Odette Youssef
Appearances
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-07-2025 8PM EST
The civil lawsuit against the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe was brought by Springfield's mayor, three city commissioners, and four residents who were public in their support of Haitian immigrants. It claims the group interfered with plaintiffs' federal civil rights, that it created a public nuisance, and that it incited violence.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-07-2025 8PM EST
The suit alleges, among other things, that the neo-Nazis instigated dozens of bomb threats and that they instructed strangers to enter some plaintiffs' homes at night without knocking to demand drugs and sex. None of the plaintiffs themselves are Haitian residents of Springfield. Instead, the complaint paints a picture of a city terrorized by a campaign of hate.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-07-2025 8PM EST
The Blood Tribe has not publicly posted a response. Odette Youssef, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-31-2025 4PM EST
NPR's Odette Youssef reports. Similar transphobic scapegoating happened after the school shootings in Uvalde, Texas, Apalachee, Georgia, Madison, Wisconsin, and Perry, Iowa, to name just a few. Sarah Moore is with GLAAD, an LGBTQ advocacy group. She says the pattern ties to a steep increase they've documented over the last three years of anti-trans hate crimes.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-31-2025 4PM EST
Trans people are four times more likely to be the victim of crimes, not the perpetrators. In his first two weeks in office, President Trump has targeted trans people's access to medical care, bathrooms, and legal recognition on documents like passports. Trans people make up less than 1% of the U.S. population. Odette Youssef, NPR News.
Up First from NPR
Syria's New Reality, Shooting Suspect's Ideology, Judges Block Grocery Merger
Good morning, Michelle.
Up First from NPR
Syria's New Reality, Shooting Suspect's Ideology, Judges Block Grocery Merger
Well, he appeared to keep several accounts on sites including X, Facebook, and Goodreads. And there are a few things that raise questions. On his Goodreads account, for example, he posted an excerpt from the writings of Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. So we might wonder how that may relate to a trajectory toward political violence. Also, one of the pictures on his ex-account banner...
Up First from NPR
Syria's New Reality, Shooting Suspect's Ideology, Judges Block Grocery Merger
is an X-ray of a spine with four large screws inserted in what looks like major surgery. Now, we don't know for certain that this is his X-ray, but there are reports that he may have sustained this injury in a surfing accident in Hawaii. But all told, Michelle, his digital footprint really doesn't clarify much because it cut off in the spring.
Up First from NPR
Syria's New Reality, Shooting Suspect's Ideology, Judges Block Grocery Merger
Here's Jared Holt of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
Up First from NPR
Syria's New Reality, Shooting Suspect's Ideology, Judges Block Grocery Merger
Well, from what's been shared by other reporting, this short note conveys a deep anger toward the healthcare industry and a feeling that someone had to do something about it. But other than that, no. You know, if some of this ties back to a possible injury that he had and perhaps what he ran into while trying to get care, it doesn't make any of those connections.
Up First from NPR
Syria's New Reality, Shooting Suspect's Ideology, Judges Block Grocery Merger
Now that he's in custody, I imagine we're going to learn much more. But there is another part of this that's troubling, and that part is the valorization that we're seeing of the suspect within some of the mainstream public.
Up First from NPR
Syria's New Reality, Shooting Suspect's Ideology, Judges Block Grocery Merger
So this killing, you know, seemed to tap into the feeling that seemingly most Americans have had at one time or another of frustration and helplessness with the healthcare industry. What really struck me, though, is that I have typically seen people who commit mass violence or political violence praised, even venerated as martyrs, in really kind of
Up First from NPR
Syria's New Reality, Shooting Suspect's Ideology, Judges Block Grocery Merger
dark corners of the extremist world, you know, within online communities that emulate mass shooters, for instance, or in violent white supremacist spaces. So seeing a much wider and mainstream public call this suspect a, quote, hero is troubling.
