 19 releases)

0% (zero of three releases)

Percentage of Press Releases Mentioning Ideology in Violent Ideological Plots in
Headline or First Paragraph

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. [78] “FBI Warned of Planned Parenthood Attacks Months Ago,” CBS News,
November 27, 2015. ↩

1. [79] Because so few articles were written at all referencing Category B
Plots (13 total articles across 13 incidents, with the majority of incidents
having no articles at all), term searches for this specific dataset of
Category B Plots are not included in this report. ↩

1. [80] While these three words all stand for varying but closely related
concepts, they were searched and reported together for purposes of this
research project. ↩

1. [81] Federal Hate Crimes are prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. 249, including
attempted crimes (but not those involving sexual abuse, kidnapping, or
murder) which carry a maximum sentence of ten years. Compare to Federal
Weapons of Mass Destruction prosecutions brought under 18 U.S.C. 2332(a),
and often brought against Category A Perpetrators, which have no maximum
sentence even for attempted crimes. For further analysis of the distinction
between hate crimes and terrorism, see Wadie E. Said, “Sentencing Terrorist
Crimes,” Ohio State Law Journal 75 (2014): 477–528; Anthony H. Cordesman
Terrorism and Hate Crimes: Dealing with All of the Threats from Extremists
(Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2017). ↩

1. [82] See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 249(a)(1)(A); 18 U.S.C. § 2332a(a). ↩

1. [83] As indicated above, the total universe of articles referencing Category
B Plot offenders was itself extremely small (just 13 total), and therefore
percentages of term usage in articles for this set were not used in this
report. ↩

1. [84] See, e.g., Peter Baker, “A Nation Wonders When Bloodshed Becomes
Terrorism,” New York Times, December 3, 2015. ↩

1. [86] Spencer Ackerman, “Let’s All Stop Saying ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’
Forever,” Wired, March 29, 2013. ↩

1. [87] A terrorism enhancement is an optional large increase to a prison
sentence that a federal judge can impose if (1) prosecutors argue for it and
(2) a judge determines that the crime involved or was intended to promote a
federal crime of terrorism. ↩

1. [88] Press Release, FBI Minneapolis, “Suspect Buford Rogers Arrested in
Montevideo,” May 6, 2013. ↩

1. [89] Bennett Gershman, “The Prosecutor’s Duty of Silence,” Albany Law Review
79 (2016): 1183–1219. ↩

1. [90] Ryan J. Reilly, “Sessions’ DOJ Charged A White Supremacist With
Terrorism. They Just Didn’t Tell Anyone,” Huffington Post, January 9, 2018.
↩

1. [91] Robert Wynne, “How to Write a Press Release,” Forbes, June 13, 2016. ↩

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONCLUSION

This report seeks to raise awareness about the possible bias with which
ideologically motivated violent incidents and plots are covered in the media and
handled by government and legal institutions depending on the identity and
ideology of the perpetrator. Increasing standardization and reducing biases will
improve the justice system and therefore the wellbeing and civil rights of all
Americans. The research presented in this report is meant to build capacity and
understanding among critical stakeholders to address disparities in labeling and
identifying incidents of ideologically motivated violence, while also promoting
the continued prevention and investigation of all types of violence.

LOOKING FORWARD

PERCEPTION OF RACE AND NATIONAL ORIGIN

A noteworthy case that did not ultimately become part of the analysis was that
of Sami Samir Hassoun. On a Saturday night in Chicago in September 2010, he
allegedly placed an inert bomb provided by the FBI in a trash can located near
both a Wrigley Field entertainment area and a crowded bar. Hassoun’s ideology
and motivation seem to be implied by media reports as being related to his
Arab/Lebanese background. Nearly every article referred to his immigrant status
or ethnic background, and the opening paragraph in a News Roundup in the
Washington Post on April 24, 2012, referred to him as “a man of Lebanese
descent.” However, law enforcement did not allege that he had a
Muslim-associated ideology. Instead, law enforcement alleged that he acted for
monetary gain and to cause political instability.

He was charged with a WMD-related charge and received a 23-year prison sentence.
The Justice Department issued three national press releases about his case which
highlighted his national origin. The case is significant because the outcome
more closely resembles a Category A case than a Category B case. Because of the
emphasis on national origin, the case raises important questions as to the
conflation of religion, race, and national origin.

[92] While this research study looked solely to the perceived religion of the
perpetrator, future research might factor in perceptions of race as well.

CHARGES IN FEDERAL PROSECUTIONS OF IDEOLOGICALLY MOTIVATED VIOLENT PLOTS

The federal legal framework is weighted to prosecuting cases as terrorism when
there is an international component.

[93] For example the crime of “providing material support for terrorism” (under
which many of our data set Category A perpetrators were charged), is linked to a
designation that is made by the U.S. State Department of a group that is a
Foreign Terrorist Organization.

[94]

The Justice Department appears to recognize the disparity in legal tools
available; Reuters reported in February 2016 that the Justice Department was
considering ways to more even-handedly address domestic IMV.

[95] The Assistant Attorney General for National Security, John Carlin, said
that his office was taking a “thoughtful look at the nature and scope of the
domestic terrorism threat” and planned to analyze “potential legal improvements
and enhancements to better combat those threats.”

[96] However, civil liberties groups have expressed concern about both the
potential reach of efforts to address domestic terrorism and the potential
misuse of tools to criminalize activist organizations engaged in First Amendment
activities.

