This text was produced for ProPublica’s Native Reporting Community in partnership with Wisconsin Watch. Sign up for Dispatches to get tales like this one as quickly as they’re printed.
Moments earlier than 15-year-old Natalie Rupnow opened fireplace inside her Madison, Wisconsin, college, killing two people and herself last month, a social media account believed to be hers posted {a photograph} on X displaying somebody sitting in a rest room stall and flashing a hand gesture that has develop into an emblem for white supremacy.
As information in regards to the taking pictures broke, one other X person responded: “Livestream it.”
Extremism researchers now imagine that second account belonged to 17-year-old Solomon Henderson, who police say walked into his highschool cafeteria in Nashville, Tennessee, on Wednesday and fired 10 pictures, killing one classmate after which himself. Archives of one other X account linked to him present that he posted the same picture to Rupnow’s in his closing moments.
Whereas there isn’t any proof that Rupnow and Henderson plotted their assaults collectively, extremism researchers who’ve tracked their social media exercise advised Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica that the 2 youngsters had been lively in the identical on-line networks that glorify mass shooters, even crossing paths. Throughout varied social media platforms, the networks commerce hateful memes alongside terrorist literature, alternate recommendations on tips on how to successfully commit assaults and encourage each other to hold out their very own.
The researchers had been monitoring these networks for months as a part of work trying into rising on-line extremist networks which have proliferated throughout gaming, chatting and social media platforms and that they imagine are radicalizing younger individuals to commit mass shootings and different violence.
The researchers’ evaluation discovered only some situations during which Rupnow and Henderson appeared to work together immediately. However within the hours, days and weeks that adopted the Madison taking pictures, Henderson seems to have develop into fixated on Rupnow. He boasted on X that Rupnow and him had been “mutuals,” a typical web time period for following one another, and shared one other put up that stated, “i was mutuals with somebody who’s now an actual college shooter ;-).”
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Obtained by Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica. Screenshots by ProPublica. Blurred by ProPublica.
The researchers, who’ve collaborated with counterterrorism organizations, lecturers and legislation enforcement to forestall violence by monitoring how extremist networks radicalize youth on-line, agreed to share info so long as they weren’t named out of issues for his or her bodily security. The information retailers vetted their credentials with a number of consultants within the discipline.
It’s inconceivable to know with full certainty that on-line accounts belong to specific individuals with out specialised entry to units and accounts from legislation enforcement. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Division has acknowledged the existence of two paperwork they imagine Henderson created, each of which comprise particulars about his social media accounts. Different researchers and teams — together with the Anti-Defamation League, Canadian extremism knowledgeable Marc-André Argentino and SITE Intelligence Group — have additionally decided these doubtless belong to Henderson.
The extremism researchers linked accounts to Rupnow, who glided by Samantha, by tracing her exercise throughout a number of social media profiles that exposed frequent biographical particulars, together with private acquaintances and that she lived in Wisconsin. On the lavatory put up, one individual the account frequently interacted with referred to Rupnow by her nickname, “Sam.” Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica had been in a position to confirm the social media posts and the connections between the accounts by retracing the researchers’ steps by means of archived social media accounts and screenshots.
On Thursday, ABC Information cited law enforcement sources in reporting {that a} social media account linked to Henderson could have been in touch with Rupnow’s social media account. The knowledge reviewed by Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica particulars their suspected connections and interactions. Almost the entire accounts that researchers have linked to Rupnow and Henderson have now been suspended.
A Madison Police Division spokesperson stated the company is aware of Rupnow “was very lively on social media” and it’s “simply beginning” to obtain and overview paperwork from tech corporations. The Nashville police stated they’d nothing additional so as to add past their earlier statements.
Rubi Patricia Vergara, 14, and Erin West, 42, had been killed at Ample Life Christian College in Madison. Josselin Corea Escalante, 16, died at Antioch Excessive College in Nashville. Each attackers additionally killed themselves.
Rupnow and Henderson every had a number of X accounts, the extremism researchers advised Wisconsin Watch and ProPublica. On the time of her assault, Rupnow adopted simply 13 different customers. Two of these accounts have been linked to Henderson.
