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Sol tribe tattoo shop

A girl stops and checks the flowers at the Sol Tribe tattoo shop on Broadway in Denver, Colorado on Tuesday, December 28, 2021. | Source: Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images / Getty

The prime suspect in a deadly mass shooting in and around Denver has been widely described on social media as a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer who also harbored hatred toward women. And the folks making these claims came with receipts.

After keeping his identity secret for more than 24 hours following a shooting spree in multiple locations that claimed five lives on Monday night, law enforcement officials in Denver finally named Lyndon James McLeod as the gunman who ultimately died after a brief shootout with police.

McLeod had been criminally investigated this and last year for unspecified suspicions, according to reports. However, no arrests ever came from the probes.

He is accused of killing two people and injuring another at a tattoo parlor at around 5 p.m. Monday in Denver; firing shots at a Denver intersection and forcing his way into a home; killing a man at his Denver home; shooting at police while they tried to pull him over; driving to nearby Lakewood and killing another person there; and killing a woman who was in a hotel in Belmar before an officer shot him.  Law enforcement, which said McLeod used to own a tattoo parlor in Denver, suggested he knew at least some of his victims and called the shootings targeted attacks.

The Denver Post reported that McLeod may have been dressed as a police officer when he carried out the killings.

The 47-year-old’s motive had not been publicly revealed as of early Wednesday morning, but a growing number of viral tweets suggested McLeod’s alleged history as a white supremacist may have had something to do with it.

A Twitter account for Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists, which describes itself as a group that is “Exposing fascists and disrupting their organizing in so-called Colorado,” tweeted to this writer that McLeod “was a white nationalist.” The group pointed to its own tweet making a similar claim.

“The Denver mass shooter was a white supremacist and a misogynist obsessed with masculinity, oppressing women, defending the white race, and shooting communists,” the tweet from Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists claimed. As proof, it posted a series of social media posts, including two that were apparently written by McLeod and posted under his social media alter ego and pen name, Roman McClay.

Another dead giveaway about LcLeod’s suspected racist and sexist allegiances is the fact that alt-right conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich was following him on Twitter, according to a screenshot posted by Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists.

Nick Martin, a journalist with the online micro-news site, The Informant, drew attention to “Sanction,” a two-part series of novels that McLeod apparently wrote using the aforementioned pseudonym, Roman McClay.

“The first book in the series includes an image on its cover of a skull marked with a wolfsangel, a symbol used by the original Nazis and some neo-Nazis,” Martin tweeted Tuesday night. “The back cover of the book describes the author as “96% Norse-Scot 4% Neanderthal.”

Martin later added in his Twitter thread that one negative review on Amazon — where the book remains for sale — made it clear that the first book “includes racist and other bigoted fantasies about killing lots of people.” Martin posted a screenshot of that review that criticized the book’s “fantasies of killing people involved in the BLM movement” and noted how it “fetishizes violence as the great equalizer.”

A Twitter account for Roman McClay widely advertised “Sanction the book,” which is described in the bio as “The book that philosophizes with a Jack-Hammer.” As of Wednesday morning, that Twitter account was still live.

Citing police sources, ABC News reported that McLeod “harbored extremist views and had a history of psychiatric episodes.” The report did not expound on those claims.

If the claims about McLeod’s suspected white supremacist views are true, he would be the latest in a long line of racist white domestic terrorists who have launched deadly shooting sprees and otherwise violent attacks across the country.

This year began with white domestic terrorism thriving and it looks like that’s exactly how this year will be ending.

This is America.

This is a developing story that will be updated as additional information becomes available.

SEE ALSO:

New Domestic Terrorism Policy Launched To Counter Violent White Extremism

Major Civil Rights Organizations Caution Against Expanding Domestic Terrorism Laws

American Domestic Terrorist Attacks Since 9/11
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