THE DEEP DIVE: Lessons from Bandar Utama School Stabbing

Bottom Line Up Front

• Found manifesto reveals consumption of American school shooting content, fictional violence narratives (Death Note, Zero Day, Code Geass), and gaming terminology (NPCs) to dehumanise victims, combined with weapon procurement showing temporal progression indicating pre-planned attack framework.
• Suspect emulated school shooter model while directing violence towards object of unrequited affection, representing hybrid pattern of mass violence framework adapted to individual obsessive attachment.
• Radicalisation occurred through solitary digital consumption invisible to parents and authorities, with no collaborative footprint or warning signs distinguishable from normal adolescent internet use.
• Parental detection frameworks insufficient when concerning activity is indistinguishable from mainstream behaviour; requires alternative intervention points such as procurement monitoring for combat weapon sales to minors.

Latest media reports highlighted that police investigations determined that the suspect had unrequited affection for the victim but never professed it, with investigators describing it as "a case of harbouring those feelings." The victim was reportedly unaware of the suspect's feelings, and police confirmed the suspect and victim had no prior relationship, contact or interaction. The suspect was allegedly a 'secret admirer' of the victim, with both students from the Removed Class (suspect in Form 1, victim in Form 3). Police stated that emotional factors, video games and social media influence are believed to have contributed to the suspect's actions.

A handwritten note was discovered on the suspect during arrest and confirmed by Selangor police chief Datuk Shazeli Kahar. This analysis examines the mass shooting references, gaming terminology, and other elements expressed in what is believed to be the suspect's manifesto. By examining this content, we can better understand the broader context of this attack and its influences.

 Translation:

"Soda boku ga kira da" - Deathnote Quote？
(That's right, I am Kira" - Death Note quote?)

我就是正十是全人类的希望我即将成为新世界的神把这个世界撕成片的？？？？
(I am the True Ten, the hope of all mankind. I am about to become the god of the new world, tearing this world to pieces????)

引起世人恐慌的是我现在的我是一个14岁的少年怎么样NPC们？
(It's me causing the world's panic. The current me is a 14-year-old boy. How about that, NPCs?)

完全是我赢了！没错！是我！赢了！
(I totally won! That's right! It's me! I won!)

错的不是我，是这个世界。
(It's not me who's wrong, it's this world.)

我爱你 [受害者姓名已编辑]
我会和你一起离开这个世界不管付出多大的代价也没差 在这世界胜利就是全部
(I love you, [Victim Name Redacted]. I will leave this world with you no matter how great the cost. In this world, victory is everything.)

I win!

Columbine Eric Harris Dylan Kleblold Virgina Tech Seung Hui Chuo Uvalde Robb Elementary, Sandy Hook

所有真相都来我的电脑/手机里？
(All the truth is in my computer/phone?)

I Win

密码： [REDACTED]
(Password: [REDACTED]

垃圾学校 垃圾社会
(Rubbish school, rubbish society)

烧掉学校 打学生老师
(Burn down the school. Beat students and teachers.)

我要在学校复仇
(I want to take revenge at school)

你们都要死了 ZERO DAY
(You're all going to die. ZERO DAY)

社会学校的全部人都是NPC而已
(Everyone in society and school are just NPCs)

Content Analysis

School Shooter References

The manifesto lists four American school shooting incidents in a single line of text: Columbine (naming perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold), Virginia Tech (naming Seung-Hui Cho), Uvalde (Robb Elementary), and Sandy Hook. These references span two decades of American school violence (1999-2022) and include the deadliest elementary school shooting (Sandy Hook, 2012) and one of the deadliest university attacks (Virginia Tech, 2007).

Fictional Violence Narratives

Two fictional works depicting planned violence were also referenced: Death Note (Japanese manga/anime) and Zero Day (American film).