[97] The answer is not necessarily to prosecute Category B offenders more.

This report does not seek to answer how to address disparities in treating
Category A or B cases, but cautions that any responses should promote civil
liberties.

LEGAL CHALLENGE: STATE COURT TERRORISM CASES

Many states—over two-thirds, in fact

[98]—have terrorism statutes. Thus, state-level terrorism prosecutions are
possible, but they continue to be uncommon. As an analysis in the legal blog
Lawfare highlights, many state-level ideological violence prosecutions, such as
the Colorado Springs shooting would seem to fit the state definition of
terrorism.

[99] The primary incidents in this report’s dataset that were prosecuted in
state court all occurred in jurisdictions that had terrorism statutes on the
books. Of those, only one, the case of Ali Muhammad Brown, was prosecuted as
terrorism in New Jersey. It is an open question whether we will see more
state-level prosecutions for terrorism in the future. In New York City,
recently, prosecutors made the decision to indict James Jackson for murder as an
act terrorism for traveling to New York City to scout a random Black victim and
ultimately using a sword to kill a Black man on the street.

[100]

While the FBI investigates domestic organizations promoting ideological
violence, when it comes time to bring criminal charges, fewer legal options are
available for incidents without international links than for when an alleged
connection to a foreign organization is involved. The U.S. terrorism
prosecutions leading to the most convictions have been against suspects with
alleged support from or actions for overseas groups.

[101]

LEGAL CHALLENGE: LAW ENFORCEMENT “STING” OPERATIONS

In sting operations, law enforcement efforts use undercover asset to pretend to
participate in or encourage a criminal act, and arrest the suspect before the
act is fully committed. The data showed that, in the violent plots examined,
Muslim-perceived perpetrators were provided the means to commit a crime
two-thirds of the time (often being unable to afford them or acquire them on
their own), while non-Muslim-perceived perpetrators of violent plots already had
or were stockpiling weapons or explosives.

Prior to September 11, 2001, sting operations were primarily conducted in cases
of organized crime, white collar crime, and drug offenses.

[102] After September 11, there was an increase in sting operations in terrorism
cases involving perceived-Muslim perpetrators. The Washington Post reported in
October 2010 that the use of sting operations in Muslim communities had an
effect of straining relationships between Muslim communities and law
enforcement.

[103] In June 2016, the New York Times reported that the FBI stepped up its use
of stings in ISIS cases.

[104] Because investigations of terrorist offenses, like providing material
support, are tied to designations of Foreign Terror Organizations as well as
military operations abroad, there are often increased surveillance tools
available to law enforcement via tips from intelligence agencies. This means
that where foreign terror organizations are specifically Muslim, there is a
greater nexus to alleged foreign terrorism just by nature of a perpetrator being
perceived as Muslim.

[105]

In theory, defendants in U.S. criminal proceedings should be able to raise a
defense of entrapment, which means that they were induced by law enforcement to
commit a crime. However, these defenses are rarely if ever successful in cases
of ideological violence. An element of that defense is showing that the person
was not “predisposed” to commit the crime. The predisposition question looks at
the defendant’s background, which places the ideology of the defendant under a
microscope. While the defense is generally difficult to mount for all defendants
of ideological violence, regardless of identity, the stakes of terrorism-related
cases are significantly higher because greater punishments are on the table.
This fact has enormous negative implications for the civil rights of Muslim
communities which are primarily affected by non-violent terrorism laws such as
material support, because it prevents them from mounting the most effective
defense or legally exonerating themselves.

[106] It is also inconsistent with international fair trial standards under the
European Convention on Human Rights.

[107]

1. [92] Michael Schulson, “The Islamophobia Election: How ‘Muslim’ Became a
Racial Identity,” Religion Dispatches, November 7, 2016. ↩

1. [93] Scott Sullivan, “Prosecuting Domestic Terrorism as Terrorism,” Just
Security, August 18, 2017. ↩

1. [94] 18 U.S.C. § 2339B (Providing material support or resources to
designated foreign terrorist organizations); U.S. Department of State,
Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism, “Terrorism
Designations FAQs,” July 10, 2012. ↩

1. [95] Julia Harte, Julia Edwards, and Andy Sullivan, “U.S. Eyes Ways to
Toughen Fight Against Domestic Extremists,” Reuters, February 4, 2016. ↩

1. [96] Julia Harte, Julia Edwards, and Andy Sullivan, “U.S. Eyes Ways to
Toughen Fight Against Domestic Extremists,” Reuters, February 4, 2016. ↩

1. [97] See, e.g., Karen J. Greenberg, “A Domestic Terrorism Statute Is Federal
Overreach, Not Justice,” NBC News, October 28, 2017; American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU), “How the USA PATRIOT Act Redefines ‘Domestic
Terrorism.’” ↩

1. [98] Donna Lyons, “States Enact New Terrorism Crimes and Penalties,”
National Conference of State Legislatures 27, no. 19 (November 2002). ↩

1. [99] Lisa Daniels, “Prosecuting Terrorism in State Court,” LawFare, October
26, 2016. ↩

1. [100] Mike James, “Racist ‘Assassin’ Indicted as Terrorist in NYC Murder of
Black Man,” USA Today, March 27, 2017. ↩

