The British baby Alfie Evans passed away 2:30 AM 4/28/18
British time. You can mark his death and remember it as an atrocity to human
sensibilities. You’ll have to remember it because I can almost guarantee it
that media outlets on both the Left and Right will phase this out from
reporting significance. As far as the media is concerned, the dramatic story of
little Alfie has come to an end.
BUT the lessons that must be remembered as the moral of
the story is that a government in charge of socialized medicine will decide
your fate despite the compassion of affluent people, influential people and
compassionate foreign governments. When the government has absolute control of
life and death, your unalienable rights granted by the Creator are sure to be
violated to the point of murder.
Essentially little Alfie was murdered by the British
government that had allowed the construct of a socialized medical DEATH PANEL
decided Alfie was beyond saving to the point that panel refused to allow
compassion from outside the DEATH PANEL’s authority to have a shot. TWO DAYS
AFTER life support was forced to end, little Alfie died probably suffering
without life sustaining help.
LIVERPOOL, England, April 28, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Alfie Evans died today in a Liverpool
children’s hospital at 2:30 a.m. local time.
Despite last-minute interventions, including the Italian
government’s gift of citizenship to the infant, the child died four days after
doctors at the Alder Hey NHS (National Health Service) Foundation ignored his
parents’ wishes and removed him from a ventilator.
His mother Kate James informed well-wishers of the boy’s
death by posting a message on the “Alfie’s Army Official” Facebook page.
“Our baby boy grew his wings tonight at 2:30 am,” the young
mother wrote. “We are heart broken. Thank you everyone for all your support.”
“My gladiator lay down his shield and gained his wings at
02:30... absolutely heartbroken... I LOVE YOU MY GUY,” Thomas Evans said.
Alfie James Evans was a baptized Catholic, like his father.
His mother belongs to the Reformed tradition. If a baptized child before
the age of reason dies, he goes straight to heaven, according to Catholic
teaching.
“Baptized and under ‘the age of reason’, he does not need
our prayers,” tweeted Dr. Joseph Shaw, a Catholic ethicist at Oxford
University. “His family, and everyone else involved, do.”
In a statement issued on its website, Alder Hey Children’s
Hospital in Liverpool, England, said: “We wish to express our heartfelt
sympathy and condolences to Alfie’s family at this extremely distressing time.
All of us feel deeply for Alfie, Kate, Tom and his whole family and our
thoughts are with them. This has been a devastating journey for them and we
would ask that their privacy and the privacy of staff at Alder Hey is
respected.”
On Monday, Alfie’s father Thomas Evans posted a video on
Facebook saying that when the hospital staff removed Alfie’s ventilator at 9:17
p.m., he was able to breathe on his own. The toddler lived for more than four
days without the machine.
In the video, Evans said his son’s fingers were beginning to
turn blue and Alfie was losing color.
“Alfie’s sustained his life since 17 minutes past nine,”
Thomas Evans said. “He’s needing oxygen but the hospital won’t give him any.”
In the video, he said his son’s fingers were beginning to
turn blue and Alfie was losing color. However, after the parents gave the child
mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the child began to breathe on his own. Later
Alfie was given oxygen.
Alfie’s aunt Sarah Evans posted a message on the “Alfie’s
Army Official” Facebook page soon before he died asking supporters for prayers.
“Our warrior is needing prayers and 100 deep breathes
sending to Alfie,” she wrote. “Inhale and exhale then do another 100 please.
Please pray for our warrior.”
It is a tragic ending to a sad story that began shortly
after Alfie was born to his then-teenage parents. In July 2016, he was referred
to hospital for a “divergent squint” (one eye turning outwards). By the time he
was four months old, his mother noticed other troubling signs. Alfie’s smile
had become less frequent, he was sleeping too much, and he showed little
interest in interactions and playing with toys. By six months, he showed signs
of significant developmental delay. An MRI showed that his brain was not
developing properly.
Alfie was admitted to Alder Hey hospital’s emergency
department on December 14, 2016 after an episode of coughing, high temperature
and, according to a subsequent court decision, “rhythmic jerking of all four
limbs and his jaw.” The boy was diagnosed with acute viral bronchiolitisand
a possible prolonged febrile convulsion. He began to jerk again, and these
seizures worsened the next day. Alfie was then treated with Midazolam and then,
on the 16th, with Vigabatin instead. A doctor described him as “comatose” from
this time forward. On December 19, it was discovered that Alfie had a slow
breathing rate and apnea (pauses in breathing). Alfie went into cardiac arrest
and was given an oxygen mask.
He was admitted to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, and
was later diagnosed with pneumonia. In January 2017, Alfie’s parents were
warned he might die. Nevertheless the boy recovered from pneumonia, albeit
without any improvement to the health of his brain. Doctors from Alder Hey and
additional doctors consulted by Alfie’s parents agreed that the child had a
fatal neurodegenerative disorder. It remained undiagnosed to the end.
When Alfie’s condition declined, the hospital began to
pressure his parents to remove him from life support.
