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U.S. NEWS Wednesday 16 February 2022
Report: Conspiracy theorists fuel bump in extremist killings

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN passed "serpent DNA" on to killed at least 333 people
Associated Press his children, according to a in the U.S. over the past
Newer strains of far-right court affidavit. decade, accounting for
movements fueled by A Maryland man, Jef- three-quarters of all extrem-
conspiracy theories, mi- frey Allen Burnham, was ist-related killings, the report
sogyny and anti-vaccine charged with killing his says. The ADL distinguishes
proponents contributed brother, his sister-in-law and between killings that it con-
to a modest rise in killings a family friend in Septem- siders to be driven by ideol-
by domestic extremists in ber. Charging documents ogy and those that it found
the United States last year, said Burnham confronted to be non-ideological or
according to a report re- his brother, a pharmacist, lacking a clear motive. Its
leased Tuesday by a Jewish because he believed he report says the numbers for
civil rights group. was poisoning people with each category have been
Killings by domestic extrem- COVID-19 vaccines. close to even over the past
ists increased from 23 in "Prior to the coronavirus, the 10 years. The ADL conclud-
2020 to at least 29 last year, anti-vaccine movement in A person carries a sign supporting QAnon during a protest rally ed that 14 of the 29 extrem-
with right-wing extremists the United States did not in Olympia, Wash., on May 14, 2020. ist killings in 2021 were ap-
killing 26 of those people in have a particular ideologi- Associated Press parently motivated at least
2021, the Anti-Defamation cal leaning and contained in part by ideology.
League said in a report first both left-leaning and right- they will continue to have 2015 and 2019, when kill- The ADL attributed 13 kill-
provided to The Associated leaning activists," the ADL this sort of similar effect on ings by domestic extremists ings last year to white
Press. report says. "However, the people." ranged from 45 to 78. supremacists, three to
The ADL's report says white politicization of the coro- A dearth of mass killings in In other respects, the ADL anti-government extrem-
supremacists, antigovern- navirus and other factors 2021 meant that last year's data for 2021 mirrors long- ists, two to Black national-
ment sovereign citizens have created many new tally was far lower than the term trends. ists and one to an Islamist
and other adherents of anti-vaccine conspiracy totals in any year between Right-wing extremists have extremist.q
long-standing movements adherents and given the
were responsible for most anti-vaccine movement a
of the 19 deadly attacks it distinctly right-wing tone it
counted in 2021. The New did not previously have."
York City-based organiza- The QAnon conspiracy
tion's list also included kill- theory has been linked to
ings linked to newer right- other acts of real-world vio-
wing movements that lence, including last year's
spread online during the riot at the U.S. Capitol. In
coronavirus pandemic and June, a federal intelligence
former President Donald report warned that QAnon
Trump's presidency. adherents could target
The ADL concluded that Democrats and other po-
roughly half of the 2021 litical opponents for more
killings didn't have a clear violence.
ideological motive, fitting a A core idea QAnon pro-
pattern that stretches back motes is that Trump was se-
at least a decade. cretly fighting a Satan-wor-
The group's tally included shipping, child sex traffick-
a shooting rampage in ing cabal of "deep state"
Denver by Lyndon James enemies, prominent Demo-
McLeod, who killed five crats and Hollywood elites.
people in December be- QAnon hasn't faded away
fore a police officer fatal- with Trump leaving office.
ly shot him. McLeod was Mark Pitcavage, a senior
involved in the "mano- research fellow at the ADL's
sphere," a toxic masculinity Center on Extremism and
subculture, and harbored author of Tuesday's report,
revenge fantasies against said the QAnon movement
most of his victims, the ADL is still evolving and increas-
report notes. ingly overlapping with oth-
Right-wing conspiracy the- er extremist movements,
orists killed five people last including vaccine oppo-
year in two incidents, both nents.
involving "troubled perpe- "Could it sort of dissipate
trators," the ADL report says. into those or could it find
In August, California surfing some sort of new focus or
school owner Matthew Tay- new life? Or could it just
lor Coleman was charged hang around if Donald
with killing his two young Trump is elected again in
children with a spear gun in 2024 and take a new form
Mexico. Coleman told an then?" Pitcavage said dur-
FBI agent that he was "en- ing an interview. "It's dif-
lightened" by conspiracy ficult to predict the future
theories, including QAnon, of those movements, so it's
and believed his wife had difficult to predict whether