The Department of Homeland Security predicts weeks of violence in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to oust Roe v. Wade overthrown, according to an opinion released Friday that warns law enforcement of expected trouble.
Federal and state government officials, including judges, “probably run the greatest risk of violence in response to the decision,” noted the warning from the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis, obtained by several media outlets.
But “First Amendment protected events” (apparently protests), reproductive and “family advocacy health care facilities,” and faith-based organizations could also be targets, the DHS office said according to Nation World News.
The warning was issued when protests erupted across the country over the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday morning to overturn half a century’s abortion rights. In an ominous incident Friday night, a truck driver in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, crashed protesters protesting the court’s ruling, and one protester was admitted to hospital.
In a previous Bulletin of the National Terrorism Advisory System on Friday, the department warned: “We expect violence to occur for weeks after release [of the decision]especially as DVEs [domestic violence extremists] can be mobilized to respond to changes in state laws and abortion ballot measures resulting from the decision. We base this assessment on a perceived increase in violent incidents across the United States following the unauthorized disclosure in May of a draft majority opinion on the matter.
A May Bulletin warned that extremists could try to infiltrate the reproductive rights movement, ABC New reported.
Studies of the last major Black Lives Matter rallies for racial justice in 2020 found 97.7% peaceful, The Washington Post reported, while law enforcement and DHS officials mostly ignored multiple warnings of violence before the attack on the US capital on January 6, 2021.
A spokesman for Homeland Security said in a statement to Nation World News that the agency “will continue to work with our partners across every governmental level to share timely information and support law enforcement efforts to keep our communities safe.”
Americans’ “freedom of speech and right to speak peacefully are fundamental constitutional rights. “Those rights do not extend to violence and other illegal activities,” the statement added.
More about the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling:
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