Back to our law and justice
lead right now.
Police in
Jacksonville, Florida,
are giving the most recent update
into their investigation
detailing the moments
of the racist shooter
before he went to the Dollar
General Store
where he killed three innocent
African-Americans on Saturday.
CNN's Isabel
Rosales has more now on the deadly attack
that was fueled by racism
Lieutenant Antonio Bailey hailed a hero
for chasing off
the gunman who later opened
fire at a nearby dollar general
in Jacksonville. Florida on Saturday.
That shooter first entered
a parking lot at Edward
Waters University.
Florida's first
historically black college.
He could have gone anywhere
It's not by happenstance.
It's not just,
you know, on a whim
that he chose to come to Florida's first
historically black college or university
According to Jacksonville Sheriff
Tiki Waters.
Police have not reported
finding any firm evidence
the suspect intended
to attack the university.
There were students
that stopped me and
in that
parking lot
and advised that there were gunmen.
The shooter drove off
after being approached by Bailey.
To me, the students that,
you know,
we preach the same saying every day
you see something, say something.
And the students they saw, they say it.
And I was able to approach that view.
I would definitely side.
And that is indeed a tragedy.
The scene of the tragedy
that followed
now marked by flowers and crosses,
a community grieving
three killed Saturday
in the racist attack.
He hated blacks and he
I think he hated just about everyone
that wasn't white.
He made that very clear.
Now, more information
about the gunman
identified as 21 year
old Ryan Perlmutter.
Deputies released this edited
surveillance video
at the Dollar General Store
showing him in a tactical vest
armed with a handgun
and an air 15 style rifle with swastikas.
Drawn on it.
Then he opened fire.
He understood what he was doing
and he understood why he was on
the shooter. Had no criminal history.
The sheriff says
he purchased a handgun in April
and an AR 15 style rifle in June,
both legally
despite as a teenager
being temporarily involuntarily held
under Florida's
Baker Act for mental evaluation
for up to 72 hours.
I don't know
legally given
the way the laws are written right now
in the state of Florida
that there was anything
that could have been done
and therein lies the frustration for me.
The victims
in Saturday's shooting identified
a store employee, Arnold Joseph AJ Legere
Junior and customers Angela Corey
and Gerald Galleon
His killing
leaves a four year old fatherless.
We're just
trying to figure out
how to tell his daughter
that her dad's gone.
It's hurtful
because I thought
racism was behind us,
but evidently is not
the attack in Florida.
The latest in a number of shootings
targeting black people,
including at a supermarket in Buffalo.
New York last year
and at Mother Emanuel
AME Church in Charleston,
South Carolina in 2015 angry
and sad
to realize we are in 2023.
And as a black person
we are still hunted
because that's what that was
that was someone planning
and executed
three people
and a Jake
we have new information
from a press conference
happening right now
at the sheriff's office
deputies revealing
that the shooter
previously worked at a dollar tree.
This is a dollar general
where the shooting happened.
They've also released three on new videos
here.
We're not sure
of the chronological order
of these videos,
but I'll tell you what they indicate.
The shooter going into a Family Dollar,
a totally separate store
And then we have this video
at Edward
Waters University
on the campus there, that HBCU.
And we can see the shooter
going behind a vehicle there
and putting on a tactical vest.
And, of course,
we know that after that, minutes
after that,
he showed up at this Dollar General.
The final piece of video
that authorities released
just this moment
is of police
entering this dollar general.
And that is when you say
that the gunman took his own life, Jake,
Isabel Rosales
in Jacksonville, Florida, for us,
thank you so much.
Chilling video.
There are Saturday's
racist shootings
in Jacksonville
cast a pall over
what was supposed to be a day
celebrating.
60 years of progress on civil rights
in America.
Activists gathered on the National Mall
in Washington, D.C.,
to commemorate the 60th anniversary
of the March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom.
And the Reverend Martin Luther King's
I Have a Dream speech during the 1963
march, which
actually today
is the 60th anniversary of it.
