President Donald Trump has yet again taken a stance with his own silence that in turn speaks volumes about his administration's concerns and priorities by failing to condemn, or otherwise acknowledge, a shooting at a Walmart in Colorado in which three people were killed.
Not far outside of Denver, the city of Thornton, Colorado, became the latest place to be the center of another national tragedy, on Wednesday night.
Scott Ostrem, a 47-year-old white man walked into Walmart and began opening fire on innocent people around 6 p.m. local time, according to the Denver Post. A woman and two men were killed in the incident, and Ostrem had used a handgun. The three victims were the only ones who were shot, police said.
"He walked in very nonchalantly with his hands in the pockets, raised a weapon and began shooting. Then he turns around and walks out of the store," Victor Avila, a spokesman for the Thornton Colorado Police Department said, according to the Post.
Authorities arrested Ostrem on Thursday morning at around 8 a.m., local time, after he was seen driving "a red 2017 Mitsubishi Mirage with Colorado license plate number 882TQB," the Denver Post reported. Police informed the public to look out for the suspect and warned that he was "armed and dangerous."
Walmart shooting incident, person and vehicle of interest, remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers 720-913-7867 pic.twitter.com/PFNbEALpbG
— Thornton Police Dept (@ThorntonPolice) November 2, 2017
On Thursday morning, he had been stopped driving that vehicle and was taken into custody, but details of what may have been inside the car have not been released.
Trump, who has become notorious for quickly condemning terrorism and other mass casualty events on Twitter — exclusively when they involve a Muslim assailant — has remained silent through Thursday afternoon.
The president has repeatedly used ISIS-affiliated mass casualty events to push his agenda but has remained silent when the perpetrators were white. On Thursday morning, Trump tweeted that Sayfullo Saipov, the Manhattan truck driver who killed nine people on Tuesday, should be executed.
Originally, Trump called for Saipov to be sent to Guantanamo Bay for a military trial, but he walked back his threats and instead called for capital punishment.
In early October, news broke that a terror plot had been thwarted after a white man had placed a bomb in a North Carolina airport, but there was little national coverage and more silence from the White House.
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