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![Omar Thornton:]()
No sane person could ever justify the actions of a mass murderer.
But if what Omar Thornton's relatives are saying is true - that repeated racist behavior by co-workers at the Hartford Distributors plant outside Hartford, Ct., made him snap - you know some black folks will be saying:
"I don't agree with what he did, but I understand."
The portrait that is emerging of Thornton is confusing.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting that saw Thornton shoot and kill 8 workers before killing himself, Thornton was painted by co-workers as a disgruntled worker who had a "disciplinary problem" and was caught on video tape taking beer from the warehouse against company rules.
Today, Thornton's family added some details to early reports that he was the victim of workplace racism that was ignored by higher-ups at the company.
"He went to the union a couple times with issues concerning what was going on, and it was not dealt with appropriately," said Thornton's uncle Will Holliday, who said he spoke with the gunman in the minutes after the first workers were shot.
"He said, 'I killed the five racists that was there bothering me,'" Holliday reported his nephew as saying.
In cases like this, people often look for absolutes. Most will see Thornton as a murdering animal who was caught on tape stealing from his company, and when confronted with the evidence, turned to violence.
But I'm sure there will be a few folks who while condemning the act of murder will sympathize with Thornton and will paint him as a sensitive young man pushed to murder by racism.
Remember Long Island Railroad shooter Colin Ferguson, who in 1993 murdered six people on a commuter train?
When it came out that the murders were triggered by feelings that white people were out to get him, I recall the knowing smiles and nods exchanged between black folks who experience racist and discriminatory stuff in life and have to accept it as a norm.
Is it possible that both images hold some truth?
Thornton was obviously mentally unbalanced to bring a firearm to work and use it. That simple fact can't be ignored.
But for a guy whom all witnesses have described as a quiet, pleasant person, something was going on beyond his own mental problems. There must have been a trigger and it looks like it was workplace racism.
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