I dearly wish that I could say I am shocked that this could possibly happen in the U.S..
Below is a preliminary finding, officials are still investigating a possible “manifesto” written by the El Paso shooter. However, with that caution aside, I think we can all note that the police would certainly not release such a theory unless they believed it was highly probable. There are copycat shooters to worry about, and this is El Paso, a city infused with a huge immigrant population. We can bet that a large percentage of the El Paso police force is wary of the anti-immigrant manifestos coming out of the White House, as well as the one they are investigating. No, I suspect that it is real, and more likely understated, than wrong.
With all that said, I feel safe enough to publish, and so did the Daily Beast:
Authorities are investigating whether Crusius wrote an anti-immigrant manifesto published online shortly before the attack, the source said. At an evening press conference, El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen, who stopped short of naming the suspect, confirmed that authorities were reviewing a “manifesto.”
“Right now we have a manifesto from this individual, that indicates to some degree, it has a nexus to potential hate crime,” Allen said. He went on to add, however, that authorities were still working to “validate” that it was written by the suspected shooter.
Do we even recognize the danger here? To say that we are not shocked that someone who wrote an “anti-immigrant manifesto”did this? If this occurred in any other nation it would hit like thunder reverberating through the fabric of that country. Here, we say we were “due.”
Then we learn it was likely a Right-Wing anti-immigrant nut, and we say “Yes, it is sick but makes sense.”
Want to hear something else terrifying? Most Right-Wingers will likely be more sad that this monster gave them a bad name, more likely afraid that this might raise people’s calls for empathy to an even higher level, than they are that the anti-immigrant movement motivated a person to kill 20 today. Am I saying anything that you deeply doubt? Or do you deeply fear it is true, are you taking a short breath or two?
It does not make the 20 – minimum – victims “more dead” than their tragic fate. From their families’ perspective, it doesn’t matter if the motive had been “pro-immigrant.” Their loved one is gone, not coming back. We note that tragic fact.
While we certainly understand such grief, we are afforded the opportunity to worry further. We can worry that this might inspire copy-cats. We can worry about the Right Wing and their conviction, that Trump’s answer will be to double down, as he so often does.
We can worry about all that, unfortunately, out of selfishness, because we do not want to see ourselves, our families, and our nation be the victim of another similar attack.
God help us all. Few others will.
You can count on it that the right wingers more upset that they’ll get a bad name than about the twenty dead people — whom they don’t consider people, they think of them as interlopers. And that’s because of Trump. Remember him just the other day in Cincinnati, mocking the visa lottery? Did you see that? He pantomimed picking names out of a hat and he said, “Oh, another murderer? Good. Let’s keep this one.” He thinks all this is funny. As far as I’m concerned, he’s got the blood of this El Paso massacre on his hands.
When this is over, there will be no pity, there will be no forgiveness for their kind. They enabled this monster and our store of forgiveness has long been overdrawn.
Worry solves nothing. Neither does despair. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in the midst of these people my whole life (even had a workplace shooting a few years back at one of the few local factories) but being afraid of what the right wing will do next strikes me as pointless.
The following uncomfortable truths are in effect until further notice: 1) Donald John Trump, in a pathetic attempt to keep them from making HIM their target, will have them pointing their guns at others, 2) it will never work out like they planned and 3) they’ll keep doing it after he’s gone up to and until domestic terror statutes do an excellent job making the current approach…ill-advised. You could also add 4) all we can do is cut down the odds of being targets ourselves in the meantime.
So they don’t want to release his name?
In a comment earlier to another piece you wrote I noted my certainty (based only on the news the shooter was alive and in custody) that the murderer was a white guy. Pictures of him (even wearing hearing protection!) entering the place with an AK and one of him in the police car as well as one of him standing handcuffed with LE confirm he is indeed white. It doesn’t seem like there’s a mark on the guy!
I’ll guaran-goddamn-tee you if this dude wasn’t a white guy his name would be all over the news, and if he wasn’t dead he’d have been bleeding on the ground in those pictures of him in police custody!
Meteor Blades at Dkos is reporting it as confirmed, Jason.