Front Burner - Front Burner Introduces: Boys Like Me

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

Why are lonely, young men a growing threat to our safety? In 2018, a Toronto man drove a van down a busy sidewalk, killing 11 people and injuring many more. He was linked to the "incel" movement, a dark online world fueled by violent misogyny, extreme isolation and perceived rejection. In the wake of the attack, Evan Mead discovers a disturbing connection to the perpetrator. They were former high school classmates; both outcasts, existing together on the fringes of social acceptance. How did two young men who started in similar circumstances, end up on such drastically different paths? More episodes are available at: smarturl.it/boyslikeme

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey there, so we have a special bonus for Frontburner's podcast subscribers from the brand new series, Boys Like Me. In April 2018, a young man deliberately drove a van into pedestrians on a busy street in Toronto. He was linked to the incel movement, a dark online world fueled by

violent misogyny and extreme isolation. In the wake of the attack, aspiring filmmaker Evan Mead discovers his disturbing connection to the perpetrator. They went to the same high school, were part of the same special needs program, and suffered many of the same social challenges. So how did two friends who started in such similar circumstances end up on such drastically different paths? Here's host Ellen-Chloe Bateman and the first episode of Boys Like Me. This episode contains descriptions of violence. Please take care. Hey Evan. Yep. Count to 10.

Un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix. You good? Yep, that's great. Yeah. You said count to 12. You good? Yeah, that's great. You said count to 12. You didn't say what language. That's my friend Evan. Evan Mead. This tape is from a couple of summers ago.

Evan's in his bedroom at his parents' house in a neighborhood just north of Toronto. He's getting ready to move out and live on his own for the first time. And I'm there too. Ellie, are you watching a monitor of everything you're seeing? Ellie, that's Evan's nickname for me. Evan is pretty much the only person, aside from my dad, who calls me Ellie. My name's Ellen Chloe Bateman. I'm a documentary filmmaker. I've been telling stories about finding self-acceptance in the face of adversity for a long time. Now I was making a documentary with Evan.

Okay, I'll put some of my quartz in here too. Evan, why don't you say that again, but just say that it's moving day. Yeah, it's moving day. I'm standing in Evan's bedroom along with a small film crew, and we're filming Evan packing. He's tall, he's handsome, and he lights up a room. He's also autistic. He has Asperger's. We're going to debunk all these stigmas and say, here's where your hope comes in. This is your spark of hope.

This is hope for anyone who wants to be, not just people with autism or Asperger's. This is hope for anyone who thinks that love is just a fairy tale. This film is for anyone. But the vehicle we're using is people with disabilities like Asperger's and autism who find it difficult to get a date. We decided to call it Awkward Love. It was about the experiences of people on the autism spectrum as they're looking for love, relationships, romance. So I spent six months following Evan around, filming him.

To anyone who just got here, have you guys signed the waivers? So we'll cover you are we doing for mics? They're all being used. Things were feeling good, like they were moving forward, like we were working on something really positive. Evan was a great collaborator and I was having fun. But then that all changed. Breaking news out of Toronto.

Police are reporting that between 8 to 10 people have been struck by a van in the north of the city. The corner was just littered with bodies and pedestrians. Today, police confirmed the suspect they arrested is 25-year-old Alec Manassian. At least 10 people are dead, more than a dozen wounded. And officials say it was intentional. People are dead more than a dozen wounded, and officials say it was intentional. Well, I got a call from a reporter who found me through Facebook, and she asked me if I was friends with a guy named Alec Manassian.

And I said, yeah, I am. So, this isn't the story that Evan and I set out to tell. It's the one we need to tell. It's about two young men who started life in a similar place, but ended up on two entirely different paths. It's a story about marginalization and radicalization. About a subculture of hate that started online, but has increasingly spilled over into the real world. I'm Ellen Chloe Bateman at the Toronto International Film Festival.

We wound up at the same party. Evan was working the room, pitching his idea about autism and dating. And it didn't take much to sell me on it. It sounded fun and optimistic. Mostly, though, I was sold on Evan. You know, college is a far more mature environment. He was this lightning bolt of charm and charisma, and he was on this amazing mission.

