Young. White. Male. And full of hate

The same day hundreds of mourners gathered outside a London, Ont., mosque for the funeral of a Muslim family targeted for their faith, police descended into the downtown apartment of the accused murderer, armed with a warrant.

Once inside, they took a cellphone and laptop from a bedside table, seized two USB keys and grabbed a hard drive from a bookshelf - devices needed to forensically examine the young man's online life in the days before police say he committed a premeditated act, motivated by hate."

What they allegedly found came as no surprise, fitting a by-now predictable narrative about far-right, white supremacist killings.

Police allege the man - charged with four counts of terrorism motivated first-degree murder for killing four members of the Afzaal family with his black pickup truck one year ago this week - had hate-related material" on his devices. According to search warrant documents partially unsealed by a judge in March, police allege Nathaniel Veltman, a 20-year-old who is the eldest son of six from small-town Strathroy, Ont., may have been using a dark web" tool used by people seeking illegal or extremist content.

The allegations made in the police documents have not been proven in court. Veltman is presumed innocent and we'll have a trial on these matters," his lawyer, Christopher Hicks, said this week.

A growing list of convicted or accused killers have been steeped in an online ecosystem of hate that is transcending national borders, eluding law enforcement and inciting a brand of terrorism experts say is spreading and mutating. In anonymous chat rooms, through memes and connected via social media algorithms, they're finding and promoting each others' hate and violence, in livestreamed attacks or crude manifestos meant to inspire further carnage.

It's a Wikipedia version of attacks," said Amarnath Amarasingam, assistant professor of political studies at Queen's University and an expert in radicalization and extremism, referring to how any one person can edit and refine the online encyclopedia. The killers are kind of building on each other, fixing the gaps in previous attacks."

In the months before he fatally shot six men in a mosque in 2017, the Quebec City killer had been scouring websites for content about guns, Muslims and mass killing; he took a special interest in the neo-Nazi who killed nine Black parishioners in South Carolina in 2015. In 2019, when a white supremacist killed 51 people inside mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, he wrote the Quebec City mosque killer's name on a rifle magazine before livestreaming parts of his attack. In May, an 18-year-old man allegedly inspired by the Christchurch massacre livestreamed, too, as he killed 10 Black people in a racist attack in a Buffalo grocery store. His alleged manifesto is replete with neo-Nazi references and claims about white replacement," a racist conspiracy theory that's found an audience in Canada.

As conspiracy theories move in from the fringes and political polarization deepens, experts and advocates warn too little is being done to combat online violent extremism - to stop the next young, white supremacist man from carrying out another attack.

What I'll say about the prevalence of white supremacist violence is that we're not talking about if," said Mustafa Farooq, CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims. We're talking about, unfortunately, when."

In 2017, Toronto child and youth worker David O'Brien was contacted by police about an alarming case. Authorities had learned of a school shooting plot, a threat deemed serious because a young person had made efforts to buy a gun, O'Brien said. Experienced in gang prevention, O'Brien was tapped to help address the underlying cause: the plan, he said, was inspired by neo-Nazi ideology.

It was the unofficial launch of O'Brien's specialization, work that today sends him to alleys and coffee shops across the GTA to meet young men who other social workers or psychiatrists won't touch, out of fear or workplace safety concerns. A lot of agencies won't take these clients," O'Brien said, which is really concerning for public safety."

Since 2020, O'Brien has been leading ETA, one of only a handful of programs in Canada that counters online hate and violent extremism in youth and young adults. Partially funded through Public Safety Canada, the program's cases are complex but the aim is simple: to prevent deadly, hate-motivated attacks.

We had to do something different," O'Brien told the Star. We want to engage with the people that are hating, and understand who they are. Can we stop them from escalating to violence?"

Short for Estimated Time of Arrival, a nod to the program's quick response times, ETA has enrolled more than 50 people from the Greater Toronto Area. The majority are men under the age of 35 and some, though not all, are white. Every participant has been flagged as a potential threat for hateful and dangerous views, including racism, antisemitism and misogyny.

The clients are in various stages of radicalization, ranging from having curiosity about hate groups and spending time in extremist online spaces, to being willing to engage in violence. Nearly 20 per cent of ETA's clients were actively planning an attack, O'Brien said, describing efforts such as attempting to acquire weapons, drafting up a blueprint of an attack or writing a hit list."

We're really busy," O'Brien said. There's an undercurrent in Canada happening that is quite dangerous, actually. It's concerning. And it's growing."

As O'Brien explains, ETA's clients don't have one unifying worldview - it's a cesspool of different ideologies," he said - but data shared with the Star shows common hate targets. All of the participants were identified as holding anti-government, antisemitic, transphobic and homophobic views. The vast majority held misogynistic and Islamophobic views (80 per cent and 70 per cent, respectively). Half held anti-Black views.

Many referrals to ETA come directly from police agencies, including Toronto police, the RCMP and forces throughout Ontario (ETA's jurisdiction is the GTA, but they get calls from across the province).

