Dr Mohamed Elmasry I WAS just a few short blocks away, when a speeding white rental van mounted a sidewalk in the heart of Toronto and proceeded to mow down pedestrians in its path for more than two kilometres, until 10 were dead and more than a dozen seriously injured. A week later, Torontonians and all Canadians are still numb with shock, disbelief and grief over the carnage of Monday April 23, 2018. Not only the Yonge-Finch neighbourhood, but all of Canada's largest and most diverse city will not feel the same again. We may never know exactly what made Alex Minassian, a 25-year-old from nearby Richmond Hill, and self-described adherent of the militant male rights "incel" (involuntarily celibate) movement, chose this horrible way to express his resentment towards the world. Now in custody, he faces 10 counts of murder and a growing list of attempted murder charges, as survivors continue to fight for their lives in hospital. But it's not Minassian himself who's on my mind right now, and I'm sure I'm feeling the same as many other Canadians. For me, what emerges from this hideous crime is a growing worry about how easily any angry and disillusioned individual can use "ordinary" means like a transportation vehicle as a lethal weapon. All one needs to do is get in, turn the ignition, hit the accelerator and aim this powerful machine at innocent people. Lacking what we call conscience or compassion, in this case the driver needed only a few short minutes to make a deadly statement of hate for "the other," whether it was gender, religion, ideology, lifestyle, political views, or something unique to the killer himself. We should not hold our breath waiting perhaps months for court authorities to draw out of Minassian his tortured logic in choosing who would die when there are more pressing global issues at stake. The fact that eight of the 10 people murdered were women is just one more disturbing element in a tragedy whose victims may simply and randomly have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most of us have been brought up in historical and cultural contexts where violence at an individual level was a one-on-one means of settling personal disputes over very local issues such as love, money, property, religion, politics, and so on. Mental illness and social alienation were not unknown in past centuries, but quite differently understood in societies where life was lived at a less frantic and technologically-driven pace compared to the present day. Rather than receiving therapeutic intervention, the protagonists would draw their swords, bare their fists, unsheathe daggers, or load duelling pistols at 20 paces. Someone might die, or not. A major difference between then and now was that mass indiscriminate killings of strangers did not occur through the agency of ordinary people; the targeting of strangers by an individual was rare. Wars, massacres and genocides were group efforts backed by powerful states and strong armies. Victors designated their numerous victims as being somehow inferior or "other" in order to justify their actions. Today, we have access to instant 24/7 global media that distribute news events in every form to virtually everyone on the planet, including those who feel disenfranchised, alienated, envious, vengeful, oppressed, or in any way angry with their place in society. There is too little reflection or analysis in proportion to the tsunami of raw images and fragmented ideologies that constantly bombard us. Technology can make many exciting and wonderful things possible, but this is also a very dangerous development, especially for the socially and emotionally vulnerable. Ever since a 1973 vehicle-ramming attack on the streets on Prague – cited by Wikipedia as the first internationally reported crime of this type (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-ramming_attack) – hundreds more have occurred over the ensuing 45 years, accelerating in frequency and severity during the past decade. Whether planned to achieve terrorist agendas, or the aspirations of "lone wolf" individuals, vehicle massacres have several horrific things in common: they are easy to do, very difficult to predict or prevent, require only one (or a very few) perpetrators, hit easily accessed "soft targets," and can be imitated anywhere on the planet, thanks in large part to both traditional and social media. For decades Canadians have seen, heard and read news reports of vehicle killings all over the world, but not here at home, not on the devastating scale witnessed last Monday in Toronto, an internationally renowned "safe" and "good" city. Now, we have joined the growing collective of nations dealing with the overwhelming question: How can hate-filled individuals like Alex Minassian be identified in time and prevented from using vehicles as weapons of mass-destruction? There are reports that Minassian was known to Toronto police beforehand and that his social media posts contained disturbing and threatening messages. Why did he fall through the cracks? How did he manage to evade medical and/or psychiatric intervention and retain a driver's licence? If he'd been visually or cognitively impaired, authorities would surely have stepped in. Perhaps therapists' interviews will reveal more and lead to better preventive measures for those whose mental health and past behaviour pose a real and serious threat to society. But all that is little help right now to the grieving families and friends of Minassian's victims. As Canadians, we also need to deal with the uncomfortable reality that social and racial "profiling" by law-enforcement and other authorities (whether overt or habitual) may play a larger role than we're willing to acknowledge. What would be media and government's response if Minassianwas found to be Muslim? Black? Gay? Indigenous? Would he have been "visible" sooner if he was not white? How many other Alex Minassians live undetected and uncared-for in our society, cocooned by isolating and hateful ideologies? These are just a few of the questions that arise as I and so many fellow Canadians reflect on a terrible and sad week in our history. Despite the near-impossible odds of finding effective and sustainable answers, we must at least try to find ways of reducing future incidents of terror on our streets. Perhaps the technologies that are driving us apart can be more mindfully applied to bringing us closer together. As the signs at several vigils for last Monday's dead and injured hopefully declare: Love for All, Hatred for None. Dr Mohamed Elmasry is Prof of Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo and founding editor of The CanadianCharger.com. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
