ADL: Right-wing extremists killed 38 people in 2019

Feb. 27 (UPI) -- The vast majority of domestic extremist-related killings in the United States last year were committed by right-wing extremists, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League.

The ADL, an anti-hate group founded in 1913 to stamp out anti-Semitism, published its annual Murder and Extremism in the United States report Wednesday, tallying 42 deaths by domestic extremists in 2019 -- of which, 38 were committed by right-wing extremists.

Of those deaths, 34 were carried out by white supremacists, which coincides with the resurgence of the ideology in the country since 2015, it said.

The four deaths not attributed to a right-wing extremist occurred during the December attacks in New Jersey City allegedly by David Nathaniel Anderson and Francine Graham, who have ties to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement the ADL described as a fringe racist and anti-Semitic religious sect.

The ADL said the pair defy "a simple 'left-right' classification scheme" and as the investigation continues it may become more clear how to define their alleged extremism.

The report said the 42 deaths occurred in 17 separate attacks last year,14 of which resulted in a single death. However, the year's deadliest attack was the August shooting in El Paso, Texas, that left 22 people dead and at least two dozen more injured, it said, adding it was also the third deadliest attack in the past 50 years.

Only the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, for which Timothy McVeigh was executed for, and the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in which 49 people were killed were deadlier, it said.

The 42 deaths also make 2019 the sixth deadliest year on record for extremist-related violence since 1970 and a continuation of a trend of lethal attacks in the United States.

In the past decade, right-wing extremists were responsible for 330 deaths, it said.

"Over the last decade, right-wing extremists have been responsible for more than 75 percent of extremist-related murders in this country," ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement. "This should no longer come as a shock to anyone. Lawmakers, law enforcement and the public need to recognize the grave and dangerous threat posed by violent white supremacy."

However, none of the deaths last year were connected to domestic Islamic extremism, a first since 2012, though the United States did see its first terror attack of foreign origin since the 9/11 attacks in December when a Saudi aviation student fatally shot three people at a Florida naval academy.