They refused to give permission. Undeterred, the hospital
went to court to argue that ending treatment was in the child’s best interests.
On February 20, 2018, Mr. Justice Heydon of the UK Supreme Court ruled
that it was in Alfie’s “best interests” to discontinue treatment, to be removed
from his life support, and to receive palliative care at Alder Hey.
Alfie’s parents appealed the decision before the UK Court of
Appeal and the UK Supreme Court before pleading their case before the European
Court of Human Rights this March. The ECHR ruled that their appeal to take
their son elsewhere in the European Union was “inadmissible” and that the
child’s rights under the European Convention on Human Rights were not being
violated. The court also refused to block Heydon’s decision that Alfie’s
doctors could remove the boy’s life support.
Alder Hey then applied to the High Court to set a date for
his treatment to end. Alfie’s parents responded with more appeals, all of which
were denied.
Pope Francis repeatedly spoke out in support of Alfie’s
parents, and an Italian priest, Fr. Gabriele Brusco, offered spiritual
help to the Evans family until he was recalled to London.
I just read an interesting article in in the Conservative
Tribune about John Brennan the former CIA Director under the Obama
Administration. I found it interesting because of the veiled threats Brennan
has been directing toward President Trump’s tweets.
Today’s Gateway Pundit covered
Trump’s tweet relating to the House Intelligence Committee Report issue via the
GOP majority, exonerating the President from any collusion with the Russians in
the 2016 election:
Just Out: House Intelligence
Committee Report released. “No evidence” that the Trump Campaign “colluded,
coordinated or conspired with Russia.” Clinton Campaign paid for Opposition
Research obtained from Russia- Wow! A total Witch Hunt! MUST END NOW!
To which Brennan tweeted back at 10:29 AM (4/27/18):
A highly partisan,
incomplete, and deeply flawed report by a broken House Committee means nothing.
The Special Counsel’s work is being carried out by professional
investigators—not political staffers. SC’s findings will be comprehensive &
authoritative. Stay tuned, Mr. Trump….
The veiled threat: “Stay tuned, Mr. Trump”.
The Gateway Pundit explains why
Brennan’s veiled threat is pathetic:
The “professional investigators”
Brennan is referring to on Mueller’s team is a who’s who of corrupt and
conflicted Obama and Hillary cronies. As we reported over
the past year Mueller’s team consists of the following:
·Rush Atkinson, an
attorney on detail from the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section at the Department
of Justice
— Donated $200
to Clinton in 2016
·Andrew Goldstein, a
public corruption prosecutor on detail from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the
Southern District of New York
—Worked
under Trump-basher Preet Bharara in the liberal New York southern
district.
·Adam Jed, an
appellate attorney on detail from DOJ’s Civil Division. — Defended
Obamacare at the DOJ.
·James Quarles, a
former partner at WilmerHale and a former assistant special prosecutor for the
Watergate Special Prosecution Force. –Former assistant
special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force.
·Jeannie Rhee, a
former partner at WilmerHale who has served in the Office of Legal Counsel at
DOJ and as an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. —
Rhee is a Clinton
Foundation Lawyer and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the
Office of Legal Counsel under Barack Obama.
·Brandon Van Grack,
an attorney on detail from the Justice Department’s National Security Division. — Led
a grand jury inquiry in Northern Virginia scrutinizing former
Trump associate Michael Flynn’s foreign lobbying.
·Aaron
Zebley, a former partner at WilmerHale who has previously
served with Mueller at the FBI and has served as an assistant U.S. attorney in
the Eastern District of Virginia. — Worked
with Robert Mueller at the WilmerHale firm.
·Zainab Ahmad, a top
national security prosecutor on detail from U.S. Attorney’s Office in the
Eastern District of New York.
·Michael Dreeben, an
appellate attorney on detail from the Office of the Solicitor General,
described by former colleagues as one of the brightest criminal law experts of
the past two generations.
Peter Strzok and his mistress Lisa
Page were thrown off of the investigation after Trump-hating text messages
between the two FBI agents were discovered by the IG.
The above people are the crack Special Prosecution team Brennan
tweeted about who are Crooked Hillary affiliates. Apparently, John Brennan’s CIA
was an also a Crooked Hillary campaign affiliate. Indeed, it is becoming
apparent that Brennan may have been a go-between Crooked Hillary and Russians
perhaps facilitated by the British Intelligence agency known as Government
Communications Headquarters or simply the acronym GCHQ.
Judge Andrew Napolitano had made the connection between GCHQ
spying on Donald Trump and was nearly fired for it at Fox News.
I have suspicion that is pure conjecture mind you, that the power of John
Brennan’s leadership of the CIA had something to do with threatening Napolitano
over the GCHQ spying on Trump.
The Conservative Tribune has a story on the corrupt
John Brennan.
[Blog Editor: CT has
an about minute-and-half video introducing article. I can’t figure out how to
embed it. And Soooo, I found a Youtube video that is essentially an electronic
voice reading this article outloud.}
This is definitely
not the collusion case liberals are trying to make, but it’s one Americans
should be thinking about.
