Less than 20 minutes before the El Paso, Texas massacre began, the shooter is believed to have posted a racist, anti-immigrant screed to the dark website 4chan, popular within white supremacy circles. The screed also cited, as inspiration, the March 2019 mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed dozens of Muslim residents of that country.
Many claim that the incident is a symptom of a much larger problem. “A deeply concerning issue in the U.S. is the rise of white supremacist extremism. The white supremacist groups are emulating and using the same tactics that ISIS and al-Qaeda used to reach the younger population and radicalize people,” says Paul Goldenberg, a highly decorated law enforcement and national security professional. Through his work as a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC), he has played a key role in setting domestic and international policy for the legislation and investigation of hate crimes, insider threat, countering violent extremism and information sharing. Goldenberg is also a Senior Fellow with the Rutgers University Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience, Distinguished Visiting Fellow for Global Security for the University of Ottawa and former head of Office for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) transnational policing program.