Man Arrested for Planning a Mass Shooting at an Ohio College Idolized Elliot Rodger, Hoped to ‘Kill 3,000 People’

Tres Genco, a 21-year-old man in Hillsboro, Ohio, has been charged by a federal grand jury over the planning of a mass shooting at an Ohio college after years of posting on “incel” message boards and idolizing Elliot Rodger, who killed six people and injured 14 in Isla Vista, California and at University of California Santa Barbara in 2014.

Genco was fortunately arrested before he could act on his plans to murder people he believed to be denying him the sex he deserved, but authorities found years of the kind of messages self-described “involuntary celibates” or “incels” typically post online before doing something horrific, per the Department of Justice website:

In one post, Genco allegedly detailed spraying “some foids and couples” with orange juice in a water gun. “Foids” is an incel term short for “femoids,” referring to women. According to the charging document, Genco compared his “extremely empowering action” to similar conduct by known incel, Elliot Rodger. In May 2014, Rodger killed six people and injured 14 others, including shooting individuals outside a University of California, Santa Barbara sorority house. Prior to his mass attack, Rodger shot a group of college students with orange juice from a water gun.

And like the incoherent 114-page manifesto Rodger left behind, Genco was at work on his own, similar document:

Genco also allegedly wrote a manifesto, stating he would “slaughter” women “out of hatred, jealousy and revenge…” and referring to death as the “great equalizer.” As part of this investigation, law enforcement agents discovered a note of Genco’s that indicated he hoped to “aim big” for a kill count of 3,000 people and intended to attend military training. Searches of Genco’s electronics revealed that the day he wrote his manifesto, he searched online for sororities and a university in Ohio.

Genco, who could face life in prison for the hate crime charges and 10 years for the machine gun, also “purchased tactical gloves, a bulletproof vest, a hoodie bearing the word “revenge,” cargo pants, a bowie knife, a skull facemask, two Glock 17 magazines, a 9mm Glock 17 clip and a holster clip concealed carry for a Glock” in 2019, the same year he attended Army basic training. In early 2020, authorities say he wrote his manifesto, which he titled “Isolated,” began surveillance on an Ohio university, and conducted internet searches such as “how to plan a shooting crime” and “when does preparing for a crime become attempt?”

Responding to a call on March 12, 2020, police found a “Glock-style 9mm semiautomatic pistol” in a heating vent in Genco’s room with no manufacturer markings or serial number in addition to a “firearm with a bump stock attached, several loaded magazines, body armor and boxes of ammunition.”

Genco, of course, wasn’t alone in his idolization of Rodger, who has become a symbol of martyrdom in online incel communities founded on violent misogyny as a reasonable response to womens’ autonomy. In 2018, Alek Minassian cited Rodger as his inspiration for killing 10 people with a van on a Toronto sidewalk.