A new investigation into the Christchurch Mosque shooting delves into the shooter's motivations - and questions whether he should be identified as a 'lone wolf'.
In the six-part podcast, Secrets We Keep: Lone Actor, investigative journalist Joey Watson traces the killer's descent into extremism and wonders if he truly acted alone after being radicalised by online communities.
Watson explained that he went through the online communities that radicalised the shooter and saw how he was desensitised to violent acts.
"The closer I looked at it, the more I came to see that based on how these ecosystems operated before the attack, what happened in Christchurch - it certainly wasn't inevitable, but it's tragically explainable."
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ever, duple cl.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Fudz swin Berner, who's a public health expert Reckons has
a different take on it to me, So weware which
had to him half the five o'clock and compare numbers
and see see what he's got to say about it.
Nine two nine two, by the way, is the text
number and standard text fees apply. Now there is a
new podcast by an Australian investigative journalist and it's questioning
whether the podcas the christ Church Mosque shooter should be
(00:21):
considered a lone wolf. Former Guardian and ABC journalist Joey
Watson's six part series Secrets We Keep Lone Wolf documents
Brenton Tarrance descent into Radicalization. Joey Watson is with us
right now.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Hey Joey, Hey, Heather, how are you going. Thanks so
much for having me on to talk about this important story.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
More than welcome. Now, why do you think we shouldn't
be calling him a lone wolf?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, firstly, before I answer that, let me just establish
why I think he came to be seen as a
loan actor.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
In the first place.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
When the attack happened in March of twenty nineteen, it.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Sort of brought to the world stage.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
This growing threat of fart extremism that we were vaguely
aware had been spiled across borders and all becoming more
organized in the period leading up to the attack, but
very much in Australia and perhaps in New Zealand, although
for slightly different reasons soon after it seemed to fade
away from public view. After the initial shock, War Off
anniversaries were never recognized. And part of the reason for
(01:18):
that is he had created a narrative around himself as
a guy that had kind of acted alone, and that
was very convenient for people who wanted to, you know,
not really have anything to do with it, to not
engage with it on a serious levels, but especially in Australia. Now,
what I've done is I've gone through all of the
ecosystems that he was operating in the years before the attack.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I've followed in his footsteps through Europe.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I've got a string of posts, you know, hundreds of
posts from different platforms now going back for four or
five years and lead up to the attack, and I
can see how he was in this interconnected world, how
he engaged with this world, how he forecasted his violence.
Of course, he was operationally alone. He carried out the
attack by himself, was self funded, but there were people
(02:02):
who who were targeting the platforms that he was operating in,
desensitizing users to violence, providing materials that would be helpful
in the planning of terrorism. And the closer I looked
at it, the more I came to see that based
on how these ecosystems operated in the years before the attack,
what happened in christ Church, it certainly wasn't inevitable, but
is tragically explainable.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, So how explicit was he on these forums as
to what he was planning to do?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I mean we're talking about on at least two platforms,
one being the anonymous platform four chan, where we now
have a trove of his art posts going back four
years from researchers at the University of Auckland, and then
also in the posts that he'd made in those particular
posts he was anonymous, but then also in posts that
he'd made in Australian extremist groups where he wasn't anonymous,
(02:51):
where he was signaling direct threats against places of worship
in New Zealand in Dunedin where he was living. He
mentioned the fact that they're being mosques in two mosques
in christ Church. He mentioned the third mosque in Ashburton
in another post, which is where he was on his
way to after after he'd livestreamed the attack on the
(03:13):
first two on the day of March fifteen. And this
violence in these contexts was being encouraged, celebrated. He was
he was part of a process where everyone in those
communities were desensitizing each other. He was, in that way,
part of something that was much much bigger than himself.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
And this was deliberate, right.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So you know on platforms like four Chan, you know,
which were invisible to most people in the lead up
to christ Church, which is part partly why maybe the
lone actor narrative seemed to fit so conveniently people.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Were aware of what was happening there.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But when you look closer, there were other websites around
four chan, you know, a place called Iron March, which
was this international fascist forum that was having a real
world impact.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Act on violence was spilling into the real world.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Their users were actively targeting four Chan places like four
chan and eight chan where the christ Church terrorist was
bringing users across and indoctrinating them into this radical ideology.
