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Toronto van attacker: Known to police or not known to police?

Apr 24, 2018 12:00 pm By Robert Spencer

If what is reported in this story is accurate, it is likely that this was not a jihad attack. But the odd discrepancy about whether or not he was known to police is useful to keep in mind when actual jihad attacks are reported. There is so much false information and outright disinformation in the news today, it is sometimes virtually impossible to know for sure what is happening.

In this case, “the suspect was previously known to law enforcement in Toronto, CNN reported. However, Toronto police said during a press conference that Minassian was not previously known to them. They said there was nothing in their files connected to Minassian….Bill Bratton, a former New York City police commissioner, told MSNBC that his sources said the driver was known to police. However, Toronto police disputed this in a press conference, saying they had no record of him.”

So this mentally ill person was known to police elsewhere? What for? Yet he was not known in the city where he attacked and near where he lived? That’s odd, since Canadian police actually have a large and growing database of people who have been charged with crimes in the U.S.; it was used falsely against me when I was detained for three hours in the Toronto airport a few years ago. So if Minassian committed a crime or was suspected of doing so in Canada or the U.S., Toronto police should have known that.

And later in this story: “ISIS channels have not promoted the attack or taken credit for it.” Why would anyone expect them to do so, if Minassian is not a Muslim and was just acting out on his mental illness? The Islamic State as a rule does not take credit for attacks in which it had no involvement. It claimed credit for the Las Vegas massacre, claiming that the perpetrator was a convert to Islam, but that cannot be used as evidence that it claims credit for attacks in which it had no involvement, as there are still more unanswered questions than answered ones regarding that attack.

The point of this post is not to say that Minassian is a jihadi. At this point, it does not look as if he is. The point of this post is that it is increasingly difficult to trust law enforcement and the media, as their explanations of events often leave more questions than answers — particularly when it comes to jihad attacks.

“Alek Minassian: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know,” by Stephanie Dube Dwilson, Heavy.com, April 24, 2018:

Alek Minassian, 25, has been identified as the person arrested on suspicion of driving a white Ryder van into a crowd of pedestrians in Toronto, killing multiple people. Witnesses said the driver was traveling fast when he jumped a curb and hit “everything in his path.” When police arrested him after he fled the scene, he approached them with what appeared to be a gun in his hand. The motive in the crash is not yet known, but early reports indicate the driver hit the pedestrians deliberately. People who know Minassian said he was socially awkward, but never strongly associated with any ideology or religioun [sic]….

Alek Minassian is the suspect who was arrested in connection with the horrific crash that killed 10 people, law enforcement officials have said. He is 25 years old. The suspect was previously known to law enforcement in Toronto, CNN reported. However, Toronto police said during a press conference that Minassian was not previously known to them. They said there was nothing in their files connected to Minassian….

Jonathan Dienst of NBC News reported that Minassian had allegedly researched and chatted online about the Isla Vista killings in California in 2014….

 At this time, officials have not determined a motive for the horrific crash. However, officials currently think that mental illness — not terror connections — may have played a role. U.S. law enforcement officials told CBS News that the incident appeared to be a deliberate act.

There is some dispute on whether Minassian was known to law enforcement officials. Bill Bratton, a former New York City police commissioner, told MSNBC that his sources said the driver was known to police. However, Toronto police disputed this in a press conference, saying they had no record of him. Toronto police spokeswoman Meaghan Gray said, “At this point it’s too early to tell what if any motive there was.”

Jonathan Dienst from NBC News reported that three officials were saying the leading theory for today’s horrific crash was mental illness, not terror….

Although early reports indicated that the horrific crash might be terror related, government officials have said that Minassian is not associated with any organized terror group, and the suspect does not represent a larger threat to national security.

During a press conference on Monday night, officials said: “There would appear to be no national security connection to this particular incident. The events that happened on the streets behind us are horrendous, but they do not appear to be connected in any way to national security based on the information that is available at this time.”

Bill Bratton, a former New York City police commissioner, had told MSNBC that his sources said the driver was known to police and the horrific crash was being considered a terrorist attack. But other sources are now saying the suspect was not associated with terror groups. ISIS channels have not promoted the attack or taken credit for it….

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Filed Under: Canada Tagged With: Alek Minassian, Bill Bratton, Toronto


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Comments

  1. Linda says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 12:11 pm

    Worse yet, since it seems so blatantly obvious that he committed the crime, when it comes time for a trial, if he just pleads guilty to save the families of the victims a court case, like Alexandre Bissonnette did, we may never know the whole story because there will be no trial for it to come out in.

  2. Linnte says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 12:25 pm

    Well….is he a Muslim or not? That would be the determining factor here.

