Far Right Killers From Breivik to Bissonnette
In recent years, in America and across the world, nationalism has seen a huge resurgence. This, coupled with a recession that crippled the economy — disproportionately impacting young men — has proven to be fertile ground for an extreme political right eager to influence a new generation to radicalize and join their cause.
Many will deny that there is anything common to all these young men — that they are mentally ill lone wolves, and there is nothing ideological at all about what they’ve chosen to do.
This article will summarize the names and crimes of those young, predominantly white, men who have become radicalized online and killed because of it.
First, I believe two names are especially insightful in trying to understand what these crimes represent and what sort of belief systems they stem from.
The first would be Elliot Rodger.
On May 23, 2014, Elliot Rodger woke up and stabbed his three roommates to death. Then, he went on a shooting spree that killed another 3 and injured another 14, before shooting himself.
Elliot Rodger bore many of the hallmarks of bitter misogyny and the resentment of and entitlement to, women that are typical of those in the incel, redpill, PUA, manosphere or AltRight fringe movements. His sprawling manifesto makes direct reference to the pickup artist or “PUA” websites that accelerated his antisocial attitudes and reinforced his worldview and social isolation. He perceived his “inceldom” or “involuntary celibacy” as something that was a grave injustice, and it often prompted thoughts of violence or retribution, in particular against women, spurred along by the PUAHate forum of which he was an active member.
He explicitly referred to himself as an incel online and repeatedly stated it as reasoning for his actions:
He was virulently racist, notably against Asians (perhaps indicating some degree of self hate), wanted to “destroy” feminism, and fantasized about a world in which women feared him and were subjugated by law. A report from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office divulged numerous searches in Rodger’s search history relating to Nazism, Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich.
Naturally, one would expect that such an individual, a murderer who killed 6 people and injured 14 others, would be widely loathed, even hated.
You would be wrong. Not only is he not hated by certain sections of the internet, he is celebrated and even worshiped as a saint for his killing spree.
You can even buy a t-shirt, if you’re so inclined:
Some would take solace in the belief that these are likely jokes — ironic humor gone too far. Again, you would be wrong.
Yes, even Google itself suggests “Elliot Rodger hero” as one of the most relevant and searched terms if you enter his name. There are still blogs that actively praise him, and only bemoan that he could’ve killed more with better planning. A search for his name on Facebook reveals HUNDREDS of profiles bearing his name and likeness:
How can this be? All this man ever did was kill people, and to be celebrated, even cherished for that? Well, this begins to set the scene for precisely the corrosive effect this ideology can have on young men. Not to mention that social media algorithms actively reinforce those idolizing him.
In a world where masculinity is constantly judged, questioned and in need of proving — either through violence or the conquest of women, this is the type of behavior that is lauded. And, deprived of traditional markers of manhood like marriage, home-ownership and stable, good-paying jobs with benefits, young millennial men are particularly sympathetic to this worldview — and eager to demonstrate their own manhood to other men online.
Elliot Rodger’s killing spree and incel “manifesto” have already inspired numerous copycat killers. There are dozens upon dozens just like him, espousing his logic, and in the most horrific way, seeking to emulate his “example.” Elliot Rodgers was not the first to utilize this MO, either. On the forums he frequented, there was a term: “going Sodini” after George Sodini, a 48 year old data analyst, who also took out his loneliness, perceived impotence and misogyny on innocent women — killing three women at a gym he frequented. The core takeaway here is that, for these killers, this sort of behavior is a way of reclaiming their manhood, something they feel has been deprived of them. And if they cannot claim it through sex, or they will claim it through violence. There is also a deep fear of confrontation, of emotional reflection and introspection — of anything in any way “not masculine.” And if they can’t live manhood, they may as well LARP it.
In his own manifesto, Elliot Rodgers outlines many instances where he could have been pulled back from the brink, where he longed for hope of a better life, and simply to be understood and empathized with. Elliot Rodgers had many theories about how “wicked and degenerate” women were that PUAHate unfortunately “confirmed” for him — the danger of the internet echo chamber at work — but if a more positive voice had reached him before then, perhaps things could have turned out differently.
Thus, it is critically important to know the slang, the jargon, the tricks, and most importantly the ideology and hierarchy which are the core tenets of this ideology — and identify and refute them wherever they may be. Through these groups and what they peddle; decent, polite, nerdy, socially awkward, shy, isolated, insecure young men in need of a bit of guidance are turned embittered and alienated. They are quite literally teaching and selling sociopathy to sexually frustrated men and telling them that sex with women is their birthright, regardless of what women themselves want or desire. They are being given the exact wrong advice to succeed in their stated goals — and when that fails, all that’s left is rage.
These communities do not create killers, nor is that their intention. But had Elliot Rodgers not discovered them in the first place and subsequently adopted their ideology, there is little doubt he would’ve been a more sociable, less judgmental, more antisocial, saner human because of it. And perhaps, just perhaps, this tragedy could have been averted.
