Congressman Blames Capitol Shooting on Democrats’ ‘Violent Rhetoric’

Tim Griffin
Rep. Tim Griffin (R-Ark.) fired off a series of tweets in which he appeared to blame President Obama and Democrats’ “violent rhetoric” for the shooting.

He began by posting a tweet on his personal Twitter account about the Capitol shooting:

Congressman Blames Capitol Shooting on Democrats' 'Violent Rhetoric'

He followed up almost immediately with the following tweet:

Congressman Blames Capitol Shooting on Democrats' 'Violent Rhetoric'

He was then appeared to be standing his ground when questioned by several others on Twitter:

Congressman Blames Capitol Shooting on Democrats

Most of Griffin’s tweets were deleted along with numerous ones criticizing him and his office issued the following statement to Business Insider, expanding on an earlier statement out of his office:

“The victims and their families are in my thoughts and prayers. The shooting today is a terrible and inexcusable tragedy and an act of terrorism. No one but the shooter is to blame.

We are still processing information about this shooting, but as I have been saying for days, we all need to choose our words wisely because violent rhetoric only coarsens our culture, creates an atmosphere of incivility and is not helpful. I tweeted out of emotion but agree that the timing was not helpful.”

 

Samuel Warde
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