Terrorism by any other name is still terrorism

Americans from coast to coast were shocked with the sudden news on November 21^st, that aspiring rapper Darrell Brooks, Jr. apparently intentionally drove his SUV into a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Almost as suddenly, the Waukesha police chief and the mainstream media ruled out terrorism as a motive in the incident, which killed 6 innocent civilians and injured 60 more, including young children.

Brooks has a long history of interaction with the police. He has a felony and misdemeanor record in Georgia, Nevada, and Wisconsin that would correctly classify him as a “career criminal.” He has an open felony warrant and is a convicted sex offender in Nevada.

Just two days before the SUV attack, Brooks posted $1000 bail and was released despite a variety of open felony and misdemeanor charges. This will end up being one of the most outrageous and controversial aspects of this case. What kind of criminal justice system is Wisconsin operating that allows a career criminal with multiple open felony charges to walk on $1000 bail?

On his now defunct YouTube channel, Brooks can be seen brandishing a MAC-10 (or copy of a MAC-10) machine pistol.

On his Facebook page, now deleted, Brooks posted recently about the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. His social media postings, which have since been removed, are full of postings supporting the Marxist-originated Black Lives Matter movement and extreme anti-police rhetoric.

No one could peruse Darrell Brooks’ social media postings and dismiss the strong possibility that Brooks committed an act of terrorism, motivated by his political beliefs.

For Waukesha police to come out immediately and rule out terrorism as a motive would seem to be a statement rooted in politics. There is no need for local police to make such a statement in this case.

There was never any possibility that Brooks would be charged with terrorism under Wisconsin law; Wisconsin is one of the 16 states that has no terrorism statute of its own. Although perhaps police would not have rushed to disregard terrorism if a state terrorism statute had been available.

Here is the definition of terrorism under federal law:

“the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives” (28 C.F.R. Section 0.85)

Anyone who saw Darrell Brooks’ social media postings saw: anger at police, comparing police to gang members, celebrating “knock out games” in which white people were randomly victimized with violence to be recorded for posterity on social media, admiration for Malcolm X, who rejected integration with “white America” and rejected non-violence, and adoration for Black Lives Matter, an organization founded by self-identifying “trained Marxists.”

All of this is highly suggestive of someone who was prepared to use violence to further political and social objectives.

Further, there currently exists no other possible motive for the attack, which police have asserted was a deliberate attack, and not the result of losing control of the vehicle while fleeing police pursuit, an early media claim that was later dismissed.

Increasingly, America’s law enforcement find itself unable to examine obvious evidence and draw reasonable conclusions. At the federal level, the FBI has abandoned any term or category to describe someone of Brooks’ persuasion, having succumbed to congressional and media pressure and eliminated its category for “Black Identity Extremism.”

Not everyone agrees that Brooks’ attack wasn’t terrorism. Two days after the horrific attack, Milwaukee Black Lives Matter activist Vaun Mayes called Brooks’ actions the start of a “revolution.”  The front-line fighters of BLM’s Marxist revolution are often sex offenders, stoners, and thugs. Brooks’ extensive criminal history does not preclude a political motive in this case.

It is likely the Waukesha attack is yet another example in a steady pattern where politics has interfered with identifying the motive behind an act of terror. The Pulse Nightclub shooting was labeled homophobia by the media and Obama administration officials despite the killer’s open declaration of loyalty to ISIS. Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan was labeled an example of “workplace violence” despite having extensive interactions with Al Qaeda ideologue Anwar Awlaki.

One option to deal with the federal politicization of terrorism enforcement is for state legislatures to pass terrorism statutes, and aggressively utilize them whenever applicable. States may find they increasingly can’t rely on the federal government to prosecute even the most obvious terror offenses. Especially in cases where the perpetrator’s political motivations make such a prosecution politically unappealing to the ever more “woke” agencies. If local police could have charged a state terrorism offense and maintained control of the investigation, perhaps they would not have been so quick to ignore evidence of Brooks’ motive.