So I signed right up. The idea for this film, it came from his own personal experience. After high school, Evan went to film school and looked forward to dating and meeting girls. I thought it would be a huge world of improvement over high school and not as socially traumatic. Dating can be bewildering at the best of times for anyone. For Evan, it was that much harder. Do you feel like people discriminate against people with ASD? I know it's inevitable, but at the same time, I like to try and convince myself that people are very

open-minded and I'm not going to say no but if I I'm not going to date someone on the spectrum just because they're on the spectrum I'll date them if I find I want to go out with them if I find them attractive. So Evan decided to approach his dating situation with the same attitude he approaches a lot of things. He went all in. He learned everything he could about dating and relationships. And then he did something really cool. He started organizing date camps, like workshops, where he'd share what he'd learned with other folks on the spectrum. Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the bit of the wait,

but I just wanted to welcome you all to the fourth consecutive Autism Social Camp. Again, thank you. So this is just a little background about myself and about us. Throughout elementary school, making friends was difficult. In high school, it was even more difficult. In college, it got easier, but as someone who is growing to learn more and more about my condition, there is always much more to discover. He'd bring in experts to speak. So a little bit about me is I am a dating and relationship coach. These camps were a hit.

They were really popular and media picked up on the story. Evan became sort of a minor celeb for a time. Today, we are talking to people who are finding the courage to put themselves out there in the search for love. Evan Mead is a 24-year-old Toronto filmmaker who was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when he was just five years old. And now, he facilitates dating daycare. As far as I knew, I'd never really known anyone with autism before meeting Evan. And I'd never had a professional relationship with someone on the spectrum either. Once Evan and I started working together, I began to notice that he seemed to feel things bigger than I did.

A common stereotype is that we're very emotionally guarded, but the reality is, like, we have amplified emotions, or I have amplified emotions, at least. When I was a kid, if I got angry, I got really angry. If I was sad, I got really sad. If I was happy, I was euphoric. These were the kinds of things Evan wanted people to know about autism. Yeah, his enthusiasm occasionally sidetracked a meeting,

and his impulsiveness could be a little hard to rein in sometimes. But I was constantly impressed by him. He's a great writer, and he's just fantastic with people. And that over-the-top enthusiasm of his, it helps him make good things happen. And that's sort of the magic ingredient in a good producer. How are you doing, Evan? Doing okay. Sorry, I had to rush to catch this bus. No, it's great. Yeah, so we'll just go through some of the questions from that. Evan and I are sitting in a bus headed north on Yonge Street.

We're almost at our destination. Finch Station. Passengers may transfer to Viva and York Region. Finch Station is the last stop on the Yonge Street subway line. It's a major hub for commuters. This is the neighborhood where the van attack took place almost exactly three years ago on April 23rd, 2018.

We're retracing Evan's steps that day. Can we get on this one? Both of these will take us to the beach, so it really doesn't matter. I don't really know the neighborhood, but Evan does. He grew up nearby. Like a lot of areas in Toronto, North York's east and west sides are divided by Yonge Street. It's basically the backbone of the city, one of the main arterial routes into the downtown core. main arterial roots into the downtown core. Back in 2018, while we were working on our film,

Evan was picking up gigs as a freelance videographer. He spent a lot of time traveling back and forth between Finch Station and downtown. One of his clients was an organization called Mo Mondays. Mo Mondays hosts these open mic nights for folks who want to build their confidence in front of a crowd. Back then, Evan didn't have his own lighting kit. I needed to borrow a light from a friend and we were going to meet at Finch Station to pick it up. The day of the attack, he comes out of the station and's the siren. He doesn't think much of it at first. Yonge and Finch is a major intersection. There are always sirens here. But pretty quickly, it's clear something's going on.

By the time my friend Mike came to drop off the light, I heard what had to have been, like, 20 sirens. And the fact that there were helicopters circling around the intersection, I'm like, something really big went down here. Evan gets the gear from his friend, says goodbye, and then heads back into the station, still not sure what's going on.

