Man Designated an Extremist by Major Rights Group Chosen to Train US Police

A man who has been designated as an anti-Muslim extremist by the Southern Poverty Law Center will be a key presenter at the New York Tactical Officers Association (NYTOA) conference.

Ryan Mauro works as a national security analyst for the Clarion Project, an anti-Muslim group based in Washington, DC, the SPLC reports. The organization is known to distribute films promoting anti-Muslim conspiracy theories.

Mauro has personally argued that the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating the Republican Party and the US Department of Homeland Security. The organization’s consistent Islamophobia is well documented, and the organization is not considered a credible information source, according to  Media Matters in 2014, due to expressions of extreme hatred toward Muslims.

The NYTOA is closed to the public and the press, but it is hoped that video leaks will detail the type of content Mauro offers to the officers in attendance.

“We don’t allow media into the event,” Larry Beresnoy, executive director of NYTOA, told AlterNet. “We’ve had issues with that type of thing in the past. We’ve had people say their intention is A when really it is B, so we try to have control.”

Beresnoy stated further that he sees no problem with Mauro presenting a workshop titled, "The Global Threat of Islamic Extremism (ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Iran) & The Threat of Islamic Extremism in America/New York State.”

“Ryan Mauro is a national expert on terrorism and Islamic extremism,” he said. “His entire job is researching the issue. I’ve looked at Ryan’s stuff, looked at Clarion’s stuff. I’ve seen their videos ‘Third Jihad’ and ‘Obsession.’ There are many experts who believe that the information is accurate. He has good information to share.”

A Freedom of Information Act request in 2012 found that, despite denials by the New York Police Department that the controversial film “The Third Jihad” was being shown to officers during training, it had, in fact, been screened for at least 1,489 of their officers.

“Ominous music plays as images appear on the screen: Muslim terrorists shoot Christians in the head, car bombs explode, executed children lie covered by sheets and a doctored photograph shows an Islamic flag flying over the White House,” the New York Times reported, describing the film.

“This is the true agenda of much of Islam in America,” a narrator intones. “A strategy to infiltrate and dominate America…. This is the war you don’t know about.”

A petition against the conference from the War Resisters League has already garnered approximately 2,000 signatures, stating that the presenters perpetuate “a growing culture of fear and hate.”