Global Courant 2023-05-01 05:31:53
Governor Greg Abbott speaks at the National Rifle Association-Institute for Legislative Action Leadership Forum in Dallas on Friday, May 4, 2018.Sue Ogrocki/AP
Authorities are looking for the gunman who killed 5 people Friday at a home in Cleveland, Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced a reward for information and expressed condolences to the victims.
But the governor has been criticized for identifying the victims as “illegal immigrants.”
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been criticized for identifying the victims of a Friday mass shooting in Cleveland, Texasas “illegal immigrants” in the same statement extending condolences to their loved ones.
On Friday night, a drunk man shot and killed five people, including an 8-year-old boy, after neighbors asked the man to stop firing his AR-15 weapon into the air. according to San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers.
Abbott released a statement on Sunday offering a $50,000 reward for information about the shooter, who authorities say “could be anywhere” by this time. The governor also offered condolences to the families, but not before the statement identified the victims as “illegal immigrants”.
Police identified the victims as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21; Julia Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8. Authorities have not disclosed the citizenship status of the victims.
“Governor Greg Abbott today announced a $50,000 reward for a top 10 Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) fugitive who is in the country illegally and killed illegal immigrants in a shooting Friday night in Cleveland, Texas,” a statement said. from Abbott’s personal Twitter account said.
Actors, former politicians and immigration rights organizations quickly denounced Abbott’s statement.
“This is despicable. I would have thought that bringing attention to the immigration status of the innocent victims of this senseless violence would be even among you. But I was wrong,” George Takei, the “Star Trek” actor who his parents lived in internment camps during World War II, wrote on Twitter.
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“Five people were killed and Greg Abbott is pushing to label them as ‘illegal immigrants’.” Julián Castro, the former minister of Housing and Urban Development, said.
The Immigrant Legal Resource Center said Abbott’s statement contained “dehumanizing anti-immigrant rhetoric”.
A spokesman for the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Department said the agency could not release any further information. An Abbott spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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