Meanwhile, once we stop south on Yonge, Tiffany Jeffkins is sitting outside with a friend and their two infant daughters. We decided to have lunch outdoors at Melasmin Square. And because it was so beautiful, the square was packed. You know, it was kind of the first really nice day of spring. It was a beautiful day. It was one of the nicest days we've had. It was early spring and it was just glorious and everybody was out on the street. Kathy Riddell is out running errands, making her way south down Yonge Street. I know I had gone to the bank at Finch and Yonge and I was heading down to the library. I remember coming out of the bank

and getting to Finch & Young and really I don't remember anything after that. We laid out some picnic blankets, we took the girls out and literally as we finished lunch we stood up and we were chatting and heard a crash and all we could hear were you know people screaming and yelling and someone I distinctly remember hearing someone yell stop that van and we didn't even hear him coming because there's so much noise on young and it's the last thing you would expect is somebody barreling down the sidewalk at 50 kilometers an hour in a truck you just would never have expected it so I didn't hear it coming.

The van strikes Kathy from behind. It throws her into a glass bus shelter. And as we turned around to look, we saw the van barreling down the sidewalk less than 20 meters from where we were. At the time, Tiffany's working in critical care as a respiratory therapist. She's trained to help stabilize people in emergency situations. She tells her friend to watch the girls.

And she said, of course, absolutely, do what you need to do. I grabbed my keys and I ran towards the first nearest victim and started doing CPR. and I ran towards the first nearest victim and started doing CPR. People screaming, running by, a woman running by on her phone screaming into it, which I can only describe as I think she was probably trying to describe the scene to EMS. But she was extremely distraught while I was doing CPR and trying to ask the crowd if anybody knew how to do CPR and if anybody could help. And people just were staring at me, just like completely shocked, obviously. I don't remember people coming to me on the street.

I don't remember the police. I don't remember the first responders. I don't remember being in an ambulance or going to St. Mike's Hospital. I guess at the beginning they had me on medication and I guess I was probably in a lot of pain, which I don't remember either, thank heavens. And I really had no idea how many times I was going to do this at this point because I guess somebody felt it was important to walk by

and tell me that there are more people injured up the street. And I said, I can't go there. You know, in my mind, I think I may have said it in my head, and I was like, I can't keep going. I don't know how far this stretch is. Tiffany tries to save four people, but none of them survive. Back at Melasmin Square, paramedics arrive. Police secure the area.

There are blankets covering the bodies of victims for a two-kilometer stretch. One of the busiest streets in the city is eerily silent. The Toronto van attack, as it's become known, killed 11 people and injured 15 others. Evan had arrived at Finch Station just after the attack. 24-hour news channels were playing everywhere. So by the time he catches the bus back home, he knows what's happened. Though he doesn't know any details. Not yet. Hi, everyone. I was in the area of the attack, if that's what some people are calling it now, or incident at...

Evan gets back home and notices people checking in on his social media feeds, letting friends and family know they're okay. So he decides to do the same. So I just, I'm making this broadcast just to let you know that I'm safe, and just pray for those who have been affected by this horrible tragedy because this is um absolutely yeah just traumatizing as i'm kind of shaken up a little bit so i'm going live just to let you know i'm okay and that's all i wanted to say evan checks the time and realizes he has to head out again as far as he knows mo mondays is still happening and he still needs to film it. I just made a quick bite to eat. And at this point, it's like 4.30 in the afternoon and I

got to be there at 5.30 at the venue to set up my camera and stuff. Evan keeps checking his phone. He sees that the driver is being taken into custody. No one really knows much beyond that. drivers being taken into custody. No one really knows much beyond that. More details on that. We are seeing details and rumors kind of float around on social media, but we haven't been able to confirm who this driver is, what, if any, was their motivation behind this. Naturally, the media starts hunting for clues. And one of those clues leads straight to Evan. Out of nowhere, I get a message request from someone named Noor Ibrahim. Evan notices they have a few mutual Facebook friends, so he accepts her request.

