{UAH} AND PETER SIMON OKURUT NEGLECTED ALL TEHSE FACTS FOR HE KNEW IT ALL

'Really unusual': Online vacuum for accused in mass killings puzzles experts

The “really unusual” vacuum of online information about a London man accused of killing four Muslims may have a simple reason, or a darker one, an expert on hate crime says.

Randy Richmond, Dale Carruthers

Nathaniel Veltman, 20, of London is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the largest mass killing in city history, one police allege was motivated by anti-Muslim hate. (Supplied)

The “really unusual” vacuum of online information about a London man charged with killing four members of a Muslim family is perplexing, a hate-crime expert said Wednesday, as an old friend of the accused offered new insights into his past.

Whatever the reason for the near-invisible online presence, it’s important to find it to better understand any motivations, an anti-hate activist added.

Activists and news media have unsuccessfully scoured social media sites for any trace of Nathaniel Veltman, a 20-year-old part-time factory worker who is charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder after four members of the same family were killed and one was injured while walking along Hyde Park Road Sunday evening.

London police said they believe the family was targeted because they were Muslim. It’s the largest mass killing ever in the city.

“It is really quite unusual,” Barbara Perry, executive director of the Ottawa-based Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism and a sociologist with Ontario Tech University, said Wednesday.

“It’s unusual for those high-profile shooters or murderers that we’ve seen over the past few years. Typically they do have a very active profile. We’ve seen them leave manifestos at the end, some notice about what they’ve done and why they’ve done it.”

But in some cases, those who commit violent crimes might simply be consumers of online hatred, visiting far right websites without commenting, she said.

“The most pessimistic view” is that others manage to go so deep into encrypted platforms they leave little trace, Perry said.

Elizabeth Simons, deputy director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, agreed it’s highly unusual for a 20-year-old not to have a social media presence, especially someone who plays video games, as neighbours say Veltman did.

“There could be a number of explanations as to why that is. We do know that attacks like this don’t occur in a vacuum,” Simons said in a statement.

“We hope that further information will be shared to help determine and identify his online and media consumption,” said Simons, whose non-profit organization monitors and researches hate groups.

Veltman is scheduled to make his second court appearance Thursday.

London police said a suspect in the deadly collision Sunday evening at the intersection of Hyde Park and South Carriage roads in northwest London was wearing a body-armour-style vest when he was arrested at Cherryhill Village Mall.

Salman Afzaal, 46, his wife Madiha Salman, 44, their daughter Yumna, 15, and Afzaal’s 74-year-old mother Talat Afzaal were killed in the collision. The couple’s nine-year old son, Fayez, is recovering in hospital.

Facebook has confirmed it deleted Veltman’s account Monday, the day London police announced the charges against him.

“This is a terrible tragedy and our hearts go out to the people who have been affected,” a Facebook spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “There is absolutely no place on our platform for people who (allegedly) commit such horrendous acts.”

The spokesperson didn’t say whether Veltman had previously posted any content that violated Facebook’s policies.

Although Veltman’s Facebook account was deleted Monday, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network was able to capture a cached screen grab of his profile, including a partial list of his friends, two of whom have spoken this week with The London Free Press.

Neighbours at Veltman’s downtown apartment building spoke with The Free Press, but few other details about him have been uncovered.

A friend of Veltman’s from Fanshawe College spoke Wednesday to The Free Press, shedding some new light on his past.

Like other friends, the woman said it’s difficult to reconcile the horrific allegations with the friendly and helpful architectural design student she knew beginning in 2018.

But she also said Veltman would sometimes simply disappear socially for weeks or months at a time and “isolate himself.” He also told her he “didn’t have the easiest childhood,” had struggled with drugs in high school and was estranged from his parents, the woman said.

A year ago, they reconnected and “he was just very quiet and very sad and he didn’t talk much,” she said.

Another family friend told The Free Press Veltman grew up in a family of “six or seven” siblings in Strathroy with parents who are now divorced. He has a twin sister.

There is no single profile or timeline to explain how someone might turn to terrorism, Perry said.

“That’s what makes it so difficult to identify them and prevent this kind of activity. It’s not a pattern,” she said.

Following the March 2019 attack at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 51 dead, the country’s government established a royal inquiry to determine what led to the killer’s actions, the anti-hate network’s Simons said.

That included “a full analysis of the terrorist’s online media consumption,” she said. “We need to see the same happen here.”

Perry supports the creation of a national strategy to deal with Islamophobia, but cautioned it will take much action from all levels of government and communities.

Canada needs more funding for hate-crime units, organizations that help targeted communities build resilience, education on hate and racism, programs teaching digital literacy and critical thinking of media, she said.

“There are so many strategies, we could be here all night just talking about it.”

What Canada doesn’t need are more platitudes from politicians, especially their popular refrain “hate has no place in our country,” Perry said.

“It’s such a platitude: clearly hate has a place in our country. This has happened far too often, it continues apace and we’ve done very little to counter it from a government level,” Perry said. “Perhaps this is our day of racial reckoning in Canada and hopefully we find the strength and political will to finally move forward.”

The killings have sparked an outpouring of grief across the city and nationwide. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the killings “a terrorist attack.”

Stories from horrified witnesses to the killings in northwest London continued to surface Wednesday.

Nurse practitioner Miranda Campbell and her family were driving home Sunday night when they pulled up to a line of cars stopped at a green light.

She saw an older woman on the ground and noticed the woman’s traditional Muslim clothing. “I just covered her up, I wanted to give her dignity,” Campbell said.

“I saw the tire tracks that came up on the sidewalk, and up onto the grass, and then back out on the street again.”

When emergency crews first arrived, Campbell got back into her car and the family went home, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the boy.

“I was praying all night that  . . . that little, little boy is not going to be left alone,” Campbell said. “I just wanted to give him a hug.”

She also kept thinking about the older woman she tried to help.

“When I saw her traditional clothing, I thought, ‘I really hope this is not race-related,’ ” said Campbell, who is Indigenous and her husband Jamaican. “What the hell kind of world are we living in?”

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