    • JawsV says

      Apr 24, 2018 at 2:32 pm

      Yes, is he a Muslim or not?

      • Lebel says

        Apr 24, 2018 at 2:54 pm

        He’s a confirmed Muslim but the Canada media is hiding it as usual.

        The same thing happened in Germany. Can you guys get in touch with that Romanian source who had inside info on the previous attacks? It seems he was able to get past the censors.

        https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/04/germany-munster-vehicular-attacker-was-muslim-romanian-tv-reports-that-he-was-german-citizen-of-kurdish-origin

        Again, no one has provided evidence that he is NOT a Muslim and so therefore we have an obvious cover-up.

        • Sons of Liberty says

          Apr 25, 2018 at 2:52 pm

          Lebel ,…that is the problem ! There now is a conscious effort by governments and the fake news media to deliberately cover up anything that would reflect a negative view of Muslims or Islam . This is a cowardly way of giving into organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR or the Muslim Students Association ! This in turn accomplishes taqiyya and puts all UNBELIEVERS in peril !

        • Carol (the 1st) says

          Apr 26, 2018 at 2:01 am

          A former classmate believes the focus should be on mental illness. He describes how Minassian was in a “special needs class” and how he’d do odd things like meow and hug himself in the hall plus lick his own hands (and yet this fellow went on to be a research assistant to two professors!):

          https://globalnews.ca/news/4168222/he-wasnt-terrorist-toronto-attack/

        • gravenimage says

          May 8, 2018 at 6:36 pm

          Once again, Lebel is hoping to convince the filthy Infidels that Jihad does not exist.

  3. melek-ric says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 12:27 pm

    All right, perhaps he’s not a jihadi. Maybe he’s mentally ill, acting out or just perversely expressing some grievance. However, if there hadn’t been a string of high-profile vehicular jihad attacks in dense urban locations throughout the Western world over the past couple of years, would he have chosen that particular method of murder? Would he have turned to violence at all, if not for the steady and regular incidence of recent jihad killings warping his perception? If he’s a copycat killer inspired by ISIS, might it be reasonable to hold jihad doctrine and ideology at least partially responsible for his actions? Will authorities try to determine this as they seek to understand his motive?

    • Rarely says

      Apr 24, 2018 at 12:44 pm

      Or better yet: Was there a full moon?

      • Rarely says

        Apr 24, 2018 at 12:54 pm

        It’s like blaming Lizzie Borden every time some one kills their father or Jack the Ripper every time a prostitute is knifed to death. Might as well blame it on the bicycle riders.
        Robert makes a good point over the contradictory police reports over whether he was or was not known to police. That will have to be clarified, of course, but there are plausible explanations.

        • melek-ric says

          Apr 24, 2018 at 1:17 pm

          What if there was a Church of Lizzie Borden the Immaculate, with international reach and presence, that specifically called for daughters to axe-murder their fathers? Or a global cult that considered Jack the Ripper to be a prophet and called for the murder of prostitutes in his name? Don’t you think we might see an increase in those crimes, either from members of those groups or mentally unstable people acting on their example?

          The comparison seems ridiculous, but look at the basic absurdity of Islamic doctrinal calls for violence against non-Muslims solely on religious grounds, the growing number of conversions to Islam by mentally marginal people who then use their new religion to justify acts of murderous violence, and the overall disruption of Western society that jihad violence has caused. Why is it out of the question to investigate whether this incident may have been inspired by ISIS vehicular jihad attacks?

        • melek-ric says

          Apr 24, 2018 at 3:31 pm

          To put it another way, if this guy ain’t a duck, wouldn’t we want to know why he decided to look like a duck, walk like a duck and quack like a duck? Especially if ducks were killing us?

        • gravenimage says

          May 8, 2018 at 6:43 pm

          Good point, melek-ric.

      • Mike says

        Apr 25, 2018 at 7:22 pm

        There was no full moon . Only a CRESCENT.

    • DanC says

      Apr 24, 2018 at 12:46 pm

      Exactly. Islam is the moral author. As for Gov to “understand” or speak the truth? ZERO chances.

      They’re already going with terms like “senseless act”, “pure evil”, “we’ll never know the motives”, “let’s not jump to any conclusion” + the regular piss-warm BS like: let’s hug each other, we’re all safe/good/sad/inclusive/welcoming etc.

      • Rarely says

        Apr 24, 2018 at 1:46 pm

        And if he did get the idea of using a white rental van from similar attacks by muslim extremists? Or maybe he wanted to outdo other public murders (Islamic or not) to gain more attention than he would otherwise get? So what? It’s like suggesting that Hitler committed his atrocities because he got the idea from Stalin who Hitler wanted to outdo. Might as well blame Nazism on Attila the Hun.
        The guy is likely just a first class nut case and where he got the idea to use a white rental van or a gun or a kite with a Molotov cocktail attached is irrelevant.
        Now it still could be a terrorist or terrorist-inspired attack but it doesn’t look like it right now.

