In the early hours of Sunday morning at a Waffle House near Nashville, a white, male domestic terrorist killed four people of color and was stopped by a Black man from killing many more. Apparently that’s the type of scenario President Donald Trump and his administration choose to ignore, and Don Lemon blasted Trump for his silence.
Lemon, anchor of “CNN Tonight with Don Lemon,” discussed with a panel on Monday Trump’s tweet about sanctuary cities and his “breeding” concept comment. After Angela Rye’s comments, Lemon then brought up the fact that Trump hasn’t made any mention of the Waffle House shooting on Twitter because the shooter isn’t Muslim, he said.
“It’d be nice if [the President] tweeted about the four people who lost their lives in the Waffle House, the four Black people who lost their lives, and the Black hero from that,” said Lemon, a guest speaker at
Fair360, formerly DiversityInc’s event on May 1.
But, he added, “Not unless it’s a Muslim does he tweet about something like that.”
Trump tends to respond immediately to killings that involve suspects who are Muslim or if the majority of victims are white.
In November, when eight people were killed in an attack in New York City, he said on Twitter the same day:
…There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 2, 2017
In the Waffle House shooting, James Shaw Jr. managed to wrestle the AR-15 away from Reinking, preventing further bloodshed. Reinking was taken into custody on Monday.
His victims include Taurean C. Sanderlin, 29, a Waffle House employee, and three patrons — Joe R. Perez, 20; Akilah Dasilva, 23; and DeEbony Groves, 21. Several others were injured.
Related Story: Waffle House Shooter: White Affirmative Action Strikes Again
“[Shaw] is the hero here, and no doubt he saved many lives by wrestling the gun away and then tossing it over the counter and prompting the man to leave,” Metro Nashville police spokesman Don Aaron said in a statement.
Shaw, 29, a graduate of Tennessee State University and a member of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc., sustained injuries to his hand and a bullet grazed his elbow during the ambush.
He is currently raising funds for the families of the victims. And in return, a New York Journalist, Yashir Ali, launched a GoFundMe account Monday to help create a college fund for Shaw’s 4-year-old daughter.
CNN commentator Keith Boykin, who worked as a White House aide under former President Bill Clinton, tweeted that Trump’s “silence speaks of his racism”:
If a Mexican, a Muslim or an African-American had been arrested and released by the Secret Service and later killed 4 people in Tennessee, Donald Trump would be tweeting about it night and day. His silence on the Waffle House shooting speaks of his racism. https://t.co/YZvJclzs8j
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) April 23, 2018
