2017 New Mexico school attack

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At a school bombing in New Mexico in 2017 on December 7, 2017, two students were Hispanic American origin of the 21-year-old right-wing extremists William Atchison at his former school, the High School in Aztec (New Mexico) , shot. After he shot several magazines empty in the hallway and in a classroom where students were holed up in a small office area and the police broke into the locked school building, he committed suicide.

The case was received in Germany in particular through the close contacts of the assassin with the perpetrator of the attack in Munich in 2016 as well as a student from the Ludwigsburg district who was accused of a planned rampage .

Sequence of events

Schedule of Atchison's school attack found in a trash in Atchison's apartment
Photo of Aztec High School (taken around nine years before the event)

Pretending to be a student, William Atchison entered Aztec High School at 8:04 a.m. on Thursday, December 7, 2017. In a backpack he carried a 9 mm Glock pistol as well as several magazines and ammunition. He had bought the pistol just a few weeks earlier on November 3, 2017 in a department store in Farmington , around 25 km away . After high school classes began, Atchison went to a boys' bathroom on the second floor. According to a note later found on a USB stick that Atchison was carrying with him, he appeared to be intending to prepare to take a class hostage there. When the 17-year-old student Francisco "Paco" Fernandez entered the toilet, Atchison immediately fired his gun at him, fatally injuring the teenager. Atchison left the toilet and met 17-year-old Casey Jordan Marquez in the hallway, who he also immediately shot.

When the school caretaker heard the gunshots, he followed Atchison as he shouted loudly to teachers that there had been gunfire in the building. A 74-year-old substitute teacher also heard the gunshots and barricaded herself in an office with her seventeen students taking a computer course, including Fernandez. Since she couldn't lock the room because she didn't have a key, they pushed a couch in front of the door. Atchison first spun his gun around in the hall, firing aimlessly, and then entered the computer classroom; Despite several shots from him through the office wall, there were no injuries. According to the substitute teacher, the shots lasted several minutes. When the police arrived at the school building, which had meanwhile been closed, and gained access with a shot from a gun, Atchison shot himself. In the first reports, 15 people were killed, which later turned out to be false information.

According to police, Atchison had entered the school with the aim "to provide as possible for such a large massacre" ( English "determined to create as much carnage as he possibly could" ). A total of 82 cartridge cases were found in the school by the police. A note found on Atchison's USB stick read: “If everything goes according to plan, it would be today when I die. I'll go somewhere and get ready, take a class hostage, go crazy and then blow my brains out. ”He went on to say,“ Do you think I'm crazy? I am actually more reasonable, peaceful and less insane than a majority of the citizens of this entire region ”. The police assumed that Atchison had intended the USB stick to be found on him.

December 7, 2017, when Atchison shot the two students, marked the 76th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor . In their investigation, the police came across a possible relative who was the victim of this attack and suspect that this was the date Atchison chose.

Victim

Both victims were of Hispanic American descent. According to investigations by the Southern Poverty Law Center , they were the victims of the thirteenth politically motivated violent crime in the United States, carried out within three and a half years of the Isla Vista rampage by Suprematists with ties to the " alt-right " subculture.

The 17-year-old Casey Jordan Marquez was Senior (Zwölftklässlerin) at the Aztec High School and outside the high school as a coach in artistic gymnastics at the Farmington Gymnastics Academy actively and captain of the cheerleading teams of Aztec High School. She planned to perform at the next Orange Bowl .

Francisco "Paco" Fernandez, who was also 17 and was active in American football , basketball and wrestling , had only moved from Piedra Vista High School in Farmington to Aztec High School in the year of the attack and was a junior (eleventh grader) there. Police said Fernandez had inadvertently saved the lives of many students who might otherwise have fallen victim to Atchison's planned hostage-taking by accidentally entering the bathroom.

Perpetrator

The 21-year-old William "Bill" Edward Atchison had previously attended Aztec High School himself, but left it without a degree. He lived with his parents about a mile from high school and worked at a gas station, also about a mile from his parents' house. His family had moved with him from the small town of Belen, 340 km south of Aztec, to Aztec. Atchison had a GPA 3.5 but justified dropping out of school in 10th grade with feelings of fear and a backward-looking culture. His former classmates described him as a shy boy who always had a smile on his face and was nice. He stuttered and had a habit of always wearing a trench coat. Atchinson described his father as "a fat, lazy idiot who watches Fox News all day, " and his mother as "a psycho- hillbilly from Florida who is really mentally ill."

Atchison had no criminal record, but the FBI had noticed a year earlier because he had inquired in the forum of a gaming platform which weapons would be suitable for a mass murder and where he could get a "cheap assault rifle ". During an interrogation in March 2016 at his parents' house, Atchison stated that he had only trolled and did not plan an attack. The FBI found that he had no weapons other than an airsoft weapon and decided not to investigate.

