New York Daily News columnist Linda Stasi sensationally blamed one of the victims of San Bernardino killer Sayed Farook for the shooting, asserting that Nicholas Thalasinos’ “hate-filled” words had prompted Farook to carry out the massacre.
Responding to reports that Farook and his Jewish victim, Nicholas Thalasinos, had engaged in heated arguments about religion and politics, Stasi suggested that Thalasinos was equally responsible for the attack.
“They were two hate-filled, bigoted municipal employees interacting in one department,” she wrote . “Now 13 innocent people are dead in unspeakable carnage.”
“Stasi’s phrasing is revealing: She refuses to include Thalasinos among the “innocent” and instead places him among the guilty, alongside Farook and Malik, indicating Wednesday’s shooting was his fault,” writes Blake Neff.
Stasi, who previously called for the NRA to be labeled a terrorist organization, implied that Thalasinos deserved to be brutally gunned down because he supported the NRA, disliked Planned Parenthood, and vehemently expressed conservative opinions on Facebook.
“Make no mistake, as disgusting and deservedly dead as the hate-filled fanatical Muslim killers were, Thalasinos was also a hate-filled bigot,” wrote Stasi.
Stasi’s argument, that Thalasinos is partly responsible for the bloodshed because he somehow offended Farook, follows the same warped logic as those who blamed the dead French cartoonists for antagonizing jihadists after the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
It also fits into the same narrative espoused by those who have speculated that Farook being triggered by a Christmas party or co-workers making fun of his beard contributed to, and in some ways justified, the massacre.
As we previously highlighted, a close friend of Thalasinos said that Farook had threatened to kill Thalasinos because he was Jewish and asserted that “Islam will rule the world.”
Thalasinos’ widow, Jennifer, also said that he was “very upset about what ISIS has been doing and the radicalized Muslims” and that this is one of the issues that was discussed between Farook and Thalasinos.
