Christchurch gunman’s racist views date back to when he was 12: report

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The Christchurch gunman, a loner and self-described introvert, expressed racist views from a young age.

By the time he was 27, those beliefs had turned into extreme violent hatred that led him to carry out an attack on New Zealand’s Muslim community, a mass shooting that would be one of the worst in the world.

The upbringing and gradual radicalization of the gunman have been examined in the extensive report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry on the terrorist attack on the Christchurch mosques on March 15, 2019.

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He detailed how, with the help of the internet and the money he had inherited from his father, his long-standing racist beliefs came to light and how his meticulous behavior ensured that this did not draw the attention of law enforcement agencies.

Traumatic childhood

Growing up in the small Australian town of Grafton, the gunman’s childhood was marked by trauma.

It is said that as a child he was marked by the separation of his parents, the loss of his family home in a fire and the death of his grandfather, and became clingy, anxious and socially awkward.

During a period after the separation, the attacker lived in a violent home.

Her mother’s new partner beat her and her children until an order of violence was imposed to protect them.

His time at school was also difficult.

He had very few friends and was bullied by other students, so he spent a lot of time using the Internet on school computers. At home, she had a computer in her room and was able to access the Internet without supervision whenever she wanted. He also took an interest in video games at a young age, particularly online multiplayer role-playing games and first-person shooter games.

He began expressing racist beliefs at a young age and was treated twice by one of his high school teachers for his anti-Semitic views.

“This teacher described the individual as disinterested in class to the point of quiet arrogance, but also well-read and knowledgeable, particularly on certain topics such as World War II,” the report says.

During an interview with the Royal Commission, the gunman said he began to think politically, particularly about immigration, when he was 12 years old.

The gunman was 16 or 17 years old when his father was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, a type of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.

His father’s mental health deteriorated after his diagnosis and he died by suicide at home three years later. Australian authorities believe the gunman discovered his father’s body, “having previously agreed with his father that he would.”

The assailant was asked about this during his interview with the investigation and offered a “non-specific and not particularly convincing denial of his involvement in his father’s suicide.”

While the gunman became largely radicalized during his future travels, his traumatic upbringing was a stepping stone for what was to come.

Radicalized abroad

The gunman inherited more than half a million dollars from his father after his death and used the money to fund his extensive travel plans.

Between 2014 and 2017, the attacker visited dozens of countries, including Ukraine, Serbia and Israel.

While traveling the world, the gunman continued to use the Internet to communicate with his family and some friends. The Royal Commission “had no doubt” that he also visited right-wing sites, viewed right-wing content on YouTube, read “a lot” about immigration, far-right political theories, and Christianity and Islam, and posted right-wing messages and threatening comments on social networks.

The gunman’s fingerprint suggests that he had become more violent and radicalized in 2017. When he visited Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina earlier in the year, he contacted the Bruce Rifle Club near Dunedin and asked if they were accepting members.

That same month he posted comments on the Facebook page of an Australian far-right group and made donations to right-wing organizations.

His family told the Royal Commission that he would return from the trips “as a different person” and “the more the individual traveled, the more racist he became.”

The gunman’s mother recalled that in early 2017 she believed her son’s racism was becoming “more extreme.”

“She remembered him talking about how the Western world was coming to an end because Muslim immigrants were coming back to Europe and they would outnumber Europeans.”

The Royal Commission said the gunman’s extensive trip was the backdrop for his radicalization, not the cause: That was his consumption of far-right material while in isolation.

So when his overseas trips became less frequent and he decided to move to New Zealand, it was with the full intention of carrying out a terrorist attack.

Under the radar

The gunman was meticulous before the attack and did his best to avoid the attention of public agencies. He also tried to reduce his fingerprint so that security agencies couldn’t get a full understanding of his online activity after the attack.

According to the Royal Commission report, he often deleted data and friends from his Facebook page.

He would send planning documents to his email account, including a budget suggesting that he wanted to attack the Muslim community around the time of Eid al-Adha, but moved his plan to March because he was running out of money, but removed them all before. . the attack.

In one of the planning documents, he set out travel times and his plans for the online activity and for the March 15 attack.

He sent an SD card and a hard drive to his sister before the attack and removed another from her computer that has never been located.

The gunman also told his sister that he was concerned that the Australian Security Intelligence Organization was tracking him and asked her to change the names in the bank details to anonymize the transactions related to him.

Despite his desire to stay off the radar, the attacker made a number of mistakes in the run-up to the attack.

Using a Facebook profile under a different name, the gunman posted threatening comments about a mosque on a public page, but told the Royal Commission that he was not concerned that they would be picked up, as many similar comments could be found on the internet.

Buying four 10-liter containers from a local hardware store to make incendiary devices, he happened to run into the property manager.

The gunman told the property manager that he was “going hunting in a remote area with no gas stations and he needed to have enough fuel in reserve to make sure he could return.”

And in 2018 he accidentally shot himself and had to be treated at Dunedin Hospital, but the staff who treated him did not tell the police, as the law did not require it.

“When we spoke with him, the individual was very free to recognize what he saw as tactical errors in the execution of the terrorist attack, but he was less willing to accept that there had been flaws in his operational security,” the report says.

Where to get help

• 1737, do you need to talk? Call or text 1737 toll free to speak with a trained counselor.

• Anxiety New Zealand 0800 ANXIETY (0800 269 4389)

• Depression.org.nz 0800111757 or text 4202

• Kidsline 0800 54 37 54 for people up to 18 years old. Open 24/7.

• Life line 0800 543 354

• Mental Health Foundation 09 623 4812, click here to access your free resource and information service.

• Rural support trust 0800 787 254

• Samaritans 0800 726 666

• Suicide Crisis Helpline 050828865 (SUPPORT 0508)

• Supporting families with mental illness 0800 732 825

• thelowdown.co.nz Web chat, email chat or free text 5626

• What happens 0800 942 8787 (from 5 to 18 years old). Telephone advice available from Monday to Friday from 12:00 to 23:00 and on weekends from 15:00 to 23:00. Online chat is available from 3 pm to 10 pm every day.

• Youthline 0800 376 633, free text 234, email [email protected], or find online chat and other support options here.

• If it’s an emergency Click here to find the number for your local crisis assessment team.

• In a life-threatening situation, call 111.