MEXICO CITY (TNND) — The gunman who opened fire atop one of the historic Teotihuacán pyramids in Mexico on Monday carried notes and materials related to past mass shootings in the United States, officials said Tuesday.
Julio César Jasso Ramírez, 27, shot into a crowd of tourists, killing a Canadian woman and injuring 13 others. Interior Secretary Rosa Icela Rodríguez said six of the injured have since been discharged, while seven remain hospitalized.
When security forces responded to emergency calls at the Pyramid of the Moon, Ramírez climbed higher up the structure before being shot in the leg by a National Guardsman. He then used a .38-caliber revolver to take his own life, officials said.
If "herostratic" is not in your vocabulary. Herostratus destroyed one of the Wonders of the Ancient World, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus:
Herostratus, who by pure coincidence destroyed the world wonder on the same night Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great was born [not correct], is a man about whom nothing is known. His social status was likely poor because he was either a former slave or the son of a slave, according to historians. The arsonist, who upon his arrest stated that he committed this unimaginable crime because he was seeking kleos: infamy, reputation, may have been best described by the Russian poet Semyon Nadson. Nadson hypothesizes that Herostratus' determination to destroy the Temple of Artemis was motivated by the sobering understanding that he was but a "maggot squashed by destiny, in the midst of the countless hordes," and that doing so was the only way for him to make his mark on history.
The Ephesian authorities believed that the death penalty did not adequately reflect the seriousness of the offense. Herostratus was sentenced to death as well as damnatio memoriae, which forbade mentioning his name in writing or conversation moving forward. This was done in order to severely punish the fame-seeking criminal.
See how well it worked? You have no idea who he was. This is not the first mass murder seeking kleos. My first peer-reviewed journal article discusses another such case and how news coverage encourages this, especially with guns. The 2019 El Paso mass murderer consciously modeled himself after a Christchurch mass murder. 9/5/19 AP:
The El Paso massacre is the latest attack in which the gunman appears to have praised the March 15 shootings in Christchurch, where an Australian white supremacist is charged with killing 51 worshippers at two mosques.
Authorities are investigating the possibility that Saturday’s shooting in El Paso was a hate crime, and are working to determine whether a racist, anti-immigrant screed posted to the 8chan board shortly beforehand was written by the man arrested in the attack. Though he was targeting Latinos rather than Muslims, the first sentence of the online rant expressed support for the Christchurch shooter.
While the El Paso murderer seemed driven by hatred of Hispanics, the Christchurch murderer:
The attacks were mainly motivated by white nationalism, anti-immigrant sentiment, and white supremacist beliefs. [monster name redacted] described himself as an ecofascist and professed belief in the far-right "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory in the context of a "white genocide".
Curiously he was an Australian immigrant to New Zealand. The news media's pursuit of clicks makes these monsters famous. If you are a sad little person who feels that your passing will leave no mark on the world, chasing your "everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" may make twisted sense.
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