USA: Hate crimes in Florida: White man shoots three black people

A new hate crime has shaken the United States: A white man shot and killed three black people in a shop in Jacksonville, Florida. The police spoke yesterday evening (local time) of a racially motivated act. The alleged shooter left several manifestos. “He hated black people,” Jacksonville Sheriff TK Waters said. Police described the shooter as a white man in his early 20s. He reportedly killed two men and a woman and then took his own life.

Waters said the perpetrator wore a bulletproof vest and mask and was armed with an assault rifle and pistol. The investigation is still at the very beginning, and many questions are still unanswered.

The shooter lived with his parents. Shortly before the crime, the young man sent his father a message and asked him to check his computer. The parents called the police shortly afterwards – but at the time the shooter was already at the scene and fired shots. He wrote several manifestos: for his parents, for the media and for investigators. In it he recorded a “disgusting ideology of hate,” Waters said.

Swastika on a rifleman’s weapon

“He was targeting a certain group of people, and they were black people,” said the sheriff, who is black himself. “This was, frankly, a maniac who decided to kill others.” There is no evidence that the man belonged to any group. He acted alone. “This is a dark day in Jacksonville history,” Waters said. The hate that drove the perpetrator makes the attack even more heartbreaking. The police initially did not comment on the exact identity of the perpetrator and the victims.

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan said the gunman had a swastika on one of his guns. “This was a hateful crime,” she lamented. “We must do everything we can to stop this kind of hate.”

Jacksonville has repeatedly suffered from gun attacks. These should not simply continue. “We’ve seen too much of that.” Deegan said there had been a gun attack at a video game tournament in Jacksonville five years to the day. In one of the manifestos, the shooter probably referred to this and possibly chose the day for his attack accordingly. On August 26, 2018, a man opened fire at a video game tournament in the city, killing two people and injuring several.

Jacksonville is located in northeast Florida. The city in the southern US state has around 970,000 inhabitants. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis condemned the act with sharp words. The Republican called the perpetrator a “scumbag”. The man targeted people because of their skin color. “That is totally unacceptable.” The man “rather killed himself than take responsibility for his actions”. He chose “the path of a coward”.

Deadly hate crimes

The White House said US President Joe Biden had been briefed on the Jacksonville attack and other gun attacks in the country in the past 24 hours.

Serious gun attacks occur every day in the United States, along with deadly hate crimes. One act in May 2022 in Buffalo, New York state, particularly stood out: a racially motivated shooter killed ten people there in and in front of a supermarket with an assault rifle. The majority of the victims were black. The perpetrator was later sentenced to life imprisonment.

Racism and discrimination against African Americans and other groups remains a pressing issue in the United States. Several thousand people gathered in the US capital yesterday to mark the 60th anniversary of the “March on Washington”. On August 28, 1963, the black civil rights activist Martin Luther King demanded equal rights for blacks and whites with the legendary words “I have a dream”. King, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 and was assassinated in 1968, had led around 250,000 supporters to Washington at the time.

Civil rights activists, activists and descendants of Martin Luther King complained at the event that there is still a long way to go before there is equal rights for blacks and whites in the country. Some expressed concern about the development of the country.