Understanding Threats to Public Officials
Download the full project summary.
Project Summary
This project continues NCITE research monitoring federal cases of threats to public officials, which have risen steadily since 2013, into 2026 and 2027. Drawing from publicly available court records, the project examines communicated threats across four sectors: law enforcement and military, elected and election officials, education, and healthcare. The findings give DHS and its partners analysis to inform threat assessment and resource allocation to counter these threats.
Purpose/Objectives
This project gives DHS and its partners a sector-based account of who is being threatened, how often, and by what means, supporting threat assessment work and investigative components that must decide where to concentrate limited security resources.
Method
The project analyzes publicly available federal court records for cases involving communicated threats to public officials. All qualifying federal cases from 2013 through 2025 have been archived, and cases through 2023 have been coded, with the proposed work extending the series into 2026 and 2027. Analysis consists of calculating frequencies for variables of interest, such as the occupation of the person threatened, and comparing those frequencies across the four sectors.
Outputs and Impact
- Infographics
- Briefings
- Peer-reviewed article submissions, op-eds
Reports and Publications
Understanding Threats to Public Officials: A Review of Federal Cases Between 2013 and 2025
This document charts threats to public officials data at the federal level from 2013–2025.
Understanding Threats to Public Officials – 2025
This document gives further breakdown on the top states from which threats against public officials are being made.
Understanding Threats to Public Officials – 2024
This document gives a breakdown of cases involving threats against public officials by state.
CTC Sentinel: Rising Threats Against Public Officials – A Review of 10 Years of Federal Data
This article, published in the CTC Sentinel, offers an overview of NCITE's research examining threats to public officials, including which public officials are targeted, strategies used to threaten, and ideological motivation.
Understanding Threats to Public Officials – 2023
This document gives a general breakdown of federal court cases involving threats against public officials in four sectors: health care, education, law enforcement, and government/elections. It also examines ideological motivation and method used to communicate threat.
Research Team
Pete Simi, Ph.D.- Chapman University
- Professor
- Department of Sociology
- Expertise: Social movements and collective behavior, terrorism, violence, social psychology
Seamus Hughes
- University of Nebraska at Omaha
- Senior Research Faculty and Policy Associate at NCITE
- Expertise: Research journalism, terrorism, public policy, federal courts