Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, warned reporters this weekend to wait for all the facts before assigning blame for a recent mass-shooting event in Colorado Springs, Colo., and the press responded by suggesting he had slandered transgendered persons.
A gunman, Robert Lewis Dear, opened fire at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic this weekend, killing three people, including a police officer, and wounding nine others. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, multiple newsrooms cited an anonymous law enforcement official who said that Dear had been motivated by anti-abortion rhetoric.
However, this detail has yet to be confirmed by official law enforcement sources.
Cruz responded to this emerging narrative Sunday by warning reporters to hold off on assigning the Colorado shooter a political ideology before all the facts are known, explaining that authorities are still investigating the attack and collecting evidence.
“I think there’s been some vicious rhetoric on the left blaming those who are pro-life,” Cruz said, according to the Texas Tribune.
He noted that there is a lot of information floating around right now regarding the shooter’s supposed background, including reports from right-leaning blogs claiming Dear is possibly a transgender person, and cautioned that everyone should exercise restraint until more is known about what happened.
“It’s also been reported that he was registered as an independent and a woman and a transgendered leftist activist. If that’s what he is, I don’t think it’s fair to blame the rhetoric on the left. This is a murderer,” the 2016 Republican presidential candidate added. “The media promptly wants to blame him on the pro-life movement when at this point. There’s very little evidence to indicate that.”
His point was that we don’t know all the facts, and we should wait before pointing fingers, a spokeswoman for the senator’s campaign told the Washington Examiner’s media desk.
“Cruz was very clearly making the point that the facts are not clear and it is wrong for the media to lay blame on the pro-life movement,” Catherine Frazier said.
The crux of the senator’s message appears to have escaped most in media, however, and newsrooms everywhere flocked to publish headlines accusing the senator of claiming the shooter was a “transgendered leftist activist.”
“Cruz suggests Colorado shooter is a ‘transgendered leftist,'” the Hill reported.
CNN followed suit, reporting, “Cruz: Maybe alleged clinic shooter is ‘transgendered leftist.'”
The Washington Post was also onboard, publishing a headline reading, “Cruz: The Colorado shooter may have been a ‘transgendered leftist activist.'”
Of the many national media outlets to cover Cruz’s remarks this weekend, BuzzFeed was one of the few to capture his comments accurately.