The opening line quoted Death Note's protagonist: "Soda boku ga kira da" (That's right, I am Kira). The suspect wrote: "I am the True Ten, the hope of all mankind. I am about to become the god of the new world," language paralleling the character's self-perception as divine arbiter bringing righteous correction to the world. In Death Note, the protagonist kills people while viewing himself as morally superior, isolated in his conviction that society requires his violent intervention.

The phrase "You're all going to die. ZERO DAY" likely references the 2003 film Zero Day, an American production depicting two students planning and executing a school attack through found-footage format.

Dehumanisation Through Gaming Terminology

The manifesto contains two instances of NPC (non-player character) terminology:

• "怎么样NPC们？" (How about that, NPCs?)
• "社会学校的全部人都是NPC而已" (Everyone in society and school are just NPCs)

In gaming contexts, NPCs refer to computer-controlled background characters without agency or significance. By applying this terminology to peers and authority figures, the suspect likely framed them as lacking inherent worth, treating them as game elements rather than individuals. This framework likely intended to remove moral barriers to violence by reconceptualising potential victims as programming rather than people.

Integrative Analysis: Extreme Individualism as Ideological Scaffold

A common thread connects the suspect's disparate media consumption: narratives centred on extreme individualism, societal alienation, and antagonism towards the world provide ideological scaffolding legitimising violence.

Death Note features a protagonist who positions himself as divine arbiter correcting a corrupt world, isolated in his moral superiority. Jujutsu Kaisen contains themes of power and victory through characters operating outside societal norms. American school shooter manifestos frequently articulate narratives of the individual against a hostile, rejecting society. Zero Day depicts protagonists planning violence as response to perceived societal failures.

The common element here is not Western cultural influence specifically, but narratives validating extreme individualism, framing society as fundamentally antagonistic, and positioning violence as self-actualisation or correction of perceived wrongs. These narratives, whether from Japanese anime, American film, or attack documentation, provide frameworks that legitimise viewing oneself as separate from and superior to others while justifying violence against those deemed part of a corrupt system.

The suspect's consumption pattern demonstrates active selection of content sharing this ideological orientation across different cultural origins and media formats, indicating these narratives resonated with an existing internal framework rather than creating it ex nihilo.

Pre-Attack Planning: Procurement Timeline

Police confirmed the suspect purchased the multi-purpose knife online and they were in his possession for "quite some time" before the attack. This timeline indicates the weapon was acquired substantially in advance rather than obtained in immediate response to any trigger event. The suspect secured the means before circumstances provided justification in his constructed narrative.

The weapons were purpose-designed combat knives (bowie knife, karambit) purchased through standard online retail. Police confirmed the suspect had previously shown his knife in class. The procurement of combat weapons by a 14-year-old through online platforms represents a transaction that monitoring systems could flag through age verification and seller reporting requirements.

Unlike readily available household items that can be weaponised, purpose-designed combat knives serve no legitimate function for minors. The sale of such weapons to children through online platforms represents a potential intervention point that procurement monitoring systems could address, creating intelligence-led prevention opportunities currently absent.

Obsessive Attachment Patterns

The manifesto addresses the victim by name, followed by the declaration, "I will leave this world with you no matter how great the cost". This language suggests fixation on the specific victim rather than generalised hatred of women. The romanticisation of forced mutual death may indicate elements of obslove, a phenomenon characterised by obsessive, unrequited attachment in which the target becomes central to the perpetrator’s worldview.

Media reports confirm the victim was unaware of the perpetrator’s feelings, and the two had no prior relationship beyond attending the same school. She became the focal point of a self-constructed narrative culminating in the perpetrator’s fantasy of shared death. This convergence of obsessive attachment and mass-shooting veneration represents a particularly concerning behavioural trajectory.

This pattern finds precedent in Elliot Rodger (Isla Vista, 2014) and Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech, 2007), both of whom exhibited intense fixation on women and articulated feelings of unrequited affection and rejection that became central to their grievance narratives. The convergence of obsessive attachment with mass-shooting veneration represents a particularly concerning behavioural trajectory. The suspect exemplifies what researchers term the "Columbine Effect"; he was specifically emulating the school shooter model while directing violence towards an object of unrequited affection. This represents a hybrid pattern combining parasocial identification with historical perpetrators and obsessive fixation on a specific victim, demonstrating how documented attack frameworks can be adapted to individual grievances.

