Driver using van in Toronto kills 10 injures 15

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If Alek Minassian could go back in time to before his deadly Toronto van attack he would do it all over again, but make sure he died at the end of it, he told a psychiatrist.
Minassian, 28, was asked, if he had a time machine and went back to before his attack on April 23, 2018, when he purposely drove a van along a busy Toronto sidewalk hitting as many people as possible, would he still do it?

“I would have probably still gone ahead with it and made sure I would have died instead of being arrested,” Minassian said, according to a transcript of the interview read in court.

He also said he would be more selective in his targeting, specifically seeking female victims between the ages of 18 and 30.

He described this, however, not in the angry rhetoric of the incel movement he claimed to adhere to (short for “involuntarily celibate, meaning someone who can’t attract a sexual partner) but rather for “sensationalism” to add to his killing spree “narrative,” making it more interesting and memorable.

Female victims would be more “consistent” with his incel story, Minassian said. It was something he would get a “pat on the back” for from people on the Internet.

Minassian was also asked during a psychiatric interview, if he was released from prison, would he attempt another act of mass murder.

“I’m not sure if I would or not,” Minassian said. “I would certainly think about it. I’m not sure if I would actually go through with it or not.”

“I would be hoping to achieve maybe just like another recognition of it or the fact that there is another kill count.”

Dr. Alexander Westphal, a U.S.-based psychiatrist, told court this is another example of a disconnect in Minassian’s thinking related to his autism. Westphal said Minassian placing value on anonymous, fleeting comments on web forums he frequented makes little sense.

Westphal and his team spent 14 hours interviewing and testing Minassian while he was in jail awaiting trial. A Canadian psychiatric team, led by Dr. John Bradford, previously examined Minassian. Bradford concluded Minassian did not fit the criteria for a not-criminally-responsible verdict.

In conversations with Westphal’s team, Minassian discussed various motivational factors for his attack.

He gave a number of reasons and then dissected his list and assigned relative weight to his various motivations.

He settled on: Loneliness, an affinity for incel killer Elliott Rodger and support for a brand of incel philosophy known as Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW) as being 40 per cent of his influence; his obsession with mass murderers as 25 per cent; a desire for infamy as 20 per cent; and anxiety over starting a new job as 15 per cent.

Westphal didn’t put much stock in Minassian’s reasoning.

He said when Minassian talked about his job anxiety and loneliness he seemed more genuine.

Minassian outlined in detail his desire for notoriety.

“It would have been the fact that I had done something, I had brought something to my name,” Minassian said in one psychiatric interview.

“I’ve done something for attention, rather than failing at something."

I was diagnosed with autism at 27. There are a number of complex and intersecting reasons why it took so long, but the short version is that I didn’t fit any of the stereotypes of an autistic kid when I was growing up in the 1980s and ’90s. I certainly exhibited a number of textbook symptoms—overwhelming sensory sensitivities, narrowly focused interests in subjects like the Titanic, painful struggles with socialization—but I was also a girl and empathetic to the point where I once felt so deeply for a fictional character that I cried until I vomited.

Like most aspects of autism, our relationship with empathy is oversimplified and misunderstood. The common stereotype that no autistic person can experience empathy is regressive and hurtful, but efforts by some people in our community to combat it by claiming that all autistic people feel too much empathy haven’t been entirely helpful either. The reality is that our empathy is as individual as we are.

One of the reasons that I started writing about autism is because I wanted to expand people’s concept of what autism is and do my part to prevent the next generations of kids like me from falling through the cracks. As a result of my work, I started to develop a following of autistic people from around the world on Twitter. And through that community, I myself became the beneficiary of autistic empathy when tragedy struck my city. On April April 23, 2018, as news of a van attack in Toronto that left 10 people dead and 16 injured spread around the country and then the globe, people started to check in on me. My autistic friends and followers on Twitter knew that I was in Toronto, and wanted to make sure that I was OK. When I confirmed that my loved ones and I were safe, our conversations turned to horror about the events, grief for the victims and their families and concern over reports that the suspect, Alek Minassian, was likely influenced by the incel community online

