Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was involved in a verbal dispute with a Black man at a news conference who said his policies played a role in the recent deadly hate crime attack.
The exchange happened during the Q&A at a news conference in Jacksonville on Thursday, WJXT reported. A man in the crowd, who said he was a veteran, called out DeSantis, claiming that his policies led to the incident where a 21-year-old white gunman opened fire at a Dollar General store, killing three Black people in late August.
“I feel that you have enacted policies that hurt people like myself,” the man said. “You have allowed weapons to be put on the street– into immature hateful people that have caused the deaths of the people who were murdered a couple weeks ago.”
DeSantis immediately interrupted the man.
“I did not allow anything with that,” DeSantis responded while the audience member asked to finish his point. “I’m not going to let you accuse me of committing criminal activity. I am not going to take that.”
He later added: “You don’t get to come in here and blame me for some madman. That is not appropriate, and I’m going to accept it.”
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“You have allowed people to hunt people like me,” the man continued.
“Oh, that is nonsense,” DeSantis said. “That is such nonsense.”
The man was ultimately escorted out of the room. The interaction is reminiscent of when DeSantis spoke at a vigil held for the victims of the “racially motivated” attack and was met with loud boos from the crowd.
One attendee told the governor that his “policies caused this,” and another man yelled: “These deaths are on your hands.”
DeSantis has received criticism for his policies related to his relaxed gun laws and other policies like his “anti-woke” approach to education in the state, which has been widely condemned by Black leaders, according to the Associated Press.
“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,” Florida Rep. Angie Nixon told MSNBC in response to the shooting.
