The Toronto suspect in Monday’s deadly vehicle attack may have been a follower of a misogynist "incel" subculture, according to a now-deleted Facebook post. That would be a group of women-hating "involuntarily celibate" men, The Globe and Mail reported.
Alek Minassian, 25, has been charged with 10 counts of first degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder after a white van drove more than a mile down Yonge Street in the northern part of Toronto, hitting pedestrians along the way.
Minassian praised mass murderers in the United States on Facebook, The Globe and Mail reported, and one Facebook post suggested he was a part of a movement by men in online forums and websites frustrated by their lack of success sexually attracting women.
One of his posts resembled a military-style “reporting for duty” that praised Elliot Rodger, who killed three men and three women in the United States in 2014 and said he wanted to punish women for rejecting him.
"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 the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!" Minassian's Facebook post read, CBC News reported.
Minassian's Facebook account has since been taken down, the The Globe and Mail said.
"This is a terrible tragedy and our hearts go out to the people who have been affected," Meg Sinclair of Facebook Canada, told The Globe and Mail. "There is absolutely no place on our platform for people who commit such horrendous acts. We have found and immediately deleted the suspect's Facebook account."
Maxime Fiset, a former neo-Nazi who now works at the Montreal-based Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence, told CBC News that incel community members are active on online platforms and are associated with the alt-right.
The alt-right is an umbrella term coined by white supremacist Richard Spencer and is often used to refer to a movement that takes in elements of the far-right and white nationalism and has been associated with misogynistic and homophobic views, the CBC News stated.
"It's something that we'll take into account in this investigation," Toronto Police Detective Graham Gibson said, referring to Minassian's Facebook post before declining to speculate on a motive.
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