A leaked FBI counterterrorism report now shows "black extremists" are the new domestic terrorist threat.
The FBI wouldn't comment on the report, but former agent James Conway, president of Global Intel Strategies, says he's not surprised given the behavior seen during protests nationwide.
“Whether they're black or white, it doesn't matter, if they meet that definition and pose a threat to public safety and national security, they're deemed an extremist group,” said Conway.
Ray Hunt, president of the Houston Police Officers' Union, says cops at every level have been on high alert since protests against police began popping up across the country.
“I don't care what words precipitate the word extremist, I'm always concerned whenever I see that, whether it be black, white, Hispanic or whomever,” Hunt said.
A Black Lives Matter spokesman says the report echoes the days when the FBI tracked activist groups including the NAACP and those that opposed wars.
Scott Walter with the Capital Research Center says it's not racial profiling, but violence profiling.
“That doesn't mean everybody who sympathizes with the movement is violent, but it does mean there is absolutely a history of violence associated with the movement, which is amorphous and undefined in the first place,” he says.
Walter says unfortunately for BLM, other more aggressive organizations are distorting its message.
“The Freedom Road Socialist Organization and other fringe radical groups, whether or not they start a movement like this, immediately try to manipulate and exploit it for their own purposes.”