Key Points
The shooter who killed eight people at a Dallas-area mall was wearing a patch that read RWDS short for Right Wing Death Squad a phrase that has been embraced in recent years by far-right extremists who glorify violence against their political enemies...
Social media accounts authorities believe were used by Mauricio Garcia also appear to have expressed interest in white supremacist and neo-Nazi views, according to an official who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they could not discuss details of the investigation publicly..
The term Right Wing Death Squad originally emerged in the 1970s and 80s to describe Central and South American paramilitary groups created to support right-wing governments and dictatorships and oppose perceived enemies on the left, said Oren Segal, vice president of the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism...
It essentially became a phrase that was co-opted to demonstrate opposition to the left more broadly by right-wing extremists, Segal said.. Heidi Beirich, the co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said the Proud Boys, the neo-fascist group of self-described Western chauvinists, are largely responsible for injecting RWDS into the far-right vernacular...
The rally turned deadly when a white supremacist rammed his car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a woman.. Facebook banned several hate-filled pages, including one named Right Wing Death Squad, after the bloodshed in Charlottesville, the New York Times reported...
