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Targeted for Assassination? Feds Warn of Organized Attacks on Police

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The U.S. Department of Justice has issued a bulletin to police nationwide warning that backlash and anger towards law enforcement could be evolving into organized, targeted attacks on officers - spearheaded by street gangs.

The bulletin was released July 15, only two days before the ambush attack on police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It states:

Gang-related threats and attacks on LEOs (law enforcement officers) have been reported in multiple jurisdictions since the Dallas shootings, and suggest that individuals and gang members may be targeting LEOs for retaliatory violence. Gang members have also issued multiple threats of violence towards LEOs via social media following the Dallas shootings and the officer-involved shootings in Louisiana and Minnesota.

According to ABC News, the bulletin mentions the police shooting deaths in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Minnesota, as well as the sniper attack on police in Dallas.

It reportedly also highlights the following:

  • In Chicago, a leader in the Four Corner Hustlers street gang verbalized a desire to kill a federal law enforcement agent, saying that the murder of a federal agent would strike louder than the murder of a police officer.
  • United Blood Nation (UBN) leadership is promoting violence against law enforcement, promising advancement in status to members who are violent against police.
  • A few black extremist groups are encouraging gangs nationwide to unite and attack law enforcement while applauding the death of the Dallas police officers.

ABC News law enforcement contributor Steve Gomez, who worked with South-Central Los Angeles gangs as an LAPD cop and an FBI agent, says the threats detailed in the bulletin could be a reversion to the horrors of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"If the movement to target and assassinate cops expands past lone wolves (as we have thus far seen in Dallas, Baton Rouge, and other cities), and mobilizes violent gang members nationwide, the effect could be overwhelming," Gomez warned.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama has condemned acts of violence against the law enforcement community.

"We as a nation have to be loud and clear that nothing justifies violence against law enforcement," Obama said shortly after the Baton Rouge shootings. "Attacks on police are an attack on all of us and the rule of law that makes society possible." 

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