The Trump administration stopped funding a national database tracking domestic terrorism, hate crimes and school shootings in a sweeping round of cuts to violence prevention projects, reports the Washington Post. The cancellation involves nearly $20 million for 24 projects dating as far back as July 2021. The database, run by the University of Maryland and supported by $3 million from DHS disappeared Tuesday from the START consortium for terrorism research’s website. A DHS emai said “the scope of work performed under this award no longer effectuates Department priorities” without providing details.
The data had showed there were nearly three violent events daily, killing nearly 400 people and injuring more than 700, wrote Michael Jensen, the project’s principal investigator and the research director at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terror. Jensen said the cancellation comes at a time when the first two months of 2025 saw a 25 percent increase in terrorism and targeted violence incidents compared to the first two months of last year. Amy Cooter of the Institute for Countering Digital Extremism, worries that the cuts to violence prevention efforts across the federal government will hamper the fight against domestic terrorism. “We’re seeing a real end of our ability to stay on top of extremist trends and threats from a governmental perspective,” Cooter said. A research project to avert school shootings, an evaluation of a method used to redirect online searches away from extremist content and a study focused on early detection and intervention of people planning terrorist attacks were among those to lose funding
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