The RCMP have now informed at what may have helped one of the deadliest mass killings in Canadian history, more than 7 weeks after a man dressed as a Mountie massacred 22 people in rural Nova Scotia.
RCMP Supt. Darren Campbell told a press conference last week that a behavioral examination of the killer revealed he was an “injustice collector,” a term used by criminologists. But, exactly, what does that phrase imply? What does it say about the 51-year-old denture-fitter who has caused so much destruction?
Tracy Vaillancourt, Canada Research Chair into Children’s Mental Health also Violence Prevention at the University of Ottawa, describes it as “a way of looking at the world.” Mary Ellen O’Toole, a former FBI officer currently the director of George Mason University’s forensic science department, created the term.
According to Michael Arntfield, a professor and criminologist at Western University in London, Ont., injustice collectors are disproportionately middle-aged men who have kept track of every perceived insult throughout their lives.
They can hold grudges for years. Even if there is no proof to support their claims, they frequently feel cheated or insulted by others. And these negative thoughts often become trapped in a never-ending, self-fulfilling cycle.
The phrase “angry rumination” is preferred by Vaillancourt. According to Vaillancourt, a professor who specializes in the study of violence, “It creates a threat sensitive brain that is always looking for evidence to final the world is against them,”
“These people are jerks, it becomes an internal narrative. These people are deplorable. They are deserving of their lot.’ So they become indifferent to their victims’ suffering.” Many of these characteristics were demonstrated by the killer, Gabriel Wortman, according to witness accounts, documentation, and police disclosures.
According to court papers, Wortman’s connection with his uncle deteriorated in July 2015 after losing a legal dispute over a shared property in Portapique, N.S., where he began his homicidal spree on April 18.
source: CTV News
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