And Noor messages him right away. She said, do you have a minute to talk about someone on your Facebook friends list? And I said, sure. talk about someone on your Facebook friends list? And I said, sure. So then she called me over Facebook Messenger and she asked me, Evan, do you know a guy named Alec Manassian? Noor Ibrahim is a reporter with ABC News. She's investigating the van attack. Noor was based in New York City, and a lot of American reporters mispronounced his name. But I corrected her and said, his name is Alec Manassian. And then she's like, okay, thank you. She said, it looks like he was connected to the incident in Toronto

earlier today. And he only had 10 friends on his Facebook page, something like that, and you were one of them. I immediately had questions for Noor. I was like, how do you know he is connected to this? What's your source? And then she said, I can't give that information. I'm not at liberty to give that information. But she does tell Evan that his friend's name has been used to rent the van. Evan has a hard time believing that Alec could have done this.

Maybe a shady friend of his bribed him to giving his name to put on, like, a rental agreement. Maybe this was a completely different Alec Manassian. Nora keeps pressing Evan for information, but he hasn't really been in touch with Alec since they graduated seven years ago. And then I said, Alec was in the same special needs class as I am. He was very quiet. He was never a violent guy. He had Asperger's just like the rest of us. Evan gets off the phone with Noor and heads to Mo Mondays, shaken up even more. through Angel Investment and Industry Connections. income. That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen

to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. It's a big night for Evan. Aside from filming, he's going to be getting up on stage for the first time. April is an important month for him. So for those of you who don't know, April is Autism Awareness Month. And we have a really special speaker. Evan hands camera duty over to a friend and notices he's missed a call. Noor calls me back and leaves a message saying, I can now confirm that Alec Manassian did drive the van

and he was arrested. Do you have anything you want to say? I just texted her back and said, no comment. Our videographer, our beloved Evan V. our videographer, our beloved Evan. Of all the crowds I speak to about this, you guys, I've never seen more awareness and appreciation, hopefully for autism than I have in this crowd. So you should guys give yourself a hand for that. Evan's projecting a lot of confidence here. And it's really impressive considering this is his first time speaking in front of a crowd this big.

His poise is even more impressive considering what he's just learned about the attack. So I gave my talk at Mo Mondays knowing that he was responsible for the van attack. Mondays knowing that he was responsible for the van attack. I just knew I had a job to do. My job at Mo Mondays is to give a talk that was all about the positives of autism knowing that a shit storm of

bad publicity for autism was on the way if Alec was really connected to the attack. And I will always love what I do as long as the people I love keep me grounded and passionate. Thank you for having me on your stage tonight. Before I do this song, I just want to say just a few moments of quiet for the people who died today in Yonge Street.

We don't know whether it's terrorists yet, nobody's saying. people who died today in Yonge Street. We don't know whether it's terrorists yet. Nobody's saying. Just a few seconds of quiet. Just close your eyes for a few seconds and then we'll go on with the show. That was one of the most surreal moments

of silence I had ever experienced in my entire life. It's different when you know the person who is responsible for a tragedy. It's very, very different when you know someone who killed people. Okay, thank you. Thank you for doing that for me. I really appreciate it. thank you. Thank you for doing that for us. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

I guess we're fortunate he only got the number of people he did because the streets were full. Kathy Riddell was 67 at the time of the attack. She spent two months in hospital. I've had a hip replacement, a knee replacement, and a major wound. So I had treatment for about, I don't know, five or six months to recover from that. So, yeah, he did a lot of damage. I met Kathy at a park close to the scene of the attack. She insisted on walking to meet me, even though three years later, she still hasn't fully recovered.

