The latest in a deadly string of attacks committed by far-right white supremacists took place in Florida on Friday, when 40-year-old Scott Beierle walked into the Hot Yoga Tallahassee studio and opened fire, killing two women and injuring four other people. In the wake of the shooting, disturbing details are now coming to light about the killer, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the scene.
In videos uploaded to YouTube dating back to 2014, Beierle identified as a misogynist, referring to women as “whores” and “sluts” and expressing particular distaste for white women in interracial relationships.
One video in particular called “Plight of the Adolescent Male” specifically mentioned Elliot Rodger, the 22-year-old self-proclaimed “involuntary celibate” incel who murdered six people and injured 14 others near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara, in a 2014 shooting and stabbing spree. Rodger was likewise named by Alek Minassian, who was accused of driving a van into a crowd in Toronto in April, killing 10 people and injuring 16 in the deadliest vehicle attack in Canada’s history.
“I’d like to send a message now to the adolescent males … that are in the position, the situation, the disposition of Elliot Rodger, of not getting any, no love, no nothing,” Beierle said in the video, according to BuzzFeed News. “This endless wasteland that breeds this longing and this frustration. That was me, certainly, as an adolescent.”
In recent months, Beierle had been uploading songs with similar messaging to Spotify, including one called “Fuck ’Em All” uploaded just before the deadly occurrence. “To hell with the boss that won’t get off my back / To hell with the girl I can’t get in the sack,” were a sampling of the lyrics.
Other songs Beierle had uploaded contained even more disturbingly graphic messaging. From BuzzFeed:
Another song, called “Nobody’s Type,” featured him lamenting that women didn’t find him attractive. “I’m no athletic shark. I’m not a physical specimen. I don’t win the trophies and medals. Nobody stands in awe of me,” he sang.
In “American Wigger,” he sang that he would “blow off” the head of a woman he referred to using the c-word. The song “Locked in My Basement” featured an extremely disturbing tale of Beierle holding a woman prisoner in his basement using chains so he can rape her.
Prior to Friday’s shooting, Beierle had been arrested twice in 2012 and 2016 for grabbing women’s behinds on the Florida State University campus, where he earned master’s degrees in 2013 in public administration and planning, and at his apartment complex.
Julien Brown, a former roommate of Beierle’s who lived with him for about a year in an off-campus apartment beginning in the fall of 2011, described him to the Tallahassee Democrat as “creepy” and a loner. The newspaper wrote, “Beierle was odd and obnoxious. He appeared friendless—no one ever came to visit him, Brown said. He sat around in the living room in his briefs drinking beer, refusing to put on pants even when friends of his roommates came over. Sometimes, he stayed up all night watching TV and laughing loudly at the screen. Other nights, he could be heard screaming in his sleep.”
Both Brown and a third roommate were wary about bringing girlfriends home and would make sure guests were never left alone with Beierle, because he was apparently “very weird and made everyone uncomfortable.” Yet, despite concerns, Brown had no grounds to go to the police because there was no specific evidence or behavior to report.
“We compared him to Ted Bundy back then,” Brown added. “It was the way he lurked and followed girls.”
H/T BuzzFeed