Alek Minassian, top, is seen during a police interview. Photo / AP
Alek Minassian, top, is seen during a police interview. Photo / AP
A newly released video shows a man who allegedly used a van to kill 10 pedestrians in Toronto telling police that he's part of an online group of sexually frustrated men who plot attacks against people who have sex.
Alek Minassian faces 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder in connection with the April 23, 2018 attack.
The deadly van rampage trained attention on an online world of sexual loneliness, rage and misogyny after the suspect invoked an uprising by "involuntary celibates" and gave a shoutout on social media to a California killer who seethed at women for rejecting him.
Alek Minassian is arrested. Photo / Supplied
Minassian, 26, is accused of driving a rental van into crowds of pedestrians in a busy north Toronto neighbourhood. Eight women and two men ranging in age from 22 to 94 died. Minassian has yet to enter a plea. His trial begins in February, but a publication ban on his interrogation by police was lifted Friday. The police interview took place just hours after the attack.
"I feel like I accomplished my mission," Minassian said when asked by the detective how he feels about the death of 10 people.
Minassian, who said he never had a girlfriend and was a virgin, acknowledged he used the van as a weapon and said he wanted to inspire more attacks.
"I know of several other guys over the internet who feel the same way," he said, adding they are "too cowardly to act on their anger."
Minassian calls himself an "incel," short for "involuntary celibate." The incel movement is an online subculture linked to the deadly attack in Toronto as well as attacks in California and Florida. It promotes the misogynistic idea that men are entitled to have sex with women.
Over time, "incel" has become a buzzword for certain men infuriated at being rejected by women and prone to float ideas for violent payback, according to sociologists and others who follow incel circlesLike-minded people in internet forums sometimes use "Chad" and "Stacy" as dismissive slang for men and women with more robust sex lives.
Minassian said he discussed his sexual frustrations on the website 4chan, which has become notorious as a place for extremists to post their views.
Minassian said he was in contact with Elliot Rodger, a community college student who killed six people and wounded 13 in shooting and stabbing attacks in 2014 near the University of California, Santa Barbara before apparently shooting himself to death.
Rodger had railed in a manifesto and online videos about women who shunned him and called for an incel "overthrow" of what he saw as feminist domination.
Minassian said he "radicalised" around the time of the Rodger attack.
Alek Minassian, top, is seen during a police interview in a still frame taken from handout video footage. Photo / AP
Defense lawyer Boris Bytensky, left to right, Justice Ruby Wong, Alek Minassian and Crown prosecutor Joe Callaghan in court as Minassian appears by video. Photo / AP
"I felt it was time to take action and not just sit on the sidelines and just fester in my own sadness," he said.
Minassian also said in 2013 he went to a Halloween party and was laughed at by women with whom he tried to socialise. He said he was upset the women gave affection to bigger men.
"I was angry that they would give their love and affection to obnoxious brutes," he said.
Duty counsel Georgia Koulis, left to right, Alek Minassian, Justice of the Peace Stephen Waisberg, and Crown prosecutor Joe Callaghan in court in Toronto. Photo / AP
He called himself a "supreme gentlemen" and said he felt "very angry" women would not date him.
Minassian said he planned the attack for a month before he carried it out. He said he wanted a van that wasn't too big, one he could manoeuvre.
"The van was the perfect medium size to use as my weapon," he said.
Minassian said in the police interview he wished he had had an intimate relationship but only once asked a girl out in 2012.
"I did ask a girl out once but she rejected me," he said. "I felt crushed at that point."
Boris Bytensky, his lawyer, declined comment when reached Thursday ahead of the tape's release.
Justice Anne Molloy, who will oversee the trial next year, said in August the police statement will be one of the prosecution's most important pieces of evidence at trial.
Malloy said Minassian's state of mind will be the relevant.