It's a long, slow process. fully recovered. It's a long, slow process. And recognizing and admitting the psychological impact of it was the hardest part. It would take you to really dark places at times. There were times, especially the first year, because it was extreme pain and extreme discomfort and a lot of frustration and still not truly knowing what had happened that I wished he had just done a better job and ended it. I still have a ways to go and I just assumed I was going to get there and I'm kind of not so sure that I'm going to. And that's not an easy thing to accept. I'm going to keep trying. I have to keep trying. I can't give up. But it gets you down sometimes realizing that

the way you had thought your life was going to turn out isn't going to turn out that way. that the way you had thought your life was going to turn out isn't going to turn out that way. I spent April 23rd unpacking. My husband and I had just moved, and we were settling in. We'd just hooked up the TV, and the first thing we saw was news of the attack. It brought back memories. I have a lot of family in France, and you'll probably remember in the few years leading up to 2018, France experienced a wave of domestic terror attacks, including an eerily similar truck attack in Nice. It's awful, but calling my relatives to check in

afterwards had become a thing that was, if not actually normal, then regular at least. Now, I was the one getting calls. Evan called me too the night of the attack. I didn't pick up though. I was overwhelmed with the move, with work, and I was pretty shaken up by what I had seen on the news. with the move, with work. And I was pretty shaken up by what I had seen on the news. I remember exactly what my message had said. Hey, Ellie, I hope you're doing okay.

Listen, there was a van attack in Toronto. I have to talk to you about it. Please call me back. And you did, and I told you everything. He was shocked, and he was having trouble processing things. Evan and I started talking about the attack, and we've been having that conversation pretty much nonstop ever since. In the weeks that followed, he'd stopped talking to the media, but he was talking to me more than ever, opening up about his relationship with Alec Manassian. One of the things Evan eventually told me was that on the night of the attack, he'd been in touch with a group of guys he went to high school with. Guys who were

in the same special needs class. The same class as Alec. They were all watching the news and messaging one another. When Noor Ibrahim called Evan, she said that Alec only had a few friends on Facebook. Evan was already talking to those friends. On April 23rd at 5.09 p.m., someone in our group chat messages, Hey, has everyone heard the news? And then another guy replies, About the van hitting those people? Yeah, I heard. Evan's reading me some of that conversation.

They've supposedly named a suspect. You guys are seeing that name, right? Somebody please tell me this is just a big coincidence. Another guy says, I can't find the name. What's the name? Alec Manassian. No, I am not making any of that up. And then another guy responds,

The fuck? Like with multiple question marks. Our friend says, There has to be more than one person with that name. And then another guy comes and says, Anyone else get a Facebook request from him a few weeks back though? I can't have been the only one who got a request from Alec. And then another guy says, I did, I didn request from Alec. And then another guy says,

I did, I didn't accept the request. And then one guy says, yeah, I accepted a friend request. Have you talked to him at all in the last few years? Most of us had not spoken to him. Evan got a friend request from Alec around the same time as the rest of his friends, about a month before the attack. He and Alec around the same time as the rest of his friends, about a month before the attack. He and Alec messaged back and forth a bit. On March 11th, 2018 at 11.08 a.m., Alec says to me, hey man, how's it going? Long time no see. And then I replied, hey Alec, I'm great. How about you? And then later that afternoon, he says, I've been doing good. Things are going well, just finishing up my last semester so I can finally get out of college. Then I can start looking for jobs. What have you been up to lately? I've been into filmmaking over the past five years.

Then he says, oh, that's cool. What kind of films have you been involved in lately? I was a little stressed in my life at that time. So I didn't really want, I didn't feel like talking to him about what I was up to. Because I didn't, my self-confidence was a little low, so I didn't really respond to him. It took you a while for you to tell me this too, right? I mean, you usually tell me everything and you kept this from me for a while. I was worried about how would that make me look if someone found out that he was in conversation with me before, uh, before he did what he did. I honestly,

before he did what he did. I honestly... I don't know. I just feel like, you know, I didn't want people knowing that he was talking to me. Do you feel shame for having known him? More... I felt more shock than I did shame. And the shock numbed my body when it occurred to me that I knew this guy for a long time.

Have you ever felt guilty for not responding? Yep. I have felt guilty for not responding. Because like I said before, maybe if I did respond, I could have helped him. I could have unpacked what he was doing but that's the thing I had no earthly idea that he would do something so drastic because that wasn't him that was so so that was so completely out of character for Alec. I just wanted to know why it happened.