In the days that followed, our concerns multiplied, as the media began to report that Minassian might have an autism spectrum disorder. A familiar fear crept into our conversations: the fear that, once again, the diverse and complex existences of autistic people—already woefully underrepresented and misunderstood—would be flattened into a debate about whether or not we’re unfeeling monsters. You see, this wasn’t the first time we’d heard this story: There is a developing pattern in which (usually relatively privileged) men attempt to blame their violent and criminal actions on an autism diagnosis, and the rest of us get painted with the same brush thanks to their craven exploitation of antiquated autistic stereotypes. In 2017 an autistic man on trial for rape claimed he misinterpreted the situation; Australian TV presenter Don Burke has attempted to blame accusations of harassment against him on autism; in his 2011 memoir, Julian Assange tried to hand-wave away his rape allegations by quipping that he is “a little bit autistic”; and just last month an English judge took a teenager’s autism spectrum disorder diagnosis into account when sentencing him for posting bomb-making instructions on neo-Nazi forums and downloading indecent images of children.

Some of Minassian’s former special-education classmates have also strongly condemned the attempts to tie his crimes to his autism. It’s heartening to see, but I still worry that, regardless of the eventual verdict—and regardless of the number of well-meaning albeit imperfectly informed reports on the backlash to the autism defence—the damage has already been done. Minassian’s defence is being presented by lawyers and experts who have, at best, demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of autism. That defence is then being reported in the media (that I know, both as a writer and as someone who has been interviewed about autism for various publications and programs, has a very limited understanding of autism) and these stories are then being consumed by a public whose knowledge is, from my perspective, often even more superficial and suspect.

The lingering idea that autism alone can make a person violent and dangerous, and the idea that autistic people can’t experience empathy—and that those who don’t experience empathy are dangerous and incapable of caring about others in alternative ways—affects everything from the way that people treat us socially, to our employment prospects, to whether we are able to access autism testing and services at all.

Minassian’s defence, and other cases like his, are also a drain on the already limited resources of autistic communities. All of the time and energy that autistic people and our allies must put into once again refuting harmful stereotypes is time and energy that we can’t dedicate to improving the quality of autistic lives. Every time we are forced to explain that autism isn’t inherently dangerous is time we cannot dedicate to trying to expand people’s concepts of what autism actually is and the diverse identities and experiences of the people who have it. And every time autism is used as a singular reason for a crime that clearly has more complicated and insidious motives and explanations is time that we cannot spend talking about the ways in which some autistic people can be more vulnerable to online hate groups—and what can be done to break this pattern and prevent tragedies like Minassian’s van attack from happening again.

i wonder what % of that is just plain sociopathy?

The man who drove a van down a crowded Toronto sidewalk and killed 10 people said his actions are "99 per cent irredeemable" after turning to the bible in jail, court heard Thursday.

Alek Minassian made the comment on Dec. 12, 2019, to Dr. Alexander Westphal, a psychiatrist retained by the defence.

"I think it would be considered probably extremely irredeemable, like 99 per cent chance irredeemable," Minassian said in his orange jumpsuit while in a Toronto jail.

Crown attorney Joe Callaghan argued the 10-minute video clip should be put into evidence as it shows a different side of Minassian than the one portrayed thus far by psychiatrists who say he lacks empathy, shows no emotion and has no insight into the minds and feelings of others.

Callaghan said the clip shows Minassian engaged in conversation while answering questions at length and shows insight into the thoughts of others.

Molloy said this appears to show a different Minassian, not baffled and unresponsive and stuck in a concrete way of thinking as others have previously testified.

"This is not concrete, this is very esoteric, philosophical almost -- not almost, it is," the judge said.

Minassian, an atheist, told Westphal he began reading the bible while under suicide watch at the Toronto South Detention Centre.

He said the bible gives him a "sense of hope."

He told Westphal he reads it every day.

He said he can see how the bible can be used to help change people's lifestyles as a path to redemption.

The Crown said that passage shows Minassian's insight into the perspective of others.

Westphal disagreed.

"I don't think him expressing an analogy the man is controlling his nephew by God is saying anything Mr. Minassian's overall understanding of morality," Westphal said.

