Recent demonstrations across the U.S. have been marred by at least 19 cases of
individuals allegedly using vehicles as weapons to drive into crowds, a


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U.S. Demonstrators Contend With Uptick In Vehicular Attacks

(New York, N.Y.) – Recent demonstrations across the U.S.
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have been marred by at least 19 cases of individuals allegedly using vehicles
as weapons to drive into crowds, according to witnesses and police. In at least
eight of these cases, drivers face charges over what prosecutors have claimed
to be deliberate acts. In a Virginia court filing, the Commonwealth alleges a
driver who hit a demonstrator’s bicycle and threatened the protesting crowd
nearby with his truck told police he was a high-ranking official of theKu Klux
Klan <[link removed]> (KKK).

Messages on social media platforms also seem to encourage
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these attacks, frequently using phrases such as “all lives splatter” or “run
them over.” Some social media users have stated that while they have no
intention of endorsing any attacks, they feel protesters do not possess the
right to hamper drivers and spread messages endorsing running over protesters
inconveniencing their daily routines. Josh Lipowsky, a senior research analyst
for the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), believes the messaging is jeopardous
regardless of the intent behind a post. “Putting this out there into the public
sphere — we do not know who is going to see that and take it to heart,” he told
theWashington Post
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.

The use of vehicular attacks are not a new phenomenon. At the August 2017
Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a white supremacistrammed
his vehicle
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into a group of protesters, killing one. The assailant, James Alex Fields,
allegedly marched with the white nationalist, neo-Nazi groupVanguard America
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during the rally and carried a shield with the group’s logo.

CEP has documented at least 50 vehicular attacks
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since 2006, collectively resulting in the deaths of at least 197 people and the
injury of at least 1,101 others. Terrorists have carried out car-ramming
attacks for more than a decade, in locations ranging from North Carolina to
Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Quebec, Dijon, Nantes, the West Bank, Graz, and Xinjiang.
In some cases, assailants have used gas canisters or other explosives to
supplement the potential damage from car-ramming attacks. In others, extremists
have launched deadly or harmful vehicular attacks coupled with
low-sophistication tactics like stabbing passersby.

To read CEP’s Vehicles as Weapons of Terror resource, please click here
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