Potentially politically motivated murder of Cayler Ellingson

Shannon Brandt (left) and Cayler Ellingson (right)

On 18 September, the man on the left in the picture, Shannon Brandt, 41 used his vehicle to chase, hit and run over the man on the right, Cayler Ellingson, 18 at a party in McHenry, North Dakota, US. Mr Brandt did not stay to offer assistance to Mr Ellingson who, following the attack, was taken to a local hospital where he soon died.

Initially, Mr Brandt was arrested, charged with vehicular homicide and released to house arrest. That in itself is interesting as his behaviour was far from that of an exemplary unwilling, or accidental, or even unwitting killer who due to some unfortunate set of circumstances ended up taking another person's life. For one thing, he never stopped after the collision between his vehicle and the unfortunate Cayler Ellingson, his victim. He never stopped afterwards either and never attempted to summon help for Ellingson (not that much help could be rendered because, at least to the best of this writer's understanding, Brandt's vehicle rolled over Ellingson). The failure to stop and attempt to aid this victims could, of course, be ascribed to fear though malice as Brandt not only ran Ellingon over but also did it while having a high alcohol blood level (i.e., being drunk). But malice is also a plausible explanation for this behaviour.

Immediately prior to being attacked and killed Ellingson called his parents and asked them about Brandt. His parents informed him that indeed they knew him. According to what his parents had stated after the strategy their son had not known his killer before that day. The last thing their son told him was that Brandt was chasing him in his vehicle down the alley where he died. So not only did they lose their son, they lost him as he was on the phone with them or immediately afterwards. This is a Greek tragedy playing out in our time, almost literally.

Brandt claimed he had run Ellingson over because Ellingson claimed to belong to an extremist Republican organization and had threatened his life, claiming that the vehicular attack on Ellingson was an attempt at self defense. No one described Ellingson as being armed and witnesses who knew Ellignson know of no affiliation between Ellingson and any such radical organization. Witnesses also claim there was not much in the way of any sort of interaction between Ellingson and Brandt prior to the vehicular attack. That, I would like to note, is something that may be rather difficult to tell in a crowded party environment.

So boiling it down to realistic possibilities we have the following: either there was some sort of a political confrontation between Ellingson and Brandt that had motivated Brandt to attack Ellingson, or the motive was not political as the idea that that was genuine self-defense seems rather weak. The scenario where the motive was not political but the victim's alleged membership in a radical Republican organization was presented as an excuse seems rather interesting.

This scenario - a made up accusation of political radicalism against a man no longer able to speak for himself - is a sign of what happens in the time of a witch hunt. It is along the lines of, "Hey, I know it was wrong to kill him - but I thought he was an enemy, I was in fear for my life". When Joe Biden himself sees it fit to effectively describe "MAGA Republicans" as enemies - would it be any wonder that a murderer might try to label his victim as a big bad "MAGA Republican" of whom it is all but fully natural to be in mortal fear? That scenario would also fall neatly into the whole politically correct paradigm in which strength is obtained through a victim status.

The charges against Brandt have recently being upgraded to murder. At this point, there have been no reports of him being taken back into custody.

We have yet to learn what took place in more detail. This case is definitely one to watch, and regardless of which one of the two most likely scenarios come out as accurate, it is a case very characteristic of our time and the state of our society.