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<p>CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand &#8212; A suspected shooter in deadly attacks on two mosques here live-streamed the massacre, shouted out a popular meme slogan and published a long, rambling manifesto.</p><p>At least 49 people were shot to death and 48 more wounded during midday prayers Friday &#8212; most if not all of them gunned down by Brenton Harrison Tarrant, an immigrant-hating white supremacist who apparently used a helmet-mounted camera to broadcast live video of the slaughter on Facebook.</p><p>Tarrant appeared in court Saturday morning amid strict security and showed no emotion when the judge read him one murder charge. The judge said &#8220;it was reasonable to assume&#8221; more such charges would follow.</p><p>Two other armed suspects were taken into custody while police tried to determine what role, if any, they played in the cold-blooded attack that stunned New Zealand, a country so peaceful that police officers rarely carry guns.</p><p><strong>Suspected web posts</strong></p><p>Tarrant, who police say carried out at least one of the shootings, posted a jumbled, 74-page manifesto on social media in which he identified himself by name and said he was a 28-year-old Australian and white supremacist who was out to avenge attacks in Europe perpetrated by Muslims.</p><p>The gunman also livestreamed in graphic detail 17 minutes of his rampage at Al Noor Mosque, where, armed with at least two assault rifles and a shotgun, he sprayed worshippers with bullets over and over, killing at least 41 people. Several more people were killed in an attack on a second mosque in the city a short time later.</p><p>Police did not say whether the same person was responsible for both shootings. They gave no details about those taken into custody except to say that none had been on any watch list.</p><p>Online sleuths quickly connected the livestreamed video to posts made by the same user on 8chan, a dark corner of the web where those disaffected by mainstream social media sites often post extremist, racist and violent views.</p><p>Tarrant&#8217;s manifesto spread quickly on 8chan Friday. The 74-page screed espouses white supremacist views even as it contradicts itself.</p><p>&#8220;Were you taught violence and extremism by video games, music, literature, cinema?&#8221; Tarrant asks himself in the essay.</p><p>&#8220;Yes, Spyro the dragon 3 taught me ethno-nationalism,&#8221; he writes, seemingly sarcastically. That passage references a video game for Sony&#8217;s PlayStation console intended for children 10 and up.</p><p>&#8220;Fortnite trained me to be a killer and to floss on the corpses of my enemies,&#8221; he continued, only to abruptly contradict himself in a classic trolling move: &#8220;No.&#8221;</p><p>Fortnite is a popular online battle game.</p><p>In a live-streamed video of his attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, the shooter says &#8220;Remember, lads, subscribe to PewDiePie.&#8221; That&#8217;s a reference to Felix Kjellberg, a popular YouTuber who has faced considerable controversy of his own over videos that included anti-Semitic jokes and Nazi imagery.</p><p>Kjellberg condemned the attack in a tweet Friday and said he was &#8220;sickened&#8221; by the use of his name.</p><p><strong>Family cooperative</strong></p><p>Tarrant&#8217;s relatives in the Australian town of Grafton, in New South Wales, contacted police after learning of the shooting and were helping with the investigation, local authorities said. Tarrant has spent little time in Australia in the past four years and only had minor traffic infractions on his record.</p><p>On Saturday, outside one of the two mosques, 32-year-old Ash Mohammed pushed through police barricades in hopes of finding out what happened to his father and two brothers, whose cellphones rang unanswered. An officer stopped him.</p><p>&#8220;We just want to know if they are dead or alive,&#8221; Mohammed told the officer.</p><p>In the aftermath, the country&#8217;s threat level was raised from low to high, police warned Muslims against going to a mosque anywhere in New Zealand, and the national airline canceled several flights in and out of Christchurch, a city of nearly 400,000.</p><p><strong>Global response</strong></p><p>World leaders condemned the violence and offered condolences, with President Donald Trump tweeting, &#8220;We stand in solidarity with New Zealand.&#8221; Pakistan&#8217;s Prime Minister Imran Khan and other Islamic leaders pointed to the bloodbath and other such attacks as evidence of rising hostility toward Muslims since 9/11.</p><p>Tarrant, in his rambling manifesto, deemed Trump &#8220;a symbol of renewed white identity.&#8221;</p><p>At the White House, Trump called the bloodshed &#8220;a terrible thing&#8221; but rejected any suggestion the white nationalist movement is a rising threat around the world, saying it is &#8220;a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.&#8221;</p><p>New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Saturday said the &#8220;primary perpetrator&#8221; in the shootings was a licensed gun owner and legally acquired the five guns used. Ardern said the country&#8217;s gun laws will change as a result of the carnage, but she did not specify how.</p><p>New Zealand, with a population of 5 million, has relatively loose gun laws and an estimated 1.5 million firearms, or roughly one for every three people. But it has one of the lowest gun homicide rates in the world. In 2015, it had just eight gun homicides.</p><p>Before Friday&#8217;s attack, New Zealand&#8217;s deadliest shooting in modern history took place in 1990 in the small town of Aramoana, where a gunman killed 13 people following a dispute with a neighbor.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">A police officer directs pedestrians near the site of one of the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand 0n Saturday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_122456347-6de6226c8c7c47e2b910609c4a6d4701-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>A police officer directs pedestrians near the site of one of the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand 0n Saturday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Mark Baker | AP photo </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_122456347-eb7d4c072dd54d5bbc754525241dd483-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">This frame from video that was livestreamed on Friday shows a gunman, who used the name Brenton Tarrant on social media, in a car before the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/web1_122456347-eb7d4c072dd54d5bbc754525241dd483-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>This frame from video that was livestreamed on Friday shows a gunman, who used the name Brenton Tarrant on social media, in a car before the mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand. </caption1><photoCredit1>Shooter&#8217;s Video via AP </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Suspected shooter linked to extremist online communities</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>The Associated Press</p></bylineMeta></div>

Suspected N.Z. shooter linked to extremist online communities