Moving on, we have a far more sinister figure, and one that still walks the earth: Anders Behring Breivik.
Breivik is the perpetrator of the worst terrorist attack in Norway since World War 2. His attack claimed the lives of 77 innocent people, and for nothing more than belonging to a different political party than Breivik.
We would hope that there would be unanimous condemnation of such a vile figure, one who’s only notable action is an attack on his own countrymen in a calculated act of terrorism, but regrettably, you would be wrong. Not only is he also celebrated as a hero by some, but the cultlike following around him is even stronger than the one surrounding Rodgers. Again, he sought, and found, a community online of likeminded individuals which not only egged him on, but inspired him in the first place to commit this heinous act of mass murder.
What were his true motivations? What was he really trying to do? Why do so many across the world empathize with such a violent, bitter, hateful man?
Breivik found an online community rife with agreement and acceptance, highly eager to accelerate and add to his already extreme worldview. In his sprawling, 1,500 page manifesto, he touches upon numerous causes for his rage and bitterness: the disappearance of Nordic features such as white skin and blue eyes (ironic given that nearly all the people he shot were white, blue-eyed Norwegians), multiculturalism, “cultural Marxism”, the welfare state (of which he was a product), a resentment towards feminism and the expanding rights of women.
In multiple instances, he professes admiration for Al Qaeda and their tactics and strives to emulate them, despite his hatred for Islam and Muslims. Once again, the irony is astounding, given that a radical Islamic terrorist group like that can only dream of killing as many innocent white Norwegians as Breivik actually did. This peculiar similarity has been observed by many, including ex-CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman:
It would be unfair to attribute Mr. Breivik’s violence to the writers who helped shape his world view. But at the same time, he said the counterjihad writers do argue that the fundamentalist Salafi branch of Islam “is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged. Well, they and their writings are the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.”
“This rhetoric,” he added, “is not cost-free.”
It is of critical importance to remember that this man was not insane, and viewed this as a mission directly informed by his political views, which did not develop in a vacuum. Not only did they develop and amplify on the internet, but Breivik has since sought to influence others to emulate him, not just through this attack, but through whatever internet based means were available to him, including dating adverts. Chief among his influences are Peder “Fjordman” Jensen, 36, also of Norway, referenced a staggering 111 times in Breivik’s manifesto, and who Breivik had communicated with via email on multiple occasions. Although Fjordman claims to have abandoned such extremist views and “gone into hiding”, he has authored posts on extremist blogs as recently as March, 22, 2018, making the same dire, fantastical predictions of racialized civil war Breivik reiterated in his manifesto as a reason for his attacks.
To further reinforce the toxicity of Breivik’s radicalism, here are but a few his macabre legacy has “inspired”:
Ali David Sonboloy, merely 18 years old, explicitly stated he was inspired by Breivik. He stated his intentions on Steam, the most popular PC gaming platform which is rife with hateful, racist statements and comments and groups from users glamorizing mass shooters. He killed 9 people, explicitly targeting immigrants, and planned his attack for the exact date of Breivik’s original attack, July 22, 5 years later to the date. He took pride in the fact that he shared a birthday, April 20th, with that of Adolf Hitler, and shouted “Sieg Heil” at a female patient while being treated in a Munich mental health clinic. Despite being born to Iranian immigrants, he considered himself Aryan, and hated Turks and Albanians, viewing them as subhuman. A video emerged of him screaming out at witnesses: “I am German!”, keen to distinguish himself from his fellow immigrants. A copy of Breivik’s manifesto was found on his computer afterwards.
Dmitry Vinogradov, a lawyer, 30, nicknamed the “Russian Breivik,” killed 6 people to prove his masculinity and “coolness” to a woman he fancied, after his failure in bed (a common theme on this list). Donning military fatigues, similar to how Breivik disguised himself as a police officer, he stormed the headquarters of a Moscow pharmacy company and began murdering his coworkers, who he believed convinced his (now) ex-girlfriend to break up with him. On his social media, he described his political views as “ultra-conservative,” had uploaded neo-Nazi posters and posted a hateful, misanthropic screed that drew immediate comparisons to Breivik. The game Manhunt, and other violent video games, were banned in Russia following the shooting, which Dmitry enjoyed playing. Gun laws in Russia were also tightened thereafter.
This is not to mention the other attempted copycats who had their plots foiled. Mark Colborne, a 37-year old British neo-Nazi who hated blacks and Jews, and praised Himmler. Brunon Kwiecie, a 46 year old chemistry professor and self described “anti-semite” who conspired to blow up the Polish parliament and prime minister due to his belief they were being influenced by foreigners. Kristian Vikernes, 40, already a convicted killer and church arsonist in Norway, was actually sent Breivik’s manifesto by Breivik himself, and was arrested on fears of organizing and plotting a massacre in France.
