In this courtroom sketch (from left) Duty counsel Georgia Koulis , Alek Minassian, Justice of the Peace Stephen Waisberg and Crown prosecutor Joe Callaghan appear in court in Toronto
A chilling Facebook message posted before a van plowed onto a crowded Toronto sidewalk has raised the possibility the suspect in the attack nursed grudges against women and it is bringing back memories of a 1989 massacre of 14 women that remains one of Canada’s most traumatic acts of violence.
A crowd gathered yesterday [Macau time] in Toronto’s North York community to pay their respects to the van victims at a makeshift memorial of roses, candles and messages of condolence.
“I needed to come here to show that I’m not afraid of this city,” said Meena Chowdry, wiping away tears. “That one man’s actions cannot taint an otherwise beautiful, welcoming city.”
Earlier in the day, the 25-year-old suspect, Alek Minassian, was charged with first degree murder in the deaths of 10 pedestrians mowed down by a rented van that he sent careening along a mile of a busy walkway. Fourteen others were injured.
Toronto Police Services Det. Sgt. Graham Gibson said at a news conference that those killed and injured were “predominantly” women, though he declined to discuss a possible motive.
“All the lanes are open with this investigation,” said Police Chief Mark Saunders.
Authorities had yet to release a list of victims. Those known to have been killed include a 30-year-old woman from Toronto, Anne Marie D’Amico, who was active in volunteer work, as well as a female student at Seneca College, which Minassian attended. A Jordanian citizen and two South Koreans were also among those killed.
The gender issue arose because of what police called a “cryptic” Facebook message posted by Minassian just before the incident that suggested he was part of an online community angry over their inability to form relationships with women.
The now-deleted post saluted Elliot Rodger, a community college student who killed six people and wounded 13 in shooting and stabbing attacks near the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2014.
Calling Rodger “the Supreme Gentleman,” the Facebook post declared: “The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys!”
Rodger had used the term “incel” — for involuntarily celibate — in online posts raging at women for rejecting him romantically. Like-minded people in internet forums sometimes use “Chad” and “Stacy” as dismissive slang for men and women with more robust sex lives.
The anti-women sentiment also recalled Canada’s 1989 massacre at the Ecole Polytechnique, an engineering college in Montreal, when 25-year-old Marc Lepine entered a classroom, separated the men from the women, told the men to leave and opened fire, killing 14 women before killing himself. In a suicide note, he blamed feminists for ruining his life.
Since then, there have been sporadic mass shootings in Canada, but none with a higher death toll — reinforcing the view among many Canadians that their country is less violent than the United States. AP
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