Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday denounced the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and Kentucky grocery store shooting as hate crimes and said the death penalty should be applied.
The Kentucky Republican also said the shootings last week underscored the need to ratchet down political rhetoric. McConnell, known for his own bare-knuckled political style, said the country needs to “get into a better, more respectful place.”
A police chief in Kentucky has acknowledged that the shooting deaths of two black people at a Kroger grocery store in suburban Louisville were racially motivated. The suspect in the shooting is white. The FBI has said it is investigating the shooting as a potential federal hate crime.
In Pennsylvania, the man accused in the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre Saturday was released from a hospital and turned over to federal authorities on charges he killed 11 people in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history.
Speaking to a gathering of the conservative Federalist Society in Kentucky, McConnell began by commenting on the “horrendous” shootings in Pittsburgh and suburban Louisville.
“If these aren’t the definitions of hate crimes, I don’t know what a hate crime is,” the senator said Monday in his speech at Kentucky’s Capitol in Frankfort. “I know that’s a legal determination to be made by others, but that’s certainly my opinion.”
McConnell also advocated for the death penalty to be applied.
“I still believe the death penalty is appropriate in certain circumstances,” he told reporters afterward. “And these are the kinds of circumstances I would apply it to.”
Federal prosecutors set in motion plans to seek the death penalty against Robert Gregory Bowers in the synagogue shooting. Authorities say that Bowers expressed hatred of Jews during the rampage and later told police that “I just want to kill Jews” and that “all these Jews need to die.”
Asked by a reporter if overheated political rhetoric bares any blame for violent actions, McConnell replied: “It’s hard to know. The political rhetoric is always pretty hot before an election. It’s not the first time.”
Also last week, a fervent supporter of President Donald Trump was arrested in a mail bomb plot targeting prominent Democrats and CNN.
McConnell didn’t single out anyone in calling for the political rhetoric to tone down in the final days of campaigning before next week’s midterm elections.
“I think the whole tone in the country right now needs to be ratcheted down,” he told reporters. “And these horrible, criminal acts only underscore the need for all of us to kind of dial it back, and to get into a better, more respectful place.”
Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers told the congregation at First Baptist Church on Sunday that racism is “the elephant in the room” of the grocery store shooting case, the Courier Journal reported.
Civil rights activists in Kentucky are calling for a hate crime prosecution of Gregory Bush, who is being held on state murder charges in last week’s shootings.
Police said Bush tried to break into First Baptist, a predominantly African-American church, shortly before the shooting.
