By David Futrelle
Another apparent act of far-right terrorism: A gunman apparently armed with a semi-automatic weapon entered a synagogue in Poway, California during a celebration of the final day of Passover and opened fire, killing one and wounding three others. The alleged shooter, a 19-year-old identified as John Earnest, fled the scene but was taken into custody shortly afterwards.
There are as-yet unconfirmed reports that Earnest left behind an anti-Semitic manifesto in which he also confessed to “scorch[ing] a mosque in Escondido with gasoline a week after [New Zealand Mosque shooter] Brenton Tarrant’s sacrifice and they never found shit on me.” [EDIT: See below for updates.]
Several days ago, in an unrelated incident, an Iraq war veteran on his way to a Bible study group drove into a crowd of pedestrians in Sunnyvale, California — apparently because he believed some in the crowd were Muslims. According to eyewitnesses, the driver showed no remorse, getting out of his car and praising Jesus several times before he was arrested. He’s been charged with eight counts of attempted murder.
Here’s an open thread to discuss these cases and the rise of hate and hate crimes in the US and around the world.
EDITED TO ADD: Looks like the manifesto is indeed his.
EDITED TO ADD 2: Heavy.com has a profile of the shooter with extensive excerpts from the manifesto that make clear he was radicalized online, specifically mentioning 8chan and 4chan’s /pol/ board. He says he was inspired by the Tree of Life shooter and spurred to action by the Christchurch mosque shooter. I’m reading the manifesto and may write more about it.
EDITED TO ADD 3:
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@Crip Dyke
Ok, I’ll look closer on the title announcements next time.
That’s good to hear, I’ll bear it in mind.
@Scanisaurus
In addition to what Crip Dyke said — or maybe just a shortcut: this kind of less general open thread usually appears because something horrible’s happened, and there needs to be a (safe) place for people to react. The event’s in the title. Topics can still vary, but it’s understood that they won’t go too far from the original one, and especially that they won’t shift the spotlight too much.
It’s sort of like how at a funeral reception, no one will mind if you talk about how life’s unfair, but if you start ranting about how your car was totalled last week and insurance is useless and used car salesmen are sleazy toadies, people are going to look at you askance, whereas they’d be fine with it if it was your regular Friday night down at the pub. Time and a place, you know?
(That being said, I do kind of wish David would put up no-holds-barred regular-Friday-down-at-the-pub open threads more regularly. They’re useful.)
Suppose the NY Times published a cartoon of the blind Trump, wearing an afro, being led by Obama, portrayed as a monkey. Might *this* be just a teeny bit racist? Or would Black people be told that they need to man up, and “not consider every criticism of Obama as racism”?
Why is it that those who pride themselves on their opposition to racism and prejudice, suddenly cannot recognize the crudest forms of “the Jews control the world” antisemitism? Because the antisemites use the magic word “zionist”? Do the anti-racists treat the KKK any better because they say they are just “pro white”? How about “men’s rights” activists saying they just want “fairness”? Why does the “I said the magic word” defense only work for antisemites?
And, P.S. –
Supppose they DID mean “zionists”. How is this less antisemitic? How is saying that the tiny Jewish state magically controls the USA through its evil machinations any different than directly saying “the Jews” do it?
@Rabid Rabbit
Yes, looking back I can definitively see why bringing it up here was inappropriate, I’ll try not to do it again.
I second that. It’s probably for the best for everyone that I drop the subject that I’ve already ranted too much about, but there’s lots of other things I’d like to discuss if I could do so without derailing the original topic.
I’d put myself on a more or less complete media shutdown for a few weeks; I hadn’t even heard of this shooting when it happened! I’m utterly gutted by it. All my sympathies and love and condolences to my Jewish brothers and sisters…all my thoughts and prayers, but also all my standing up and speaking out.
Damn, Jews and Romani people can never catch a break. Even ‘progressives’ are like ‘screw you’ to them. Also yes there is antisemitism and we need to take it more seriously just look at all the nazis/sympathizers we see like pewdiepie, jontron, evilion, asian andy and tila tequila, etc and no one gives a shit. But saying Palestinians are oppressed and being killed is not antisemitism.
Sad, a woman died to save her rabbi that i already posted in another thread.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/poway-synagogue-victim-died-saving-rabbi