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In November, Rupnow shared a put up from Henderson, which appeared to want a cheerful Veterans Day to the person who killed greater than a dozen individuals at College of Texas at Austin in 1966.
After the Madison assault, somebody wrote to Henderson and others on X, saying that one in all their “buddies” could have “shot up a college.” Henderson advised one other person, “I barely know her,” and stated he had by no means exchanged non-public messages along with her. Later, in a 51-page screed that Nashville police are analyzing, he emulated and praised a number of previous attackers together with Rupnow and stated, “I’ve connections with a few of them solely loosely by way of on-line messaging platforms.”
After Rupnow’s taking pictures, Henderson known as her a “Saintress,” utilizing a time period frequent within the networks, and posted or reshared posts about her dozens of instances, celebrating her racist, genocidal on-line persona and the truth that she had taken motion. On one platform, he used {a photograph} of her as his profile image. In his writings, he stated he scrawled Rupnow’s title and people of different perpetrators on his weapon and kit.
The web networks the 2 youngsters inhabited have an array of influences, ideologies and aesthetics. To various levels of dedication and sincerity, they ascribe to white supremacist, anti-Semitic, racist, neo-Nazi, occult or satanic beliefs.
On this on-line world, the forex that buys clout is violence. This violence typically entails kids and youngsters harming different kids and youngsters, some by means of doxing or encouraging self-harm, others, like Rupnow and Henderson, by committing mass assaults within the nonvirtual world.
“This community is finest described as a web-based subculture that celebrates violent assaults and radicalizes younger individuals into committing violence,” stated one of the violence prevention researchers. “Lots of the people concerned on this community are minors, and we might wish to see intervention to offer them the assistance and help they want, for their very own security in addition to these round them.”
Members of a few of these communities, together with Terrorgram, 764 and Com, have engaged in actions on-line and offline which have led to convictions for possessing youngster sexual abuse supplies and sexually exploiting a baby and indictments for soliciting hate crimes and soliciting the homicide of federal officers. The instances are pending, and the defendants haven’t filed responses in court docket. This month, the U.S. State Division designated the Terrorgram Collective as a terrorist organization, saying “the group promotes violent white supremacism, solicits assaults on perceived adversaries, and gives steerage and tutorial supplies on techniques, strategies, and targets for assaults, together with on essential infrastructure and authorities officers.”
When particulars of the Nashville taking pictures started to emerge, researchers realized they’d seen a few of Henderson’s accounts and posts inside the community of about 100 customers they’re monitoring. That they had beforehand reported one username of an account belonging to Henderson, in addition to others inside the community, to legislation enforcement and filed a number of experiences with the Nationwide Heart for Lacking & Exploited Youngsters.
That they had not been conscious of Rupnow’s accounts earlier than her assault however had been in a position to find her inside the community after the actual fact, discovering she had frequently interacted with different accounts they’d been following.
Alex Newhouse, an extremism researcher on the College of Colorado, Boulder, stated these subcultures have a protracted historical past of lionizing and mimicking previous attackers whereas goading each other to enact as a lot violence as attainable — even by assigning “scores” to previous assaults, one thing Henderson engaged with on-line. “The Antioch one may be very clearly copycat,” Newhouse stated.
Though Henderson’s diary signifies he had been considering an assault for months previous to Rupnow’s, her taking pictures drew his consideration. Hours after, he retweeted one other put up that stated: “There must be a betting marketplace for which rw twitter determine will radicalize the following shooter.” (RW stands for right-wing.)
Nonetheless the 2 teenagers entered this on-line subculture, their writings reveal despair about their private lives and the world round them and expressed violent, hateful views.
After the Madison taking pictures, a separate social media person famous their affiliation and tweeted on the FBI, accusing Henderson and others of getting prior warning. They “should be locked up,” the poster stated, “no questions requested.”
The FBI declined to remark. After Henderson’s assault, social media customers returned to the tweet: “hey so this man actually simply ended up calling a future college shooter a month forward of time and the FBI did nothing about it.”
Mollie Simon contributed analysis.
