Officials explain the disturbing writings of the archer of the Minneapolis Church
Authorities say the Minneapolis Church shooters wanted infamousness and left behind a “sneaky” book.
The familiar story appeared on social media shortly after the filming of the Minneapolis Catholic School on August 27th.
This happens every time there is a shooting in the US. Commentators and politicians with large social media make conspiracy theories that the attacker was trans and that his claims were quickly exposed.
However, this time the argument was correct. The shooter who killed two children and injured 17 more were actually transgender. Cue your anger. Right-wing commentators, lawmakers and influencers seized two years ago stories of America witnessing the “fad” of violence from the trans community.
That’s not true.
Americans who identify as transgender will attack and kill people at an unbalanced rate. And there is no evidence that gender identity had an impact on Robin Westman’s decision to shoot children at Catholic schools, according to some experts on extremism and mass shooting interviews by USA Today. Rather, the evidence left by attackers shows deep interest in mass shooters and mass shootings, suggesting involvement in internet subcultures that have become obsessed with these attacks and become known as “nihilistic violent extremism.”
It is essentially murdered for murder. The quest for fame and infamy within groups on the internet has characterized some of the recent deadly school shootings, stated Michael Jensen, research director at the National Consortium for Research on Terrorism and Responding to Terrorism.
“What’s perpetuating the cycle is that this ecosystem is online and wants individuals to gain fame for emulating past attackers and do so,” said Jensen, who maintains an in-depth database of incidents of large-scale violence in America. “In their minds, bringing them just one thing is doing more importantly – it does a huge harm that drives their names to the top of the list. This is about individuals seeking notoriety and recognition from a particular community.”
There is no epidemic of trans violence
The allegations that trans people are disproportionately responsible for massive American violence arise every few months.
That was never true, Jensen said.
“I know I don’t recognize any evidence in support of the allegations that trans people are disproportionately responsible for large-scale violent events in the United States, such as school shootings,” Jensen said. “In fact, the data suggests the exact opposite.”
Jensen’s study has identified more than 1,000 mass casualties parcels since its inception in 2023 that perpetrators had explicitly intended to kill or hurt as many people as possible.
And there is a lot of evidence to suggest that Westman was influenced by another community in the case of the Minneapolis shooting.
The latest example of nihilistic violent extremism
Two videos posted by Westman on YouTube suggest that the attackers were involved in an online subculture that respects a large number of shooters, said Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst at Southern Poverty Law Center. The Westman’s writings, phrases and symbolisms depicted by the archer on the weapons used in the attacks, as well as the clear obsession with past shooting attacks, Gais said.
“It showed a mishmash that idolizes other mass shooters,” Gais said. “To me, this feels like an example of nihilistic violent extremism.”
The term “nihilistic violent extremism” was mentioned by three other experts on mass violence who spoke to Jensen and USA Today. It describes the extreme online subculture where participants are absorbed into mass shootings and obsessed with mass shootings and massive shooters. That subculture is sometimes referred to as the “true crime community.”
Again, this world is nothing new. Over the years, online bulletin board communities like 8kun (formerly 8chan) have celebrated massive shootings and respected murderers.
Westman’s video shows weapons scrawled in the names of at least three other mass shooters. They also provide other clues that Minneapolis attackers were involved in this subculture, including the use of certain memes, phrases and anti-Semitic terms.
What they are not showing is certain political ideologies, said Alejandra Carabaro, a clinical instructor at Harvard Law School’s Cyber Law Clinic, who carefully examined videos of Minneapolis shooters.
“Of the pages and pages and pages in this manifest, they are all inconsistent and self-contradictory,” Carabalo said. “The way these people find meaning in life is to commit these atrocities and do whatever they can to talk about them.”
In a violent and hateful world
What is noteworthy about the gender identity of Minneapolis shooters is the fact that shooters generally seem to have chosen to interact with online communities that generally deny and make the LGBTQ+ community evil, specifically transgender people.
In that respect, along with the apparent obsession with other mass shootings by Minneapolis shooters, Carabaro said this week’s attacks mirror a January shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee. In that case, a 17-year-old black student injured two people and killed another student and himself. The attacker’s writings and social media posts show that he was obsessed with mass shooters and expressed his white supremacist beliefs.
These two shootings show that young people can be highly poisoned by the worship of large scale shooters, and are willing to associate the same ethnic or gender identity groups to which they belong, with groups they openly dislike, Carabaro said. It will make them feel more self-loathing and confused, she said.
“It’s hard to explain to people that these people don’t actually believe anything,” Carabaro said. “It’s hard to explain this kind of level of black Pirnihilism to anyone, because it basically means you don’t believe anything. You believe everything is pointless.”
At a press conference on the day of the attack, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey urged the public not to use shootings “to exacerbate our trans community.”
The continuous and sincere tale of the trans community disproportionately violent and mentally unstable appears to have steamed since this week’s shooting.
And that backlash has sparked concern among transgender Americans.
“As the investigation into yesterday’s shootings unfolds, we ask the public and the media to remember that we should not use one-person actions to target or condemn the entire community,” said Ash Lazaro Oh, a spokesman for advocates of trans equality. “Trans and non-binary people in particular are far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.”
