ADL Data Shows Extremist-Related Murders Set to Increase in 2025 Despite Third Straight Decrease in 2024

New York, NY, February 21, 2025 … For the third year in a row, murders in the United States connected to extremism have declined, according to new data from ADL (the Anti-Defamation League). Domestic extremists were involved in the killing of at least 13 people in 2024, a significant drop from the 20 extremist-related murders in 2023.

However, this trend will not continue. The ADL Center on Extremism (COE) has already documented 15 extremist-related murders in 2025 so far, 14 of them stemming from the deadly vehicular terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Day, the first mass killing incident by a domestic Islamist extremist since Sayfullo Saipov’s 2017 bike path rampage.

This New Orleans attack is a troubling development, especially if it marks the beginning of a trend of increased homegrown Islamist violence rather than a one-off event. In 2024, ADL published an article detailing a recent increase in Islamist terrorist incidents in the United States, including several plots to cause mass casualties.

The ADL Center on Extremism’s annual Murder and Extremism report also found that all extremist-related killings of 2024 were connected to right-wing extremism, with eight of the 13 killings involving white supremacists and the remaining five having connections to far-right anti-government extremists. This is the third year in a row that right-wing extremists have been connected to all identified extremist-related killings. Also, unlike in many recent years, no extremist-related mass killing events took place in 2024. Both of these trends have also been interrupted by the New Orleans attack.

“One of the most serious threats that extremists can pose is the brutal taking of human lives,” said Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL CEO. “Every murder is a tragedy and a decrease in extremist-related killings is always a welcome trend. Unfortunately, we already know this trend will be interrupted in 2025 and we are increasingly concerned by the threat of Islamist terror that seems to have spiked in the past year. Our country needs a whole-of-society, whole-of-government approach to ensure extremism of any sort has no place in our communities.”

Murder and Extremism in 2024: Key Findings

• Domestic extremists killed at least 13 people in the U.S., in 11 separate incidents. These deaths are significantly lower than the 20 people killed by extremists in 2023 or the 28 people killed in 2022. This continues a trend of fewer extremist-related killings after a five-year span of 47-79 extremist-related murders per year (2015-2019).
• Not since the year 2000, which had 10 murders, has there been a year with fewer extremist-related deaths.
• In 2024, extremists deliberately murdered police officers in Florida and Texas, while in 2022 and 2023, no police officers were killed by extremists (these were rare exceptions).
• Two of the deadly incidents from 2024 involved adherents of the anti-government sovereign citizen movement, including the deliberate murder of a police officer in Dallas. The report includes a special section that explores deadly violence connected to the sovereign citizen movement, including the murder of a number of law enforcement officers.

“Extremist-related killings have a significant and disproportionate impact on a community, especially when they take the form of a hate crime, terrorist attack or mass shooting, despite the fact that they represent a small proportion of the total homicides in the U.S. each year,” said Oren Segal, ADL Senior Vice President for Counter-Extremism and Intelligence. “The white supremacist mass shootings of recent years targeting marginalized communities and the Islamist-related New Orleans attack in January 2025 stand as grim reminders that while extremists may adopt opposing ideologies, the threat and the trauma are the same and must be addressed as priorities by society and government.”

To view the incidents referenced in this report and other extremist activity across the country, refer to the ADL H.E.A.T. Map, which tracks incidents of hate and violence nationwide.

Main Policy Recommendations

Policymakers should review ADL’s PROTECT Plan, our comprehensive plan to counter domestic terrorism while preserving civil liberties. Urgent policy priorities include:

• We urge Congress to adopt a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to preventing and countering domestic terrorism.
• We urge the Administration and Congress to work together to ensure that the bipartisan United We Stand effort to address hate-fueled violence is an ongoing, fully funded and supported endeavor.
• We urge robust funding for programs like the Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP). Difficult funding decisions need to be made across all areas of public policy, but efforts to counter serious threats from domestic violent extremism must be top priorities.
• The Trump Administration’s recent Executive Order on Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism called on every federal agency and department to review and report on civil and criminal actions available to curb antisemitism. We applaud such efforts and encourage swift implementation.
• We must ensure that the authorities and resources the government uses to address violent threats are proportionate to the risk of the lethality of those threats. In other words, allocation of resources must never be politicized but rather based on transparent and objective security concerns.
• To the extent permitted by law and consistent with Constitutional protections, government should take steps to ensure that individuals engaged in violent extremist activity or associated with violent extremist movements, including the white supremacist movement and the militia movement, are deemed unsuitable for employment at the federal, state and local levels (including in law enforcement) and are not given security clearances or other sensitive law enforcement credentials.
• Congress must prioritize countering online extremism and ensuring that perpetrators who engage in unlawful activity online can be held accountable.
• Congress should work with the Administration to create a publicly funded, independent nonprofit center to track online extremist threat information in real-time and make referrals to social media companies and law enforcement agencies when appropriate.
• We urge the Trump Administration to continue past efforts to by the Department of State to develop a strategy to counter global white supremacist extremism.
• Congress should pass the STOP HATE Act which would require social media platforms to disclose their policies and how they’re dealing with content from FTOs, such as Hamas, who use these platforms to recruit, fundraise and spread propaganda. The bill would also require the Intelligence Community to assess the threat posed to U.S. national security by FTO’s usage of social media platforms. 

Since 2008, COE has worked to identify and track as many domestic extremist-related murders as possible, regardless of the motive or the ideology, and to identify past extremist-related murders dating back to 1970. Starting in 2016, COE has released annual reports detailing and analyzing the extremist-related murders of the previous year, examining long-term trends and performing deep dives into the data, such as analyzing killings connected to a specific ideology or movement. This report, assessing the extremist-related murders that occurred in the United States in 2024, is the 10th such annual assessment.

ADL is the leading anti-hate organization in the world. Founded in 1913, its timeless mission is “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Today, ADL continues to fight all forms of antisemitism and bias, using innovation and partnerships to drive impact. A global leader in combating antisemitism, countering extremism and battling bigotry wherever and whenever it happens, ADL works to protect democracy and ensure a just and inclusive society for all. More at www.adl.org.

# # #