Senators Call for State to Conduct Threat Assessment of Domestic Terrorism by White Nationalist Militia Groups
For Immediate Release: January 11, 2021
Contact: Faith Pulido at faith.pulido@sen.ca.gov (Stern)
SACRAMENTO – State Senators Henry Stern (D-Los Angeles) and Tom Umberg (D-Orange County) announced plans today to introduce legislation that would require both the Attorney General and the California Office of Emergency Services (CalOES) to create units focusing on domestic terrorism.
“Let’s be very clear. What happened last week wasn’t Antifa. It was effectively sponsored by a President and his loyalists in local, state and federal office who have been encouraging and supporting the white nationalist movement, helping it get bigger and stronger to try and normalize the types of atrocious activities we witnessed in Washington,” said Stern. “We have to respond not just with blustery condemnation, but with a concrete answer to this threat to domestic security.”
This legislation, which is still being drafted and will be introduced in the coming weeks, would:
· Establish investigation teams at Department of Justice to investigate and coordinate efforts to thwart acts of domestic terror, hate crimes and other criminal activity by white nationalist, neo-Nazi, neo-confederate, anti-government militia, and other similar groups, such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and the Ku Klux Klan.
· Establish within the CalOES State Threat Assessment Center a new operation to take steps necessary to assess potential threats from white nationalist, neo-Nazi, neo-confederate, anti-government militia, and other similar groups, such as the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters and the Ku Klux Klan.
“The most effective way to combat domestic terrorism is with actionable intelligence gathered from all reliable investigative agencies,” said Umberg, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and retired Army Colonel who, as a federal prosecutor, prosecuted and secured numerous convictions of white supremacists who terrorized African Americans in Southern California.
Beyond the events that took place in Washington, D.C. last Wednesday, which have been well documented, an October 2020 reporter by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) found that “White supremacists and other like-minded extremists conducted two-thirds of the terrorist plots and attacks in the United States” in the first eight months of 2020.
The report also noted:
“…the domestic landscape could shift from a decentralized milieu of extremists to more organized and hierarchically structured groups … [which] could increase the competence and professionalism of these organizations in numerous areas, such as planning attacks, recruiting, training, improving operational security, and fundraising.”
The report can be found at: https://www.csis.org/analysis/war-comes-home-evolution-domestic-terrorism-united-states
Once the bill is introduced, it will be referred to a Senate policy committee and will likely be set for hearing sometime in March.
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