The 25-year-old accused of plowing a rental van into a group of pedestrians in Toronto, Canada, apparently praised a mass killer before the alleged attack. Alek Minassian posted a comment about Elliot Rodger, who went on a shooting spree in 2014.
Peter Rodger, a British filmmaker who helped produce The Hunger Games, is the father of Elliot Rodger, then 22, who was the Isla Vista, California, gunman who killed six people in May 2014 for "depriving [him] of sex." In a post prior to the alleged van attack Monday, Minassian wrote about "involuntary celibacy," a term used by right-wing 4chan users and Elliot Rodger to describe their difficulty in meeting and interacting with women.
In a Facebook post tied to Minassian, he wrote, "Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please," the original Facebook post reads. "C23249161. The Incel Rebellion has already begun!.. All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!" 4chan is an anonymous website often used to incite visitors into conducting online action.
"Part of the reason I kept so quiet is that it continued to be so devastating to our family and to Elliot's victims," Peter Rodger said in an interview with the New York Daily News. "This kind of copycat behavior is very sad. I don't know what to do to try to stop this from happening again. It would be nice to find a way to stop this kind of behavior from continuing."
Authorities in Canada charged Minassian, 25, with 10 counts of first-degree murder after police said he used a rented van to plow through a crowded Yonge Street sidewalk, killing several pedestrians.
Minassian allegedly accelerated forward in his rented Ryder van Monday and intentionally ran down pedestrians along the sidewalk of a bustling city thoroughfare in Toronto.