Earlier, court heard that Minassian said he had a strong desire to commit the attack.

"I felt a strong desire to want to especially as the time ... approached, but I didn't feel compelled to do it, I didn't really feel I had to do it," Minassian said.

While Minassian said he didn't feel he had to do it, the prosecution said those words seemed at odds with a report by Westphal that said Minassian felt he "had to go through with it" after making the decision to go forward with his plan.

Under questioning from the Crown, Westphal said Minassian was not compelled to commit the attack.

The Crown repeatedly asked why that was not in the report, a question Westphal seemed confused by.

"You only included facts that fit your narrative, you're not interested in an objective view," Callaghan said, his voice raised.

"I think I accurately captured that aspect I don't think he was compelled to do it," Westphal said.

The man who killed 10 people while driving a van down a Toronto sidewalk would tell his victims he committed the attack because he was lonely and angry at society, court heard Monday.

Alek Minassian gave that explanation to Dr. Alexander Westphal, a psychiatrist retained by the defence, in one of the pair's numerous meetings in 2019 and earlier this year.

"I'd probably say I was feeling very isolated and bitter at society and I decided to take out my anger on random people," Minassian says in the video played at the trial being conducted over Zoom.

"I'd probably tell them I never had many friends, people were leaving me out, I felt like I was being shortchanged in life, it wasn't any fun," he says in an interview room at the Toronto South Detention Centre.

But Westphal, a U.S.-based doctor who specializes in autism spectrum disorder, said the 28-year-old Minassian was just saying what he thought victims would want to hear.

"There's no evidence he was an unhappy person who felt marginalized other than his use of it as an explanation to a victim," the psychiatrist said.

"I think he's putting things in terms of what he thinks people are expecting to hear."

His state of mind at the time of the attack is the sole issue at trial.

Crown attorney Joe Callaghan said Monday that Minassian's comments on what he would tell his victims demonstrated his ability to view the perspective of those he attacked.

Court also heard Monday that Minassian had thought about abandoning the attack right up until the moment he stopped at a red light across the street from his first group of victims.

Minassian actually planned to attack pedestrians downtown, but he became really nervous at a red light at Yonge Street and Finch Avenue, according to part of a report shown by the prosecution from Dr. Scott Woodside, a forensic psychiatrist set to testify for the Crown.

"He stated he thought, 'I am going to do it now, I might as well,"' the report said.

"Mr. Minassian remembered thinking there were enough people after he saw five people waiting at the light."

Woodside also reported Minassian told him he felt lonely in the months and years leading up to the attack.

"He recalled seeing couples at college holding hands and saying 'silly' things to one another," Woodside wrote.

"He stated when stressed he began thinking about 'doing something' intermittently going back to high school."

Court also heard that Minassian told Westphal he used the so-called "incel-ideology — referring to men who are involuntarily celibate and angry at society because they cannot have sex with women — as a way to "rev" himself up for the attack.

A psychologist testifying for the prosecution says the man who killed 10 people in Toronto's van attack is capable of moral reasoning and understands other people's thoughts and feelings.

Dr. Percy Wright has painted a starkly different picture of Alek Minassian than an American psychiatrist who testified for the defence.

Minassian has admitted to planning and carrying out the attack, which leaves his state of mind at the time the sole issue at trial.

Wright said he conducted a battery of psychological tests with Minassian. He said Minassian scored average-to-above average compared to the general population -- and much higher compared to those with autism spectrum disorder -- on all the tests.

"He can think non-literally, can think outside the box and not as concrete as you would expect someone with autism spectrum disorder," Wright said.

He said Minassian is very hard on himself.

"He is quite haunted by his sense that he has failed academically, struggled with procrastination and really is quite a harsh self critic as opposed to a lot of individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Minassian scored slightly above average for anger, but was able to keep his anger hidden.

"I want to be clear these scores are not extremely elevated, and do not match up well with the eventually tragic outcome here," Wright said.

He said Minassian was a very introverted person who was anxious and socially avoidant, and who "doesn't have a lot of positive emotional experiences."

The defence closed its case earlier Tuesday after seven days of testimony from Westphal, a forensic psychiatrist.

