In a segment that aired on “CNN Newsroom” Friday, CNN’s Carol Costello talked of a Department of Homeland Security report that warns of “right-wing” terrorism.
“ISIS isn’t the only threat for Americans. According to an intelligence report by the Department of Homeland Security, authorities are also concerned about right-wing citizen extremists here in the United States,” Costello said. “That may be in some cases more dangerous than foreign Islamic terror groups. Evan Pérez has been looking into this.”
CNN justice reporter Evan Pérez continued by elaborating on this so-called terror threat.
“We’re talking about sovereign citizens,” Pérez said. “These are people around the country who believe that the federal government and even state government doesn’t have any authority over them. There was a case in 2012 in which a father and son were pulled over for a traffic infraction and decided to start shooting against police officers. There was later a shootout in which two police officers were killed. We have pictures of a couple of the suspects here. Brian Smith and Kyle Joekel are their names in Louisiana. This is something that law enforcement around the country is worried about simply because they never know when they might encounter these people just simply by doing their jobs, for example, enforcing traffic laws or serving a warrant. And this is something that the FBI has focused on.”
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