        • Rarely says

          Apr 24, 2018 at 2:16 pm

          An even better example would be blaming islam for Timothy McVeigh’s truck bombing in Oklahoma City on islam for “inventing” that method of mass urban murder. The only common thread is a blood lust.

        • Carol (the 1st) says

          Apr 26, 2018 at 2:24 am

          Another common thread with Islam is his great resentment of women for not filling his needs (charming though such candidates invariably are!) We’d probably have heard by now if he was muslim – so likely he isn’t. He did evidence a kinship with it however by taking a page out of its Entitlement book and applying its current “love train” wooing technique willy nilly.

      • melek-ric says

        Apr 24, 2018 at 3:09 pm

        I should say that I’m not looking for a pretext to blame Islamic ideology for any and all acts of violence, and I’m sure nobody else here is either. Violence, even public mass murder, has many causes and few people are so stupid or hateful as to attribute all murderous acts to Islam in some way.. I made my comment because in this case, the perpetrator’s M.O. followed that of other vehicular jihad attacks, beat for beat and note for note:

        -young single male
        -rented a heavy van specifically for the attack
        -staged the attack in a major Western capital city
        -selected a congested urban area to maximize casualties
        -apparently chose the target in advance (avoided areas that had many concrete planters)
        -showed no hesitation, or inclination to break off the attack once underway
        -attempted to get police to kill him afterward; seeming aspiration to martyrdom

        All that was missing was the shouting of “Allahu Akbar”. If this form of homicide had been common in our cities prior to the urging from ISIS, one might be less inclined to suspect copycat behavior. But the scarcity of similar incidents prior to a couple of years ago does make one think – even if this wasn’t a jihad attack by a devout Muslim acting under the guidance of ISIS or Islamic ideology, wouldn’t it nonetheless be prudent to look for a copycat motive in order to help identify potential future threats from similar disturbed individuals?

        In such cases, shouldn’t violent jihad doctrine (even if acknowledged as being a twisted and corrupted misinterpretation of Islam’s peaceful teachings) be viewed as a culpable motivator if the perpetrator, under questioning, confesses to having borrowed the idea from jihadis? Shouldn’t that question be asked?

        • Rarely says

          Apr 24, 2018 at 3:27 pm

          No. It’s his motivation that’s important…not the method used to express it. If the method was obtained from an Islamic website or the plan took more than a single digit IQ to formulate the question would possibly be reasonable.

  4. housemusic1@frontier.com says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 12:37 pm

    Actually terror is a form of mental illness……
    Be aware of white vans !!!

    • Mike says

      Apr 25, 2018 at 7:25 pm

      For one , now, since Nice ,when I see a white van around , I mange to go away as much if i’m a car or walking. No joke .

  5. Lawrence says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 12:40 pm

    Jihadwatch does itself no favours when it jumps the gun anytime there is mass murder in the West. The guy is another virgin killer, like Elliot Rodger. Any lessons learned from the Vegas mass shooting when Spencer himself claimed, ooh maybe Paddock was an ISIS sleeper? Guess not. And prefacing this with: well maybe he is not a jihadist… Not good enough, smacks of disingenuousness. I am a big admirer of jihadwatch, am staunchly anti-dhimmi and despise the PC Left’s collaboration with the Jihad.

    This is just some constructive criticism. Take it or leave it.

  6. Tjhawk says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 12:44 pm

    Good point.

    • Tjhawk says

      Apr 24, 2018 at 12:48 pm

      This was meant for melik-ric above.

  7. ann says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 12:58 pm

    I saw that he chose the date because today is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, but of course it makes no sense that an Armenian would murder Canadians in revenge for an Ottoman massacre. We’ll probably just have to chalk it up to schizophrenia.

  8. somehistory says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 1:10 pm

    This is not the first time that law and public officials have said that the culprit was “not known.” Many of the “not-knowns” were really known and that information trickled out over the days and weeks after other attacks while the public forgot and moved on to whatever was happening in the present.

    It would not be surprising if they did have some knowledge of him…by another name, through a family member, etc….or find that he had made social media comments of which they were aware before he became “mentally ill.”

    If he is not moslim, it is suspicious that the mayor made his “inclusive” speech. Those are usually reserved for the times when jihad is the reason for the murders.

    • Carol (the 1st) says

      Apr 26, 2018 at 2:50 am

      Perhaps they just want to make sure the “baby Islam” side of the Islamic coin gets a hug and can rest easy and get a good night’s sleep tonight.

