Former FBI director of counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi explained how President Donald Trump fooled the nation into thinking he renounced racism and white supremacy.
In an interview with BBC Newsnight, Figliuzzi said white nationalists will continue to believe Trump is on their side even after his speech on the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton.
"Who is it that seems to be empowering and giving these people license?" Figliuzzi said. "It happens to be the president of the United States."
"At his press conference, we did not hear what we needed to hear," he continued, "him personalize this and say, 'I condemn racism, I condemn white hate and bigotry.' Instead, [he] instructed the nation to condemn it."
According to Figliuzzi, white nationalists will see that as a sign that Trump is "still with them."
"That's going to be interpreted by many extremists as lip service that he has to say because of his office," the former FBI official pointed out. "And they're going to feel like he's still with them."
The recent shooting attack in which a young white man is accused of killing 22 people in a Walmart in El Paso fits a new trend among perpetrators of far-right violence: They want the world to know why they did it.
So they provide a comprehensive ideological manifesto that aims to explain the reasoning behind their actions as well as to encourage others to follow in their steps.
In the past decade, the language of white supremacists has transformed in important ways. It crossed national borders, broadened its focus and has been influenced by current mainstream political discourse.
I study political violence and extremism. In my recent research, I have identified these changes and believe that they can provide important insights into the current landscape of the American and European violent far-right.
The changes also allow us to understand how the violent far-right mobilizes support, shapes political perceptions and eventually advances their objectives.
A vigil to commemorate the 50 victims of a March 15 shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which the accused shooter issued a 74-page manifesto prior to the massacre.
For example, in the 1980s, a Ku Klux Klan affiliate published a map allocating specific parts of the U.S. to specific ethnic communities. The map makers imagined Jews limited to the New York area, while Hispanics were to live in Florida.
But recently, a growing number of far-right activists have preferred to focus on cultural and social differences between communities, rather than on attributes such as race and ethnic origin.
They justify their violence as a way to preserve certain cultural-religious practices, rather than relying on their old justification – maintaining the genetic purity of the white race. In these activists’ view, the battle has moved from genes to culture.
For example, a member of the National Socialist Movement, an American neo-Nazi organization, wrote in a 2018 online post that white American is an identity like African American or Jewish American. In a statement that probably wouldn’t have been made by previous generations of neo-Nazis, the member wrote that all whites should come together, using their knowledge and weapons, to stop non-Europeans from pushing their secular agenda via government and media power.
Countering liberal left’s cultural influence
Another traditional theme of the far-right discourse – preserving the patriarchal order from attacks from the left – has grown in prominence.
Andres Breivik, who killed 77 people and injured more than 300 in July 2011 in Europe’s most lethal act of white supremacism, issued a manifesto shortly before his rampage.
In it, he stated that the politically correct terminology which is becoming more prevalent in the West intends to “deny the intrinsic worth of native Christian European heterosexual males” who were reduced to an “emasculate[d] … touchy-feely subspecies.”
Such sentiments are becoming more prevalent in the white supremacist forums, and reflect another component of what they perceived as an ongoing cultural war to preserve the white Christian way of life.
Belgian Flemish right-wing party member Tanguy Veys holds a copy of a manifesto sent to him and written by Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 76 people in twin attacks in Norway in 2011.
Racial identity was always a prime component in the identity of far-right activists, but it was usually framed by local politics. In the past, racist British skinheads focused mainly on what they perceived as the interests of the British white working class. Today the rhetoric of most skinheads focuses on international geopolitics, although local issues haven’t been abandoned.
In the U.S., what’s different about the current rhetoric of the far-right is that they are now using terminology that can also be found in some mainstream political parties and movements, aiding their efforts to gain popular legitimacy.
For example, the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan released a new set of organizational goals a couple of years ago. Beyond their longstanding, bedrock belief – the protection of the white race – they also declare support for restricting immigration and free trade and ending or limiting foreign aid. They want government to provide protection to small businesses, agricultural workers and gun owners.
