The Florida state representative of Jacksonville tore into Governor Ron DeSantis (R) by accusing him of fomenting the racially-motivated shooting in her district that left three Black people dead over the weekend.
Rep. Angie Nixon (D) joined MSNBC’s Lindsey Reiser on Sunday to talk about the mass shooting that took place at a Jacksonville Dollar General store on Saturday. The attack was carried out by a gunman who adorned his AR-15-style rifle with swastikas and left behind manifestos declaring his hatred of Black people.
Nixon was asked for her thoughts about DeSantis’ press conference where he reacted to the shooting by saying “Florida, the state, and its people condemned the horrific racially-motivated murders, perpetrated by a deranged scumbag… Perpetrating violence of this kind is unacceptable, and targeting people due to their race has no place in the state of Florida.”
The state representative blasted those remarks from DeSantis as “hollow statements” — and went on to argue that the governor’s rhetoric was a contributing factor behind the massacre:
This is a governor who has done nothing but fan these types of happenings throughout our state. Look, at the end of the day, the governor has blood on his hands. He has had an attack, an all-out attack, on the black community with his anti-woke policies, which we know very well was nothing more than a dog whistle to get folks up and riled up in
the way in which it just happened yesterday.My blood is literally boiling. Myself and other representatives, particularly black representatives, throughout the past few legislative sessions, we have repeatedly told him what his rhetoric was going to do. That is exactly what transpired yesterday. This is absurd, it’s ridiculous, he is one of the causes to this. This is an agenda that he has been pushing since he has gotten into office. he showed us who he was when he initially ran for governor saying ‘Don’t monkey this up‘. That type of statement — it only leads to things like this.
DeSantis attended a prayer vigil for the victims in Jacksonville — where he encountered booing and condemnation from the crowd during his remarks.
Watch above via MSNBC.