Rainbow Flag Killer Was Fan Of Extremist Matt Walsh

August 22, 2023 Christianists, Extremists

NBC News reports:

The suspect, Travis Ikeguchi, gunned down Laura Ann Carleton, 66, on Friday, after confronting her and “yelling many homophobic slurs” over her clothing store’s Pride flag, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said at a news conference Monday. Officials said Ikeguchi had a history of sharing posts that were critical of the LGBTQ community on social media, including on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

More recently, the account retweeted several posts with anti-LGBTQ sentiments from right-wing provocateur Matt Walsh, who has over 2.4 million followers on X, and far-right cable news channel One America News Network. On X, the profile belonging to Ikeguchi along with the anti-LGBTQ tweets were still publicly viewable four days after the shooting, and some users are tagging the company’s owner, Elon Musk, trying to bring attention to the hateful rhetoric on the platform.

Tim Miller writes at The Bulwark:



When I tweeted a link to her store for those who might want to support her family, I began to receive replies from blue-check troll accounts saying that this was not, in fact, a hate crime because Carleton was murdered by her brother. They claimed the story was “not what it was made out to be.”

This pushback was premised on an article posted by a website called “Freshers Live,” which appears to run Google search-bait pegged to news events and is riddled with ads for removing belly fat and skin tags. But this didn’t stop people like Jonathan Zachreson from spreading the viral misinformation.

Zachreson, whose X bio indicates he is a Roseville City School Board member, supports ReopenCA Schools & ProtectKidsCA, and is the founder of Students First California. He attacked Gavin Newsom and State Senator Scott Wiener in a series of posts arguing that this murder was not a hate crime.

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