‘No signs’ to stop Christchurch attack
A COMPREHENSIVE report into the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings in which 51 Muslim worshippers died sheds new light on how the gunman was able to elude detection by authorities as he planned his attack.
The Royal Commission of Inquiry report released yesterday shows the attacker, Brenton Tarrant, kept a low profile and told nobody of his plans.
It concludes that despite the shortcomings of various agencies, there were no clear signs the attack was imminent – aside from the manifesto Tarrant sent out just eight minutes before he began shooting, which came too late for agencies to respond. But the report does detail failings in the police system for vetting gun licences, and says New Zealand’s intelligence agencies were focused on the threat posed by Islamic extremism rather than white supremacists.
The report says the government should establish a new national intelligence agency. New Zealand currently has one intelligence agency that focuses on domestic threats and one that focuses on international threats. Often, those agencies are focused on immediate events like keeping visiting dignitaries safe. It recommends establishing a well-financed intelligence and security agency that is more
strategic in nature and can focus on emerging threats and developing a counter-terrorism strategy.
New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern said the government had agreed to implement all of the recommendations and apologised for agency shortcomings.
Tarrant, who is Australian, was sentenced in August to life in prison after pleading guilty to 92 counts of terrorism, murder and attempted murder. The report shows he had almost no meaningful interactions with people in New Zealand because he was introverted and did not work.
As a child, Tarrant had unsupervised access to the internet and became interested in video games from the age of six or seven, the report says. He began expressing racist ideas from a young age and told his mother he started using the 4chan internet forum from age 14.
He moved to New Zealand in 2017 and focused on planning for his attack. Yet when needed, Tarrant could present himself to others in a way that did not arouse suspicion.
Tarrant told investigators that although he frequented extreme right-wing discussion boards, he found YouTube a far more significant source of information and inspiration.