Tres Genco, a native of Hillsboro, Ohio, admitted to planning a mass shooting of women on campus. Credit: Zachary Rilley | Photo Editor
A 22-year-old Ohio man admitted to planning to commit a hate crime on Ohio State’s campus in 2020.
According to an Oct. 11 U.S. Department of Justice news release, Tres Genco — a Hillsboro, Ohio, native — admitted to planning a mass shooting of women on campus. Genco pleaded guilty to one count of attempting to commit a hate crime, which is punishable by up to life in prison, according to the release.
“The gender-based hate and bias-motivated threat of violence exhibited by this defendant simply has no place in our society,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ Civil Rights Division said in the release. “The Department of Justice will remain steadfast in our efforts to investigate and prosecute those who carry out, or attempt to carry out, gender-based hate crimes to the fullest extent of the law.”
On March 12, 2020, the Highland County Sheriff’s Department arrested Genco and searched his home, where deputies found a letter in which he planned to target 3,000 women at “OSU Medical” in Columbus and Ohio State in a mass shooting meant to take place May 23, 2020.
According to the release, police found boxes of ammunition, body armor and weapons including a firearm with a bump stock, which allows a gun to fire more rapidly in Genco’s possession.
Genco identified himself as an “incel” — short for involuntary celibate and tied to an online, predominantly male community who believe they are entitled to romantic or sexual attention and advocate violence toward women who deny them of it — according to the indictment from the U.S. District Court Southern District of Ohio Western Division.
This year, the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center identified incels and misogynistic extremists as a rising violent threat in America.
Genco was released from prison on Feb. 23, 2020, due to credit for time spent in prison during the court proceedings. He was later arrested in July 2021 and has remained in custody since, according to the release.
From July 2019 until March 12, 2020, Genco maintained profiles on a popular incel website and posted hundreds of times, according to the press release. In one post, he referenced Elliot Rodger, a self-identified incel who killed six people and injured 14 others at the University of California, Santa Barbara May 23, 2014.
Genco also wrote a manifesto August 2019, in which he detailed his plans to enter the U.S. Army to train to murder women. According to the release, he was discharged from the army in December 2019 for “entry-level performance and conduct.”
According to Genco’s court documents, he wrote a document entitled “isolated” in January 2020 that he described as “the writings of the deluded and homicidal.” On Jan. 15, 2020, he conducted surveillance at an Ohio university, which court documents indicate was Ohio State.
