Chris Wilson and Michal Dziwulski — University of Auckland academics — spent years painstakingly analysing 34-year-old Brenton Tarrant’s online activities and charted his gradual radicalisation which reached its horrific climax with the murder of 51 people and the attempted murder of 40 more at two Christchurch mosques on March 15, 2019.
The terrorist was the first person in the country to be given life imprisonment without the possibility of parole when he was sentenced in August 2020.
He Told Us released this month, is deeply scathing of the subsequent Royal Commission of Inquiry, which did not include the granular review of Tarrant’s online posts the authors undertook.
‘‘We’ve got an inquiry that really looked into things that were basically already known,’’ Mr Wilson told the Otago Daily Times.
Ultimately, the review revealed New Zealand authorities were oblivious to Tarrant’s threat when he moved here from Australia and there were never red flags raised during his stay.
‘‘There was a very close process of writing the terms of reference [for the inquiry] that ensured that the mistakes that were made beforehand were not going to be looked at,’’ Mr Wilson said.
The authors of the book said they were stunned to see so little emphasis placed on Tarrant’s online presence.
‘‘We have all these posts, we have all of that analysis of what was happening. And then he went on to commit violence.
‘‘That’s very rare to have a case study like that and so much can be learned from that.
‘‘It seems to us that there’s a reluctance to even engage with it.
‘‘So it doesn’t give us any confidence that they’re actually learning about what it is that they should be looking for.’’
The authors detailed Tarrant’s progression from racist commentary online about indigenous Australians, to the glorification of far-right mass murderers, to his fantasies of personal involvement and the planning that led him to commit the atrocities.
‘‘Probably there was very little that could by that stage, because he was so alone, because he was so disinterested in having a girlfriend, or any sort of romantic partner, or even friends.
‘‘And he had money so he didn’t need to get a job,’’ Mr Wilson said.
‘‘He had none of the, what we refer to as, ‘off ramps’ — things that might have facilitated him ... de-radicalising over that time.’’
The authors said websites such as 4chan, which were frequently used by Tarrant, became a community for him and were vital mechanisms in his radicalisation.
His subsequent actions had had a ‘‘massive impact’’ in those spaces.
It painted a bleak picture for the future, Mr Dziwulski said.
‘‘I guess the scary thing is that when people online see what gets traction ... it almost creates a blueprint for the next person to be as sort of successful in gaining notoriety and martyr status.’’
