Return of the Radical Right: Police Ambushing and Mass Murder in a Hyperpolarized Age

• In Event: Socio-Political Change and Far-Right Extremist Violence in North America

Abstract

A defining characteristic of twenty-first-century American lone wolf terrorism is the targeting of uniformed police officers. This paper provides evidence indicating that a total of 12 law-enforcement officers were killed or wounded by lone wolves in the 60 years preceding 9/11. That figure quadrupled in the first sixteen years following 9/11, when the number of police personnel killed or wounded by lone wolves rose to 50. Most of the attacks occurred between 2009 and 2015—the years coinciding with the Obama presidency—and most of the ambushes were perpetrated by individuals with radical rightwing or anti-government ideology. Yet police ambushes by loners has virtually disappeared during the Trump era. Instead, rightwing loners have gone after symbolic targets of hyperpolarization engendered by Trump’s presidency. The paper offers background characteristics of the lone wolves and concludes with two case studies exemplifying the vicissitudes of a new radical right in America.

Author

• Mark Hamm, Indiana State University