The Other McCain

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Gunman Blames Racism After He Kills Two Young Journalists on Live TV UPDATE: Charleston Church Shooting ‘Sent Me Over the Top,’ Killer Claims

Posted on | August 26, 2015 | 77 Comments

Vester Flanagan, a/k/a Bryce Williams

Alison Parker and Adam Ward of WDBJ-TV in Roanoke, Virginia, were doing a live broadcast this morning when a disgruntled former employee of the station approached and shot them both dead with a semi-automatic pistol. Vester Flanagan, who had worked for WDBJ-TV using the on-air name “Bryce Williams,” posted a video of his crime, along with Twitter messages saying that Parker had made racist comments and that Ward had reported him to the station’s human resources office — an apparent reference to the circumstances of Flanagan’s firing. After fleeing the scene of the double homicide and being pursued by police, Flanagan fatally shot himself. The killer had a troubled past, NBC News reports:

The general manager of the station, WDBJ in Roanoke, Virginia, said that Flanagan had a reputation as “being difficult to work with” and was fired because of anger problems. . . .
Flanagan had a two-decade career at a string of local television stations. . . .
KPIX, the CBS station in San Francisco, said that Flanagan worked there as an intern and a writer from 1993 to 1995. An employee at WTOC in Savannah, Georgia, confirmed that Flanagan worked there in the late 1990s.
And in 2000, Flanagan sued a Florida station that had fired him, alleging racial discrimination, according to a newspaper report at the time.
“Vester was an unhappy man,” Jeff Marks, the general manager of WDBJ, said on the station’s noon newscast. “He had a reputation for being difficult to work with.”
Marks said that Flanagan was fired “after many incidents of his anger coming forward” and was escorted from the building by police.

David French at National Review cautioned against viewing this as a racial incident, although it now seems clear that the gunman himself viewed it that way. This is the problem with identity politics: If someone has personal problems, and they can find a political ideology that seems to explain those problems, then the “personal is political,” as radical feminist Carol Hanisch famously said, and who are we to argue? If someone says they are a victim of racism, sexism or homophobia, and then they use claims of victimhood to justify violence, how seriously should we take their political arguments? It’s a hall of mirrors. If we say Vester Flanagan was just a disgruntled kook, what does that make Al Sharpton? Isn’t he just a more successful disgruntled kook?

UPDATE: ABC News reports:

In the 23-page document faxed to ABC News, the writer says “MY NAME IS BRYCE WILLIAMS” and his legal name is Vester Lee Flanagan II.” He writes what triggered today’s carnage was his reaction to the racism of the Charleston church shooting:
“Why did I do it? I put down a deposit for a gun on 6/19/15. The Church shooting in Charleston happened on 6/17/15…”
“What sent me over the top was the church shooting. And my hollow point bullets have the victims’ initials on them.” . . .
In an often rambling letter to the authorities, and family and friends, he writes of a long list of grievances. In one part of the document, Williams calls it a “Suicide Note for Friends and Family.”
He says has suffered racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying at work
He says he has been attacked by black men and white females
He talks about how he was attacked for being a gay, black man
“Yes, it will sound like I am angry…I am. And I have every right to be. But when I leave this Earth, the only emotion I want to feel is peace….”
“The church shooting was the tipping point…but my anger has been building steadily…I’ve been a human powder keg for a while…just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”

So he was black and gay, but it was mainly the racism he was angry about? These disgruntled killers seldom bother to edit their manifestos very carefully, which might have something to do with why they’re disgruntled. We probably shouldn’t expect coherent prose from homicidal maniacs, I guess

 

Category: Crime, Racism

Comments

77 Responses to “Gunman Blames Racism After He Kills Two Young Journalists on Live TV UPDATE: Charleston Church Shooting ‘Sent Me Over the Top,’ Killer Claims”

  1. Jeanette Victoria
    August 26th, 2015 @ 8:22 pm

    It helps that I love my life 🙂

  2. Art Deco
    August 26th, 2015 @ 8:24 pm

    In that line of work, yeah. AA benefits salaried employees and government workers; the legal profession, academe, and the media are hell-bent on it. About two-thirds of the black workforce do not see squat from it.

  3. trangbang68
    August 26th, 2015 @ 8:27 pm

    Awk awk…the politically correct brainwashed parrot chirps in. Are there bad cops, sure? Are all cops racist murderers? Only in the twisted fever swamp of your imagination.

  4. Art Deco
    August 26th, 2015 @ 8:28 pm

    Convicts and people who die in industrial accidents. Not that Nancy Hopkins at MIT gives a rip.