But the commemoration was over
the weekend.
We're joined now by Nikole
Hannah-Jones, who covers
racial injustice
and other stories
and other topics for The New York Times
Magazine and won a Pulitzer Prize
for the magazine's
landmark 1619
project describing the transatlantic
slave trade and its legacy.
First of all,
Nikole, if
if it's okay if I call you Nikole
What's your reaction to this horrible
shooting happening
on the 60th on the commemoration day
at least of the 60th
anniversary of the March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom
Well, I think that it is
an awful and far to common reminder
that as we seek to mark
racism, racial injustice
as a thing of the past,
that it is with us
every day, that we have not banished
that ugly side of ourselves as Americans.
And many people were saying
the 60th anniversary
of the March on Washington, as you know,
talking about what
we were fighting against a long time ago.
But in fact,
it was evoking a history
to say
that the struggle for equality,
the struggle to end racism
the struggle to ensure and secure
black Americans rights
and for citizenship continues.
And this is just
a very devastating example of that.
Obviously, some things have improved
for African-Americans, for civil rights
and voting rights
and the like
since 1963 the Civil Rights Act
and the Voting Rights Act among them.
Do you do you think a lot of the racism
is just more politely shielded
and hidden.
What's your take on how
how far we have come
and how far we need to go as a society?
Yes.
I mean I absolutely would not pretend
that America
into 2023 is the same as America in 1963.
But what's also clear is that
we have forward progress
and then we see retrenchment
and we are clearly
in a period of retrenchment.
So you know on most measures
the Black-White poverty rate,
if you look at unemployment rate
for black
Americans, is still twice
that of white Americans.
The racial wealth gap
has remained unchanged
for black Americans since Dr.
King was assassinated.
And the fact that we still see
racialized violence
regularly in this country
shows that we still do have a long ways
to go.
Now, the Supreme Court
struck down
affirmative action,
which was trying to help address
that legacy.
We know that the
Supreme Court
struck down
the heart of the Voting Rights Act
and that it is harder
for black Americans
to vote than it was ten years ago.
So I think that in America,
we become sometimes obsessed
with this notion
that progress, forward
progress is inevitable,
but backward progress happens
in this country as well.
And whether we're moving forward
or not,
really is largely dependent
upon who we are as a society.
And we are in a society today
that is deeply polarized
along racial lines
and where too many politicians understand
that race is the original wedge issue
and are creating the environment
to see
just the kind of violence
that we witnessed in Jacksonville.
But the wedge issues
are discussed differently today, right?
I mean in 1963
we were just
three years away from Lester Maddox
a proud, racist
segregationist in Georgia, becoming
the governor of Georgia.
Lester Maddox could not exist today,
but Lester
Maddox would not talk the way he did
then today were he running. Right.
I mean, it's different.
What are the wedge issues today
that you hear Yes.
I mean absolutely.
So since 1968
it is no longer legal in this country
to explicitly discriminate
against black Americans.
So of course we've learned over the last
60 years
that you have to use different language,
that you have to use language
that appears to be race neutral.
But this ends the same dog whistle.
So we can look at,
you know, Ron
DeSantis running on this platform
against what he's calling woke ism.
But where those of us
who study history, who understand
the society
that we live in
and understand that
that's often coded as language
against black
Americans, as language
against other marginalized groups.
And how do we know that?
Well,
he also banned the teaching
of African-American
advanced placement studies in the state.
So, yes, we do see a more coded language,
but it's also a language of,
you know,
that's not often that coded
I mean, Donald Trump, as you know,
came to office on a pretty openly white
nationalist campaign.
We see people like Tucker Carlson
who are allowed
to have
a major platform
on the Most-Watched cable news
television in the country
and who openly talked to
White Nationalist talking points.
So we kind of have this wink
and a nod racism, but it's it's
barely concealed.
And all of us can hear it.
Nikole Hannah-Jones, thanks
for being with us
on this anniversary
of the March on Washington
for Jobs and Freedom. We appreciate it.