1. [101] Taylor Brown, “Terrorism vs. Hate Crime: How U.S. Courts Decide,” BBC
News, June 20, 2015. ↩

1. [102] Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Financial
Investigations: A Financial Approach to Detecting and Resolving Crimes
(1994), 274–75. ↩

1. [103] William Wan, “Sting Underscores Muslims’ Complex Relationship with
FBI,” Washington Post, October 28, 2010. ↩

1. [104] Eric Lichtblau, “F.B.I. Steps Up Use of Stings in ISIS Cases,” New
York Times, June 7, 2016. ↩

1. [105] Federal litigation is currently ongoing on the use of sting operations
in drug cases and biased targeting of Black defendants. See Jason Meisner
and Annie Sweeney, “Was Racial Profiling Behind ATF Stash House Stings?
Chicago Judges to Take Up Landmark Case Today,” Chicago Tribune, December
13, 2017. ↩

1. [106] Human Rights Watch, Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S.
Terrorism Prosecutions, July 21, 2014. ↩

1. [107] Human Rights Watch, Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S.
Terrorism Prosecutions, July 21, 2014. ↩

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

appendices

APPENDIX: METHODOLOGY CODINGS AND METRICS

1. INCIDENT MEDIA INVESTIGATION

The media investigation involved two levels of analysis, incident-level and
article-level analyses. Each incident was researched through the Nexis program
to find print coverage from the New York Times and Washington Post. Searches
were restricted to print stories from the starting date of the incident until
April 30, 2017. Unique Boolean search phrases were generated using the following
criteria: date and location; target(s) of incident; name(s) of perpetrator(s)
where known; and name(s) of victim(s) where applicable. Once the list of
articles was generated within Nexis, two rounds of researcher review were
conducted to eliminate non-responsive articles.

Initial word search review: Specific measurement and word searches were
conducted within Nexis, including:

* Number of articles mentioning the incident
* Duration of reporting, including number of days of reporting
* Whether “hate,” “terrorism,” or “extremism” were mentioned

[108]
* Whether a Category A perpetrator's religion was mentioned
* Number of articles where the headline included “terror” or “hate”
* Number of articles where the headline included ethnicity/country of origin or
religion of the perpetrator

Article-level review : The article-level review looked at the actual content of
articles, including the type of piece (opinion or news coverage) and the
language used in articles referencing either or both the incidents and
perpetrators that would be beyond the scope of a word search. Thus, researchers
conducted this level of review by reading through every responsive article for
the incident. The article-level review was conducted for all the plots and a
smaller sample from the other subsets, including the Planned Parenthood, Oak
Creek, Fort Hood, Chattanooga Military Base, and Charleston Church shootings.
The article-level review was designed to highlight specific examples through
more detailed case studies, rather than to provide a comprehensive treatment
comparing all articles. Here, the researchers reviewed:

* Whether the article referenced a specific motivating ideology of the
perpetrator (e.g., religious extremism, white supremacy, racism,
anti-abortion),
* Whether the article reflected interviews with community members, neighbors,
and family members of the perpetrator, and
* Whether the articles referenced the mental or psychiatric condition of the
perpetrator.

2. INCIDENT LEGAL INVESTIGATION

The legal proceedings and outcomes of cases were obtained using a combination of
PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records), Lexis, state-level case
databases, and other legal tools where applicable. Typically, cases were
identified by way of the jurisdiction where the violent act was committed and
the name of the perpetrator.

Cases relied on charging documents, government sentencing memoranda, and
sentencing court documents. The metrics that were gathered included:

* Whether there was a federal case or decision to charge with hate crimes vs.
terrorism,
* Whether there were any state proceedings, and whether or not there was the
opportunity to charge using a state-level hate or terrorism statute,
* What level of charges were issued,
* Whether there was a plea, conviction, or acquittal,
* What sentence was sought, then issued,
* Whether the individual had a prior criminal record, and
* Whether the instrumentality of the offense was provided by law enforcement.

In addition, the legal layer included another set of searches for each case via
Nexis and Google News to identify key words of the incident, such as perpetrator
name and location, in order to find law enforcement press quoted in print media
or written press releases. This was done primarily to assess whether any press
releases or media statements were issued from the Justice Department. The reason
for this was to identify in what cases the Justice Department was delivering
press, and if so, whether it was issued locally or nationally.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

APPENDIX: KEY DEFINITIONS

General Definitions

* Ideologically motivated violence (IMV): A violent act or plan to commit
violence that is perceived by a) the media and/or b) law enforcement to be
committed to promote an ideology. For purposes of this study, an incident is
considered “perceived to be ideologically motivated” if it was included in
one of the underlying datasets. All three of the incident databases collected
incidents according to law enforcement allegations in charging documents
and/or national media portrayal of the perpetrator.
* Category A perpetrator: Individuals committing or plotting violent acts who
are perceived to be Muslim and allegedly acting in the name of Islam.
* Category B perpetrator: Individuals committing or plotting violent
ideologically motivated acts who are not perceived to be Muslim.
* Category A/B set: All cases belonging to either Category A or Category B in
the study.
* Plot: A plan to commit a violent act that law enforcement alleged was
attempted but not carried out to completion.

Legal Investigation Definitions

* Common less-severe criminal charges in IMV cases: While this list is not
comprehensive of every possible federal charge in an IMV case, these are some
more common charges that come up. They are considered “less severe” because
the maximum prison sentences are less than offenses associated with federal
terrorism laws.
* Felon in possession of a firearm (10-year maximum).