This broad ideological shift also spilled over to some far-right skinhead organizations. Volksfront, for example, declares in its online mission statement that beyond white nationalism, the organization will fight for economic issues, states’ rights, crime repression and labor rights.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s language about the need to restore order to the streets of America, as expressed in his inaugural address, is also evident in the language of American white supremacists. In a poster produced by the skinhead group Keystone United, they call for harsher punishments for drug dealers.
The demand for stricter punishment of criminals is echoed in many racist group platforms. These include support of death penalty expansion, an important point of discussion mainly in skinhead message boards, and levying harsher punishments for sexual offenses.
Since minorities are overrepresented among American incarcerated population, far-right activists see these criminal justice policies as a more “legitimate” way to “punish” members of minority groups.
Two future trends
These changes in the discourse of the far-right suggest two important trends.
Second, the growing overlap between the language of the far-right and the rhetoric of elected officials illustrates how the current polarization in the political system, and delegitimization of minorities by political leaders, can provide legitimacy for radical practices and violence and broader acceptance of ideas, concepts and statements that in the past were the domain of the far-right.
President Donald Trumpcalled for reform of mental health laws on the heels of two deadly shootings that claimed the lives of at least 31 people and left a grief-stricken country in disbelief.
These sentiments are similar to comments that Trump and a number of other politicians have made previously. For example, after the Parkland shooting, which claimed the lives of 17 – 14 of whom were students – Trump said he thought due process for mentally ill people was not as important as making sure that they do not have guns.
“I don’t want mentally ill people to be having guns. Take the guns first, go through due process second,” Trump said.
In the past, mental illness has been scapegoated to deflect public outrage about access to assault rifles that can kill tens of people in a matter of minutes. During these heated debates, words such as “crazy,” “nuts” and “maniac” are used to describe the person who committed the act of violence, even before a medical diagnosis is released.
In this debate, many questions arise that those discussing mental illness and gun violence may not even think about: What do we mean by mental illness? Which mental illness? What would be the policies to keep guns away from the potentially dangerous mentally ill? Most of these questions remain unanswered during these discussions.
Specifically, no one suggests who will decide whether a patient with mental illness should not have access to firearms – would it be a psychiatrist, an independent forensic psychiatrist, a committee of psychiatrists or a judge? How about those who do not seek psychiatric evaluation and treatment? Should a psychiatric examination be integrated into the background check process for each person who wants to purchase a gun? As severe mental illness can start at any point in life, will gun owners need periodic psychiatric assessment (like a vision exam for renewing a driver’s license)? Who will pay for the visits?
As an academic psychiatrist, here’s my perspective on the complexities of this issue.
What is mental illness?
The term “mental illness” covers a wide range of psychiatric conditions that are addressed and treated by mental health professionals.
You may be surprised to know there are more than 200 diagnoses listed in the most recent version of Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is released by the American Psychiatric Association. This includes conditions such as anxiety disorders like spider phobia, social phobia, social anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, hair-picking, pathological gambling, schizophrenia, dementia, different forms of depression and personality disorders, such as antisocial personality disorder commonly known as psychopathy.
Now, when one suggests that gun access should be restricted for people with mental illness, do they mean all of these conditions? Or just some, or some in defined circumstances? For example, should we remove guns from all veterans with PTSD, or all people with social anxiety, or those who habitually pick their skin?
Needless to say that diagnosing these conditions mostly relies on the person’s report and the physician’s observation, and the ability to rely on their report is important.
When can a person be potentially dangerous to others?
Not all mental illness may be a risk of harm to others. In the majority of cases when a patient is involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric inpatient unit, it is not because the person is a risk to others. Rather, it is more often the case that the person is at risk of harming himself, as in the case of a depressed, suicidal patient.
In psychiatric disorders, concerns about harm to others typically arise in acutely psychotic patients with paranoid delusions that convince them to harm others. This may happen in, but is not limited to schizophrenia, dementia, severe psychotic depression or psychotic bipolar illness.
Substance use, which can increase the risk of crime or psychosis, can also lead to intentions to harm others. Other situations, when a person could be a risk of harm to others, are personality disorders with a high level of impulsivity or lack of remorse, such as antisocial personality disorder.
But the reality is that most people with personality disorders do not seek treatment and are not known to mental health providers.