Narrative Construction: Externalisation and Victory Framing

The manifesto contains explicit externalisation of responsibility: "错的不是我，是这个世界" (It's not me who's wrong, it's this world), a phrase from the anime Code Geass. Combined with references to Death Note and Jujutsu Kaisen, this demonstrates sustained consumption of narratives featuring protagonists who position themselves in opposition to society. This shifts accountability from the individual to external factors, a framing technique common in attack manifestos.

This externalisation appears alongside repeated declarations framing the attack as victory: "完全是我赢了！没错！是我！赢了！" (I totally won! That's right! It's me! I won!) and "在这世界胜利就是全部" (In this world, victory is everything). The repeated "I Win" declarations reframe violence from transgression to achievement.

The manifesto also contains explicit institutional threats:

• "烧掉学校 打学生老师" (Burn down the school. Beat students and teachers)
• "我要在学校复仇" (I want to take revenge at school)
• "你们都要死了" (You're all going to die)

These threats characterise the institution and those within it as targets for revenge, framing violence as justified response to perceived institutional wrongs expressed through generalised terms ("rubbish school, rubbish society") rather than specific grievances.

Discovery Context

The manifesto was carried on the suspect's person rather than left at a separate location, indicating it was intended for discovery by authorities. The inclusion of a device password with the statement "所有真相都来我的电脑/手机里？" (All the truth is in my computer/phone?) explicitly directs investigators to stored content, suggesting the suspect expected and possibly desired posthumous examination of his digital consumption patterns.

Detection Challenges: The Lone Actor Pattern

This case exemplifies the fundamental detection challenge posed by lone actor violence: radicalisation through private digital consumption leaves no collaborative footprint visible to parents, schools, or authorities until after violence occurs.

Police investigations involving 57 statements from students, teachers, family members, and school counselling representatives reportedly found no elements of bullying. The suspect's parents allegedly had no knowledge of his intentions, with his father expressing shock upon learning of the attack. This is hardly surprising. In fact, this pattern mirrors international cases. Chin Rodger, mother of Elliot Rodger (the 2014 Isla Vista attacker), discovered her son's manifesto and violent intentions only in the aftermath despite living in the same household. In subsequent interviews, she described searching for signs she might have missed, illustrating the central challenge: radicalisation through solitary digital consumption remains invisible even to attentive parents maintaining active engagement with their children.

Unlike group-based extremism where human interaction creates surveillance opportunities (suspicious meetings, travel patterns, financial transfers, communications regarding planning), lone actor violence involving passive content consumption and parasocial relationships with historical perpetrators provides no collaborative footprint requiring monitoring. Parents observe a quiet teenager spending time online. Schools observe an unremarkable student engaging in activities (gaming, internet use, film viewing) that are mainstream amongst adolescents. Police have no investigative hooks until after violence occurs.

The observable behaviours become notable only retrospectively. The display of a weapon in class represents perhaps the clearest potential intervention point, yet without frameworks specifically designed to recognise when such displays signal genuine intent versus adolescent posturing, or when content consumption shifts from mainstream participation to operational planning, such behaviours provide limited advance warning. Research on American school shooters indicates that over 80% showed signs of crisis before attacks, including depression, mood swings, and behavioural changes. However, absent established threat assessment frameworks, such signs may be dismissed as normal adolescent difficulties. The vast majority of adolescents who participate in gaming culture, consume anime and violent media, and maintain significant online presence never engage in violence. The challenge lies in identifying when consumption shifts to concerning patterns without generating overwhelming false positives or stigmatising normal adolescent activities.

Rarity in Malaysian Context

This pattern of violence is extraordinarily rare in Malaysia. Malaysian society remains inherently communal, with social structures that typically prevent isolated planning. Frameworks developed for more common threat patterns (religious extremism involving network connections, organised crime with hierarchical structures, gang violence with territorial markers) do not readily translate to this context.