[109] Convicted felons are barred under federal law from possessing
firearms. This means that individuals with a criminal history who are
planning a violent plot and acquire weapons to carry out that plot can be
subject to a separate offense.
* Possession or distribution of explosives or the means to make explosives
(10-year maximum).

[110] This category of charges comes up frequently in alleged bomb plots,
in which a perpetrator possesses explosives or the capability to create
them.
* Common more-severe criminal charges in IMV cases: This list is not
comprehensive as to every possible federal charge in an IMV case. These are
considered “more severe” because they carry heightened prison sentences, can
lead to harsher post-confinement conditions (higher-security facilities and
limitations on communication), and are associated with federal terrorism
statutes.
* Material support of terrorism (20-year maximum or life if a death results).

[111] The material support statute punishes anyone who provides or attempts
or conspires to provide “material support or resources” to a designated
Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). FTOs are non-U.S. organizations that
are designated by the U.S. State Department pursuant to section 219 of the
Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). The U.S. Supreme Court has
interpreted the scope of the material support law very broadly, and it has
generated criticism for harshly punishing activities that may be
humanitarian in nature or involve free speech.

[112]
* Use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) (Maximum life sentence, or death
penalty if deaths result).

[113] “Weapons of mass destruction” have a broader legal definition than
one might expect, and many conventional or home-made explosives could fall
under the statute. WMD includes any “destructive device” with “incendiary
charge of more than four ounces.”

[114] Car bombs can typically fall under the WMD definition. The statute
also allows for prosecuting any offense that involves interstate travel or
“affects interstate or foreign commerce.”

[115]
* Terrorism enhancement

[116]: An optional substantial increase to a prison sentence that a federal
judge can impose if prosecutors argue for it and a judge determines that the
crime involved or was intended to promote a federal crime of terrorism.
Federal judges have criteria (called “sentencing guidelines”) that are set by
Congress in order to determine how to sentence an individual convicted of a
crime. The criteria rely on numerous factors including the nature and
severity of the offense and the criminal history of the defendant. In federal
criminal cases, prosecutors often submit a “sentencing memorandum” which
outlines the prosecutor’s argument for why a defendant should receive a
certain sentence, and the factors, including any enhancements, for doing so.

1. [108] Each of these terms were searched alongside corollary words (Boolean
searching: terror!; extrem!) to account for different phrases such as
terror, terrorist, and terrorism or extreme (as in views or ideology of
perpetrator), extremist and extremism. Hate was also searched as in hateful
ideology, hate crime, or that perpetrator harbored hate. Non-responsive uses
of the terms were excluded. The findings cited in this report are an
aggregation of all these respective terms for each phrase, and their use in
this report reflects that same aggregation. ↩

1. [109] 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)&(n). The maximum is 15 years in some cases
involving repeat violent offenses. ↩

1. [110] 18 U.S.C. § 842. ↩

1. [111] 18 U.S.C. § 2339A & 2339B. ↩

1. [112] Nicole Hong, “‘Material Support’ Statute Is Front and Center in
Antiterror Push,” Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2015. ↩

1. [113] 18 U.S.C. § 2332a. ↩

1. [114] 18 U.S.C. § 2332a; see also 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(4). ↩

1. [115] 18 U.S. Code § 2332a(a)(2)(D) ↩

1. [116] Wadie E. Said, “Sentencing Terrorist Crimes,” Ohio State Law Journal
75, no. 3 (2014). ↩

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REFERENCES

[1] START Global Terrorism Database, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Lone
Wolf Database, and The Intercept Terror Trials Database, further outlined in the
Methodology section below.

[2] Incidents beyond 2015 were not included in the dataset as the START Global
Terrorism database did not yet contain 2016 data at the start of this research
project. Thus, significant incidents or plots perceived to be ideologically
driven such as the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting or Kansas anti-Muslim
“Crusaders” plot were not part of this study.

[3] Incidents coded as one fatality in the existing databases were not included
as it often reflected a circumstance in which the perpetrator alone was killed
during the act

[4] This excludes cases where life sentences were sought or obtained. There were
more life sentences sought and obtained for Category A perpetrators (two sought
and two obtained for Category A, and one sought and not obtained for Category
B). Sentencing relies on a number of factors, including the criminal history of
the defendant, the jurisdiction, the judge, and others. The report points out
the correlation between heightened charges and higher sentences but does not
make any conclusions regarding sentencing procedures.

[5] Does not require “WMDs” in a traditional understand of nuclear, biological,
or chemical weapons, but can apply to conventional explosives like small bombs
and grenades.

[6] This report does not claim that law enforcement never engages in sting
operations of Category B perpetrators, but that these results were found in the
underlying data.

[7] An instance of “media coverage” is defined as an article that references an
incident, using identifying metrics regarding the incident.

[8] FTOs are non-U.S. organizations that are designated by the U.S. State
Department pursuant to section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

[9] Ryan J. Reilly, “There’s A Good Reason Feds Don’t Call White Guys
Terrorists, Says DOJ Domestic Terror Chief,” Huffington Post, January 11, 2018.

[10] See, e.g., Khaled Beydoun, “Islamophobia: Toward a Legal Definition and
Framework,” Columbia Law Review Online 116 (2016): 108–125.