According to research by The Daily Beast lived Atchison on the Internet as a white supremacist and pro Trump - Memes provider, which is concerning, especially for his obsession school massacres was known, while an apparent conversion of trolling towards a right-wing have carried out political ideology. During an autopsy at Atchison, several tattoos were found on him, including " SS " and "AMOG" and a swastika on his upper left thigh. Above his left knee was "build the wall" according to Trump's request for a " Mexican Wall ". For the extremism researcher Florian Hartleb , who, along with other assassins of this type, extensively treated Atchison in his book on “ Lonely Wolf Terrorism ”, Atchison was “an avowed racist ”.

In the last five years before his act, Atchison spent most of his time online, repeating postings with threats of violence, but also writing calls for help. He was to be found on right-wing extremist websites such as The Daily Stormer with user names such as “ Adam Lanza ” or “Future Mass Shooter”. On the gaming platform Steam , For example, Atchison wrote in the criticism section of the computer game " Wolfenstein ": "I find this game disgusting because it offers mass murder against one's own race." In another review he simply wrote " RIP Hitler ". Atchison had acquired over forty usernames on the official Blockland game website . Almost all of them were racist or violent. His user names included “School Shooter” and “Future Mass Shooter” pseudonyms such as “ Omar Mateen ”, “Adam Lanza”, “ Elliot Rodger ”, “ Anders Breivik ” and the like. a.

Despite his trolling around many websites, Atchison also moved to websites such as LiveJournal in a sincere search for someone to hear his cries for help . For example, three years before he was shot at Aztec High School, he wrote, “I'm sorry if I'm rude and hateful, but I don't know what to do. I haven't lived a life for almost 19 years, most of them in the wretched Sun Belt . Did you know that New Mexico has the fourth highest suicide rate? ”He continued:“ Should I escape this dump or come to terms with it? How can I be polite and find friends in this world? "

Connection to the perpetrator of the attack in Munich in 2016

On January 10, 2016, a few days after Cologne's New Year's Eve 2015, a discussion forum called the “Anti-Refugee Club” was set up on Steam , and Atchison was one of the founders. In this group, gunmen and right-wing hate criminals like the Norwegian Anders Breivik were stylized as heroes, and fantasies of annihilation were directed against “non- Aryans ”, against colored people, migrants, Jews and refugees. The group communicated about weapons and mass murder as well as "killer games" such as " Counter Strike ". Atchison and David S., who shot nine mostly young people who he believed to be migrants in the attack in Munich in 2016 and who finally shot themselves with a Glock pistol , acted in this forum as "brothers in spirit". When the “Anti-Refugee Club” group was deactivated by the Steam operator as a “hate group ” on September 23, 2017 , it is said to have had around 770 members.

Shortly after the attack in Munich Atchison published an obituary in the satirical Encyclopedia Dramatica in which he celebrated David S. with a kind of ancestral gallery: He was a "good guy" because he only killed migrants. When the AfD and other right-wing groups come to power in Germany, a monument will be erected to the “hero” who was a “true Aryan” and a “true German”. Atchison was a volunteer administrator on Encyclopedia Dramatica with his user name "AlGore" . The Bavarian State Criminal Police Office was not aware of the page created by Atchison about the attack in Munich until a request from Katharina Schulze almost two years after the crime.

Two days after the attack in Munich, a witness, Florian M., went to the Erfurt police and handed in a USB stick with a copy of excerpts from the forum on Steam . He also reported to the Ludwigsburg police and pointed out a potential assassin in the district. This then arrested 15-year-old David F. and found a large amount of chemicals, small-caliber cartridges and escape plans from his school during a house search. The police assumed that David F. was planning a rampage at his own school. David F., who appeared on Steam under the name "DiabolicPsychopath", had become aware of Atchison, as Atchison was interested in rampage; he then asked Atchison if he knew of other potential mass murderers in Germany and was referred to the Munich shooter. David F. even had the access data to several accounts of the Munich based on Steam and logged in there two days after the attack in Munich.

A witness questioning of Florian M. by the Munich public prosecutor responsible for the attack in Munich did not take place, from the membership of the Munich gunman in the group "Anti-Refugee Club" it was concluded that his xenophobic attitudes were up to the (provisional) termination of the Investigations in May 2017, however, did not take any further investigative measures regarding this group, nor were American authorities informed. Conversely, the Federal Criminal Police Office knew the connections between Atchison and the Munich shooter from December 9, 2017, but only passed this information on to the BLKA, which was responsible for the attack in Munich, on June 14, 2018 . In the trial of the Munich gunman's gun dealer, which was completed in January 2018, the Munich District Court I rejected three requests for evidence from the victim's representatives on Steam .

Conversely, in March 2016, four months before the attack in Munich, the FBI came across him through Atchison's postings in various Internet forums and had questioned him and searched the house in which he lived. The investigations were then discontinued, authorities in Germany were not informed.

