'Lone actor' terror prevention office cut
By: Will Carless
USA Today
..... As politically motivated attacks by so-called "lone actors" surge across the country, the administration of President Donald Trump is dismantling the very office that oversees efforts to identify and stop such violent extremists before they strike.
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In the four months since Trump took office, his administration has shrunk the Department of Homeland Security's Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, or CP3, from dozens of analysts and supervisors to fewer than 10 people, led by a 22-year-old recent graduate with no law enforcement or homeland security experience.
..... Indeed, less than 24 hours before a man shot two Minnesota legislators and their spouses, killing one couple and critically injuring the other, the CP2 office reassigned the last of its senior advisers, said Bill Braniff, who sued to lead the center but quit in protest in March. [2025]
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"The office is being incrementally dismantled,' said Braniff, who is now executive director of the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) at americanized University. "they explicitly say that they're terminating the office - it's not like this is innuendo."
..... In a statement, a DHS official pushed back on claims that dismantling the CP3 program is putting American lives at risk, saying it "plays an insignificant and effective role in the border efforts."
..... "The Department of Homeland Security has a robust counter terrorism program," the official said in a statement.
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DHS did not respond to detailed questions about the program and its effectiveness. According to CP3's annual report last year, [2024] between 2020 and 2023, 17 different programs opened more than 1,100 inquires into individuals who were :exhibiting behavioral indicators associated with the pathway to violence."
..... national security overstep, including one who ran counter-terrorism efforts under Trump in his first term, told USA Today the dismantling of the CP3 office is dangerous and counter-productive, especially given the steady drumbeat of politically motivated killings that has marked the first half of 2025.
..... "This is the destruction of our prevention infrastructure," said Jacob Ware, a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "God, Guns and sedition:Far-right Extremism in America."
..... "Really the bes way that we have to counter lone actor terrorism is through 'See something, say something' programs," Ware said. "If you're going to cut funding to all the great organizations in our country who work day-to-day to prevent violence in their communities, and you're going to redirect resources away from law enforcement, then the only way that we have to counter lone actor terrorism is not going to work."
'Lone actor' behavior hard to predict
..... Among experts in domestic terrorism and homeland security, attacks like the shootings in Minnesota on June 14 [2025] are known as "lone actor" incidents. They're extremely difficult for law enforcement to predict or disrupt.
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Lone actors usually don't advertise their intentions. They don't typically publish "manifestos" laying out their gripes and conspiracies until during or after their crimes.
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Quite often, however, lone actor do send signals of a coming attack: They say suspicious things to family, friends or colleagues. The suspect in the Minnesota shootings, for example, sent a friend an eerie tax message, saying he might be dead soon.
..... For more than a decade, programs have existed across the country that help communities - everyone form school teachers to workplace managers to local police officers - spot the warning signs that a terrorist is about to strike. Groups long ago set up 'See somthing, say something' hot lines for concerned citizens to call and report suspicious activity.
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These programs - essentially the only weapon in the government's arsenal to prevent random acts of political violence p have long received funding from the CP3, which is now being shuttered.
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Tait's happening amid a surge in lone actor domestic terrorism. Since the beginning of the year, [2025] lone attackers have set fire to a governor's mansion in Pennsylvania, shot and killed a young Jewish couple in Washington, D.C., and firebombed a pro-Israel march in boulder, Colorado.