[11] ISPU American Muslim Poll 2016.

[12] Bridge Initiative.

[13] Emile Bruneau, Nour Kteily, and Emily Falk, “Revealing an Intergroup Bias
in Collective Blame Decreases Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hostility,” Annenberg
School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, Kellogg
School of Management, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, U.S.

[14] See Haroon Moghul, “America’s Obsessive Fear of Islam Is Distracting Us
from the Real Problem of Gun Control,” Quartz, December 3, 2015.

[15] See Brian Resnick, “All Muslims Are Often Blamed for Single Acts of Terror.
Psychology Explains How to Stop It,” Vox.com, November 30, 2017.

[16] Shaun King, “The White Privilege of the ‘Lone Wolf’ Shooter,” The
Intercept, October 2, 2017; see also Kiana Fitzgerald, “The Danger in Calling
White Male Terrorists ‘Lone Wolves,’” Complex, October 5, 2017.

[17] See, e.g., Doug Criss, “When Is a Crime a Hate Crime and When Is It
Terrorism?,” CNN, August, 14, 2017; Anne Godlasky, “When Is It Terrorism? When
Is It a Hate Crime?,” USA Today, November 6, 2017.

[18] See Beydoun, “Islamophobia.”

[19] Maggie Ybarra, “Majority of Fatal Attacks on U.S. Soil Carried Out by White
Supremacists, Not Terrorists,” The Washington Times, June 24, 2015.

[20] Doug Criss, “When Is a Crime a Hate Crime and When Is It Terrorism?,” CNN,
August 14, 2017.

[21] Colleen E. Mills, Joshua D. Freilich, and Steven M. Chermak, “Extreme
Hatred: Revisiting the Hate Crime and Terrorism Relationship to Determine
Whether They Are ‘Close Cousins’ or ‘Distant Relatives,’” Crime &
Delinquency (December 2015).

[22] Jean-Paul Marthoz, Terrorism and the Media: A Handbook for Journalists
(UNESCO, 2017). “The key challenge for journalists is to inform with rigor and
responsibility in the middle of chaos and urgency,” said Marthoz. “In such
dramatic circumstances, journalists should be seen as trusted sources of
information, able to separate facts from rumors and opinions from incendiary
speech. The independent search for truth as well as the ethics of respect for
the victims are crucial.” “UNESCO Urges Terrorism Reporting Free from
Fear-Mongering,” UNESCO.org, March 23, 2017.

[23] Conor Friedersdorf, “The Horrifying Effects of NYPD Ethnic Profiling on
Innocent Muslim Americans,” The Atlantic, March 28, 2013.

[24] Arshad Ahmed and Farid Senzai, The USA Patriot Act: Impact on the Arab and
Muslim American Community (Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, 2004).

[25] Enny Dasa, Brad J.Bushmanab, Marieke D.Bezemera, Peter Kerkhofa, and Ivar
E. Vermeulena, “How Terrorism News Reports Increase Prejudice Against Outgroups:
A Terror Management Account,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45, no.
3 (May 2009): 453–59.

[26] Owais Arshad, Varun Setlur, and Usaid Siddiqui, Are Muslims Collectively
Responsible? (416Labs, 2015).

[27] Erin M. Kearns, Allison Betus, and Anthony Lemieux, Why Do Some Terrorist
Attacks Receive More Media Attention Than Others? (March 7, 2017). This report
argued that social identity is the largest predictor of news coverage, while
target type, being arrested, and fatalities will also impact coverage. It looked
to news coverage from LexisNexis Academic and CNN.com for incidents in the
United States between 2011 and 2015; see also Mohammed El-Nawawy and Mohamad
Hamas Elmasry, “Valuing Victims: A Comparative Framing Analysis of the The
Washington Post’s Coverage of Violent Attacks Against Muslims and Non-Muslims,”
International Journal of Communication 11 (2017): 1795–1815.

[28] Joshua D. Freilich, Jeff Gruenewald, Steven Chermak, and William Parkin,
“Was the Orlando Shooting a Hate Crime or Terrorist Act? The Answer Matters,”
The New Republic, June 15, 2016.

[29] START, Ideological Motivations of Terrorism in the United States,
1970–2016 (University of Maryland, 2017). (“Note that classification of
terrorist attacks by ideology can be unclear, particularly when perpetrators of
attacks identify with more than one ideological group or perspective, which may
or may not be relevant to the motivations for the attack itself. The
classification of terrorist activity by ideology does not characterize an entire
population or ideological movement as violent or predisposed to use terrorist
tactics to advance ideological beliefs.”)

[30] Scott Shane, “Homegrown Extremists Tied to Deadlier Toll Than Jihadists in
U.S. Since 9/11,” New York Times, June 24, 2015.

[31] Kurt Eichenwald, “Right-Wing Extremists Are a Bigger Threat to America Than
ISIS,” Newsweek, February 4, 2016.

[32] “White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence,”
May 10, 2017.

[33] See Bipartisan Policy Center, “Jihadist Terrorism-A Threat Assessment,”
September 2013, 15–16; Michael Reynolds, “Homegrown Terror,” Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 60, no. 6 (Nov./Dec. 2004), describing a case in Noonday,
Texas, where anti-government extremists were arrested with, among other things,
a cyanide bomb capable of killing up to 6,000 people; Barton Gellman, “The
Secret World of Extreme Militias,” Time, September 30, 2010, citing another plot
to detonate an explosive radiological dispersal device (“dirty bomb”) by a
Neo-Nazi sympathizer living in Belfast, Maine.

