COEUR D’ ALENE, Idaho – Alexander Scott Mercurio, the Coeur d’ Alene man indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly planning a terror attack, was reportedly a white supremacist before becoming an ISIS sympathizer.
Court documents paint a picture of Mercurio’s purported descent into extremist ideology similar to online incel and anti-Black hate groups. Mercurio was extremely online and socially isolated.
During his last two years at Lake City High School, Mercurio took exclusively online courses. According to criminal complaint documents released by the US Department of Justice, the online courses were a source of contention with his parents.
“My parents want me to stop being Muslim and praying and drop everything 100 percent tomorrow or they take away absolutely everything and send me to in-person school,” Mercurio reportedly said in a group chat.
Mercurio was purportedly initially attracted to ISIS ideology during the COVID-19 pandemic. He had also been attracted to white supremacist ideology according to court filings.
A United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee report shows that violent extremism increased during the pandemic, in which isolated individuals vulnerable to radicalization spent even less time interacting with other people.
Mercurio planned on stealing his father’s guns to kill as many people as possible at nearby Coeur d’ Alene churches.
Mercurio reflects the pool of people who have committed mass shootings across the United States in the past 50 years according to federal data. 98 percent of modern American mass shooters have been male, and 52.3 percent have been white.
The alleged ISIS sympathizer’s worldview before being arrested as presented in court documents was similar to extremist online cells that follow a “cope or rope” ethic of suicidal nihilism.
“I just want to die and have all my problems go away,” Mercurio reportedly said in a direct message.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 21 extremist groups operated in Idaho in 2022, including a cluster around Coeur d’ Alene. Recruitment for hate and terrorism groups is increasingly digital and focuses on disillusioned young men, as it allegedly was in the Mercurio case.
