Mass shooting erupts just after local prof's prediction
'This is a harbinger of the future'
Published: 12 hours ago
Near the end of October, Brian Levin, chief of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State University, wrote in the Huffington Post, “The next terrorist attack will simply come from whoever is proximate, operational and undetected tomorrow, and we can not mechanistically presume that the totality of these threats solely revolve around any single movement alone, including the two most prominent ones: violent Salafist Jihadists and Far Right Wing Extremists.”
Two weeks later, he told the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, California, that America faces “a significant terrorist threat.”
“The last thing we should do is say this is a Russian problem, or an Egyptian problem or a French problem,” Levin said.
“This,” he said, citing the terror attacks in Paris that killed some 130, “is a harbinger of the future.”
On Wednesday, a terror attack developed virtually in his backyard, San Bernardino, California, where authorities said at least 14 people were killed and at least 14 more were injured.
Authorities said there reportedly were three people who entered a conference center with guns and later left, after inflicting destruction and death.
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Police said they didn’t have suspects or a motive. The attackers reportedly had covered their faces with masks and then took their guns with them.
Levin explains online that he’s studied hate and extremism around the globe, and has concluded that a key element for the world to move forward “is the ability of folks to be exposed to peaceful, non-threatening deliberative intelligent discourse.”
“There is an emergency threat to people of good will,” he said. “As methods of violence become more popular, lethal and accessible, there are those who employ it to circumvent democratic methods because they simply lack the rational power of persuasion and a belief in civilized conflict solving. I am particularly concerned that for some, on all different sides of the political spectrum, bigotry and violence has once again become an acceptable way to advance their cause.”
“We … intend to stand in their way.”
The initial reports from San Bernardino identified at least three gunmen in body armor and “military” attire at the Inland Regional Center, a facility for people with developmental disabilities.
Police were summoned when the shooting started, but officers did not arrive in time to exchange fire with anyone.
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Witnesses also told police they saw three men with long rifles get into a black SUV and drive slowly away.
In the newspaper interview, there were several people who thought an attack on the U.S. was possible, given the death toll in Paris.
“Riverside resident Christian Penaloza, 23, believes the U.S. is a ripe target for attack. ‘Almost the whole world’ dislikes the United States,” the newspaper quoted him saying.
Ontario airport spokeswoman Maria Tesoro told the newspaper the facility had raised its security level because of the toll in Paris, and Metrolink spokesman Scott Johnson told the paper Union Station in Los Angeles, a hub for Inland rail commuters, is always considered a location of concern.
At the time, Levin said, “We have a significant terrorist threat facing the United States and the last thing we should do is say this is a Russian problem, or an Egyptian problem or a French problem.”
He told the P-E the attacks in Paris came “at a time when France and other European countries have welcomed refugees from Syria and the Middle East – ‘a large refugee population which offers opportunity for groups like ISIS and al-Qaida to stealthily hide … within that population.’”
The Huffington Post article two weeks earlier was based on Levin’s testimony before the Committee on Homeland Security-Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, he explained.
He noted that terror risks come from both the far right and left fields of society.
He explained terrorism in the U.S. is rising, with nine incidents in 2011 and 19 in 2014, “from no fatalities in 2011, to 18 last year.”
He warned then, just a month ago, “In today’s splintered socio-political landscape, increasingly sophisticated organized groups also share the stage with angry, unstable or disenchanted loners; and with smaller informal groups. These latter actors may sculpt idiosyncratic hatreds online, become operational, and even recruit with little external backing. My counsel to the House Judiciary Committee almost exactly twenty years ago is even more valid today.”
He warned regarding jihadis, “nearly all … were not part of the hierarchy of the movement or considered theologically authoritative.”
He said far right threats, “who are properly distinguished from peaceful politically active conservative citizens, are steeped in deep-seated bigotry, an array of increasingly mainstreamed conspiracy theories and exhibit a profound distrust of pluralistic democratic governance.”
Read more at
http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/mass-shooting-erupts-just-after-profs-prediction/#SkrcOYrCqVOQX6b7.99
