DeSantis has had heated exchanges with viewers about the shooting in Jacksonville
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) had a heated exchange at a news conference Thursday with an audience member who said the governor was responsible for the recent racist shooting in Jacksonville that left three Black people dead.
An unidentified man in the audience accused DeSantis of issuing policies “that hurt people like me and the people I love,” including his children.
“You allowed guns to fill the streets of immature, hateful people who caused the deaths of the people who were murdered a few weeks ago,” the man said.
Then, as the man began talking about Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old black boy who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida, in 2012, DeSantis interrupted him.
“I didn’t allow anything to happen with that,” DeSantis said.
WATCH: DeSantis’ heated exchange with viewers about the Jacksonville shooting
The man then tried to interrupt DeSantis by telling the presidential candidate to “let me finish,” but DeSantis interrupted him again.
“I will not let you accuse me of criminal activity,” DeSantis said as audience members began to clap. “I won’t accept that.”
DeSantis said the gunman who opened fire at a Dollar General store on Aug. 27 should have been “Baker Acted,” citing a Florida law that allows family members to protect a person in the face of a mental health crisis involuntarily placed in an institution.
“He should have been declared ineligible,” DeSantis said. “But they didn’t commit him involuntarily.”
The man tried to respond to DeSantis, demanding to be allowed to finish his point, but DeSantis interrupted him again.
“There is the truth. There’s some truth to that. That’s not the case – not everyone has their own truth,” DeSantis said.
The unidentified bystander accused DeSantis of “allowing people to hunt people like me,” which DeSantis vehemently dismissed as “nonsense” before launching into a statement about government support for law enforcement.
DeSantis, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, has faced backlash from black lawmakers both in his state and at the federal level over the Jacksonville shooting.
Angie Nixon, Florida state representative issued a scathing rebuke of DeSantis’ response after the shooting, and the Congressional Black Caucus and other top black leaders said: The shooting was motivated through anti-black legislation.
At the end of the news conference, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said the man who argued with DeSantis on Thursday was “completely crazy.”
“It is terrible that people are taking advantage of the fact that he has a different skin color than the poor victims of this tragedy to implicate him,” Ladapo said. according to Politico.
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