      • blitz2b says

        Apr 26, 2018 at 9:11 am

        Absolutely correct Carol… The infantile adherents of Islam after holding their breadth to find out the identity of the perp, must have greeted the news of his “unIslamic” name with s shouts of joy.
        I doubt even a single Muslim even cared about the loss of life of infidels in the streets of Toronto, because their main concern was probably the further tarnishing of the name of Islam, and the alleged “Muslim backlash” that never materializes.

        As in an Indian idiom goes… ” kill the snake without breaking the stick” this seems like a victory for Islam where the kaffirs are killed without any tarnish to Islam…
        What more could ISNA. CAIR, MSA, and their ilk ask for?

        For the unthinking,feeble minded leftist lapdogs of Islam, by this incident the cult of Mohammed has been exonerated.

  9. DanC says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 2:05 pm

    OK, sounds crazy but so far looks like the guy was upset that he was still a virgin! Reminds me of Beavis and Butthead Do America (one of them really upset that they were never gonna’ score). Well, this guy took the “not score” to extreme. He’ll get life in prison (not a bullet or lethal injection like in US). So quite ironic: he will still not score in prison but others will score on him aplenty.

    So the motive was as idiotic/far-fetched as Islam’s motives: you’re not with us/like us? Die.

    • blitz2b says

      Apr 26, 2018 at 9:20 am

      @Danc “…He’ll get life in prison…”
      Well we can then be rest assured that if he is not a Muslim that he will soon become one after his prison “dawah” takes effect.
      Seems like losers are attracted to the cult of Mohammed.

  10. 11B40 says

    Apr 24, 2018 at 3:05 pm

    Greetings:

    So, it was just “monkey see, monkey do” ??? That’s reassuring, no ???

  11. Dale bulmer says

    Apr 25, 2018 at 5:36 am

    All these people saying thanks to 1st responders make me laugh so hard lol thats one thing about liberals, the next time they will be cursing them and try to put them in jail for doing their job! Pathetic!

  12. Richard Courtemanche says

    Apr 25, 2018 at 10:51 am

    How does one denote terrorism behind such a handsome face!

    • Carol the 1st) says

      Apr 30, 2018 at 12:49 am

      …the trail of breadcrumbs?

  13. Giacomo Latta says

    Apr 25, 2018 at 11:44 am

    An individual by the name of Esseghaier and an accomplice were found guilty for plotting to blow up a railway bridge as a passenger train was passing over it. During his trial his reaction varied between indifference to spewing Muslim rhetoric to spitting on the floor.
    Mr. Esseghaier found himself some allies among the psychiatrists of Canada. Their view is you cannot possibly do the things that he does and say the things that he says and be concurrently sane. This terrorist is inclined to spitting, yelling and giving theological rants, just as the insane are wont to do. Um, perhaps, dear shrinks, you should study Islam, at least long enough till you have a sense of déjà vu. Is it Islam? Is it psychopathy? Psychiatrists can’t tell the difference.

  14. paul_bay says

    Apr 25, 2018 at 11:52 am

    Alex Jones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxJ1COauXbQ

    • Carol the 1st) says

      Apr 30, 2018 at 1:18 am

      Around 11:10 In the April 23 video above, Jones shows the clip where the driver puts down his gun. He then mentions that the name Minassian has Iranian origin but is popular in Turkey and Armenia as well. He then states that “I blew up the video today…he’s wearing a little Islamic hat…”

      If true, this might explain why the original photo showed a bald head, while the courtroom drawing showed hair on the head. A little deflection perhaps??

  15. Politicianophobia says

    Apr 25, 2018 at 2:40 pm

    Lebel, you can spout your crap until hell freezes over, however Canada was a wonderful place to live before Justine starting importing Muslims. We never had attacks like we do now. If your buddy Imam Mizim Abdul-Adhim is allowed to continue his “We must have Shari’ah law in Canada”, and the returning IS fighters are allowed to return, it will only get much worse. Normal people do not marry young girls, cut them, blow people up and dress like it is the year 1000, beat woman. It is not normal no matter how many times you defend the barbarians.

  16. KuhnKat says

    Apr 25, 2018 at 4:40 pm

    Because he is not associated with the Islamic State does not mean he can’t be a Jihadi.

  17. Carol (the 1st) says

    Apr 26, 2018 at 3:12 am

    A lone jihadist who answers the call is a member in good standing but Minassian probably isn’t a muslim – he sounds more like a fringe character with a burr under his saddle and a desire to be noticed. He just jumped on the Islamic “Love Train” – thus taking down greater numbers and avoiding strenuous hand to hand combat.

    • Carol the 1st) says

      Apr 30, 2018 at 1:22 am

      Not so sure now as the Alex Jones video above mentions the Islamic skullcap.

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