laughs [Music] [Applause] [Music] Logan Turner and my son Adam were best friends and next door neighbors growing up one of my favorite memories of the two boys was when they were sitting in the kitchen eating a Hungarian favorite cabbage and noodles it was a contest they did every time we made the dish who could eat the most and this friendship lasted well into adulthood and on August 4 2019 Logan wanted to celebrate his birthday by inviting Adam and some other friends to the Oregon district in downtown Dayton Ohio my son was out of state at the time and could not make it but the others joined Logan expecting a fun evening unfortunately that was a day 24 year old Connor Betts decided to go into the Oregon district where he shot and killed nine including Logan and injured 27 including Logan's friends and that was the day my work became personal for the last 10 years I've studied Americans that have committed acts of terrorism which is part of an emerging threat we see now and one that's growing at an alarming rate and it threatens the safety of our schools our religious institutions and our communities and that threat is violent extremism Global problems such as poverty pollution and lack of world peace can seem quite daunting at first glance but as a community we do our best we provide soup kitchens recycling efforts and community centers violent extremism is no different it's a global problem with Community Solutions I looked at 635 American terrorists and up to 50 demographics for each to include things like education marital status military service profession residency and more and several of these traits are predominant in other types of violent extremism and will look familiar to you based off what you know see and hear in the media and the first one is gender the majority of violent extremists are males 93 percent but don't be fooled my friends females may be the minority but they're just as deadly males and females go into terrorism for different reasons males want to be heroes they want to belong to a Brotherhood and they like the camaraderie they have with like-minded individuals females go into it for passion and that passion would be for someone with terror-like ideologies like Shannon Conley a nursing student from Colorado she found love online with a nicest fighter or that passion can be stirred up because they or someone they love have been a victim of the pursued enemy the next one is age and while the majority of the males and females are between the ages of 20 and 50. they have been as young as 14 15 years old Charles Bishop was just 15 when he sold a Cessna 172 and crashed it into the Bank of America tower in Tampa Florida James Von broon was 88. when he shot and killed a security guard at the national Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.
C bishop and Von broon were outliers the average age is 22. 22 is also the age most graduate from college which leads us to the next characteristic Advanced education and Allegiance and here we have a split if aligned with the domestic terror group like the KKK or the proud boys they're less likely to have a college education that makes up a small percentage of the terrorist population roughly nine percent and the reason is it is not against the law to belong to a domestic Terror or hate group so if a member of one of those groups commits a crime it's less likely to be considered an act of terrorism if an individual is aligned with an international terror group like Isis Al-Qaeda Boko Haram al-nasra al-shabab the list is long it is against the law if an individual is aligned with the international terror group and has a college education it's likely to be in one of the stem fields science technology engineering or math I'm going to give you three examples Terence McNeil was a 24 year old from Akron Ohio he was sentenced to 20 years for soliciting the murder of U. S military personnel in their homes and made their addresses public including the address of the Navy SEAL he felt was responsible for the death of Osama bin Laden in 2011.
O'Neill posted online he could not wait for another 911 Boston bombing Sandy Hook massacre he was a medical technologist at a local hospital the next one is Nasir amadouji he was a 19 year old from Beaver Creek Ohio he was arrested at the Columbus airport for trying to board a plane to go over and train with ISIS his dream was to become a mechanical engineer and the last one is manir Abdul Kadar he was a 21 year old from Westchester Ohio and he was sentenced 20 years for plotting the murder of a military-based employee and was a chemistry and business student at Xavier University in Cincinnati Ohio International Terror organizations have so many interested followers that they can be selective choosing college-educated people believing if they have them do a task like plant a bomb they're more likely to find a workaround if they encounter any obstacles now I want to take a minute to just talk to you about the difference between a domestic and an international terrorist O'Neill was a citizen by birth Abdul Kadar was a naturalized citizen both of these young men planned and trained to do an act of terrorism within the U.
