Culp-Ressler writes: "The shooter who killed nine people and wounded 27 others in a shopping mall in Munich on Friday had no connections to ISIS or to refugee issues, according to German police, who described the mass shooting as 'a classic act by a deranged person.'"
Refugee children from Syria. (photo: Reuters)
23 July 16
he shooter who killed nine people and wounded 27 others in a shopping mall in Munich on Friday had no connections to ISIS or to refugee issues, according to German police, who described the mass shooting as “a classic act by a deranged person.”
The 18-year-old shooter, who had dual German and Iranian citizenship, was raised locally in Germany. Authorities said they found no evidence that his actions were driven by religious extremism or by the controversies surrounding immigration in Western Europe.
Instead, the shooter appears to have had “an obsession with violent attacks,” according to reporting from the New York Times. He collected newspaper clippings about other acts of mass violence and was interested in school shootings. He reportedly had a particular fascination with Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in Norway exactly five years ago. There’s some evidence that the teen had previously been treated for depression.
The shooting was initially described as an act of terror, and Donald Trump supporters were quick to point to the tragedy to justify the GOP presidential candidate’s harsh rhetoric about cracking down on immigrants. In his speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday night, Trump called to halt all immigration from “countries compromised by terrorism.” He has previously pushed for a total ban on Muslims entering the country.
But the Munich attack actually follows a pattern that doesn’t fit that narrative. Recent acts of mass violence in Western countries have largely been perpetrated by people with deep ties to those countries.
The massacre in Nice, in which a truck driver plowed into a busy crowd and killed more than 80 people, was committed by a legal resident of France who was born in Tunisia. The men linked to the Paris attacks last fall were either French or Belgian citizens and had spent most of their lives in Europe. The Brussels bombers were all raised in Brussels; two of them were born there.
It's the same story here in the United States. Syed Rizwan Farook, the San Bernardino shooter who attacked an office holiday party, was born in Illinois and lived in California. Omar Mateen, the Orlando shooter who attacked a gay nightclub, was born in New York and lived in Florida. Many other mass shooters who are considered ethnically white -- including a man who targeted a Planned Parenthood clinic, a man who killed elementary school students, and a man who murdered women who romantically rejected him -- were born and raised here.
In fact, there hasn't been a single refugee arrested in the United States for domestic terrorism since the September 11th attacks, despite subjecting groups of Middle Eastern origin to increasing levels of scrutiny.
Tensions have been particularly high in Germany recently, where there's been a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment and an increasing number of hate crimes targeted at refugees. Multiple people have thrown hand grenades into or set fire to refugee shelters; some apparent arsons have provoked crowds of supporters cheering and clapping as the building goes up in flames. According to a recent report from human rights group Amnesty International, German officials haven't done a good enough job investigating the racist motives behind attacks on refugees in the country.
Fears of immigrants are particularly swelling after a 17-year-old Afghan attacked about 20 passengers on a train with an axe in northern Barvaria last Monday. It's the rare example of violence perpetrated by an asylum-seeker -- no refugees have been identified in any of the other attacks in Europe -- but it's reigniting the conversation over whether Germany should shut its borders to people fleeing violence and upheaval in their home countries.
The country's leaders, however, are urging Germans to resist responding to the recent violence by curtailing democratic freedoms. "Uncertainty and fear must not be allowed to gain the upper hand," Bavarian State premier Horst Seehofer told reporters on Friday.
