https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/nyregion/nypd-reme-unit-supremacist-nazis.html
With Rise of Far-Right Extremists, N.Y.P.D. Creates Special Unit
Threats from far-right and neo-Nazi organizations, including groups like The Proud Boys, will be investigated.
Ali Watkins
Police officials say they have formed a new unit within the department’s intelligence bureau, known as “Racially and Ethnically Motivated Extremism,” or “R.E.M.E,” that will be primarily dedicated to investigating terror threats from far-right and neo-Nazi organizations, including groups like the Atomwaffen Division and The Proud Boys.
The unit became operational early this month, and already has dozens of open investigations, police officials said.
John Miller, the commissioner of the intelligence division, said the far-right extremist groups are not that different in nature from Islamic extremist groups like Al Qaeda. “There’s no different recipe except our offenders are likely to be on the ground here,” he said in an interview.
Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the unit’s creation on Wednesday at City Hall, just a day after a gun battle in Jersey City, during which two people with guns opened fire at two different locations, including a kosher supermarket, killing three bystanders and a Jersey City detective.
“What we saw yesterday was a premeditated, violent, anti-Semitic hate crime,” Mr. de Blasio said. “In other words, you can say it was an act of terror.”
Read the latest on the shooting in Jersey City that left people six people dead.
The two suspects, a man and a woman, were killed in a shootout with police. The man, who has been identified as David N. Anderson, 47, had a history of posting anti-Semitic and anti-police rhetoric online, one law enforcement official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation.
The R.E.M.E. unit appears to be one of the first of its kind organized in a local police department, and its creation underscores the urgency with which law enforcement views the threat of far-right inspired attacks. According to the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks such incidents, 50 people were killed by extremists in the United States in 2018, and every one of the incidents was linked to far-right ideologies.