We all did. Everyone was looking for answers. Bits and pieces about him started to emerge. And one of those things that came out was that he was on the spectrum. When I heard he was autistic, I could have had a small amount of sympathy. You know, I'm visually impaired. I was born blind, so I had some surgeries when I was very young.

But I didn't have a lot of sight, and I went to an able-bodied school in the 50s. And they really didn't want me at the school and they made that very clear. I know what that's like to be an outsider and to struggle to be accepted so I could have some sympathy for him someone who you know had autism autism and really didn't fit in. And I could understand that a bit. And which would give me a little bit of empathy towards him until I got to know the situation more. And then that was done.

The more that came out about Alec Manassian, the more malicious and specific his motivation seemed. As police search for a motive, one possible explanation is circulating online, suggesting Manassian was angry over being rebuffed by women. While investigators search for hard evidence, Manassian's digital footprint is being scrutinized too. On Facebook, police say he wrote the incel rebellion has already begun. Incel is a term meaning involuntary celibate. Evan actually saw the post go live on his Facebook feed just before the attack,

but it didn't mean anything to him at the time. What's an incel? Like, what is an incel? I thought incels was like related to a video game of some kind. I thought it's just Alec being a nerd. but it's a word that had been circulating the dark corners of the internet for a while. And it had grown into an ideology. An ideology that could motivate you to kill. Evan and I talked almost daily in the weeks after the attack, and it became obvious our film just wasn't going to work anymore. film just wasn't going to work anymore. A guy killed in the name of not getting love and not being able to have relationships or get laid. So I'm like, we have to find a way to include this in the autism and dating project. We just have to. The challenges of dating on the spectrum

now seemed less important than the question we kept circling back to. How is it that two boys who started off in a similar place could grow into such drastically different young men? Evan took his struggles with romance and relationships and transformed them into something positive. He chose to help himself and, in in turn ended up helping other people too. Alec Manassian, he made a different set of choices. A set of choices that seems to be appealing to more and more young men.

Hey world. To anyone who's watching this, a couple days ago, my producer, Ellen, asked me to think about what I would say if I were to write a letter to Alec Manassian. would have to change somehow. We weren't sure exactly how just then, so I asked Evan to start recording a video diary just to capture his thoughts and feelings as they were unfolding. I'm making this video because I'm honestly a little frustrated.

I've never really thought about if I were to write a letter to a mass murderer or any criminal or any terrorist what I would say to them because there truly are no words and I'm having trouble finding them Alec do you understand like the damage you've done on this to the spirit of this country to the spirit of people on the autism spectrum who are now terrified of being stigmatized because of what you did there is a child who is an orphan because you killed his mom and And you also killed friends? You killed mothers? Daughters? Wives?

Sons? Do you comprehend that? What happened? Like what happened Alec? Because right now a lot of people hate you. A part of me hates you too. next time on boys like me how do you feel now knowing that he was looking at mass attacks and school shootings it makes my skin crawl to be honest to know that he wanted to do that to us. Even from the very day that I met him, he seemed to be rather afraid of me.

Now all there is to do is just understand what led him to do this. And that's been the question that's been kind of, you know, on my mind for the past year. A special thanks to all of the survivors and residents of Willowdale who generously share their stories with us. Boys Like Me was created by me, Ellen Chloe Bateman. The series is produced by me, Chris McEnroe, Scott Dobson, and Michael Catano.

Michael Catano is our head writer, additional writing by Scott Dobson, additional production by Evan Mead. Eunice Kim is our head writer. Additional writing by Scott Dobson. Additional production by Evan Mead. Eunice Kim is our associate producer. Sound design by Michael Catano. Chris Oak is our story editor. Damon Fairless is our senior producer. And the executive producer of CBC Podcasts is Arif Noorani.

Additional audio courtesy of KTVU. If you like the series, we'd really appreciate it if you'd take the time to rate it and review it. It really helps others find it. Thank you. All right, so that was the first episode from the brand new series, Boys Like Me. You can listen to more episodes right now on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.