[34] Marcy Wheeler, “Yes, Calling Only Muslims Terrorists Does Result in
Disparate Treatment of Muslims,” Emptywheel, December 5, 2015; see also Creating
Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR) Project, Muslim American
Civil Liberties Coalition (MACLC), Asian American Legal Defense and Education
Fund (AALDEF), Mapping Muslims: NYPD Spying and Its Impact on Muslim Americans
(2012).

[35] Alejandro J. Beutel, “Latest FBI Numbers Show Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes
Continue to Rise, Suggest Growing Shift Toward Violence Against People,”
SPLC.org, November 14, 2017; see also Craig Considine, “The Racialization of
Islam in the United States: Islamophobia, Hate Crimes, and ‘Flying while
Brown,’” Religions 8, no. 165 (2017).

[36] See, e.g., Azadeh Aalai, “Media Framing Effects: When Is the ‘Terrorism’
Label Used?,” Psychology Today, June 21, 2017.

[37] Jesenia F. Robles, “Islam Is the New Black: Muslim Perceptions of Law
Enforcement,” McNair Scholars Research Journal 13, no. 1, art. 16. (2017).

[38] Robert J. Sampson and Janet L. Lauritsen, The Sentencing Project (1997).
See also Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow.

[39] Andrew Kahn and Chris Kirk, “What It’s Like to Be Black in the Criminal
Justice System,” Slate.com, August 9, 2015; Christopher Hartney and Linh Vuon,
Created Equal: Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the U.S. Criminal Justice
System (National Council on Crime and Delinquency, March 2009).

[40] See, e.g., Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Racial Perceptions of Crime and Support for
Punitive Policies (The Sentencing Project, 2014); Brian Powell, “Fox
News’ Racial Crime Coverage Is Hurting People,” Media Matters for America,
August, 23, 2013; Roger D. Klein and Stacy Naccarato, “Broadcast News Portrayal
of Minorities: Accuracy in Reporting,” American Behavioral Scientist 46, no. 12
(2003); The Opportunity Agenda, Media Representations and Impact on the Lives of
Black Men and Boys.

[41] Media framing and legal outcomes are deeply interconnected. See,
e.g., Ellen Nakashima, “60 Charged with Terrorism-Linked Crimes in 2015,”
Washington Post, December 27, 2015 (noting that the “Justice Department has
charged at least 60 individuals this year with terrorism-related crimes” while
citing IMV incidents involving only Muslim-perceived perpetrators).

[42] 18 U.S. Code § 2339B (Providing material support or resources to designated
foreign terrorist organizations); Christopher S. Stewart, “Little Gitmo,” NY
Magazine, July 10, 2011.

[43] See, e.g., Global Terrorism Database FAQs, accessed February 10, 2018 (“In
the absence of a universally accepted definition of terrorism, GTD uses several
coded criteria to cover a broad range of definitions of terrorism through a
combination of inclusiveness and filtering. The goal is to have a data set that
is useful to as many interested users as possible.”); see also FBI, “Terrorism
2002–2005” (“There is no single, universally accepted, definition of terrorism.
Terrorism is defined in the Code of Federal Regulations as “the unlawful use of
force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a
government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of
political or social objectives”) (citing 28 C.F.R. Sec. 0.85).

[44] “Anti-Muslim Discrimination,” ACLU.org; Rebecca A. Clay,
“Islamophobia,”American Psychology Association 48, no. 4 (April 2017).

[45] Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute,
Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S. Terrorism Prosecutions (July
2014).

[46] Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute,
Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S. Terrorism Prosecutions (July
2014).

[47] The usage of the phrase “perceived to be” addresses the inherent problem in
identifying a perpetrator’s ideology with any certainty. Oftentimes,
perpetrators may not subscribe to clear ideologies, or they may be motivated for
a range of reasons. In other instances, an individual may claim to subscribe to
an ideology, but this claim may be disputed by other members of that ideology or
community. The research team is not in a position to determine who belongs to
what ideology or identity. Instead the perception of a perpetrator’s ideology or
identity is drawn from the underlying datasets, court documents, such as
criminal complaints, that accuse an individual of belonging to an ideology, or
media stories that portray an individual of being motivated in a certain way.

[48] The Associated Press, “Circulation Numbers for the 10 Largest Newspapers.”

[49] Joe Pompeo, “Taking Stock of Newsroom Head Counts,” Politico, December 1,
2014.

[50] Washington Post Staff, “Policies and Standards,” January 1, 2017; New York
Times Company, “Standards and Ethics,” 2018.

[51] See, e.g., Jim Kuypers, Press Bias and Politics: How the Media Frame
Controversial Issues (Praeger, 2002); Tim Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo, “A
Measure of Media Bias,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics 120, no. 4 (November
2005).

[52] This date was chosen to coincide with the start of this report’s data
collection in May 2017 and to maximize the amount of news coverage available for
review, including a period that covers the start of the presidential
administration of Donald Trump.

[53] National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism
(START), Global Terrorism Database (GTD).

[54] Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Lone Wolf Report, February 11, 2015.
The report is based on incidents of domestic terrorism.

[55] Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams, “Trial and Terror,” The Intercept,
April 20, 2017.

