Lt. Gov. Reacts to Mass Shooting By Telling Antifa to 'Stay out of Texas'
Authorities hadn’t even released the official number of dead and wounded from a mass shooting at an El Paso Walmart on Saturday when Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick began complaining on Fox News about Antifa.
The shooter, a white, 21-year-old male identified as Patrick Crusius of Allen, TX, began firing outside the Walmart before noon local time, and then entered the store, going “aisle to aisle” shooting everyone in sight. He was eventually taken into custody alive.
Meanwhile, police are investigating a white supremacist’s so-called manifesto that circulated online days ahead of the shooting that may have been written by Crusius. The racist text rails on corporations and Democrats, and states that immigration is “detrimental to the future of America.” It complains of the “Hispanic invasion of Texas” and praises the white supremacist who carried out a mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand. Authorities have not yet verified whether Crusius is the text’s author.
However, NBC News reported that authorities are “reasonably confident” Crusius posted the text on the online forum 8chan.
Nevertheless, Texas’ lieutenant governor thought it a good idea to phone in to Fox News and deliver a strongly worded warning…to Antifa.
“You know, I was looking at a story recently…where Antifa is posting, you know they want to come down to El Paso and do a 10-day siege. Clear message to Antifa: Stay out of El Paso,” Patrick said.
He was referring to information shared by conservative writer Andy Ngo about a “Border Resistance Convergence” organized for Sept. 1-10 in El Paso. According to the Border Resistance website, the event consists of 10 days of “trainings and direct actions” to address “US-funded genocide and local concentration camps” at the border.
“Stay out of Texas, basically,” Patrick said, referring to Antifa. “We don’t need them coming in on September 1st. We didn’t need them to begin with, before this happened. But I would say to Antifa, scratch Texas off your map and don’t come in.”
A week ago, just a day before another mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Northern California, President Donald Trump threatened to label Antifa a terrorist organization.
After the Texas attack this weekend, Fox News also was quick to play up the “mental health” angle of the white shooter.
And heartfelt thoughts and prayers were widely distributed, including by White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.
Others argued that no one should mention the alleged mass murderer’s name, but rather elevate the first responders to “celeb status,” which unfortunately has become a way to gloss over the motivations of mass shooters like Crusius:
We’ll find out soon enough what those motivations were, and I can wager a strong bet that they have nothing to do with Antifa.
Update, Sunday, 11:20 a.m. ET: With nine more people dead and 26 others injured in yet another mass shooting overnight, this time in Dayton, OH, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick doubled down on his deflection of the country’s crisis of white terrorism and gun violence.
Patrick appeared on Fox News Sunday not to talk about white terrorism or gun legislation, but rather the need for prayer in schools.
“It’s Sunday morning, when most of your viewers right now, half of the country, are getting ready to go to church, and yet tomorrow, we won’t let our kids even pray in our schools,” he said. “We have to look at ourselves as a nation that’s many factors that go into these shootings. Many factors. And it’s not a time to politicize it…”
This guy’s a real piece of work.