Before Scott Beierle, 40, opened fire with a handgun in a Tallahesse yoga studio, murdering two, injuring five, and allegedly killing himself with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, he had an active presence spouting misogyny and racism online, as reported first by BuzzFeed News. Going back years, Beierle reportedly posted songs and videos which berated immigrants, people of color, and women.
Of the yoga studio shooting victims, the two fatalities were women. Four of the injured were women, and one was a man.
BuzzFeed reports that Officer Damon Miller of the Tallahassee Police Department says they are not able to tell media whether women were specifically targeted in the attack or not.
Dating back to August 2014, Beierle posted a series of videos on YouTube in which he rallied against seemingly anyone who had wronged him. Women were frequent targets, and he described them as “sluts,” “whores,” and felt the girls he attended high school with had a “collective treachery.”
He also berated minorities and interracial dating. Even the police and the Army (as reported by authorities, Beierle had previously served in the military) came up.
How had women wronged him? “Made one date, didn’t show up,” Beierle explained. “Made another date, didn’t show up. Kept making excuses. Ah, I could’ve ripped her head off.”
Who did Beierle emphasize with? Notably, Eliot Rodger, who murdered six people in Isla Vista, California, in May 2014. Rodger identified as an “incel,” essentially someone who identifies as “involuntarily celibate.” Rodger, unsurprisingly, had an active online presence where he expressed deep misogyny and hatred for women.
In a video called “Plight of the Adolescent Male,” Beierle waxed on about Rodger, saying, “I’d like to send a message now to the adolescent males ... that are in the position, the situation, the disposition of Elliot Rodger, of not getting any, no love, no nothing. This endless wasteland that breeds this longing and this frustration. That was me, certainly, as an adolescent.”
Beierle more recently uploaded songs full of violence and sexism to Soundclound. For example, in a song called “Locked in My Basement,” he describes keeping a woman as a prisoner in his basement and raping her.
Beierle’s misogyny wasn’t limited to the internet, either. He had an arrest record, including in 2012 and 2016, of grabbing women without their consent. Prosecutors ultimately dropped charges in all instances.
As reported by BuzzFeed, YouTube has since removed the videos in question. According to a YouTube spokesperson, the account had 3 subscribers and 17 videos in total, none of which had been flagged before.
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