NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Extremists may be coming for your children, attempting to get them under their control and blackmailing them into committing acts of violence.
That warning from experts follows NewsChannel 5’s revelation about the online instigators who, investigators believe, egged on Antioch High School shooter Solomon Henderson.
It begins in the world of online games.
"The most common way that I usually see kids exposed to nihilistic violent extremists is with a start point on Roblox,” said Dr. Amy Cooter, co-founder of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism.
"They're playing a game on Roblox. They're approached potentially to then carry their chat into a different space, very often a completely different platform."
But what began as fun can quickly take a dark turn where children are manipulated into hurting others, perhaps even hurting themselves.
"And sometimes that timeline is actually really short,” Cooter said.
“We recently reviewed a case, for example, where it appeared that a young woman was brought into a Discord space and less than 24 hours later was already hurting herself because of the pressure of that."
Cooter studies the world of nihilistic violent extremism, a world where sick people – some of them neo-Nazis, others who just want to bring about a collapse of society – target our nation's children.
Among the groups involved in this: One known as 764, another, the Order of Nine Angles, or O9A.
"It's becoming a major issue, not only across the country, but here in Middle Tennessee,” said Capt. Chris Dickerson, who heads the Metro Nashville Police Department's division that investigates extremists.
"We're seeing a lot of kids – whether it be elementary school, middle school, and trickling into the high school – that they're involved in a world that a lot of us aren't necessarily familiar with or haven't been investigating for a long time."
NewsChannel 5 Investigates followed up, "And they're targeting children as young as elementary school age?"
"Yes, sir,” Dickerson acknowledged.
Both Dickerson and Cooter believe the Antioch High School shooter, Solomon Henderson, was sucked into the online world where bad actors entice kids on platforms like Roblox into seeing themselves through the eyes of some of the nation's most notorious mass shooters.
“Once this process starts,” Cooter said, “the way these children are groomed into these spaces, they're really tricked into seeking clout or status."
The goal is to befriend the children and get information that they can then use against them.
"They're trying to find someone who is willing to talk with them, give them information necessarily about where they live, maybe where they go to school, information about their parents or guardian,” Dickerson said.
Some may even try to get kids to cut themselves on camera or potentially expose themselves. The children think they're just being mischievous or daring.
We asked Cooter, "And so it goes from getting the child on a hook essentially?"
"Yes, that's one way to think about it,” she agreed.
“To then ratcheting up?”
“Yes, absolutely."
The ultimate goal, Cooter explained, is to get material that can later be used to blackmail the child.
"The blackmail process is really awful,” she added.
“And because we're dealing with very young children – often between 12 and 17 years old, but some we've seen as young as eight – they’re convinced pretty easily into following this pathway, into starting to do more and more harmful behaviors, to hide it from their parents and, in some really extreme cases, to start to hurt other people, to start specifically planning school shootings, for example."
In some cases, the perpetrators may have pizzas delivered to the child's home or make a swatting call that sends police rushing to the house.
Dickerson noted, "And the parents are like, I don't know how that can happen. I don't know where that came from. And now the kid may be scared."
NewsChannel 5 Investigates asked, "That's a way for these groups to send a message to the kid, we can get to you."
"Yes, sir."
In a case at a Nashville charter school last year, the group hacked into the school's email system and sent out an email blast to families identifying one particular child as being part of their network.
Amy Cooter helped the school investigate that incident.
"The ostensible reason was to embarrass this person and make it known that they were part of 764,” she recalled. “But in my experience, the more likely reason was to push them over the edge into actually committing a school shooting."
Cooter added, "It was more a message of, ‘Hey, it's time to move to action.’"
The police captain continued, “Once we started to investigate at that specific school, we saw that there was more than one kid that was involved."
Police also uncovered a drawing from the child's digital trail that described a radicalization process that starts with the child cutting himself, ending with him potentially killing himself.
"And they want to work these kids up to that ultimate level and at any point in there that they don't comply, they'll say, ‘Remember what happened last time, we swatted your house, it's gonna get worse.’"
Cooter said parents and teachers are often emphatic that their children would never allow themselves to get caught up in such a dark world.
“But it's just not true,” she added. “This is so pervasive online that every parent, every caretaker needs to know what this is and know some symptoms to watch out for."
The following information is provided by the FBI:
Potential signs of victimization include:
- Sudden behavior changes such as becoming withdrawn, moody, or irritable
- Changes in appearance, including neglect of appearance or hiding specific body parts
- Signs of animal cruelty
- Unexplained harm to younger siblings
- Threatening to commit suicide and openly talking about death, "not being wanted or needed," or "not being around"
- Scars, often in patterns, including signs or names from online platforms
- Fresh cuts, scratches, bruises, bite marks, burns, or other wounds
- Reports of personally identifying information being posted online for victimization (commonly referred to as a "dox")
- Sudden and unexplained gifts or packages arriving for the child to the home
Here’s a list of tips to help protect your children:
- Monitor your child’s online activities, especially with whom they may be communicating and make use of parental controls.
- Exercise discretion when posting personal information, videos, and photos online, especially content that includes information about your children which could be exploited.
- Exercise caution when accepting friend requests, engaging in video calls, and sending images to individuals you do not know personally.
- Talk to your children about the risks of sharing personal information, images, and videos online.
If you or someone you know is a victim of a crime using these kinds of tactics, retain all information from the incident such as usernames, email, websites, and names of platforms used, and immediately report it to:
- 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or tips.fbi.gov
- FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center at ic3.gov
If anyone feels they are in imminent danger, contact local law enforcement immediately.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) provides a free service known as Take It Down, which helps minor victims, or adults who were victimized as minors, with removing or stopping the online sharing of nude and sexually explicit content taken while under 18 years old. For more information, visit https://takeitdown.ncmec.org.
You can find additional helpful tips here: https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/parents-and-caregivers-protecting-your-kids