The hatred that he has been promoting has reached such a pitch that ordinary people are trying to kill random strangers on the spur of the moment.
A woman has been charged with attempted murder after telling police in Iowa that she deliberately drove into a girl because she appeared “Mexican”.
The victim, who is 14, sustained “numerous injuries” in the incident.
Police say she was struck while walking to a local school, near Des Moines, on the evening of 9 December.
They initially appealed for the public’s help in identifying the hit-and-run before Nicole Marie Poole Franklin was arrested.
“Investigators determined that this incident was an intentional act, not an accident,” Clive police said in a Thursday statement announcing the attempted murder charge.
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Police Chief Michael Venema said he was “shocked” by the suspect’s admission.
“Franklin told investigators that she ran the girl over because she was, in her words, ‘a Mexican’,” Chief Venema said. “She went on to make a number of derogatory statements about Latinos to our investigators.”
“I want to say, in the strongest terms possible, that there is no place in our community, or any other for that matter, for this type of hatred and violence,” he added.
The poisonous climate that has been created will take a long time to clear away. What I fear is that it will get even worse before it gets better.
It never seems to strike these people that the many Americans in Mexico might be endangered because of revenge attacks.
“It never seems to strike these people that the many Americans in Mexico might be endangered because of revenge attacks.”
While that is certainly possible, I doubt that is likely. I lived in Mexico for some time (not in an expat enclave) and in Mexican undocumented communities here. I consistently found Mexicans to be incredibly generous when dealing with Americans. They forgive a lot of nasty behavior on our part. The Mexican community is likely to take note and remember, but not take any type of revenge based on what I’ve seen and experienced.
It never seems to strike these people that the many Americans in Mexico might be endangered because of revenge attacks.
Mexicans seem civilized on a day-to-day basis so likely this is unlikely.
Americans do not understand that US news is reported outside the USA. I remember talking to a US Army special forces major a year or two ago who was on secondment to the Canadian army. He was quite surprised at how informed Canadians were about US affairs.
These hardcore racists probably never visit Mexico, and aren’t aware that any “real” Americans might have business going there. They see everything south of the border as a hostile enemy country -- hostile to civilization, if not Americans specifically. Any hatred or aggression Mexicans might express towards Americans is a natural consequence of their foreign brutishness, rather than a sign that Americans somehow participate in escalating the conflict.