CNN law enforcement analyst John Miller claims labeling Catholic school shooting ‘hate crime’ is ‘premature’

CNN’s chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller claimed Wednesday that there wasn’t enough information to determine if a shooting at a Catholic school was a hate crime.

A shooter opened fire during an all-school mass held at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday, killing two children and wounding at least 17 others before committing suicide. “CNN NewsNight” host Abby Phillip asked Miller about FBI Director Kash Patel calling the shooting a “hate crime targeting Catholics.”

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“Going through the writings, particularly going through the videos as he, the shooter, laid out his weapons and held up each individual parts, what you saw there was a pervasive message of hate, hate against blacks, hate against Jews, hate against God, and the target, of course, being a Catholic church,” Miller said. “But there’s also a degree of posturing there about what we’re going to investigate it as. They’re investigating it in support of the Minneapolis Police who have a homicide case. The offender is dead. It is doubtful that anyone other than the offender, unless we learn something very new in the next couple of days, is going to be charged.”

“I almost find the conclusion that it’s a hate crime against Catholics premature in that we are trying to attach rational motives to a completely irrational act,” Miller continued.

The suspected gunman, a biological male who identified as transgender, posted multiple videos to YouTube showing firearms etched with messages calling for the death of President Donald Trump, while also expressing anti-Christian and antisemitic sentiments as well. Several corporate media outlets referred to the shooter using female pronouns after the attack on the Catholic school, despite the shooter being a biological male.

A clinical psychologist on the panel joined in questioning Patel’s comments.

“Absolutely. Where is the political ideology here, right?” Dr. Jeff Gardere said. “This is someone who actually attended that school at some point, so we may assume, I’m not sure, that this person is Catholic also. But what we’re looking at here is there any rationality to what this person does? This is what we see with terrorism, right? You want to terrorize a particular society with whatever your ideas are to push that idea. This is a person who we’ve seen with other shooters will most likely be someone with extreme mental illness.”

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