SICKO’S ONLINE HISTORY OF EVIL
Racist rants & ‘threat’
The man authorities believe killed 11 people in a Pittsburgh synagogue had a history of posting online racist, anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic rants — and he broadcast his violent intentions Saturday shortly before entering the temple with guns blazing.
In a post on an alt-right message board and Twitter-like site called Gab.com, Robert Bowers ranted about HIAS, a nonprofit that helps resettle immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers.
“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people,” Bowers, 46, wrote about an hour before officials say he took aim at congregants in the Tree of Life Synagogue. “I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.”
Bowers didn’t mention the synagogue, but chillingly added, “Screw your optics, I’m going in.”
Officials said Bowers used an “assault rifle” and had three handguns on him when he surrendered to police after the bloodbath. He was wounded by police, but the nature of his injuries was not revealed.
Bowers has had 21 guns legally registered to his name, Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania told The New York Times.
“My glock family,” Bowers posted on Gab last month, above a photo of three handguns with multiple sights and clips.
Still, he had no previous criminal record and was “unknown to law enforcement” before the massacre, said Special Agent Bob Jones of the FBI’s Pittsburgh office.
That changed Saturday night, when the feds announced 29 charges had been filed against him.
Beyond his virulent anti-Semitism and love for guns, little was known about Bowers, who lives in an unremarkable apartment in the Baldwin section of Pittsburgh’s South Hills, a middle-class area of the city.
He, too, was apparently unremarkable. “I wish he had shown some sign of, ‘Hey, this is what I’ve got going on in my head,’ ” neighbor Chris Hall told The Post.
“He told my fiancé he was a long-distance trucker,” Hall said, adding that Bowers had lived in the apartment for two years, and was often gone for long periods.
Bowers watched TV late at night, and, oddly, would sit and smoke in his car, Hall said. Guests never visited, he added. Online sleuths identified him as a rabid user of Gab, which was taken down in its entirety Saturday night.
Bowers’ profile page, where he posted under the name @oned- ingo, branded Jews “the children of Satan.”
He created the profile in January and posted 627 messages on the site, including disturbing comments such as, “Daily reminder: Diversity means chasing down the last white person.”
He frequently reposted antiJewish memes, including several that questioned the reality of the Holocaust.
The material, archived by social-media users, also included several negative posts about Muslims and migrant caravans from Central America.
“I have noticed a change in people saying ‘illegals,’ that now say ‘invaders,’ ” Bowers posted six days ago. “I like this.”
But he was equally critical of President Trump, who he said was “a globalist, not a nationalist,” and was controlled by Jews.
He did not have a political party affiliation on his voter registration.