‘Ideal’ target for terror
The royal commission report on the Christchurch mosque attacks presents a thorough examination of how an Australian kid from a small town ended up a mass killer. Martin van Beynen and Sam Sherwood report.
He paid his rent, mowed his lawns, kept mostly to himself and was polite to everyone. Even when he did come to attention – by, of all things, accidentally shooting himself at home – hemanaged to creep back into the shadows. The doctors who treated him for an eye and thigh injury did not tell police about the unusual incident.
His gun club buddies noticed he worked hard at the working bees, and did not talk politics.
As the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Terrorist Attack on Christchurch Mosques concluded, it all amounted to a clever strategy by a deeply disturbed young man with hatedrenched ideas and evil intent to slip through the net.
On a grey day in Christchurch on March 15, 2019, he would attack two mosques where people were at Friday prayers, fatally shooting 51 worshippers and injuring 40.
In hindsight, the red flags signalling his twisted plan were flapping. He was stocking both his mind and his armoury. He was bulking up with the help of steroids, injecting testosterone and pumping iron.
In planning amass murder of innocents, he made ‘‘to do’’ lists and budgets, making sure he had enough funds. He went on reconnaissance trips and whittled his cache of firearms down to six rifles.
Before he drove to Christchurch from Dunedin on March 15, he uncharacteristically told his mother and his sister he loved them.
Early steps
Brenton Harrison Tarrant’s upbringing had more than the usual ups-and-downs.
Born in October 1990, in Grafton, New South Wales, he reacted badly to his parents’ separation when he was young, becoming withdrawn and clingy.
His mother, Sharon, then formed a relationship with an abusive part-aboriginal man who was violent to her and her two children. The family home burnt down.
Putting on weight between the ages of 12 and 15, he was bullied at school and had few friends.
He had unsupervised access to the internet and started using the 4chan internet message board – a forum for far-right messages and other objectionable material – at 14.
His father developed cancer (mesotheliomia) caused by exposure to asbestos when the shooter was 16 or 17, and later killed himself in April 2010, aged 49. It was arranged that his son would discover the body.
From an early age the gunman was an avid online gamer and also expressed racist views, making remarks about his mother’s partner at school, and being dealt with for antisemitic comments.
Some aspects of his life were consistent with his later claims that he was not a racist. He did community work with Australian Aborigines and, when travelling, engaged with different ethnicities.
As he grew older he told his sister he thought he was autistic and possibly sociopathic. He also said he did not care for people, including his own family, but knew he should.
He showed no inclination for sustained romantic or sexual relationships, while social contact made him anxious, he told the royal commission.
He worked as a personal trainer after leaving school, but was injured in 2012 and then went travelling, never working in paid employment again.
His lifestyle was funded by a A$457,000 payment from his father, who received a large compensation payout for his work-related cancer.
Intensification of racism
Between April 2014 and August 2017, he travelled extensively and, but for a trip to North Korea, always alone. The royal commission saw the significance of the travel as the ‘‘setting in which his mobilisation to violence occurred, rather than its cause’’.
By June 2016 his relatives were struck by how much he had changed. His mother felt his racism was becoming more extreme, and she worried about his mental health.
That August he sent comments via Facebook Messenger to an Australian critic of the United Patriots Front, which included the message, ‘‘I hope one day you meet the rope’’.
The threat was allegedly reported to the Australian police, but no action was taken.
His only close relationships were with his sister Lauren and, to a certain extent, his mother. He described himself as an introvert with a social anxiety problem.
‘‘The lack of personal engagement with others left considerable scope for influence for extreme Right-wing material found on the internet,’’ the royal commission remarked.
Plan into action
By January 2017, he was planning to move to New Zealand and booked his tickets.
He arrived on August 17 and was picked up at Auckland airport by a gaming friend. He had visited the friend’s family in 2013 and, keen shooters, they gave him his first experience of using firearms.
The royal commission was satisfied that, by the time the mosque shooter came to live in New Zealand, he had a fully developed terrorist ideology and a terrorist attack in mind.
Fifteen days after arriving, he took the first step to obtaining a firearms licence. He had already emailed the Bruce Rifle Club, south of Dunedin.
‘‘From that time on, his primary focus in life was planning and preparing for his terrorist attack,’’ the commission said. It considered his personality was ideal for his purpose, having an ability to be ‘‘single-minded to the point of obsession’’.
A bare existence
The gunman rented an old weatherboard house in Somerville St, in east Dunedin, and began living there on August 24. The flat was bare – a main bedroom, a second bedroom with a computer, desk and chair and a lounge with only a bed to sit on.
He opened two bank accounts in Dunedin and transferred $57,000 to them over the period he stayed there. He also had an income from a rental property in NSW he owned with his sister.
He had limited contact with other people. He had little to do with his neighbours, and interactions with people at the gun club and the gym were superficial. Nothing about his behaviour stood out or seemed concerning. That was the way he planned it.
His mother and a later partner, who was of Indian ethnicity, visited the shooter at the end of 2018. He took them sightseeing around the South Island, but the visit was awkward and tense.
At a breakfast visit to a cafe, the gunman left, saying he refused to spend money in migrant cafes.
His mother later told Australian police that the visit had left her petrified about her son’s mental health and increasingly racist views. She felt he had no friends and had isolated himself in his small empty flat. She sent him an article about extreme Right-wing groups in Ukraine that groomed young men like him.
Internet activity
His Facebook activity was sporadic, but he occasionally used it to post far-right material. During his first year in Dunedin, he joined The Lads Society’s Facebook group, changing his name to Barry Harry Tarry.
He commented on Hitler’s Mein Kampf and encouraged others to donate to Martin Sellner, a far-right Austrian politician. The royal commission
found some of his internet posts were typical of far-right extremists in that they were ‘‘implied calls to violence’’.
