Content advisory: This article contains topics of a sensitive nature regarding violence and a mass shooting; please take care while reading.
George Takei is taking to social media to call out Texas Governor Greg Abbott for the crude way he’s speaking of the tragedy in Texas on Friday night, when a man on the run mercilessly killed five family members.
ABC News reported that all five members of the family were shot execution style, on Friday evening, with the youngest being an eight-year-old boy. It’s unfathomable, as is every act of violence we often have to discuss in this country, and we always hope that when these things happen, they’ll be handled with care and compassion.
In comes Governor Greg Abbott, who spoke of the victims with language that isn’t just unkind but is factually incorrect, and people are upset about it. In fact, Takei isn’t the only one on social media who has an issue with how Abbott decided to use his platform to speak about the shooting and the innocent victims.
Takei pointed out on social media platform Mastodon that not only was Abbott despicable for his use of verbiage in describing those who were so unfairly and deplorably treated, but he was flat-out wrong.
“Gov. Abbott found it politically expedient to label the murdered victims in Texas as “illegal aliens.” He was not only despicable, he was wrong.”
Takei also shared a tweet that highlights that one of the victims from Friday night was a permanent citizen of the United States, and it’s absolutely awful that it’s even something that had to be tweeted, or that the grieving husband had to think of finding his late wife’s ID and sending it to someone, but here we are — and it does prove Abbott wrong.
He also shared a tweet with the displeasure of having to read and hear the words Abbott spoke about the innocent victims of yet another mass shooting in our country.
Instead of referring to them by their names or simply as people with some kindness and respect at all, Abbott said that he’s announced a $50K reward for information provided regarding the criminal who “killed 5 illegal immigrants Friday.” Yes, he decided to pick today to have the audacity to go there.
The replies to Abbott’s Tweet were full of people wondering in what world Abbott thought his Tweet was a good idea.
Many say that Abbott’s response was nothing but an attempt to dehumanize victims.
Calling it like it was, this response to Abbott says it all.
The innocent victims killed Friday night were identified as follows: Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21, Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18, and Daniel Enrique Laso Guzman, 8. They were killed after a member of the family asked the shooter to stop shooting his gun on the porch because they had a sleeping baby inside. They were completely innocent victims of a terrible crime and deserved to be treated as people after their lives were heinously taken.
