Story Parts We Won't Get
One of the hugest problems with the way law enforcement jacked up everything about the Uvalde shooting is how we don't know much at all about WHY it happened. Other than, duh, of course, AR-15 availability.
I bet we won't officially find out much more, though.
There are plenty of stories to tell about the god-awful horrors there without the "why" being part of it.
But it's yet another part of the incident that law enforcement has also screwed up. There are MANY. This tweet shows only the tip of the iceberg.
Because normally a functional law enforcement response would have released that information by now, after digging into the shooter's motivations.
At this point, if they came out to tell us about what they've discovered about the motivation, they would also have to answer for all the other crap they've screwed up about this.
And so far, every time they've talked in public they've made it all worse. AND told different versions of what happened.
So would we even believe what they tell us about a motivation at this point?
The problem is, though, we don't know where to put this with all of the other violence that's happened around the country.
Did this have anything to do with racism? Was it domestic violent extremism motivated by intolerance and bias and racism?
Where did the motivation come from? Was there radicalization from some set of sources? Can we know more about them?
Was it inspired in any way by what happened just before it in Buffalo, New York, which was totally a racist attack?
I've only heard rumors that it could have been, but nothing confirmed.
Obviously it was an angry young man. We know that. Looks like he had a tough life. We know that, but lots of people go through being an angry young man who's had a tough life without shooting up an elementary school full of children.
We know the shooter tried to get someone else to buy a gun for him and it didn't work. We know that.
Whatever did happen and likely motivated to him at this point is probably not likely to make it into the national narrative about the story. I could be wrong.
At this point, the county attorney is involved. The state is involved, although that's not gone well and they have been part of the terrible press conferences and information not matching up. The US Department of Justice is involved. In Texas, the county judge has quite a bit of power as well about what happens up in that county.
Will any of these parties deign to release information about the possible motivations of the shooter?
I just don't see it happening at this point. And that's a problem.
Do they not want to release information about a potential motivation for some reason? We don't know.
Their spectacularly terrible management of everything about this incident would call into question whatever they would release about a potential motivation.
Right now we're having a national conversation about the availability of assault weapons made for war to just any American over 18.
Should we also be having a national conversation about racism and racially motivated violence?
Absolutely.
We know that from what happened the week before in Buffalo. From a litany of other racially motivated attacks. And from US intelligence that's said that the threat of racially-motivated domestic violent extremism is a huge national security issue.
But the incident in Uvalde is a big huge catalyst pushing a lot of soul-searching up in this country.
Should racism be a part of that conversation, too?
We just don't know.
Perhaps as disturbing is that national media don't seem to be asking, either.
It's worth pushing for answers on this question.
Or, alternatively, have the answers been put out there officially by law enforcement, and the national media isn't covering those answers?
I don't think that has happened... primarily because the media has hyperactive attention on anything about Uvalde that is released by local law enforcement. Key players in this story can't show up anywhere without being noticed.
We need to know what needs to be a part of this story.
We can't just fix one piece of the problem. We need to work on the whole array.
Be safe out there. Look after some humans. This is a tough time. We need each other.