And so, we ignore this at our own peril. To anticipate further crimes of this nature, a deep understanding is necessary.
In many ways, these killing are attempts by the killers to recreate the narrative of their own life. Breivik was no different in this matter. Prior to the Utoya attacks, Breivik sought out mail-order brides from Eastern Europe, preferring them to Norwegian women, who according to Breivik believed themselves to be “too equal” to be good housewives. He wore make-up, tanned, spent long amounts of time on his hair andfretted that Norway’s enlightened society had made him “feminine.” His primary income was selling fake diplomas on the internet, and even the women who’s contact info he paid for didn’t show much interest in him for long.
A detailed biography of his early life presents even more background for his views: born into a loveless, broken, single-parent home, to an overbearing and mentally unwell mother who repeatedly stated in front of others that she wished he were dead. Having only limited contact with his father, Breivik lived in a household consisting only of his mother and older sister. He grew up totally surrounded by older women, and had very little contact with men until his teenage years. Breivik’s strained relationship with his mother and indeed, women in general, is a key insight in understanding what molded his worldview.
He was image obsessed, and thus deliberately staged photographs throughout the 9 year period in which he planned for his horrible attacks, to insure he would have control over his portrayal in the media thereafter.
Breivik never served in the military and was deemed “unfit” for service, but still posed in military garb and wore fake medals .
And yet, he has won many vocal “fans” for this attack on his own country: Multiple members of the UK-based English Defence League (EDL), Italian MEP Mario Borghezio of the Northern League said some of his ideas were “excellent”, the extent of and brutality of the attacks were minimized by a member of the AfD party in Germany, Angus Thermopylae of South Carolina has had Breivik’s writings translated into 14 languages, end indeed, many of his ideas are already being flirted with by mainstream rightist organizations and outlets across the world.
Breivik also was a member of Nordic Federation/Nordiska förbundet , a neo-Nazi movement which operated within Scandinavia for many years. Although that group has since been disbanded and its leaders sentenced to jail for inciting and participating in violent crime, such groups are on the rise under various different names.
In 2001, a group of 5 neo-Nazis in Oslo known as the “Bootboys” stabbed to death 15-year-old Benjamin Hermansen, a black Norwegian, simply because of the color of his skin. This prompted protests, but deeper implications about what was festering under the surface of the image of polite, tolerant Norway were ignored. Even they were not the first of their kind of neo-Nazi murderer in Norway. Norway’s intelligent services were “blind on the right eye”, so much so that even long after Breivik’s arrest, they were still focusing their intelligence gathering on Norwegian Muslims.
Few saw such attacks in Norway coming, certainly not from one of their own citizens, but this may have been merely the tip of the iceberg:
Experts, meanwhile, say Breivik may be considered neither insane nor a lone wolf. They warn that thousands throughout Europe are ingesting the same propaganda that galvanised him.
Lowles said: “Somewhere, in a front room or bedroom, other young men are probably dreaming up fantasies about saving western civilisation from the evils of communism and Islam. We ignore what motivated Breivik at our peril.”
At any rate, it is crystal clear that ignoring such subcultures and worldviews is simply not an option — even in famously tolerant, egalitarian Norway, perspectives such as these can take hold and manifest in the worst of ways, to say nothing of other countries.
These are merely two politically motivated killers from the long list of radical right-wing murders in recent years. Moving on, I will proceed to a straight list, but Rodgers and Breivik are two who are disproportionately influential and can be considered the “patient zero” of their respective MO’s.
Alek Minassian, 25, on April 23, 2018, used a van to run down and kill 10 pedestrians walking along Toronto’s Yonge Street. Just prior to this act of vehicular manslaughter, Minassian took to Facebook to proclaim his intentions:
Facebook has confirmed to Canadian news that this is a real post from Minassian’s account. There’s also a LinkedIn account corroborating it. He explicitly cited Elliot Rodgers as an influence.
The incel movement wasted no time in celebrating this gruesome slaughter of innocent life. Not even 14 hours have passed before there was already a choir of fellow “incels” praising his actions online.
The 4chan subforum /r9k/, which fellow killer Chris Harper-Mercer also posted on, seems to bear responsibility for Minassian’s particularly acute radicalization. /pol/ is a bit more conflicted, but also has many posts expressing sympathy and agreement with his views, and straight up admitting they “idolize Breivik.”
The NYTimes offers further proof of his views from people who knew him:
“He was an odd guy, and hardly mixed with other students,” said Ari Blaff, a former high school classmate who is now a graduate student in international relations at the University of Toronto. “He had several tics and would sometimes grab the top of his shirt and spit on it, meow in the hallways and say, ‘I am afraid of girls.’ It was like a mantra.”
Josh Kirstein, who took a photography class with Mr. Minassian in high school and works in the mental health field, said Mr. Minassian had difficulty communicating and expressed fear that women could hurt him. Other classmates said he literally ran away when women approached, even female students determined to befriend him.
