He had a history of violence and sexual abuse of women — almost as if he grew up in a culture that revered violence and thought of non-Muslim women as “uncovered meat.” He posted admiration for al-Baghdadi and Khamenei and a call for Muslims to repeat “SubhanAllah” multiple times.
Maybe he wasn’t a jihadi and there is some mitigating explanation for all of this. When authorities refuse to discuss it and appear to dismiss it out of hand, however, it only reinforces the impression that there is some deliberate effort to cover up jihad attacks — an impression that authorities reinforce all too often.
“A portrait of violence emerges of suspect in Washington state mall killings,” by Rick Anderson, Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2016 (thanks to Darcy):
A disturbing portrait began to emerge Sunday of Arcan Cetin, the man suspected of killing five people at a Washington state mall, but authorities appeared no closer to determining the motive for the crime.
Cetin, 20, who came to the United States from Turkey as a child, was described by authorities as having called out women’s names as he allegedly killed them in a hail of bullets Friday night at the Cascade Mall in Burlington.
By the time he was found carrying a computer bag near his home in nearby Oak Harbor about 24 hours later, he was depicted by the sheriff who arrested him as “zombie-like” and docile….
As Lt. Chris Cammock of the police department in Mount Vernon, south of Burlington, said Saturday, he and a task force investigating the shooting have a lot of questions to answer.
“I don’t know what his motivations were to do this. I don’t know what his motivations were to continue [shooting]. I don’t know what his motivations were to stop,” Cammock said….
Investigators have not revealed what, if anything, Cetin — who pronounces his first name as “ar-zhan” — has told them since his arrest. But his capture and jailing were greeted with both relief and anger.
Uhlaine Finnigan, 19, a former classmate at Oak Harbor High School, remembered Cetin as someone to avoid in the school hallways. She didn’t want to comment further Sunday but gave permission to use her recollections from a Facebook post after his arrest.
“He’d grab and slap my friends and … even caressed my friends chest, along with other women,” she wrote. “Has been known to be violent towards girls too.”
Another classmate, Austin Hendrix, 19, told the Seattle Times, “He would grope women in high school and middle school.”…
According to his Facebook page, Cetin is a native of Turkey, not Russia, and goes by the nickname “the Turk.” He came to the U.S. with his parents and is a legal permanent resident, officials said.
The Associated Press quoted a neighbor, Amber Cathey, 21, describing Cetin as “really creepy, rude and obnoxious” — so much so, she said, that she complained to apartment management and kept a stun gun handy. Cathey said she blocked him on Snapchat after he sent her a photo of his crotch.
His Tumblr page, with “arcanmotherrussiavodkaandak47” as part of the Web address, includes a photo of him with an apparent assault-style weapon. He also posted, without comment, a photo of serial killer Ted Bundy at age 4, sitting next to a snowman.
Court records show Cetin has faced three domestic violence assault charges in Skagit and Island counties, involving disputes with his stepfather. There is no record of any convictions. In December, however, a judge ordered Cetin not to possess firearms. The judge also suggested imposing a no-contact order, but the stepfather objected, saying Cetin was going through “a hard time” and needed the stepfather’s help.
One post on Cetin’s Tumblr page urged readers to repeat the phrase “Subhan Allah” (“Glory to God”) 10 times “and then reblog this, do not stop reblogging it.”
Police had no comment on the suspect’s religious beliefs.