Death toll rises to 50 in mosque massacres
Many still hospitalized as shooter in court on first charge of murder
CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — The death toll in the massacres at two New Zealand mosques rose to 50 Sunday after police found another victim while removing bodies from the crime scenes, and authorities announced they do not believe three people who had been arrested were involved in the shootings allegedly carried out by a 28-year-old white supremacist.
Police Commissioner Mike Bush also said that 36 people are still hospitalized and that two of them are in critical condition.
New Zealand’s stricken residents have been reaching out to Muslims in their neighborhoods and around the country, with a fierce determination to show kindness to a community in pain.
The shootings suspect, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, appeared in court Saturday amid strict security, shackled wearing all-white prison garb, and showed no emotion when the judge read him one murder charge.
The judge said “it was reasonable to assume” more such charges would follow. Mr. Tarrant, who posted an anti-immigrant manifesto online and apparently used a helmet-mounted camera to broadcast live video of the slaughter in the city of Christchurch, appeared to make a hand sign, similar to an OK sign, that is sometimes associated with white nationalists.
The massacre during Friday prayers prompted a heartfelt
response from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who pronounced it “one of New Zealand’s darkest days” and said the shooter, an Australian native, had chosen to strike in New Zealand “because we represent diversity, kindness, compassion.”
Her fellow countrymen seemed to want to prove her right by volunteering acts of kindness.
Some offered rides to the grocery store or volunteered to walk with their Muslim neighbors if they felt unsafe.
In online forums, people discussed Muslim food restrictions as they prepared to drop off meals for those affected.
“Love always wins over hate. Lots of love for our Muslim brothers,” read a handwritten card on a wall of flowers in a historic part of the city that stretched a full block.
Still, Muslims were advised to stay away from mosques while the nation’s security alert remained at the second-highest after the deadliest shooting in modern New Zealand history.
Outside one of the two mosques, 32-year-old Ash Mohammed pushed through police barricades in hopes of finding out what happened to his father and two brothers, whose cellphones rang unanswered. An officer stopped him.
“We just want to know if they are dead or alive,” Mr. Mohammed told the officer.
Hungry for any news, families and friends of the victims gathered at the city’s Hagley College, near the hospital.
They included Asif Shaikh, 44, who said he was among more than 100 people at the Al Noor mosque when the attacker came in. He said he survived by playing dead, but was desperate to know what happened to his friends who were there with him.
“It’s been 36 hours, I haven’t heard anything about them,” he said.
Nearby, Akhtar Khokhur leaned on the shoulders of her friend and cried as she held up her cellphone with an image of her husband.
“I still don’t know where he is,” she said.
Ms. Khokhur, 58, and husband Mehaboobbhai Khokhur, 65, had traveled from India to spend time with their son Imran, their first visit in the eight years since he moved to New Zealand.
The couple was due to fly out Sunday.
Imran had dropped off his father, an electrical engineer, at the Al Noor mosque on Friday and was looking for a parking space when the shooting began. They have not heard from him since.
The gunman had posted a jumbled, 74-page manifesto on social media in which he identified himself as an Australian and white supremacist who was out to avenge attacks in Europe perpetrated by Muslims.
He livestreamed 17 minutes of the rampage at the Al Noor mosque, where, armed with at least two assault rifles and a shotgun, he sprayed worshippers with bullets, killing at least 41 people. More people were killed in an attack on a second mosque a short time later.
Facebook, Twitter and Google scrambled to take down the gunman’s video, which was widely available on social media for hours after the bloodbath.
The second attack took place at the Linwood mosque about 3 miles away.
The video showed the killer was carrying a shotgun and two fully automatic military assault rifles, with an extra magazine taped to one of the weapons so that he could reload quickly. He also had more assault weapons in the trunk of his car, along with what appeared to be explosives.
The attack at the Al Noor mosque was teased on Twitter, announced on the online message board 8chan and broadcast live on Facebook. The footage was then replayed endlessly on YouTube, Twitter and Reddit. In a statement on Twitter, Facebook said it had “quickly removed both the shooter’s Facebook and Instagram accounts and the video,” and was taking down instances of praise or support for the shooting. YouTube said it was “working vigilantly to remove any violent footage” of the attack. Reddit said in a statement that it was taking down “content containing links to the video stream or manifesto.”
The New York Times reported that the gunman, on the website 8chan, uploaded an image titled “screw your optics,” a phrase used in a post from Robert Bowers, 46, of Baldwin Borough, prior to the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre last fall, for which he faces federal and state charges.
Since then the words have become a catchphrase among neo-Nazis.
Two other armed suspects were taken into custody Friday while police tried to determine what role, if any, they played in the coldblooded attack that stunned New Zealand, a country so peaceful that police officers rarely carry guns.
Mr. Tarrant’s relatives in the Australian town of Grafton, in New South Wales, contacted police after learning of the shooting and were helping with the investigation, local authorities said. Mr. Tarrant has spent little time in Australia in the past four years and only had minor traffic infractions on his record.