On Wednesday, an Atlanta Sheriff held a press conference about the rash of shootings that left 8 dead yesterday. Rather than show empathy for the victims, Jay Baker seemed to be making excuses for the shooter.
The Cherokee Country cop told reporters, “They got that impression, he did understand the gravity and was fed up and at the end of his rope and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.”
Cherokee County Sheriff said that it was a really bad day "for him" the Atlanta mass shooter yesterday. What about the 8 people that he killed? Having a bad day does not give a person the right to buy a gun and kill others. pic.twitter.com/V3ywrU9iwv
— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 17, 2021
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A new report from Buzzfeed may shed some light on the lack of empathy from Baker. The sheriff has posted messages on his social media feed that blame China for the COVID outbreak.
Stephanie Baer writes, “In a Facebook post from April 2020, Cherokee County Sheriff’s Capt. Jay Baker shared an image of T-shirts based off the Corona beer label that said ‘Covid 19 IMPORTED VIRUS FROM CHY-NA.'”
Baker captioned the post, “Love my shirt. Get yours while they last.”
The post has since been deleted.
QZ reporter Karen K. Ho said of Baker’s comments during the press conference, “Every time I see the clip again of the law official saying the shooter ‘had a bad day; my blood pressure spikes again because I remember how Asian women are not really allowed to be angry at work and several women were deemed ‘too emotional’ for the US presidency.”
every time I see the clip again of the law official saying the shooter "had a bad day" my blood pressure spikes again because I remember how Asian women are not really allowed to be angry at work and several women were deemed "too emotional" for the US presidency
— Karen K. Ho (@karenkho) March 17, 2021
Todd Neikirk is a New Jersey based politics and technology writer. His work has been featured in psfk.com, foxsports.com and hillreporter.com. He enjoys sports, politics, comic books and spending time at the shore with his family.
