While lone actor attackers are motivated by various grievances, revelations about Minassian\u2019s online life<\/a> point to what is emerging as a common theme in the biographies of many of these men: hostility toward and\/or a history of violence against women. Eight of the 10 killed in the Toronto attack were women.<\/p>\n Research<\/a> from the United States, the site of so many mass shootings by lone men, is particularly helpful in illuminating the connection between hostility toward and violence against women and such mass casualty attacks. This work shows that more than 50 percent of the mass shootings in that country between 2009 and 2016 were preceded by the murder of an intimate partner or ex-partner, or a family member.<\/p>\n Research<\/a> on \u201clone wolf terrorists\u201d in the United States further illuminates the gender dimension of lone actor attacks. The criminologists Mark Hamm and Ram\u00f3n Spaaij link lone wolf terrorists with \u201ca warrior subculture that fuses violence and politics with masculinity.\u201d Many of their case studies capture the way that the desire to commit violence against women can become fused with more generalized homicidal intent. For example, two years before Richard Poplawski killed and wounded six Pittsburgh police officers in 2009, he broadcast his violent fantasies on pirate radio, stating: \u201cI want to kill my ex-girlfriend, her mother, her pets, my father, people I don\u2019t like, and in a random measure a couple of members of the Pittsburgh police.\u201d<\/p>\n Evidence of violence against women is present in the backgrounds<\/a> of a number of lone actor attackers in a host of Western countries. Those with known histories of violence against women include Man Monis, who carried out a siege in Sydney in 2014 that resulted in the death of two hostages; Omar Mateen, who attacked a nightclub in Florida in 2016, killing 49 people; Khalid Masood, who stabbed people near Parliament in London in 2017; and Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who killed more than 80 people by deliberately driving a truck into them in Nice, France, in 2016. In addition, Tamerlan Tsarnaev \u2014 who committed the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, killing three people and injuring hundreds of others, along with his younger brother \u2014 had been arrested for assaulting his then girlfriend in 2009.<\/p>\n If being denied sex was part of the background to deadly actions for the alleged Toronto attacker, it wouldn\u2019t be the only time that rage at such denial has been the trigger for a spree of horrifying violence. In 2009, the neo-Nazi Keith Luke<\/a> killed a woman who had rebuffed his sexual advances, after first raping and shooting the woman\u2019s sister. He left the scene and killed a 72-year-old man on the street, before winding up in a shootout with police. He later told them he had planned to carry on his rampage<\/a> at a synagogue.<\/p>\n It is vitally important that we try to understand what motivates lone attackers in order to attempt to prevent and combat future such attacks. Police, security services, government, the media and scholars need to better understand the connections between mass casualty attacks and hostility toward and violence against women. Too often violence against women is misunderstood, minimized or overlooked in the biographies of lone attackers; such men are often understood as men \u201cwho turned violent,\u201d rather than violent men whose violence escalated to include strangers.<\/p>\n Hamm and Spaaij<\/a> describe Keith Luke\u2019s advances toward the woman he subsequently killed as \u201cromantic.\u201d It seems highly unlikely, given the aftermath, that the rebuffed advances were anything other than ugly, coercive, entitled and intimidating demands for sex. The failure to understand violence against women as real violence is tragically apparent in the case of the 2014 Lindt Caf\u00e9 siege in Sydney, where two hostages were killed after a lengthy standoff with police. At the time of the siege the gunman, Man Monis, was on bail for 40 sexual assaults against seven victims and for being an accessory to the brutal murder of his ex-wife. In the inquest<\/a> that followed, the lead police negotiator stated that he believed the sex crimes were \u201cpassive\u201d<\/a> and thus not an indication of a propensity for violence. A psychiatrist providing advice to the police managing the siege repeatedly described Monis\u2019s sexual assaults as \u201cacts of seduction.\u201d<\/a> The minimization of violence against women and its categorization as essentially nonviolent, in that case, meant that the threat Monis posed to the hostages was not fully appreciated by police.<\/p>\n Better understanding the nature, extent and significance of violence against women and its connection to lone actor attacks won\u2019t prevent all such attacks. These attackers have diverse biographies, and there are typically multiple motivators and factors that lead to attacks. However, the continued failure to recognize the connection between violence against women and violence of a more public nature, such as terrorism and other types of lone actor attacks, will undoubtedly undermine efforts to prevent and combat such attacks.<\/p>\n Photo:\u00a0TORONTO \u2013 Flowers, notes and candles are piled high at a vigil on April 24, 2018, for the victims of the van attack. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Galit Rodan<\/span><\/p>\n Do you have something to say about the article you just read? Be part of the\u00a0<\/em>Policy Options\u00a0discussion, and send in your own submission.\u00a0Here is a\u00a0<\/em>link<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on how to do it. <\/em>|\u00a0Souhaitez-vous r\u00e9agir \u00e0 cet article ? <\/em>Joignez-vous aux d\u00e9bats d\u2019<\/em>Options politiques\u00a0et soumettez-nous votre texte en suivant ces\u00a0<\/em>directives<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lone attackers who use guns, knives or vehicles to inflict mass casualties are of increasing concern to governments, police and security forces. In Canada\u2019s deadliest mass killing in decades, 25-year-old\u00a0Alek\u00a0Minassian allegedly drove a van at pedestrians in Toronto on April 23. He\u2019s been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of attempted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":239766,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"2025-10-08T02:04:43Z","apple_news_api_id":"41ad6dba-4b68-4ad7-be06-4a9a641da1de","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2025-10-08T02:04:44Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAD\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/w==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AQa1tuktoSte-BkqaZB2h3g","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false},"categories":[9359,9357,9372],"tags":[8607],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[4348,4339,4251],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[7122],"class_list":["post-266191","issues","type-issues","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-loi-droits","category-politiques-sociales","category-recent-stories-fr","tag-domestic-violence-fr","irpp-category-egalite-des-genres","irpp-category-loi-et-justice","irpp-category-politique-sociale","irpp-tag-violence-liee-au-genre"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/10262489-scaled.jpg\")
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