On 27 December 2021, Lyndon James McLeod (a.k.a. Roman McClay) shot at least six people in Denver, killing five. McLeod had a large following among men's rights activists and the dissident right on Twitter, in part because of his book Sanction, which some of his readers interpreted as a "manifesto". McLeod also had a history of threatening to kill people on Twitter, and many of his fans have made it clear that his preoccupation with violence was what drew them to McLeod:
Chance Lunceford (30 April 2020):
If Theodore J. Kaczynski had been a more compelling author - compelling enough that his manifesto made many of those who read it realize they wanted to blow some shit up - then Theodore J. Kaczynski would have been @roman_mcclay.
Andrew Loeschner, quoting a tweet that said "statistically speaking, at least one of the people you retweet here is a serial killer." (28 May 2020):
I know it's @mcclay_roman I just don't care.
Adam Lane Smith, referring to an incident where McLeod threatened to behead Travis Corcoran's wife and children after Corcoran insulted Smith's writing (16 June 2021):
Roman McClay is my friend. Period. Everyone can remember that and take it how they like. He knows exactly how I feel, and I won’t explain myself to anyone. Whatever folks are fighting over, Roman is my friend.
These are just a few examples out of hundreds of similar deleted comments we've recovered.
The table below tracks some of the Twitter users who interacted most frequently with McLeod's accounts. Many of these users tried to delete all references to McLeod or his book after news of the shooting was published, or even locked or deactivated their accounts. We have archives for all of them, and have already published selections separately for a few (e.g. for Adam Lane Smith and Ed Latimore).
We may update this list as more archived accounts come in. Please note that some of the "Identity" links are to personal websites.
Update: some of the accounts below have changed their screen names, so the links in the "Screen name" column may not be up-to-date, but the "Status" column contains Twitter ID links that will work for as long as the account is active.