Authorities have identified a white man as the gunman accused of killing seven people, injuring three cops and wounding 19 others Saturday in a mass shooting in Texas.
It is unclear why Seth Ator, the 36-year-old man who was stopped for a traffic violation in Odessa, Texas, went on a shooting spree that killed 29-year-old U.S. postal worker Mary Granados, among others.
Social media users, however, said they aren’t surprised the gunman is a white man.
Odessa, where the shooting occurred, is about 285 miles east of El Paso.
“Always a white male,” Twitter user Jeff McNamee said Sunday in response to news of the shooter’s race.
“Of course he was,” Eva Stokes Wood said on Twitter.
“Why am I not surprised,” a woman who goes by Flora said on Twitter.
Still, everyone didn’t share the sentiment. Twitter user Eric C. Davis was criticized when he shared a photo collage of 20 minorities accused in killings using the satirical headline “Mass Shootings are a White Male Problem.”
“I like how you had to go all the way back to 2002 for the 2 involved in the DC sniper shooting. 2007 for the Virginia Tech shooting. Fort Hood 2009. Hartford 2010. Binghamton 2009. University of Iowa 1991,” Twitter user Eyehvspoken said in response to Davis. “Now try the last 5 years…”
The list doesn’t include Stephen Paddock, the white gunman identified in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Paddock killed 58 people Oct. 1, 2017, when he opened fire on a crowd of 22,000 concertgoers from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.
Patrick Crusius, the 21-year-old white man accused of killing 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso Texas August 3, also isn’t on the list.
In that incident, police told the El Paso Times they believe Crusius wrote a white supremacist manifesto, and prosecutors plan to pursue hate crime charges.
In a CNN list of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in the United States, only two of the accused shooters are minorities — Omar Saddiqui Mateen, who killed 49 people inside a gay nightclub in Orlando on June 12, 2016, and Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007.
In the more recent Texas shooting, activists have accused officials of wiping clean the gunman’s social media accounts before releasing his name.
“This is how suspected white supremacists stay on code with each other and protect each other’s actions,” film producer Tariq Nasheed said on Twitter Sunday.