When the lefty
British newspaper The Guardian published an article earlier this month touting
the role of British intelligence agencies in fomenting suspicions that the
Donald Trump campaign had been aided by Russia, The Guardian editors were no
doubt hoping to feed Americans doubts about the duly elected president.
But a writer for the
conservative magazine American Spectator had an entirely
different take on it — and argued it points the finger back at the kind of “Deep State” obstruction to the Trump
administration that Trump supporters have been warning about since before
Trump’s inauguration.
In an April 19
piece, Spectator writer George Neumayr wrote that The Guardian had
unintentionally provided proof that former CIA Director John Brennan was using
any weapon that came to hand to try to ensure the election of Hillary Clinton
in 2016 — and keep his own job.
“John Brennan’s CIA
operated like a branch office of the Hillary campaign, leaking out mentions of
this bogus investigation to the press in the hopes of inflicting maximum
political damage on Trump,” Neumayr wrote.
According to The Guardian report from April 13, the
British Government Communications Headquarters (an outfit better known as
“GCHQ,” devoted to gathering intelligence through electronic signals
monitoring) learned in 2015 of “‘interactions’ between figures connected to
Trump and known or suspected Russian agents.”
GCHQ gathered more
information over the next six months with the help of other countries — Western
nations as well as the former Soviet republic of Estonia.
That information was
passed to Brennan — then still heading the CIA — in the summer of 2016. And,
according to Neumayr, Brennan wasted no time passing it on to lawmakers from
both parties, probably in hopes of it leaking to the media.
“Any other CIA
director would have disregarded such a flaky tip, recognizing that Estonia was
eager to see Trump lose (its officials had bought into Hillary’s propaganda
that Trump was going to pull out of NATO and leave Baltic countries exposed to
Putin),” Neumayr wrote. “But Brennan opportunistically seized on it, as he
later that summer seized on the half-baked intelligence of British spy agencies
(also full of officials who wanted to see Trump lose).”
Basically, according
to Neumayr, Brennan was desperate to keep his position as head of the CIA and
knew a Trump victory would mean the end of the Obama-Clinton era, and a new
beginning for U.S. intelligence agencies.
Now, anyone who’s
followed the news since 2016 knows full well that Brennan has made no secret of his loathing for
President Trump — and that Trump publicly despises the former CIA director.
Brennan’s infamous
Twitter posting regarding the richly deserved firing of former FBI Deputy
Director Andrew McCabe is notorious for just how personal the attack on Trump
was:
When the full extent of your
venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will
take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.
You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you willnot destroy America...America will triumph over you. https://t.co/uKppoDbduj
But what Brennan
apparently didn’t count on was that time would prove how right that firing was.
The damning Justice Department Inspector General’s report proved that.
(Ironically, the report was released on the same day that The Guardian
published its paen to the work of British intelligence in undermining Trump.)
To Neumayr, The
Guardian piece is just one more brick in the wall of proof that Brennan was the
one who colluded with foreign powers to influence the presidential campaign of
2016. And he did it with the help of the anti-Trump American media.
“Were the media not
so completely in the tank for Obama and Hillary, all of this political mischief
would make for a compelling 2016 version of All the President’s Men,” Neumayr
wrote near the end of his piece. “Instead, the public gets a steady stream of
Orwellian propaganda about the sudden propriety of political espionage.”
Anyone who’s followed
the news since 2016 knows that’s true too, and the sentence gives a nice touch
of credibility to the rest.
Neumayr’s piece
isn’t the collusion case liberals are hoping to make. But it’s definitely one
Americans who care about the country should be thinking very hard about.
__________________________
Methinks Brennan Up to His
Neck in Treason Collusion
Conservative
Tribune is a platform for conservative voices talking about political and
cultural news that matters.
It
is an unapologetic purveyor of truth and clearly promotes the values of family,
personal responsibility, limited government, and individual freedom.
Conservative
Tribune is one of the largest websites in the United States and is a top 100
site according to Alexa.com.
Since
joining Liftable Media in 2015 the site has doubled its reader base, with
around 25 million unique American visitors every month.
Conservative
Tribune consistently outperforms other digital publishers on Facebook.
Alek Minassian of the Toronto Massacre infamy, had his day
in a Canadian Court where the interested found out he is being charged with 10
counts of murder and 13 counts of attempted murder. As far as I know Minassian
has not confessed to the reason for the attack. This post is based on the
speculative motive for the massacre. That being Minassian was a part of the
subculture group of mostly men who believe they are a part of the Incel
Movement. Incel = involuntarily celibate.
These dudes feel that beautiful women will only form
relationships with hunky men leaving out in the cold plain nerd-like socially
maladjusted men. You’d almost feel sorry for these lost souls except they have
evolved from a self-pitying lot to a hate group that despises primarily
gorgeous gals. Sam Louie MA, LMHC
writing for Psychology Today demonstrates the sympathetic element:
They’re teased for being virgins
(“virgin-shaming”). This is a new societal shift that has radically
changed within the past two decades. It wasn’t long ago when you may have
been shamed for being sexual outside of marriage, now you’re shamed if you haven’t had sex before marriage. … In
short, the worldview is if you haven’t had sex by 30, you must be not only
sexually inadequate, defective, and inept but also socially.
