What we know about Alek Minassian, alleged driver in deadly Toronto van attack
Police have identified the suspect in a deadly van attack in Toronto as Alek Minassian, a 25-year-old man from Richmond Hill, Ont., a suburb north of the city.
Ten people were killed and 15 injured on Monday afternoon after a rented white Ryder van jumped a curb and plowed into pedestrians along a stretch of Toronto's busy Yonge Street.
A profile on social networking site LinkedIn identifies Minassian as a student at Seneca College in North York, the northern Toronto neighbourhood where the attack took place.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale told reporters that while the day's events were "horrendous," they do not appear to represent a larger threat to national security.At a news conference Monday night, Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders declined to provide a motive, saying officials were still investigating. But he said the driver's actions "definitely looked deliberate."
Yet one possible explanation has emerged online that suggests Minassian was angry over being rebuffed by women.
An apparent Facebook post by a man with the same name and photo as Minassian's LinkedIn profile refers to the "Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger," a 22-year-old responsible for a deadly rampage in Isla Vista, Calif., that left six people dead and a dozen more injured.
In a video posted ahead of that 2014 attack, Rodger raged about a number of women turning down his advances, rendering him an "incel," or involuntarily celibate. Rodger referred to the men who always seemed to win with women as "Chads" and the women who turned men down as "Stacys."
The apparent posting by Minassian says the "incel rebellion has already begun. We will overthrow all the Chads and the Stacys."
CBC News has not been able to independently verify the post as having been written by Minassian.
Cellphone video posted to social media on Monday afternoon shows a man stepping out of a white van, stopped on a sidewalk with its front crumpled, and into the line of fire a police officer who has his weapon drawn. He can be heard yelling "Kill me" and gesturing at the office to shoot him.
Saunders also said Monday night that no gun was found on the driver at the time of the arrest and that Minassian was not previously known to Toronto police.
There's another story about the search for a motive here .
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I'm afraid that until we address the willingness for people to do these kinds of devastating acts, regardless of the method, we are doomed to seeing more of these things. Once upon a time we believed in the sanctity of life. We seem to have forgotten this, not just in the U.S. but in the modern world also.
It's looking like this just another attack by a Muslim.
Can you find within this report from the AP where it says this was a "Muslim Attack", I can't seem to find it.
In fact it says the Toronto authority's don't believe it was a terrorist attack at all.
I'd have to disagree, Greg. I live pretty close to Ontario and listen to Canadian Radio all day. No one is saying anything about his religion, more that he is a loser that couldn't find a woman.
Reading about this, Police in Toronto are interviewing him to try and figure out a motive. He didn't yell Allah Akhbar or anythign along those lines-he challenged police to shoot and kill him, which I'm glad they didn't do.
I think it is like you said Spike, a loser who couldn't find a woman. Maybe if he moved out of his mothers basement he would have had a chance, who knows.
Well, if it quacks like a duck and all that, but MO is very suspicious, and you know how reluctant the Canadians are to tell the truth about such things.
Canadian Government Officials? Yeah, but these things tend to leak out pretty quickly, outside of the 'offically approved' story. And I've heard nothing......
Then I suppose you think the shooter at that black church in South Carolina was a Muslim too?
Not to be funny about these situations, but we are in this "I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too" (sick) Phase of non-military humanity.