Murder & Extremism in the United States in 2022

By Pitcavage, Mark

From the document: "[1] Every year, individuals with ties to different extreme causes and movements kill people in the United States; the ADL [Anti-Defamation League] Center on Extremism (COE) tracks these murders. Extremists regularly commit murders in the service of their ideology, in the service of a group or gang they may belong to, or even while engaging in traditional, non-ideological criminal activities. [2] In 2022, domestic extremists killed at least 25 people in the U.S., in 12 separate incidents. […] [3] The 2022 murder totals would have been much lower if not for two high-casualty extremist-related shooting sprees. Only 10 of the 25 deaths occurred outside of those sprees--and one of those 10 deaths occurred in a less lethal mass shooting attempt. [4] The issue of extremist-related mass killings is of growing concern and is the subject of a special section of this report. […] The Center on Extremism has identified 62 extremist-connected mass killing incidents since 1970, with 46 of them being ideologically motivated. […] [5] In 2022, 18 of the 25 extremist-related murders appear to have been committed in whole or part for ideological motives, while the remaining seven murders either have no clear motive or were committed for a non-ideological motive. [6] All the extremist-related murders in 2022 were committed by right-wing extremists of various kinds, who typically commit most such killings each year but only occasionally are responsible for all (the last time this occurred was 2012). […] [7] White supremacists commit the greatest number of domestic extremist-related murders in most years, but in 2022 the percentage was unusually high: 21 of the 25 murders were linked to white supremacists." This document includes charts, tables, and graphs to illustrate the text.

Anti-Defamation League. 2022