White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and Director of the Office of Public Engagement Stephen Benjamin will hold a news briefing on Monday as residents of Jacksonville, Florida continue to respond to a racially motivated shooting that killed three.
The event is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. ET. Watch in the player above.
The shooting occurred as the Jacksonville community prepared for an annual commemoration of what is known as Ax Handle Saturday. In an unforgettable exhibition of brutality 63 years ago, a mob of white people used baseball bats and ax handles to club peaceful Black demonstrators protesting segregation at a downtown lunch counter on Aug. 27, 1960. Police first stood by but joined the white mob when the Black group began fighting back. Instead of collaring any white instigators, police arrested several Black people.
Hurst, who was 16 when the historic violence erupted, has been encouraged by progress following the Civil Rights movement, but worries racism once again has become normalized by the nation’s divisive politics.
Even so, he said, “Jacksonville did not need anybody to help its racism along.”
Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said notes left by the 21-year-old shooter, Ryan Palmeter, made it clear he was targeting Black residents of a predominantly African American neighborhood in Jacksonville.
Palmeter used an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a Glock handgun to kill his victims, Waters said, both weapons bought legally earlier this year despite his involuntary commitment for a 72-hour mental health examination in 2017.
He fatally shot Angela Michelle Carr, 52, as she sat in her car and chased A.J. Laguerre, 19, through a Dollar General store before shooting him. The third victim, Jerrald Gallion, 29, was killed as he entered the store.
Then the shooter killed himself.
Palmeter sent statements to federal law enforcement and the media suggesting his attack marked the fifth anniversary of a shooting at a video game tournament in Jacksonville that killed two people. That assailant also killed himself.
Somewhat puzzling is the apparent lack of a racial motive in the shooting five years ago, leaving questions about why Palmeter cited the attack in his writings.
Jacksonville is home to nearly 1 million people, about a third of them Black, just south of Florida’s border with Georgia. The city is still coming to terms with its Southern heritage while trying to become more cosmopolitan in the shadows of the state’s other major cities: Miami, celebrated for glitzy nightlife and inviting beaches, and Orlando, home to the world-renowned Disney World and Universal theme parks.