Tobias Adam Tonzing: Gold Coast man threatens to burn Southport’s Chinatown ‘to the ground’

A Gold Coast man who planned to burn Southport’s Chinatown “to the ground” was caught when an international police force spotted the threatening and racially charged Facebook messages. READ THE POSTS

• Part 1: Funniest lines to come out of Coast court
• Part 2: Best one-liners from Southport court

A GOLD Coast man who planned to burn Southport’s Chinatown “to the ground” was caught when an international police force spotted the threatening and racially charged Facebook messages.

Tobias Adam Tonzing also made threats to attack Brisbane’s Chinatown in Fortitude Valley as part of a campaign to “round up all the ChiComs and place them in internment camps”.

The 22-year-old made the threats between September 2019 and August last year.

Tonzing pleaded guilty in the Southport Magistrates Court on Tuesday to using a carriage service to menace and harass and contravening a police direction.

He walked from court after being placed on a $1000 good behaviour bond for three years.

Snapshots of the Facebook posts were tendered to the court. They detailed how Tonzing planned an attack on the two Chinatown precincts on November 9 and 10 last year.

He referenced the Kristallnacht, the night of the broken glass, in which Nazis in Germany vandalised Jewish-owned stores, buildings and synagogues on November 9-10, 1938.

“We go into each city’s Chinatown and burn the place to the ground, then we round up all of the ChiComs (sic) and place them in internment camps to be sent back to China at our earliest convenience,” he wrote on August 7 last year.

In a separate post on the same day, he wrote: “The objective is to bash chinko pinkos (sic), and burn their businesses, I’ve already notified the aus (sic) right … I’ll be leading the attack on Southport Chinatown.

“But I’ll need someone to organise the attack on fortitude valley (sic) Chinatown.”

In posts made in January last year, Tonzing referenced holding a training at a park in Tugun, saying they only had a few rules including to “kill communists”, “do not harm civilians” and “take hostages, not prisoners”.

“I’ll be the machine gunner once we get a machine gun,” he wrote on January 6 last year.

“Dylan will be the assistant gunner. Kharn will be the ammo (sic) carrier. And the rest of you will be riflemen.

“This is all pending us killing a squad of commies and stealing their weapons. Until then we are all bowmen and grenadiers …”

In another message Tonzing claims “this is no boogaloo crew”, a reference to the far-right militant groups in America.

Tonzing also made references to getting weapons and said he had a compound bow.

Prosecutor Gavin Reece said police found a compound bow when they searched Tonzing’s Palm Beach home in September last year.

Defence lawyer Bettina Webb, of Howden Saggers Lawyers, said Tonzing had mental health issues and was under an involuntary treatment order.

She said Tonzing also had Asperger’s syndrome meaning he was often unable to read social cues.

Ms Webb said Tonzing had a difficult upbringing, was exposed to domestic violence as a child and lived with his grandfather, a war veteran with extreme views.

She said Tonzing’s grandfather died when Tonzing was five.

When Magistrate Kathleen Payne sentenced Tonzing he saluted her.

She noted Tonzing had apologised to the Chinese community and the posts were made “in a context of significant mental health issues”.

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