Surprise! Domestic terrorist who shot up yoga studio posted racist and sexist content online

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share via Email
• Copy Link

  Link Copied

Scott Paul Beierle, who shot and killed two women at a yoga studio in Tallahassee on Friday before killing himself, was a right-wing extremist and proud misogynist who took to YouTube in a series of videos to rail against women, Black people, and immigrants.

READ MORE: UPS fires worker who thought it was a good idea to wear blackface Halloween costume

Beierle, 40, opened fire inside the Hot Yoga Tallahassee studio, killing two and injuring four women and a man. Those killed were Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, who worked at Florida State University’s College of Medicine, and FSU student Maura Binkley, 21, according to BuzzFeed News. He also had a history of arrests for sex assault, including groping women.

Four years ago, Beierle filmed several videos of himself on a now-deleted YouTube channel, making racist and misogynistic comments, calling women “sluts” and “whores,” and lamented “the collective treachery” of girls who attended his high school.

“There are whores in—not only every city, not only every town, but every village,” he said according to BuzzFeed. He also said white women in interracial relationships had betrayed “their blood.”

Officer Damon Miller of the Tallahassee Police Department would not confirm for BuzzFeed whether the women were specifically targeted or if Beierle’s online posts were part the police investigation.

“Everything that he has a connection to we’re investigating right now,” Miller told the news outlet.

While police continue to investigate a motive, police say Beierle had previously been investigated for harassing women.

In another of Beierle’s 2014 videos, entitled “The Rebirth of my Misogynism,” Beierle listed the names of women — from eighth grade until his time in the Army—whom he said caused his “rebirth,” BuzzFeed reports.

In the video, he said women were capable of “treachery” and “lying,” and also spoke aggressively about women giving him their phone number even when they had a boyfriend, and how angry it made him. He also mentioned a girl who cancelled dates on him. “I could have ripped her head off,” he said.

A Pentagon spokesperson told BuzzFeed News Beierle served from 2008 to 2010.

Recently, Beierle uploaded songs on his Soundcloud account. Shortly before Friday’s shooting, he uploaded one song called “F–k ’Em All,” with the lyrics: “To hell with the boss that won’t get off my back / To hell with the girl I can’t get in the sack.”

He had quite a few other disturbing songs on Soundcloud including ones entitled: “American Wigger,” “Locked in My Basement,” “Who Let the Fags Out?” and “Bring Your Fatwa.”

READ MORE: Simone Biles makes history, wins every event at World Gymnastics Championships

After the BuzzFeed News article ran, YouTube removed all of Beierle’s videos. “This account has been terminated due to multiple or severe violations of YouTube’s policy on violence,” read a disclaimer on the site. And although Soundcloud didn’t respond to requests for comment from BuzzFeed, Beierle’s account appeared to be down.

Beierle’s political affiliations appeared to be right-leaning. In one video, he said that he resented having to subsidize as a taxpayer “the casual sex lives of slutty girls” through the Affordable Care Act’s contraception provisions. In the same video he also criticized “the invasion of Central American children” in the U.S. that year and said the migrants seeking asylum should be deported on barges.

The Tallahassee shooting is part of a wave of deadly violence from the far right in the past several weeks, including the killing of 11 Jewish people inside of a Pittsburgh synagogue by a far-right extremist who shouted anti-Semitic phrases as he fired, and the two Black people in Louisville, Kentucky, who were killed by a white man in an attack authorities have described as a hate crime.