Leeds Headingley attack yesterday

I missed the majority of the second half of the match yesterday, including our goal, trying to follow what was happening on my phone and contacting my husband to make sure he stayed inside.

At half time, I saw on a local Facebook group that a woman had been shot in the head with a crossbow and another woman injured. I didn’t know how true it was at first until people posted photos showing police and ambulances in Headingley. They then linked to a post from someone outlining a ‘mass murder spree’ that someone said they were going to carry out on the Otley Run (fancy dress based pub crawl) along with a shitty ‘manifesto’ and photos of the weapons he had bought and handmade. I won’t post any links or names here as investigations are ongoing (although I doubt they will take long as they guy has been caught after injuring himself and he posted quite clearly what he was going to do). It took ages to get information that it was over and safe to return and even longer than that for it to hit even local news. I have heard it as the main headline on Radio 1 today in the car though.

The scary thing is that he had posts going back years and years across multiple social media platforms and accounts full of hated and was constantly posting expressing sympathy for school shooters. How nothing was done before he had chance to carry this out I don’t know.

 

That's dreadful @JamDrop. I hope they can make a full recovery but reports say serious injuries.At the very least if you post stuff like that online I'd expect police to have the power to search your house for weapons as a first step

 

Glad everything is ok for you and Will. It was the first thing I thought when I saw what had happened but assumed all was good with you as I saw you like a post on here.

You're right, I've seen his previous posts and it's disgusting really that seemingly none of his 1000 friends did anything to stop his behaviour before something happened. It shows that moderation on social media simply isn't fit for purpose because that absolutely should have been reported to the authorities

Or maybe it was and wasn't acted upon

 

Scary! My son’s stag do was in exactly the same place, but last weekend.

 

I know from her dad that one of them is undergoing surgery. The post where he said what he was going to do was posted just before he set off so I get there wasn’t much time but the things he’d been posting for years should have flagged something, surely? I don’t know what powers they have until he attempts something though. He’d been posting pictures of weapons he’d made days before which you’d think would be enough.

 

It’s a great day out and it’s sad that it’s been targeted in such a way and tainted by an absolute nobhead.

 

I’m glad your daughter and friends were ok! That’s scary that she’s been nearby twice.

 

It's not capable of being understood by normal parameters. These people have mental health problems or are socially dysfunctional. Although worrying evidence seems to arise after the event in many of these cases, I'm not sure who could possibly monitor them or how, particularly if they have never previously come to the attention of the authorities.

Self and Lady Kaht passed not too far away from all this yesterday afternoon on our return from seeing our daughter and grandkids in Baildon.

 

19 year old lass has been released from hospital, 31 year old who needed surgery is now in stable condition thankfully. He is in a critical condition in hospital. I hope he survives actually as he had Pinterest boards about being a martyr and I want him to know that he didn’t manage to kill anyone on his ‘mass murder spree’ and he couldn’t even manage to off himself. Let him rot in jail.

 

He has to rate a very serious danger to the public after such a seemingly premeditated attack.

 

He’s been posting stuff for years and years so he can’t even claim it was a one off random lapse of judgement because of some particular recent thing. I can’t see how he could ever be adjudged to be safe.

 

By all accounts some of the stuff the attacker had posted on Facebook including the planned attack had been reported and Facebook and Facebook responded by saying his comments did not break any Facebook regulations.

 

Glad none of your family or friends were hurt @JamDrop.

 

I saw his Facebook page, it was up until at least 1am the next morning. It was a mix of posts about struggles with mental health issues, sympathies with US lone killers, the far right, the crusades, self help posts, The Great Replacement Theory, dislike of women, thanks to his family for their help, and had an obvious lack of friends replying, liking or commenting on his posts.

As usual I'm sure the main issues will be ignored and another one will occur elsewhere sooner or later.

 

There was one from last April re a lone killer on the US that said (paraphrase) "I don't condone this, felt sorry for him. Not all shooters evil, some ideoligically motivated, others have severe mental health issues and social isolation".

 

My Grandson is due on the Otley pub run this coming weekend and he is adamant that he’s still going !
He’s a student at York and that attitude seems to apply to his pals as well.
You’ve got to admire the attitude but I’m not so sure if I’d still be going !!

 

Why shouldn't he?

Best response by all would be to continue doing what they are doing to enjoy their lives otherwise what's the point.