Law enforcement calls it a violent movement. Critics call it racist.
As white supremacists prepared to descend on Charlottesville, Virginia, in August, the FBI warned about a new movement that was violent, growing, and racially motivated. Only it wasnt white supremacists; it was black identity extremists.
Amid a rancorous debate over whether the Trump administration has downplayed the threat posed by white supremacist groups, the FBIs counterterrorism division has declared that black identity extremists pose a growing threat of premeditated violence against law enforcement.
The FBI assesses it is very likely Black Identity Extremist (BIE) perceptions of police brutality against African Americans spurred an increase in premeditated, retaliatory lethal violence against law enforcement and will very likely serve as justification for such violence, reads the report, marked for official use only and obtained by Foreign Policy.
The August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, was the catalyst for widespread anger and violence, the FBI report says, concluding that continued alleged police abuses have fueled more violence.
The FBI assesses it is very likely incidents of alleged police abuse against African Americans since then have continued to feed the resurgence in ideologically motivated, violent criminal activity within the BIE movement, the report states.
