Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis faced an onslaught of boos from the crowd at a Sunday vigil for the three victims of a racially motivated shooting on Saturday in Jacksonville.
A 21-year-old white gunman fatally shot three Black people at a Jacksonville Dollar General store after he was denied entry to a historically Black college nearby, according to authorities. The gunman used an AR-15-style rifle inscribed with Nazi insignia, according to police, which said the shooter left behind evidence that he "hated Black people."
DeSantis arrived at a vigil for the victims to jeers on Saturday, escalating to the point that Jacksonville County Councilwoman Ju'Coby Pittman asked the crowd to quiet the heckling.
"It ain't about parties today," she said. "A bullet don't know a party."
In April, DeSantis signed a bill allowing state residents who legally own a firearm to carry concealed guns without a permit, legislation that was met with contempt by many Democrats. Florida has been the site of several of the country's worst mass shootings in recent years, including the ones at Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in 2018.
Aside from his lax gun laws, DeSantis has faced public scrutiny from progressives for his culture war crusades and condemnation of anything deemed "woke," such as his defense of the blocking of an Advanced Placement class on African American studies in state schools.
"This divide exists because of the ongoing disenfranchisement of Black people and a governor, who is really propelling himself forward through bigoted, racially motivated, misogynistic, xenophobic actions to throw red meat to a Republican base," Rudolph McKissick, senior pastor of the Bethel Church in Jacksonville, told the Associated Press.
We need your help to stay independent
DeSantis at the vigil announced that on Monday, a state-led initiative would go into effect to provide financial support for the affected families, as well as to bolster security at Edward Waters University, the historically Black college near where the shooting took place. The governor called the shooter, who took his own life following the attacks, a "major league scumbag."
"What he did is totally unacceptable in the state of Florida," DeSantis said. "We are not going to let people be targeted based on their race."
Florida state Rep. Angie Nixon, a Democrat, lambasted DeSantis on Saturday, telling MSNBC that "at the end of the day, the governor has blood on his hands."
"He has had an attack, an all-out attack on the Black community with his anti-woke policies, which we know very well was nothing more than a dog whistle to get folks up and riled up in the way in which it just happened yesterday. As I listened to him for the first time with that statement, my blood is literally boiling," she continued.
Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course.
Nixon also referred to DeSantis's 2018 controversial and racially imbued comment about then-opponent Andrew Gillum, who is Black, saying in a television interview that voters should not "monkey this up" by electing Gillum.
"This is absurd, it's ridiculous. He is one of the causes to this. This is an agenda that he has been pushing since he has gotten into office," Nixon said.
"We have Republican leadership across this state who are doing everything to continually attack Black lives. They are doing everything to erase Black history. They are feeding our children propaganda. All that does is lead to the devaluation of Black lives," she added.
"It's the audacity for me," Nixon tweeted on Sunday from the vigil, writing that DeSantis "is here and needs to apologize for his part in this."
President Biden on Sunday decried the shooting.
"Even as we continue searching for answers, we must say clearly and forcefully that white supremacy has no place in America," he said in a statement.
"We must refuse to live in a country where Black families going to the store or Black students going to school live in fear of being gunned down because of the color of their skin. Hate must have no safe harbor. Silence is complicity and we must not remain silent," Biden continued. "Jill and I are praying for the victims and their families, and we grieve with the people of Jacksonville."
"On Saturday, our nation marked the 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington — a seminal moment in our history and in our work towards equal opportunity for all Americans," he added. "But this day of remembrance and commemoration ended with yet another American community wounded by an act of gun violence, reportedly fueled by hate-filled animus and carried out with two firearms."
Shares