The victims of the van attack were predominantly female — women were deliberately targeted by Minassian in accordance with his views.
If, as all signs indicate, this is the case, we should waste no time in calling Minassian’s attack what it was: terrorism. This is a deliberate imitation of ISIS strategies, only aimed at different targets — women. It is weaponized sexism, delivered via internet radicalization. It is not a coincidence that he references Elliot Rodger.
Alexandre Bissonnette, 28, walked into the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec during evening prayers on January 29, 2017, shot and killed 6 men, and critically wounded 19 others, paralyzing one for life. In the days and weeks before the shooting, he watched several videos of other mass killings online. After the shooting, Alexandre claimed he was “not Islamophobic”, and he himself called the police and turned himself in. His views were described by those who knew him as “anti-feminist” “pro-Israel, anti-immigration. […] He was obviously pro-Trump. He had “liked” the pages of Marine LePen and Donald Trump on his Facebook page, and posted images celebrating the Crusaders. He was a shy, introverted, nerdy loner who had been bullied a lot in school who had been seduced by the French far right. A 2016 visit to Quebec by French far right leader, Marine LePen, which Bissonnette attended seemed to be a crucial turning point in his political views. Quebecois pro-refugee groups knew him as someone who would frequently troll their social media postings. This was not the first time the same Islamic Cultural Center had been targeted. His YouTube account, while entirely apolitical, is filled with commenters claiming he was set up, and that the entire attack was a false flag — somewhat complicated by the fact that he recently pled guilty to the crimes.
Samuel Lincoln Woodward, 20, stabbed gay Jewish pre-med student Blaze Bernstein, 19, more than 20 times and buried him in a shallow grave. DNA evidence tied him to the crime. Woodward was a member of Atomwaffen, which describes itself as a “Revolutionary National Socialist organization centered around political activism and the practice of an autonomous Fascist lifestyle.” Woodward joined the organization in 2016 and traveled to an Atomwaffen training camp in Texas to hone his shooting and combat skills. Members of Atomwaffen publicly celebrated this act of murder on their social media. Members of the group have been charged in five murders just over the last few months. They are unabashed neo-Nazis trying to foment a full on race war and recruit new, young people to their cause. Woodward had previously photographed himself in the midst of various violent actions and Nazi poses and posted them publicly.
Thomas Mair, 53, an unemployed gardener, on 16 June 2016, shot and stabbed Labour MP Jo Cox, 41, shouting “Britain First” as he did so. He was a decade-long supporter of the online publication the Springbok Club, which defended the apartheid regime of South Africa. Mair purchased $670 of printed material from National Alliance, one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the US, including handbooks on gun and bomb-making, and Ich Kampfe, a handbook written by Adolf Hitler that was given to all members of the Nazi Party. Mair had all the typical hallmarks of such killers: obsession with prior killers such as David Copeland who planted nail bombs across London targeting gays and minorities in 1999, he collected Nazi memorabilia and literature, newspaper cuttings from the Daily Mail about Anders Breivik. Jo Cox was targeted explicitly for her political views: . A mental examination found no evidence he was in poor mental health or unaware of the ramifications of his actions. He was sentenced to life in prison.
Luca Traini, 28, on February 3rd, 2017, went on a shooting spree targeting African migrants in Macerata, Italy. Traini shot 6 people, and later, a copy of Mein Kampf and a Celtic flag were found in his house. He wanted to, in his own words, “kill them all.” Traini had run for office for the right wing Northern League party and failed just the year prior. Messages of support and solidarity poured in for Traini from all across Italy, with some asking where they could send donations. Later, graffiti and a large banner with “ ‘Onore a Luca Traini’ (Honour to Luca Traini) were found and displayed in Rome. Some even went so far as to try to flaunt Traini as a possible Presidential candidate for his shooting spree. Italy is no stranger to fascism, and incidents like this threaten a return to full blown fascism in Italy in modern times. Revenge for a previous murder alleged to have been committed by a migrant was suggested as a motive. In 2011, Gianluca Casseri, 50, an accountant, killed two Senegalese traders and wounded three others in, Florence, in a politically and racially motivated attack. He was known to have right wing sympathies as well, and these were far from the only two such attacks in Italy in recent years. Few political parties in Italy condemned xenophobia thereafter. Forza Nuova/New Power came out fully in support of Traini, and even offered to pay his legal fees. The Northern League, which Traini once stood as a candidate for, has since gone on to do 4x as well in the recent March election as compared to the prior election in 2013.
Darren Osborne, 48, an unemployed father-of-four from Cardiff, South Wales. On 19 June 2017, Darren Osborne drove a rented van into a crowd of Muslims near a mosque in Finbury Park, in the North of London. He killed one person and injured 12. In the weeks before the attack, he repeatedly threatened to kill himself, due to feelings of “worthlessness.” Prior to the attacks, Darren consumed a huge amount of right-wing media, notably Tommy Robinson and Jayda Fransen, who both directly messaged Osborne. In particular, a BBC drama entitled Three Girls seems to have enraged Osborne. He was jailed for life.