They’re also teased or bullied for
being socially awkward or being different. This oftentimes can be due to
physical disabilities, physical characteristics (weight, height, facial
features, acne, etc.), and a lack of understanding social cues (not knowing when to start or
stop talking, not knowing how much to share and possibly over-sharing in
certain situations to name a few).
Combine this with their social isolation along with hobbies and interests that
lend themselves to public mockery … Incels (short for involuntary celibate)
have a tendency to gravitate towards activities that are less socially
threatening thus online role-playing games and activities where your profile
can be anonymous such as World of Warcraft are very popular within this
demographic. Other interests include collecting comic books, interest in
Pokemon, and Japanese Manga. And for some, they’ve also have had the
additional burden of being ostracized for their ethnic background.
If you Google the Incel Movement, you will discover many
Leftist MSM and extreme Leftist sources that are more than happy to describe the
movement’s characteristics. The reason being Incels are not only social awkward
misogynists, but also these same guys tend to be extremely Right Wing often
described as the Alt-Right (which the Left loves to group with Neo-Nazis, Skin
Heads, KKK, White Nationalists and so on). Source – Heavy.com.
Heavy.com found a Youtube video that profiles the typical
Incel:
Elliot Rodger, accused of killing
six people and injuring 13 others in a rampage in which he also died, published
a 140-page, biographical manifesto. In it, he chronicles the evolution of his
own hate and despair. WSJ's Jason Bellini reports.
Thanks to Left-leaning Google I found some unpleasant info
on the Incel Movement and its early development. I’m going to cross post Flare.com
thoughts. I know nothing about Flare.com, but its home
page seems to emphasize the entertainment industry. Then I am going to cross post
the National Post’s rather lengthy profile of Alek Minassian.
A post about an “Incel Rebellion” appeared on suspect Alek
Minassian’s Facebook page moments before the Toronto attack. But what does the
term “incel” even mean—and what, if anything, did it have to do with his
motivations?
As details of the van attack that claimed 10 lives and
injured 15 in Toronto earlier this week continued to unfold, the term “incel”
started appearing in headlines.
The term is Internet slang and shorthand for “involuntarily
celibate,” which refers to a person (usually a man) who is not having sex or
who is not in a romantic relationship because women have rejected him. It’s
been co-opted by the “manosphere,” an online community that harbours a deep
hatred and resentment of women, as an ideology that justifies hostility towards
the opposite sex.
At a news conference
Tuesday, Toronto Police Det-Sgt. Graham Gibson said Alek Minassian
has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of
attempted murder. Gibson also said police were aware of and are
investigating a “cryptic” Facebook post that referred to “incels” and was
allegedly shared on the 25-year-old suspect’s account just before the killings.
(Questions remain as to whether or not Minassian wrote the post himself.)
Despite the fact that most of the 10 victims in the attack
were women, police said there is no evidence so far that Minassian
was targeting women in particular. However, the investigation will
consider whether or not the attack was motivated by misogyny.
Here’s what you need to know:
Where did the term “incel” come from to begin with?
This term now associated with misogyny was actually coined by a Toronto
woman who craved a label for lacking sexual and romantic
experience as she figured out her sexuality in university. The then-Carleton
University student named Alana (she’s now in her 40s) created a website—Alana’s
Involuntary Celibacy Project—which she hoped would be an inclusive space where
women and men could share their experiences of being unwillingly alone. But the
site quickly became dominated by men complaining about women being
unwilling to sleep with them. She eventually abandoned the page, turned the URL
over to a stranger and never followed up. “It feels like being the scientist
who figured out nuclear fission and then discovers it’s being used as a weapon
for war,” she told the Globe
and Mail this week. “It’s not a happy feeling.”
Where did the movement go from there?
A lot of the men drawn to the incel world came from the pick-up artist community, which purports to teach
men how to get women to date them. But according to the New
York Times, incels are more extreme than so-called pick-up artists,
believing the pick-up artists to be too “humanizing” of women. The most extreme
incels have advocated for violence against women, including rape. They are also
different from men’s rights activists, according to Arshy Mann,
a DailyXtra writer who has been reporting on the Toronto “manosphere” and
tweeted about the community on Tuesday.
Who are Stacy and Chad?
Incels have a code, referring to women as “Stacys” and
sexually active men as “Chads.” They also deride sexually active people as
“normies,” and seek to dehumanize them. Incel members have spread these
ideas through Reddit and a site called 4chan—which is notorious for encouraging
threatening behaviour such as doxxing (i.e., hacking and publishing personal
information) women online.
What does this have to do with the Toronto attack?
