A man accused of hurting two women with a crossbow in the British city of Leeds on Saturday died of a self -inflicted injury, police said Tuesday.
The suspect, Owen Lawrence, 38, died in the hospital where he was tasks after his trial in the attack scene, said anti -terrorism police in a statement.
The two women, 19 and 31, were serious injuries, authorities said. One was discharged from the hospital one day after the attack, but the other remained hospitalized on Tuesday after life wounds, they said.
Police said they were still investigating the motivation for the uproar, the duration that the whites saw their own walk along a three miles of pubs and bars, known locally as the “Otley race”, armed with a crossbow and several air rifles.
The attack seemed to be the last of a series of violent incidents in Britain in recent years by individuals who attract a complex combination of motivations. Some showed interest in online extremist content, thought they did not adhere to a single ideology.
Last summer, three young people were brutally murdered in a stabbing of a teenager obsessed with violence in Southport. A prosecutor said in court that the suspect did not have a political or religious ideology and that his “sole purpose was to kill.” The young man had seen a lot of videos and material related to mass murder, violence and genocide, according to the authorities.
Experts Radicalization has warned about an increase in indisentated acts of violence or a type that is once associated mainly with ideological terrorists.
A social media account associated with the suspect in the Leeds attack on the weekend indicated an interest in mass shootings and in white supremacy, and expressed misogynist points of view.
The authorities have not yet decided whether to formally declare the incident a terrorist attack. According to British law, that would require a finding that violence has been fought “with the purpose of advancing in a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.”
The investigators are reviewing two Facebook accounts that the police believe that it belonged to the suspect. One of the accounts was seen by the New York Times before it was a task.
The most recent publication, published shortly before the attack at 2:45 pm on Saturday, was titled “attack information” and contained photos of weapons that coincided with images of elements discarded on the ground after the assault. He said that the objectives would be “students, attendees to the nightclub, pub tracers, participants of Otley Run, society, humanity, humanitarian race, neurotypics and police, if necessary.”
Under the heading “Type of attack”, the post said it was a “mass murder, mass murder, terrorism, revenge, misogynist anger, homicide/suicide.”
The Facebook user said it was a political “reactionary” that had “explored ideas of extreme right” and had read a manifest manifesto shared by the white supremacist who made mass shootings in two Mosques of New Zealand in 2019. A separate “” “” “” “” “” “” “” “” “” “ A theory of the extreme right conspiracy that whites are being replaced by non -white in western countries.
Another recurring theme in the account was a hatred of women, feminists and political left. A post of February 15 accused women of making society “degenere” choosing the wrong partners. A week later, another publication said that appointment applications such as Tinder were “designed only for women.”
The Facebook account had been made public before the attack and the profile photo showed a man believing in a baseball bat and wearing a shirt similar to a Wern for one of the persecutors of the Massacre of the Columbine 1999 high school.
The mass shootings in the United States also attracted attention to the account.
In 2024, the user shared a video related to a 2017 gun in a supermarket in Pennsylvania, with the title: “Rip Brother, greatly identified with you.”
Other attacks discussed on the Facebook page included one aimed at Jews and Muslims in Germany in 2019 and the Norway massacre 2011 by the white supremacist Anders Breivik.
Several publications alluded to the Crusades, using the Latin phrase “Deus full”-“God wants it”, which was used by Christian armies and has since been adopted by extreme right groups. In November 2023, the man published a photo of himself doing what seems to be a Nazi greeting.
But on February 20 of this year, the same written account that did not identify with the ideologies of the extreme right and had only “flirted a little with their ideas.”
Several other publications The account referred to health and well -being, saying that it was a recovery drug addict that attended anonymous narcotics meetings.