After the mosque shooting, a copy of the manifesto of Oslo terrorist Anders Breivik was found on a Sdmemory card associated with a drone he owned.
The royal commission considered the gunman was ‘‘significantly influenced’’ by Breivik, who was responsible for the deaths of 77 people in attacks on July 22, 2011.
Breivik’s manifesto provided considerable guidance for wouldbe Right-wing terrorists, the royal commission said. It also led the gunman to claim a link to the Knights Templar, amodern version of a Christian military order Breivik claims to have reestablished.
It appears the gunman fashioned an elaborate plan to claim a link to the organisation to make it look like he was part of a larger organisation.
He even went to Poland in December 2018 to make it look as though he attended a rally of an organisation called Knights Templar Order International.
Licensed to shoot
The shooter began the process to obtain a firearms licence by sitting the written test soon after arriving in Dunedin.
As part of the application process, a Dunedin-based vetting officer visited him at home, interviewed him and inspected his storage facilities on October 4, 2017.
He recommended the application should be approved. The gunman’s two referees were his Waikato gaming friend and the friend’s parent. Awaikatobased vetting officer interviewed both, but nothing adverse was disclosed.
Between December 2017 and July 2018, the gunman bought 10 firearms from New Zealandbased stores. The firearms included two semi-automatic rifles, a semi-automatic shotgun and a pump action shotgun.
He also acquired five magazines that enabled him to increase the firepower of his rifles and shotguns. The firearms were also modified, adding sights and butt stocks, changing a trigger and adding a strobe light.
A stash of ammunition he bought included 2000 rounds of .223 calibre ammunition from Gun City Dunedin for $1358 on March 24, 2018.
Shooting clubs
The gunman became amember of the Otago Shooting and Sports Rifle and Pistol Club on February 14, 2018, and the Bruce Rifle Club on February 26, 2018. He shot at the latter club 21 times in 2018 and a further five times in early 2019.
Club members found him polite and courteous. Some thought some of his behaviour was slightly odd. He always shot while standing up, went through a large amount of ammunition and his primary interest appeared to be firing at extremely fast rates and changing magazines quickly.
Not all discharges of his firearms were at the range. On July 13, 2018, he injured his right eye and thigh when a rifle went off, as he later explained, while he was cleaning it.
He was treated initially at Dunedin Hospital’s emergency department where he was seen by a registrar and the hospital ophthalmology service. Police
He had ... an ability to be ‘‘singleminded to the point of obsession’’.
were not informed. The landlord fixed the 7mm hole in the ceiling of his flat; the bullet had lodged in a beam.
The gunman was concerned someone might have heard the shot and reported it to police. He weighed up seeking medical treatment but concerns about his eyesight outweighed his reluctance to bring himself to official notice.
Fitness
The gym workouts continued in Dunedin. He joined a gym from October 2017 to October 2018 and worked out three or four times a week, always alone. Other gym members found him generous and willing to help.
Concerned about attracting attention, the gunman left the gym to work out at home.
On December 18, 2017, he was treated for abdominal pain at the Dunedin South Medical Centre. He told the doctor he was using non-prescribed oral steroids and was injecting testosterone. The doctor noticed he had the moon face typical of a steroid overuser.
The medic warned him his use of testosterone was at a dangerous level. Police were unable to find the source of the drugs, which were probably acquired online.
More planning
The shooter created several planning documents that were later recovered by the police from an SD card. One of the documents included a budget for the next 550 days to ensure he did not run out of money, and he also created a ‘‘to do’’ list on July 18, 2018.
On the list of tasks was more shooting, buying steel-capped boots and adding cardio workouts to his training. He thought about joining amixed martial arts club.
On January 8, 2019, he drove to Christchurch, via Ashburton, for a reconnaissance mission. He noted an address on the other side of the road to the Ashburton mosque, a potential third target.
Later that day he went to the Masjid An-nur (Al Noor mosque) in Deans Ave, and flew a drone over the mosque. It was seen by amember of the public but not reported at the time.
He also drove past the Linwood Islamic Centre. A few days later hewent to the Masjid Al-huda in Dunedin but decided against it as a target.
He would later tell the royal commission the Dunedin centre did not look like amosque, that he did not want to harm Islamic students who would be likely to be returning home and that more than one mosque existed in Christchurch.
On January 30, 2019, he wrote another ‘‘to do’’ list, including writing on the weapons’ magazines, cleaning the house fully and taping power packs to the fuel cans.
On the night of March 14, 2019, he spoke to his mother by phone for 28 minutes and to his sister for an hour and 16 minutes. To his mother he seemed happy and relaxed, and told her he loved her – something which was out of character.
In his conversation with his sister he also, unusually, told her twice he loved her.
New Zealand ideal
The royal commission remarked that, from the gunman’s point of view, New Zealand was an ideal place for him to prepare, plan and carry out a terrorist attack.
He could fit in, the country had permissive firearms laws and because he had no close connections, no-one kept an eye on him, the commission said.
‘‘Although his way of life was distinctly odd, living alone in a sparsely furnished flat, not working, not engaging closely with anyone and spending large amounts of time online, at rifle clubs and the gym, there was no one who could see the complete picture until perhaps the visit of his mother in December 2018 and January 2019.’’
By personality, he was wellequipped to prepare, plan and carry out a terrorist attack, it said. He had limited empathy and could contemplate with equanimity large-scale murder. He was reasonably intelligent and had no emotional need for close contact with others.
Technically proficient across a range of skills, he was a digital native. ‘‘We see the terrorist attack as resulting very much from an unhappy conjunction of his personality (affected as it may have been by his upbringing), his financial circumstances, his underlying political views and his way of life, which limited the likelihood of his views being tempered.’’