It all comes back to the Facebook post Toronto police
acknowledged in their press conference Tuesday. Posted on Minassian’s
legitimate account allegedly minutes before the attacks was a message: “The
Incel Rebellion has already begun!” The post read: “We will overthrow all the
Chads and Stacys! All hail Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”
Who is Elliot Rodger?
In May 2014, 22-year-old Rodger killed six people and
injured 14 others near the University of California in the Santa Barbara
community of Isla Vista before killing himself in his car. Before heading out
on his killing spree, Rodger uploaded a video to YouTube titled “Elliot
Rodger’s Retribution,” in which he detailed the future attack and said he
wanted to punish women for rejecting him, and slay sexually active men out of
envy. Rodger has since become a hero in the incel community.
Why are there still questions about the Facebook post?
While Facebook confirmed the
post came from an account registered to Minassian and the police acknowledged
they are looking into it, it’s not 100 percent clear that Minassian wrote the
post himself—it could be a hack or a hoax (online hoaxes have become common in
the wake of mass killings, and the Toronto attack did come with the spread
of misinformation and fake
news online). Some incels online have celebrated the
movement’s association with the killings. “I really want it to be true
that the guy was an incel lmao,” the Toronto Star reported one
commenter posting on the Incel.me forum. But the forum’s administrator this
week said that, to their knowledge, Minassian had never posted on the site, nor
did the community know him.
If Minassian was in fact influenced by the incel movement,
it would strengthen the link between mass murder and hatred
and violence toward women that has garnered greater attention
in recent years.
++++++++
Toronto van attack suspect Alek
Minassian’s interest in ‘incel’ movement the latest sign of troubled life
The story of Minassian’s ‘sad and confusing’ life
comes fragmented from a cluster of people who knew him, but none who appear to
have known him well
TORONTO — The distressing scope of criminal allegations
against Alek Minassian were revealed in a packed Toronto courtroom — 10 counts
of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder — as glimpses of the
man and a possible motive emerged after a rental van mowed through pedestrians
along Toronto’s Yonge Street.
Just “minutes before” the van started its awful rampage
along the sidewalks of one of Canada’s best known streets, deliberately
striking pedestrians, Minassian posted a “cryptic message” on Facebook, said
Toronto police Det.-Sgt. Graham Gibson.
The message says: “Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry
00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please. C23249161. The Incel Rebellion has
already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail Supreme
Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”
Decoding the post suggests a spark for the deadly trek may
have been frustration over an inability to attract female companionship. The
majority of the victims struck by the van were women, adding to the potential
importance of the post.
Toronto police are investigating whether Minassian’s mental
health or an interest in the incel movement are related to the van attack.
At 25, Minassian, who lived with his parents and his brother
in a detached two-storey home in suburban Richmond Hill, just north of Toronto,
is variously described as a failed solider who dropped out of basic training, a
socially awkward student in a special needs class in high school where he was
known for acting like a cat, a long-standing college student, a computer whiz
and app developer, video game enthusiast and a self-declared “incel.”
Harjit Sajjan is defending the
militarys selection process after it was revealed that the Toronto van attack
suspect was briefly a Forces member. The defence minister said Alek Minassian
served for two months. Video provided by The Canadian Press...
It is his apparent embrace of the incel movement that helps
decipher his odd Facebook post, which Facebook has confirmed as a legitimate
post from Minassian’s account that has since been taken down by the company.
An “incel” is a portmanteau of “involuntary celibate” and
came into wide recognition in 2014 after Elliot Rodger, 22, killed six and
injured 14 in Isla Vista, California, before killing himself. In a manifesto,
he said he needed to punish women for rejecting him and sexually active men for
their success where he failed.
Within the incel subculture, which typically veers towards
deep misogyny, “Chads” refer to the sexually successful men and “Stacys” to
unattainable women.
Alek
Minassian, a 25-year-old
Richmond Hill, Ont., man is shown in this image from his LinkedIn page. A man
accused of driving a van into pedestrians along a stretch of a busy Toronto
street has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder. Alek Minassian,
of Richmond Hill, Ont., is also facing 13 counts of attempted murder. Handout
via CP
As news of Minassian’s connection spread, some
self-professed incels embraced it as a call to arms.
Some members of an incel-dedicated forum branded him “Saint
Alek” and “St. Minassian.” Some suggested other ways to continue the attacks so
the world of the sexually active would fear them.
“It is a good time to be an incel. Our brothers are
launching their counter-attack, getting their revenge. Thank you,” one post
reads. “They should be scared, this is what happens when you deny so many men
love and affection for their entire lives,” said another.
“Well, he certainly got us noticed,” one member wrote. “It
will be interesting to read about Alek’s story as more details about his life
unfold. I’d love to know what exactly made him think he was an incel.”
A police officer walks past
a van
used in a deadly attack on pedestrians in Toronto on April 23, 2018. Craig
Robertson/Postmedia Network
That story may one day become known, but for now,
Minassian’s story comes fragmented from a cluster of people who knew him, but
none who appear to have known him well.
Despite the violent language of some incels online, those
who knew Minassian personally did not pin him as a violent character. Oddball,
challenged, awkward, weird, infantilized, but not violent.
