By David Futrelle
Was Men’s Rights attorney Roy Den Hollander, who on Sunday night gunned down a federal judge’s husband and son, also the man who shot fellow Men’s Rights lawyer Marc Angelucci dead a little over a week ago?
It’s looking a lot like it. Let’s consider some of the facts of the case as they are now emerging.
Den Hollander had a motive — professional and personal jealousy. According to the Daily Beast,
In one of his online screeds, “men’s rights” lawyer Roy Den Hollander made it clear he blamed U.S. District Judge Esther Salas for robbing him of a legal victory that instead was claimed by activist California attorney Marc Angelucci.
Den Hollander did not name Angelucci in his bile-filled memoir, but law-enforcement sources told The Daily Beast that papers mentioning Angelucci were found in or around the car where Den Hollander killed himself on Monday.
The Daily Beast has more on the case and Den Hollander’s feelings about it.
He was apparently targeting various people he considered enemies.
The New York Times notes that he had the name and a photo of New York State chief judge, Janet M. DiFiore in his car.
In a lengthy screed he left behind he mused about revenge. “The only problem with a life lived too long under Feminazi rule,” he wrote, “is that a man ends up with so many enemies he can’t even the score with all of them.”
Den Hollander had cancer and had apparently decided he had nothing left to lose.
“Death’s hand is on my left shoulder,” he wrote, “nothing in this life matters anymore.”
In both cases, the shooter reportedly wore a FedEx uniform as a ruse to get his victims to open their door.
This is the detail that absolutely clinches it for me; there’s no way this could be mere coincidence.
On the A Voice for Men website, a eulogy for the murdered Angelucci declares him a “modern martyr like ancient Saint Vincent.”
Now it appears that he was martyred by one of his own. Not only by a fellow Men’s Rights attorney but one who had once published an article on A Voice for Men and who had been described by AVFM founder Paul Elam as a hero. “[A]s much as I loathe the idea of anyone claiming authority on what a “real” man is, ” Elam wrote in a post on the site, “if I had to venture a guess, it would be men like Hollander.”
I would call this a great irony except that there’s really no irony here at all. The Men’s Rights Movement attracts desperate, delusional, angry and unhinged men (and some women fitting the same general description); it’s really not a shock to learn that one of these men decided to take revenge on those considered his enemies. Indeed, I’ve been expecting to see someone with ties to A Voice for Men lose it like this for years; I’m just a little surprised that it turned out to be Den Hollander and not one of the other seemingly more likely candidates.
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Once upon a time, the old Manboobz forum (the precursor to the current Discord group) had a list of all the Mammoth trolls (to a certain point), including all the known socks they had. While those forums still exist, I think, they don’t seem to be very accessible to anyone who didn’t get an account there before they were abandoned. Because it looks like you had to have a moderator approve of anyone joining, and those mods don’t look like they’re still active here anymore (that I can tell, anyway).
Which is a pity if true, because there was a fair bit of discussion that happened there that was only alluded to in comments here, that had some very direct outcomes on the culture here. Like, at least one of the early mass exodus of commenters here was a direct result of something that happened there, but if a current reader wasn’t a member then, then the ‘why’ will always remain a mystery for the ages. If that makes sense.
@Redsilkphoenix
Is that something you can elaborate on? I’ve heard there was a mass exodus of terfs way back when, but this sounds like something else.
@Tovius
I’m not familiar with the mass exodus as it was before I started commenting here, but every once in a while we get a TERF who claims to be an early commenter angry about how this blog is trans-inclusive. I’m not sure why it took them so long to figure out, AFAIK it has always been trans-inclusive, but some then drop by to call out their displeasure and argue with commenters. For example, Croi here.
There’s a We Hunted the Mammoth Discord group? Is it open to the public, or is it just for a specific group of people?
There have been two Threads of Doom since I’ve started reading WHTM, though both before I started commenting. Both were caused by debates about trans rights, or, more particularly, the right of one particular (and toxic) trans commenter to act as the Inquisition here, leading to accusations that this space was transphobic. The second time involved a concerted attack on the part of this commenter and some friends (who had never even here before) against certain people here, including one of the moderators. This is when we lost the moderators, and several valued members of the community.
It was… unpleasant.
@ Tovius, Rabid Rabbit,
Either Policy of Madness or Weirdwoodtreehugger – or both – can likely give more information about the various toxic Threads of Doom (oomoomoom) that have occurred on this site over the years than I ever could. They’ve been here longer than I have, so they would know more about things than I would.
The one I was referring to occurred a few years before the one(s) with Ally. Based on references in other threads after that time, whatever went down was bad enough to chase off Cliff Pervocracy and Aimee Angelwings, amongst others, both of whom are trans.
I cannot say how bad WHTM ever got with the TERF bits (I’m not trans, so my radar detection on those issues is not very good :/ ), but based on some of the comments I’ve read during my archive crawl it was a very bumpy road getting this blog to the point it is now regarding trans issues. Hopefully things can/will stay better so everyone can enjoy each other’s company in safety. And who knows, maybe some of those old commentators will show up again and feel it’s safe enough for them to start posting again.
