The 16-year-old who shot and killed three students and a teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend last Thursday may have been radicalized online by extremist groups and developed an “obsession with Nazism,” law-enforcement sources familiar with the investigation said. The FBI and state and local police are investigating the teen’s possible interactions with violent extremism groups, including the predatory faction known as 764, on the online platform Discord, two law enforcement sources told The Oregonian/OregonLive. The mother of Griffin J. John II purchased the weapon he used in the attack – a Mossberg Maverick 88 12-gauge pump-action shotgun – as a birthday gift for her son, one source confirmed. Federal agents and police obtained a search warrant for Shauntai M. Nickerson’s apartment and seized her son’s electronics from the home, located about half a mile from the school. Investigators have been scouring the boy’s online activity to try to understand his motive. No criminal charges have been filed against Nickerson, who has been described by investigators as cooperative. The FBI in Portland earlier this year issued a public alert about 764, warning about the “sharp increase” in activity by what it described as a “nihilistic violent extremist” group that targets and exploits children and other vulnerable people. Federal officials said 764 members use threats, blackmail and manipulation to pressure young people into producing, sharing or live-streaming acts of self-harm, cruelty, sexually explicit acts and suicide. In May 2025, Columbia County sheriff’s deputies arrested a teenager after FBI investigators said he had posted plans on 764’s online network to kill people and then himself at the Three Rivers Crossing mall in Kelso, Wash., in an alleged bombing and mass shooting. This past April, the 14-year-old Clatskanie boy was sentenced to probation for first-degree disorderly conduct after the teen admitted making a “false threat.” In that case, evidence revealed an undercover FBI agent had chatted with the boy on the extremist online network 764.
siehe oregonlive: FBI probes 16-year-old Bend shooter’s online radicalization, apparent Nazi obsession.
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