For mass shooters, achieving fame -- or infamy -- is a frequent driver
On Friday, evidence mounted that Harper-Mercer was acutely attuned to the fame that comes to those who commit armed murder on a spectacular scale. Combing through the gunman’s online comments for clues to his motives, investigators found Harper-Mercer recently extolled the benefits of armed mayhem.
“I have noticed that so many people like him are all alone and unknown, yet when they spill a little blood, the whole world knows who they are,” Harper-Mercer wrote in a post about Vester Flanagan, who in August shot two news reporters on live television in Roanoke, Va.
“A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you’re in the limelight,” Mercer wrote.
University of Alabama criminologist Adam Lankford said that fame -- or infamy -- has emerged as a common thread in mass shootings since Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold predicted on videotapes left behind that their armed rampage at Columbine High School would be one for the history books.
https://www.latimes.com/science/scie...002-story.html