It’s important to note that those with diagnosed serious mental illness, who are determined by a psychiatrist to be a serious risk of harm to themselves or others, already get admitted to acute or long-term inpatient care and are kept there until they are deemed not dangerous. Of course this happens only if they are brought in for psychiatric evaluation by others or law enforcement.
What are the facts?
Even among the 1% of the U.S. population with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, it is rare to find people who are a risk of harm to others or at risk of acting violently. Despite the widespread belief that a person with serious mental illness like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia can be dangerous, only 3% to 4% of all the violent acts committed in a given year in the U.S. are committed by people who have been diagnosed with commonly cited mental illness of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or depression.
Also, these conditions are rather strongly associated with increased risk of suicide, not homicide. Furthermore, risk of violence among severely mentally ill declines in the absence of substance use. In other words, prevention and treatment of substance use can decrease the risk of violence in this population.
Another fact to consider is that the prevalence of severe mental illnesses, is relatively similar across different countries, including those with much lower rates of mass murder than the U.S.
Finally, one has to keep in mind that the presence of a psychiatric diagnosis in a murderer, does not necessarily justify causality, as much as the weapon the person carries. In other words, because mental illness is so prevalent, a percentage of crimes are, statistically, going to be committed by people with a mental illness.
When “mental illness” is so vaguely addressed in gun debates, those with a mental illness without an increased risk of violence or impairment in judgment (such as anxiety or phobia) may avoid seeking treatment. I have often had patients who were worried that their diagnosis of depression or anxiety, although well-treated, might be used against them in court regarding child custody. I have repeatedly had to explain to them that their disorder does not provide grounds for justification of impaired judgment.
I personally believe it is common sense to limit everyone’s access to weapons with the potential of killing tens of people in a matter of minutes. Choosing who may or may not have access to them based on mental illness is, as I’ve outlined, very hard indeed.
This is an updated version of an article that originally appeared March 1, 2018.
In a manifesto posted online shortly before he went on to massacre 22 people at an El Paso Walmart, Patrick Crusius cited the “invasion” of Texas by Hispanics. In doing so, he echoed President Trump’s rhetoric of an illegal immigrant “invasion.”
Think about what this word choice communicates: It signals an enemy that must be beaten back, repelled and vanquished.
Yet this sort of language – what I call “warspeak” – has relentlessly crept into most aspects of American life and public discourse.
After the Columbine shooting, I started writing about how “gunspeak” – the way everyday turns of phrase, from “bite the bullet” and “sweating bullets,” to “trigger warnings” and “pulling the trigger” – reflected a society obsessed with guns.
But warspeak’s tentacles extend much further. Words and phrases derived from war imagery crop up in advertisements, headlines and sports coverage. They’ve inspired an entire lexicon deployed on social media and in politics.
The intent might be as benign as the creative use of language. But I wonder if it communicates larger truths about American violence and polarization.
The political battlefield
For decades, America has been fighting metaphorical wars – wars on heart disease, drugs, smoking, cancer, poverty, advertising and illiteracy.
Then there are the culture wars, which have intensified recently to include wars on Christmas, abortion, bathrooms, cops and women. These are different: They involve people on two sides of a polarizing issue.
War targets an enemy – someone or something to be defeated, using whatever means necessary. It’s one thing when you’re at war with a disease. It’s quite another when you’re at war with a group of people on the other side of a political issue.
The political arena seems to have become especially fertile ground for warspeak.
Otherwise boring legislative machinations have been energized with the drama of a life or death struggle. The Republican-controlled Senate uses a “nuclear option” to confirm judges by a simple majority of 51 votes rather than the older standard of 60 votes. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s ability to speed along the appointment of conservative judges constitutes the latest volley in a “judicial arms race.”
Elections deploy the language of military campaigns. Republican donors and lawmakers warned Trumpof a potential bloodbath before the 2018 midterm elections. Meanwhile, Democrats running for president strategize in their campaign “war rooms” for ways to build up “war chests” that will leave them with enough funds to compete in the “battleground states.”
The political media reinforces it all. In its coverage of the July primary debates, The New York Times wrote that the moderates were “throwing firebombs” at the progressives. Cory Booker, the “happy warrior,” sparred with former Vice President Joe Biden who “took incoming fire” all night, but “shot back” and survived, even as moderator Don Lemon “threw a generational warfare bomb.”
