Van strikes multiple pedestrians in Toronto (9 confirmed fatalities, 16 injured)

[Scottish⑦Canuck]

8 hours ago, canuktravella said:

 we know why it happened its called  an ideology  of extremist islam  that people flock to through propaganda and social  media.

It appears the perpetrator wasn't even Muslim, so that kind of destroys that argument. "Argument" is being generous by the way. Jägermeister is correct. There isn't enough information to establish his motive yet.

 

There was a similar attack a couple of weeks ago where my brother lives in Germany. It happened, people immediately pointed the finger at a certain religion, forcing armed guards to be placed around refugee camps in the area in fear of retaliation. It later emerged that the attacker was a German named Jens, a man with a history of drug addiction who had previously stated that he wanted to commit suicide in a spectacular way.

 

Wait for the facts and you won't look like a fool.

[riffraff]

8 hours ago, Sean Monahan said:

Other than raccoons. They can go to hell. 

 

 

[Mackcanuck]

[Tortorella's Rant]

2 hours ago, The_Aviator said:

Act of Terror but not Terrorism?

Depends who you ask. Words are supposed to have a precise meaning, not to be applied whenever in any context one sees fit. Terrorism is an example of that. But people slather everything as terrorism nowadays that the word is almost meaningless

[Toews]

 

 

[riffraff]

51 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

Depends who you ask. Words are supposed to have a precise meaning, not to be applied whenever in any context one sees fit. Terrorism is an example of that. But people slather everything as terrorism nowadays that the word is almost meaningless

Gvt and media will come up with a new word for some here to worry about.

[Warhippy]

12 hours ago, taxi said:

Give it a rest. The mosque shooting and the black church shooting were both labeled terrorism. 

 

You're obviously just pushing this point, because you don't want people to call Islamic militants terrorists.

 

For someone who's first complaint in this thread was about others exploiting these tragedies for their own politics, you seem to do that very same thing incessantly.

I'll give it a rest when people like...well

 

When people stop claiming acts like these are not acts of terrorism but others are based on a religious following or personal bias.

 

The world is full of people who do exactly that and one of the worst crimes a person can commit is to stand by and do nothing in the face of ignorance.

 

You yourself have made those arguments so let's ask you straight up.

 

Is this an act of terrorism?

[Warhippy]

More on the shooter. 

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-van-attack-driver-profile-alek-minassian-1.4632435

 

Alek Minassian has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted murder in Monday's van attack on a busy stretch along Yonge Street. 

He made a court appearance Tuesday in North York, a north Toronto neighbourhood where the attack took place.

• 'Nobody's seen anything like this': 10 dead, 15 injured in north Toronto van ramming attack

• 'I saw people go flying': Witnesses describe Toronto van attack

Here's what we know about the 25-year-old from Richmond Hill, Ont.: 

He has an online presence

A profile on social networking site LinkedIn identifies Minassian as attending Seneca College in suburban North York from 2011-2018. 

 

Police are seen near a damaged van believed to be the vehicle that crashed into a number of pedestrians on busy Yonge Street in the north of the city/ (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/Canadian Press)

Speculation surfaced Monday night around a Facebook post associated with his name.

Facebook told CBC News that the post from an Alek Minassian that refers to "The Incel Rebellion" is real, and was posted publicly on his profile before Facebook shut it down.

• Deadly van 'attack' not part of organized terror plot, says Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale

The post also mentioned the "Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger." Rodger was the 22-year-old California man responsible for a deadly rampage in Isla Vista, Calif., that left six people dead and a dozen people wounded.

In a video posted ahead of that 2014 attack, Rodger raged about a number of women turning down his advances, rendering men like him "incels," a term used by some groups to mean "involuntarily celibate."

Facebook said: "This is a terrible tragedy and our hearts go out to the people who have been affected. There is absolutely no place on our platform for people who commit such horrendous acts."

The social networking site said it located his account after the incident and immediately deleted it.

Facebook said it uses a combination of technology and reports from its members to remove content that violates its community standards.

'He wasn't overly social'

Ari Bluff told CBC News that he went to Thornlea Secondary School with Minassian in Thornhill, north of Toronto. The two had a computer science class together in Grade 10 and both graduated in 2011, he said.

"I'm not sure if he had any very, very close friends, at least publicly," Bluff said. "I never saw him with a group of friends, generally. But whenever we would see him in the hallways, we'd always speak to him or say hi to him or whatnot."

 

Minassian is shown in a 2011 yearbook photo from Thornlea Secondary School in Thornhill north of Toronto.(Ari Bluff)

Bluff said Minassian didn't seem to have a core group of friends and remembers  him being mostly "sort of in the background" rather than at the centre of a social group.

