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Threats against government officials have worsened during pandemic, says CSUSB professor
The Washington Post
Dec. 13, 2020
Brian Levin, criminal justice professor and director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, was quoted in an article about public officials who face personal threats as political tensions flare.
Levin said his analysts began noticing an uptick in threats against government officials last year, probably inspired by Trump’s outspoken criticism of those he disagrees with. The aggression has worsened during the pandemic.
“The direction of the threats and intimidation against state and local officials took an eerie turn in the last couple of years and accelerated during the pandemic because aggrieved people are interacting with their government at the local level — in public health and elections,” Levin said. “And those officials are the very ones labeled as legitimate targets for aggressions on cable news, social media and particularly by the president.”
Levin said hate crimes rose to some of the highest levels in a decade after Trump said of a 2017 demonstration by white nationalists and neo-Nazis in Charlottesville that there were “very fine people, on both sides.”
Read the whole article at "‘A dark, empty place:’ Public officials face personal threats as tensions flare."
The Mercury News
Dec. 12, 2020
Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, commented on the plans from the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist shooting, which consisted of shredded paper that was reassembled by the FBI. Levin reviewed the attack plan, provided to him by the Southern California News Group.
“To see the conference room laid out in a handwritten partial hit list is horrifying and something I never want to see ever again,” Levin wrote in an email. “If there was ever an exhibit on the banality of evil, it is the unremarkable way these terrorists methodically approached their secret set of daily tasks, as if they were planning a home remodel or camping trip, except here it was to perpetrate the worst American terror massacre (at the time) since 9/11.”
Read the whole article at "FBI reassembles shredded plan for 2015 San Bernardino terrorist shooting."
Highland Community News
Dec. 11, 2020
The San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra recently welcomed seven new members to its board of directors as part of a strategic board expansion initiative.
The symphony was founded in 1929, but did not formally establish a board until 1963 when founding president of California State University, San Bernardino John M. Pfau was the first to be elected to that office.
The symphony added five new seats to the create a 30-member board. Two of the new members will fill seats vacated by retiring members.
Read the whole article at "Inland manufacturing finishes 2020 on a positive note."
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