Experts suggest M9 joyriding ringleader was "wanted to be feared" after being viciously bullied

Kamil Pustkowski was one of five teenagers killed when they drove the wrong way down a Co. Kildare motorway in the early hours of Sunday, August 16, and collided with the car of four innocent people.

Experts told Extra.ie that victims of violence can attempt to compensate for their perceived weakness through dangerous behavior and trying to project a sense of strength. Criminologist Trina O’Connor said that there is a psychological phenomenon where bullied youths "set out to go and become somebody to be feared".

While Ms O’Connor stressed that she wouldn’t speak to the specifics of any one person, she said there was evidence more generally that those from difficult or violent backgrounds often set out to surround themselves with gangs that they may feel protected by.

"These young people typically come from backgrounds where they don’t have any access to much that sets them up for success, or the support from their family, school or a sporting circle that might prevent them getting into crime,’ she said. ‘They feel marginalized; they feel powerless, so they will build a status and some street credibility as a kind of power.

"From a criminological perspective, posting footage of themselves stealing cars or some other crime is an instrument for building social capital and getting peer validation."

Kamil’s name and manner of death barely need an introduction after the infamy the teenagers attained over the past week, particularly after the discovery of social media videos posted to a TikTok account with Kamil’s name that show cars being stolen and driven dangerously.

The wreckage of the M9 crash.

The public has been left questioning how a group of young men and boys, the youngest just 15, could have such complete disregard for their lives and the lives of others, and why a microculture glorifying joyriding and police chases has been able to grow on social media.

The answer for Kamil, at least, may lie in the complex overlap of gang culture, online fame, and self-worth. The 17-year-old had been severely bullied and was well known to gardaí across the country due to his facing multiple charges before the courts, including being a passenger in stolen vehicles.

As part of his bail conditions, he was not supposed to leave Co. Limerick at any time. A Garda alert had been in place for him at the time of his death, and officers in Kilkenny were also seeking his arrest after they identified him as part of a gang that stole a car in Co. Monaghan.

Gardaí believe he had been heavily involved with a joyriding group who had been active across much of Leinster and had links with the notorious Lucky Dip theft gang.

In an interview with The Irish Mail on Sunday, his mother Emilia, an accountant who is separated from Kamil’s father, said her son started getting in trouble last year, and she had attended all his court appearances. She said she had sent him to his family in Poland for a number of months to try to break the cycle of crime in which he had become involved.

 The scene on the M9 Motorway in Co Kildare. Pic: Eamon Farrell/RollingNews.ie
And she said she had pleaded with the judge at his last court appearance to imprison her son, but the case was adjourned, not for the first time, due to the solicitors’ strike. She also said Kamil was vulnerable, had been bullied and preyed upon, and badly beaten up.

However, gardaí said they could not take action unless Kamil made a statement to them. It was confirmed by Tusla last week that one of the five balaclava-wearing teenagers killed on the M9 was in State care and two others "were known to the agency’".

Jack Kennedy, 17, had also been on the radar of the gardaí for some time for suspected involvement in stealing cars and dangerous driving. Like Kamil, he had posted videos of his antics to social media, including footage of stolen cars being chased by gardaí.

Kennedy, who was living in Athy, Co. Kildare, at the time of his death, was one of four teenagers arrested after a motorcyclist was left with life-changing injuries when he was hit by a stolen black Ford Ranger pick-up truck being pursued by gardaí.

He was later released without charge and the suspected driver of the stolen truck, believed to be a member of the Lucky Dip gang, was remanded in custody.

Numerous copycats have been inspired by the gang, with online algorithms rewarding Kamil and countless others with notoriety and validation from peers who heaped praise on their bold and well-documented activities.

Since the teenager’s death, nearly ten separate videos of Kamil being mercilessly beaten, bullied and humiliated have exploded in popularity online. One such video, taken when Kamil lived in Limerick, shows him trying to run from another teen who has him by the collar and is swinging punches at him.

The attacker throws him around repeatedly before pushing Kamil to the ground and raining kicks and punches down on him. All the while, Kamil can be heard begging for the attack to end as the person recording encourages it and laughs.

 The video was shared on Snapchat, with one of the apparent perpetrators sending it to a friend and writing: "I gave it to Kamil", with a laughing emoji.

Another short video, apparently shared online between groups in Limerick in an attempt to humiliate him, shows Kamil in a defensive position on the ground trying to shield his head from kicks by at least three older teenagers. One of the attackers eventually tells the others to let the boy up, before another interrupts that he isn’t "done with him" yet, and the assault continues as Kamil pleads: "On me mam’s life, I didn’t say nothing."

The video was also shared on Snapchat, again with laughing emojis and a caption accusing him of being a "rat".

Several other videos show that the teenager was clearly a target of non-stop violence and humiliation in Limerick. Videos from accounts linked to the dead M9 joyriders have since been scrubbed by TikTok after claims that the platform allowed the glamorization of their criminal lifestyle.

