NBC News reports:
The suspect, Travis Ikeguchi, gunned down Laura Ann Carleton, 66, on Friday, after confronting her and “yelling many homophobic slurs” over her clothing store’s Pride flag, San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said at a news conference Monday. Officials said Ikeguchi had a history of sharing posts that were critical of the LGBTQ community on social media, including on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
More recently, the account retweeted several posts with anti-LGBTQ sentiments from right-wing provocateur Matt Walsh, who has over 2.4 million followers on X, and far-right cable news channel One America News Network. On X, the profile belonging to Ikeguchi along with the anti-LGBTQ tweets were still publicly viewable four days after the shooting, and some users are tagging the company’s owner, Elon Musk, trying to bring attention to the hateful rhetoric on the platform.
Tim Miller writes at The Bulwark:
When I tweeted a link to her store for those who might want to support her family, I began to receive replies from blue-check troll accounts saying that this was not, in fact, a hate crime because Carleton was murdered by her brother. They claimed the story was “not what it was made out to be.”
This pushback was premised on an article posted by a website called “Freshers Live,” which appears to run Google search-bait pegged to news events and is riddled with ads for removing belly fat and skin tags. But this didn’t stop people like Jonathan Zachreson from spreading the viral misinformation.
Zachreson, whose X bio indicates he is a Roseville City School Board member, supports ReopenCA Schools & ProtectKidsCA, and is the founder of Students First California. He attacked Gavin Newsom and State Senator Scott Wiener in a series of posts arguing that this murder was not a hate crime.
“The actual suspect, who has since been named by police, was 27-year-old Travis Ikeguchi…Ikeguchi’s social media feed is littered with anti-gay posts…and [he] frequently reposted right-wing media figures such as Dinesh D’Souza and Matt Walsh. Shocker.” https://t.co/dzYiMboD44
— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) August 22, 2023
I can’t believe I actually have to address this but this is absolutely false. Totally and absolutely. The police for some reason still haven’t released the identity of the shooter but he was of no relation to Lauri. Zero. Gang, we all have to calm the rhetoric down. All of us. https://t.co/EdCi0A4VUe
— Paul Feig (@paulfeig) August 21, 2023
He ate up the “LGBT = pedophile” propaganda- listened to @MattWalshBlog and his ilk. He also followed and regularly retweeted @OANN pic.twitter.com/zTLYUZRa8b
— hannah✨ (@dogfanhan) August 22, 2023
He was antisemitic, because antisemitism is always at the core of this bullshit. He also retweeted @TheBabylonBee, @jordanbpeterson, and @RobertKennedyJr pic.twitter.com/tdaeBKrKNz
— hannah✨ (@dogfanhan) August 22, 2023
He hated women and vaccines (of course), and was both a 9/11 and a Pearl Harbor truther? pic.twitter.com/tVpejbbYnr
— hannah✨ (@dogfanhan) August 22, 2023
The bigot who murdered the woman with a pride flag on her business, is a Matt Walsh fan.
This follows Matt Walsh going on a rant on his podcast saying that the “Pride flag deserves our disrespect.”
Matt Walsh is directly inspiring murder and terrorism. pic.twitter.com/6jZCjat5zL
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) August 22, 2023
