Connor Betts, the Dayton, Ohio mass shooter, was a self-described “leftist,” who wrote that he would happily vote for Democrat Elizabeth Warren, praised Satan, was upset about the 2016 presidential election results, and added, “I want socialism, and i’ll not wait for the idiots to finally come round to understanding.”
Betts’ Twitter profile read, “he/him / anime fan / metalhead / leftist / i’m going to hell and i’m not coming back.” One tweet on his page read, “Off to Midnight Mass. At least the songs are good. #athiestsonchristmas.” The page handle? I am the spookster. On one selfie, he included the hashtags, “#selfie4satan #HailSatan @SatanTweeting.” On the date of Republican Sen. John McCain’s death, he wrote, “F*ck John McCain.” He also liked tweets referencing the El Paso mass shooting in the hours before Dayton.
Twitter has now suspended the Twitter page, removing it. It was up for several hours after the mass shooting.
On Nov. 2, 2018, he wrote: “Vote blue for gods sake.”
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That’s all according to his Twitter page, which was reviewed by Heavy. The Twitter page gives the first public glimpse into the shooter’s politics, and what he wrote stands pretty much in polar opposite to accused El Paso shooter Patrick Crusius, whose own social media accounts indicated support for President Donald Trump and anti-immigrant measures, such as the border wall. You can read about Crusius’s pages here.
Based on the tweets he "liked," the Dayton shooter seemed to be following the coverage of the El Paso shooter closely.
— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) August 5, 2019
Authorities now say that Betts, 24, of Bellbrook, Ohio, donned body armor and a mask before shooting and killing 9 people outside a Dayton bar, including his own sister. At least 27 people were injured. Police say the motive is unclear. You can read tributes to the victims here.
Heavy confirmed the Twitter page through multiple verification factors, including a matching tattoo on both a page selfie and prominent news outlets’ pictures of Connor Betts; several family linkages to the page; similar photos, including of him and the family dog, on the page and family members’ verified accounts; and references to college and growing up in Ohio and Dayton.
“#2016ElectionIn3Words This is bad,” he wrote on Nov. 8, 2016 (he did follow Trump’s page). “You can’t kill 50+ people and injure 600(!) In 10 minutes with cigarettes my dude,” he wrote in 2017. In response to a Buzzfeed story that read, “Virginia has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the ‘Unite the Right’ rally anniversary in Charlottesville this weekend,” he wrote: “Kill every fascist.”
His top post was a retweet of a person responding to a Huffington Post story. That person had written, “Millennials have a message for the Joe Biden generation: hurry up and die.”
He also wrote that he enjoyed anime, railed against ICE and the industrial revolution, and made references to Satan. In May, he tweeted, “You’ll never be rid of me. I’ll haunt your life like a fucking vengeful spirit.” He added, “My Horoscope Just Reads ‘Doom.’” He shared posts of people outed for possibly being at a KKK rally in Dayton and wrote, “Know your enemies.”
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Here’s what you need to know about Connor Betts’ social media:
On Twitter, Betts Wrote About Politics, Guns & Anime
On the Twitter page, Connor Betts indicated he’d vote for Elizabeth Warren for president but not Kamala Harris, responding to a person’s tweet suggesting they be co-presidents. “Nahh, but only cuz Harris is a cop – Warren I’d happily vote for,” he wrote.
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He responded to a person’s tweet that read “if you nominate anyone other than sanders, you’re going to lose” by writing, “I think Warren has a decent shot, as well.”
Some of his tweets referred to guns.
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He shared an article that criticized Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi for not supporting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, and Ayanna Pressley. “Read it,” he wrote.
Some of his tweets were more philosophical. He wrote, “The time people say it is vs the time it feels like? I’m taking feelings over facts any time.” He was interested in the Area 51 Facebook page, writing, “There’s a fb group about storming area 51.”
He railed against the police, QAnon conspiracy theories, and white supremacists. “I love how older people will be like life has no safe spaces! Grow up!!! like we didn’t see the planes hit the twin towers when we were f*cking 5, we knew that the world was scary as soon as those f*cking towers came down my man,” he wrote.
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Some of his tweets dealt with drugs. He wrote, “Amphetamines: For When You Need To Get Shit Done!” On July 10, he wrote, “Black Parade was bigger, but Three Cheers was better.” Some of his tweets were anti-police. “The police will not protect you,” he wrote.
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He shared posts about “concentration camps” at the border and wrote, “Cut the fences down. Slice ICE tires. Throw bolt cutters over the fences.”
He retweeted a post from another person about stealing from “right wingers” at a Trump rally.
One of his tweets referred to white people. “Imagine if we did the thing you liked, but in a way that totally ruins what you liked about it! Wouldn’t that be fun? Ha ha Also, of course they’re all white people, of course they are,” he wrote.
