On Date With Dayton Gunman, He Showed Her Shooting Video

The mass shooter killed in Dayton, Ohio, appears to have been a self-described "leftist" who retweeted posts in support of Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Mixed among selfies and nonpolitical memes on a now-suspended Twitter account linked to Connor Betts were retweeted posts describing ICE agents as "monsters," tweets in support of antifa, and others condemning police, reports CNN. More:

• Hours before the shooting, the account also liked various tweets about the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, including one that labeled the suspect a "terrorist" and "white supremacist."
• Betts' Twitter bio described an "anime fan / metalhead / leftist." It further noted, "I'm going to hell and I'm not coming back." Writings discovered at Betts' family home in Bellbrook are more concerning as they "expressed an interest in killing people," per CNN.

• Former classmates at Bellbrook High School say Betts also kept "rape" and "kill" lists and was detained by police in early 2012 before a suspension of at least a year, per the AP.
• Several women listed said they'd refused to date Betts. "He loved to look at you and pretend to shoot with guns, guns with his hands," said one. "It's baffling and horrible that somebody who's been talking for 10 years about wanting to shoot people could easily, so easily, get access to a military grade weapon and that much ammo," said another.
• One woman who did date him, Caitlyn "Adelia" Johnson, opened up to the Blade about the brief experience. The 24-year-old says their first date happened in mid-May, and that during it he showed her bodycam footage from a mass shooting. She'd found him smart and thought his interest in the subject related to his psychology studies at Dayton's Sinclair Community College; the two met in a psych class there. But from there things got weird—she recounts being in the car with him when he tried to deliver a threatening letter to an ex—and she broke things off with him.
• Betts reportedly played in a "pornogrind" band that sang about sexual violence. A former acquaintance adds he once choked an ex-girlfriend, per USA Today. His juvenile record was expunged under state law.
• According to Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl, "there's nothing in this individual's record that would have precluded him from getting these weapons."

(More Dayton shooting stories.)