The recent shooting at Fort Hood by Puerto Rican National Guard soldier Ivan Lopez, who was a Puerto Rican (from Puerto Rico) has, as usual received curiously little coverage on the ethnic aspect.
While Puerto Ricans are technically US citizens, this is as much an incident of “Immigrant Mass Murder” as the earlier Fort Hood shooting by Major Nidal Hassan—who was also born in the US, and sworn to defend it. Puerto Ricans think of themselves as different from Americans, and are disconnected from American society, just as Muslims are. In 2004, Sam Francis did an early column on Immigrant Mass Murder in which he said
The link between immigration and violence is that the aliens lack roots in the society and civilization into which they import themselves. The people they see aren't their people, and their moral and social norms aren't theirs either. Being strangers in a strange land, they feel little obligation to it or its members.[Why Immigrants Kill, November 29, 2004]
If you've read Roger Williams's article Parading Through America: Puerto Rican Day And The National Question, you'll see how this applies to Puerto Ricans, too.
The story below is a rare one, for actually giving you this important information in the headline:
Officials: Fort Hood shooter was from Puerto Rico, ID'd as Ivan Lopez
4 dead in Fort Hood shooting, including gunman; 16 wounded
KSAT, Associated Press
Published On: Apr 02 2014
Army officials release preliminary information on gunman
FORT HOOD, Texas -
Military officials say the Fort Hood gunman blamed for killing three people and wounding 16 others before taking his own life was from Puerto Rico.
A spokeswoman for the Puerto Rico National Guard on Thursday said Ivan Lopez was from the U.S. territory and joined the island's National Guard in 1999.
Lt. Col Ruth Diaz says Lopez went on a peace and security mission to Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in the mid-2000s. He left the Puerto Rico National Guard in 2010 to join the U.S. Army.[More]
The ethnic press, as usual, has a more accurate, if twisted take on it: Fort Hood Shooter Took Life Of Fellow Puerto Rican Soldier, Carlos Lazaney, Fox News Latino-April 4, 2014.
There’s also a story from the New York Daily News, which has a lot of experience covering Puerto Rico: Family, neighbors of Fort Hood killer Ivan Lopez in Puerto Rico are stunned by what he did, By Edgar Sandoval, By Larry Mcshane, New York Daily News, April 5, 2014.
Why is it important that we know that this guy is a Puerto Rican? Well, Fox New Latino thinks it is. The first thing consumers of news would want to know is “Is this another Sudden Jihad attack, like this last one?” It’s possible that that was why KSAT headlined it—to say that the Muslims were innocent, this time.
The other reason is the same one that ethnicity is always relevant—people need to have a clear idea of relative crime rates.