The suspect's ability to plan and execute this attack without detection reflects the absence of frameworks calibrated for this specific pattern rather than investigative failure. American law enforcement has developed threat assessment protocols following decades of experience with school shootings, albeit imperfect. Malaysian authorities and policymakers encounter this pattern essentially for the first time, with limited institutional experience or established procedures.

However, digital platforms collapse geographic boundaries, allowing individuals to access and internalise violence patterns that contradict local norms and remain statistically exceptional in their own contexts. This attack demonstrates how digital content ecosystems enable cross-pollination of violence models across cultural boundaries. The suspect consumed detailed documentation of school shootings, fictional violence narratives, and engaged with online spaces where past attacks are analysed and perpetrators discussed, reflecting transnational access to specific violent content through digital platforms.

Implications

For Threat Assessment Frameworks

This case demonstrates that content consumption alone, without collaborative planning or communication with others, can precede violence. The manifesto indicates the suspect consumed content about school shootings, viewed fictional depictions of violence, and used gaming terminology to conceptualise others. All of this consumption could occur privately through screen-based activities that leave no footprint visible to parents, schools, or authorities until manifesto discovery.

The cooling off period between weapon procurement and attack execution indicates planning that anticipated circumstances to provide justification. This differs from reactive violence following immediate triggers, instead demonstrating an attack framework developed in advance awaiting activation.

The procurement of purpose-designed combat weapons by a minor through online platforms represents a transaction that monitoring systems could flag through age verification and seller reporting requirements. The sale of such weapons serves no legitimate function for children. Procurement monitoring systems that flag sales of purpose-designed weapons to minors, particularly when combined with analysis of buyer age verification, could provide early warning indicators for prevention. The planning left no collaborative trail that would trigger investigation, but the commercial transaction itself represented a detectable event that current systems did not intercept, creating intelligence-led intervention opportunities.

For Policy Consideration

This form of violence proves particularly challenging because it lacks visible infrastructure. There are no recruiters to identify, no safe houses to monitor, no financial networks requiring investigation, no travel patterns indicating planning. The entire consumption and planning cycle occur privately through activities that are mainstream amongst adolescents.

Existing frameworks in Malaysia address threat patterns with different characteristics: religious extremism typically involves network connections and communications that create investigative opportunities; organised crime involves hierarchical structures and territorial activities that provide monitoring points; gang violence involves group dynamics and visible markers. Lone actor violence involving solitary content consumption follows different patterns requiring different approaches.

This necessitates multi-layered prevention approaches. Parental awareness remains important but cannot serve as the sole prevention mechanism because radicalisation occurs through individual digital consumption invisible even to attentive parents. Parents should maintain engagement with their children's online activities and emotional wellbeing, but must be supported by institutional frameworks.

Even observable behaviours such as displaying a weapon in class may be dismissed as adolescent posturing without threat assessment frameworks calibrated to distinguish attention-seeking from genuine intent. This requires systemic intervention points beyond parental monitoring: procurement monitoring systems that flag combat weapon sales to minors, digital platform protocols that identify consumption of violent attack documentation, educational frameworks that help schools recognise concerning behavioural patterns including gender-specific risk factors, and formal threat assessment protocols that provide clear escalation pathways when warning signs emerge.

Given the rarity of this violence pattern in Malaysia, policy responses must be proportionate, avoiding overreaction while developing capabilities to recognise when digital content consumption shifts from passive engagement to operational planning. Prevention requires coordinated effort across families, schools, online platforms, and law enforcement rather than relying on any single point of intervention. This includes gender-informed training for educators to recognise masculine identity struggles and grievance narratives that research links to this violence pattern, accessible mental health support that reduces help-seeking stigma, peer intervention programs, and critical media literacy frameworks that help adolescents contextualise violent content consumption.

*Edited to include and emphasise gender-based frameworks.