Mass shootings: is ‘white terrorism’ now the main threat in the United States?
- Authorities in El Paso, Texas, investigate gunman’s hate against immigrants, specifically Mexicans
- While police say motive of the Dayton, Ohio shooting was still unclear, six of the nine people killed there were black
Armed with assault rifles and clad in combat gear, two white men methodically gunned down nearly 30 people over the weekend, underscoring fears that “white terrorism” is now the main threat in the United States.
Amid rising grief and a clamour for action after the shootings in Texas and Ohio, and earlier in several other cities, politicians of both parties called for the federal government to take that threat more seriously, with some Democrats accusing US President Donald Trump of dangerously fanning racial tensions.
“It is very clear that the loss of American life in Charleston, in San Diego, in Pittsburgh and by all appearances now in El Paso, too, is symptomatic of the effects of white nationalist terrorism,” Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said Sunday, naming the scenes of mass shootings that targeted blacks, Jews and, apparently, Hispanics.
In El Paso, situated on the border with Mexico, more than eight in 10 residents are of Hispanic descent. The accused gunman, a 21-year-old white man identified in media reports as Patrick Crusius, had come from far away Dallas with the apparent intent of inflicting mass carnage.
Armed with an assault rifle, the shooter killed 20 people and wounded 26 before surrendering to police.