Connecticut has 476 people who’ve signed up as members of a far-right extremist group that’s accused of playing a key role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol last year, according to a new report from the Anti-Defamation League.
That number includes five locals working in law enforcement, five in the military and five working as first responders. The ADL says it went through the data because it wanted to find out whether people working in positions of power had ties to the Oath Keepers.
“What we found were hundreds of people who hold these key positions across the country,” said Alex Friedfeld, an investigator with the ADL’s Center on Extremism. “And this is really disturbing because these are individuals who have outsized influence and power within their own communities. And the fact that they're associated with an extremist unit raises serious questions about how they are wielding that power and their ability to protect and represent everyone within their community.”
Even though the information is publicly available, Friedfeld said his organization isn’t naming individuals unless they’re in high-profile positions. That’s because the purpose of the report wasn’t to unmask anyone. It was to assess the scope of the problem of extremism. But Friedfeld also said that the ADL has alerted public agencies when it became clear that they have members of their organizations who are in the Oath Keepers.
“We wanted to put these numbers out there because, in order to address the problem of extremism within society, we need to understand the scope,” he said. “That said, we have been working with law enforcement agencies across the country, we’ve alerted all of them to the fact that there are members of their agencies who show up in this database.”
And Connecticut isn’t immune.
“The fact of the matter is there is also a Connecticut chapter of the Oath Keepers that has proven to be, over the years, pretty active and has shown up at events across the country, including a gun rally in Virginia in 2020,” he said.
Information from the Associated Press is included in this report.
