Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Monday that he thinks that law enforcement agencies are a step behind ISIS — with their inability to stop the terror group’s recruiting efforts through social media and violent video games.
“Over the past year, terrorism has morphed in the extraordinarily dangerous direction,” Bratton explained during a group breakfast at the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce. “They have been using social media in extraordinary ways. The challenge for us is how do we deal with that? We have not figured out with ISIS who these people are that are so skilled with the use of social media and are able to respond instantly to changes in trends.”
Bratton said the biggest problem remains the Islamic State’s ongoing efforts to radicalize children and young adults across the US.
“The challenge for us is how do we deal with that?” Bratton said. “We have to deal with the violence that they are engaged in, but we also have to deal with the issue [of radicalization]. We have not been able to come up with a solution to how easy is it to recruit tens of thousands of young men and women whose cause is all about barbarism, all about crime, all about murder.”
Bratton said he felt what ultimately separated the Islamic State from groups like al Qaeda is that they are all “about now” — meaning they lure new members through media forums that are widely popular among Westerners today.
“It’s reflective of the world we are now living in, with social media,” he explained. “Where we are able to create and capitalize on the use of that social media. [ISIS] have, in fact, effectively been able to accomplish more in a year than Al Queda has accomplished in any one of their operation.”
The Islamic State thugs have even managed to target kids by developing their own video game based on the violent “Grand Theft Auto” series.
“ISIS has been able to come up with a version last week where they have effectively hijacked [GTA] to find an additional way to reach out to these young minds and suck them in,” he explained. “They’re using a video game that is very popular…all the focus is on the car chases and violence.”
While their main focus is preventing people from joining the Islamic State, Bratton said the feds are also scrambling to find ways to de-radicalize the jihadists once they are captured.
“It’s like we’re releasing them from Guantanamo and they’re right back over there killing us again,” he said. “And it’s the same at home, once a young man or or woman starts down this path, how do you intervene? We have not figured that out.”
Bratton added that he had met with FBI director James Comey in Washington D.C. last week to discuss strategies to combat the Islamic State.