Our semantic arsenals
Then there are the less obvious ways warspeak has become part of everyday speech.
Baseball players mash bombs while basketball players drain three-point bombs. Social media is replete with photobombs and tweet bombs, and there are so many bombshells on cable news, it’s a miracle your TV hasn’t exploded.
Everything has been “weaponized.” According to Google’s Ngram Viewer, the use of the word in print has increased by more than a factor of 10 between 1980 and 2008.
Then there are the warriors in our midst – the weekend warriors, gridiron warriors, keyboard warriors and spiritual warriors – while the country’s future software engineers sign up for coding boot camps to learn their trade.
We’re all in the trenches, and most of us don’t even know it.
Why warspeak matters
Semantic wars, like all wars, are costly. But the role of warspeak in today’s society isn’t as easily quantified as a military budget or body count.
Nonetheless, I believe warspeak matters for three reasons.
First, it degrades our ability to engage with one another about important issues. Law professors Oren Gross and Fionnuala Aolain have written about how the framing of issues as a “war” can “significantly shape choices.” There is an urgency that’s communicated. Instantaneous action is required. Thought and reflection fall by the wayside.
Second, in the context of politics, warspeak seems to be connected to violent political attitudes. In 2011, researchers at the University of Michigan found that young adults exposed to political rhetoric charged with warspeak were more likely to endorse political violence.
Finally, if everything from weather to sports is charged with violent imagery, perceptions and emotions become needlessly distorted. Political carnage and carnage in the classroom, weaponized songs and weapons of war, snipers on the hockey rink and mass shooters – all blur together across our cognitive maps.
There’s a reason why writers, talking heads and politicians deploy warspeak: It commands people’s attention in an increasingly frenzied and fractured media environment.
I wonder, however, if it contributes to political polarization – what Pew Research describes as the “defining feature of American politics today.” And I wonder if it’s one reason why, according to Gallup, Americans’ stress, worry and anger increased in 2018, to the highest point in a dozen years.
One thing is clear: Americans no longer need to be enlisted in the Army to suffer from battle fatigue or be shell-shocked by the latest mass shooting.
The anchors were joined by Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), who represents El Paso in Congress.
"The president has used the words in the clips that you've shown that have caused a tremendous amount of pain and that have fueled violence. Those words are still hanging out there. He needs to recognize his role. He needs to recognize that those words have power. He needs to apologize, and he needs to take them back," Escobar demanded.
"You know, we were told by law enforcement earlier that we have to be concerned about copycat acts of violence. It would go a long way for the president to say, 'I used racist language, I used words that dehumanized people and I was wrong and I take them back.' Only after he does that should he be welcomed into our community," she explained.
The anchors were astonished Trump is unwanted in El Paso.
"Can I just say it's such a weird thing, though, to be at a place in our country where after a national tragedy, the president isn't welcome," Wallace said. "It is such -- you just have to stop sometimes in these jobs and point out when it is not normal."
"Clearly there are meaningful differences of opinion here, but to see the emotion with which the congresswoman was conveying that -- not only for herself but for her constituents -- that they feel he is the cause of so much pain, that is profound when you talk about national leadership," Maddow said.
"I'd like to see the perimeter of every school in America surrounded, secured by retired police ... military and I want guys to donate fifteen hours," Hannity explained.
"I think we could cover every school, every hour -- add a metal detector and I think we're going to have better schools,"
"Have one armed guard on every floor of every school, all over every mall, the perimeter and inside every hall of every mall."
Steve Bannon isn't exactly known for the bastion of empathy, but in a conversation with fellow former Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, the two reached a new level.
"Let's talk about this horrible situation in El Paso, the other day," Bannon began. "You know, it was at a Walmart at 10:30 in the morning. That's part of the Trump economic miracle. What you had is El Paso, which is, I think, 80 percent Hispanic, you had citizens over there from Mexico. They're there because the economy is booming."
