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'COVID-19 or video games': Expert explains Robin Westman's motivation after Minnesota school shooting
MSNBC analyst Christopher O’Leary says Minneapolis shooter Robert Westman may have been driven by radicalization, bad parenting, COVID, or video games.
Robert Westman has been in the headlines since being identified as the suspect in the shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Wednesday morning. In the TV debate studios, 'experts' are weighing in on the motive behind the tragic shooting, which killed two and injured 17 children.
In one such discussion in the studio of MSNBC, a 'National Security Analyst' opined that the suspect could be motivated by several possibilities. Among the ones he mentioned were his "radicalization," which the 'expert' Christopher O'Leary said could have come from bad parenting, the effects of COVID-19 and playing video games.
According to his bio on the Foreign Policy Institute, O'Leary is now the Senior Vice President for Global Operations at The Soufan Group. "His career spans over two decades of service working on counterterrorism investigations and operations for the Federal Bureau of Investigation," the bio reads.
"There's various push-pull factors. Maybe it's some kind of mental break," Oleary says. "Maybe it's their life has, you know, gone down the toilet and they have no hope. Maybe they have bad parenting, a variety of things. The effects of COVID-19 and the isolation and what's called the gamification influence, where young men are growing up, you know, being raised by video games.
"All of those things are involved in really people mobilizing towards violence more routinely in these things. But you will also see people get radicalized solely on these video games through headsets."
The suspect, Robin Westman, was carrying a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol and opened fire through the church window. Reports reveal that the suspect was a former student of the school adjacent to the Annunciation Catholic Church, where shots were fired. The suspect's mother reportedly also worked at the church.
Additionally, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported, citing court filings, that the shooter, identified as a female, and her mother had filed for a name change in 2019 to reflect that she identifies as a female. The mother had signed the documents as the suspect was a minor then.
