USA Today reported that the Monterey Park, Calif., shooting that left 10 people dead has “revived the fears and trauma” of “anti-Asian hate” for the Los Angeles Asian community.
There are just two tiny little problems with the story: The killer was Vietnamese, and USA Today knew that before it published the story.
72-year-old Huu Can Tran’s murderous spree began in Monterey Park late Saturday night at the Chinese-owned Star Ballroom Dance Studio, continued at the Lai Lai Ballroom in Alhambra shortly afterward, and ended midday on Sunday with Tran’s suicide.
Tran’s face had been plastered everywhere as the suspect hours before a SWAT team had surrounded his white van and discovered his dead body around 1 p.m. on Sunday. Nevertheless, USA Today went with the “fears and trauma” of “anti-Asian hate” story hours after Tran was ID’d by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as the suspect.
“The incident,” reporters Marc Ramirez, Jordan Mendoza, and Orlando Mayorquin breathlessly wrote, “has revived the fears and trauma brought on by a wave of hate incidents and tragedies that have struck the community over the last few years.”
You can’t blame the reporters for going with what scared victims experienced in the moment, but hours after the shooter had been positively identified as Asian, you can certainly blame the editors for continuing to frame the story with a demonstrably false narrative.
But then it gets worse. Read this nonsense from the third paragraph:
“Even if we cannot be sure an attack was racial in intent, it nonetheless can be racial in effect,” Frank Wu, president of Queens College, City University of New York, said before the attacker was identified.
We don’t know what Wu might have said after the attacker was identified, because USA Today didn’t bother to find out or, if they did, didn’t bother to report it.
This is the #MontereyPark mass-shooter. 72-Year old Huu Can Tran.
He’s not a white male. The mainstream media will drop any further coverage in 24 hours. Tran does not fit the narrative. pic.twitter.com/WEiECHMdjs
— plramirez (@plramirez) January 23, 2023
Notice that the horrendous Colorado Springs Club Q shooting nearly disappeared after we learned that the shooter identified himself as non-binary?
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Because everything must be blamed on racism or anti-whatever “phobia.” Even when there’s no racism or phobia to be found. It’s better for The Cause to stir up fear, hate, and division than to honestly report the news.
According to an MSN story from early Monday morning, Tran had “often complained” to a friend that dance instructors at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio (where he used to dance) had said “evil things” about him.
It’s my unprofessional, but experienced, opinion that Tran was either holding a grudge, off his rocker, or both. Neither explanation — supported by the facts, by the way — carries even a whiff of racism.
Most murders, I don’t hesitate to remind you, occur within race groups, not outside of them.
In a related item, PJ Media’s own Gwendolyn Sims overheard L.A.’s NBC 4 describe the shooter’s weapon as an “assault pistol.”
“I. Kid. You. Not,” she added in our Slack channel.
With a press this mendacious, there’s no need for kidding — they generate plenty of bitter laughs just doing what they do.
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