"I remember seeing him probably just walking down the halls, usually by himself, or in the cafeteria by himself," he said. "My memory is not perfect, but certainly, it would not be, I don't think, a misstatement to say that he wasn't overly social.

Bystander video shows police confrontation

 

Cellphone video posted to social media on Monday afternoon seemed to show the moments police apprehended the driver of the van on a side street at the southern end of the roughly 2 km stretch of Yonge St. the van had careened down.

The video shows a man stepping out of a white van with a damaged front end that is stopped on the sidewalk. He steps into the line of fire a police officer who has his weapon drawn and can be heard yelling, "Kill me" and gesturing at the officer to shoot him.

 

The driver was apprehended about 25 minutes after the van first began driving southbound down Yonge Street, the police chief said. The vehicle was at times travelling along the sidewalk and at other times against traffic in the northbound lanes of the busy street, a major artery in Toronto.

 

A coroner waits to remove a dead body from the sidewalk at the scene of the fatal van attack Monday. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/Canadian Press)

Saunders said there is a "tremendous amount" of work underway by investigators to process the scene, which he described as "very large" with a multitude of witnesses present at the time of the attack. He also said Toronto police are working with their federal and provincial counterparts as part of the investigation.  

[JM_]

27 minutes ago, Toews said:

 

 

 

I like that the CBC is trying to determine whats fake news in all of this. 

 

[NucksPatsFan]

13 hours ago, aGENT said:

Is there difference? 

To the media, and incoherent sheep who take the media's word as truth, it does. And that impacts the rest of us. 

[JM_]

22 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

Is this an act of terrorism?

Of course it is. We're down to figuring out the "type" now. This appears so far to be in the ideological category vs. religious. Either way its another lone loser self radicalizing over something that he thinks has wronged him. Not sure why it needs to be an argument. 

[mightycpc]

20 hours ago, taxi said:

Video of the cop taking him down: 

 

Apparently, it was not a gun in his hand but a cell phone....All I can say is that is incredible police work. In that kind of situation, a lot of people would have just pulled the trigger. 

 

 

 

It was very professional police work if the cop knew the killer had only a cell phone. It was incompetent police work if he was unsure. The officer endangered himself and the public.

[Warhippy]

18 minutes ago, Jimmy McGill said:

Of course it is. We're down to figuring out the "type" now. This appears so far to be in the ideological category vs. religious. Either way its another lone loser self radicalizing over something that he thinks has wronged him. Not sure why it needs to be an argument. 

It's not an argument

 

It is an act of terrorism period.

 

But the person I was responding to has argued against them being acts before based on.  "reasons"

 

Just want them to say what they're thinking

[taxi]

4 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

It's not an argument

 

It is an act of terrorism period.

 

But the person I was responding to has argued against them being acts before based on.  "reasons"

 

Just want them to say what they're thinking

Uggh...we know nothing about this guy's motivations yet. It's impossible to define a mass murder as terror or not, unless you know the motives. PERIOD...does adding period mean I'm right?

[riffraff]

23 minutes ago, Jimmy McGill said:

Of course it is. We're down to figuring out the "type" now. This appears so far to be in the ideological category vs. religious. Either way its another lone loser self radicalizing over something that he thinks has wronged him. Not sure why it needs to be an argument. 

Unrequited love terrorism.

 

 

[Warhippy]

11 minutes ago, taxi said:

Uggh...we know nothing about this guy's motivations yet. It's impossible to define a mass murder as terror or not, unless you know the motives. PERIOD...does adding period mean I'm right?

And this is where we differ.

 

Because it is an act of terrorism  based on the events and actions not some outdated definition in a dictionary

[JM_]

12 minutes ago, riffraff said:

Unrequited love terrorism.

 

 

yah thats a new one. Whats next ffs? 

[taxi]

19 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

And this is where we differ.

 

Because it is an act of terrorism  based on the events and actions not some outdated definition in a dictionary

It's not outdated at all. The motivations behind these attacks are very important to how they get dealt with. Terrorism involve political causes and organizations that need to be dealt with. While, for example, a mass killing resulting from a psychotic break needs to be dealt with in an entirely different manner. 

[riffraff]

5 minutes ago, taxi said:

It's not outdated at all. The motivations behind these attacks are very important to how they get dealt with. Terrorism involve political causes and organizations that need to be dealt with. While, for example, a mass killing resulting from a psychotic break needs to be dealt with in an entirely different manner. 

Exactly.

[Canada Hockey Place]

The "terrorism" or not debate is American brand race division. Let's not do that here. 

 

"Terrorism" is reserved for Air India, attacking abortion clinics, bombing pipelines, etc... 

 

It's not based on the result but the motive. 

 

Mass murder is based on result not the motive.  

 

I believe in Canada we call this mass murder by a sick individual. Because the motive is so asinine.