The COE tracks domestic extremist-related murders connected to all types of extremism, including right-wing extremism, left-wing extremism and domestic Islamist extremism, as well as less common forms.

When extremists adhere to or are influenced by more than one extremist movement, they are categorized here by their apparent “primary” ideology, i.e., the ideology that seems to be most important to them, is the most recently followed or, if applicable, that seems most directly related to the murders they committed.

In 2019, right-wing extremists were responsible for the great majority (38 of 42, or 90%) of domestic extremist-related murders. Over the past 10 years, right-wing extremists committed 76% of extremist-related murders, making the 2019 figure higher than average.

Right-wing extremists in the U.S. commit murders for a range of reasons. The far right in this country is large, comprising many movements, including multiple white supremacist and anti-government extremist movements, as well as a variety of single-issue extremist movements. Most of these movements have some degree of association with violence, with many even engaging in terrorist plots and attacks.

Moreover, some far right extremist movements engage in non-ideological violence as well as ideological violence. Over the past 10 years, the number of ideological-related killings and non-ideological killings by extremists has been virtually equal (218 versus 217), with the majority of non-ideological killings coming from right-wing extremists, especially white supremacists. These killings include murders of informants, domestic violence murders, drug- and gang-related murders, and other murders connected to traditional crime.

White supremacist gang members, for example, have committed hate crime murders, but have killed even more people as part of organized crime activities. They also not infrequently target their own members and associates for death, most commonly as suspected informants or for breaking gang rules. Moreover, people with violent dispositions appear to be attracted to extremist causes, perhaps because it gives them a way to act on violent impulses.[5]



White supremacists were responsible for 34 (81%) of the extremist-related murders of 2019, which fits with the ongoing resurgence of white supremacy that began in 2015. Over the past 10 years, white supremacists have committed 78% of right-wing extremist-related murders and 60% of all extremist-related murders.[6]



Two additional murders are attributed to people with ties to the anti-government sovereign citizen movement, but neither seems to have been ideologically motivated. Given that sovereign citizen ideas are spreading rapidly in jail and prison populations, there may be more non-ideological killings in the future committed by people with ties to the sovereign citizen movement. There have been numerous instances in recent years of people arrested on criminal charges, including murder, being exposed to sovereign citizen ideas and tactics after their arrest and subsequently employing sovereign tactics in their legal battles.[7]

One of the right-wing related 2019 murders was allegedly committed by a prospective member of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group the COE considers part of the alt lite, an extremist movement that differentiates itself from the white supremacist alt right. The killing itself appears to have been non-ideological; Buckey Wolfe, the perpetrator, stabbed his own brother in the head with a sword.[8]

Wolfe was also a follower of QAnon, a set of fringe right-wing conspiracy theories involving posts made by the anonymous “Q,” which primarily appear on the extreme right website 8chan, as well as other sites. These theories are an evolution and expansion of earlier far right conspiracy theories, such as the so-called “Pizzagate” conspiracy, which claimed that an alleged vast pedophile ring linked to prominent Democrats was being operated from a Washington, D.C., pizza parlor. QAnon is the most important right-wing fringe conspiracy theory to emerge in years.[9]

Since QAnon’s emergence in late 2017 several people have engaged in harassment or other activities related to their QAnon beliefs, including an armed standoff at Hoover Dam in 2018. In March 2019, Anthony Comello appears to have committed the first QAnon-related murder; he shot and killed a high-ranking figure in the Gambino organized crime family on Staten Island. Comello, who had previously tried to arrest various public figures he believed to be “enemies” of President Trump, may have been trying to arrest the mob boss. During a court appearance after the murder, Comello displayed QAnon-related messages written on his hand during a court appearance.[10]

Violence linked to conspiracy theories is not surprising; COE has documented how conspiracy theories can motivate people to extreme violence, especially if a conspiracy theory singles out individuals or places as enemies or targets. Extremist conspiracy theories can create such a sense of urgency in their followers that some of them may feel motivated to act.[11]

