section_path: Mass murders and violence/2020s
section_name: 2020s
paragraph_text: 2020s
  
  Coty Scott Taylor abducted 6-year-old Faye Marie Swetlik on February 10, 2020, in Cayce, South Carolina. Three days later, both Taylor and Swetlik were found dead. It was determined that Taylor had suffocated Swetlik and then killed himself by cutting his throat. Friends reported that Taylor was a self-described incel and that he had often said he "lived without hope".
  
  On February 24, 2020, a female spa worker was stabbed to death in an attack that also severely injured her female coworker at an erotic massage parlor in Toronto. On May 19, the Toronto Police Service declared the attack was being treated as a terrorist incident after evidence pointed to the stabbings being motivated by incel ideology, and police laid charges against a 17-year-old male alleged to have committed the stabbings. This was the first time violence thought to be motivated by incel ideologies was prosecuted as an act of terrorism, and is also believed to be the first act of violence not perpetrated by an Islamist extremist to be prosecuted as terrorism in Canada. On September 14, 2022, the perpetrator entered a guilty plea to murder and attempted murder. The attack was ruled a terrorist attack during sentencing proceedings.
  
  Armando Hernandez Jr. opened fire on May 20, 2020, at Westgate Entertainment District, a mixed-use development in Glendale, Arizona, before being arrested by police. A 19-year-old man was critically injured, while a 30-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl suffered minor injuries. According to the Maricopa County prosecutor, Hernandez identified himself as an incel and claimed he wanted to target couples and shoot at least ten people. The prosecutor said, "Mr. Hernandez is a self-professed incel... He was taking out his anger at society, the feeling that he has been bullied, the feeling that women didn't want him". The prosecutor also alleged that Hernandez sent a video of the attack to a woman he wished to impress.
  
  Between January and the end of July 2020, five self-identified incels were arrested in separate incidents in North America for killing or planning to kill women. Among them was Cole Carini, a man who was charged with making false statements to law enforcement in June 2020 after claiming serious injuries to his hands had been caused by a lawnmower accident. Police alleged that Carini was actually injured while trying to make a bomb, and that he had written a note threatening violence against women and referencing Elliot Rodger.
  
  In April 2021, Malik Sanchez, a 19-year-old self-described incel who praised Elliot Rodger, was arrested on federal charges after allegedly videotaping himself approaching women sitting outside a restaurant in Manhattan, New York and telling them he was going to detonate a bomb. The man had previously been arrested several times for harassing others, often while recording or livestreaming, and for multiple assaults with pepper spray.
  
  In July 2021, a 21-year-old self-identified incel from Ohio was charged with attempting a hate crime and illegally possessing a machine gun. The man was a frequent poster on a popular incel website, where he wrote posts venerating Elliot Rodger. He wrote a manifesto in which he expressed his desire to "slaughter" women, and in another document he allegedly wrote about his goals to kill 3,000 people in a mass casualty attack.
  
  On August 12, 2021, Jake Davison, a 22-year-old man who referenced "inceldom" in online videos and expressed similar views, perpetrated a mass shooting in Plymouth, England. He killed five people, including his mother, and injured two others before killing himself.
  
  On December 27, 2021, 47-year-old Lyndon McLeod committed the 2021 Denver and Lakewood shootings, murdering five people before being killed by a police officer. McLeod had self-published a trilogy of science fiction novels under the pen name Roman MccClay, in which the protagonist of those books, named after himself, was depicted as killing three of the people McLeod eventually targeted.
  
  On May 6, 2023, 33-year-old self-identified incel Mauricio Martinez Garcia went on a spree shooting in a mall in Allen, Texas. Garcia killed eight people and injured at least seven others before he was killed by a police officer.
  
  On October 4, 2024, 19-year-old Semih Çelik killed Ayşenur Halil and İkbal Uzuner (both women aged 19) during which he threw Uzuner's severed head off the Walls of Constantinople before committing suicide himself. Çelik was in contact with incel groups on Discord, where he received praise for his actions. Turkish police began monitoring incel groups in response. Following a decision by an Ankara court, Turkey blocked Discord in the aftermath of the murders.
  