The fact that El Paso is such a large Latino community is one of the reasons the shooter drove from Allen, Texas to kill immigrants and people of color. His manifesto outlined his rage at people of color who were procreating and making whites a minority. The ideology is one that many white supremacists and neo-Nazis have cited as part of mass shootings, according to one expert.
“They all reference the same conspiracy theories," former neo-Nazi Christian Picciolini explained in an interview Sunday. "Lately, they’ve been referencing something called ‘The Great Replacement‘ which this theory that whites being outbred in America and will be replaced. Now, it’s all based on conspiracy theories, but what’s similar about these things is now that they’re trying to outdo each other, I think the death toll is going to get bigger and bigger.”
Listen to the conversation below at the 29:30 mark:
A man wounded in the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas died in the hospital on Monday.
Less than two days after the shooting at a Walmart that killed 20, El Paso police announced that another man has died from his wounds.
"Sad to report that the number of fatalities increased by one," the police department wrote on Twitter. "Victim passed early this morning at the hospital."
In all, 30 victims have been reported dead because of two mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio that happened over the weekend.
David Urban, a surrogate for President Donald Trump, told CNN on Monday that the El Paso mass shooter was likely mentally ill because he wore hearing protection during the massacre.
During a panel segment on CNN about President Donald Trump's response to two mass shootings in Ohio and Texas, host Jim Sciutto asked Urban if anything would change because of the deaths of 29 people.
"My thoughts and prayers are with those families and their friends," Urban said. "I agree there needs to be much more common sense. We talked about the mental health background checks. You shouldn’t be able to get a weapon if you’re being treated for a mental health issue. That’s just common sense."
"There’s no evidence that these shooters were being treated for mental health," the CNN host noted. "So what measure is going to happen now?"
Urban argued that reducing the size of ammunition magazines would not help because the shooters are "twisted."
"They’ll find ways around that. They’ll tape two clips together," Urban complained. "You see how you take a clip and you tape one and the other one upside down so you can change it quicker. The people who are perpetrating these crimes aren’t normal."
"You watched the shooter walk into the Walmart," Urban said of the El Paso shooter. "He had hearing protection and eye protection. What kind of sick person puts hearing protection and eye protection on before he goes to slaughter people?"
"I’m asking the question, what addresses that, the availability?" Sciutto pressed.
"But let’s not forget, machine guns have been around since the late 1800s. Gangsters and criminals used them," Urban opined, citing "John 'machine gun' Kelly."
"What has been different? Machine guns have been available. Tommy guns. What has changed in American culture that makes people do what they’re doing today?" he asked. "Weapons have been available for a very long time. Something has changed in society and something has changed in American families."
In fact, machine guns are not widely available in the United States.
US President Donald Trump on Monday urged Republicans and Democrats to agree on tighter gun control and suggested legislation could be linked to immigration reform after two shootings left 29 people dead and sparked accusations that his rhetoric was part of the problem.
"Republicans and Democrats must come together and get strong background checks, perhaps marrying this legislation with desperately needed immigration reform," Trump tweeted as he prepared to address the nation on two weekend shootings in Texas and Ohio.
"We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!" Trump wrote.
Trump did not explain how the two pieces of legislation might be tied together.
The president has made a crackdown on immigration both legal and illegal a centerpiece of his presidency and even more so of late as he campaigns for re-election next year and reaches out to his largely white, working-class base.
Gun culture is deeply rooted in America, and efforts to strengthen firearms regulations remain divisive even though mass shootings are commonplace.
Legislation calling for stronger background checks on would-be gun purchasers passed in February in the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives but have not even been put to a vote in the Republican-led Senate.
The weekend massacres in El Paso and Dayton were the 250th and 251st mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which counts any attack in which at least four people are killed or wounded, not including the shooter.
The National Rifle Association is a firm supporter of Trump and he has appeared regularly at NRA conferences in recent years.
Trump on Monday appeared to blame the news media and what he considers unfair coverage for violence like the weekend shootings.
- 'Reaping what he's sown' -
Critics say his anti-immigrant rhetoric helps fuel white nationalist thinking that engenders violence. The El Paso shooter reportedly posted online a racist manifesto denouncing a "Hispanic invasion" of Texas. El Paso is mainly Latino.