James Jackson, 28, is perhaps the most cut and dry example of radicalization on the entire list. Jackson traveled from Baltimore to New York with an 18 inch sword with the explicit purpose of murdering the first black man he saw — and he deliberately selected Times Square as the location for this crime, to insure maximum media exposure. He expressed similar fears about white people eventually becoming a minority, saying “The white race is being eroded. … No one cares about you. The Chinese don’t care about you, the blacks don’t care about you,” When he was informed that his victim was an older man, he expressed some regret: “I didn’t know he was elderly,” He would have rather killed “a young thug” or “a successful older black man with blonds … people you see in Midtown. These younger guys that put white girls on the wrong path.” Jackson’s entire murderous mission was enacted with the sole purpose of scaring white women away from possibly dating black men. Jackson’s YouTube account sheds further light on his path to radicalization, where he subscribed to a variety of racist channels, such as the National Policy Institute, a white-supremacist organization founded by Richard Spencer. Other accounts he subscribed to consisted of nothing but video renditions of AltRight talking points and inner disputes. Jackson saw this murder as “practice” for further planned attempts to kill more black men. Jackson’s parents are “typical liberals” and have since stopped paying for their son’s legal defense.
Dylan Roof, 24, on June 17, 2015, walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina and killed 9 people. Roof specifically selected the church for its African-American churchgoers.
Roof radicalized himself online, and admits as much directly, saying “this prompted me to type the words ‘Black on White Crime’ into Google, and I was never the same since. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal, disgusting black on white murders.”
He constantly photographed himself with weaponry, pointing guns at the camera, posing with Confederate flags, Sieg heiling in front of Celtic crosses in Confederate cemeteries, and doing very little else:
The sharp increase in search results for “black on white crime”, fueled by white supremacist paranoid false narratives, led to a disproportionate representation of false, slanted info on this subject:
The simple fact is that the vast majority of white people are killed by other white people — by far. 81% or more white homicide victims were killed by a white perpetrator, in fact. The Google algorithm rewards volume, not accuracy. Like many others on this list, Roof posted prominently on Stormfront, under the name “Aryanblood1488”, 14/88 being white supremacist code for “heil Hitler:
Roof believed, like many others on this list, that the very existence of the white race was at stake, and the only thing he could do to save it was to indiscriminately murder.
“I had to do it because somebody had to,” Roof said. “Blacks are raping and killing white people on the streets every day… What I did is still minuscule to what they’re doing to white people every day.”
His dad was extremely abusive, and after his mom divorced, Dylan was left with him. His dad bought him the handgun he used.
Roof was a mere 5’9 with two prior arrests, including one for drug possession at 14. He had to repeat the 9th grade and flunked out of school in 2010.
After his arrest, Roof laughed at his family members visiting him in court, promised to embarrass the family even more, and refused to tell his sister that he loved her, indicating a certain degree of trying to lash out/get back at his family.
His website, The Last Rhodesian, now offline, reveals the extent to which white supremacism rotted his mind. He claims blacks were happier under slavery, and that blacks are “the biggest problem of America.” Also like others on this list, he wished to incite a race war with his barbarism. There have been some foiled copycat attempts, however.
Roof was infuriated by those who deviated from his shared ideology. Christian Picciolini, a former white supremacist who has since left the movement, has received mail from Roof chastising him for doing so. The mere existence of Picciolini enrages Roof.
Roof insists he is of sound mind, not crazy, very aware of what he’s done and shows no remorse whatsoever.
Some friends of his even suggest he desired black women, and perhaps hated himself for this in lieu of his white supremacist belief:
Earl P. Holt III, the President of the Council of Conservative Citizens which was a huge influence on Roof’s “research”, had donated around $65,000 USD to Republican candidates, who have since refunded it:
Earl P. Holt III’s online comments, are, naturally, deeply racist and have very little to do with any information or data on the articles.
And to be crystal clear: postings by Earl P. Holt III on his Council of Conservative Citizens site, directly urged taking a pistol into a black community in no ambiguous wording:
Roof remains completely unrepentant. He is currently in federal prison on death row.
Sean Christopher Urbanski, 22, on May 20, 2017, stabbed to death black US Army Lieutenant Richard Collins III. Urbanski was a member of a group entitled “Alt-Reich Nation” on Facebook, a virulently racist hard right group that has since been deleted. Initially, Urbanski approached Collins and shouted orders at him: “Step left, step left if you know what’s best for you,” police wrote in charging documents. Collins said “no,” police wrote. The suspect continued to approach, and stabbed him once in the chest. Urbanski has since been charged with a hate crime.