It was once the exclusive realm of police, but youth and social workers from community agencies like ETA have an increasing role in counteracting violent extremism. It's a marriage of the intelligence side of policing with the community partnership side," said Toronto police Det. Brian Smith.

Until recently, if police learned via a tip or through an investigation that someone was accessing hate material and at risk of becoming violent, there was little they could do if there weren't grounds for a criminal charge.

No agency in Canada would touch anything to do with violent extremism or terrorism with a 10-foot pole," said Smith, who is with the Toronto police Community Partnerships and Engagement Unit. It terrified them."

This has left families or friends of young people radicalized online and involved in hate-motivated extremism with few places to turn for help, said Barbara Perry, director of Ontario Tech University's Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism.

When you see those signs of extremism, it's like from zero to 60 - do nothing, or you report to police. There's nothing in between," she said.

In Toronto, that's changed as police and community groups have come together at situation tables," a growing initiative in cities across Canada where police collaborate with social services and agencies to intervene in situations where there is a risk of harm or crisis. The goal is to prevent crime or victimization by connecting youth and families to support agencies, such as mental health and addiction supports.

It was at the FOCUS situation table in Toronto that O'Brien, who was working with a local youth organization, started being tapped to intervene in situations where young people posed a risk of hate-motivated violence. He adopted an approach similar to his work with gangs: identifying the risk factors that make youth vulnerable to a criminal or dangerous lifestyle. If you can address those, Smith said, sometimes the ideological piece that's causing the concern will evaporate."

For youth drawn to hate, there can be a host of personal issues and complex trauma at play, O'Brien said. Many clients are isolated, lack social skills and have been bullied. They can find identity and belonging in a hate movement. Some have suffered physical, sexual or emotional abuse within their family. Many of the men have been exposed to domestic partner violence. Some are experiencing homelessness. Some have mental health issues such as anxiety and are abusing substances.

At the end of the day, O'Brien said, these are the factors that drive the problem; the ideology is an excuse or proxy" to promote the violence.

COVID-19 lockdowns have added another layer of complexity as young people's lives moved online and conspiracy theories - a massive entry point into this world" - abounded, O'Brien said. Just like with recruitment into gangs or sex trafficking, hate groups groom and recruit online.

What's alarming, O'Brien said, is that he's seeing more youth entering this grey area of not radicalized, but kind of curious about it." Over time and depending on life circumstances, that curiosity can morph into a willingness to commit violence, he said.

ETA's work requires the young person's consent (90 per cent of those referred sign on). Unless there's a risk to public safety, the services are confidential with no police involvement.

From that place of trust, youth workers start challenging the hateful narratives and introducing intensive services that can get to the roots of how they ended up where they are," O'Brien said. That can mean connecting them to mental health supports and family therapy, or helping them meet basic needs like housing or food or employment. Participants are also taught critical thinking skills and digital media literacy.

Since launching, four people have completed the roughly two-year program, the rest are working to complete it. As word has spread about ETA, referrals are increasingly coming directly from family members, friends or school boards.

Amarasingam, the terrorism expert, said violence-intervention programs are among the major improvements made in countering far-right extremism in the last decade. But they are heavily underfunded and understaffed, making the problem at times overwhelming."

O'Brien said the growing demand requires other social agencies to step up. He hopes to demystify" the work of countering violent extremism and encourage others to engage with this population, in the name of public safety. That's the only way we're gonna really have a huge impact," he said.

Dr. Javeed Sukhera still flinches when he sees black pickup trucks. He has nightmares about getting hit by a car. When he sees photos of the Afzaal family, he chokes up. The grieving process, he said, has not been a straight line."

Sukhera was friends of Madiha Salman, her husband Salman Afzaal, their 15-year-old daughter Yumna, and Afzaal's mother Talat Afzaal. His children had known Yumna and then-nine-year-old Fayez, the family's sole survivor of the June 6, 2021 attack (Veltman is charged with terrorism motivated attempted murder in his case).

While mourning his friends, Sukhera, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, has also thought about the attack from his professional perspective. When it comes to stopping young men from perpetrating violence, he warns against the focus on mental illness as a central cause. The issue is much broader and will require transformational" societal change.

The problem here is hatred," Sukhera said. Hatred is taught. Hatred does not exist in a vacuum."

In the year since the Afzaal family was killed, progress has been made, said Farooq, from the National Council of Canadian Muslims. Municipalities have passed motions denouncing Islamophobia. The federal government is set to appoint a special representative on combating Islamophobia.

But far more needs to be done. Federal legislation intended to rein in hateful online content is now months overdue; the Liberals said the law would be tabled within 100 days of forming government (a spokesperson for the heritage minister said an expert advisory group is meeting on a weekly basis to discuss harmful online content.") The Our London Family Act, a bill aimed at fighting Islamophobia and other hate crimes, has not been passed at Queen's Park.

All the while, the NCCM continues to receive reports of violent incidents affecting Muslims across Canada. It's about one a day, Farooq said.

The reality is, there's many more things that need to be done in order to address the problems that are in front of us," he said.

Wendy Gillis is a Toronto-based reporter covering crime and policing for the Star. Reach her by email at wgillis@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @wendygillis