TRIBE-TRACKER: VT Shooter was Asian.
Diana Hartman over at BC Magazine has summarized the open source intelligence on the identity of today's gunman at the Virginia Tech massacre:
The gunman, wearing a maroon hat and black leather jacket, said nothing as he fired shots. He had a 9-mm pistol and a 22-caliber handgun. Including the gunman, 31 people are believed dead. It is reported that the gunman killed himself. Twenty-nine people are being treated by local hospitals. The gunman has been described as a young Asian-American male.
Why couldn't Police Chief Wendell Flinchum, Virginia Tech Police Department, say that? In the live press conference I am watching as I blog, he is avoiding providing any information on the identity of the gunman. Just as I, as a Society of Professional Journalists member, have received instructions ("Diversity Toolbox") on how to report on ethnicity in the news, I presume that US police leadership have similarly been instructed to downplay the ethnicity of criminals when they are not white.
Comments