  Coty Scott Taylor abducted 6-year-old Faye Marie Swetlik on February 10, 2020, in Cayce, South Carolina. Three days later, both Taylor and Swetlik were found dead. It was determined that Taylor had suffocated Swetlik and then killed himself by cutting his throat. Friends reported that Taylor was a self-described incel and that he had often said he "lived without hope".
  
  On February 24, 2020, a female spa worker was stabbed to death in an attack that also severely injured her female coworker at an erotic massage parlor in Toronto. On May 19, the Toronto Police Service declared the attack was being treated as a terrorist incident after evidence pointed to the stabbings being motivated by incel ideology, and police laid charges against a 17-year-old male alleged to have committed the stabbings. This was the first time violence thought to be motivated by incel ideologies was prosecuted as an act of terrorism, and is also believed to be the first act of violence not perpetrated by an Islamist extremist to be prosecuted as terrorism in Canada. On September 14, 2022, the perpetrator entered a guilty plea to murder and attempted murder. The attack was ruled a terrorist attack during sentencing proceedings.
  
  Armando Hernandez Jr. opened fire on May 20, 2020, at Westgate Entertainment District, a mixed-use development in Glendale, Arizona, before being arrested by police. A 19-year-old man was critically injured, while a 30-year-old woman and a 16-year-old girl suffered minor injuries. According to the Maricopa County prosecutor, Hernandez identified himself as an incel and claimed he wanted to target couples and shoot at least ten people. The prosecutor said, "Mr. Hernandez is a self-professed incel... He was taking out his anger at society, the feeling that he has been bullied, the feeling that women didn't want him". The prosecutor also alleged that Hernandez sent a video of the attack to a woman he wished to impress.
  
  Between January and the end of July 2020, five self-identified incels were arrested in separate incidents in North America for killing or planning to kill women. Among them was Cole Carini, a man who was charged with making false statements to law enforcement in June 2020 after claiming serious injuries to his hands had been caused by a lawnmower accident. Police alleged that Carini was actually injured while trying to make a bomb, and that he had written a note threatening violence against women and referencing Elliot Rodger.
  
  In April 2021, Malik Sanchez, a 19-year-old self-described incel who praised Elliot Rodger, was arrested on federal charges after allegedly videotaping himself approaching women sitting outside a restaurant in Manhattan, New York and telling them he was going to detonate a bomb. The man had previously been arrested several times for harassing others, often while recording or livestreaming, and for multiple assaults with pepper spray.
  
  In July 2021, a 21-year-old self-identified incel from Ohio was charged with attempting a hate crime and illegally possessing a machine gun. The man was a frequent poster on a popular incel website, where he wrote posts venerating Elliot Rodger. He wrote a manifesto in which he expressed his desire to "slaughter" women, and in another document he allegedly wrote about his goals to kill 3,000 people in a mass casualty attack.
  
  On August 12, 2021, Jake Davison, a 22-year-old man who referenced "inceldom" in online videos and expressed similar views, perpetrated a mass shooting in Plymouth, England. He killed five people, including his mother, and injured two others before killing himself.
  
  On December 27, 2021, 47-year-old Lyndon McLeod committed the 2021 Denver and Lakewood shootings, murdering five people before being killed by a police officer. McLeod had self-published a trilogy of science fiction novels under the pen name Roman MccClay, in which the protagonist of those books, named after himself, was depicted as killing three of the people McLeod eventually targeted.
  
  On May 6, 2023, 33-year-old self-identified incel Mauricio Martinez Garcia went on a spree shooting in a mall in Allen, Texas. Garcia killed eight people and injured at least seven others before he was killed by a police officer.
  
  On October 4, 2024, 19-year-old Semih Çelik killed Ayşenur Halil and İkbal Uzuner (both women aged 19) during which he threw Uzuner's severed head off the Walls of Constantinople before committing suicide himself. Çelik was in contact with incel groups on Discord, where he received praise for his actions. Turkish police began monitoring incel groups in response. Following a decision by an Ankara court, Turkey blocked Discord in the aftermath of the murders.