When Minassian was a student at Thornlea Secondary School
in nearby Thornhill, Ont., he stood out for his unorthodox behaviour.
“I had classes with him. He was mentally unstable back then.
He was known to meow like a cat and try to bite people; this is one sad and
confusing story,” Alexander Alexandrovitch said of his former classmate in a
Facebook post.
Minassian was “never intentionally violent” in school, he
added.
Reza Fakhteh said he overlapped with Minassian for two years
at Thornlea. He described Minassian as a special education student who rarely
socialized and had no obvious friends.
“I never heard him speak beyond meowing at people,” Fakhteh
wrote in a Facebook message. “His movements were erratic and just strange
overall. He acted like a cat in every way.”
Fakhteh said he was shocked to hear that Minassian was named
as a suspect in this kind of attack.
“The guy I remember from high school definitely wouldn’t be
driving,” he said.
A man
believed to be the father of Alek Minassian is escorted by Toronto
Police from the 1000 Finch Avenue West Court Tuesday April 23, after the first
court appearance of Minassian, who has been charged with murder and attempted
murder in the Yonge and Finch van attack yesterday. Peter J
Thompson/National Post
Ari Blaff, another former classmate said he was “an odd
guy.”
“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.” While Minassian did not express strong ideological views or
harass women, he was isolated and others privately made fun of him, Blaff said.
While in high school, he was an avid videogamer. A defunct
Steam account, a video game software platform, that appears to be Minassian’s
says he is better at shooting games than strategy games. It says he loves the
Halo series — a franchise of science fiction-based first-person shooter games —
and adds the gamer names of three players who he says are his “real life
friends.”
Provincial records show the house, now guarded by police,
belongs to Vahe and Sona Minassian. They bought the property in 1998 for
$330,000.
In a story published in the Richmond Hill Liberal in 2009, a
woman named Sona Minassian praised a local program for special needs children.
The story said her son, who isn’t named, lived “with a form of autism known as
Asperger’s syndrome.” He used the program, called Helpmate, to earn experience
in an office setting.
In 2011, after high school graduation, Minassian enrolled at
Seneca College in Toronto. His computer skills were put to use.
He worked as a paid research assistant, roughly four years
ago, on a joint project with the college and an external business partner to
develop an application to deal with data produced by health and wellness
devices similar to Fitbits.
Aman believed to be the father of Alek
Minassianis escorted by Toronto Police from the 1000 Finch
Avenue West Court Tuesday April 23, after the first court appearance of
Minassian, who has been charged with murder and attempted murder in the Yonge
and Finch van attack yesterday. Peter J Thompson for the National Post
A staff member at Seneca who had a few encounters with
Minassian several years ago said he seemed to struggle with social interaction.
“He could have sort of normal conversation, but you could
tell it wasn’t his strength,” said the staff member, who did not wish to be
named. “It’s completely surreal to realize you know someone who (allegedly)
killed 10 people.”
Seneca President David Agnew acknowledged his school’s
connection Minassian in an email to students and staff Tuesday afternoon,
obtained by the National Post.
“The reports associating the driver with Seneca are
extremely troubling,” Agnew wrote. “Yet it is vital that we do not let this
terrible act undermine our determination to be the peaceful, tolerant and
inclusive society that is admired around the globe. We must grieve, and we must
heal, but we must also resolve to carry on.”
One of the victims was a student at Seneca. “Our thoughts
are with all those affected, including the family and friends of one of our
students who died as a result of the tragic incident. Along with the rest of
the city, and world, we are extremely troubled by yesterday’s events,” a
statement for the college says.
Minassian’s LinkedIn page lists him as enrolled at Seneca
from 2011 to 2018. Asked whether seven years was a peculiar length of study,
Seneca spokeswoman Kayla Lewis said she couldn’t confirm any student’s
enrolment due to privacy concerns, but did offer that “there’s no
one-size-fits-all with students and their educational journeys.”
Minassian also appears to have been an aspiring software
developer. Someone with that name registered an online Toronto parking app on
Google Play.
A police
officer adjusts a tarp covering a body on the sidewalk along Yonge
Street near Finch Avenue after a man drove a rental truck down the sidewalk and
hit and killed multiple pedestrians in Toronto, Ontario, April 23, 2018. Tyler
Anderson/NATIONAL POST
Recently, Minassian joined the Canadian Armed Forces. A
Department of National Defence spokesperson said he joined the army on Aug. 23,
2017, started his basic training at the military facility at
Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., that September and left the military on Oct.
25.
He had not progressed to weapons training by the time he was
released.
“He did not complete his recruit training and requested to
be voluntarily released from the CAF after 16 days of recruit training,” a DND
spokesperson said.
His brief stint in the military also may shed light on his
cryptic Facebook post. He identified himself as “Private (Recruit) Minassian
Infantry 00010” — that would have been his rank as a newly recruited soldier
and 00010 is the military’s designation for an infantryman.