Before the videos were removed, their comment sections were full of feedback from other teenagers, including "Leave them [gardaí] in the dust" and "One clamp champ!", referring to the hand clamps joyriders use to hold live wires together to start the ignition of a stolen car.

A substantial internet subculture was making it clear with each video that stealing cars and evading gardaí were a way to earn respect and impress others.

While the M9 gang’s own decisions were what led them to their deaths, Kamil’s background reveals that he was particularly vulnerable to chasing a social media reputation of the devil-may-care teen offender.

Michael O’Connell, associate professor of psychology at University College Dublin, said that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as bullying, are a known contributor to criminal behavior.

Traumatic events during childhood and adolescence, such as witnessing violence at home or in the community and experiencing abuse or neglect, can also lead to mental and behavioral issues.

"The evidence on ACEs has certainly been growing in general in psychology. There does now seem to be a considerable body of evidence linking childhood trauma with risky, anti-social behavior in early adulthood," She said. "I suppose daring risky behavior among some young men is in general nothing new, but this phenomenon – with the levels of risk to oneself, and more importantly to innocent motorists – just to get 'likes' on social media is something very novel and very dangerous."

In this case, joyriding not only opened Kamil up to a new social circle in Leinster, away from the regular assaults and humiliations he suffered in Limerick, but also gave him a chance to reinvent himself as a micro-celebrity.

Ms O’Connor stated that while joyriding has plagued communities for decades, "the thrill and the emotional rush has now transmuted over getting social media likes, and shares.

"These are measurable metrics of peer pressure, and what it does is it instantly rewards that risky behavior," she said.

"Years ago, when somebody did these things, they were known in their area as “mental", or a "headcase", like some kind of character.

"It was a myth that carried the story of what they did, whereas nowadays, if they broadcast the crime, they instantly become the head-banger that other adolescents are looking at and impressed by."

Adolescents subjected to trauma, she said, can often seek to embed themselves in a group offering protection.

"In order to get status and move up the chain, they will try to either get a reputation for themselves as somebody to be feared or somebody who’s reliable," Ms O’Connor said.

"They typically will do crazier stuff to make themselves known as somebody who is completely off the charts, out of control, risky, hard to deal with, and that then builds their status and their honor among peers.

"You might become good at stealing cars, and that then becomes your shtick, and then they’re the person that they get the knock on the door to come out and do these crimes, and it gives them a place within that group.

"They are young and struggling to find a place in that world, and if their place is the person known for doing crazy things as opposed to the victim of bullying, then you can understand why they move towards that."

Only two types of video content online exist about the young male who died last Sunday: footage of Kamil being punched and verbally abused, contrasting with several clips taken inside speeding cars as groups of masked teens evade pursuing gardaí while blasting rap music.

The tough car-thief identity could perhaps have been constructed as a means of distracting from the former weaker identity, so the name Kamil Pustkowski would be synonymous on social media with car chases and not being beaten to a bloody pulp.

One of many videos that have since emerged of his difficult life in Limerick shows Kamil on a footpath at night, surrounded by a crowd of youths as he looks off into the distance.

He appears to be dissociating from his current danger, with a vacant look on his face, and doesn’t respond when another teenager pulls him by the collar and asks him, ‘Are you gonna walk?’

Just a few seconds later, another teenager suddenly and unexpectedly punches him hard in the nose. Visibly emotional, Kamil says in disbelief: "I said sorry"

He notices the person filming him on their phone and explodes with anger, lunging towards them and shouting: "Oi, stop recording!" before being shouted down by his tormentors.

Kamil appears to be more upset by the fact that he knows his current ordeal is being filmed, and inevitably going to become another blight on his reputation, than he does by the punch he just received to the face. He then stamps his feet in frustration, slides down to the ground with his back against a wall, and repeatedly asserts that he has "said sorry" through tears.

One teenager gives the order: "Kick him", and two other young men dressed in all black strike the defenseless Kamil as he sits crying with nowhere to run. When the distressing footage was described to Ms O’Connor, she remarked that it was devastating that any child might be more upset about their online reputation and street credentials than physical harm.

It seems that anything would be preferable to being known online as the Polish boy crying on the ground while he gets beaten up.

Kamil Pustowski’s remains were cremated at a low-key ceremony in Co. Clare on Friday after reposing at a Limerick funeral home for a short time in front of around 30 mourners. The event was kept under wraps as much as possible while a discreet Garda presence watched over proceedings.

The removal of the funeral notice of one of the M9 teens, after a wave of vitriolic comments, shows there is a great deal of public anger, which could be why Kamil’s send-off was kept out of the limelight.

While to many, including those injured on the M9, the group’s actions can never be excused, the behavior of their leader could perhaps at least be partially explained as a teenager’s attempt to rewrite his online identity from a bullying victim to an up-and-comer in the world of joyriding.

*This article was originally published on Extra.ie.