  5. RS
    August 26th, 2015 @ 8:31 pm

    Note the origin: a British tabloid. Gee, I wonder whether that “wearing an Obama button” tidbit will surface in the American press?

  6. Southern Air Pirate
    August 26th, 2015 @ 8:35 pm

    Nope. Because it goes against the whole meme that only RWNJs use guns to go on mass murders or that political violence only comes from RWNJs.

  7. BillClintonsShorts17
    August 26th, 2015 @ 9:46 pm

    Especially if the gay man is ugly.

  8. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    August 26th, 2015 @ 9:50 pm

    And fat. And gets shunned by the other gays.

  9. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    August 26th, 2015 @ 9:51 pm

    Remember when gay men were like this? https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/3346914255/c2f7c17f2d99cafa28864c5a3e60c89e.jpeg

  10. Finrod Felagund
    August 26th, 2015 @ 9:59 pm

    Now you’ve got a song lyric stuck in my head:

    “Can’t talk to a psycho like a normal human being”

  11. BillClintonsShorts17
    August 26th, 2015 @ 10:00 pm

    Driver, isn’t it time for you to fellate a cactus?

  12. BillClintonsShorts17
    August 26th, 2015 @ 10:01 pm

    Classic case of Envy, IMHO. Ugly loser hates his victim because he cannot have her beauty.

  13. DeadMessenger
    August 26th, 2015 @ 10:24 pm

    Exactly so. And the people who use asinine and childish excuses obviously don’t love theirs.

  14. DeadMessenger
    August 26th, 2015 @ 10:28 pm

    You don’t have someone else (such as the gubmint), stick a gun in the bully’s face for you. Also, you are bullied for realzies. There are actual psychopathic nutballs bullying you. What’s more, you don’t identify simple disagreement as bullying. So no “wuss” sign for you. *Yoink*

  15. Jeanette Victoria
    August 26th, 2015 @ 10:54 pm

    I don’t consider silly name calling bullying either.

  16. Renaissance
    August 26th, 2015 @ 11:37 pm

    A Black homosexual kills a white (straight) woman. There’s a hate crime in there somewhere. Misogyny anyone?

  17. Daniel Freeman
    August 27th, 2015 @ 12:11 am

    Typical of our leftist media to deny the personal agency of black men.

  18. CaptDMO
    August 27th, 2015 @ 4:45 am

    Jake: No, I didn’t. Honest… I ran out of gas. I… I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts! IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!

  19. CaptDMO
    August 27th, 2015 @ 4:51 am

    Sounds like you have a little manifesto going there!

  20. CaptDMO
    August 27th, 2015 @ 5:07 am

    Um, Also wrong.
    Of course, all of the perp’s “history” COULD have been “made up”, or something.
    But I’m SURE there ARE some “really important” feminist bloggers, with a “history” of their own, (ie, one,ironically named Cox) who are desperately clinging to the “all bad things that happen to ANY woman is misogyny” delusion. yet again, concerning this event as well.

  21. Quartermaster
    August 27th, 2015 @ 7:22 am

    I can’t believe you would expect a leftist “journalist” to properly edit his manifesto. Surely….

  22. Ilion
    August 27th, 2015 @ 7:50 am

    It has been a “thing” for some time now among some blacks to record themselves engaging in anti-social (*) and/or criminal acts and then uploading the document to various websites. This is just the first of which we have heard involving murder.

    (*) Just last weekend, a couple of blocks from my house, I drove by a black fellow scratching something into the freshly finished concrete of a new sidewalk while a black woman recorded his act.

  23. Ilion
    August 27th, 2015 @ 7:51 am

    Trolls are so cute when they’re new, don’t you think?

  24. Renaissance
    August 27th, 2015 @ 11:58 am

    Um, seems correct to me.

    Whatever you think of feminists, homosexual men have a tendency to hate straight women for getting the guys they can’t get–cause like what straight guy wants hairy balls?

  25. Ilion
    August 27th, 2015 @ 3:38 pm

    Near the top of the barrel is the leftist-atheist lie that Christianity started anti-black racism (which the leftists assert is everywhere, even though everyone can see that it isn’t) by associating the color black with sin.

    Whereas, anyone who has actually *read* the Bible knows that (blood) red is the color associated with sin.

  26. Virginia Murderer “motivated by Charleston shooting” | Constantinople (Not Istanbul)
    August 28th, 2015 @ 3:39 pm

    […] Robert Stacy McCain […]

  27. theoldsargesays
    August 28th, 2015 @ 10:20 pm

    If all gay men were like Rip Taylor the world would be a better place.