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Lyndon McLeod: Denver gunman encouraged masculine supremacy and COVID-19 controversies

Reportedly, Lyndon McLeod had several Twitter and Instagram accounts under the name Roman McClay

DENVER, COLORADO: A man, who according to police was responsible for the murders of five people in Denver, had reportedly left a series of hate posts online. The gunman, identified as Lyndon McLeod, who was fatally shot by police after the December 27 rampage, had encouraged alt-right philosophies, masculine supremacy, COVID-19 controversies and targeted violence against the “weak” online.

Reportedly, McLeod had several Twitter and Instagram accounts under the name Roman McClay – the same name he used to write his three-book series ‘Sanction’. The first book of the series has reportedly been described as “eloquent reflections on dominance hierarchies, psychology, technology, nature, violence, anatomy and physiology, sexual morality, drug use, politics, and a whole mess of stuff” in an Amazon review. 

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The lead of the book series is named Lyndon McLeod, who “commits 46 murders”. It has an Instagram page with 1,426 followers and the bio reads: “The book that philosophizes with a Jack-Hammer.” One of the posts targeting "shallow women and weak men" stated, "When you build your home from and within the feral wilderness you appreciate it in ways only the body (the right hemisphere; the watery part of the world) can experience. A metamorphisis happened that i had only vague hints at before i saw the land, the home, and myself transform. It’s time men gave a shit about how their world looks. Aesthetics are not patina; they are core."

"We’ve let shallow women and weak men shape the way society looks and it weakens us in ways we barely understand. Your milieu is you; your aesthetics are you; how your world looks says more about you than you know. Wake up to your subconscious need for things to be masculine and thus beautiful and thus grand. #rightHemisphere #brutalism #maleaesthetics #WayOfMen," it added.

Besides, The Daily Beast has claimed that the murderer had two Twitter accounts. One was under his original name and another was of McClay. One of the tweets shared from McClay’s account on May 1, 2020, featured Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates talking about the coronavirus. He captioned the post as “‘It’s not really a worm so much, however I understand the point,’ MO said.” Besides, one month before the May post, McLeod also suggested through tweets that “weeks” should live a fear. One of his tweets through McClay’s Twitter read, “Passive aggressive man says something shitty to a man who RESPONDS with Direct Aggression. Today: passive aggressive man who DREW FIRST BLOOD is seen as “ok” but the direct aggression of the man who RESPONDS is “too extreme” @MikeTyson is in the right.”

Another tweet added: “This is basically the plot to my stupid book. Our entire society is made up of shitty little fucks who insult badasses & get away with it because law enforcement & social norms protect the WEAK from the STRONG. I’m over it. The weak better buckle up... shit is about to get real.”

But at the time, he also received backlash from people. A user had fired back, “Physically assaulting someone because of something they said does not mean you are strong. It means you are weak. Words and actions are very different, that’s why we have freedom of speech but not freedom of violence.” Another one commented, “Isn’t the goal of the strong to be protective of the weak? If you were really strong why would you give af what they say?? Mike Tyson didn’t react like a badass he reacted with insecurity.”

Even a recent response on his tweets added: “Shit got so real this murderer was killed by a woman (a policewoman). He was the very definition of "toxic masculinity. Those who admired his need to look in the mirror & ask why? Why the tough guy poser routine? It's so clear that your pretend strength only masks insecurity.”

McLeod had also made his appearance on the right-wing rapper and social media personality Nzube Olisaebuka Udezu’s podcast, where they discussed “his journey from atheism to belief in God, creation through revelation, living alone and transcribing 'Sanction'.”

The motive behind the killings has not been found yet, but Paul Pazen, chief of Denver Police, said that it might have connections to McLeod’s “history of extremist views and psychiatric episodes”. Police have not yet officially verified that McLeod and McClay were the same people, but a spokesman for the Denver Police Department Kurt Barns told The Daily Beast that he would let the investigators know about this.