Democratic presidential hopefuls tore into Trump over the weekend, calling him a racist whose language emboldens violent extremists.
Former El Paso congressman Beto O'Rourke accused the president of seeking to "drive us apart and make us afraid, angry," arguing that El Paso proved he was succeeding.
"We've seen a rise in hate crimes over the last three years... The writing has been on the wall since that maiden speech describing Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals," O'Rourke told MSNBC.
"Anyone who is surprised is part of this problem right now, including members of the media who ask, 'Hey, Beto, do you think the president is racist?' Well, Jesus Christ, of course he is. He's trafficked this stuff from the very beginning. We are reaping what he's sown and we have to put a stop to it."
But Trump on Monday found blame elsewhere.
"Fake News has contributed greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years. News coverage has got to start being fair, balanced and unbiased, or these terrible problems will only get worse!" he tweeted.
Trump said Sunday that "hate has no place in our country," but he also blamed mental illness for the violence.
"These are really people that are very, very seriously mentally ill," he said, although police have not confirmed such a claim.
"We have to get it stopped. This has been going on for years... and years in our country," he said.
CNN host Jim Sciutto and Poppy Harlow revealed on Monday that 49 Republican lawmakers had declined requests to speak on camera about the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.
"The silence from many Republican lawmakers is deafening," Harlow said. "It’s one thing to tweet but it’s another thing to act. Jim, we have one joining us on the show but we put like 50 requests out."
Sciutto later showed a graphic with 49 names. Included in this list were Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn. Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio also refused to appear.
[caption id="attachment_1529079" align="alignnone" width="613"] List of Republican who refused to talk about mass shootings (CNN/screen grab)[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_1529080" align="alignnone" width="613"] List of Republican who refused to talk about mass shootings (CNN/screen grab)[/caption]
Here are five significant things Trump did that has made gun violence worse.
1. Giving guns to the mentally ill
One of the first things Trump's chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, did was to blame the mass shooting on "mental illness." Trump, too, has repeated the same claim. But one thing he did as president was to revoke an executive order President Barack Obama signed that mandated checks for those with mental illnesses before they buy a gun.
"The rule, which was finalized in December, added people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and people deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs to the national background check database," NBC News reported Feb. 2017.
2. Trump stopped the DOJ from using updated language about what defines "mentally ill"
Trump also froze a Department of Justice rule that would have prevented anyone "adjudicated as a mental defective" or "committed to a mental institution" from having access to a gun. Previous phrases about mental illness were so outdated that the Department of Justice ultimately proposed the fix, but Trump stopped it from being implemented.
The FBI once barred anyone who fell under the definition of "fugitive from justice" from purchasing a weapon. Under Trump's Department of Justice, the FBI background check only blocks a person with an arrest warrant from buying a gun, but only if they fled a state trying to evade prosecution, or were the subject of an "imminent" criminal prosecution. Anyone with an arrest warrant can score an assault rifle now.
4. Trump deleted 500,000 people previously banned from getting a gun
There were nearly 500,000 records on people in the federal background check system who were considered fugitives. They would normally be prevented from buying a gun, but the background check database deleted their records. The records being recreated at the FBI were then forced to adhere to the new definitions of "fugitive from justice."
"The FBI has long held that anyone who remains at large and wanted for arrest should not be allowed to purchase a weapon," Newsweek reported at the time.
5. Trump's 2019 budget cut funds to state background check systems
Trump has said that he wanted to help improve background checks, but it seems he doesn't want it bad enough to pay for the cost. In Feb. 2018, the White House released its budget proposal, which called for a $12 million cut to funds given to states to update their background check database. Just two days later, a gunman opened fire on the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 people.
The gun lobby spent more than $55 million to elect Donald Trump and NRA allies in Congress in 2016, Everytown for Gun Safety reported prior to the mid-term election in 2018.
Just hours after the shooting in Dayton, Ohio, a copycat shooter attempted another attack on a Walmart in Gibsonton, Florida, which is south of East Tampa.
WSTP reporter Angelina Salcedo reported that a 31-year-old white male was "intrigued" by the terrorist attacks in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio this weekend. He wanted to conduct his own similar shooting. Luckily, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office was able to act quickly.
