Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas continues to spar with Missouri’s governor over the shooting at last week’s Super Bowl rally.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, who attended the event, said, “We can’t let some thugs and criminals take over and ruin what happened.” Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas condemned his remarks, arguing that calling them “thugs” is a racial “dog whistle.”
During an appearance on the KCUR radio show “Up to Date,” Lucas said he strongly disagreed with Parson’s description of the suspects.
“I have respect for the governor,” he said. “We get along well. I disagree strongly with how he would describe that situation. I certainly do think this was criminal activity. It was lawlessness, and I think that that’s troubling. But ‘thugs’ is a dog whistle in the most classic sense.”
Lucas then slammed theories on social media, alleging that authorities and the media are keeping the suspects’ identities under wraps because they are black.
“I’ve seen this dog whistle time and again,” he said “There’s this kind of giant conservative theory on social media now that the reason these mug shots haven’t been shown is because the purported defendants are black, and if it were a white defendant we would have just shown them. That is absolutely preposterous. There are protections to juveniles.”
That theory also was suggested by commentator Ann Coulter, who said on “Real Time with Bill Maher” last week that “if it were a white man shooting, we’d know.”
Authorities announced that two minors, whom police did not identify, were being held on gun-related and resisting arrest charges at a juvenile facility. A third unidentified minor was released after investigators determined that person was not involved in the shooting.
Kansas City Police Chief Stacey Graves said at a news conference that authorities’ initial findings on the shooting “have shown there was no nexus to terrorism or homegrown violent extremism. This appeared to be a dispute between several people that ended in gunfire.”
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice