The Derangement of an Estranged Mind

"It [the black pick-up truck] was damaged with blood."

"When they [police] got him [multiple-murder suspect] out of the vehicle, he was laughing." 

:He's really traumatized [the cabbie who had experienced seeing the accused in a mass murder atrocity in London, Ontario drive up to where his cab was parked]. It is terrifying. You're all to yourself."

Hassan Savehilaghi, president, Yellow Taxi London

Nathaniel Veltman, 20, in a sketch from his appearance via video from the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre on Thursday. (Sketch by Pam Davies)

 

So traumatizing that the man hasn't returned to work yet, taking time off to collect himself. He had conveyed what he had seen and experienced to his supervisor at Yellow Taxi London. And asked Hassan Savehilaghi to speak on his behalf. He had been parked outside a mall, taking a coffee break on Sunday. The cabbie, seeing the front end of the pickup truck bloodied had the impression the vehicle was likely in a hit-and-run. He called 911. Still speaking with a police dispatcher, the cabbie saw a cruiser passing and ran to flag it down.

Almost simultaneous to this officer pulling into the parking lot, police reinforcements arrived expeditiously to make an arrest of the man who was seen to be wearing what looked like a bulletproof vest, topped by a headpiece resembling a military helmet. The cabbie felt certain he had seen swastikas on the helmet. And he definitely saw, he told his supervisor, that the man whom the police invited to exit the truck, laughed, asking the cabbie to record his arrest.

"Nate is not a radical terrorist. He is nothing like that. He is not an Islamophobe. That's not who this kid is."

"He wasn't an extreme Christian. He never seemed to hate people. He never said anything hateful. It seems completely out of his character."

"Nate was a very close friend and never said anything bad to me."

A friend, originally from the Middle East

"[Nate] never said anything 'hateful' about any groups."

"He's Christian and has a great relationship with God. He was always pretty calm toward other people."

"He seemed broken up over it [the death of a family member] on Friday. That's the last time I saw him."

"He's not a violent guy. He's a bit high-strung sometimes, but other than that, he's a good guy. He gets along with everybody at work."

Another friend and co-worker

"The management and staff of Grey Ridge Eggs were shocked and saddened to learn late Monday afternoon that Nathaniel Veltman ... has been arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder."

"We join our community in expressing our condemnation of this violent attack and offer our heartfelt sympathy to the family and the Muslim community."

William Gray, chief executive, Gray Ridge Eggs

A memorial at the scene of the attack, at the intersection of Hyde Park Road and South Carriage Road in London, Ont., after a Muslim family was hit by a truck. Four of the five died. (Greg Bruce/CBC)

 

That a violently horrific event took place in London, Ontario on Sunday is indisputable. A family of five people, out on their regular daily evening walk on a balmy late-spring evening had stopped at an intersection for the traffic light to change so they could cross the street. As they stood there, 46-year-old Salman Afzaal, 44-year old Madiha Salman, 15-year-old Yumna, 74 year-old Talat Afzaal -- parents, daughter, grandmother, among whom walked 9-year-old Fayez, a black truck appeared as though out of nowhere, sped over the curb and directly hit the family. 

 

The little boy, Fayez, the only survivor, though seriously injured will be in hospital for quite some time.

 

The driver, a 20-year-old man known by his neighbours to be an introvert, living alone in his unit, a white man who played video games with the sound on loud, at all hours, sufficiently so to annoy another neighbour, mother of a young child, disturbed enough by the noise to repeatedly demand he be more considerate of others. Typical behaviour for a young man, actually. He is the man who was arrested and charged with four counts of murder, another of intent to murder. 

 

And because the family was Pakistani-Canadian, members of the London Muslim community. collective minds leaped forward to a targeted slaughter of those of the Islamic faith. Quite possibly they were a random choice because they just happened to be there at that unfortunate time. Victims-in-waiting for a a final chapter of their lives brought to them by a possibly diseased mind.

 

Everyone, from the police service, the city's mayor, news media, the provincial premier and the prime minister instantly condemned Islamophobia for another terrorist attack by a white supremacist. Condemnation was gravely asserted, communities across Ontario commiserated not only over an incomprehensible act of mass murder, but one that targeted Muslims. A horrible, inexplicable act of hatred by someone tainted with Islamophobia. 

 

 

Paranoia and fear and victimhood expressed from within the Muslim community. From representatives of the London mosque, Muslim community members, people interviewed in the street, trembling with apprehension and terror that Canada, and London where the Muslim community has long settled is no longer safe for people of the Islamic faith. Canada, a racist country. People spoke of having left Pakistan where their lives were endangered as Muslims, for haven in Canada, a free and equal country. 

Muslims fearful of life in Pakistan, a Muslim country? Finding that Canada, after all, is not the beacon of hope they had sought and gained? In Pakistan Christians are sentenced to death should they defame Islam or Prophet Mohammad. There are minor Muslim sects which the dominant Sunni Muslim majority view with contempt and hatred and who are persecuted in Muslim-majority countries like Pakistan. Perhaps this is what drove those who spoke of emigrating from Pakistan for personal safety.

They did find the right country to offer them a new life. Canada is not a racist country. It was just that, at one time, but it is no longert. There are among Canadians as there are everywhere in the world people who are bigoted racists, people who hate those not like themselves -- people of colour, people of different backgrounds, religions, cultures, heritage. But by and large Canadians are tolerant and accepting of others. Much of that lies in the very fact that Canada is basically a country of immigrants; first, second, third generation.

There exists in all societies, sociopaths, psychopaths, people with severe mental illness, some of whom act on unpleasant impulses, some of whom become dangerous to themselves and to others. This man responsible for the death of four good people, talented, highly educated, a credit to their values and religion appears not to have been a hater, merely an introvert and possibly a severely troubled one. No one saw in him a potential killer. Reality is that somehow he became one.

What is passing strange is the leap to judgement over instantly assessing the carnage that ensued as the work of an Islamophobe. Strange, in that whenever an Islamist act of carnage, a terrorist atrocity takes place, authorities go to great pains to warn not to attribute such acts as reflective of Islam; fair enough, nor to characterize it as an act of Islamist terrorism, until that it indeed is, can no longer be denied. Yet here, in this dreadful instance, the leap to condemn an Islamophobic act of terror was instant.

One of Nathaniel Veltman's friends who found it incomprehensible that he could be capable of such violence, who attested to his never having expressed contempt or hatred for any identifiable group on religious, ethnic or cultural grounds, spoke of having been in his new Dodge Ram with him, when the steering seemed off. He was experiencing difficulties with the steering of his vehicle. "I actually drove with him on Thursday", his friend and co-worker said. 

There is much yet to know about this miserable event that deprived four people of their lives, that deprived a little boy of his sister, mother, father and grandmother. As for the military-style 'helmet' and the 'armoured' vest the man was wearing when he was arrested -- earlier on Sunday during a day shift when he showed up for work before the fatal attack that would take place that night, Veltman was involved in a competitive shooting game somewhat like paintball, using soft pellets.

A line of police officers look for evidence at the scene of a car crash in London, Ontario on Monday, June 7, 2021. Police in London, Ont., say four people have died after several pedestrians were struck by a car Sunday night. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Geoff Robins