It’s a relief that he has finally been apprehended. What’s unnerving is that he initially escaped and that his crime is a brazen attack like the ISIS-inspired events we have seen at public spaces in Europe. It was inevitable that these kind of events would begin to happen in the U.S. (the Tsarnaev brothers; the Chelsea Bomber). Reportedly this kid is an immigrant Turk. Turkey is officially secular, by the way.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crime/article104040881.html
Turkey may be officially secular, but run by an Islamist. It’s a complicated country. I have no idea if this was terrorism, we’ll have to wait for the evidence. However, I’m guessing people will make assumptions one way or another in order to fit the narrative they choose.
Doesn’t sound much different to me than your typical mass shooter. It’s not like we never have any mass shootings in public places.
What really pissed us off about this was the police reporting - on air and in print - that it was thought to be a hispanic male based on the video surveillance, as if it was clear from the grainy, unclear and distant footage. What, because he had dark hair? sheesh.
The article says that the description of the suspect as “Hispanic” was based on initial witness statements.
People seem to like to put racial labels on other people (and police seem to use that in their description of suspects that have not been caught), but there are many people for whom such a “first glance” racial label would commonly be incorrect.
When I watched a police official on tv who mentioned hispanic, he was asked about witness testimony by the reporter and he said no, it was based of video footage not witnesses at that time. Pretty appalling.
The shooter looks Hispanic, from the pictures. I’d guess that they were describing him as they thought he appeared, with the intent of people watching out for this guy, not trying to offend or label someone. They caught him very quickly, so good job on that.
What does that mean, “looks Hispanic”? No, he doesn’t just because he has dark hair. He could be any number of things. I don’t think that leap can be made from the photo that was provided. And definitely not from the photos shown now that they know who he is. The proper way to describe him would have been to state physical features that aren’t subjective - hair color, complexion, build, etc. Not “hispanic”. If anything, labelling the shooter as hispanic limited the opportunity to apprehend him.
Can you say that in the photo shown here he is hispanic and not middle eastern, italian, turkish, Moroccan, filipino, hawaiian, etc.?
http://www.kiro7.com/news/local/cascade-mall-shooting-in-burlington-a-timeline-of-events/449864123
Re: Hispanic. Bear in mind that in Skagit County, one is far, far more likely to see a Hispanic person than a Turk. The mind sees what the mind expects to see. Burlington is 90 minutes north of Seattle and as different an environment as night and day.
He moved to the US when he was 7. A former girlfriend had reportedly worked at the Macy’s at some point. He has a record of DV. He had lived with a couple who took him in when he was homeless. They kicked him out when they discovered he was using and dealing. They called 911 on Friday night when they recognized him.
Exactly what zeebamom says. And the closeup picture to me, looks like he could be Hispanic.
Regardless, this was a huge, horrible event for us out here. Among the people he executed were a 16 year old cancer survivor and a 95 year old woman. The last thing I’m concerned with is the police getting the ethnicity incorrect. They made a rapid arrest, and I’m grateful for that.
Agreed. When I saw the photo I said it was 50/50 that he was middle eastern. But what’s important is the photo was good enough for people who knew him to recognize him. And that they called.
“Hispanic” is a meaningless term. If they thought he looked Mexican, they should’ve said Latino.
"Hispanic"can range from my white blonde mother to Afro-Latin@s
Though really, they should’ve just stuck with “black hair, light brown/olive complexion” or something. I haven’t seen his up close picture, I’m just going off the original picture.
Either way, if this was actually someone with Latin American heritage, I doubt the title of this thread and the headlines would include “terrorism”
Romani, because the term Hispanic is what folks in that area typically would use. What zeebamom said. I drive through the area often on my way to Bellingham or Canada - it is a different area from where most of us CCers live, for sure.
Glad they caught the perp quickly.
Yep, as @BunsenBurner alluded, Burlignton is pretty small town, and, yes there are a lot of Mexican and Central American workers, from the Raspberry, Tulip, and dairy farms to the food production plants; you’re simply more likely to see someone ‘Mexican’ than ‘Muslim’ and is what people may think of. I guess they could have said Hispanic-Middle Eastern complexion to cover all bases.
"Either way, if this was actually someone with Latin American heritage, I doubt the title of this thread and the headlines would include “terrorism”
Very true. And that would be because people from Latin American heritage are usually not responsible for terrorism in the United States.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/26/us/washington-mall-shooting/
Suspect confessed; motive not yet determined.
What kind of nut guns down little old ladies in the makeup section of Macy’s???
This happened 15 miles from my home and I was outside that Macy’s 20 minutes after the event (creeping by on the freeway) with a clear view of the main entrance and all the police activity. I know people who know him. I creeped on his facebook page and his step father’s facebook page and I HOPE his stepfather is charged, with some kind of crime involving negligence, too. From the FB posts the dad appears to be a gun nut of the first degee. (DH owns several guns, so I am not an anti gun nut). Cetin had a no firearms order and at one time a no contact order with the step
dad. The dad asked (according to news reports) to have the no contact order lifted since his son had lots of problems and needed family support. So far so good, right? But the !@#$ of a dad failed to secure his guns in a way that kept his unstable step son from getting his hands on them and ruining the lives of a lot of people.
Re: his ethnicity. I was initially annoyed too. But, I have to say after seeing the clear photos of him, it would not have occurred to me to describe him as middle eastern. Though I would say his ethnicity appears to be generally non-descript, it is understandable how the witnesses would have described him as Hispanic/Latino, especially given that 1/3 of the population in that town is Latino and we have virtually no Middle Easterners living in the area. I’ve decided to give the witnesses who jumped to the wrong conclusion under horrific conditions a pass in this case.
Finally, a related rant: I thought the text message I got less than 12 hours after the shooting from Macy’s encouraging me to hurry in to my Macy’s store for the lowest prices of the season more than just a little disturbing.