In 2019, for the first time since 2012, no U.S. murders were linked to domestic Islamist extremists. It would be dangerous, however, to conclude that this threat is diminished. Moreover, though domestic Islamist extremists killed no one in 2019, the U.S. did suffer this past year what appears to be its first lethal foreign terror attack on American soil since the 9/11 terror attacks. In December 2019, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a Saudi Arabian aviation student stationed at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, committed a shooting attack that resulted in three people killed and eight more injured. Alshamrani was killed by responding law enforcement. His attack, still under investigation, is thought to have been motivated by Islamist extremism. Because Alshamrani was neither a U.S. citizen nor a long-term U.S. resident, his attack is not counted in the statistics in this report, which documents killings by domestic rather than foreign extremists. It is clear the threat to the U.S. from Islamist extremists willing to commit violent acts remains a serious one.[12]

Most of the extremist-related murders of 2019 were committed by “lone wolf” extremists -- people who were not part of any organized group. However, the perpetrators of nine of the 17 incidents in this report did have ties to extremist groups. That includes Buckey Wolfe, the would-be Proud Boy, and someone with ties to a Klan group who committed a non-ideological murder.

It also includes seven incidents with ties to white supremacist prison gangs, including the Nevada-based Aryan Warriors, the Ohio Aryan Brotherhood, the Missouri-based Southwest Honkeys, the Arizona Aryan Brotherhood, the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas and an Oklahoma-based Aryan Brotherhood gang (either the United or Universal Aryan Brotherhood).

Whether on the streets or behind bars, members of white supremacist prison gangs have murdered people in the U.S. every year in the past decade, despite numerous attempts by law enforcement and prosecutors to rein in these groups, especially via racketeering prosecutions. Combining the criminal motives of organized crime with group bonds strengthened by white supremacy, these gangs have grown in size and extent across the country in recent years, perpetrating crimes involving drug rings, hate crimes and murder.[13]

Four extremist murders in 2019 were not committed by right-wing extremists. On December 10, 2019, David Nathaniel Anderson and Francine Graham shot and killed Jersey City, New Jersey Police Department Detective Joseph Seals in a cemetery. Anderson and Graham then drove a mile to the JC Kosher Supermarket, entered the store and began shooting at people. They killed the store owner, Mindy Ferencz, an employee, Douglas Rodriguez, and a customer, Moshe Deutsch. Two other customers were able to escape. As police arrived, Anderson and Graham engaged them in gunfire, wounding two officers before being shot and killed. Police later found a pipe bomb in their van, which was linked to another murder a week earlier in Bayonne, New Jersey, which is still under investigation. Law enforcement officials reported that Anderson and Graham are also suspects in another December shooting incident near Newark, in which someone shot at a car driven by a Hasidic Jewish man. Officials also said there was evidence to suggest the supermarket attack may have been planned for months.[14]

The shooters, Anderson and Graham, both had prior ties to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, a fringe religious sect whose adherents are frequently racist and anti-Semitic. COE research uncovered a social media account believed to be connected to Anderson that blamed police killings of African Americans on Jews, as well as other evidence of anti-police and anti-Semitic views. Police uncovered yet more evidence of such views on the part of the shooters, describing the attack as “domestic terrorism.”[15]

These four --and possibly five ---murders are clearly extremist-related. Based on available information, however, they defy a simple “left-right” classification scheme. Black Hebrew Israelites are a loosely organized religious sect with distinct beliefs of their own, some of them quite extreme. Some Black Hebrew Israelites have ties to black nationalist groups (typically thought of as left-wing, though some also defy easy categorization), while some have ties to other extreme belief systems, such as the sovereign citizen movement (typically thought of as right-wing).

Based on the information uncovered to date in the limited amount of time since the murders, it seems premature to categorize Anderson and Graham as “left-wing extremist.” As the investigation continues, it may be possible to more definitively categorize their extremism. For the statistics in this report, COE is placing this incident in a category of “other/miscellaneous” extremism.

Detective Seals, one of Anderson and Graham’s victims, is the latest police officer to be killed by domestic extremists. Almost every year, one or more police officers die at the hands of extremists. In some cases, they are specifically targeted by extremist movements, many of which have an animus against law enforcement; in other cases, they are killed while trying to protect their communities from extremist violence.