In mid-December 2017, The Daily Beast reported on the connections between Atchison and David S., the Munich attacker. In April 2018, Florian Hartleb came across a report in the Farmington daily newspaper The Daily Times , which also dealt with this connection. Hartleb had assessed the attack in Munich in a scientific report. He asked the BLKA , but the connections were unknown there. On April 20, 2018, the State Office of Criminal Investigation resumed the investigation into a possible connection between David S. and William Atchison, which had been concluded in spring 2017; the investigation has not yet been completed. A few days later, the news magazine Der Spiegel and, in May 2018, the ARD TV magazine Fakt presented their own research on the connections.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d Elise Kaplan, Matthew Reisen: School shooter wanted to create "carnage" . In: Albuquerque Journal . December 8, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Joshua Kellogg: Aztec school shooter reached out to other school shooters, planned killings online . In: The Daily Times (Farmington) . 17th April 2018.
  3. ↑ Benjamin Fearnow: Who Is William Atchison? New Mexico Police Identify Aztec High School Shooter . In: International Business Times . December 8, 2017.
  4. ↑ Eric Levenson, Laura Diaz-Zuniga: New Mexico high school shooter was investigated by FBI in 2016 . In: CNN . December 9, 2017.
  5. ^ Ray Bogan: Hero teacher saved 17 lives during New Mexico school shooting . In: Fox News . December 8, 2017.
  6. ↑ Fatal shots at US high school again . In: t-online.de . 7th December 2017.
  7. ↑ Substitute teacher and custodian hailed as heroes for saving several students' lives at New Mexico high school after gunman, 21, shot dead a cheerleader and a football player . In: Daily Mail . December 10, 2017.
  8. ↑ Aztec high school gunman posed as student; thumb drive may reveal motive: officials . In: CBS News . December 8, 2017.
  9. ↑ a b Martin Bernstein: Public prosecutor checks chat contacts of David S. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . 17th May 2018.
  10. ^ Mary Hudetz: Report: Aztec High School shooter one of 13 "alt-right" killers . In: The Durango Herald . February 7, 2018.
  11. ^ A b Hannah Grover: Shooting victims mourned by family members, friends . In: Daily Times (Farmington) . December 11, 2017.
  12. ↑ a b Russell Contreras: New Mexico school shooter left note plotting attack, was questioned by FBI a year ago . In: Toronto Star . December 8, 2017.
  13. ↑ a b c d e f g Brandy Zadrozny, Ben Collins: New Mexico School Shooter Had Secret Life on Pro-Trump White-Supremacy Sites . In: The Daily Beast . 15th December 2017.
  14. ↑ Nina Job: OEZ attack: David S. had contact with US assassins . In: evening newspaper . May 14, 2018.
  15. ^ New Mexico School Shooting-Autopsy Story . In: US News & World Report . February 21, 2018.
  16. ^ Mark Giffen, Lauren E Dvorscak: Death Investigation Summary . UNM Health Sciences Center. February 2, 2018.
  17. ↑ Florian Hartleb : Lonely Wolves: The new terrorism of right-wing individual perpetrators , p. 24.
  18. ↑ Beatrice Dupuy: White Man Behind School Shooting Was Obsessed With Trump and Hitler . In: Newsweek . 15th December 2017.
  19. ↑ a b c d e Connections of the ADZ assassin David S. to the USA . Written request from Katharina Schulze dated May 2, 2018 with answers from the BStMI in agreement with the BStMJ dated July 24, 2018.
  20. ↑ a b c Martin Bernstein: The network of the death shooters . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . 15th May 2018.
  21. ↑ a b c Florian Hartleb : Lonely wolves: The new terrorism of right individual perpetrators , p. 172ff.
  22. ↑ a b Right-wing fanatics celebrate the OEZ shooter online . In: evening newspaper . May 16, 2018.
  23. ↑ Hubertus Volmer: "There are also lone wolves from the right" . In: n-tv . 3rd October 2018.
  24. ↑ Police arrest 15-year-olds for possible preparation for amoktat . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . July 27, 2016.
  25. ^ Matthew Gault, Emanuel Maiberg: School Shooter Posted Racist Rantings to Steam for Years . In: Vice . 20th December 2017.
  26. ↑ Florian Hartleb : Lonely wolves: The new terrorism of right lone perpetrators , p. 110.
  27. ^ Investigations by the Bavarian authorities in the case of the ADZ attack . Written request from Claudia Stamm dated June 9, 2018 with answers from the BStMI with the involvement of the BLKA in agreement with the BStMJ dated July 30, 2018.
  28. ^ Connections of the assassin from the Olympia shopping center in Munich to the USA . Small request from Martina Renner , André Hahn , Gökay Akbulut with the answer from the Federal Government on June 11, 2018 (printed matter 19/2649).
  29. ↑ Nina Job: OEZ assassination: relatives make a request to the FBI . In: evening newspaper . June 12, 2018.
  30. ↑ Daniel Mützel: Gunmen network on the world's largest gaming site - police and operators ignore the problem . In: Vice . June 27, 2018.
  31. ↑ Florian Hartleb: “The OEZ monument must be changed!” In: Abendzeitung . 17th May 2018.
  32. ↑ Contact to right-wing shooters in the USA . In: Der Spiegel . Issue 18/2018, April 28, 2018, p. 24.
  33. ↑ ADZ assassin from Munich had contact with later US gunmen . In: fact . 15th May 2018.

Coordinates: 36 ° 49 ′ 15 ″  N , 107 ° 59 ′ 26 ″  W.