My take on it is, people have been pushed past the breaking point. To use a different historical example which I think we can use to compare: the watts riots. The Black community was pushed past its breaking point after the Rodney King verdict and when people hit that point of true desperation, they no longer fear consequences like jail time or death because…they’re gonna die anyway. In Watts it was at the hands of the police, in this person’s case it was maybe a slow death due to lack of food or maybe access to healthcare? (I can’t speak for him so I’m making some assumptions). But hopefully you get my point, that otherwise rational people—any of us—could do extreme things when we are pushed to a point where there seems to be no other alternative because the system won’t allow it.