So it wasn't just sort of some random thing where
he had just snapped one day as he sort of
came to be seen. I mean, Australia had had a
(04:22):
model for that kind of mass shootter because that's what
had happened at Port Arthur in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I was part of part of time asking before.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
We run out of time, what's going on with this
migrant hunting in Bulgaria.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So a big one of the sort of biggest questions
that I had in the attack was what he was
doing on his travels, sorry in the podcast, rather as
what he was doing on his travels. And he'd done
two suspicious, suspicious trips to an area of Europe known
as the Balkans. The first one was in twenty sixteen
where he will the end of twenty sixteen, in early
twenty seventeen, where he'd been in Serbia and Bosnia. This
(04:59):
is a place where people had, you know, killed for
race and religion, where in the nineties bos Muslims had
been targeted.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And very much that history. No, no, that's that's not
the suggestion.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
What I what I tried to find is particularly for
the second trip, where he'd done this kind of targeted
almost pilgrimage across nationalist sites in Bulgaria, and I'd wondered
sort of how this had been directed because it's, you know,
it seems so obscure to anything that we really talked
about in Australia or anything that had been present in
the Australian extremist groups in the lead up to the attack.
(05:34):
And what I found from speaking to people in Bulgarian
intelligence was there were actually these migrant hunter groups on
the Turkish Bulgarian border that were meeting with foreign with
foreigners that were putting out propaganda in English importantly, that
were targeting, you know, English beating extremists, and you know,
in the inverse, extremists from from you know, Western countries
(05:55):
were coming there and meeting with them, and that, according
to them, was that was, you know, a likely explanation
for why he might have become so obsessed with Bogaria
and that part of the world.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I see. Hey, Joey, thanks very much for talking us
through it. Really appreciated. Joey Watson investigative journalists and podcaster.
A podcast is called Secrets We Keep Lone Wolf.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
Ever, duple cl.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Fudz swin Berner, who's a public health expert Reckons has
a different take on it to me, So weware which
had to him half the five o'clock and compare numbers
and see see what he's got to say about it.
Nine two nine two, by the way, is the text
number and standard text fees apply. Now there is a
new podcast by an Australian investigative journalist and it's questioning
whether the podcas the christ Church Mosque shooter should be
(00:21):
considered a lone wolf. Former Guardian and ABC journalist Joey
Watson's six part series Secrets We Keep Lone Wolf documents
Brenton Tarrance descent into Radicalization. Joey Watson is with us
right now.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Hey Joey, Hey, Heather, how are you going. Thanks so
much for having me on to talk about this important story.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
More than welcome. Now, why do you think we shouldn't
be calling him a lone wolf?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, firstly, before I answer that, let me just establish
why I think he came to be seen as a
loan actor.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
In the first place.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
When the attack happened in March of twenty nineteen, it.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Sort of brought to the world stage.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
This growing threat of fart extremism that we were vaguely
aware had been spiled across borders and all becoming more
organized in the period leading up to the attack, but
very much in Australia and perhaps in New Zealand, although
for slightly different reasons soon after it seemed to fade
away from public view. After the initial shock, War Off
anniversaries were never recognized. And part of the reason for
(01:18):
that is he had created a narrative around himself as
a guy that had kind of acted alone, and that
was very convenient for people who wanted to, you know,
not really have anything to do with it, to not
engage with it on a serious levels, but especially in Australia. Now,
what I've done is I've gone through all of the
ecosystems that he was operating in the years before the attack.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I've followed in his footsteps through Europe.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
I've got a string of posts, you know, hundreds of
posts from different platforms now going back for four or
five years and lead up to the attack, and I
can see how he was in this interconnected world, how
he engaged with this world, how he forecasted his violence.
