(The Center Square) – More than a dozen people registered to provide public comment at the second meeting of the Domestic Extremism and Mass Violence Task Force. Their feedback uniformly criticized the lack of diversity among the task force members.
The hybrid meeting was held on Friday in the Seattle offices of the Attorney General of Washington and on Zoom. All but one of those who commented used the virtual option to attend, as did several of the task force members.
Prior to the 15-minute public comment period, the task force heard two presentations.
Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss, professor at the School of Public Affairs and the School of Education at American University in Washington, D.C., is nationally known as an expert on preventative intervention for youth exposed to radicalization by far-right extremism.
Miller-Idriss defined domestic violent extremism to include “white supremacy extremists, animal rights and environmental extremists and a wide range of anti-government extremists, such as unlawful militias, anarchists, antifascists, and sovereign citizens … [and] extremism motivated by gender, sexual orientation, and religion.”
She is the founding director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab, or PERIL.
Three task force members followed up with a discussion on domestic extremism in Washington. Panelists were Emily Kaufman of the Anti-Defamation League, Nathan Reed from the Department of Health, and Mercedes Sanchez of the Cedar River Clinics.
Based on her work with the ADL’s Center on Extremism, Kaufman said while 75% of domestic extremist violence nationally is linked to the far right, state-level statistics for Washington indicate a balance between far-left and far-right extremism. She also pointed out a continuing rise in incidents of anti-Semitism in Washington since 2023.
Cedar River Clinics provide abortion, birth control, wellness and LGBTQ services in Seattle, Renton, Tacoma and Yakima. Sanchez described how her clinics have been affected by abortion protesters who are now targeting their LGBTQ patients. Sanchez said, “groups we’re targeted by are not based in Washington” but claimed there is radicalization occurring here.
She emphasized her commitment to free speech, but not “when it crosses the line into threats, intimidation and violence and terrorizing patients and staff.”
Reed said public health agencies have responded to violence as a public health concern, in addition to being the recipients of such threats. He outlined the four steps in a public health approach to domestic extremism as defining the problem, identifying risk factors, developing prevention strategies and then implementing and monitoring results.
“Interventions have to happen early on, and over time … we see [the] impact of those interventions,” Reed said.
He also pointed out the difficulty of measuring the absence of a violent act as a result of early and effective intervention with youth exposed to radicalizing content online or in their community.
All those providing public comment pointed out the lack of viewpoint diversity and balance among the members of the task force. One pointed out there were two abortion providers on the task force but no one representing Washington’s pregnancy care centers, which have also been subject to threats.
Comments were limited to one minute per person.
Linda Wojciechowski, volunteer chaplain at the Pierce County Jail for eight years, provided comments in person after driving 90 minutes to the meeting site.
“They should be recording this so the public can see this,” she said.
The meeting was recorded on the Zoom app at the host site. As of Monday afternoon, no link to the recording had been provided for the public.
Several commenters, including Wojciechowski, were cut off in mid-sentence, leading well-known anti-tax proponent Tim Eyman to use his 60 seconds to complain about the rude treatment of the public and declare, “This meeting is awful.”
The next meeting is scheduled for March 14 with a focus on mass violence.
Meeting details can be found at https://www.atg.wa.gov/domestic-extremism-and-mass-violence-task-force.
