Twelfth Child Dies After Brazilian Mass Shooting; Shooter A Jihadi?

A massacre that has shocked Brazil.

The mass murderer, who killed 10 girls and two boys, was named by police as 24-year-old Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, a former pupil at the Tasso da Silveira primary school.

De Oliveira eventually took his own life after police shot his legs and he fell down some stairs.

Western reports seem to be embargoing something -- something you can find on Al Aribiya, but which the Guardians of Our Mindthoughts don't seem to think we should know.

A Google translation of Al Aribiya's report shows that the even Muslims aren't as determined to cover up Islamic connections as the Western media:

sites that the young man is a Muslim who converted to Islam some time ago, reinforced what it said summaries of the preliminary report prepared by the police includes what she said about his half-sister, and her name Rozhelain Oliveira, he was eager always on the lookout for Islamic Affairs, expressed several times tendency to link Islam and the Islamic militants and their news, it does not come out of the house a lot and did not have a lot of friends and used to spend almost all his time on the computer.

It also included the message, described by Lt. Beltrami as "complex" without explaining that this word, the recognition of the young that people infected with HIV, while the TV station, "O Globo" reported on some local neighbors, as suffering from depression.

In the face of these obvious facts continued Newspapers Brazilian TV in linking the crime committed by the young man his inclination to Islam, said that the newspapers that the letter left by the included refers to its association with Islam and he embraced the belief that true religion and that he praised terrorism and suicide attacks, but it turned out later that the message completely free of the claim which was not based on any reliable source.

Al Aribiya, oddly enough, notes that the New York Times is pinning this on... Jehovah's Witnesses. Well, not really, but the New York Times buries his Islamism very much down-page and makes a muddle of his actual religious beliefs.

A letter found in Mr. Oliveira’s pocket made it clear that the attack was premeditated, and that he intended to die, but it offered no motive for the shootings.

Instead, he left explicit instructions for his burial — he wanted to be near his adopted mother, who died in 2009 — and the disposition of his house, which he wanted to donate to an animal shelter. He asked to be buried in a way that reflected some aspects of Islamic tradition, including in a white sheet he said he left in a bag on the first floor of the school, but he also asked Jesus for eternal life.

In the only reference to his deed, he sought “God’s forgiveness for what I have done.”

A longtime neighbor and former member of Mr. Oliveira’s church said Mr. Oliveira had been a lifelong Jehovah’s Witness before turning to Islam two years ago. Other neighbors on the street where he grew up said he had few friends and spent many hours in front of his computer on social networking sites. In the past year, several said, he had taken to wearing black clothing.

“People thought it was strange when he began wearing black, but we could never imagine he was going to do something like this,” said Fabio Santos, 27, who said he knew him for more than 10 years. “Maybe it was because his mother and grandmother had died.”

Now, I have to say the Times does give this a mention, but yet... it's buried, isn't it? And they still insist the letter gives "no motive" for his crime.

None? Not even an inkling?

While the New York Times expresses bafflement, Brazilian media is actually doing some reporting.

In an interview with Radio Band News, Rosilane Menezes, sister of gunman Wellington Menezes de Oliveira, said he was strange, reserved and without friends.

"He was so focused on things related to Islam and had let his beard grow long. He was weird, he was on the internet all day reading related issues and it was very strange, very secretive," she said.

Wellington left a letter with disconnected sentences, but with fundamentalist tendencies, said Lt. Col. Djalma Beltrame, commander of Battalion 14.

"He was on the internet using Muslim sites... It's crazy. Only a crazy person could do this to children, said the commander..."

Again, Western media keeps euphemizing this letter as "rambling and incoherent." Well, I'm sure it's that; that's how psychopaths tend to write. But "rambling and incoherent" is intended to suggest there is nothing here to suggest a motive, whereas, as the Brazilian police will tell you, there in fact is: "fundamentalist tendencies."

We can't know yet his exact motive. It's possible he was just an Islamic Jared Loughner, confused and lost from reality, and that his Islamism was more a symptom of his disease rather than the disease itself.

But it's interesting to note that once again a media which seizes any chance to label communists and Jihadists as "likely Tea Partiers" simply refuses to report actual facts when it comes to likely jihadis.

As that last blog notes:

The 36-paragraph AP article, makes no mention of his Islamic affiliation or beliefs.

36 paragraphs. And not any room to tell Americans (or anyone who doesn't speak Portuguese) what the Brazilians already know.

If the rest of the world can and should be emulated by the West -- what say we follow the leads of the Muslim world and Brazil and report the actual facts of the case, rather than acting as Guardians of Mindthoughts constantly suppressing relevant information that the rabble just can't be trusted to know?

posted by Ace at 03:23 PM

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