An Incel Manifesto, and Two Dead in Montreal

A gunman fatally shot a Montreal police officer and a bystander on June 22, 2026, before responding officers killed him. He had written a 104-page manifesto steeped in the online “incel” subculture — a misogynist movement whose grievances his writings turned into a call for violence.

The gunfire broke out around midday on June 22, 2026, in Montreal's Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood, near the headquarters of the company that owns the pornography site Pornhub. When it was over, a police officer and a bystander were dead, a second officer was wounded, and so was the man who had opened fire, NBC News reported. It was the first time in 24 years that a Montreal police officer had been killed in the line of duty.

The attack drew immediate national attention in Canada, and within days investigators had turned to a document the gunman left behind — a lengthy manifesto that, according to news outlets that reviewed it, was rooted in an internet subculture built on hatred of women.

An officer and a bystander, dead in daylight

Police were called to the scene after a report of a firearm at a nearby hotel, and a man armed with a long gun opened fire, NPR reported. The slain officer was identified as Mohamed Lamine Benredouane, 34; a civilian bystander, Michel Mizrahi, 68, was also killed as the confrontation unfolded, according to NBC News.

The gunman was shot dead by responding officers and later identified as Seth Scott Hatfield, 25, of Lethbridge, Alberta, CNN reported. Authorities said he had no prior connection to the officers he confronted.

Writings that named targets

Hatfield's writings advocated attacks on corporate leaders and politicians, CNN reported after reviewing the material. The manifesto, which ran to 104 pages, expressed hatred toward women and criticized capitalism, liberalism and online pornography, echoing the choice of location: the shooting unfolded near the headquarters of Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub.

The document repeatedly framed the overthrow of “hypergamy” — a term drawn from incel ideology — as grounds for violence against corporate executives, pornography producers and police officers, The Washington Post reported. That target list placed uniformed officers — among them Benredouane — squarely within its logic of grievance.

The document, in other words, read less as a private grievance than as a program — a list of enemies drawn from the vocabulary of online extremism and a stated intent to answer them with violence.

An online subculture with an offline toll

“Incel,” short for “involuntary celibate,” describes an internet subculture, made up largely of men, that blames women and society for its members' lack of romantic or sexual relationships. The movement has repeatedly surfaced in the aftermath of violent attacks, and researchers have long warned that its forums normalize misogyny and, for some users, glorify killing. Reporting on the Montreal attack placed Hatfield's writings squarely within that milieu, according to CNN.

What began as text on a screen ended with two people dead on a Montreal street. For a movement that lives online, the harm it can produce does not stay there — a pattern human-rights researchers and police have traced from misogynist forums to real-world violence, and one the killings of Benredouane and Mizrahi place in stark relief.