Chris Harper-Mercer, 26, on October 1, 2015, walked onto the campus of Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon and killed nine people and injured nine others. He demanded to know the religious affiliation of those he had at gunpoint, and if they answered that they were Christian, he shot them.
He posted online as “Ironcross45”, a reference to the Nazi Iron Cross military symbol. His email address, dating website profile, Photobucket, and Amazon account, where he purchased SS hats, attest to this.
He left behind a rambling manifesto where he praised Elliot Rodger, described black men as “the most vile creature on the planet”, described his fascination with other mass shooters, and lamented his status as a 26 year old with “no friends, no job, no girlfriend, a virgin.”
On his blog, he said of Vester Lee Flanagan’s shooting of his work colleagues: “I have noticed that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are. A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more your’re in the limelight”.
Jeremy Joseph Christian, 35, on May 26, 2017 fatally stabbed two people and critically injured one other in Portland, Oregon. He attended an AltRight Free Speech rally, Sieg Heiling while screaming “die Muslims” just a few months before. While carrying out this stabbing, he screamed racial epithets and hateful language. The two men he killed died trying to protect others. Despite Portland’s tolerant outwards appearance, this is not the first such racially charged white supremacist crime to have occurred there.
Lane Maurice Davis, 33, on July 14, 2017 stabbed his own father Charles “Chuck” Davis, 73 to death in their home. Lane Maurice Davis worked for notorious AltRight troll Milo Yiannopoulos, writing on the highly right-leaning GamerGate issue, which charged feminism with trying to destroy or emasculate gaming and gaming culture. On his conspiracy-theory riddled YouTube channel, “Seattle4Truth,” he subscribed to the repeatedly debunked right wing conspiracy theory Pizzagate, which asserts that leftism supports pedophilia. He also published a pro-Trump rap song to the same channel. He also wrote for TheRalphReport, another right-leaning website. The initial argument that resulted in him murdering his own father stemmed from the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, with him accusing his parents of being “leftists” and “pedophiles” after becoming incensed reading such material online.
James Alex Fields, 20, on Aug. 12, rammed his car into a group of counter-protestors at the Unite the Right AltRight/white nationalist rally he was attending in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing Heather Heyer, 32 and injuring several others. Fields’ social studies teacher from high school attested to Fields’ fascination and idolatry for for Hitler and Nazism, even from an early age. Fields’ classmates were also keenly aware of his Nazi sympathies and they lamented the school not doing more to curb his beliefs. Another classmate said Fields only went on a school trip to Germany so he could get to the “Fatherland.” Fields’ mother called 911 twice before, feeling threatened he might attack her. Fields’ father died in a car crash 5 months before he was born.
The organizers of the Unite The Right rally planned, intended and encouraged violence beforehand, including specifically driving vehicles into crowds. Fields was photographed holding a makeshift shield bearing the insignia of Vanguard America just before he murdered Heather Heyer. Vanguard America is a white nationalist organization, which has now mostly morphed into another group known as “Patriot Front.”
He was a registered Republican and shared numerous AltRight and pro-Assad memes on his Facebook:
He has since been indicted by a grand jury on 10 felony counts.
Nicholas Giampa, 17, murdered his girlfriend’s parents, Buckley Kuhn-Fricker, 43, and Scott Fricker, 48, in their home in Reston, Virginia, at 5am on December 22, 2017. Giampa killed them after they encouraged their daughter to break up with him upon discovering the extent of his neo-Nazi beliefs. Earlier that year, residents of nearby Lorton, Va. grew suspicious of Giampa when a 40 foot Swatstika was mowed into the grass of a neighborhood field — with tire marks from the mower leading directly back to Giampa’s residence. At the time, they contemplated approaching police directly about the Swatstika, but instead spoke to Giampa’s parents. Just a few days before the shooting, Buckley emailed the administrator of the school, showing concern for Giampa’s anti-semitic and Nazi beliefs. An extensive HuffingtonPost report details the extent of Giampa’s views — on a Twitter account linked to the same email as his Facebook he straight up describes himself as “a actual Nazi,” calls Hitler a “hero,” advocated using Jews for target practice and denied that gas chambers existed during the Holocaust (they did).
Giampa remains in critical condition due to shooting himself after the crime and has been charged with two counts of murder.
Zack Davies, 26, on January 14th, went to a local supermarket in North Wales and tried to decapitate dentist Dr. Sarandev Bhambra with a machete. By his own admission, Davies choose his victim simply because he “looked Asian.” Davies described Jihadi John as an “inspiration” and was later found to have associated and trained with the neo-Nazi group National Action, which endorses “white Jihad.” Davies was also a member of Ironmarch, a Russian-based group which aspires to stoke a race war. Later, copies of Mein Kampf and other such white supremacist literature were found in Davies home. Witnesses claimed he shouted “white power” as he attacked his victim.
Davies has since been jailed for life.
