Even in Central Illinois, officials are noticing increased instances of nihilistic violent extremism
By Marcel Pacatte
““I feel as if he’s not even a part of the family.” Those are the words of one parent whose young adult son stays in his room most of the time. There has been counseling, and there are arguments. Fights. Resentment. Frustration. Unkept promises and unenforced ultimatums litter the family dynamic.
This mother loves her son, and has tried repeatedly to motivate him to get a job or pursue a course of study. He stays upstairs. Online. Sleeps at odd times — up all night, in bed most of the day.
He does have friends, both in real life and online, and engages with both, including having taken vacations with members of his online friend network, meeting them in person. But he’s not like the others, not even like his siblings.
He’s your son. You know him.
Or maybe you don’t. He could be close to committing an act of violence, potentially. Most often, self-harm. The Springfield FBI office says one of its biggest growth areas is investigating situations such as this one because all it takes is the right — or wrong — influences and, boom, you have a different kind of violent actor from the one with whom we’re most familiar. One not motivated by fervor for a cause or a hatred of a person or group — a political partisan or a religious fanatic — but one pushed into committing an act of self-harm by pressure and exploitation, a disaffected, desultory, aimless person trapped by online sexploitation or other threats and bullying.
The FBI has a term for it: Nihilistic violent extremism (NVE).
And if it sounds fanciful or a sort of paranoia on the FBI’s part, they assure us that it’s real, and that it’s here in Central Illinois as well as all across the country.
Jacob Griffin, a special agent with the FBI’s Springfield office, described agents showing up at a family’s home to question a teen who was being badgered by shadowy online predators. The FBI investigation showed that the teen was hours away from committing an act of violence. When questioned by agents at the home, the teen admitted everything. The parents were stunned, having no idea anything was brewing.
And this brand of violence is small-scale. Personal. Coming almost without warning. Its goal, Griffin said, is to create chaos and uncertainty, to undermine the social order, to rip families apart. And it’s seldom, if ever, the minor’s idea. The idea is planted by the predator, who has established control over the person. Often, the FBI says, the goal is to have teens harm themselves. In the most extreme cases, the teens are goaded into killing themselves.
Kyle Chumley, commander of investigations at the Jacksonville Police Department, concurs that the problem is here and is real, and says that the department is on it.
The department, he said, is less interested in the latest specific group pushing youth to do anything and everything harmful to self or others and more interested in building awareness and creating courage among the targets to resist the efforts of the exploiters, to avoid the traps.
He said the names of groups, which show up and gain currency and then recede and come back under new names, are almost incidental. Chasing each of them, from the Jacksonville Police Department’s perspective, is something best left to the FBI. In Jacksonville, the focus is on the types of things all of them do and combating that by going to classrooms at schools to warn students and teachers and to the community to warn parents and peers about what to look for as they monitor their child’s and friend’s behavior and online activity.
The FBI, according to Griffin, is treating this as the next biggest thing and warns that people need to be aware of it to help the FBI head it off in as many ways possible.
First, Griffin, said, is to know what your children are doing online — who they are interacting with, sites on which they spend time — as a way to keep them from being co-opted by these nefarious bad actors.
The FBI uses terms such as frightening and dangerous to describe what’s happening and is taking it seriously, even though the general public hasn’t seen many of these acts of violence occur.
Griffin said this nihilistic violent extremism is a decentralized subculture that weaponizes digital platforms to exploit and radicalize children, with the goal of having them carry out acts of violence.
Much as criminals rob banks because that’s where the money is, the FBI says these extremists frequent gaming platforms, social media sites and mobile apps because that’s where their targets, young people, are.
Griffin said the FBI already has identified 450 subjects tied to these decentralized networks nationwide. The victims being targeted are minors, some as young as 9 years old.
The special agent in charge of the FBI’s Springfield field office, Karen Marinos, said the minors are being assaulted online. “These groups specifically seek out vulnerable children to coerce them into horrific acts of self-harm and violence.”
They are methodical at identifying victims and quickly gaining their trust and then using sextortion, manipulation and blackmail to force them to self-mutilate, sexually abuse themselves or produce gore or violent video, often demanding it be live streamed.
Worse, the FBI says, the ordinary filters and parental controls are essentially useless as protections for children. These bad actors, the FBI says, are highly skilled at bypassing restrictions or teaching victims how to skirt them.
The best defense against a child becoming prey, the FBI says, is for parents to have open and continuing conversations with their children about their activities online and to discourage use of digital devices in private areas the home, such as bedrooms and bathrooms.
Five things to look for that could indicate potential victimization are:
- Physical markers, such as fresh cuts, scratches or scars. These cuts, the FBI says, frequently are on hidden parts of the body such as the thigh, chest or groin.
• Behavioral changes, such as moodiness, irritability or becoming withdrawn as well as changes in eating or sleeping habits and school performance. “These may be drastic and without warning,” the FBI says.
- Cruelty or aggression against animals, pets or younger siblings.
- The posting of personal information online or unexplained gifts or packages arriving at the home.
- Openly talking about death, feeling unwanted or worthless or threatening suicide as well as actively seeking tools for violence such as firearms, explosives or chemicals.
The FBI urges parents to contact 1-800-225-5324 (1-800-CALL-FBI) or tips.fbi.gov with usernames, emails and platform names if they suspect their child is being preyed upon. In cases of imminent danger, the FBI urges people to call 911.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has a free service available to help minors or adults who were victimized as minors to get sexually explicit content removed and stopped being shared. Information is at takeitdown.ncmec.org.
The FBI’s Griffin is available to provide community presentations on the FBI’s effort; he was in Pleasant Plains recently at the request of a resident, Teresa Bennett, who had learned about the phenomenon and wanted to increase awareness.
