Our obsession with the Ottawa shooter's religion reveals more about us than about him.

[Fred Sanders]

Last edited Thu Oct 23, 2014, 07:04 PM - Edit history (1)

Deceased shooter had lengthy history of crimes, robbery to fraud to drunk driving and psychiatric interventions.

http://www.vox.com/2014/10/23/7043845/ottawa-shooter-muslim-religion-does-not-matter

Yesterday, the media reported that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the man allegedly responsible for a horrifying shooting spree in and around the Canadian parliament, was a convert to Islam. News reports on the shooting then spent much of the day fixated on that unconfirmed fact — even though there is as yet no evidence that his religion was a motivation for his actions. More sensational coverage discussed dubious social-media connections to ISIS.

These reports imply that because Zehaf-Bibeau was Muslim, jihad is the likely motivation for his attack. But at this stage, without any actual evidence, it makes no more sense to come to that conclusion than it would to assume that he was motivated by Quebecois separatism, just because he was from Quebec. At this point, our focus on the Ottawa shooter's religion says more about our own fears than it does about anything to do with Islamist terrorism.

On some level, of course, this feels like an obvious connection to make. ISIS dominates the news right now and we hear story after story of people from Western countries joining its jihadist campaign. Surely, it seems, Zehaf-Bibeau's religion must be relevant to the terrible crimes he committed yesterday?

_______________

A man with a long and documented history of criminality, drugs and mental instability...but, hey, what religion was he? P.S. He was not on any police terrorist watch list....he was clear and irrefutably crazy man first, formost and only.

Watch the Canadian news sources, they are as honest and level headed as American sources are sensationalist and low brow.

(much more common sense and anti-fear mongering at the link)

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

1. What I found interesting was that the first witness I saw interviewed about the attack

when asked to 'describe' the guy he saw shooting, first said something like 'I don't know what I'm not supposed to say', as if he really didn't want to say the shooter might have looked 'ethnic' in any way, and stuck to the very generic 'he had black hair and a bandana across his face'.

Sounded like he was trying his best NOT to feed the narrative the networks were coming up with.

[Fred Sanders]

12. Good thing the civilized gun laws restricted him to a single action rifle......unlike the beloved

weapons of mass destruction protected by the stupidity in America.

In America this would have been just another mass murder with a weapon of war you could buy a Walmart.

Not in Canada, no way, no how, and this is the proof of America's wrongness about gun control.

[Blue_Tires]

2. I thought his passport was yanked in July when trying to fly to Turkey?

and his own mom told the police he was trying to get to Syria...

And I'm supposed to believe this has nothing to do with ISIS?

[Fred Sanders]

3. RCMP said he was in process of applying for a passport...the RCMP is the only direct source.

RCMP say the gunman who stormed Parliament Hill on Wednesday was not among the 93 "high-risk" individuals being monitored as potentially violent radicals, nor was he linked to the man who attacked two soldiers earlier this week in Quebec.

Note the lack of hype, no scary music and clips, just the facts.

If you are into that kind of news.


Oh, Canada, thank you for being so sane, your insane American brethren hunkering down in fear are about to be taught a lesson on living in a land of the brave, and cold.
.................


http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-shooting-michael-zehaf-bibeau-not-among-90-being-probed-rcmp-say-1.2810113

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson (Canada's top cop) said that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau is connected to an individual known to the Mounties, whom he did not identify, and said the attack appears partly motivated by trouble getting a new Canadian passport.

Canadians apparently turn to the RCMP for information, not the politicians...how quaint.

..........................



The gunman who shot and killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial has been identified as Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. He is seen in this photo taken by a cellphone camera through a car window and posted to Twitter. (Twitter)

The revelations came during an hour-long news conference that featured stunning security camera video of Zehaf-Bibeau driving up to the gates of Parliament Hill, dashing with a rifle to hijack another car, and being chased by RCMP cars and officers into the front entrance of the Centre Block where the first of two gunfights broke out.

Paulson confirmed Montreal-born Zehaf-Bibeau had been in Ottawa since at least Oct. 2 seeking a passport, claiming he wanted to travel to Libya, and had been living in a local shelter awaiting RCMP background checks for the processing of his application.


Without providing details, the commissioner said the stalled passport application was part of the shooter’s motivation this week for killing Cpl. Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial, then attempting to wreak havoc in the Centre Block. He added that the gunman had told his mother his actual intended travel destination was Syria.

“I think the passport figured prominently in his motives,” Paulson said.

[Blue_Tires]

4. We'll see how the story plays out

But for the writer in the OP to assume this incident had nothing to do with religious extremism is just pure fantasy, especially after the Monday incident...

Yes, I realize there isn't the "100% beyond-the-slightest-doubt proof" of religious jihad has yet to be made public, but I know which cause I'd be putting my money on...

