Authorities have not yet announced what motivated Mauricio Garcia to gun down eight people in a suburban Dallas mall over the weekend. However, Garcia was very active on a Russian social media platform where he unleashed a series of racist posts, longed for a race war, and shared photos of tattoos featuring Nazi symbols. His final message, which he posted shortly before the massacre, was a bizarre manifesto littered with hateful and violent remarks.
George Washington University faculty experts are available for comment. To interview one of the GW experts, contact GW Media at [email protected].
Neil Johnson, professor of physics, has studied the origin and spread of internet hate content and online misinformation for several years. In a study published last year, Professor Johnson focused specifically on how false and bigoted content emanates from Russian sources and permeates across social media platforms.
"You don't immediately see a Nazi stamp on the platform or anything like that,” Johnson told Axios. “But because it's less regulated, there's more of a chance that they're also going to talk about other things."
Jon Lewis is a Research Fellow at the Program on Extremism at GW, where he studies domestic violent extremism and homegrown violent extremism, with a specialization in the evolution of white supremacist and anti-government movements in the United States and federal responses to the threat. Lewis can offer background and context to the far-right extremist ideologies connected to a patch the alleged shooter was reportedly wearing. He can also discuss the shooter’s online accounts.
“The alleged perpetrator’s social media account on OK.RU serves an online diary replete with white supremacist and violent misogynistic rhetoric,” Lewis said in a recent interview with Rolling Stone. “The individual’s anger towards minorities and women serve as key themes which are evident throughout his posts. The profile also acts as a visual reference for his actions, including posts which serve as tactical planning for the attack.”
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