Jesse Torniainen, on September 10, 2016, kicked 28-year-old Jimi Joonas Karttunen in Helsinki in the chest, knocking him to the pavement, smashing his head and causing brain trauma which ultimately killed him. Additionally, he had been involved in the stabbing of an immigrant in 2008 and attacking security guards at a football game, seriously injuring them. He was a leading member of the Pohjoismainen Vastarintaliike (SVL) // Nordic Resistance Movement, which has since been banned in Finland. Torniainen was initially only sentenced to two years in prison for his crimes, but this has since been increased. The Nordic Resistance Movement is trying to appeal and overturn the ban. There have been many such instances of extremist far right violence in Finland, and recently, they are turning fatal. The same group had earlier attacked the 2010 Helsinki gay pride parade with teargas and pepper spray. The Finnish Opposition Movement was also involved in a stabbing at the Jyväskylä Library in January 2013, and a member of the group was compiling a list of Finnish Jews, presumably to target.
The founder of the group has since cut all ties and now actively speaks out against them.
The National Socialist Underground (NSU) was a far-right terror cell that, between 2000–2007 killed 10 people, carried out two bombings and robbed a series of banks throughout Germany. All of the victims other than one, a German police officer, were from an immigrant background. The group remained undiscovered for over 13 years after their crimes, largely due to the incompetence and intransigence of local police agencies. Members of the NSU were also later found to have been responsible for the murder of 9-year old Peggy Knobloch, one of Germany’s longest unsolved murder cases. The NSU created and sold Holocaust-themed Monopoly style game entitled “Pogromoly” — where the winner was whoever gassed the most Jews — to finance their terror campaign. Only one of the original NSU members ever faced trial in court — Beate Zschäpe, the “Nazi Bride” — the other two members committed suicide during a botched bank robbery. The trial for the so-called Dönermorde or “Kebab Murders” was one of the longest and most excruciating in German history.
Anton Konev, 18, on April 21, 2017, killed a firearms instructor at a local gun club, stole weapons from the range, and then stormed an FSB office, killing three at the Russian intelligence agency before being shot dead himself. Initially thought to be an ISIS attack, it was revealed that he was radicalized by a senior member of WotanJugend, a Russian neo-Nazi group.
Nearly 600 people have been killed by right-wing extremists in Russia since 2004. There are far, far too many individual cells, groups and violent incidents to count, but a few of the most notable: five members of the National Socialist Society North, mostly men in their 20s, being sentenced to life for 27 racially motivated murders. Nikita Tikhonov, 31 assassinated lawyer Stanislav Markelov, 34, and Anastasiya Baburova, 25, a trainee reporter in broad daylight— likely because Markelov’s legal career involved numerous prosecutions of neo-Nazis. Eight members of the group neo-Nazi NS/WP group committing 10 acts of racially motivated murder, including one in which they filmed themselves murdering a Ghanian citizen, and uploaded it to social media on New Year’s Day. The Ryno-Skachevsky gang, a gang led by two 17 year old students, targeted and killed 20 migrant workers throughout Moscow, and attempted to kill 17 others. Vasily Krivets, 22, another student in Moscow who, along with a fellow ultranationalist, targeted and killed 15 individuals, specifically selecting those “non-Slavic” in appearance. The murder of human rights advocate Dr. Nikolai Girenko, who helped prosecutors identify and charge several neo-Nazi groups, by a nationalist group which also murdered a 9-year old girl from Tajikstan, among others. 22 year old Sergei Kosyrev stabbing 54-year old journalist Dmitry Tsilikin to death in his St. Petersburg apartment, perhaps because he was gay. Neo-Nazi Maksim “Tesak” Martsinkevich filming himself kidnapping, torturing, humiliating and abusing gays and posting the videos on VK.com, the Russian equivalent of Facebook.
This is to say nothing of other neo-Nazi groups and crimes, which have proliferated everywhere from Mongolia to Taiwan to Japan to Iran to Slovakia and all throughout the United States. This is an imminent, pressing deeply serious issue that demands our full and immediate attention.
What can we do?
Fundamental to all of these criminals is a sense of downward economic mobility, an obsession with other mass shooters, ESPECIALLY Columbine, and ESPECIALLY Elliot Rodgers or Anders Breivik. These should be considered major red flags.
There’s other things to watch out for — social isolation, alienation from others and disillusionment with society, a sense of (white) victimhood, feelings of worthlessness, depression, failure or a lack of personal accomplishment, a lack of romantic or sexual relationships or successes, and spending a tremendous amount of time online, notably online gaming or on YouTube. Every threat must be taken seriously — far too many of the crimes on this list could have been avoided had that been the case. Copycat killers are very, very real, especially at a time when the transmission of data is nearly instant — if there’s one, expect another. Websites like Daily Stormer flatly admit that radicalization is their goal, even of children as young as 11. These things alone or even together do not automatically make for a killer, but they should be taken seriously as warning signs.