[56] Global Terrorism Database (GTD), Data Collection Methodology.

[57] The SPLC set looked at “terrorism inspired by antigovernment, Islamist and
various forms of race or group hatred.” Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Lone
Wolf Report, “The Study,” February 11, 2015.

[58] Trevor Aaronson and Margot Williams, “Trial and Terror,” The Intercept,
April 20, 2017.

[59] The only primary or high-intensity incident removed due to this
geographical consideration was that of Ismaaiyl Abdullah Brinsley, the gunman
who ambushed and murdered two New York City Police Department Officers in
December 2014. A handful of plots involving targets within New York City or
Washington, DC, that arose during during the generation of the plots dataset
were also excluded.

[60] As a result, every completed incident analyzed in this report’s dataset
involved at least one fatality at the hands of a perpetrator, but for the May
2015 Garland, TX, shooting, which resulted in the deaths of two perpetrators and
injury to a law enforcement officer.

[61] Three incidents were not included in the legal analysis, as the legal
proceedings were still ongoing as of the preparation of the report.

[62] Some high-profile incidents—such as the Orlando nightclub shooting, or
several other notable incidents of 2017—do not appear as a result of the date
restriction.

[63] Emile Bruneau, Nour Kteily, and Emily Falk, “Revealing an Intergroup Bias
in Collective Blame Decreases Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Hostility,” Annenberg
School of Communications, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, Kellogg
School of Management, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, U.S.

[64] Shaun King, “The White Privilege of the ‘Lone Wolf’ Shooter,” The
Intercept, October 2, 2017; see also Kiana Fitzgerald, “The Danger in Calling
White Male Terrorists ‘Lone Wolves,’” Complex, October 5, 2017.

[65] Bennett Gershman, “The Prosecutor’s Duty of Silence,” Albany Law Review 79
(2016): 1183–1219.

[66] Ryan J. Reilly, “Sessions’ DOJ Charged a White Supremacist with Terrorism.
They Just Didn’t Tell Anyone,” Huffington Post, January 9, 2018.

[67] Ryan J. Reilly, “Sessions’ DOJ Charged a White Supremacist with Terrorism.
They Just Didn’t Tell Anyone,” Huffington Post, January 9, 2018.

[68] The inclusion of a perpetrator or listing of an alleged ideology in this
report is not a confirmation that said individual acted according to, or was
motivated by, any ideology. It represents that the incident was included as
ideologically motivated by the underlying datasets used in the report. Listed
ideologies were obtained from the underlying datasets, charging documents,
and/or reporting. Category B ideologies are specifically noted, while Category A
offenders by definition are those perceived to be allegedly acting in the name
of Islam.

[69] Spencer Ackerman, “Let’s All Stop Saying ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’
Forever,” Wired, March 29, 2013.

[70] One Category A bomb plot, that of Burson Augustin, was charged as material
support and thus is not included in this list.

[71] Bennett Gershman, “The Prosecutor’s Duty of Silence,” Albany Law Review 79
(2016): 1183–1219.

[72] Ryan J. Reilly, “Sessions’ DOJ Charged a White Supremacist with Terrorism.
They Just Didn’t Tell Anyone,” Huffington Post, January 9, 2018.

[73] Johnson was part of an “Aryan Liberation Movement” and planned to attack
minorities.

[74] Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of New
York, “Upstate New York Man Convicted for His Role in Attempting to Acquire a
Lethal Radiation Device,” August 21, 2015.

[75] According to the FBI, “No evidence was uncovered to conclude this attack
was directed or facilitated by any white supremacist group.” FBI Milwaukee, “Oak
Creek Sikh Temple Shooting Investigation Conclusion,” November 20, 2012.

[76] See, e.g., John McWhorter, “The Big Problem with Calling It ‘Radical
Islam,’” CNN, July 11, 2016.

[77] Kristina Sgueglia, “Chattanooga Shootings ‘Inspired’ by Terrorists, FBI
Chief Says,” CNN, December 16, 2015.

[78] “FBI Warned of Planned Parenthood Attacks Months Ago,” CBS News, November
27, 2015.

[79] Because so few articles were written at all referencing Category B Plots
(13 total articles across 13 incidents, with the majority of incidents having no
articles at all), term searches for this specific dataset of Category B Plots
are not included in this report.

[80] While these three words all stand for varying but closely related concepts,
they were searched and reported together for purposes of this research project.

[81] Federal Hate Crimes are prosecuted under 18 U.S.C. 249, including attempted
crimes (but not those involving sexual abuse, kidnapping, or murder) which carry
a maximum sentence of ten years. Compare to Federal Weapons of Mass Destruction
prosecutions brought under 18 U.S.C. 2332(a), and often brought against Category
A Perpetrators, which have no maximum sentence even for attempted crimes. For
further analysis of the distinction between hate crimes and terrorism, see Wadie
E. Said, “Sentencing Terrorist Crimes,” Ohio State Law Journal 75 (2014):
477–528; Anthony H. Cordesman Terrorism and Hate Crimes: Dealing with All of the
Threats from Extremists (Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2017).

[82] See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 249(a)(1)(A); 18 U.S.C. § 2332a(a).

[83] As indicated above, the total universe of articles referencing Category B
Plot offenders was itself extremely small (just 13 total), and therefore
percentages of term usage in articles for this set were not used in this report.

