On Tuesday morning, a 19-year-old black man in Columbus, Ga., allegedly entered an AutoZone and stabbed a white employee in the neck. Police arrested the suspect, Jayvon Hatchett, on Wednesday. At his arraignment Thursday morning, Hatchett reportedly said he decided to stab a “random” white man after watching videos of police shootings.
“Jayvon Hatchett stabbed Auto Zone employee 7 times after ‘watching Facebook videos of police shootings,'” WLTZ News reporter Robbie Watson posted on Facebook after the arraignment. “Hatchett smiles telling Detective he chose white man at random and stabbed him in the neck. Victim’s critical and traumatized by attack according to court testimony.”
SHOCK: Jayvon Hatchett stabbed Auto Zone employee 7 times after “watching Facebook videos of police shootings”. Hatchett…
Posted by Robbie Watson on Thursday, August 27, 2020
While the story sounds outlandish, Watson has stood by her story. Police said the victim apparently had no connection to Hatchett. Authorities said the victim is in critical condition but is expected to make a recovery.
Witnesses at the store say Hatchett ran from the scene after stabbing the victim.
The stabbing follows multiple episodes of looting and rioting in cities across America, from Portland and Seattle to Chicago and Kenosha, Wisc., ostensibly inspired by protests against police brutality following police shootings of black people.
Yet when rioters began looting in Minneapolis on Wednesday night, they did so after a black man died not at the hands of police but by his own hand. The man had reportedly shot someone and was fleeing from police at the time of his suicide. It appears that rumors of a police shooting inspired widespread looting and the lawless mob did not bother to investigate the details first.
In other words, a Black Lives Matter mob victimized innocent businesses, damaging the livelihoods not just of business owners but also the livelihoods of their employees, due to a misleading rumor. Not only did the business owners and employees have nothing to do with the alleged injustice, but there was no police shooting to protest in the first place.
Think of that: lawless people were so anxious to wreak havoc on their neighbors in the name of justice that they did not even bother to check whether there was injustice in the first place.
Yet the stabbing in Columbus, Ga., is even more terrifying. While looters and rioters intend to destroy the property and livelihoods of their neighbors in the name of justice, it appears Jayvon Hatchett attempted to murder a “random” white man in the name of taking revenge for police shootings.
The victim’s only crime was being white. Jayvon Hatchett could have targeted any white person at any store, and it seems it just so happened that he picked AutoZone and this poor employee.
This kind of wanton stabbing is the exact recipe for a race war. If black people, in the name of Black Lives Matter, stab white people merely for the color of their skin, their movement has ceased to be about justice or equality. The Marxist leaders of the movement have already indicated that they are after a revolution, but this may be even more terrifying. Americans support police reform, but they do not want a Marxist revolution or a race war.
The Black Lives Matter movement needs to vocally condemn Jayvon Hatchett.
Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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