In letters to families sent this week, superintendents warned of "nihilistic violent extremist" groups, which they say target children from 9 to 17 through social media and online video games. The letters, which came from districts from Brunswick to Portland to Yarmouth, followed a notification by the Cumberland County Emergency Management Agency warning local school districts and community organizations of the groups.
"Cumberland County EMA has received credible information from the FBI and CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency) confirming that multiple Nihilistic Violent Extremist (NVE) groups are actively targeting children online," the letter began, though it did not specify whether any schools or students in Maine had been singled out.
The agency was alerted to the groups' existence during a general informational session held about a week ago by the FBI and released "a notice to raise awareness," Director Michael Durkin said on a Friday afternoon phone call.
The FBI has been warning about these and similar groups for months and the program Durkin cited was a routine awareness session not triggered by any single incident, the bureau said.
"We just got this put on our radar," he said. "It's a new term for us."
Durkin deferred questions about the term's origin and definition to the FBI.
Kristen Setera, a spokesperson for the FBI 's Boston field office, said the bureau has been "increasingly concerned about a loose network of violent predators" who coerce children into committing sexual or violent behavior on camera. They are motivated by a general desire to sow chaos, she said.
"However, not all participants in these violent online networks are motivated by NVE," she said. "These subjects may be engaging in criminal activity for sexual gratification, social status, a sense of belonging."
Multiple superintendents told the Press Herald they had not heard of any specific threat against Maine schools.
"We've not been told that there are any students in Maine or any of our schools who were targeted," Yarmouth Superintendent Andrew Dolloff said in a phone call Friday afternoon. He indicated the same in his letter to parents.
Dolloff said he was not sure the threats were a wholly new danger or a new angle to long-known online safety threats, but they seemed worth surfacing for parents at the state's urging, Dolloff said.
"They suggested that we should consider notifying parents, community networks, and so forth about this growing threat," Dolloff said. "Just to remind people that we all have to be vigilant."
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