DeSantis

"He [the gunman] was targeting people based on their race, that is totally unacceptable," ?

If the shooter didn't target people based in race, does that make it acceptable?

Jacksonville shooting: Racist gunman kills three black people in Florida store

A gunman killed three black people in a racially motivated attack then killed himself in Jacksonville, Florida, the city's sheriff said.

The man, described as white and in his early 20s, entered a Dollar General store and opened fire, triggering a standoff with police.

Sheriff T K Waters said two men and a woman were killed by the gunman, who wore body armour and left manifestos.

Mayor Donna Deegan said it was a "hate-filled crime" driven by racist hatred.

The sheriff said the shooter - who has not yet been officially named - carried a lightweight semi-automatic rifle and a handgun.

He is believed to have acted alone and allegedly wanted to kill himself. He lived in Jacksonville's Clay County with his parents and left several messages about his intentions, Sheriff Waters said, including one to his parents and another to the media. The sheriff added that at least one of the guns had a swastika drawn on it.

The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into the shooting, which it is treating as a hate crime.

The attack happened less than a mile from the historically black Edwards Waters University.

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan told local TV channel WJXT: "One shooting is too much but these mass shootings are really hard to take."

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called the gunman a "scumbag" and described the shooting as "horrific".

"He [the gunman] was targeting people based on their race, that is totally unacceptable," said Mr DeSantis, who is competing to be the Republican party's presidential candidate.

"This guy killed himself rather than face the music and accept responsibility for his actions and so he took the coward's way out."

The White House said President Joe Biden had been briefed on the shooting.

In a statement provided to the BBC's US partner, CBS News, Dollar General said it was "heartbroken by the senseless act of violence that occurred at our Kings Road store", adding that "supporting our Jacksonville employees and the DG family impacted by this tragedy is a top priority as we work closely with law enforcement".

There have been over 28,000 gun deaths in the US so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive website.

The Jacksonville attack comes on the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr's famous "I have a dream" speech. Tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital on Saturday to mark the historic milestone in the civil rights movement.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66630263

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Denby Fawcett: The Sad Story Of Child Sex Abuse In Hawaii

Child sex abuse lawsuits have sparked reforms and heightened awareness. But for victims, the pain lingers.

By Denby Fawcett

April 26, 2016

Editor’s Note: Civil Beat generally does not use anonymous sources, as noted in our long-standing policy. We’re making an exception for this and other stories about lawsuits filed by child sexual assault victims because we believe it is important to hear the victim’s perspective, and the fact that court records, including a settlement with the Catholic Church, do not reveal their identities.

The Hawaii deadline for victims of child sex abuse to sue was Sunday. In the four years leading up to the deadline, about 150 people filed legal complaints saying they were sexually molested as children. Most victims accused Catholic priests of being their abusers.

But not all were priests. Teachers and other professionals also have been named in the lawsuits. Twenty-six plaintiffs say the now-deceased Kamehameha Schools psychiatrist Robert McCormick Browne drugged and sexually molested them as children when the school sent them to Browne for therapy.

Hawaii lawmakers made it possible for sexual abuse victims to seek justice by extending the deadline for civil suits in 2012 and again in 2014 until the April 24 cutoff.

Most of the alleged incidents happened between the early 1950s and late 1980s.

Attorney Randall Rosenberg, who has filed suits for 56 claimants, says: “This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of others out there in Hawaii who have been abused. And now with the deadline passed we are unable to help them.”

The Diocese of Honolulu estimates it will spend $20 million to settle sex abuse cases in Hawaii.

The Diocese of Honolulu is expected to spend $20 million to settle sex abuse cases in Hawaii.

Cory Lum/Civil Beat

Rosenberg and other attorneys say they have learned a lot since they began listening to clients recount their betrayal by adults they trusted.

Rosenberg says what surprised him is how widespread child sex abuse is — not just in the Catholic Church but also at other places charged with protecting children in their care.

“It happens at schools, doctors’ offices, in Boy Scout troops, family homes, karate dojos, in churches, with foster parents — anywhere an adult is left alone with a child. We have to do more to stop it,” he says.

Rosenberg has reached mediated settlements in 39 of the legal complaints he has filed — 23 with the Honolulu Diocese and 16 with other institutions, including the Mormon Church and the Salvation Army.

But for many of the victims, even those who have received large financial settlements, the pain lingers.

A Victim’s Story

One of them says he still feels remorse and guilt about not rescuing a former classmate at St. Stephen Diocesan Seminary in Kaneohe, who he says was ushered into the bedroom of now-deceased priest William Queenan each night to be sodomized. In a phone conversation for this column, he started crying when he talked about it.

“It was so sad watching him come out of the room in the morning. I wish I had stuck up for him and I still wonder what became of him. As runty, bullied and timid as I was then, he was even more so. He was gentle and creative and had great skills as a sketch artist,” says MG, as he is identified in his lawsuit.

MG says he, too, was molested by Father Queenan. Another former seminary student has also sued, saying Queenan molested him when he was 14.

Most of the plaintiffs have sued anonymously as John or Jane Doe or using their initials to maintain their privacy.

MG was sexually abused before he enrolled at St. Stephen. When he was a 12-year-old altar boy at Good Shepherd Church in Honomu on Hawaii Island he says a drunken Maryknoll priest named Francis Daubert got him alone in a back room of the church where he tied him up, tortured and sodomized him for five hours before he could escape.

Randall Rosenberg is representing dozens of sex abuse victims in cases against the Catholic Church and others.

Attorney Randall Rosenberg says abuse cases are more prevalent than many people think and involve many organizations that work with children.

Randall Rosenberg

In the last two weeks before the deadline to sue, attorney Rosenberg says he took on 15 new cases and Kailua attorney Mark Gallagher accepted 12 new clients.

Rosenberg and Gallagher have filed the most child sex abuse complaints in the past four years, since the time frame to file suit was expanded.

Moar: https://www.civilbeat.org/2016/04/denby-fawcett-the-sad-story-of-child-sex-abuse-in-hawaii/