[Fred Sanders]

5. Damn the facts, I have made up my mind...nice. Agree the passport thing was misrepresented?

Agree that the being on a watch list thing was misrepresented?

Agree he was a violent common criminal and drug addict?

[Blue_Tires]

13. "misrepresented?"

So are you saying Zehaf-Bibeau's passport was *NOT* seized for being "high-risk"??
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/23/ottawa-shooting-suspect-michael-zehaf-bibeau-canada-parliament
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/10/what-we-know-about-the-canada-parliament-shooter.html


And that he wasn't being watched for regularly communicating with a known terrorist?
http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/23/world/ottawa-shooting/
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/10/23/1338669/-Reports-Of-A-Jihadist-Terror-Network-In-Canada#


And it's just pure coincidence that Zehaf-Bibeau (young, impressionable, aimless, pessimistic about future, financial problems, loner, history of petty crimes, etc) is the prototypical recruit for ISIS:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-shooting-gunman-was-staying-at-ottawa-mission-homeless-shelter-1.2810341


Still want to tell me his religion isn't connected with yesterday's events?

[Fred Sanders]

14. Yes, yes, and that was not a question. Please read RCMP briefing today, I have posted it here for

your convenience.

[JI7]

6. i don't see why not, if someone shot up an abortion clinic and we knew he was

a christian fundie you don't think that should be mentioned ?

[WinkyDink]

7. Re: motive---Are you taking bets?

[Throd]

8. An obsession that seems to swing both ways.

[Nye Bevan]

9. I can't help wondering how many threads on DU there would be about this guy

if he was a foaming-at-the-mouth born-again Christian Fundamentalist.

[Throd]

10. 4,637...give or take a few.

[Fred Sanders]

11. He was foaming at the mouth for 13 years according to Canadian court records...drugs, theft,

robbery...seen by in jail psychiatrist once to see if fit for trial....family had disowned him for last five years.

The religion is irrelevant, the connection is to mental instability and a criminal mindset.


http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/10/22/michael-zehaf-bibeau-vancouver_n_6031820.html

A search of the publicly available Quebec court records database suggests he had a lengthy criminal record with several convictions and brushes with the law in the early and mid-2000s.

The records appear under three different names — Michael Bibeau, Michael Zehaf Bibeau and Michael Bibeau Zehaf.

The earliest of the 13 identified Quebec court records dates back to June 2001 in Montreal.

The last time his name appears in the provincial court database is for a charge in 2006, also in Montreal. For that marijuana-related count, he pleaded guilty in court in 2009 and received an absolute discharge.

Twelve of the 13 cases resulted in convictions.

Four of them are drug-related — three for possession of marijuana and one for PCP — with those charges dating back to 2004, '05 and '06. The longest sentence he received among the four was 60 days, on the 2004 PCP charge.

A 2001 charge on impaired driving resulted in a fine and suspended licence a year later.

In another case, he received a six-month sentence in 2003 and three years' probation on a weapons charge.

There was also a prior conviction for assault causing bodily harm in 2001 for which he received a suspended sentence and a fine in 2002.

His longest sentence was for robbery, possession of break-in tools, theft and conspiracy with a co-accused in 2003. He was sentenced to two years in jail and three years' probation in that case.

Other convictions in his file are for breach of probation in 2003 and for twice breaching bail conditions in 2004.

The records suggest a number of addresses for Bibeau since 2001 — a number in Montreal as well as one in Aylmer, Que. In some of the court documents, he's listed as having no fixed address.

[Bluenorthwest]

15. Nothing in this material supports your assertion he was a drug addict. Nothing.

Also none of this amounts to 'foaming at the mouth'. Criminal? Sure. But foaming at the mouth drug addict? Not so much. If you want to talk about honesty in this story, you yourself should participate in that standard yourself.

[Fred Sanders]

16. It was a tête-à-tête response, you may see.

[Bluenorthwest]

17. what's that supposed to mean? You made a false assertion in a thread in which you are complaining

that the press is making false assertions. Nothing you posted supports your assertion that he was a drug addict.

[Fred Sanders]

21. I can not post everything. He admitted his addiction to crack cocaine to a jail psychiatrist, there

is that.

In Vancouver. He was in Ottawa three weeks. He has multiple drug convictions...and so on.

[maced666]

18. Actually, I thought they tip-toed around it for hours.

When we were all (correctly) thinking it - the moment we heard the news 'shots fired in Canada's parliament '.

You can bend yourself into a pretzel defending the indefensible. This writer looks like a bag full of pretzels.

[Fred Sanders]

20. What were you "correctly" thinking? Because not anyone one of them was correct, other than he

succumbed to propaganda, and American media is forwarding the propaganda, just as any propagandists would hope.

[JaneyVee]

19. You can tell a lot about a society by what they fear.