Demons, souls & antigovernment ideas: Expert describes how extremism begins

LAKE COUNTY, Fla. — The details of the Friday night shooting of three Lake County deputies keep coming -- and keep getting more disturbing.

▶ WATCH CHANNEL 9 EYEWITNESS NEWS

Cries of “Lucifer’s Children” from two isolated young adults. Beliefs of dark souls. A plot to kill a neighbor. A hard-working law enforcement officer who tried to stop a suspected home invasion instead walked into an ambush and didn’t make it home.

For some, the sequence of events fit into a rising pattern they have made a career out of observing as they try to enter the minds of America’s extremists and predict the latest trends. Julie Sulpizio, the accused mastermind of the ambush, was just the latest statistic.

The shooting caught the attention of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Rachel Goldwasser, who has studied these groups and individual for years. She called the tragedy “not unexpected.”

Read: Former stepmom of Lake County deputies shooting suspects speaks out

WFTV spoke to Goldwasser about the shooting and the trends she’s seeing. A transcript of her interview is below, which has been edited for brevity and clarity:

WFTV: Rachel, we’ve been reporting on this family situation here and on this really horrible tragedy going on in Lake County. As it was relayed to us, this person developed [antigovernment views] over time. What is that typical path that somebody might go down?

GOLDWASSER: “Typically it starts with a grievance against the government. It can be their own grievance. Let’s say they get a tax bill they’re not expecting or it’s higher than they would like. I don’t think anybody gets a tax bill they’re happy about, but some people don’t handle it particularly well.”

“It can be another type of grievance or having bureaucratic issues, for instance, or it can be something like a presidential election, if they felt that the candidate that they supported didn’t win, and they felt that potentially, it was fraudulent.”

Read: UCF partners with Lake County to provide mental health support to deputies

WFTV: “In these cases, is religion often mixed with antigovernment views?”

GOLDWASSER: “Unfortunately, that has been increasing recently.”

“There is a term that is Christian Nationalist. I think a lot of people misunderstand this term to think it’s just people that are Christian and support some level of Christian nation. It’s actually an idea that not only do they want a nation that is only Christian, but also that anybody who doesn’t want to go along with that are not just villains, but actually demonic.”

“There are many people, unfortunately, that are starting to pick up this view. And once somebody feels that someone else is demonic -- many people feel that they need to vanquish that evil and become sort of vigilante as a response.”

Read: OCPS eyes contingency plans in case two schools don’t open

WFTV: “That sounds eerily like this woman and this family that we’ve been reporting on.”

“This incident is extremely upsetting. It’s very, very sad, but it is not unexpected. In some ways, one of the things that I’ve personally seen in the rise of what’s called the QAnon movement.”

“People become adherents to this movement, they start to believe everything that they are hearing. They start to create their own stories within a movement like this, and what I have seen is that there have been many, many cases of violence.”

(Although law enforcement leaders said they found propaganda inside the Sulpizio house, they have not tied it to the QAnon movement.)

Read: How to help Lake County deputies’ families following deadly ambush

WFTV: “Florida is known as a hotbed for extremism. What are the conditions here that not only gives us this reputation, but also just fosters these feelings?”

GOLDWASSER: “Florida has a number of conditions. One of them is that it’s extremely influential in presidential elections historically. As a result, Floridians are fairly political, which is a positive thing, but unfortunately, it’s also very divisive.”

“Your typical Floridian is just going to use the Constitution and the rule of law and the way that they are active in terms of their political beliefs, but then there’s a group of extremists out there that are going to take it too far.”

“Another reason that Florida is a hotbed for extremism. It actually has a number of Neo-Confederate groups over the years, which are people that are sympathetic to slavery and feel the Civil War actually should have gone the other way.”

WFTV: It was a woman who appeared to be the manipulator, the mastermind and the leader of this four-family unit. How common is that?”

GOLDWASSER: “Historically it was the patriarch of the family. More and more we’re seeing that there are women taking on these roles.”

WFTV: “You’ve said it’s unusual for children to be radicalized in the extent of this case. Can you explain?”

GOLDWASSER: “There are many cases where there are individuals or parents or entire groups that are radicalized, but many times it’s the adults. The kids are just victims of the ideology that their parents or other individuals and guardians are part of.”

“For kids to become involved to this extent is unusual. It does seem to be increasing. This is a trend that is horrific and hopefully will start to decrease.”

WFTV: “The family had their views for a long time, and suddenly, Friday night, they decided they needed to terminate the Dark Souls. Is there something that triggers, ‘Okay, we’re going to act tonight?’”

GOLDWASSER: “It really depends. Unfortunately, they vary widely.”

“One example: in the last eclipse that happened, we saw a woman in Florida, as well as a woman in Los Angeles, act violently. One toward law enforcement, one toward her children, and so the Eclipse itself and the conspiracies around it that they were hearing was the catalyst.”

“In some cases, they just snap. Sometimes violent conspiracy theorists are not that different from what we call accelerationists, meaning that they are watching something happen and they’re getting more and more upset and aggrieved about it, and at some point they just feel like they have to do something”

WFTV: “What should people know about antigovernment behavior?”

GOLDWASSER: “I think the important thing to look for is if you know these people, try very hard to just love them as much as you can. Treat them with respect in regard to their theories, but try to sway them to something that’s a little bit more logical.”

“If they do seem like they are going to commit violence, make sure you get them help.”

Goldwasser plugged the subreddit “QAnonCasualties,” which is a gathering place for victims, families and friends of conspiracies and conspiracy theorists to support one another.

Click here to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.

©2024 Cox Media Group