The suspect committed suicide at the scene. He was identified as 19-year old Brandon Scott Hole, a former employee at the facility. The assailant's mother contacted law enforcement last year fearing he would try "suicide by cop". Authorities confiscated his weapon and he was subsequently interviewed by the FBI who concluded he was not driven by racially motivated ideology. One wonders if the FBI might have to reassess their report. When I heard that half the victims were Sikh it made me think of the massacre at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin in August 2012 which claimed the lives of six Sikhs. The perpetrator in that incident was a white supremacist.
What astonishes me is how little attention this story received in comparison to recent mass shootings here in Atlanta and in Boulder, Colorado which occurred last month. Indeed, the Atlanta spa shootings occurred exactly a month ago today.
You would think this story would garner more attention given a white perpetrator and half the victims members of a religious minority. But this massacre has been overshadowed by the police shootings of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota and Adam Toledo in Chicago in conjunction with the ongoing trial of Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd.
Is this because Sikhism is far removed from the lives of most Americans? Or is it because we have become so inured to this bloodshed that we simply didn't bother to notice? This could change in the coming days with new information. For whatever the reason a tragedy of this proportion barely generated a ripple. This just doesn't seem right. Of course, nothing is right when it comes to murder.
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