Westphal testified that Minassian lacked the so-called theory of mind, or the ability to take the perspective of other people and to understand others have different thoughts and feelings than their own.

Wright, however, said Minassian demonstrated the theory of mind quite capably, the only unusual aspect to Minassian's thought processes is that he took a long time to answer some questions.

Wright said he administered one test that focused on dating and interactions between men and women. It is an area of socialization that is difficult for many with autism spectrum disorder, he said, who have trouble picking up on social cues.

An example of a problem put to Minassian is whether a man gave an overture towards a woman either too early or too late, he explained.

"It was one of the more telling tests for me in terms of watching him, especially given the time to figure it out -- which, to his credit, he likes to spend time, likes to figure things out -- how much theory of mind he actually demonstrated," Wright said.

"He obviously doesn't really have true dating experience, but has thought about it and was able to answer virtually every question right on this test.

Despite not achieving his goal on April 23, 2018, Alek Minassian told Dr. Percy Wright, a forensic psychologist based at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, that he felt “very happy and excited” people were talking about what he had done.

The psychologist said Minassian told him if he killed 100 people, he would be atop an online leaderboard of mass killers that he looked at often.

“He said if his kill count was high, he would not be viewed as a failure or a screwup that never got promoted and thought of as weird,” Wright wrote in his report.

He stated that rather than die in obscurity as a weird person he would be a celebrity of sorts.”

Wright interviewed Minassian on four occasions in the fall of 2019, meeting for about 10 hours in total the Toronto South Detention Centre.

The psychologist testified Tuesday that Minassian had anger issues and knew right from wrong.

Minassian said he wanted to shoot up his high school and kill people who bullied him and spare those he liked, court has heard. But he never went through with it, in part, because he didn’t know how to get a gun, the trial has heard.

Wright said Minassian fantasized about school shootings to work through his anger.

He said Minassian’s autism spectrum disorder was a factor in why Minassian committed the attack.

“One of the real tragedies of having a mental disorder is it can be a real burden to bear and can contribute to an offence, but it doesn’t necessarily rob you of the ability to know what’s wrong,” Wright said.

Testifying for the prosecution, Dr. Scott Woodside, a forensic psychiatrist at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, said Minassian told him he thought he would fail at his upcoming job and, ultimately, become a failure.

"I wasn't going to get anywhere," Woodside recalled Minassian telling him during one of four meetings the pair had in the fall of 2019.

Woodside testified that Minassian struggled with loneliness and told him that he might have delayed the attack had he been able to finally have a relationship with a woman. That never happened.

By late March of 2018, the 28-year-old from Richmond Hill, Ont., decided to rent a truck to be used as a weapon after studying "vehicle-ramming" attacks in Europe, Woodside said.

The allure of infamy was one of his main motivators, Woodside said.

"His goal was to be remembered forever," he told court, which is being held by videoconference due to the pandemic.

"He's someone who would have recognized his life trajectory was not following exactly the same trajectory as people without autism spectrum disorder," Woodside testified.

"I think that intellect would, unfortunately, make him acutely aware of things he was missing out on."

Woodside said while Minassian never had a relationship with a woman, it wasn't his sole focus.

He recalled Minassian telling him "I was a little sad I didn't have a girlfriend, but it wasn't crippling that I couldn't function."

Woodside also said Minassian was insightful, which is the opposite picture that has been painted by defence-retained experts at trial.

He said Minassian told him "I don't think I was mentally ill at the time, to be honest."

But, Woodside added, "he did also indicate if he was mentally ill, he may not have noticed it."

"That's pretty insightful," Woodside said.

Woodside said Minassian told him he knew killing was morally wrong. He said Minassian's autism spectrum disorder did not affect his knowledge of right from wrong.

"I may describe him as a mass murderer who has autism spectrum disorder," Woodside said.

"He happened to have autism spectrum disorder, not that it drove him to do this thing."

a minority opinion but i'd give him [and other "lifers"] the option of euthanasia. he wanted the cops to euthanize him. letting him just rot in a cell won't bring back those he killed or unhurt those he hurt.