WASHINGTON | Despite the horror, extremists have cheered the Texas school shooting online and called for similar attacks, the US government warned in its latest counterterrorism alert on Tuesday.
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The bloodbath, which left 21 people dead on May 24 in Uvalde, “was hailed on internet forums known to promote violent domestic extremism and conspiracy theories, by individuals who encouraged it to be replicated”, writes the Department of Homeland Security.
Others “claimed it was a government staged stunt to push through gun control measures,” the ministry added.
In the United States, the most publicized shootings often inspire other disturbed individuals and researchers speak of a “imitation effect”.
According to the amended alert, he starred in the May 14 racist shooting in Buffalo, New York, where ten African Americans were gunned down in a supermarket. Its author, a young white supremacist, said he was “inspired” by the assault on two mosques in New Zealand in 2019, writes the ministry.
According to him, the recent wave of deadly attacks has shown that the United States faces a “complex and dynamic” domestic threat that could become “even more dynamic” in the coming months.
A Supreme Court decision on abortion rights, expected by the end of June, a regulatory change at the southern border, which is expected to be followed by an increase in migrant arrivals, and the midterm elections in November risk “being used to justify acts of violence”, according to the bulletin.
The Ministry of Homeland Security, created after the attacks of September 11, 2001, regularly publishes this type of warning, but they were historically devoted to threats of foreign origin, in particular jihadists.
The first bulletin focusing on domestic threats was released in January 2021, after Donald Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
