Liberal commentators quickly labeled Monday’s deadly shooting in Boulder, Colorado, an act of white supremacy — and some have refused to let the facts change their minds.
The outrage: CNN reported early on that the then-unidentified suspect in the 10-person massacre was a “white man,” and left-leaning journalists and activists rushed to condemn the police and American society in racial terms.
- Meena Harris, a social media influencer and Vice President Kamala Harris’ niece, was among those who compared the Boulder shooter to a white gunman who has confessed to killing eight people last week at Asian-owned spas in Atlanta.
- The fact that both men were taken into custody alive was widely seen as a form of white privilege.
In a statement on Tuesday mourning both shootings and calling for gun control, former President Barack Obama condemned “the disaffection, racism and misogyny that fuels so many of these senseless acts of violence.”
The facts: There was never any evidence that the Boulder shooting was motivated by racial animus; and officials said last week that, contrary to much of the media coverage, the Atlanta gunman does not appear to have been driven by racial animus.
But on Tuesday afternoon, the facts got even more inconvenient for the racial justice narrative when the suspect in the Boulder shooting was identified as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, 21, of Arvada, a nearby suburb.
- Court records show Alissa was born in Syria in 1999, as did a Facebook page that appeared to belong to the suspect and was taken down within an hour of his name being released by authorities.
- Alissa said he immigrated to the U.S. in 2002, and court records, local police and former classmates portray him as a troubled and sometimes violent young man who felt persecuted because of his Muslim faith and hated former President Donald Trump.
- “Trumps such a d*ck,” Alissa wrote in one Facebook post.
- “He inherited a growing economy and the unemployment rate was low … he won because of racism.” he said in another.
The cope: A number of prominent liberals, facing ridicule from the right for their erroneous politicization of the tragedy, pivoted to downplaying the importance of the suspect’s identity.
Alternatively, or sometimes in addition, the progressive commenters argued they were still morally right about America.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota who is Nuslim, and others expressed indignation when people pointed out Alissa does not fit the conventional white supremacist shooter profile.
The claim that police didn’t shoot Alissa because he looked white also took a blow on Tuesday.
- An employee of the Boulder grocery store where the shooting took place told a local news outlet on Tuesday that the suspected shooter had repeatedly shouted to officers, “I surrender, I’m naked,” Maggie Montoya, 25, told CPR News.
- Police later escorted the man out of the building, shirtless and bleeding.
Alissa has been charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder, which in Colorado carries a penalty of life imprisonment without parole.