@Aaron,
I think anyone in good standing here can join the Discord, but I don’t immediately recall who is allowed to issue the invites to it. Sorry. 🙁
@Redsilkphoenix, thanks. It’s no big deal, I was just wondering. I know I’ve gotten into a few arguments here before, so maybe I wouldn’t be welcome anyway, which is fine.
@Redsilkphoenix
So that’s why he stopped commenting here. I had been wondering about that, seeing as he’s still active on Twitter and, judging from Twitter interactions, seems to still be on good terms with David. Maybe one day he’ll feel safe enough to come back, I enjoyed his blog even though I discovered it after he stopped posting.
Apparently if I’m correct some ‘Men’s Rights’ Advocates have begun to actually lean to the left because of this or if they suspect he is behind this due to Hollander’s links to alt-right ideology, like ‘male only drafting’ etc.
There’s now even some new ‘Baxist’ one on reddit as of lately also. Can’t exactly remember but they are lead by this YouTuber and others. Incel MRAs have bashed on them before as ‘being a mix of MensLib and MGTOW’.
@Rabid Rabbit
… My memory of the Threads Of Doom are a bit foggy, but I’m not sure I like the implication that the root cause of all the conflict was apparently due to “A Trans Commentor Being Too Aggressive”.
That sounds a bit too much like the “why are black people so aggressive and angry and causing problems for everyone else” comments that I’ve heard from the white people around me in the last few months.
@Catalpa
Sorry — not my intention at all. Maybe I should have said that it was issues related to that commentor that set things off, bringing the rest of the conflicts to the surface. Clearly there were things that needed to be worked out.
I don’t think she was necessarily the root cause, but the toxicity created by her constant tone policing clearly played a big role in the original blowup, as revealed by how many people finally felt able to admit how terrified of making a misstep around her they were. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with making people think twice about how they say things, that’s how we get rid of ableist language and the like, but leaving people nervous about saying anything is not a good look. (I actually stopped reading that particular person’s posts after a while, because reading the responses to them was enough. Normally I only do that with trolls.)
Anyhow, I don’t want to dredge this whole thing up again, it did enough damage last time. But I wasn’t trying for an equivalent to the “why are black people…” nonsense; it was more “Why is this one, particular individual, who happens to be trans, making this blog unliveable?” Which was particularly heartbreaking to watch because the blog had helped her get out from her horrific family situation.
In any case, my apologies again if I came across as being reductive.
Missed the edit window — just one other clarification, it wasn’t a matter of “A trans commentator being too aggressive,” but of being too controlling.
@Rabid Rabbit
Sorry about that. Please let me know if I’m being too controlling or tone policing too much, I don’t want to cause a thread of doom.
My recollections of the Threads of Doom are vague, as my memory frankly doesn’t work very well, and if information isn’t constantly reinforced I tend to lose it. I know I didn’t participate really, because both threads blew up after I went to sleep and so I was perceived as being “above it all” but really I was just zonked out when it was happening.
I could probably dig them up if anyone is interested in them but otherwise can’t really describe what happened beyond “lots of feelings were hurt and several people left either immediately or in the aftermath.” Sorry about that, my memory just doesn’t work anymore the way it used to. Thank Lamictal for that.
@Rabid Rabbit
All right, fair enough. I suppose it’s probably best to let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to this history.
@Naglfar
There certainly isn’t anything for you to apologize for. You had no part in anything to do with the Threads, and if I thought that Rabid Rabbit was suggesting that ALL trans people are more at risk of being controlling on this site, then I would have taken significantly more umbrage with the post. But we’re talking about an individual’s actions, not a group’s.
Also, you’re probably one of the most even-keeled commentors I’ve interacted with on WHTM, if a little too quick to apologize sometimes. I don’t think you need to worry about causing any significant drama.
@Catalpa
Alright, I just wanted to make sure I’m not inadvertently causing issues.
Thank you. I try to be balanced where possible.
That’s how I am IRL as well. I figure it’s better to apologize for something I didn’t need to apologize for than to not apologize for something I should, if that makes sense.
@Naglfar:
Oh God no! You are nothing like that particular commenter. (I don’t think I’ve seen you tone-police once, and I’ve certainly never seen you automatically call anyone disagreeing with you transphobic.) As Catalpa says, you’re a valuable and valued addition to the community.
Though as a Canadian, I can’t say I’ve noticed any propensity to apologize too often (except in this one case). Isn’t that just normal? :p
@Rabid Rabbit
*blushes*
Thank you.
I have on occasion politely suggested minor changes to language (i.e. suggested that people say “trans woman” instead of “transwoman”, etc), but I don’t think that qualifies as tone policing.
And the only commenters here I’ve called transphobic were transphobes who came in attacking (like Croi or Amy). The former dragged it out into a long thread which ended with her getting banned after misgendering all the other commenters in the thread in sequence, while the latter ran off claiming to be the victim when people responded.