Up First from NPR
Syria's New Reality, Shooting Suspect's Ideology, Judges Block Grocery Merger
And for extremist analysts that I spoke to, you know, this really kind of speaks to how Americans have, over time, become more open-minded toward political violence.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
It's interesting, Aisha, because, you know, the size of the protests, their reach into places across the country, I think it felt like a rare moment of broad consensus. You know, at that time, the Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of U.S. adults supported the Black Lives Matter movement.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
It found that almost 70 percent of Americans were talking about racial justice issues with their families and friends. And 70% were recognizing general tensions between police and Black Americans. And so it felt like these difficult issues were finally out in the open and people were ready to discuss change to address them.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
But what I think what we didn't see clearly at that time was that deeply radicalizing forces were also organizing. And in many respects, I think it's fair to say that they won.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
Well, the pandemic. You know, I was in Minneapolis about six months ago meeting with a local named Kimmy Hull. One morning, Kimmy and I were at what's now called George Floyd Square where he died. And she said she thinks the movement wouldn't have launched if the country hadn't been sheltering in place.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
The thing that gets Kimmy and many others is the earliest days of protest were peaceful. When it was largely locals, many who lived in and were invested in the neighborhood. But two days after Floyd's death, there was a change.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
Kimmy's uncle, Bobby Hull, lives down the street and around the corner.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
One of the gaping holes that remains five years after Floyd's murder is the AutoZone auto parts store arson. This was the very first structure in the area to burn. It's been cited as the trigger event that turned peaceful protests into lawlessness. The police named a suspect from a suburb of Minneapolis.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
An arson investigator's affidavit identified him as an affiliate of organized white supremacist groups, including the Hells Angels and a prison gang called the Aryan Cowboys. To this day, there has been no arrest. The details of it all have faded for some locals.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
What hasn't faded is the conviction nurtured among many Americans that summer that actually the violence came only from the left, the side that, in this case, did not set off the chaos.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
Data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project find that at least 27 people were killed during the demonstrations across the nation. Most of them were not tied to any obvious ideological motivation. Instead, they appear to have just been criminal in nature. But of those where the perpetrators had an identifiable ideology, only one was a self-identified anti-fascist.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
Six, by comparison, were far-right actors. Still, an internal report from the Department of Homeland Security suggests top officials were interested in a single predetermined narrative. Focusing on the drawn-out rioting in Portland, Oregon… The head of Intelligence Gathering, quote, stated that the violent protesters in Portland were connected to or motivated by Antifa.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
This, even though his analysts had no evidence of that. But it wasn't just Trump and some administration officials who manipulated public perceptions of the unrest that summer.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
Pete Simi is a sociology professor at Chapman University. He says extremists did what they always do. They clocked the high level of uncertainty among the public and swooped in. Simi says the movement for racial justice also created its own problems in retrospect. The defund the police slogan ultimately wasn't helpful.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
And experiments with so-called autonomous zones, areas with no police, produced troubling stories, including a 16-year-old fatally shot in Seattle's.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
And that the argument that these protesters were part of a larger, sinister plot has endured.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
The claim that Black Lives Matter is a Marxist or terrorist organization is now common on the right. It was expressed in a podcast three years ago by Joe Kent, a man who is now Trump's pick to direct the National Counterterrorism Center.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
Yes, and survey numbers suggest that many Americans may agree. A Pew survey this month finds that support for the Black Lives Matter movement has fallen 15 percentage points from where it was five years ago. And on policing, the pendulum has swung as well.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
Just last week, the Department of Justice announced that it was ending consent decrees and investigations of police misconduct in multiple cities. including Minneapolis. But this assertion that maybe racism will go away if we stop talking about race, you know, it could be very dangerous. Well, talk to me about that. People see social inequity.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
You know, people observe the differences that we live with, with health outcomes. educational opportunities, income attainment. And if we're not talking about the history and current factors, Pete Simi says that this just leaves explanations that are pseudoscientific, disproven, and racist.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
And this isn't just a theoretical concern, Aisha. We've seen the White House issue an executive order aimed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum that posits race is not a social construct, but a biological reality. This is the stuff of eugenics, and it goes against decades of scientific consensus.
Up First from NPR
National Security Council Shakeup, George Floyd Murder and Political Extremism
Thank you.