After a horrific first half of 2022 with a spate of mass shootings, the Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday warned it’s likely only going to get worse in the next few months, with more “acts of violence” by extremists expected.
The grim prognosis was presented in the agency’s latest National Terrorism Advisory System bulletin, released just four months after an earlier bulletin warned of a “heightened threat environment.”
Since that time, 21 people—19 of them children—were gunned down in the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school massacre; 10 Black shoppers were killed in a “straight-up racially motivated hate crime” at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store; and one person was killed in an attack on a California church serving the Taiwanese community.
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The recent violence may only inspire more such attacks, according to DHS.
“Individuals in online forums that routinely promulgate domestic violent extremist and conspiracy theory-related content have praised the May 2022 mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas and encouraged copycat attacks,” the agency warned.
The upcoming midterms, a build-up of migrants at the southern border, and fears of a possible reversal of Roe v. Wade are all also fanning the flames of more potential violence, DHS said.
“In the coming months, we expect the threat environment to become more dynamic as several high-profile events could be exploited to justify acts of violence against a range of possible targets,” the agency said, noting that “lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances” pose the biggest threat.
“Public gatherings, faith-based institutions, schools, racial and religious minorities, government facilities and personnel, U.S. critical infrastructure, the media, and perceived ideological opponents” are all at heightened risk of attack, the agency said.
