The 27-year-old man who police say shot and killed a California business owner over a Pride flag draped in her store appears to have had a yearslong history of posting disturbing — and often violent — anti-LGBTQ messages on social media.
The suspect, Travis Ikeguchi, gunned down Laura Ann Carleton, 66, on Friday, after confronting her and “yelling many homophobic slurs” over her clothing store’s Pride flag, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said at a news conference Monday. Shortly after fleeing the store, Mag.Pi, Ikeguchi was killed in a shootout with law enforcement.
Bigotry is not a mental illness, and actually mentally ill people are much more likely to be the victims of violence than to perpetrate it.
Please stop spreading this ableist excuse.
This guy killed someone because he was a violent hateful bigot, and is direct and not at all unexpected result of a violent hateful and bigoted society. That might not be an easy or comfortable reality to deal with, but that’s what it is. Stop scapegoating mentally ill people (who yes, deserve significantly more help and support than we get, but that doesn’t change the fact that society created this, and many other, killers, not mental illness).
No one is scapegoating mentally ill people by stating the fact that there is mental illness that can lead to dangerous and / or criminal behaviour. An estimated 30 to 70 % of all homicidal criminals have at least one mental illness.
It’s also not ableist because “mentally ill people” is not even close to a homogeneous group of people. There are thousands of different mental illnesses and more than 20 % of people in the USA are mentally ill.
No one is saying these people are all murderers.
Please stop trying to push this weird agenda of “some people are just born evil” or made evil or whatever it is you are trying to say. It’s a step forward to recognise how society can prevent criminal behaviour, for example by treating mental illness better. “Evil” does not exist. There is always a reason of why someone behaves the way they do.