The military’s job description for a 00010 Infantryman
states: “Must close with and destroy the enemy. They come into direct contact
with the enemy and hand-to-hand combat is likely.”
Neighbours said they did not know the family well but often
saw them while out and about.
Elaha Jamal, who lives nearby, said it was as if the parents
had to supervise Minassian and his brother constantly, and would not let them
roam free, sometimes even holding his brother by the shirt at the scruff of the
neck.
“They were not OK,” she said. “They were an older couple but
they took care of these boys like they were babies.”
— With files from Richard Warnica, Joseph Brean and David
Pugliese
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Alek Minassian is the Toronto Massacre perpetrator of the
April 23 crime that killed 10 and harmed at least 13 others when he ran a
rented van through a crowd of people.
Many Conservatives and Counterjihad pundits speculated
Minassian’s motive looked awfully like Islamic Terrorism because the act itself
had all the fingerprints of past Islamic attacks against non-Muslims globally.
BUT it appears Minassian is of an Armenian descent and
Armenians in their own republic are like 96% (or more) Christian. Also, a
perusal of Minassian’s history indicates a bit of mental illness connected to
autism or Asperger’s disease which witnesses would tell you they noticed odd
behavior from childhood, secondary school and in time at a college and even a
short stint in the Canadian army. (A good source on this break down is the National Post which I will cross post later)
Minassian’s murder motive may have been related to a
movement he joined that congregates a group of dissatisfied men who can’t
satisfy their lust with women. Those dissatisfied men call themselves a part of
the “Incel” Movement or Rebellion – Incel as in “Involuntary Celibacy”.The Incel topic is something I’ll address in
a later post.
Due the immense similarity to Islamic Terrorism it is worth
cross posting some insights by Paul Sutliff about the Islamic Terrorist tactic
of motor vehicle mass murder. A tactic that Minassian may have caused some
Islamic jealousy and a probable uptick perpetrated by Muslim terrorists.
This article comes from a paper I wrote as part of my
studies at Henley-Putnam University. Because of today's attack in Toronto,
Canada, I am publishing parts of the paper here in hopes law enforcement and others
will make use of it.
1. Islamic Speeches
that can be deemed contributory towards an attack
MEMRI.org posted a video and transcript 6473 of a February
2, 2018 sermon given by Imam Mohamed Moussa gave a sermon at the North Hudson
Islamic Center in New Jersey that called on Islamic teachers to be mindful of
what they say in sermons and schools that could be deemed incitement to
violence[1].
According to his biography on the Graduate Theological Foundation Mohamad
Moussa is the President of the Tri-State Imams Council, and is the Secretary
General of Manara Institute. The importance of this call by Dr. Mohamad Moussa,
is that it is a public recognition that a problem exists in mosques across the
United States of Imams using rhetoric that can be deemed as inciting to
violence. Dr. Mohamad Moussa is not alone in his recognition of this. MEMRI
published a video and transcript in 2015 of Imam Tareq Yousef Al-Masri who
addressed the most recent terror attack in Paris as he spoke in the Brooklyn
Oulel-Albab Mosque on January 9th of 2015. In this sermon
Yousef states:
Let us admit, without lying to
ourselves, that we, the Muslims, are time bombs. When I say “we, the Muslims,”
I do not mean every single Muslim, but Muslims of the religious sector are time
bombs. When a sinner repents, the first thing he does is make a bomb. He blows
it up and kills people. We must admit this. We cannot become immune if we do
not admit this.[2]
While Yousef was not inciting violence he was recognizing
that it does exist in mosques around the world including in the USA. Further on
in the sermon, Yousef recognized who he believed were the scholars behind the
violent rhetoric being spouted in mosques. This was an attempt to place a
finger of blame against certain Islamic scholars while recognizing that a
problem exists that needs to be addressed.
2. Terrorist
Propaganda of Vehicle Attacks
Dr. Ahmet S. Yayla (2017) wrote of the Islamic State’s “Lone
Wolf’s Handbook” and its possibility for cultivating terrorist actions within
the USA. Dr. Yayla shared that the fourth chapter of this handbook was entitled
“The Ultimate Human Lawn Mower.” Yayla then reminded the reader that ISIS had
released a music video on the use of vehicles to kill in January of 2016. Yayla
noted that this chapter advised the following:
a. To
get a large 4X4 truck and to weld knife-like metal blades on bumpers and around
headlights to increase the causalities.
b. Choose
the most crowded places and drive over people as fast as possible to exact the
most damage.
c. Drivers
are not to stop after the first hit and to keep driving over as many victims as
possible.
d. Choose
the routes appropriately to ensure that there would be many other victims after
the initial hit.
e. These
kinds of attacks should be considered as suicide missions.
f. Driver
assassins are advised to have weapons if possible and fight back until the very
end.