There is an ideology at work that is shared by all these men — and it and must be clearly denounced and refuted. It is not coincidence. It is not the mentally ill. This is a clear and present danger explicitly inspired by — and emulating — Jihadi terrorist groups. It cannot be fought if it cannot be correctly identified and named.
Some who have been on the frontlines of fighting hate and radicalization have many potent insights to offer.
Extreme right wing groups thrive when discourse is simplistic, inflammatory and extremely polarized. Nikos Sotirakopoulos, Greek research assistant at the University of Kent in Britain, offers a uniquely helpful insight into the rapid ascent of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party in his own country:
“The main reason [Golden Dawn grew] was they gave an easily absorbable narrative for the crisis. They said it was the ‘Jew bankers’ ripping up our country”
Such straightforward, primally appealing tribalistic narratives like this are easily absorbed by economically dispossessed groups eager for a bogeyman to blame for their lot in life — but avoiding that dichotomy completely is key to defusing the temptation they offer:
“The key,” Somers said during a presentation in Barcelona, “is inclusive policy. Create a new narrative for your society, a new story, a new identity. Fight segregation and translate it into policy addressing the vulnerable community and the [radicalized] community; they too are victims of this. We need to avoid criminalizing and categorizing an entire community.”
One of the survivors of the vicious Utoya attack in Norway, Bjørn Ihler, also has some incredible insights:
“I’ve probably met more former extremists than anyone else, and one thing they all shared was that no one outside of their group would listen to them,” he says.
“They never felt they were valued as human beings, they said no one would listen to their ideas.
“The only way to stop people from believing these ideas is to build a culture in the classroom where they can be discussed, analysed and criticised.”
He says this feeling of alienation is a “driving force” for why people turn violent. “If they cannot promote their worldview through democratic means, they do it through violence.”
“There’s always grains of humanity that is something you can build on.”
Christian Picciolini, a former neo-Nazi who now leads Life After Hate, a nonprofit that helps radicalized individuals leave extremist movements, had this to say:
I think ultimately people become extremists not necessarily because of the ideology. I think that the ideology is simply a vehicle to be violent. I believe that people become radicalized, or extremist, because they’re searching for three very fundamental human needs: identity, community and a sense of purpose.
If underneath that fundamental search is something that’s broken — I call them potholes — is there abuse or trauma or mental illness or addiction? In my case, many years ago, it was abandonment. I felt abandoned, and that led me to this community. But what happens is, because there are so many marginalized young people, so many disenfranchised young people today with not a lot to believe in, with not a lot of hope, they tend to search for very simple black-and-white answers.
Because of the Internet, we now have this propaganda machine that is flooding the Internet with conspiracy theory propaganda from the far right — disinformation — and when a young person who feels disenchanted, or disaffected, goes online, where most of them live, they’re able to find that identity online.
They’re able to find that community, and they’re able to find that purpose that’s being fed to them by savvy recruiters who understand how to target vulnerable young people. And they go for this solution because, frankly, it promises paradise. And it requires very little work except for dedicating your life to that purpose.
Daryl Davis has personally convinced 200 members of the Ku Klux Klan to give up their robes and change their ways. His secret?
To chip away at their ideology, you have to do your homework, and come armed with knowledge… because when two enemies are talking, they’re not fighting. It’s when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence. If you spend five minutes with your worst enemy — it doesn’t have to be about race, it could be about anything…you will find that you both have something in common. As you build upon those commonalities, you’re forming a relationship and as you build about that relationship, you’re forming a friendship. That’s what would happen. I didn’t convert anybody. They saw the light and converted themselves.
One of the most important things to understand here is that it is next to impossible to convince someone to completely abandon their ideology within moments of meeting them — real change requires a more substantial time and effort investment. Derek Black, the son of Don Black, who created Stormfront, the world’s largest white nationalist site, was raised from birth to be a white supremacist. But eventually, over a period of two years, some Jewish friends at school respectfully chipped away at his ideology through friendly Shabbat dinners until they were no more, genuinely befriending him in the process. If his mind can be changed, so can anyone’s.
As young women, you have an especially important role in this fight: much, if not most of this violence is being waged in your name — to “protect” you, to “impress” you, to “save” you — speak out clearly and unequivocally that “help” of this nature is the last thing you want or need. Many of the figureheads of these movements came out of the deeply sexist PUA circles, and promise their potential acolytes that joining such rebellious counter-cultural movements will make them more attractive to women — an easily debunked notion, but still one that it is important for women to speak out against.
Ultimately, knowing these names, understanding the motivations behind these horrible crimes and how they dovetail into political movements both domestically and abroad, and understanding the patterns of radicalization that are not unique to young white men but have been tailored to suit them are your best weapons in this fight. All evidence points to this being just the beginning, but nobody is born believing in this ideology — it is learned, which means it can be unlearned.
