Following the tragic shooting at a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, Meena Harris, author and niece of Vice President Kamala Harris, rushed to post a tweet decrying the shooter being a violent white man, even though the suspected shooter turned out to be of Arabic descent.
“The Atlanta shooting was not even a week ago. Violent white men are the greatest terrorist threat to our country,” Harris wrote in the now-deleted post. A screenshot of the post was captured by reporter Caleb Hull.
Apparently growing irritated with the push-back over her false tweet, Harris complained to Twitter on Monday, “Insecure men getting defensive about this my god y’all are so f***ing fragile.”
Insecure men getting defensive about this my god y'all are so fucking fragile
— Meena Harris (@meena) March 22, 2021
Harris eventually deleted the viral post and offered a snarky post in response to her mistake. Harris said she thought the shooter was white because he was taken into custody “alive.” She also claimed that “the majority of mass shootings in the U.S. are carried out by white men.”
“I deleted a previous tweet about the suspect in the Boulder shooting,” Harris wrote. “I made an assumption based on his being taken into custody alive and the fact that the majority of mass shootings in the U.S. are carried out by white men.”
I deleted a previous tweet about the suspect in the Boulder shooting. I made an assumption based on his being taken into custody alive and the fact that the majority of mass shootings in the U.S. are carried out by white men.
— Meena Harris (@meena) March 23, 2021
After her rush to talk about the shooter’s identity when she incorrectly thought he was a white man, Harris ironically retweeted posts from left-wing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) complaining about the focus on the shooter’s identity.
“So ‘he’s Muslim’ is trending, did I miss ‘he’s Christian’ trending for last week’s Atlanta mass murderer?” Omar tweeted.
So “he's Muslim" is trending, did I miss "he's Christian" trending for last week’s Atlanta mass murderer? pic.twitter.com/1UHU6Iens5
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 23, 2021
In another tweet from Omar, which was also retweeted by Harris, the Democrat wrote, “The shooter’s race or ethnicity seems front and center when they aren’t white. Otherwise, it’s just a mentally ill young man having a bad day. Narratives drive our responses to awful crimes committed against innocent people, pay attention to these responses and who is targeted.”
The shooter's race or ethnicity seems front and center when they aren’t white.
Otherwise, it’s just a mentally ill young man having a bad day.
Narratives drive our responses to awful crimes committed against innocent people, pay attention to these responses and who is targeted.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 23, 2021
The 21-year-old suspected shooter killed 10 people, including one officer, at a King Soopers grocery store on Monday; per Daily Wire policy, the shooter will not be named.
The Daily Wire’s Ashe Schow on Tuesday provided further detail into what we know thus far about potential motive:
While his Arabic name may prompt new assumptions about his motive, members of his family have told the Daily Beast that the suspect suffered from mental illness, was “very anti-social” and paranoid. The suspect’s brother said that in high school, the suspect claimed he was “being chased, someone is behind him, someone is looking for him.”
“When he was having lunch with my sister in a restaurant, he said, ‘People are in the parking lot, they are looking for me.’ She went out, and there was no one. We didn’t know what was going on in his head,” the brother said.
Further, the suspect’s brother said the shooting may not have been political.
“[It was] not at all a political statement, it’s mental illness,” he told the Daily Beast. “The guy used to get bullied a lot in high school, he was like an outgoing kid but after he went to high school and got bullied a lot, he started becoming anti-social.”
The brother also said another sibling and other family members were detained by police and their home was searched.
The suspect was born in Syria but reportedly spent “most of his life in the United States,” Boulder police officials said during a Tuesday press conference.
The suspect’s Facebook profile says he was born in Syria in 1999 and came to the U.S. in 2002. He also posted information rebuking former President Donald Trump and discussed his history as a high school wrestler.