Police have told VICE News they are familiar with the posts and are investigating. Hours before a 20-year-old gunman opened fire on a food court in a suburban mall near Indianapolis on Sunday, he appears to have posted a grim message on the notorious imageboard site 4chan. “Name is jonathan and today seems like a good day to die,” he wrote. The post was accompanied by a colorized image of a wedding in Nazi Germany. He also shared a link to the image-hosting site Imgur, which contained several images of himself wearing a white button-down shirt, blue jeans, a face-covering, and posing with two AR-15-style rifles, a handgun, and multiple magazines. That post was shared on July 17 at 1:13 p.m. (the site lists no time zone) to the website’s /BANT board—which is its International/Random board. Just before 6 p.m. local time the gunman, identified as Jonathan Sapirman, walked out of the Greenwood Park Mall’s food court restrooms armed with the same type and number of weapons as seen in the photo and began shooting into the crowd with an assault rifle (specifically, a Sig Sauer model M400 5.56). He killed three people and injured two more. Less than 30 seconds after his rampage began, a civilian shot him dead from over 40 yards away with a handgun. Police have not yet identified any clear motive in the attack. (…) VICE News asked Greenwood Police about a sensitive, graphic photo, apparently taken inside the mall, and uploaded to 4chan on Tuesday. The picture purports to show the deceased gunman lying on the floor of the mall alongside a placard identifying him as “dead.” The police chief did not dispute the image’s authenticity, and said that they were investigating where it came from. The dead body is wearing the same clothes as the person who posted on 4chan linking to the Imgur album. Evidence of the shooter’s presence on 4chan first began circulating online Monday, raising questions about his motive. The infamous anonymous imageboard site has been linked to a slew of ideologically motivated killings in recent years. The imageboard site was a primary source of radicalization for the 18-year-old who killed 10 people in a racist attack on a Buffalo supermarket earlier this year, according to the vitriolic screed he’d posted online prior to the shooting.
via vice: Indiana Mall Gunman Appears to Have Posted Plans on 4chan