Montrealer arrested after video surfaces of masked man promising to kill ‘one

A Canadian man is facing charges Wednesday after threatening in a video posted on YouTube to kill one Arab person per week in Quebec. While holding a pistol that police confirmed to 48 Hours’ Crimesider is not real, the man says in French that he will shoot each victim in the head.

The threats were made in a video showing a man wearing a Halloween mask of The Joker, the psychotic killer in the popular Hollywood blockbusters Batman and The Dark Night.

Leclerc says a weapon with compressed air was confiscated when they arrested the 24-year-old man.

Quebec City’s acting public security minister denounced the video.

“Really, this is a totally ridiculous attitude that must be condemned”, said Pierre Moreau.

“If you make threats on social networks or on the web, there are very concrete consequences in the real world, the criminal code allows us to press charges against people who do things like this”, SPVM spokesperson Laurent Gingras told Vice News.

Leclerc said more information will be released about the suspect once he is formally charged.

Police in Toronto are investigating a possible hate crime following an attack on a Muslim woman on Monday.

That incident came two days after a mosque in Peterborough, Ont., was set ablaze in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in France.