Of special note here is the recommendation to acquire a
larger vehicle to inflict maximum damage. Notable here is that this would
likely require actors to rent vehicles. In Western society, a truck with knives
protruding would likely be a target of law enforcement before any damage could
be inflicted, this may account for a lack of reports of such vehicles in terror
attacks.
a.Historical
Usage of Vehicle Attacks
When I originally was working on this article as a paper for
Henley-Putnam University, an attack occurred in Germany. O'Donoghue (2018,
April 07) wrote in the Daily Star that in Münster a vehicle attack was carried
out resulting in the immediate death of three persons and the injuries of at
least 30 others. O’Donoghue notes with as little information that she has
at present, that the attack seemed to have similarities with an attack in
Berlin in December of 2016 in which 12 people were killed and 48 others were
injured. Traynor and Hickson (2016) described this as the attack on the Berlin
Christmas Market. This attack utilized a stolen lorry. A lorry being a
commercial type truck used to transport goods.
Helsel (2016, August 4) wrote of a vehicle attack
in France on Bastille Day, July 14. The attack claimed the lives of 85 people.
The terrorist was killed. In this incident investigations revealed what that
the terrorist selected his route than did what was called test runs in
preparation.
Prokupecz, Levenson, and Gingras, B. (2017, November 06) wrote
of a truck attack in New York City on October 31, 2017, which claimed the lives
of 6 people with 11 being injured before the terrorist was shot but not killed.
The truck was rented and a note was found near the truck giving ISIS credit for
the attack.
Counter-Extremism Project (2018, March 16) recognized
that there has been a series of vehicular terrorist related attacks documenting
36 cases since 2006, “collectively resulting in the deaths of at least 196
people and the injury of at least 1,050 others”[4].
Add in the statistics for this week and the number dead exceeds 200 while the
number injured rises close to 1,100.
Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), documents individual terror
acts. Noting the country of origin of the actors which never appears to be from
within the country where the attack takes place. CEP notes that in some cases
such as the attack at the Glasgow Airport on June 30, 2007 that vehicular mass
was not enough and actors placed propane canisters for an intended maximum
effect. This action has been seen multiple times, some of them in failed
attempts, some of them seen in accidental explosions such as are described
by Birnbaum, Booth, and Branigin (2017, August 17) after the Barcelona
truck attack in June 2017.
The FBI saw truck attacks becoming a serious concern by
2010 and published “Use of Vehicle Ramming Tactics” (2010, December 13). Of
special note are the indicators of a possible terror actor provided in this
release. The FBI indicators are tempered with the very real possibility that “a
ramming attack can be conducted with little to no warning”[5].
However, they indicators of a possible actor are only present when one or
multiple indicators are given. Among the indicators shown are:
·“Unusual modifications to
commercial motor vehicles, heavy equipment, passenger cars, and sports utility
vehicles (SUVs), such as homemade attempts to reinforce the front of the
vehicle with metal plates.
·The purchase, rental, or
theft of large or heavy-duty vehicles or equipment, such as SUVs, trucks, or
commercial motor vehicles, if accompanied by typical indicators such as
nervousness during the purchase, paying in cash, or lack of familiarity with
the vehicle’s operations.
·Commercial motor vehicles
or heavy equipment being operated erratically, at unusual times, or in unusual
locations, particularly in heavy pedestrian areas.
·Attempts to infiltrate
closed areas where traffic usually moves, but where crowds are gathered, such
as for street festivals or farmers’ markets.
·A vehicle operator’s
apparent unfamiliarity with commercial motor vehicle or heavy equipment
operation (unable to back up; trouble with shifting; poor lane tracking;
unfamiliarity with basic vehicle mechanics such as air brake operations, slack
adjusters, fifth wheel operations, Jake brakes, engine type, or location of
fire extinguishers and other emergency equipment)”.[6]
Of interest is the fourth indicator which speaks of
observations of a vehicle in operation at unusual locations particularly heavy pedestrian
zones. This behavior has been discovered after reviewing truck terror attacks
that were committed. Celona, Fenton and Fears (2017, November 01)
revealed that in the case of the New York City truck attack on October
31, 2017, security camera coverage revealed what could have been a test run and
may have been multiple test runs.
3. Why are Vehicle Attacks
happening more often?
Vehicle attacks are more likely to occur because:
·No affiliation with a
terror group is required.
·No specialized training is
needed.
·Planning can be brief.
·Trucks and Vans are easy to
rent or steal.
·Little to no financial
investment required.
·Propaganda from the Islamic
State and Al Qaeda encourage such acts.
·No collaboration or
consulting is required to achieve the terror attack.
·Almost impossible for law
enforcement to detect and prevent.
·Death while committing the
act requires no jail time.
While it is stated that it is almost impossible to detect,
humans are communicative by nature. They write notes to themselves, talk to
others and share what is on their mind. It is still possible that somehow,
something could be known about a possible vehicle attack. Counterterrorism
experts have a near impossible task to prevent all such acts.
BA Religion and Philosophy
from Roberts Wesleyan College, MSED from Nazareth College of Rochester,
currently a post-graduate student at Henley-Putnam University.
If you want a copy of my
book, contact me on LinkedIn or here and I will send you one for $15 plus
shipping.
