People attend a vigil for the victims of the recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, ... [+]
Topline: A Twitter account which is believed to have belonged to the accused Dayton, Ohio, gunman Connor Betts has been unearthed, revealing the 24-year-old appeared to like posts about the El Paso shooting hours before his rampage and was a self-described leftist who praised Satan.
- Twitter handle @iamthespookster displays a number of selfies resembling photos of Betts, accompanied with hashtags such as #Selfie4Satan and #hailsatan, according to a number of publications, which accessed his Twitter account before it was suspended by the social network.
- Tweets liked by the account hours before the killings show he was likely keeping abreast of the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday, in which a 21-year-old gunman killed 22 people at a Walmart store.
- Posts also reveal that Betts said he would “happily” vote for Senator Elizabeth Warren and that he targeted right-wing beliefs, at one point tweeting “kill every fascist” in response to a Buzzfeed story about the Charlottesville white supremacist rally. His Twitter bio read: he/him / anime fan / metalhead / leftist / I’m going to hell and I’m not coming back.” The account included selfies of Betts.
- A motive for the killings remains unclear, according to police.
- Meanwhile, Betts’ ex girlfriend, Caitlyn “Adelia” Johnson, told The Blade that a series of red flags prompted her to break up with him, including a fascination he had with shooting sprees. High school classmates say Betts was suspended after drawing up a “hit list” and a “rape list,” AP reported.
Key background: Betts opened fire in a popular nightlife hub in Dayton on Sunday, killing 9 people—including his 22-year-old sister Megan—and injuring a further 27. He was shot by police within a minute of the deadly attack.
The killings came hours after another gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, carried out a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday, an attack that authorities are treating as domestic terrorism. Minutes before the killing, he had posted a hate-filled, anti-immigration manifesto on extremist message board 8chan. A number of the El Paso victims were Mexican, leading to calls from Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for greater protections for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the United States.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has continued to face criticism of his response to the latest mass shootings, and for previous comments on migrants and migration that were branded as racist by Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker.
On Monday, former President Barack Obama made a thinly-veiled comment on Trump as he called on Americans to reject words from leaders that fuelled violence or hatred.
