At least 50 people were shot and 50 injured in a mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
The shooter attacked two mosques in the town of Christchurch. One being the Al Noor Mosque, where 42 people were injured and 2 people died. The other is Linwood Mosque where 8 people were killed.
Brenton Harrison Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian citizen, personal trainer has been taken into custody and charged with murder. On his first hearing in court, he flashed the white power sign: an upside down okay sign while in handcuffs.
The alleged shooter Brenton Tarrant also live streamed his attack on social media, displaying how he entered and shot worshippers as they tried to run during Friday prayer, the Muslim holy day where they gather for service and practice of the Muslim faith.
Investigators are now looking into a 87-page manifesto, a public declaration of policies and aims, that Tarrant had issued via social media where he expresses strong white-nationalistic views and targets immigrants and muslims shortly before the attack took place. Within the announcement he praises mass murderers, such as Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in terrorist attacks in Norway and also mentions Dylann Roof, who murdered 9 African Americans in a Sunday prayer service in South Carolina.
When asked Rishab Pal, a student at Thomas A. Edison High School, said, “This was a tragic event, of which the occurrences of these kinds of events is becoming more and more frequent. Something must be done. This should be an alert signal for all countries who face terrorism that the reign of terror is on the rise, not only for America but other places as well and something must be done to prevent it.”
In response to the attack New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, said that the country’s firearm laws will be changed. She also said in a press conference addressing the issue, the perpetrator held “extremist views” and there will be no place for it in New Zealand.
