Kathleen Parker: If Trump wasn't the trigger, has he directed the fire?
COLUMBIA, S.C. — It was far too easy to assume the worst — that the inevitable, finally, had come to pass.
When news broke Thursday afternoon that a shooter had opened fire in an Annapolis, Maryland, newsroom, more than a few minds converged on the same thought: Donald Trump. The mythmaker-in-chief, who has demonized the media almost daily since becoming president of the United States, had made this day seem not just likely but any-day-now.
Or so I confess to thinking at first. One of my regular readers, a Vietnam Marine veteran, did, too. In an email Friday morning, he wrote: “I’m concerned for your safety. Trump’s demonizing of the press has led us down a dark path.” And not for the first time, my brother wrote three days before the shooting stating his wish that I leave Washington, writing: “It’s gonna get crazier from here.”
As the story developed through Thursday evening, however, we learned that the alleged gunman, Jarrod Ramos, 38, had nursed a vendetta against the paper for several years, going back to at least 2011 — and well before Trump was elected to become the “fake news” hawker of today.
Apparently, the Capital Gazette had published a story in 2011 about Ramos after he had pleaded guilty to harassing a woman via social media. Apparently blistered by the public exposure, Ramos field a defamation suit in 2012, which he finally lost in 2015 after an appeal. A full three years after that, his festering resentment seems to have exploded in a bloody barrage of revenge.
Ramos first shot out the glass door, then entered the newsroom with his shotgun extending forward, and opened fire, according to witnesses. Like most newsrooms, the Gazette’s is a wide-open space with no place to hide except beneath desks, where reporters huddled and prayed in hopes of escaping the shooter’s notice. Some were unsuccessful.
Among those murdered were editors Gerald Fischman and Rob Hiaasen (brother of Miami Herald columnist and author Carl Hiaasen); reporter John McNamara; sales assistant Rebecca Smith; and a special publications employee Wendi Winters. At least two others were injured.
Thankfully, we can’t pin this on the president. Nor should anyone wish to. It’s bad enough that my reflex was to connect the dots between Trump’s anti-media rhetoric and the Annapolis murders. He has gratuitously called out the media ever since assuming office, including as recently as Monday here in South Carolina’s capital city, where he gave a campaign-rally speech for Gov. Henry McMaster. Trump’s hour-long stemwinder on the eve of the state’s primary runoff was familiar to those who routinely follow the president.
More than once, he singled out the media in the back of the packed high school gym for ridicule. A friend, who was in the audience, remarked to me later: “Why does he do that? They’re there to cover him. Would he prefer that they not show up, that he be a non-event? They’re just doing their job.”
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/parker-if-trump-wasnt-the-trigger-has-he-directed-the-fire/
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