RALEIGH, N.C. — At a news conference Sunday, Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields called those behind this weekend’s attack on two substations in his rural county “cowards.” But many want authorities to go further and label the perpetrators something else: domestic terrorists.
On social media, commenters categorized the attack as terrorism, with several viral TikTok and Twitter posts reiterating the unsubstantiated claim that the destruction of the substations with firearms was in protest of a nearby drag show performance Saturday.
Talk of terrorism has also been present in Moore County, around 60 miles southwest of Raleigh, where more than 30,000 remain without power. On Monday, a sign outside a coffee shop in the county seat of Carthage read: “Closed due to domestic terrorism,” while a local law firm had a similar message taped to its dark storefront.
But what is domestic terrorism, why is it prosecuted differently than international terrorism, and did it actually occur in Moore County?
Toward that last question, those who study terrorism say it’s not possible to know until the culprits — and their motives — are identified.
“It often takes some time before you can tell,” said Cori Dauber, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who researches terrorism communication. “If it turns out to be terrorism, then calling it vandalism downplays it too much. And if it turns out to be vandalism, calling it terrorism upsells it far too much.”
When asked Monday whether the Moore County attack was being investigated as domestic terrorism, Gov. Roy Cooper said, “I think investigators are leaving no stone unturned as to what this is.”
Naming domestic terrorism matters
There is no single definition of domestic terrorism, with individuals and agencies wording the act in their own way.
Under the Patriot Act of 2001, the federal government described domestic terrorism as an act “dangerous to human life” that aimed to intimidate civilians or the government. The FBI, which is helping investigate the Moore substation attack, defines domestic terrorism as a crime committed “to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.”
Dauber said terrorism, both international and domestic, is “communicative in nature.” On why it’s important to identify terrorism when it’s a motivating factor, she said the public benefits from knowing if there’s a broader agenda propelling dangerous crimes.
“It’s important to know that they are ideologically motivated because terrorism is a distinct category of violence,” she said. “It is committed for its propagandistic purposes. It’s intended for its audience.”
Electrical grids a rising target
In the past two years, the Biden administration has announced domestic terrorism as a rising threat to national security. In response to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the administration published the country’s first National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism in the summer of 2021.
Many of the fears around domestic terrorism pertain to the electric grid.
Earlier this year, a Department of Homeland Security bulletin obtained by The Daily Beast warned domestic violent extremists “have developed credible specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020.”
“Messing with infrastructure is a common terrorist tactic,” said Ashley Mattheis, who researched alt-right extremism while earning her Ph.D. in communications at UNC-Chapel Hill. “It’s a cross-ideology tactic to get attention, to cost the government money, to rouse the people.”
Concerns that the U.S. power grid is vulnerable to terrorism, both international and domestic, stretches back decades. These fears spiked in 2013 when a sniper knocked out a substation in San Jose, California. The motivation behind this event is still unknown.
Then this February, three men pleaded guilty in a Ohio to conspiring to attack power grids throughout the country. According to the Justice Department, their plot was driven by “white supremacist ideology.”
On Nov. 30, DHS issued another terrorism advisory bulletin warning that the U.S. remains in a “heightened threat environment” as a result of lone offenders and small groups inspired by ideological grievances.
Among potential targets, the department listed “faith-based institutions, the LGBTQI+ community, schools, racial and religious minorities, government facilities and personnel, U.S. critical infrastructure, the media, and perceived ideological opponents.”
Domestic terrorism gets prosecuted differently
Domestic terrorism differs from international terrorism not only in its geographic scope but also in how the government prosecutes it.
Under federal law, damaging energy facilities that causes “a significant interruption or impairment of a function” is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Yet while the federal government makes international terrorism a distinct crime, one that often adds sentencing enhancements, there’s no separate crime for domestic terrorism, says David Schanzer, director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.
This means individuals engaged in domestic terrorism often avoid sentencing enhancements, including the Jan. 6 defendants who have thus far been sentenced.
“I think there’s a fairness issue,” said Schanzer, who has called for the U.S. government to make domestic terrorism its own crime. “Why is it that an American citizen, let’s say a Black or brown person engaging in violence in furtherance of al-Qaida ideology, should face higher potential penalties for the exact same act of violence as somebody who does so for white supremacist reasons?”
Schanzer acknowledged many civil liberties advocates have balked at the idea of a separate charge for domestic terrorism, fearing the federal government could wield it to target legitimate protests.
North Carolina’s own terrorism law
Some states have enacted their own terrorism laws, including North Carolina in 2012. Under this law, which passed with broad bipartisan support, felonies are elevated one class if crimes were motivated by a desire to intimidate the whole population, a specific group or the government.
Yet researchers say the Tar Heel State has rarely, if ever, charged someone with terrorism.
“I am not aware of any uses of this statute in North Carolina since 2016-17 when I started tracking this,” said Emily Gorcenski, the creator of the First Vigil, a database on court cases related to white nationalists.
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations told The News & Observer it does not maintain data on how many individuals have been charged under the state terrorism statute. The North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts has yet to respond to a similar information request from the N&O.
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