Racism

WH: Too Early to Judge Shooter Who Yelled “Get Out of My Country”

Written by SK Ashby

Republicans never hesitate to immediately jump to conclusions when a Muslim person or someone with a vaguely Muslim-sounding name or Middle Eastern skin-tone is involved, but you can't say the same when the perpetrator of a crime is a white guy even if the white guy explicitly states his motives.

The White House refused to weigh in on the recent shooting of two Indiana-American men in Kansas because it's "too early" to judge what happened.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer called the shooting tragic, but stopped short of entertaining notions that it was a hate crime, saying it was too early for the administration to attach such motivations so early in the investigation.

“To right now intimate what the motives are, it’s too early to jump to a conclusion,” Spicer said. “We’ve seen that too often in the past in Florida and other places where people jump to a conclusion.”

The Kansas shooter, Adam Purinton, who killed one man and wounded two others was quickly arrested because he reportedly fled the scene and sat down at a local bar where he explicitly told the bartender that he had just shot two Middle-Eastern men. Purinton also allegedly yelled "get out of my country" when he shot them.

To be fair, the White House generally shouldn't assign guilt or motive because that can pose an undue influence on an investigation and the prosecution, however that hasn't stopped Trump in the past. Jumping to conclusions and assailing immigrants and naturalized citizens with foreign ancestry for crimes that haven't even occurred is a Trump routine. His entire immigration policy is now based on lumping innocents and violent criminals together and even treating legal immigrants and visa-holders like they're suspicious.