Murphy, Blumenthal call for passage of Domestic Terrorism Protection Act following Buffalo massacre

By Ted GlanzerHartford Courant•May 20, 2022 at 4:34 pm

HARTFORD — Corrie Betts, the criminal justice chair of the Connecticut NAACP, pulled no punches in placing blame for the May 14 supermarket shooting at the hands of a white supremacist in a predominantly Black Buffalo neighborhood that left 10 people dead.

Betts pointed the finger at, among others, social media outlets that are used as “cesspools and breeding grounds for hate and bigotry,” politicians who stand against “sensible” gun control legislation, pundits and right-wing politicians who espouse conspiracy theories including the Great Replacement, and policymakers and law enforcement who haven’t taken “significant action” to eradicate hate groups that “permeate” society.

“My heart goes out to the victims and their families, but my soul is on fire,” Betts said. “What happened on May 14 in Buffalo on Jefferson Avenue in that poor and segregated community could have happened right here in Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven, Waterbury or any other segregated enclave in this state.”

[ How the Buffalo mass shooting causes trauma throughout Black communities in Connecticut ]

Betts spoke at a news conference at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford on Friday afternoon with U.S. Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Stacey Sobel of the ADL and Michael Bloom of the Jewish Federation Associates of CT, in support for the passage of the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act.

The measure, which is being considered in the Senate next week, would formalize an interagency process between all of the federal agencies, including the FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice, that track white supremacist groups and track violence; require the Department of Justice to create a formal mechanism in all field offices to track and address hate crimes; and require reporting of hate crimes and domestic terrorist groups, Murphy said.

The piece of legislation would also require the FBI to assign a special agent to each field office to investigate hate crimes with a nexus to domestic terrorism.

“This is a really important piece of legislation,” Murphy said. “It certainly doesn’t resolve this problem, but it will result in a new seriousness at the federal government to track and combat domestic-extremist terrorism. Our hearts are breaking for the families in Buffalo. But … this network of domestic extremist organizations is active and the next massacre is just around the corner if we don’t get serious about this threat.”

Year over year, the U.S. has seen more hate crimes being committed and attacks by domestic terrorists, Murphy said.

According to one study, Murphy said, there were 73 domestic terror attacks and plots in the U.S. in 2021. Since 2015, right-wing extremists had been involved in 267 different plots or attacks, resulting in almost 100 fatalities, Murphy said.

“Unfortunately, this right-wing, hateful, white nationalist, extremist movement is growing in strength,” Murphy said. “It now operates out in the open. … Right now, the reality is people’s lives are at risk.”

Blumenthal noted that he had recently been in West Hartford, where flyers had been dropped off in the community by the purported neo-Nazi group the New England Nationalist Social Club. A similar incident took place in Enfield several days ago.

“The flyers in West Hartford and Enfield may seem harmless or a prank, but they reflect a cancer,” Blumenthal said. “These flyers reflect a cancer in Connecticut and the country that is metastasizing. It’s a cancer of hatred. Violent extremism, white nationalism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism, they are the symptoms of hatred. … We need to counter it.”

Sobel, from the ADL, said the screed written by the Buffalo shooter, Payton Gendron, relied heavily on the Great Replacement theory — “a toxic rejection of multiculturalism and dangerously posits that traditional Americans are being replaced by invaders.”

She noted that Gendron’s writing was primarily lifted from a screed written by the perpetrator of the Christchurch, New Zealand, shootings in 2019 that left 51 people dead in and outside of two mosques.

“Sadly we are seeing a pattern where white supremacist attacks bear unmistakable hallmarks of previous attacks,” Sobel said. “The data also underscores … far-right extremists pose the greatest terror threats to the United States.”

Connecticut, Sobel said, is not immune. In addition to West Hartford and Enfield, towns such as Killingsworth, East Hartford, Trumbull, Westbrook, Hamden and Montville have seen incidents of white supremacist propaganda, flyers, stickers, banners and graffiti, she said.

Bloom noted that there are still a few states that do not have hate crime laws, making federal action such as the DTPA necessary.

“This vital legislation will provide our key federal agencies as well as states additional tools because the issue of domestic terrorism is not going away,” he said.

The bill passed the House 222-203 on Wednesday with only one Republican — Rep. Adam Kinzinger from Illinois — joining all 221 Democrats. Murphy and Blumenthal decried Republican opposition to the bill, saying it wasn’t a partisan issue.

“I don’t know why we don’t have Republicans supporting us. … It simply says the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security should make fighting domestic extremism a priority,” Murphy said. “This isn’t a political bill.”

Murphy noted that 60 votes were needed to get the bill passed in the Senate, and Democrats have the slimmest of majorities at 50-50 with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris serving as a tie-breaker.

“I certainly worry whether we will be able to get enough Republican support to pass this.”