[84] See, e.g., Peter Baker, “A Nation Wonders When Bloodshed Becomes
Terrorism,” New York Times, December 3, 2015.

[85] Does not require “WMDs” in a traditional understanding of nuclear,
biological, or chemical weapons, but can apply to conventional explosives like
small bombs and grenades.

[86] Spencer Ackerman, “Let’s All Stop Saying ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’
Forever,” Wired, March 29, 2013.

[87] A terrorism enhancement is an optional large increase to a prison sentence
that a federal judge can impose if (1) prosecutors argue for it and (2) a judge
determines that the crime involved or was intended to promote a federal crime of
terrorism.

[88] Press Release, FBI Minneapolis, “Suspect Buford Rogers Arrested in
Montevideo,” May 6, 2013.

[89] Bennett Gershman, “The Prosecutor’s Duty of Silence,” Albany Law Review 79
(2016): 1183–1219.

[90] Ryan J. Reilly, “Sessions’ DOJ Charged A White Supremacist With Terrorism.
They Just Didn’t Tell Anyone,” Huffington Post, January 9, 2018.

[91] Robert Wynne, “How to Write a Press Release,” Forbes, June 13, 2016.

[92] Michael Schulson, “The Islamophobia Election: How ‘Muslim’ Became a Racial
Identity,” Religion Dispatches, November 7, 2016.

[93] Scott Sullivan, “Prosecuting Domestic Terrorism as Terrorism,” Just
Security, August 18, 2017.

[94] 18 U.S.C. § 2339B (Providing material support or resources to designated
foreign terrorist organizations); U.S. Department of State, Bureau of
Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism, “Terrorism Designations
FAQs,” July 10, 2012.

[95] Julia Harte, Julia Edwards, and Andy Sullivan, “U.S. Eyes Ways to Toughen
Fight Against Domestic Extremists,” Reuters, February 4, 2016.

[96] Julia Harte, Julia Edwards, and Andy Sullivan, “U.S. Eyes Ways to Toughen
Fight Against Domestic Extremists,” Reuters, February 4, 2016.

[97] See, e.g., Karen J. Greenberg, “A Domestic Terrorism Statute Is Federal
Overreach, Not Justice,” NBC News, October 28, 2017; American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU), “How the USA PATRIOT Act Redefines ‘Domestic Terrorism.’”

[98] Donna Lyons, “States Enact New Terrorism Crimes and Penalties,” National
Conference of State Legislatures 27, no. 19 (November 2002).

[99] Lisa Daniels, “Prosecuting Terrorism in State Court,” LawFare, October 26,
2016.

[100] Mike James, “Racist ‘Assassin’ Indicted as Terrorist in NYC Murder of
Black Man,” USA Today, March 27, 2017.

[101] Taylor Brown, “Terrorism vs. Hate Crime: How U.S. Courts Decide,” BBC
News, June 20, 2015.

[102] Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service, Financial
Investigations: A Financial Approach to Detecting and Resolving
Crimes (1994), 274–75.

[103] William Wan, “Sting Underscores Muslims’ Complex Relationship with FBI,”
Washington Post, October 28, 2010.

[104] Eric Lichtblau, “F.B.I. Steps Up Use of Stings in ISIS Cases,” New York
Times, June 7, 2016.

[105] Federal litigation is currently ongoing on the use of sting operations in
drug cases and biased targeting of Black defendants. See Jason Meisner and Annie
Sweeney, “Was Racial Profiling Behind ATF Stash House Stings? Chicago Judges to
Take Up Landmark Case Today,” Chicago Tribune, December 13, 2017.

[106] Human Rights Watch, Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S.
Terrorism Prosecutions, July 21, 2014.

[107] Human Rights Watch, Illusion of Justice: Human Rights Abuses in U.S.
Terrorism Prosecutions, July 21, 2014.

[108] Each of these terms were searched alongside corollary words (Boolean
searching: terror!; extrem!) to account for different phrases such as terror,
terrorist, and terrorism or extreme (as in views or ideology of perpetrator),
extremist and extremism. Hate was also searched as in hateful ideology, hate
crime, or that perpetrator harbored hate. Non-responsive uses of the terms were
excluded. The findings cited in this report are an aggregation of all these
respective terms for each phrase, and their use in this report reflects that
same aggregation.

[109] 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)&(n). The maximum is 15 years in some cases involving
repeat violent offenses.

[110] 18 U.S.C. § 842.

[111] 18 U.S.C. § 2339A & 2339B.

[112] Nicole Hong, “‘Material Support’ Statute Is Front and Center in Antiterror
Push,” Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2015.

[113] 18 U.S.C. § 2332a.

[114] 18 U.S.C. § 2332a; see also 18 U.S.C. § 921(a)(4).

[115] 18 U.S. Code § 2332a(a)(2)(D)

[116] Wadie E. Said, “Sentencing Terrorist Crimes,” Ohio State Law Journal 75,
no. 3 (2014).

Title

Executive Summary

Background

Methodology and Challenges

Incidents List

Case Studies

Results and Analysis

Conclusion

Appendices

References

www.imv-report.org Open in urlscan Pro 198.49.23.145 Public Scan

Form analysis 0 forms found in the DOM

Text Content

www.imv-report.org Open in urlscan Pro
198.49.23.145 Public Scan

Form analysis
0 forms found in the DOM