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Shooting deaths of two African Americans investigated as hate crime

Scene where a retired state trooper and a woman were killed in Winthrop, Massachusetts on June 26, 2021. (Photo via ABCNews)

Authorities are investigating the shooting deaths of two Black people in Massachusetts on Saturday as a hate crime.

This comes after they discovered "troubling white supremacist rhetoric" in the suspect's handwriting. Nathan Allen, a white man, had made “racist statements against Black individuals,” said Rachael Rollins, the district attorney in Suffolk County.

The 28-year-old man allegedly drove a stolen box truck into a Winthrop home that was unoccupied at the time before fatally shooting David L. Green and Ramona Cooper. 

Authorities arrived on scene to find Cooper shot half a block from the crash site, said Winthrop Police Chief Terence Delehanty. In the meantime, Green tried to stop Allen and "engaged with the suspect" in an alleyway near the crash before Allen shot him too.

Green, who was shot four times in the head and three times in the torso, died at the scene, and Cooper, who was shot three times in the back, died later in the hospital.

Green, 53, was a retired Massachusetts State Police officer with 36 years of experience, and Cooper, 60, was an Air Force veteran who was still working with the military.

Shortly after the shooting, an officer shot and killed Allen after telling him to drop his weapon, the authorities said. One officer was shot but was not seriously injured.

Analysts believe that discrimination and violence against people of color in the US is a systemic problem rooted in the legacy of slavery and legalized segregation in the country which surged under former President Donald Trump.

Trump even had described the communities of African American lawmakers on several occasions as "infested" with crime and filth.

In August, 2019, Senator Cory Booker said Trump had fueled racist sentiments by using words like “infestation” and “invasion” in describing crime and illegal immigration, accusing the Republican president of giving license to violent behavior.


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