The consequences of the Republican Party’s vilification of immigrants:
A Caroline County man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to pursuing and ultimately shooting two Latino men because of his “anger at illegal immigration.”
On Wednesday, June 18, Douglas W. Cornett of the Ruther Glen area pleaded guilty to two counts of federal hate crimes involving attempts to kill and one count of discharging a firearm during a federal crime of violence.
He had followed one of them down the highway to a gas station at which point the hunted man told a friend who approached the man to ask him what he was doing:
With Victim 2 translating for them, Victim 1 said he had been in America for about a year and a half.
Cornett then pulled out a handgun and shot a total of six times. Victim 1 was hit three times and Victim 2 was hit once. Both had serious injuries. Per court documents, Cornett then left the scene, returned home and told the two people he lived with about what happened.
When he was arrested the following day, Cornett admitted to the double shooting and said “[his] intentions were clear in [his] brain, at that time.”
“[Cornett] then described his anger at illegal immigration, telling the detective that he was ‘pissed’ about undocumented migrants receiving welfare funds, phones and health insurance, and that he had ‘driven around before with the same thought,’” court documents state. “[He] later asked the detective whether he could be ‘charged for [his] thoughts,’ and went on to explain that he fantasized about flying an Apache helicopter gunship to the border and firing on undocumented migrants traveling into the United States in order ‘to deter’ other undocumented migrants from attempting to cross the border.
How did this happen? Well:
Cornett’s housemates also told detectives that he was “kind of obsessed” with cable news stories about undocumented immigrants entering the United States.
Surprise. People watching Fox News and worshiping Donald Trump are hunting Latinos. Just like the January 6th rioters believed they were doing the bidding of the GodKing, Donald Trump by attacking the U.S. Capitol, they now believe they are fulfilling their duty by eliminating Latinos by any means necessary. After all, they are being told every single day that they are all criminals — the worst of the worst.
As far as we know, neither of the two victims of this attempted murder are undocumented immigrants. But that’s obviously irrelevant. No Latino is safe.