Of course, he was operationally alone. He carried out the
attack by himself, was self funded, but there were people
(02:02):
who who were targeting the platforms that he was operating in,
desensitizing users to violence, providing materials that would be helpful
in the planning of terrorism. And the closer I looked
at it, the more I came to see that based
on how these ecosystems operated in the years before the attack,
what happened in christ Church, it certainly wasn't inevitable, but
is tragically explainable.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Okay, So how explicit was he on these forums as
to what he was planning to do?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I mean we're talking about on at least two platforms,
one being the anonymous platform four chan, where we now
have a trove of his art posts going back four
years from researchers at the University of Auckland, and then
also in the posts that he'd made in those particular
posts he was anonymous, but then also in posts that
he'd made in Australian extremist groups where he wasn't anonymous,
(02:51):
where he was signaling direct threats against places of worship
in New Zealand in Dunedin where he was living. He
mentioned the fact that they're being mosques in two mosques
in christ Church. He mentioned the third mosque in Ashburton
in another post, which is where he was on his
way to after after he'd livestreamed the attack on the
(03:13):
first two on the day of March fifteen. And this
violence in these contexts was being encouraged, celebrated. He was
he was part of a process where everyone in those
communities were desensitizing each other. He was, in that way,
part of something that was much much bigger than himself.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
And this was deliberate, right.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
So you know on platforms like four Chan, you know,
which were invisible to most people in the lead up
to christ Church, which is part partly why maybe the
lone actor narrative seemed to fit so conveniently people.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Were aware of what was happening there.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But when you look closer, there were other websites around
four chan, you know, a place called Iron March, which
was this international fascist forum that was having a real
world impact.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Act on violence was spilling into the real world.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
Their users were actively targeting four Chan places like four
chan and eight chan where the christ Church terrorist was
bringing users across and indoctrinating them into this radical ideology.
So it wasn't just sort of some random thing where
he had just snapped one day as he sort of
came to be seen. I mean, Australia had had a
(04:22):
model for that kind of mass shootter because that's what
had happened at Port Arthur in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I was part of part of time asking before.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
We run out of time, what's going on with this
migrant hunting in Bulgaria.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So a big one of the sort of biggest questions
that I had in the attack was what he was
doing on his travels, sorry in the podcast, rather as
what he was doing on his travels. And he'd done
two suspicious, suspicious trips to an area of Europe known
as the Balkans. The first one was in twenty sixteen
where he will the end of twenty sixteen, in early
twenty seventeen, where he'd been in Serbia and Bosnia. This
(04:59):
is a place where people had, you know, killed for
race and religion, where in the nineties bos Muslims had
been targeted.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And very much that history. No, no, that's that's not
the suggestion.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
What I what I tried to find is particularly for
the second trip, where he'd done this kind of targeted
almost pilgrimage across nationalist sites in Bulgaria, and I'd wondered
sort of how this had been directed because it's, you know,
it seems so obscure to anything that we really talked
about in Australia or anything that had been present in
the Australian extremist groups in the lead up to the attack.
(05:34):
And what I found from speaking to people in Bulgarian
intelligence was there were actually these migrant hunter groups on
the Turkish Bulgarian border that were meeting with foreign with
foreigners that were putting out propaganda in English importantly, that
were targeting, you know, English beating extremists, and you know,
in the inverse, extremists from from you know, Western countries
(05:55):
were coming there and meeting with them, and that, according
to them, was that was, you know, a likely explanation
for why he might have become so obsessed with Bogaria
and that part of the world.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I see. Hey, Joey, thanks very much for talking us
through it. Really appreciated. Joey Watson investigative journalists and podcaster.
A podcast is called Secrets We Keep Lone Wolf.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live to
news talks it'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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