People who carry out violent crimes motivated by white supremacist ideology do not do so in isolation, one national security expert said in the wake of a shooting in Winthrop, where a 28-year-old man “executed” two Black people before being killed by police. “I often say, there are no lone wolves,” Juliette Kayyem, senior Belfer lecturer in international security at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said in an interview Tuesday. “Often we find that they seek comfort, shelter, and radicalization through online networks.” Investigators are combing through the background and personal writings of Nathan Allen, who authorities say acted with “hate in his heart” on Saturday when he crashed a stolen truck into a building and then shot and killed retired state trooper David Green, 68, and Air Force veteran Ramona Cooper, 60. Allen was then killed in an exchange of gunfire with a Winthrop police sergeant. After the crash, Allen passed by several other people who were not Black and did not harm them, Suffolk District Attorney Rachael Rollins said at a news conference on Monday. He also left behind notebook entries featuring swastikas, anti-Black and antisemitic rhetoric, and descriptions of white people as “apex predators,” Rollins said. Authorities are investigating how and where Allen, who had no criminal history, may have become radicalized. The Winthrop shooting follows a growing threat posed by white supremacy, made worse by a network of hate online and the current political climate, Kayyem said. (…) “Who was he communicating with, either online or in person, that may have turned … someone who presumably has not been a menace for years into a racist killer?” Kayyem said. “That doesn’t happen alone in your home. More often than not, that happens because of a network and a community that people find online.” A report this month from the National Security Council that lays out the government’s plans to counter domestic terrorism said individuals and groups “have been galvanized by recent political and societal events in the United States to carry out violent attacks.” “Among that wide range of animating ideologies, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (principally those who promote the superiority of the white race) and militia violent extremists are assessed as presenting the most persistent and lethal threats,” the report said.
via bostonglobe: ‘There are no lone wolves’ when it comes to white supremacist violence, expert says in wake of Winthrop shooting