12 **^ Tuesday 6 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph
Online ‘cesspool of hate’ used by
El Paso attacker is taken down
By Rozina SaburTHE web message forum reportedly
used by the El Paso gunman to post a
racist “manifesto” has been taken of-
fline.
Patrick Crusius, the suspect, is be-
lieved to have shared a racist diatribe
on the website 8chan warning of the
“Hispanic invasion” of Texas and out-
lined his motivations shortly before
killing 22 people on Saturday.
Cloudflare, a digital security and in-
frastructure firm, said it had termi-
nated its services to 8chan yesterday,
describing the no-censorship site as “a
cesspool of hate”.
“8chan is among the more than
19 million internet properties that use
Cloudflare’s service. We just sent no-
tice that we are terminating 8chan as a
customer,” Matthew Prince, Cloud-
flare’s chief executive, said in a blog
post. “The rationale is simple: they
have proven themselves to be lawless
and that lawlessness has caused multi-ple tragic deaths. 8chan may not have
violated the letter of the law, [but] in
refusing to moderate their hate-filled
community, they have created an envi-
ronment that revels in violating its
spirit.”
The move follows calls from Fre-
drick Brennan, 8chan’s founder, toshut down the site. Mr Brennan, who is
no longer involved with the forum, said
its administrators “are running it in a
way that is indefensible”.
“If it’s going to keep on like this it
should be shut down,” he told CNN.
“They are not doing anything to solve
this. They are letting their users inciteviolence.” Mr Brennan expressed his
gratitude to Cloudflare for taking the
site offline. “Finally this nightmare
might have an end,” he said.
It is not the first time the message
board has played host to a white su-
premacist material. The suspected
shooters in the Christchurch mosque
massacre and San Diego synagogue at-
tack used the forum to detail their mo-
tives and share links to live streams.
Cloudflare has been under pressure
to withdraw its services and as recently
as Sunday was rejecting calls to shut
down 8chan. In his post, Mr Prince said
he remained uncomfortable “about
playing the role of content arbiter and
do not plan to exercise it often”.
8chan’s official Twitter account sug-
gested that it was searching for a way
back online. “There might be some
downtime in the next 24-48 hours
while we find a solution (that includes
our email so timely compliance with
law enforcement requests may be af-
fected),” it wrote.Dayton killer listed
potential targets
while at school
By Rozina SaburTHE gunman who killed nine people
last weekend in Dayton, Ohio, was sus-
pended from high school for writing a
“hit list” of classmates and a “rape list”
of girls he wanted to sexually assault.
Connor Betts, 24, opened fire out-
side a crowded bar in the early hours of
Sunday, injuring dozens and leaving
his own sister, Megan, among the fa-
talities before police shot him dead.
The gunman’s history of violence
has prompted questions about how he
was able to purchase firearms.
Betts was suspended during his jun-
ior year at suburban Bellbrook High
School after a hit list of those he wanted
to kill was found scrawled in a school
bathroom, according to his peers.
A former cheerleader also revealed
how she received a call from police
during her first year at the school to say
that her name was included on a list of
potential sexual assault targets.
“The officer said he wouldn’t be at
school for a while,” she said. “But after
some time passed he was back. They
didn’t give us any warning.”
At least six of the 27 people injured
are still in hospital, authorities said.22
The number of people killed in the mass
shooting attack at a shopping centre in
El Paso, Texas on SaturdayTrump says hatred, not guns, pulled trigger
By Rozina Sabur and Nick Allen in
Washington
DONALD TRUMP denounced white
supremacy yesterday as he addressed a
nation reeling from two mass shoot-
ings that left more than 30 people dead,
but blamed mental illness and the in-
ternet rather than gun control laws.
The US president vowed his admin-
istration would “act with urgent re-
solve” in the aftermath of the weekend
tragedies in Texas and Ohio.
Mr Trump said there was a need
for reforms to mental health laws but
was criticised for suggesting “mental
illness and hatred pull the trigger, not
the gun”. He blamed video games, the
“dark recesses of the internet” and so-
cial media, which he said must do more
US president condemns
white supremacy – but
blames mass shootings on
mental illness and internet
to identify and predict such threats.
“We must recognise that the internet
has provided a dangerous avenue to
radicalised disturbed minds and per-
form demented acts,” Mr Trump said.
He focused his attention on the
“wicked man” who slaughtered 22 peo-
ple in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday.
The suspect, Patrick Crusius, is be-
lieved to have shared a racist manifesto
that online before the massacre, which
he said was a response to the “Hispanic
invasion of Texas”.
Speaking from the White House, Mr
Trump said: “Our nation must con-
demn racism, bigotry, and white su-
premacy. These sinister ideologies
must be defeated. Hate has no place in
America. Hatred warps the mind, rav-
ages the heart and devours the soul.”
Mr Trump said he would direct the
Department of Justice to draft legisla-
tion to ensure that perpetrators of
hate crimes and mass murders “face
the death penalty”. He also sent his
condolences to Mexico for the loss of
seven of its citizens. It came after thecountry demanded further protections
for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans
in the US and threatened legal action.
Marcelo Ebrard, the country’s for-
eign minister, suggested Mexican au-
thorities could seek to extradite the
gunman as well as take legal action
against the seller of the weapon used.
During his address, Mr Trump called
the shooting an act of “domestic terror-ism” and said the FBI would devote re-
sources to preventing such attacks.
Mr Trump outlined a possible “red-
flag laws” to better identify mentally ill
people who should be stopped from
purchasing firearms.
A verbal slip-up in which he mistak-
enly offered prayers for “those who
perished in Toledo” rather than Day-
ton, Ohio, where a gunman killed nine
people on Sunday also drew criticism.
Earlier, Mr Trump had called for bi-
partisan action to enact “strong back-
ground checks” along with stronger
immigration laws.
His televised comments were
quickly rebuked by Democrats, who
accused him of lacking a coherent plan
to tackle gun violence.
A sweeping bipartisan gun control
bill that requires universal background
checks passed the House six months
ago but the Republican-controlled Sen-
ate did not consider either bill and Mr
Trump previously suggested he would
veto the legislation.
In a joint statement, Chuck Schumerand Nancy Pelosi, the most senior
Democrats, called on Mitch McCo-
nnell, the Republican Senate leader, to
pass the bills approved by the House.
Barack Obama, the former presi-
dent, rejected claims that gun reform
was a political non-starter.
“We are not helpless here. And until
all of us stand up and insist on holding
public officials accountable for chang-
ing our gun laws, these tragedies will
keep happening,” he said.
“We should soundly reject language
[from] the mouths of any of our leaders
that feeds a climate of fear and hatred,
or normalises racist sentiments.”
u Cesar Sayoc, the “MAGA bomber,”
wept in court as he was jailed for 20
years after sending pipe bombs to
prominent critics of Donald Trump.
Sayoc, 57, described by his lawyers
as a “Donald Trump superfan”, posted
16 devices to prominent Democrats in-
cluding Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton. He pleaded guilty in March to
using weapons of mass destruction and
other crimes.‘In one voice,
our nationmust
condemnracism,
bigotry, and
whitesupremacy’
Anti-gun violence
campaigners at the
scene of the
shooting in El Paso,
Texas, top. Above,
Donald Trump and
vice-president Mike
Pence yesterdayAFP/GETTY IMAGES; APCCTV footage of Betts seconds before officers, at the top of the picture, shot him downUS shootings
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