A man accused of using a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto told police he belonged to an online community of sexually frustrated men who plot attacks against people who have sex.
Alek Minassian is facing 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder in connection with the attack in the Canadian city on 23 April last year.
Eight women and two men aged 22 to 94 died. His trial begins in February and he has yet to enter a plea.
Footage has emerged of his interrogation by police hours after the attack after a publication ban on the interview was lifted on Friday.
In it, the 26 – year-old identified as a member of incel – which is short for ” involuntarily celibate. “
It is an identity used by a subset of men who blame women for their inability to have sex or form relationships, and who are prone to float ideas for violent payback, according to sociologists and others who have studied the group.
“I feel like I accomplished my mission,” he said in the police interview when asked by a detective how he felt about the deaths of those who were killed.
Minassian, who said he had never had a girlfriend and was a virgin, acknowledged he used the van as a weapon and wanted to inspire more attacks.
He said he knew “several other guys over the internet who feel the same way “, adding they are” too cowardly to act on their anger “.
Minassian said he discussed his sexual frustrations on the website 4chan, which has become associated with extreme views.
He also told detectives he had been in contact with Elliot Rodger, a community college student who killed six people and wounded 13 in shooting and stabbing attacks in 2014 near the University of California, Santa Barbara, before apparently shooting himself.
Rodger had railed in a manifesto and online videos about women who shunned him and called for an incel “overthrow” of what he saw as feminist domination.
Minassian said he became “radicalized” around the time of the attacks.
He told police: “I felt it was time to take action and not just sit on the sidelines and just fester in my own sadness. “
Minassian also said that in 2013 he went to a Halloween party and was laughed at by women when he tried to socialize with them. He said he was upset the women gave affection to bigger men.
“I was angry that they would give their love and affection to obnoxious brutes,” he said.
) Minassian said he planned the Toronto attack for a month, adding: “The van was the perfect medium size to use as my weapon.
” I’m thinking that this is it, this is the day of retribution. I was driving down Yonge because I knew it would be a busy area and then as soon as I saw the pedestrians, I just decided to go for it. “
He said he would have kept going but something obscured his view.
“The only reason I stop my attack was because someone’s drink got splashed on my windshield and I was worried that I would crash,” he said.
“I wanted to do more but I’ve kind of been foiled by a lack of visibility.”
Minassian said he wished he had had intimate relationship but only once asked a girl out in 2012.
“I did ask a girl out once, but she rejected me,” he said. “I felt crushed at that point. “
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